There have been many incarnations of the bizarre rogue Clayface throughout the franchise, but most of them are sympathetic in some way. After all, they didn't ask to be disfigured, unstable clay monsters. The same cannot be said for Basil Karlo, a monstrously sadistic, self-absorbed actor turned Serial Killer with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and ironically the very first Clayface. Once a normal criminal, Karlo infused himself with the essence of his successors to become a literal clay monster before he was defeated. Upon his return during the No Man's Land arc, Karlo reached new depths of depravity, capturing and brutalizing Poison Ivy while enslaving the children she gave sanctuary in Gotham's Parks, starting a suicide cult of kids who idolized him,and blowing up the Daily Planet for the villain Libra. Though he never dies, it's incredibly satisfying for the time being when Ivy grinds him to mulch.
Batman: Birth of the Demon: The nameless Sultan and Prince are responsible for kickstarting Ra's Al Ghul's descent into evil. The Prince was an insensitive, lecherous man who was constantly protected by his father, allowing him to get off scott free for forcefully kissing Ra's' wife, and recklessly trampling an old woman to death during a horse race. After Ra's uses the Lazarus Pit to save the Prince from illness, the Prince murders Ra's' wife in a blind frenzy, the Sultan using his power to pin the blame on Ra's. The Prince decides to mock Ra's when deciding his punishment, ordering him to be buried alive in the desert alongside the company of his dead wife, saying they can be together again. The Sultan then has the nerve to beg Ra's to save the Prince when he falls ill again, even killing one of his own guards in an attempt to appease him. These two royals proved to be embodiments of everything Ra's viewed wrong with the world.
In Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Byron Brassballs only shows up in a couple of sequences, but he establishes himself as an arrogant, bigoted, near-sociopathic asshole almost immediately and never stops. His hypocrisy and self-justifying of his actions only make it worse. In a story featuring psychotic criminals like Two-Face and the Joker, his petty bastardry sticks out like a sore thumb.
Batgirl (2000): Agent Masters is a generally despicable person who cares more about his golf games than the fact that he's about to have a man murdered. Though he only appears in three issues, his awfulness makes him one of the most memorable antagonists of the entire run.
Superboy-Prime is a very powerful yet whiny counterpart of Superman responsible for the death of several heroes, as well as numerous civilians. It's always fun to watch him get beaten up. That being said, in Dark Nights: Death Metal he sacrifices himself and is redeemed.
New Krypton introduces Commander Fer-Gor of the Kryptonian army. At least General Zod has the excuse of wanting to protect his people from human hostilities, but Gor is a smug, sadistic bully who enjoys hurting people weaker than him, be they human or Kryptonian. Readers can only cheer when Lex Luthor kills him.
Superman: Grounded has Superman traveling to Illinois and confronts Vincent, a Domestic Abuser and Abusive Parent who just slapped his wife for not making his coffee properly and slapped and threw his son, William down the basement when he tried to intervene and protect his mother. In just a couple of panels, he becomes one of the most loathsome and irredeemable baddies Supes ever faces off against because of just how petty, disproportionate, and unpleasant he is. Superman is absolutely furious upon learning about what Vincent was doing and said anger is something that's only reserved for someone like Darkseid but chooses to take him to the police. To give a demonstration of how much Supes hates domestic abusers, he admits to Lois that he considered tearing Vincent apart, but that would go against his generalreputation.
Wally West faces plenty of sociopathic villains and super-powerful threats, but none manage to be as loathsome and detestable as his own father, Rudy. Aside from just being an abusive parent, Rudy sold the Earth out to an invasion of genocidal robots, tried to murder his ex-wife in order to manipulate Wally into joining him, sold fake Durlan (a race of shapeshifting alien invaders) detectors which probably would have gotten people killed, and ran a child slave labor camp in the guise of a reform school. Most frustratingly, he has a tendency to fake his deathin order to escape the consequences of his actions.
The Thawne family has two of these in Barry’s archenemy Eobard a.k.a the Reverse Flash, a Loony Fan who goes crazy and murders Flash's mother, and Thaddeus Thawne a.k.a Inertia, an unstable clone of Flash's grandson Impulse.
Mongul II in Green Lantern. Son of the already unpleasant Superman foe, Mongul II exists as a foil to Sinestro; while both are repressive dictators, Sinestro is the type that at least establishes order at the cost of freedom, while Mongul cares only for himself and merrily runs the planets he conquers straight into the ground. In essence, the character exists so the audience feels comfortable rooting forSinestro.
Eric Wallace's loathed run on Titans had every other villain Deathstroke's bastard Titans go up against be this trope, including:
A drug syndicate that manufactures a narcotic literally made from human children.
A child molester with the power to hypnotize people with his voice.
The leader of an underground fight ring that has slaves put through horrific mutilation before the fights.
Wallace clearly intended that none of these characters have any true redeeming qualities to make the "Titans," who weren't really that heroic, seem better by comparison. Unfortunately, just because the Titans fought a bunch of Hate Sink characters didn't make themany more likable.
