On the other hand …

calamityjon:

With this post in mind, however, how about we look at the LEAST iconic incarnations of Superman’s rogues gallery? Metallo: The Prankster (all the love for Bronson Pinchot as Oswald Loomis, tho): Parasite: Toyman: Brainiac: Mxyzptlk (I sort of love Pollard as Mxyzptlk, though): Bizarro: Luthor:

Since some folks asked about the origins of these idiots:

Metallo: As portrayed by Michael Callan on the Superboy TV show. I wish I’d found a good resolution photo of him wearing tourist clothes, which seemed to be his steez. Recurring villain on the show, believe it or not.

Prankster: Bronson Pinchot on Lois&Clark:The New Adventures of Superman. A close runner-up was this guy below, from the Filmation “New Adventures of Superman” cartoon.

^He’s not so much evil as unbearably annoying.

Parasite: Speaking of which, this is the version of The Parasite as appeared on Filmation’s “New Adventures of Superman” cartoon, a.k.a. “Icy Harris,” a professional burglar who gets his hands on some weird radioactive isotopes . The episode literally ends with Superman just straight-up killing the dude.

Toyman: Sherman Hemsley on Lois&Clark:The New Adventures of Superman. A weird casting decision was made to pair him up with former Jeffersons co-star Isabel Sanford as his assistant, Miss Duffy, which made this seem like a really off-cue Jeffersons revamp. Runner-up for worst Toyman includes the child-killing version of Toyman who ran around in a Victorian topcoat and shaved head, which must have seemed “totally badass” at the time but, boys, it was not.

Brainiac: From the comics, obviously. Post-Crisis Superman was weird in the fact that they decided to bring Superman’s power levels down so that his enemies provided more of a challenge, and then they took his greatest enemies and turned them into fat middle-aged men. Look, they even painted a thinner man on Brainiac’s uniform! What a burn! Even a Superman who is only as strong as a hundred men could probably punch out a potbellied carny in pajamas.

Mxyzptlk: Michael Pollard on the Superboy TV series. He was fun, though. The syndicated Superboy show is a hard watch, but Pollard made the Mxy appearances a lot of fun. The runner-up for worst Mxy is, as @davidmann95 elucidated upon, the Mxyzptlk from Smallville.

Bizarro: In concept if not name, this is an evil imperfect duplicate of Superman created by Lex and (*cough cough*) Lenny Luthor in Superman IV. He was cut from the film, so you only get to see him in a deleted scene (so they could dedicate more time to Nuclear Man, I guess). This one was a deep cut. I’d say that the Nu52 version is a close runner-up, but I’d be saying that about a lot of these guys if that were the case – see Metallo, above, for instance.

Luthor: Yeesh, this guy and his peach tea.