DC's Very First Supervillain Isn't Just One Of Their Creepiest, He's One Of Their Best

Published Sep 19, 2026, 7:00 PM EDT

Derek is the Training Lead for ScreenRant. Before his current position, he spent 20 years working in games, TV, and film while also writing for several entertainment sites.
Derek is also the co-host of three pop culture podcasts: Across the Omniverse, The Bad Batch, and Watch Men.

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The supervillain is an integral part of the superhero story. It seems impossible to imagine a world where Flash isn't battling the Rogues or Wonder Woman doesn't have to test her might against Giganta. Fans judge the heroes around their villains, knowing that the greater the threat, the more impressive the adventure. But, in the first days of the genre, the idea of a powerful nemesis who could challenge the hero wasn't considered.

Superman, with his amazing abilities to leap tall buildings and lift cars over his head, changed the world when he showed up on the cover of Action Comics #1 in 1938. And while readers were enraptured to see the Man of Steel use his amazing powers, the enemies he used them on were considerably pedestrian. Superman's first adventures saw him taking on corrupt politicians, slum lords, and gangsters: all foes who could never really pose a threat to the Last Son of Krypton.

But that all began to change in 1939, literally a year after Superman first appeared, when Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (along with uncredited artist Paul Cassidy) brought the Ultra-Humanite — the first ever supervillain — to life. And while this classic enemy of good has never been as famous as his evil peers, he still stands out as one of the strangest, and one of the greatest supervillains to ever grace comics.

Ultra-Humanite Was A Forgotten Foe

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Making his debut in Action Comics #13, the Ultra-Humanite was a sickly mad scientist with one goal: total domination of Earth. In the story, the Ultra-Humanite is able to capture Superman and put him in a death trap. That, obviously, doesn't work out for the villain, but you have to appreciate the attempt. The big bad escapes from Superman, but ends up being done in with one of his own devices — an electric gun — before being brought back to life by his goons. But, with a dying body, Ultra-Humanite takes things to the next level, having his henchmen kidnap movie star Dolores Winters and putting his brain into her body.

Ultra-HUmanite showed up two more times, causing problems for Superman in Action Comics #20-21, but with the debut of Lex Luthor in issue #23, the original supervillain vanished from the comics for forty years. When they made their triumphant return in 1980's Superman Family #201, the plan was to replace the aging body of Dolores Winters with the young, rich, virile body of Bruce Wayne. Ultra-Humanite even managed to capture Gotham's most eligible bachelor, only to be foiled by Superman. A year later, the villain showed up in Justice League of America #195 where he not only creates the Secret Society of Super Villains, but also makes his first appearance in the body of a white ape.

In time, Ultra-Humanite was retconned to be a primary villain of the All-Star Squadron and Justice Society, causing problems for the teams throughout the 1940s and even putting his brain in the body of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, which is just awesome. Over the years, Ultra-Humanite has put his brain into a number of bodies, including the Americommando in The Golden Age (which also saw him put Hitler's brain into a superhero) and, horrifically, into Johnny Thunder's body in JSA #32, giving him power over Yz. But the Ultra-Humanite's most frightening body switch would happen in 2014.

Ultra-Humanite's Most Terrifying Form Was A Nightmare Given Life

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Looking back, it is obvious that DC's New 52 continuity was doomed to fail, but that doesn't mean everything that came from it was a bad idea. Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's Batman run during that time is a certified classic that has continued to feed into newer stories about the Dark Knight. And... well... there isn't much else that really stood out. But at least one villain was given a new form that was truly nightmare-inducing. Greg Pak and Aaron Kruder introduced a new version of the Ultra-Humanite in Action Comics #37, doing away with the white ape and creating a monster that would give H. P. Lovecraft the creeps.

While paying tribute to what came before — this Ultra-Humanite has an ape skull for a face — the creators also built a figure that truly lives up to the villains name. The mix of recognizable creatures — the tentacles of an octopus and the legs of a crab being the most noticeable — the Ultra-Humanite was turned into an otherworldly beast with telepathic powers who is released from the Phantom Zone, giving Superman a serious problem to deal with.

Sadly, this frightening look didn't last long, but when Ultra-Humanite did show up again, he was still pretty scary looking. Appearing in Earth 2: Society, the latest iteration of Ultra-Humanite was back to the white ape look, but with the added bonus of his brain sticking out of the top of his head. The look continued into the Rebirth era when Superman's oldest supervillain appeared in Superman and the Authority, but with a new touch — it seemed that his white ape body was decaying, with its hair completely gone and its skin going gray. This made Ultra-Humanite look like a reanimated corpse, which, considering the procedure to put a human brain into an ape's body, it is.

But what makes Ultra-Humanite so frightening is that at any point, he can just toss his brain into a new body, hiding in plain sight and even getting close to the heroes without them knowing it, which is something he has done from time to time. He even took over the body of Power Girl's sidekick Atlee at one point, putting the hero in a terrible position. While other supervillains are pretty much trapped in their bodies, Ultra-Humanite is able to become anyone at any time, ensuring that no hero he has his sights on can ever truly relax.