ATL "cool bad guys" in lieu of Nazis?

[Alkahest]

OTL pop culture has been truly blessed by the Third Reich. If you need a bad guy, in any kind of setting, in any form of media, the Nazis are right there. Superhero comic book? Nazi supervillains in colorful spandex. Urban fantasy? Nazi vampire sorcerers. Science fiction? Nazis with ray guns in flying saucers. Pornography? Nazi concentration camp dominatrices. They can be comedic enough for the silliest of Saturday morning cartoons and dark enough for the most disturbing of horror movies. Their ideology was as close you can get to pure evil, they were a real threat to the free world once upon a time and their clothes were downright sexy. Perfect villains in every way.

Now, in a TL where the Nazis never showed up or never turned into a credible threat - which group could replace them as all-purpose bad guys? This TL can be anything from one found on this site to a published book to something you just made up. In this world, who are the clichéd villains everyone uses?

(Before someone says the obvious, I personally don't think communists (in the TLs where they exist) would work all that well. Their ideology is in at least some senses sympathetic and they never seemed to nail the "evil" look down properly. Even places like North Korea are more examples of crazy personality cults than proper "moo haa haa look at how evil we are let's commit genocide because why not"-villains.)

[Beedok]

China had some nasty people. Plus, villains need not be accurate representations of the real world.

[Killer300]

Additionally, something else about the Communists that makes them not work.

Namely... they aren't comic booky. Their weapons were boring and practical, while the Nazis actually did have cool but impractical war machines.

Really, the Soviets were how real world evil is, which is quite grey, while the Nazis were the closet humanity got to real life comic book villains.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Killer300

Namely... they aren't comic booky. Their weapons were boring and practical, while the Nazis actually did have cool but impractical war machines.

Yes, so boring and practical:

[Killer300]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Yes, so boring and practical:

Wait, what the hell?

Okay, NORMALLY were boring and practical. The Soviet Union built things like T-34s normally, that flying tank thing isn't really the norm for them.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Killer300

Wait, what the hell?

Okay, NORMALLY were boring and practical. The Soviet Union built things like T-34s normally, that flying tank thing isn't really the norm for them.

They also had that multi-turret mess. And guns designed for shooting around corners, and other wackiness. The did boring and practical because, with the Nazis ripping up the heartland, they had no choice but maximum efficiency. Have them going on the offensive and they get a chance to have all sorts of wacky vehicles that only work through faith in Stalin and vodka.

[Thande]

The Soviets only look utilitarian and unexciting because they were next to the Nazis. Besides the flying tank and the nuclear submarines cooled by molten sodium, there's the Caspian Sea Monster ekranoplans, the bioweapons experiments, all the crazy space schemes, all kinds of stuff.

[strangeland]

The Nazis were cartoony evil and lent themselves well to comic books and movies. The Soviets were boring by comparison. This clip sums it up pretty well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEle_DLDg9Y.

[Grand Prince Paul II.]

Originally Posted by Beedok

China had some nasty people.

Indeed.
I am certain that people in Drew's Fear, Loathing and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail '72 will think of Mao the Lesser and his followers as the Nazis of the second half of the 20th century.
Not only was the Lesser Mao a tyrant whose rule killed off hundreds of millions of people, but also the biggest drug lord of the world, responsible for using nuclear weapons against his own people and the devastation of much of northern Indochina.
Not to mention his petty sabotage of the film shooting of Colonel Sun, a James Bond movie just because he did not like the eponymous movie villain.

[Red Cesar]

The reason the Nazi's are so popular today as Villians, is because all sectors of society pretty much agree that they were some of the most vile men to ever walk the Earth.

Life isn't normally black and white...however, The Nazi's are as close as it gets.


This is why the Soviets will not work.

[Wolf Tengu]

Originally Posted by Alkahest

OTL pop culture has been truly blessed by the Third Reich. If you need a bad guy, in any kind of setting, in any form of media, the Nazis are right there. Superhero comic book? Nazi supervillains in colorful spandex. Urban fantasy? Nazi vampire sorcerers. Science fiction? Nazis with ray guns in flying saucers. Pornography? Nazi concentration camp dominatrices.

Is it bad I could give an example of each of those?

Anyhoo, they have to be evil enough to be threatening enough, and crazy enough to seem unreal.

[Killer300]

Originally Posted by Red Cesar

The reason the Nazi's are so popular today as Villians, is because all sectors of society pretty much agree that they were some of the most vile men to ever walk the Earth.

Life isn't normally black and white...however, The Nazi's are as close as it gets.


This is why the Soviets will not work.

Yes, this is what makes Fascists and Nazis perfect villains. EVERYONE, regardless of where you are on the political spectrum pretty much, hates them. By comparison, that isn't exactly the case with the Soviets, or for that matter, most real world villains.

[Hörnla]

Originally Posted by Alkahest

Now, in a TL where the Nazis never showed up or never turned into a credible threat - which group could replace them as all-purpose bad guys? This TL can be anything from one found on this site to a published book to something you just made up. In this world, who are the clichéd villains everyone uses?

FRENCH NAZIS.

That is the answer. Everything the Nazis are, with the corporate identity, the style, the coldness. But a bit more "savoir vivre".

[aktarian]

Originally Posted by Killer300

Additionally, something else about the Communists that makes them not work.

Namely... they aren't comic booky. Their weapons were boring and practical, while the Nazis actually did have cool but impractical war machines.

Really, the Soviets were how real world evil is, which is quite grey, while the Nazis were the closet humanity got to real life comic book villains.

And while most people agree that full scale genocide and outright agression to dominate world are bad things the concept of communism with their idea of wealth distribution and communal ownership of stuff can sound appealing.

[BlondieBC]

The Tsar's built crazy weapons.

Round battleships, giant tanks, submarines with wheels. Perfect for Doctor Evil. And being a Monarchy, I bet they had some cool uniforms. Also, cool facial hair.

[Wolf Tengu]

Originally Posted by BlondieBC

The Tsar's built crazy weapons.

Round battleships, giant tanks, submarines with wheels. Perfect for Doctor Evil. And being a Monarchy, I bet they had some cool uniforms. Also, cool facial hair.

Ehh, I think facial hair was eveywhere back then.

[MSZ]

The Serbs seem to fit the bill, with their names "sounding evil" to many anglophones.

Also, IIRC yellow fever used to be a big thing, so maybe without the Nazis, the Japanese could become that? With Cool Swords, Cool Ships, General Badassery exemplified by super-massacres and human exprimentation. Add Fu-Manchu to that and you end up with Japanese Fu-Manchu running unit 731 to breed the "perfect Asian" or something like this.

[d32123]

"Yellow Peril" is the fear of Asians.

"Yellow Fever" is an abnormal attraction to Asians.

[Snake Featherston]

Well, in my ATL Lavr Kornilov becomes a Fascist of the Mussolini style and turns into a Hitler/Featherston type who's an inversion of most of their ideas. He bequeaths to the ATL a variant of Those Wacky Nazis that's really Those Wacky Fascist Russians.

[BigWillyG]

How about surviving Imperial Germany in a CP WWI victory? Pickelhaube and Kaiser Bill mustaches as symbolic of cool bad guys?