The best way I can explain it would be: instead of having Palpatine or Apocalypse or even Sauron (three individuals whom are both immensely powerful and impossibly smart), they showed him like, say, David Xanatos (not the most powerful individual in terms of physical power but both impossibly smart and immensely rich) or Adrian Veldt/Ozymandias (someone who wasn't the most powerful, given that the story shows Dr. Manhattan is far more powerful, but that toyed with the really powerful ones due to his impressive intellect). The type of villain that was presented was not someone who was originally powerful, but the type of villain who doesn't need immense power after all, and whose mind is far deadlier a weapon than any nuclear bomb in existence.
Bookmarks