Villains With Potential-The Unicorn

God help me, but I love villains who are complete nutballs. Not psychopaths per se, but just plain nuts. That, in a nutshell, is what I like about the Unicorn.

Poor Milos Masaryk is a born pawn, bouncing from one master to the next, and displaying almost fanatical devotion to each. He's a loon, but a loon with a lot of power, especially considering the number of times he's been the subject of experiments and cosmic tampering. Whether you're a fan of the pre-third eyeball or post Unicorn, Masaryk is essentially a walking death ray.

The Unicorn is a tool, to be used by a master-planner type. He's easily manipulatable, amazingly powerful, and incoherent enough to confuse even the most powerful telepath. Too, his madness adds a touch of pathos to his character, which is always handy for a writer looking to put the screws to his readers.

Essentially, he's the perfect niche-character for a long-running storyline. He shows up to cause damage and manoeuvre the hero into a position of weakness or danger, so that the mastermind may strike.

There's a certain value in a character like that, at least IMO. The Unicorn provides a decent threat for most any character or team, while not being what you'd call continuity-heavy. He can be plugged in with minimum effort on the part of a smart writer, and can set up a number of potential subplots just by wandering around blowing the crap out of things.