The best of the worst: TV's 25 greatest supervillains

Batman: The Animated Series rewrote history with the episode “Heart Of Ice,” taking a joke villain from the comics and giving him a backstory so powerful that he became one of the most well-known villains in Batman’s rogues’ gallery. Before TAS, Mr. Freeze was a goofball with an ice gun. But with “Heart Of Ice,” writer Paul Dini turned him into a deeply tragic figure, explaining that his obsession with ice and cryogenics was all in service of finding a cure for his wife’s terminal illness so he could eventually bring her back to life. Dini won an Emmy for the episode, and it cemented Mr. Freeze as one of the best villains in Batman: The Animated Series. [Jen Lennon]

Though he initially seemed like just another mean businessman in Arrow, Malcolm Merlyn was, in fact, the Dark Archer—a.k.a. Al Sa-her—a professional killer trained by none other than Ra’s al Ghul and the League Of Assassins. Much like Oliver Queen, he wanted to save his city from corruption … but unlike Oliver, he wanted to achieve his goal by blowing up the bad parts of town. He later helped form the Legion Of Doom with fellow ex-League member Damien Darhk and Eobard Thawne, the Reverse Flash, battling with the time-traveling Legends to try and rewrite history in their favor. [Sam Barsanti]

It’s hard to single out just one bad guy from a show that literally has a supervillain collective called the League of Villains, but the group wouldn’t exist without All For One. All For One’s superpower allows him to steal and stockpile quirks, deploying them at will in devastating combinations. (Usually, a person only has one quirk at the most.) There’s only one other known quirk that can successfully combat All For One—One For All, which is wielded by My Hero Academia’s protagonist, Deku. Though a lot of villains are made more compelling through their backstories, All For One stands out because of his sheer destructive power. He could easily destroy the world, and you feel it every time he appears onscreen. [Jen Lennon]

For most of the first season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) was a rather bland action-hero archetype, but a twist ahead of the finale (following on the heels of revelations in Captain America: Winter Soldier) turned him into someone much more interesting. That’s when the team found out, in the midst of the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., that he had actually been working for Hydra all along. For the next season and a half, Ward would become a constant thorn in the side of his former teammates, maintaining a twisted sort of attachment to them despite his betrayal. But after traveling to another planet to bring back an ancient Inhuman worshiped by a Hydra cult, Ward is killed and then possessed by the malevolent entity known as Hive. Whatever version of the character Dalton was called on to play (including a totally different incarnation in the Framework arc during season four), his inherent charm and comic timing made him one of the show’s compelling antagonists. [Cindy White]

One of the joys of Legion is that, in its three seasons, the show never stopped moving forward. Creator Noah Hawley’s strange vision of X-Men comics and their various characters was always evolving, always shifting, and the saga of Amahl Farouk, aka The Shadow King, is a prime example of that ethos. He emerges in season one as a true nemesis, the ultimate twisted evil, then morphs into an antihero, and sometimes even gets to be a flat-out hero. Through it all, thanks to performances by Aubrey Plaza and Navid Negahban, he’s a character you can never quite pin down, which makes him equal parts scary and seductive. [Matthew Jackson]

Introduced as the perfectly likable district attorney of Star City, Arrow’s Adrian Chase was able to befriend Oliver Queen in civilian life and aid his vigilantism. However, Chase also terrorized Star City as a serial killer known as Prometheus, targeting people specifically to tease the Green Arrow. When he was exposed, Chase kicked off a plan to draw all of Oliver’s allies into one place where he could kill them with a bomb triggered by his own death—believing he could drive Oliver to murder. But when Oliver refused to take the bait, Chase denied him the victory and shot himself, triggering the bomb anyway. [Sam Barsanti]

Kate Walsh was such a delight whenever she popped up as The Handler in the first season of The Umbrella Academy that she was promoted to a series regular in season two. As an executive with the mysterious Temps Commission, she’s charged with preventing changes to the timeline, which often puts her at odds with her own recruit, Number Five (Aidan Gallagher), a deadly assassin with the ability to teleport across time and space. He also happens to be stuck in his 13-year-old body, which makes The Handler’s obsession with him a bit creepy. But hey, she is a villain, with constantly changing alliances and motivations, so it’s all part of the deal. Whatever terrible deeds she committed—like ordering Five to murder Lila’s (Ritu Arya) parents, lying to her about it and raising her as her own—at least she always looked fabulous while doing it. [Cindy White]

