The *real* stars of the show
I. Love. Villains. In most cases they are fundamentally the axis in which the majority of stories revolve around. They are the driving force of the narrative and key obstacle for the protagonist to overcome to reach their goal, and the greater the obstacle, the greater the triumph for when said protagonist eventually overcomes it,. Not all antagonists are villains, but all villains are antagonists. There's myriad flavors of villainy between your mustache twirlers, well-intentioned extremists, fallen heroes, or some omnicidal maniacs who just wish to watch the world (or universe!) burn.
As kids we are bombarded by tons of classic stories and tales about the heroes being victorious over evil and living happily ever after. For all but the most naive of us, we grow up quickly and see how silly it was to expect such neat and tidy endings, that morality was as simple as black and white, or that victory was always assured for the good guys. Unlike real life villainy that has real, tangible, awful consequences that are bad for almost everyone, fiction lets us indulge our evil sides with no real drawbacks, and indulge I shall.
Same ground rules as the previous entry apply of course:
This is explicitly just TV/Movies/Anime/Manga. Video Games are excluded for this because the interactive/gameplay portion is a significant part of the experience with them and lord knows I've played so many it could power a section all its own and so it shall, one day
These are specifically in no real order or ranking, just off the dome. Feel free to send me angry messages about my shit tastes though!
Considering the nature of villains there will be a be a degree of mild spoilers, you have been warned!
Thanos (Marvel)
I'm just gonna get the big one out of the way first. I grew up reading comics here and there and one of my favorites was the Infinity Gauntlet saga. I SCREECHED when I saw the mid credits of the first Avengers movie knowing what was to come and from the opening sequence of Infinity War where he gives Hulk the goddamn hands I knew the wait was worth it. Thanos' role in the MCU is something that we might possibly never see in our lifetimes again in cinema, having over twenty entire feature length films building up to the eventual 2 part climax of the Infinity Saga with him as the centerpiece. He is one of the rare cases in which the villain actually straight up wins with no strings attached regarding Infinity War, and even with his defeat in Endgame, the fallout of his actions permanently alter the landscape of the MCU forever.
I actually find myself liking MCU Thanos over the original as nuts as that sounds, as objectively callous and crazy as wiping out half of all life is, you understand the logic of how he gets there and can genuinely feel the conviction behind his actions, rather than it being an impulsive whim.. OG Thanos is certainly more vicious and tyrannical but you could boil him down to being a simp for death (which in the Marvel universe, has a literal human form!). You also know the love is real when you dress up for him for Halloween, replica gauntlet and all. It is entirely worth fighting off my nephews and niece regularly for it
Wait no Maya STOP-
Pain (Naruto: Shippuden)
Ninjas are cool; therefore by proxy the world of Naruto is very cool. Cooler than even that is a shadowy organization of rogue ninja in stylish as hell black robes with red clouds that make entire ninja villages tremble at the mention of their name "Akatsuki". Pain is the leader of said organization (well kinda, it's complicated) and this motherf***er is downright nasty, being blessed with the ability to control up to six lifelike puppets simultaneously with his supernatural ringed eyes known as the "Rinnegan"(I am not kidding when I say that is like a 1/100th of what those eyes do but I shall spare you from the essay that would entail) .
Some of his feats include killing our titular hero's sensei and gravity-nuking entire villages off the face of the planet. As improbable as it might seem, that's not even his greatest feat in my eyes. At the climax of his arc, you witness him completely embarrass our hero Naruto's naive worldview and force him to grapple with endless cycle of war his own village has helped propagate that lead to Pain's actions in the first place. Going back to my point in the opening paragraph, great antagonists are ones who force their hero counterparts to evolve to greater heights to overcome them, not just physically but mentally and emotionally, and you'd be hard pressed to find a more clear example of than the Pain Arc in general.
Jack Nicholson as Frank Costello (The Departed)
Ah the Departed, the movie that kick-started my love for the Dropkick Murphys. Fun fact, did you know that Nigeria's patron saint is St.Patrick, yes that St. Patrick? Perhaps it explains my natural friendship to just about every Irish person I meet (S/O to Murph, Cam, and Mac!). I know it seems a little contradictory to what I've stated before but sometimes you've just got to appreciate a genuine psychopath when you see one and Jack Nicholson nails it as Costello.
There are virtually no redeeming qualities of this man whatsoever and yet you can't help but be enthralled at the delivery of his unapologetic sociopathy. The mob/mafia genre of movies is bloated to hell and back but performances like this are what set this movie above the rest. I've lost count how many times I've watched the opening monologue of this movie but now you can enjoy it too.
Magneto (X-Men)
The Master of Magnetism himself. Aside from the absolutely sick outfit, Magneto is great in he can display some very sincere, inspirational moments for why he fights for mutant-kind whilst contrasting it with the sheer brutality of things like ripping out Wolverine's adamantium skeleton out of his body pore by pore that reminds you he is very much a villain. What makes him even better is just how grounded and believable he is as a cynical foil to his heroic idealistic counterparts.
