Big Bad / Marvel Universe

"Doom is supreme! There is no power on Earth, no intellect in all creation to equal mine!"

Examples of Big Bad in the Marvel Universe.

The following have their own pages:

• Marvel Cinematic Universe

Comic Books

Comic Books

Recurring Big Bads

• Doctor Doom has a big habit of being this, as does Magneto, and the Red Skull, in the wider Marvel Earth. The Kingpin is sometimes this when it comes to more purely criminal scales. They recur so much as local Big Bads in their respective corners of the Marvel Universe, that they eventually joined forces (manipulated by Trickster God Loki, obviously) during the Acts of Vengeance crossover (see below), along with the Mandarin and the Wizard.
• Thanos, the Mad Titan: he alternates as the Big Bad in storylines from the original Captain Marvel, Silver Surfer and the Cosmic corner of the Marvel Universe:
  • He took Eternity's place. Twice. He had Mephisto kowtowing to him, and Mephisto is the Devil. He's Marvel's designated "Big Bad that other Big Bads worry about". The kicker: he does it all for love... of Death.
  • In one storyline, Thanos is in an Enemy Mine situation with Marvel's cosmic heroes to combat an even bigger Big Bad: the Fault. Which means the Big Bad of this event is essentially Life without Death.
• Mephisto himself is nothing to snuff at, either. The nearest equivalent Marvel has to Satan, he has taken the time to torment nearly every hero in the Marvel Universe. Aside from giving Spider-Man fans One More Day (thus proving himself the epitome of evil), he has made efforts to take the souls of pure hearted heroes like Black Panther and the Silver Surfer, messed with the Fantastic Four on several occasions (one of which got him destroyed, leading to a convoluted chain of events that led to him accidently kicking off the process that drove the Scarlet Witch insane), and just generally causes havoc. He's strong enough to at least tussle with the likes of Odin and Galactus, created the demon Blackheart as a son who has proved to be every bit as evil as his dad, turned Johnny Blaze into the Ghost Rider, abducted the mother of Doctor Doom, and helped to create Daimon Hellstorm. There was also The Avengers (Jason Aaron), with his role in working with various alternate selves to create a Multiversal Masters of Evil, as well as creating simulacrums of the Squadron Supreme and orchestrating the Power Elite.
• In the mini-crossover event "Chaos War", former Ares and Hercules baddie Amitsu Mikaboshi upgrades to the Chaos King, nominally the ultimate Marvel villain ever - he scares Eternity, has Death on the run and knocks Galactus on his ass. His beef: He is the darkness from before the universe was created and he wants to go back to that.
• He's more of a Greater-Scope Villain because of his handful of actual appearances, but few forces are as responsible for as much evil as the Elder God Chthon. An ancient demon native to Earth and perhaps the first and oldest sorceror to ever live, Chthon is the creator of the race of demons known as the N'garai and the author of the Darkhold, the first and most powerful book of Black Magic on the Marvel Earth, which he left on the planet as a conduit for his eventual return and which is responsible for the creation of vampires and, by extension, the fall of Atlantis. A piece of his essence is sealed in Mount Wundegore in Eastern Europe, from where the Puppet Master gets his magical clay and where he encountered a young Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch. Chthon placed a piece of his power inside her so that he might one day use her as his host, so the reason she is so powerful, and therefore the reason she became such a threat to the universe, is entirely his fault. Being an Elder God, he carries some of the blame for the existence of Mephisto and the rest of The Legions of Hell as well.
• Galactus had his turn of being this at times, often acting as the Big Bad for the Silver Surfer, the Fantastic Four and the cosmic corner of the Marvel Universe:
  • His first appearance was the FF arc The Coming of Galactus, where he faces the Fantastic Four as they try to stop him from consuming Earth.
• Magneto, the Master of Magnetism: he is primarily a villain from the mutant corner of the Marvel Universe, but dips his feet in the water of other corners.
  • He is the main villain from the original 60's run of X-Men, coming into blows with Xavier's X-Men either alone or leading the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
  • In one early-70s storyline, he fights Namor and the Fantastic Four.
• The Kingpin of Crime: Wilson Fisk's criminal enterprise cross paths with the street-level heroes of New York, namely, Spider-Man, Daredevil and the Punisher.