For a few years in the mid-2000s, Heroes was everywhere—and Sylar was the consistent thorn in the titular group’s side. A serial killer with an innate understanding of how things work, he used his intelligence to steal others’ superpowers. Throughout the series, Sylar struggled against his murderous impulses. He tried to stop several times and even ended the series seemingly repentant for his crimes and dedicated to being a hero, but whether or not he meant it, and whether or not he was actually able to turn his life around for good, is what still has us thinking about him all these years later. [Jen Lennon]

Comic book fans know that there are many phases of Magneto as a character, and it takes certain flourishes to get each one right. X-Men: The Animated Series had the task of delivering bombastic, jacked, relentless supervillain Magneto, and it cleared that bar with room to spare. With a great look and an almost operatic sense of conflict and determination, this Magneto was both the perfect encapsulation of the villain’s early ’90s comic book style, and the ideal introduction for future X-Men fans looking for the ultimate Big Bad. [Matthew Jackson]

Deathstroke, a.k.a. Slade Wilson, isn’t just a great Arrow villain because of how destructive he is (he kills Oliver Queen’s mother and unleashes concurrent terrorist attacks with his masked militia, to name a few of his evil deeds), but because he represents one of Oliver’s personal failures. He couldn’t save Slade from the madness-inducing effects of super-drug Mirakuru, which weighed on Oliver’s soul in the early years of his vigilante mission. So it was like a nightmare coming true when Slade returned and began dismantling Oliver’s life. [Sam Barsanti]

Throughout its run, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D has seen its fair share of villains, ranging from laughably bad to exceptionally evil. Aida (Mallory Jansen) easily falls on the latter spectrum. She’s the show’s most intriguing antagonist. A Life-Model Decoy, or LMD, she’s created from a defunct S.H.I.E.L.D. program and eventually goes dangerously rogue. Hey, that’s what happens when you expect artificial intelligence to be helpful—it can easily turn on you. Once Aida’s mainframe is corrupted, there’s no stopping her. Her diabolical plans truly test Coulson, Melinda, Daisy, and the rest of the team, but none more so than Fitz. It makes for a thrilling run of episodes for S.H.I.E.L.D. as Aida turns season four into one of the show’s most remarkable ones. [Saloni Gajjar]

How does someone as repulsive as Homelander fall in love, and believably so? By meeting a despicable white supremacist, of course. The Boys adds the perfect supervillain companion for him in with Klara Risinger, a.k.a Stormfront (Aya Cash). She’s just as manipulative and terrible as Homelander, so it’s no wonder they start off as enemies, but quickly start hooking up and making it their mission to destroy the world. Much like her partner, Stormfront’s cruelty surpasses the superhero genre because it oddly mirrors the real world. That’s what makes both of them a scary duo. Their equally ruthless ways lead to a lot of murder and mayhem. Stormfront’s cruelty leads to her downfall eventually, but she makes for a one hell of a villain until then. [Saloni Gajjar]

Throughout Invincible season one, it’s clear that there’s something up with Omni-Man. Even if we didn’t know that he murdered his colleagues for seemingly no reason, the way the series continuously turns up the pressure and keeps audiences guessing about his motivations creates a deeply unsettling atmosphere. With his masterful voice work, J.K. Simmons digs into the trope that the most evil among us often seem the most normal, then smashes it to pieces by hinting that something is off about Omni-Man—even if we can’t quite figure out what it is until it’s too late. [Jen Lennon]

