DC supervillains have a nasty habit of cropping up over and over again. Even when they are presumed dead, they frequently manage to reappear. Some villains might just be too evil to die, but others are well-connected and recruit people or resources that can revive them in a pinch.
Despite this, or perhaps because of it, some villains experience remarkably unimpressive or undignified deaths. Whether the circumstances of a given villain's death are preposterous, the person responsible has no business opposing the villain, or a resurrection is all but inevitable, some villainous deaths prove to be downright dumb.
10 Talia Al Ghul Dies Repeatedly At Her Sister's Hand
Ra's al Ghul uses the Lazarus Pits somewhat regularly, either immediately after he dies or as he nears death. The pits allow him to live much longer than he would organically. Occasionally, The Demon's Head allows his closest family members and allies to use the pits, including his daughter Nyssa Raatko. Sadly, Nyssa's prolonged life forces her to suffer through tragedies for which her father is partially responsible.
Eventually, Nyssa Raatko makes plans to end the Demon's lineage. In an effort to turn her sister against their father, Nyssa murders Talia al Ghul over and over again, throwing her into one of the Lazarus Pits after each kill, relying on the Pits' psychological effects to manipulate Talia. It's a ridiculous way for Nyssa to get Talia on her side. Since the truth about their father is so heinous, a candid conversation probably would have sufficed.
9 Penguin's Faked Death Is A Mess
Oswald Cobblepot stages his own death and frames The Dark Knight for it. When Selina Kyle confronts the Penguin about his choice, he admits he faked his death to bring his children closer together.
While the sentiment is understandable, the method for Cobblepot's orchestrated family bonding illustrates precisely why his children have such tenuous relationships with one another. Perhaps if they had been raised in a family where they talked through their conflicts rather than dramatically pretend to die and implicate Batman, they would all be on better terms.
8 The Batman Who Laughs Shouldn't Have Been Able To Defeat Perpetua
Perpetua is the Mother of the Monitor, the Anti-Monitor, the World Forger, and the Multiverse. She is evil, which means she has blind spots based on her agenda, but she is very nearly omnipotent. Yet, during the Dark Nights: Death Metal event, the Batman Who Laughs manages to kill her and take her power for himself.
The allegorical implications of Perpetua's death by the Batman Who Laughs are certainly interesting, but practically, her death makes little sense. She is far too powerful to be outsmarted by the Batman Who Laughs. Mortal beings of any stripe, even those with the intellect of Bruce Wayne and the motivations of the Joker, shouldn't pose a challenge to her.
7 Any Time Grundy Dies Just Feels Redundant
Solomon Grundy is a revenant, or undead. For this very reason, Grundy's various deaths throughout his publication history rarely feel significant. Since it's difficult to vanquish a being virtually incapable of injury, a frequent tactic for subduing Grundy is killing him.
So, it reads as a little redundant any time Grundy "dies" or is otherwise profoundly incapacitated. One can't become "more dead," after all, and Grundy's corporeal form usually returns to its intact nature (albeit its zombified one) even after a hero completely disintegrates his body.
6 Priscilla Rich's Death Is Woefully Anti-Climactic
As the original Cheetah, Priscilla Rich's death deserved more fanfare than the seeming afterthought it was. Not only does Rich's death not capture her significance to Wonder Woman lore, its stakes feel incredibly low in context. In a toxic team up for the ages, Barbara Minerva breaks Hunter Zolomon out of prison, at which point Zoom urges the latest Cheetah to kill the original (who's 84) so Minerva can unlock her full potential.
While Rich's Cheetah was a villain, Wonder Woman's non-reaction to Rich's death feels inauthentic, since they certainly shared a dynamic. As a result, Rich's murder reads as a circumstantial crime, rather than a personal one. Manufactured by the writers to put Wonder Woman and the Flash on the Cheetah/Professor Zoom trail, it didn't even raise the stakes for either team up.
5 Brainiac Murders Psimon
As a villain whose cognitive abilities are his greatest asset, it's pretty humiliating for Psimon to be slaughtered by another brain-themed villain — especially one he killed already. Brainiac returns from the "dead" to exact revenge on his murderer, Psimon, illustrating the adage that "pride goes before the fall."
During the Crisis on Infinite Earths event, Psimon attempts to blow Brainiac up, so he can take over the Coluan's plans to control five Earths. Psimon assumes Brainiac is really gone, but in the immediate aftermath of his demise, Brainiac reappears. Psimon doesn't notice his victim's return, since he can only sense thought from organic life. Brainiac brutally takes Psimon out mid-gloat and reveals that he transferred his data into his ship's infrastructure once he sensed Psimon's presence onboard.
4 The Joker Murders Psimon... Again
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Few villains have seen as many dumb deaths as Psimon. To add insult to Psimon's Crisis murder, the Joker took Psimon out post-Crisis, too. When the Injustice League is stranded on an unpopulated planet, Psimon suggests that instead of trying to escape their fate, they accept their new reality and repopulate.
The Joker promptly murders Psimon with a rock, calling him an "idiot." While it logically follows that Psimon couldn't sense Brainiac's presence since the latter is inorganic, as a powerful telepath, Psimon really ought to be able to manipulate his fellow, living evildoers without issue. This begs readers to wonder why Psimon doesn't telepathically coerce everyone, including the Joker, into enacting his plan.
3 The Anti-Monitor Ought To Have Stayed Dead
Like his mother, Perpetua, the Anti-Monitor should be indestructible. Also like his mother, a cohort of mortal heroes defeats him and brings the Crisis he ushered into the Multiverse to an end. Whereas Perpetua remains deceased in-continuity following her respective Crisis, the Anti-Monitor has actually reappeared since Crisis on Infinite Earths.
The Anti-Monitor came back during the Sinestro Corps War, and his resurrection is all the more baffling thanks to his mother's death: The Anti-Monitor essentially derives his powers from Perpetua, making him less powerful than her. This raises some serious logistical questions and makes his "death" seem contrived.
2 Doctor Light's Death Is Super Convoluted
The already confusing "Trinity War" storyline in Justice League vol. 2 is only muddled by Arthur Light's death. The villain, seemingly reformed, dies when Superman very suddenly and inexplicably incinerates Light with his heat vision. Atomica, (the Atom of an alternate Earth, working with Prime Earth's Justice League at the time) reveals she lodged a microscopic piece of Kryptonite in Superman's brain, activating his heat vision.
Atomica did so to manufacture conflict between Doctor Light's iteration of the League and Superman's. This leads to infighting that weakens the League against the Crime Syndicate (Earth-3's evil analogue of the Justice League where Atomica's true allyship lies) when they arrive later in the issue. Basically, Doctor Light's death is a bizarre and roundabout way for the Crime Syndicate to set themselves up for a takeover.
1 A'monn A'mokk's Plan Completely Backfires On Him
The White Martians and the Vulcans share an ancient blood feud. The Vulcans are heroes imbued with a special metagene and a mission to destroy White Martians, and the White Martians seek to return the favor. In the second volume of Son of Vulcan, White Martian A'morr A'mokk kills the Vulcan Johnny Mann in a battle but also sustains lethal injuries herself.
This motivates A'morr's mate, A'monn A'mokk, to double-down on his mission to destroy the Vulcan legacy.
Embarrassingly enough for A'mokk, however, his efforts royally backfire. Even with the aid of his hybrid human/Martian children, the newly appointed fourteen-year-old Vulcan Mikey Devante kills A'mokk without breaking a sweat.