  • Whenever he crosses paths with Daredevil, he usually employs hired assassins to do his dirty work, such as Bullseye, Elektra and Typhoid Mary.
• Ultron is the ultimate robotic Big Bad in Marvel. These days, when he pops up it's invariably on the final page of the build-up issue, usually after a few horrified whispers of the "Oh no - not him!" - "It can't be!" - variety.
• HYDRA -as an organization- sometimes appears in this capacity for the Marvel Universe at large, but its leaders aren't slouches either:
  • One of its founders is Nazi Baron Strucker, who once upon a time contended with Captain America.
  • Madame Viper (sometimes Madame Hydra) leads the organization in Strucker's absence.

Big Bads for Individual Heroes

• For Black Panther it's either Ulysses Klaw, the man who killed his father, who T'Challa injured the hand of in retaliation, or Erik Killmonger, his evil counterpart who tried to overthrow him in Wakanda.
• In Kid Colt (2009) Sheriff McGreeley is behind almost all of the villainy. McGreeley's brother Joshua murdered Colt's family and Colt avenged them, killing Joshua in self-defence. After that, it was McGreeley, a Dirty Cop and Small-Town Tyrant, who framed Colt for murder and put a price on his head. He sets the plot of the 2009 series in motion by hiring Sherman Wilks and his Bounty Hunters to bring in Kid Colt, with no intention of letting Colt live long enough for a fair trial. All of this was part of a wider rewrite - prior to the 2009 series, Colt's family had been killed by an entirely different group of villains.
• The Mandarin in the Iron Man series is one of Iron Man's most dangerous enemies, with his alien rings allowing him to fight evenly with Iron Man's suits of armor.
• The Punisher has Jigsaw, one of his more persistent adversaries during his crusade against crime.
• If someone is making the Hulk's life hell, it's The Leader, who was exposed to gamma radiation but with enhanced intelligence instead of strength, and often uses his intellect for various evil schemes.
• The Inhumans have Maximus the Mad, who is the evil brother of their king, Black Bolt, and has manipulated conflicts to deal with the royal family.
• Thor had his stepbrother Loki and the fire demon Surtur for the longest time serving as his main enemies, though with the dawn of the cinematic universe, and thus Loki's shift into a more morally ambiguous role as a result, as well as Surtur taking on a more consistently dead role, Malekith the Accursed rose up to compete for the role, which was cemented with storylines such as War of the Realms.
• In the days before Kingpin made wrecking Daredevil's life his hobby, the Owl served this role for him.
• The Big Bad of the Doctor Strange title tends to be Dormammu, a Dimension Lord Eldritch Abomination who is the source of most of the conflict in Dr. Strange's life, either directly or through minions like the treacherous Baron Mordo. If its not him then its likely to be Shuma-Gorath, who killed Strange's mentor the Ancient One and is an even more powerful demon than Dormammu himself, and ruled the Earth twice in the distant past.
• In Runaways Alex's parents, Katherine and Geoffrey Wilder were the leaders of The Pride, and the major antagonists of the first arc, with The Gibborim in back of them. In the second arc, the writers go out of their way to imply that the Big Bad is Alex Back from the Dead; in reality it's a version of Geoffrey brought from 1985 to the present.
• Captain America:
  • The Red Skull almost always plays the role of the Big Bad. Whenever there is an evil plot in the Captain America comic, there is 80% chance that the Red Skull is behind it.
  • And if it's not Red Skull, it's Baron Zemo, either the first, Baron Heinrich Zemo, or his son, Baron Helmut Zemo. The two Zemos have served as major Avengers villains as well due to their roles as the leaders of various incarnations of the Masters of Evil.
• Spider-Man:
  • For about a year during Dark Reign, the biggest bad in Marvel was Norman Osborn, with Baron Strucker being a close second now that HYDRA has been upgraded to a full-on Ancient Conspiracy (ca. 2009-2010). Long before this, Norman was one of Spider-Man's main adversaries as the Green Goblin.
  • Another recurring Big Bad in the "Spider-Man" comics is Doctor Octopus. He was a recurring antagonist during the 60s and 70s, founded the Sinister Six (in 1964) and managed to take over Spider-Man's body for a while (2013) before Peter finally took it back.
