With Labor Day weekend here, it’s time for students to turn their thoughts back to school and classes. But what if your area of study is supervillainy? We look at the top schools for aspiring supervillains.
Empire State University (Marvel)
Location: New York City
Notably Villainous Alumni: Harry Osborn (Hobgoblin), Victor von Doom (Dr. Doom), Chip Martin (Schizoid Man), Emma Frost (White Queen), Michael Morbius (The Living Vampire)
Fearsome Faculty: Professor Clifton Shallot (Vulture), Edward Lansky (Lightmaster), Buck Mitty (Humbug), Harrison Turk (Lunatik), Mile Warren (Jackal)
Nefarious Features: If science-based supervillainy is your bent, consider enrolling in Empire State University, where there are plenty of professors engaging in questionable experiments. Turn into a monster, dabble in the occult sciences, or perfect your super-soldier serum in Empire State’s state-of-the-art labs.
Massachusetts Academy
Location: Snow Valley, Massachusetts
Notably Villainous Alumni: The Hellions
Fearsome Faculty: Emma Frost
Nefarious Features: New England’s answer to the Xavier Institute, the Massachusetts Academy was run by Emma Frost in conjunction with the Hellfire Club to train a fresh crop of supervillains. Frost’s first class of mutants became the Hellions, a proud team of villains who became a perpetual thorn in the New Mutants’s side. However, the school simply hasn’t been the same since Frost allied herself with Charles Xavier.
Praetorian Academy (PS238)
Notably Villainous Alumni: Charles Brigman, Ron Peterson (Argonaut), Alexandra Von Fogg
Fearsome Faculty: Evil cyborg the Headmaster
Nefarious Features: In a city filled with superhero schools, Praetorian Academy services the supervillain community, offering a full range of classes for superpowered bullies and the future dictators of the world.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Harry Potter)
Location: Scotland
Notably Villainous Alumni: Tom Marvolo Riddle (Voldemort) and the Death Eaters
Fearsome Faculty: Quirinus Quirrell
Nefarious Features: Most of the students and staff of Hogwarts aren’t homicidal racial purists, but if you swing that way, there are plenty of ways to build your evil empire. You’ll find plenty of recruits in Slytherin, and while school policy is teach students to defend against dark magic, not practice it, some faculty members can be persuaded to divulge dark secrets with a little flattery.
Dakota Union High (Static Shock)
Location: Dakota City
Notably Villainous Alumni: Royce Axelrod, Madelyn Spaulding
Nefarious Features: Dakota Union is conveniently located near the Big Bang, an industrial accident that turned many of the locals, including several of the school’s students. If you’re looking for mutant strength or the ability to turn everyone at school into your brain puppets, Dakota Union may be for you.
Super Crazy No Way School (The Venture Bros.)
Notably Villainous Alumni: The Monarch, Baron von Underbheit, Dr. GIrlfriend, Mike Sorayama
Fearsome Faculty: Prof. Fantomas (Phantom Limb)
Nefarious Features: The unnamed alma mater of pretty much everyone in the Venture Bros. universe is the must-attend institution for anyone interested in the field of super science. It’s also a great place to meet your future nemesis, and develop a lifelong grudge against the lab partner whose negligence caused you to lose your jaw bone.
Peterson School of Math and Science (Soon I Will Be Invincible)
Location: Iowa
Notably Villainous Alumni: Dr. Impossible
Nefarious Features: For the prodigy on the move, the Peterson school will nurture your burgeoning mental gifts while ensuring your social isolation from the more popular kids. Is it an incubator for the future superheroes and future supervillains of America? Maybe, but it’s also a feeder for Harvard.
Smallville High (Smallville)
Location: Smallville, Kansas
Notably Villainous Alumni: Pretty much the entire student body, with a few notable exceptions.
Fearsome Faculty: Walt Arnold, Desiree Atkins
Nefarious Features: Perhaps not as adept at grooming the creme de la creme of supervillains as Excelsior Academy, Lex Luthor’s alma mater, but what it lacks in quality, it makes up for in quantity of villains. With its proximity to superpower-granting meteor rocks, attending Smallville High can virtually guarantee a freaky power of your own — just don’t run afoul of Clark Kent before graduation.
Hamilton Hill High School (Batman Beyond)
Location: Gotham City
Notably Villainous Alumni: Willie Watt, Carter Wilson (Terminal)
Fearsome Faculty: Ira Billings (Spellbinder)
Nefarious Features: Hamilton Hill is an ideal training ground for teens who grew up admiring the exploits of the Joker, Hamilton Hill has it all: wealthy families to rob, bullies to help you develop deep personality disorders, and the high technology to execute your crimes. And, if you can’t think up an original villain persona, you can always head up your local chapter of the Jokerz.
Necessary Evil Academy (Necessary Evil)
Notably Villainous Alumni: The city’s top supervillains, including the Matriarch
Fearsome Faculty: Headmaster Anti
Nefarious Features: A bona fide school for supervillains, Necessary Evil Academy offers coursework devoted to making you the best supervillain you can be. With courses in thwarting forensics, understanding mystical weapons, and investment techniques for stolen money, Necessary Evil ensures that you will be well prepared for a life of crime.
H.I.V.E. Academy (Teen Titans)
Notably Villainous Alumni: Gizmo, Jinx, Mammoth, Kid Wykkyd, Billy Numerous, Private H.I.V.E.
Fearsome Faculty: Brother Blood, The H.I.V.E. Headmistress
Nefarious Features: If you want to ensure your post-scholastic employment in the field of supervillainy, consider H.I.V.E. Academy, whose clients include such high-profile villains as Slade. And H.I.V.E. graduates have a high level of acceptance into the Brotherhood of Evil.
Sunnydale High (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Location: Sunnydale, California
Notably Villainous Alumni: Willow Rosenberg, Amy Madison, Jonathan Levinson, Andrew Wells, Harmony Kendall and numerous others (many of whom never made it to graduation)
Nefarious Features: Want to commit unspeakable acts of evil, but lack inspiration? A few weeks at Sunnydale High, conveniently located on top of the Hellmouth, and you’ll be whipping up skin-flaying magic, summoning demons, or going vampire in no time.
Evil Medical School (Austin Powers)
Notably Villainous Alumni: Dr. Evil
Nefarious Features: Unclear, but it takes six years, and chances are that graduates lord it over folks like Dr. Horrible, who have PhDs in evil horribleness.
Legion Academy (DC)
Notably Villainous Alumni: Ron-Karr, Spider-Girl, Radiation Roy, Nemesis Kid, Lightning Lord
Fearsome Faculty: Tarik the Mute
Nefarious Features: The Legion Academy has a true legacy of villainy, with its founding based on kidnapping, blackmail, and the theft of the Legion of Superheroes’ training manuals. And the first class eventually graduated into their very own Legion of Supervillains.
Sith Academy
Location: Korriban
Notably Villainous Alumni: Darth Sion, Yuthura Ban, Darth Bane
Fearsome Faculty: Jorak Uln, Uthar Wynn, Qordis
Nefarious Features: Traditionally, there is one Sith Master and one apprentice, but if you want to learn to wield the Dark Side of the Force and don’t want to wait around for the apprentice to murder the master, you can take up at the Sith Academy of Korriban. And if you don’t get into the master school on Korribon, you can always shoot for the Sith warriror, assassin, or acolyte schools on other worlds.