Unlike most of the villains on this list, The Mighty Monarch doesn’t have superpowers, grand ambitions, or a meaningful list of evil accomplishments to his name. What he does have is a kickass flying cocoon, a wicked set of eyebrows, and a deep and terrifying hate-on for his arch-nemesis, Dr. Thaddeus “Rusty” Venture. As the most prominently featured villain on Adult Swim’s The Venture Brothers, The Monarch is less enemy than co-protagonist, demonstrating—as filtered through Christopher McCulloch’s hilariously screechy, wise-ass voice performance—all the ways supervillainy isn’t all that different from any other dead-end day job. Like so much of The Venture Bros., The Monarch can be a little sad, surprisingly poignant—and consistently funny as hell. [William Hughes]

The Penguin has always been a tough character. Is he a mutant or a short man in a tuxedo? It’s a question Tim Burton and Danny Devito made all the more complicated half a century after the character debuted in 1941. In Batman, Burgess Meredith made sense of the Penguin as an aristocrat of crookery, a short, beak-nosed snob, making up for his slight stature with a vicious Napoleon complex and an unmatched umbrella collection. Among the campiest and least intimidating of Batman’s foes, Meredith embued him with a fury beyond his size, squawking poetic insults through his gritted teeth, careful not to disturb the cigarette holder clenched between his pearly whites. Burgess Meredith made Penguin a top-tier baddie by refusing to acknowledge how ridiculous the whole thing was. He’d just laugh, smoke, and come up with another plan. [Matt Schimkowitz]

Darkseid enters the world of the DC Animated Universe in arguably the most badass way any supervillain has ever entered a comic book cartoon. Appearing on Earth through a Boom Tube in Superman: The Animated Series, he punishes his underling Kalibak, then when confronted with Superman, says absolutely nothing. It’s only after he’s tortured the Man of Steel with his Omega Beams that Jack Kirby’s legendary evil creation says “That is who I am” before vanishing once again. It’s the perfect introduction to DC Comics’ ultimate evil, and sets a tone that would carry the character through even more animated villainy to come. [Matthew Jackson]

Mr. Nobody is kind of a cliche. His backstory isn’t compelling or original; even his powers are standard superhero fare. But it’s Doom Patrol’s acknowledgment of all of those things, coupled with Alan Tudyk’s brilliant performance, that makes Mr. Nobody such a good villain. Tudyk goes all-out in the role, bringing every ounce of camp he can muster as he consistently breaks the fourth wall and talks about being the villain in a superhero show. In the end, even the rag-tag group of heroes find him pathetic, which is really saying something. Who would’ve thought that Doom Patrol, of all shows, could find something new to say about formulaic superhero narratives by both leaning into and subverting those tropes at the same time? [Jen Lennon]

With Magneto, X-Men: The Animated Series found the perfect ultimate villain. And with the Sentinels, the show found the perfect disposal set of identical enemies to smash up and throw away in episode after episode. So, how do you go bigger than both of those things and still retain the spirit of your show? With Apocalypse, that’s how. With an unforgettable look and a voice made for the most dramatic proclamations of all time, Apocalypse stormed through the hit animated series with powers that let him do anything, and ambition that made Magneto look like middle management. He’s over the top, but that’s exactly the point, and that’s why he works. [Matthew Jackson]

Lionel, you magnificent bastard you. For seven seasons of the teen Superman series Smallville (five on the WB and two on the CW), John Glover schemed his way into our hearts as the charming yet cruel founder of LuthorCorp and father of Lex (Michael Rosenbaum), back when he was still good friends with Clark Kent (Tom Welling). Through Lionel, an original character created by Smallville showrunners Al Gough and Miles Millar, we gained valuable insight into Lex and how his father’s constant disappointment and tough-love parenting put him on the path to becoming Superman’s greatest nemesis. Lionel went through many arcs and bodily possessions throughout the series, but he was always best when at his villainous worst. [Cindy White]

It’s not easy to succinctly encapsulate the convoluted history (and future) of The Flash’s Eobard Thawne, also known as the Reverse-Flash, but here goes. A scientist born in the 22nd century, Thawne manages to recreate the conditions that gave Barry Allen his powers and turns himself into a speedster. Then he travels back in time to erase Flash from existence. That doesn’t work out as planned, but it turns out that he’s the one responsible for killing Barry’s mother and framing his father for the crime. Stuck in the past, he impersonates S.T.A.R. Labs founder Dr. Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) for a while and eventually assumes many different identities across several alternate realities, including Dark Flash, Negative Flash, and even the actual Flash (in his own Reverse-Flashpoint universe). Whatever form he takes, he consistently represents Barry’s true opposite and ultimate nemesis, and thanks to Cavanagh’s versatility as a performer, he was always believably formidable. [Cindy White]