  • Venom: he was introduced as Spider-Man's next great villain in 1988 (in "Amazing Spider-Man" #299-300), then returned as antagonist in ASM #315-317, #332-333, #346-347, and #374-375, after which he became a vigilante anti-hero.
    • Venom in his series has various archenemies like Crime Master and Lord Ogre as well as the Third Sin-Eater as well as his psychotic Antagonistic Offspring Carnage. Knull is also this for the venom franchise as a whole being the god of symbiotes (as well as being the original wielder of the Necrosword, which is used by Thor antagonist Gorr the God Butcher). Later Meridius for the 2021 series.
• X-Men:
  • Mystique was introduced way back in the 70s as Ms. Marvel's arch enemy, and was later transplanted into the X-Men corner of the Marvel Universe. After her foster daughter Rogue joins the X-Men, Mystique becomes the latter's arch enemy. In storylines that involve an incarnaton of the Brotherhood of Mutants, she ofter appears as their leader, planning to kill an anti-mutant presidential candidate (e.g., Days of Future Past and Dream's End). Later loses this status to Master Mold and the Sentinels.
  • The X-Men usually have Enemy Mine moments with their main nemesis Magneto (and his followers, the Acolytes and/or Brotherhood of Evil Mutants) when confronting Apocalypse, who as one of the first and oldest mutants, aims to control the world, so he could count, too.
  • Mr. Sinister was the X-Men's Big Bad for a couple of years and quite a credible threat in the mid-to-late 1980s, being the Greater Scope Villain of the Mutant Massacre (1986) and taking on the Big Bad role in Inferno (1989) after main antagonist, Madelyne Pryor, dies. Later, he is demoted to a disciple of Apocalypse.
  • During the "Dark Phoenix Returns" arc, Mystique received horrible dreams about being hunted by Mastermind and Jean Grey (the titular Dark Phoenix), the Phoenix effect appeared in the sky over Tokyo, Wolverine's bride-to-be was hypnotised into saying "no" at the altar, and Emma Frost, White Queen of the Hellfire Club, was put in a coma. This all seemed to be the leadup for Phoenix to return, and culminated in Xavier being left in a coma and Phoenix's apparent resurrection. In reality, it was all a sham, orchestrated by Mastermind, the arc's real Big Bad. Mastermind was also one of the central antagonists of the original Dark Phoenix saga as well, with his membership in the Hellfire Club helping corrupt the Phoenix Force in the first place.
  • The biggest bad of Grant Morrison's much-beloved run on the book, although he personally didn't do much, was John Sublime. He created the Weapon Plus Program (which included the Weapon X Project, making him arguably Wolverine's Big Bad too), wrote the book that inspired the U-Men, gave Cassandra Nova her technology, and the drug Kick, which drove Xorn and Kid Omega insane, is made from his substance. He is partly responsible for the phenomenon of anti-mutant prejudice itself, subtly compelling humanity to be hostile to the emerging sub-species, making him arguably the Big Bad for the entire X-Men franchise.
  • Chris Claremont's X-Treme X-Men, which ran concurrently with Morrison's run, had Original Generation character Elias Bogan, a centuries-old disembodied mutant said to have been the original founder of the Hellfire Club. While he wasn't the main villain in every arc, he was the only villain to appear in more than one and was also the Final Boss.
  • Wolverine:
    • Romulus for most arcs being a prominent member of weapon x.
    • The Founder is the Big Bad of Jason Aaron's run for Wolverine.
    • In X-23 series Dr. Zander Rice is this until his death and later Kimura takes the role.

Crossover Big Bads

• Marvel's Crisis Crossovers typically have a Big Bad:
  • Avengers/Defenders War: It starts as a Big Bad Duumvirate of Loki and Dormammu, manipulating the Defenders to reassemble the Evil Eye, which Dormammu can then use to draw Earth into the Dark Dimension where he is essentially all-powerful. However, when Loki realizes that Dormammu could potentially use the Evil Eye to bring Asgard into the Dark Dimension too, he secretly turns against him and tricks the Avengers into fighting the Defenders in an attempt to thwart his partner's plan, making Dormammu the sole Big Bad for most of the storyline.
