Trading Up, Trading Down

With Deadpool having another fight with Crossbones in last week's issue of Deadpool, I got thinking about villains who switched arch-foes.

Kingpin is one of the big ones, at least on the Marvel side. Starts out causing headaches for Spider-Man, eventually becomes Daredevil's #1 enemy. Fisk got switched to a less-prominent character, but gets to be the Big Bad. The one everybody expects to make an appearance eventually.

(Spidey seems to "loan" a lot of his Rogue's Gallery out, like Sandman and Hydro-Man each being part of the Frightful Four at different times, or Electro tangling with Daredevil. But I think those guys really remain "Spider-Man villains.")

I think you could add the Sphinx as a similar case, shifting from the Fantastic Four to Nova (and to a lesser extent, the New Warriors). Except Richard Rider is so many more steps down the ladder from the Fantastic Four than Daredevil is from Spider-Man, it was a downgrade. Nova doesn't have his own title often enough or long enough for the Sphinx to get regular play.

Alternatively you've got Sabretooth. First appeared in Iron Fist, but is now tied heavily to Wolverine. In that case, Sabretooth actually upgraded not only from just another enemy to the Evil Opposite Villain, but ended up tied to a much higher-profile guy.

Count Nefaria was an X-Men foe at one point, but even allowing that Thunderbird died trying to stop him, Nefaria's far and away better known as an Avengers' enemy. If not on the scale of Kang or Ultron, at least he has a couple of prominent stories. (The extreme power upgrade, making him more of a direct threat, helped a lot.)

Crossbones' situation seems most similar to Sphinx, sadly. He was never Captain America's #1 foe. Not even the #1 guy to fight, really, not with Batroc's seniority and fun attitude. But being The Big Bad's Top Goon carries a certain level of respectability. Hell, he whupped Daredevil's ass once (admittedly around the point in Nocenti's run where Murdock had a nervous breakdown and forgot he was Daredevil.) If he's getting tied to Deadpool as Another Killer Who Doesn't Like Deadpool, that is not an upgrade. Deadpool's got plenty of those guys, and every writer is eager to add more.