Curated playlist
Male television villains
- Magneto (Marvel Comics)In 2014, IGN ranked Magneto first on its list of the top 100 comic book villains. Six years earlier, Stan Lee, the writer who co-created him, said in an interview that he never thought of Magneto as a villain at all. Magneto is a Marvel…
- Darth VaderThe actor inside Darth Vader's suit never knew his voice would be replaced. James Earl Jones voiced him instead.
- Gus FringGustavo Fring sells fried chicken in the American Southwest, and the chicken is the least dangerous thing he sells. He is a fictional character played by Giancarlo Esposito in the Breaking Bad franchise. He is one of the main antagonists…
- Boba FettBoba Fett first appeared in public on the 24th of September 1978, at the San Anselmo Country Fair parade. The armor was worn by Duwayne Dunham, then an assistant film editor and later a film and television director. Fett is a Star Wars…
- Grand Admiral ThrawnAs his bodyguard turned on him, Star Wars villain Thrawn said it was so artistically done.
- Darth MaulDarth Maul was cut in half in his first film, yet he came back. George Lucas chose to bring him back.
- UltronUltron first showed up in Marvel Comics in The Avengers #54, dated July 1968, and nobody reading it could have known his name. He appeared only under a borrowed title, the Crimson Cowl, in a brief and unnamed cameo. Within a single issue…
- Venom (character)Venom, the alien symbiote of Marvel Comics, began as a $220 purchase. In 1982, a Marvel reader from Norridge, Illinois, named Randy Schueller received a letter from Jim Shooter, the company's editor-in-chief. The letter said Marvel liked…
- Sabretooth (character)Sabretooth, the Marvel Comics villain whose real name is believed to be Victor Creed, makes a point of finding Wolverine on his birthday. Writer Chris Claremont described the ritual in his own words. On every one of his birthdays, he said,…
- DarkseidDarkseid, the stone-skinned tyrant of the planet Apokolips in DC Comics, has a name that fans have never fully agreed how to say. Mark Evanier spent several years as assistant to the character's creator, Jack Kirby. Evanier says the name…
- Walter White (Breaking Bad)Walter Hartwell White is the protagonist of the American crime drama Breaking Bad, and his story begins with a diagnosis. The day after his 50th birthday, he learns he has Stage III lung cancer. Walter teaches high school chemistry in…
- Doctor DoomDoctor Doom is a comic book villain who answers to no court outside his own country. He rules the fictional eastern European nation of Latveria, and his status as head of state has historically shielded him from prosecution for crimes…
- ThanosThanos first appeared on a comic book cover dated February 1973, in The Invincible Iron Man #55, and Marvel's heroes have not been rid of him since. He is a warlord from Titan, a moon of Saturn, born into two branches of a superhuman…
- Kraven the HunterKraven the Hunter, born Sergei Nikolaevich Kravinoff, greeted Spider-Man with a borrowed phrase. In The Amazing Spider-Man issue 15, published in August 1964, he called the hero "the most dangerous game." The line comes from a short story…
- GalactusGalactus first appeared in Fantastic Four #48, cover dated March 1966, as a god-like figure who fed on the energy of living planets. His creators, writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, wanted to escape the standard villain. Lee…
- Vecna (Stranger Things)Vecna kills by making his victims relive the worst moments of their lives. He is the main antagonist of the Netflix series Stranger Things, played by Jamie Campbell Bower. The character debuted in the show's fourth season as a malevolent…
- MysterioMysterio is a Marvel Comics supervillain whose greatest weapon was never strength. He first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #13, dated June 1964, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. He became one of Spider-Man's most enduring enemies…
- Tony SopranoTony Soprano, the New Jersey mob boss at the center of the HBO series The Sopranos, was nearly named Tommy. In the pilot, the name honored Tom Powers, the gangster James Cagney played in The Public Enemy. Clearance to call the character…
- ClayfaceDetective Comics #40, cover-dated June 1940, introduced a murderer called Clayface, and the man under the costume was a B-list actor named Basil Karlo. Nobody could have guessed what the name would grow into. Over the following decades it…
- DeadpoolDeadpool, the masked mercenary of Marvel Comics, once ended a storyline by breaking out of his own book and into the real world. There he confronted the writers and artists who were making the comic, and he turned to the reader with a…
- Kang the ConquerorKang the Conqueror, the Marvel Comics supervillain whose birth name is Nathaniel Richards, first appeared in Fantastic Four #19, dated October 1963. In that issue he wore the crown of a pharaoh and went by Rama-Tut. He was a criminal from…
- Kingpin (character)The Kingpin first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #50, cover-dated July 1967, at a moment when Peter Parker had quit being Spider-Man. Stan Lee had a particular idea for the new villain. He wanted a man who ran organized crime the way a…
- Juggernaut (character)Juggernaut, the Marvel Comics villain whose real name is Cain Marko, made his debut in X-Men #12, dated July 1965, without ever showing his face. For most of that issue he was an unseen force tearing through the X-Men's headquarters.…
- Tombstone (character)Tombstone is a Marvel Comics crime boss whose face was built to resemble the grave marker he is named after. Writer Gerry Conway chose the name first. He then gave the character albinism and squared-off features so the finished drawing…