  • Secret Wars (1984): The Beyonder is the one who set up the events of the story, and is by far the most powerful being in it, but his morality is of the decidedly blue and orange flavor and he really just wants to learn as much as he can about our universe. Doctor Doom is a more traditional Big Bad, particularly once he steals the Beyonder's power and becomes near-omnipotent.
  • Secret Wars II: The Beyonder is the direct antagonist this time, but he's still really just curious. On a universe-destroying level.
  • Mutant Massacre: The first X-title crossover has Mr. Sinister as its Big Bad, orchestrating the near extermination of The Morlocks. As this was Mr. Sinister's debut and the writers wanted to preserve a sense of mystery about this dangerous new foe, he makes no physical appearance in the storyline and the on-screen villainy is handled by his henchmen the Marauders.
  • The Fall of the Mutants: Rather than a true crossover, The Fall of the Mutants is a "thematic" crossover in which each of the three mutant teams, the X-Men, X-Factor, and the New Mutants, face a major threat and experience dramatic changes. As such, there is a Big Bad for each team. The X-Men face the Adversary, a demon with a history with one of their teammates, Forge, and who threatens to plunge the world into chaos. X-Factor faces Apocalypse, who tries to tempt them into joining his war against humanity and then tries to destroy New York City when they refuse. The New Mutants, meanwhile, end up in a three-way battle against the Ani-Mator and the Right, the former who is creating and abusing Beast Men known as the Ani-Mates and the latter being an organization dedicated to destroying mutants.
  • The Evolutionary War: The High Evolutionary, who initiates multiple plots to preserve humanity's genetic purity and accelerate its evolution, whether it wants it or not.
  • Inferno: Inferno has a heck of a Big Bad Ensemble. S'ym is the one who takes over Magik's hell dimension of Limbo and conceives of the demonic invasion of Earth. He coerces his rival N'astirh into organizing the actual logistics of the invasion, but N'astirh quickly dispenses with his act of subservience and actually has bigger plans to merge Limbo with Earth and is manipulating practically all of the major players to accomplish this. The Goblin Queen, aka Cyclops' estranged wife Madelyne Pryor, has the power necessary to perform N'astirh's ritual, and while she knows the demon is using her for his own ends she's become so full of hate she's still willing to kill her own son and doom the world. When N'astirh's (apparently) killed, she takes over the Big Bad position and still endeavors to go through with the Evil Plan anyways. There's also Mr. Sinister, whose creation and manipulation of Madelyne sent her down the path of madness and who's waiting in the wings for a chance to snatch Jean Grey and an infant Nathan Summers.
  • Atlantis Attacks: The Deviant priest Ghaur and Lyra, the queen of Lemuria, who conspire to summon Set to Earth. Once Set is summoned, he of course takes over as the Big Bad.
  • Acts of Vengeance: The Legion of Doom, manipulated by Loki, who have a rather straightforward goal: eliminate all the heroes. Loki's motives are uniquely personal in this event, as he seeks to undo what he sees as his greatest mistake: inadvertently creating the Avengers.
  • X-Tinction Agenda: Cameron Hodge, who orchestrates the Genoshan plot to kidnap and enslave the New Mutants.
  • The Muir Island Saga: An "X-family crossover," the Big Bad is the Shadow King, who is using Polaris as a link between the physical world and the Astral Plane so that he might absorb "negative energy" through her and become all-powerful.
  • The Infinity Gauntlet: Thanos. He obtains possession of all the Infinity Gems, making him a Reality Warper more powerful than any being in the universe.^note Save for the Living Tribunal. Being an Omnicidal Maniac in love with the anthropomorphic personification of Death, his antics threaten to bring about the end of reality. He's supplanted as Big Bad towards the end of the Crisis Crossover by Nebula, who manages to steal the Infinity Gauntlet when Thanos becomes Eternity and leaves his physical body (with the Gauntlet) behind. Interestingly, she's much less evil than Thanos, but still not trustworthy enough to be allowed to wield ultimate power.
  • Operation: Galactic Storm: The Kree Supreme Intelligence, who orchestrates the entire Kree-Shi'ar War so that a Shi'ar superweapon, the Nega-Bomb, can be detonated in Kree space. Its goal is to use the massive amount of radiation generated by the bomb to jump-start the Kree's stalled evolution, even if it means killing billions of its subjects in order to do so.