The central premise of X-Men is the ever present conflict between regular people and mutants, metahumans with extraordinary abilities. For all of their potential, mutants are feared at large by the general public and are subject to much ridicule, oppression, and abuse. It is very much an allegory to real life strife between people of differing races, ethnic groups, religious groups etc. More often than not, two men in particular stand at differing ends of the spectrum in terms of this conflict and how it can be resolved. Charles Xavier, AKA Professor X, firmly believes that humans and mutants can live in harmony and creates the X-Men as a force for good to prove it. Max Eisenhardt , our very own Magneto himself who has repeatedly seen the worst that humanity has to offer; being a survivor of the Holocaust/Auschwitz and witnessing the murder of his family firsthand twice, believes the only thing humanity understands is force, and vows to never again let his fellow mutant brethren suffer the kind of tragedy he's all too familiar with. It doesn't excuse the evil acts he commits but damn if that isn't a powerful background and you can understand his train of thought.
Scar (The Lion King)
He killed Mufasa man.
If you grew up around my age and raised on the animated Disney canon, it is extremely likely that this was the first time you witnessed a death and at least had a basic understanding the gravity of what that meant (The other major contender being Bambi's parents). Even as a grown adult I still harbor a little bit of unreasonable hate for a fictional character and that in itself makes you a pretty damn good candidate for a list about villainy.
There is nothing redeemable about this cunning, power hungry wretch and no low he'll stoop to to save his own hide, which makes it all the more enjoyable when it call comes back to bite him in the end, literally. "Be Prepared" is also one of my favorite Disney musical numbers with a funny backstory behind it. Jeremy Irons, Scar's original voice actor, had vocal issues stemming from the last part of the song, so Jim Cummings had to step in to finish the job. See if you can notice the exact point where that happens.
Gilgamesh (Fate/Stay Night)
The Fate series has one of the more interesting central story hooks of just about any medium I've ever watched or read, a Highlander-esque battle royale between modern day mages and their servants who are actually past heroes, both real and mythological (Some of them are genderbent for some reason but that's okay!). The most famous parts of their legends manifest into spectacular weapons or abilities called Noble Phantasms. A general rule of thumb in this series (although not always concrete) is the more famous or infamous your legend, the greater your potential power, and it's pretty hard to top the haughty, hedonistic demigod king of one of the oldest recorded pieces of known literature in The Epic of Gilgamesh. If you like or love to hate grade-A pompous assholes, you'll be hooked like a fat kid on cake by the 100th time he calls you a mongrel.
Whereas the aforementioned Noble Phantasms are regarded as super unique and it's unusual for a Servant to have more than a couple, thanks to his own in Gate of Babylon he has access to virtually every single weapon-based one in existence , in line with his mythos of his seemingly limitless treasure troves of valuables acquired over the course of his adventures. Quite literally the only reason he ever even sniffs defeat (As stated by his creator Kinoko Nasu!) is because of his aforementioned hubris, which is fitting considering it's the exact same thing the original Gilgamesh in the epic suffers from, and its always enjoyable to see the prideful fall in the end.
Heath Ledger as The Joker (The Dark Knight)
IMO, The single greatest acting performance in any superhero movie ever, period . Joker has multiple great incarnations both in the live action and animated spheres, and yet I believe that's Ledger's take in The Dark Knight was such a unique blend between the core facets of Joker in his one track sociopathic drive for chaos as well being a pain in Batman's ass and the overall grittier nature of the Christopher Nolan trilogy that comes about as close to perfection as you can get. As someone who frequently watches these kinds of movies I was amazed at how often I found myself caught off guard from his unpredictability, seamlessly jumping from to silly to downright terrifying within the same set pieces. It's a damn shame that Ledger tragically passed away and we never got a chance to see him reprise even if rumors suggested it would merely be a cameo in The Dark Knight Rises.
Doctor Doom (Fantastic Four)
That's right folks, it's a Marvel trifecta. Doom is one of those villains who's just so entertaining that he usurps the popularity of his heroic counterparts and shows up in the Marvelverse more often than they do! While somewhat cliche and varying in intensity depending on the source material, I love his backstory of swearing revenge against a former colleague Reed Richards (AKA Mr. Fantastic) simply for a science experiment gone wrong causing mild facial scarring at best, yet his OCD over his personall appearance leads him to believe he's irreparably ugly and so grafts a still superheated iron face plate onto himself. Also, when you make a character refer to himself in the third person you are usually implying one of two things, either he's a blithering idiot or a conceited prima-donna with an ego the size of a collapsing star. Doom is very much the latter, and when you can wipe the floor with the Avengers and The Fantastic Four at the same time, I honestly can't blame him for thinking so. I can only pray his eventual foray into the MCU is something that does his comic and animated canon justice, unlike the previous attempts.
That's all for this entry of CoM! This entry was *definitely* harder than the previous to narrow down than the previous one. I tried my hardest to not have too much personality overlap so as to explore the full spectrum of villainy for entertainment's sake. Same as last time, a short honorable mention list is down below. As a certain famous eSports organization would say, go forth and #LiveEvil!
Darkseid (DC)
Freiza (Dragon Ball Z)
Kingpin (Daredevil)
Prince Joffrey (Game of Thrones)
Black Manta (Aquaman)
(Couldn't figure out the moment for the Scar's voice swap? It's right after the line leading into the final chorus "YOU WON'T GET A SNIFF WITHOUT ME")
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