Mark Hamill credits his firm belief that he’d never get the role with giving him the confidence to deliver a truly great Joker audition for Batman: The Animated Series. Going in, he thought the baggage of being Luke Skywalker would be a PR disaster if he was cast as Batman’s most notorious villain. So he just threw down everything he had because there was nothing to lose. And boy, are we glad he did, because Hamill’s take on the Joker is one of the all-time greats, even among a field crowded with the likes of César Romero, Jack Nicholson, and Heath Ledger. What makes Hamill’s version so special, though, is the pure delight he imbues into the character. Hamill’s Joker is supremely, delightfully unhinged, driven by nothing but chaos and classic comic-book villainy. [Jen Lennon]

Homelander (Antony Starr) is one of the most sinister villains to grace the TV screen in a long, long time. Under the guise of satire, The Boys presents a monster who feels scarily all too real. Driven by his power, ego, and obviously his abilities, this Supe is basically undefeatable, as proven over three seasons. Not even his own father, a.k.a. Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), was able to beat him. As the leader of The Seven, he essentially owns the superhero group and lords this over them. The real fear, however, stems from how accurately The Boys depicts his meteoric rise to fame: His vile, murderous personality is ignored by his fanboys, who raise him to idol status for basically being a misogynistic killer. It helps that Starr is unflinching in his portrayal. He goes for the jugular with his work, and it’s the kind of performance that stays with you long after the credits roll. [Saloni Gajjar]

With respect to Egghead and King Tut, Batman ’66 defined the Dark Knight’s core rogues’ gallery. Thankfully, that included The Riddler. Slightly more understated than Caesar Romero’s Joker, to whom he’d always play second fiddle, Frank Gorshin’s Riddler drips with flop sweat as he screams brain teasers at the Caped Crusader, erupting in maniac glee at perplexing his foil for even a moment. Despite the bombast, his mania is clear. This guy needs to outsmart Batman if it kills him. Gorshin’s desperate focus and crazed, unblinking eyes would be the soul of Riddler for the next 50 years, informing John Glover and Jim Carrey. Even Paul Dano must actively distance himself from Gorshin’s standard. The only actor ever nominated for a Batman-related acting Emmy, Gorshin remains the one question that every Riddler has to answer. [Matt Schimkowitz]

A perfect intersection of powers, personality, and performance, Kevin “Kilgrave” Thompson might be the single scariest villain in the Marvel roster: Thanos might be able to snap you out of existence, and Kang might have the multiverse at his disposal. But Kilgrave only needs a single moment of weakness to get inside your head, trapping you in a hell of his casually worded devising. His power set, and his penchant for abuse and gaslighting, infuse the first season of Jessica Jones with a horrifying and inescapable sense of paranoia—because how can you recover from trauma when anyone could be a freshly minted tool of your abuser? None of it would work without David Tennant, who mixes surface charm, sadism, and the merest traces of one very dangerous little boy into one of the most compelling bad-guy performances of all time. [William Hughes]

When we first meet Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) in Daredevil, he is a black silhouette on a white gallery wall. It’s an inversion of the classic Kingpin costume from the comics, in which he is frequently drawn wearing a white suit jacket. But that’s because this Wilson Fisk isn’t the Kingpin, not yet. This Wilson Fisk still thinks he’s the good Samaritan, the anonymous Biblical hero who helps a traveler who’s been mugged, beaten, and left for dead. And it’s his journey toward self-acceptance, reflected in the subtle lightening of his clothes, from the all-black suits he wears at first to the shades of gray he wears when he reveals himself to the public to finally the all-white prison garb he wears at the end of season one, that makes Fisk such a compelling villain. He is, as he ultimately admits to himself, “the ill intent, who set upon the traveler on a road that he should not have been on.” He’s the Kingpin. He was always going to come out on top. [Jen Lennon]