  • Rise of the Midnight Sons: Lilith, who seeks to conquer the world through her children the Lilin, is the Big Bad in this crossover of Marvel horror and supernatural heroes.
  • Revenge of the Sinister Six: Doctor Octopus, leading the Sinister Six in an interdimensional crime spree to collect advanced weapons and technology for their own purposes.
  • The Infinity War: The Magus, the anthropomorphic manifestation of Adam Warlock's evil. Having acquired reality-warping Cosmic Containment Crystals from the Crossroads, a nexus between dimensions, his ultimate goal is to merge Reality-616 (the Marvel Universe) with a reality where he rules supreme, as well as reactivate the inert Infinity Gauntlet.
  • X-Cutioner's Song: Stryfe, Cable's clone. Convinced that he's the real Nathan Summers, he travels from the future to destroy Cyclops, Jean Grey, Cable, the X-Men, and Apocalypse, all of whom he blames for the various real or perceived misfortunes he suffered in his life.
  • The Infinity Crusade: The Goddess, the manifestation of Adam's good side. Unfortunately, her idea of eliminating evil from the universe is eliminating all sentient life, as it is capable of both good and evil.
  • Maximum Carnage: Carnage, who puts together a vicious team of killers to go on a city-wide murder spree For the Evulz that takes the collective effort of several heroes to stop.
  • Fatal Attractions: Magneto, who relapses into full-fledged villainy and tries to wipe out humanity.
  • Blood Ties: Starts off with Magneto's renegade ex-Acolyte Fabian Cortez in this role, but he proves more the comic equivalent of a Disc-One Final Boss. Magneto's successor Exodus proves the real Big Bad of the story.
  • Mys-Tech Wars: Mys-Tech, an Evil, Inc. run by a cabal of wizards who orchestrate a demonic invasion of Earth to pay off the terms of their Faustian pact. More generally, Mys-Tech were the the Big Bad (and occasionally more distant Greater Scope Villains) across a dozen or more of the 1990s Marvel UK titles.
  • Siege of Darkness: Zarathos, the spirit that formerly empowered (and would again) Johnny Blaze as Ghost Rider, and Lilith, plotting to take over the world. Zarathos takes over as the sole Big Bad after Lilith is banished.
  • Child's Play: The Gamesmaster, the "judge" for a team of mutants called the Upstarts, who organizes a "game" called the Younghunt in which the Upstarts must hunt and capture the New Mutants and Hellions.
  • Phalanx Covenant: A group of mutant-hating humans who infect themselves with the Transmode virus to become Phalanx, who then try to assimilate all mutants into their Hive Mind.
  • Age of Apocalypse: Apocalypse, who, as a result of time-travel shenanigans gone horribly wrong, is the Social Darwinist ruler of mutant-dominated North America. His antics have turned the world into a hellish dystopia featuring a cold war between his polity and the human-supremacist dictatorship that controls the rest of the world. Worse, he tries to take measures to ensure nobody can hit the Reset Button.
  • The Crossing: It appears to be Kang the Conqueror, who is revealed to have brainwashed Iron Man as his sleeper agent during their first encounter. Left unchecked, Iron Man will destroy the Avengers and usher in a future ruled by Kang. The revelation that a decades-old popular superhero was actually a villain for most of his career and the death of said hero to be replaced by his time-displaced teenage self was not well-received by fans at all. Avengers Forever introduced a major Author's Saving Throw, retconning it so that Tony was only a mole since Operation: Galactic Storm, and that the "Kang" in The Crossing was merely a disguise for the true Big Bad, Immortus (at that time Kang's future self), whose goal it was, at the behest of the Time Keepers, to "distract" the Avengers at a key moment in time to prevent further aggressive space operations that would lead to the establishment of a space-spanning human empire.
  • Onslaught: ... Err, Onslaught, a psychic construct produced when Professor X shut down Magneto's mind in "Fatal Attractions (Marvel Comics)", inadvertently taking Magneto's anger, grief, and thirst for revenge into his consciousness where it mixed with every repressed negative feeling Xavier ever experienced. Onslaught's goal is to gather all human minds into a collective consciousness.
  • Operation: Zero Tolerance: An X-Men crossover, the Big Bad is Bastion, a Sentinel who leverages human animosity in the wake of Onslaught to initiate a campaign to wipe out mutantkind with Prime Sentinels.
