I think, Rich, that you make good points as well. There’s definitely something about Elijah’s villainy – with his brittle bones and repulsive approach to solving the world’s problems – that is definitely more creatively rendered. Alonzo is a more memorable character for me, probably for the very reasons you mentioned, and I won’t let the fact that I’m blissfully wedded in holy matrimony to Mr. Washington get in the way of recognizing a good villain when he rears his wild, misshapen Afro.

Maybe in honor of the dual-characterizations, we’ll call it at tie for #8 on the list?

Elijah represents classic villainy as presented in superhero or other comics/fictions. He is extreme, maniacal, but also cold and calculating, but the idiosyncrasies of his life separate him from the kinds of dudes we encounter everyday. His hair is fly (!) and he is just as fantastic a villain as The Joker, Lex Luthor, or Skeletor or somebody. His wealth, his intense belief, the nature of his frailty are so extreme as to make him extraordinary in his badness. He scares us because he’s outside of what we can fathom.

Alonzo is an urban villain and while treacherous, is more “realistic” in his badness as a character. Rather than the ego-maniacal super-villain, he’s the ego-maniacal, hypermasculine, bad-cop/subversive Negro-type villain. He’s someone just two steps beyond some cat we could know around the way– he’s just beyond “regular,” while still in the realm of possibility. He’s a “badman” of epic black folk/urban experience proportions. Alonzo is scary because can imagine someone like him in our world.

What’s interesting to me is the element of cool that each man possesses though his personality is so different from the other.