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Villains in animated television series

  • 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.
  • Stormtrooper (Star Wars)In 2019, biologists named a Colombian spider genus after Star Wars stormtroopers.
  • Galactic EmpireThe Galactic Empire was founded with the overwhelming approval of the very body it would soon render powerless. When Supreme Chancellor Palpatine announced the reorganization of the Republic, the senators praised his apparent resolve,…
  • 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…
  • 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…
  • Harley QuinnHarley Quinn, the DC Comics character, first appeared on screen on the 11th of September 1992, in the 22nd episode of Batman: The Animated Series. The episode was called Joker's Favor, and she was supposed to appear in it once and never…
  • 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…
  • KyubeyKyubey offers girls any wish, but leaves out that its race feeds on their emotional energy.
  • 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…
  • 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…
  • 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…
  • Mystique (character)Mystique, the blue-skinned shapeshifter of Marvel Comics, has an earliest recorded appearance in her own stories that dates to the years around 1900. At that time she lived in a male guise as a consulting detective. She formed a romance…
  • 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…

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