  • Heroes Reborn: The Return: The Celestials, who demand the destruction of either Earth's universe or the pocket universe containing Counter-Earth to maintain the cosmic balance. After they agree to let those on Counter-Earth who were originally inhabitants of Earth-616 return, Dr. Doom takes the position of Big Bad when he attempts to steal Franklin Richards' powers.
  • The Hunt for Xavier: Cerebro, Professor X's telepathy-enhancing, mutant-detecting device that has gained sentience and decides that its mission is to fulfill Xavier's dream by imprisoning all humans via digitizing them.
  • The Magneto War: Magneto, who threatens to destroy modern civilization with an electromagnetic pulse unless the United Nations bequeaths a mutant homeland to him and then ups the ante by trying to seize control of Earth's entire magnetosphere.
  • The Twelve: Apocalypse, whose goal is to ascend to godhood through a ritual involving twelve mutants with unique powers.
  • Ages of Apocalypse: A direct sequel to The Twelve, Apocalypse is still the Big Bad, who, having gathered enough power from the aforementioned ritual to alter reality, traps the heroes in a series of reality warps in an attempt to drain more and more power from the Twelve to finish his ascension to divinity.
  • The Nefaria Protocols: A crossover between The Avengers and Thunderbolts, the Big Bad is Count Nefaria, whose scheme is to detonate an ionic bomb that with infuse everyone with ionic energy and allow him to control all life as his puppets.
  • Maximum Security: The Kree Supreme Intelligence (again), who this time manipulates the Intergalactic Council into making Earth and the Solar System a maximum-security prison for the universe's most dangerous alien criminals. Sealed off from the rest of the universe by a force field and too busy dealing with the incredibly dangerous and frequently empowered criminals, Earth's superheroes would either be overwhelmed and destroyed or at least too busy to concerns themselves with universal affairs.
  • Eve of Destruction: Magneto, who, in the wake of the Legacy Virus' cure, begins to assemble a mutant army to conquer the world.
  • Avengers Disassembled: The Scarlet Witch, who, traumatized by the death of her children, snaps and lashes out against the Avengers, killing several of them before being taken down by Dr. Strange. Avengers: The Children's Crusade later reveals that Wanda's insanity stemmed from the Life Force, potent reality-warping energy that she took into herself with the aid of Doctor Doom in the hopes of resurrecting her children. Unfortunately, she lacked the willpower to control the Life Force and became mentally unstable, circumstances which Doom used to turn the Scarlet Witch against the Avengers.
  • Wild Kingdom: A crossover between the X-Men} and Black Panther, the Big Bad is Erich Paine, who uses his scientific expertise to create Beast Men to sell to the highest bidder and that are unleashed upon Africa.
  • House of M: Quicksilver, of all characters, using the aforementioned insane Scarlet Witch to carry out his plan, that of making a perfect world where everyone's dreams came true.
  • Civil War: Nitro could be considered the Big Bad; he was only in the first issue and a few tie-ins, but his actions provided the catalyst for the superhumans to start fighting each other, and he's one of only two significant characters in the story to be unambiguously evil besides (the other being essentially a mindless brute). Because he was only in one issue, though, fans tend to forget him and consider Iron Man the Big Bad instead due to the perceived massive level in jerkass he took in his well-intentioned efforts to clean up the mess Nitro started. A case could be made for Walter Declun, the crooked CEO of a company that cleans up the debris from superhero battles, who gave Nitro the drugs he used to produce the blast that caused the aforementioned "mess," being the true villain, but he only appeared in two tie-in issues, never in the main book.
  • Annihilation: Annihilus, as suggested by the title. His goal is to wipe out all life in the universe, paranoiacally convinced that the the only way to ensure his survival is to kill everything else in existence.
  • World War Hulk: Miek was eventually revealed as the one who set the Hulk against Earth, all to make him a "better warrior."
  • Annihilation: Conquest: Ultron, who has assumed command of the Phalanx to conquer the universe.
  • Messiah CompleX: The birth of the first mutant since the Scarlet Witch's "No more mutants" prompts a whole bunch of Big Bads to come out of the woodwork. Perennial Wolverine foe Lady Deathstrike, leader of the Reavers, allies with the Purifiers to kill the child in the hopes of ensuring mutantkind's extinction. Predator X is hunting the baby to eat her, and former X-Man Bishop, convinced that the girl is responsible for the Bad Future he's from, wants to kill her to avert it. Exodus, leading the Acolytes once more, allies himself with Mr. Sinister in the hopes of claiming the baby and using her to rejuvenate the mutant race. Finally, there's Mystique, also allied with Sinister and now leading his Marauders, who wants to use the child to awaken her surrogate daughter Roguefrom a coma even though Rogue's powers will kill the baby.
  • Secret Invasion (2008): Skrull Empress Veranke, who leads a secret infiltration of Earth's governments, militaries, and superhuman communities with the goal of conquering Earth, which she believes is the Skrulls' by divine mandate.
  • Dark Reign: Norman Osborn, who, as a result of killing Veranke and Tony Stark's utter discrediting as director of S.H.I.E.L.D., is placed in charge of America's national security and superhuman regulation apparatus. As can be expected, he uses his power to try to create his version of an ideal world and pursue personal vendettas, actions that pit him against virtually ever single superhero.
  • War of Kings: Vulcan, emperor of the Shi'ar, who embarks on a campaign to conquer the Universe, a move that pits him against the Inhuman-ruled Kree Empire. It briefly becomes a Big Bad Ensemble when Black Bolt, increasingly driven to more extreme measures by the war, jumps off the slippery slope and tries to detonate a massive Terrigen Bomb that will forcibly transform everyone in the Universe into Inhumans, whether they like it or not, hoping that by doing so he will eliminate all differences and thus all sources of conflict.
  • Messiah War: The sequel to Messiah CompleX, this crossover between Cable and X-Force has Cable's evil clone Stryfe and Bishop as a Big Bad Duumvirate. The two are trying to kill Cable's surrogate daughter Hope, the "Mutant Messiah," Bishop because, as stated previously, he's convinced that she'll be the catalyst for the creation of the Bad Future he came from, and Stryfe because Bishop has promised his assistance in killing Apocalypse in return.
  • Utopia: The Iron Patriot, at the time head of America's security and intelligence establishment, who dislikes the X-Men's establishment of a mutant micronation off the shores of California and the perceived threat it forms toward the U.S. and his power. When Cyclops declares Utopia outside of Osborn's jurisdiction, the latter launches an all-out assault to crush the mutants.
  • Necrosha: Selene Gallio, the Black Queen, who plots to become a goddess through a dark ritual that involves resurrecting the thousands of deceased mutants of Genosha as her loyal undead.
  • Fall of the Hulks: The Leader and M.O.D.O.K., leaders of the Intelligencia, who have an elaborate plan to take over the world and reforge it into a better one, a plan that involves eliminating everyone that can pose a threat to them and draining the intelligence of the world's eight smartest people for their own ends.
  • Siege: While the Iron Patriot serves as The Heavy for most of the crossover, the real Big Bad is Loki, who is pulling the strings as part of a scheme to force Asgard off Earth and back to its proper place as the Ninth Realm. Unfortunately, the Sentry, whose mental health, never great, has been in a precipitous decline, ends up completely snapping during the battle and becomes the Void. He supplants Loki as the Big Bad by virtue of being an Omnicidal Maniac who threatens to destroy the Universe, starting with Asgard.
  • Realm of Kings: Less of a crossover and more a bridge between Marvel Cosmic's previous crossover (War of Kings) and next one (The Thanos Imperative), Realm of Kings doesn't really have a distinct Big Bad, as each spinoff features its own storyline exploring the Universe's new status quo. The closest thing there is to this are the Many-Angled Ones, cosmic entities that rule over an alternate universe where death has been eliminated and all of reality has been consumed by life and who intend to conquer Reality-616.
  • Second Coming, the conclusion to X-Men's Mutant Messiah Myth Arc: Bastion, who uses the Transmode virus to resurrect many of the X-Men's most genocidal human foes and attempts to snuff out both Hope Summers, the woman believed to be the key to restoring the endangered mutant species, and Utopia, where most surviving mutants are esconced. Sadly, the Myth Arc as a whole demonstrates the risks of doing a storyline this massive with this many villains, as their appearances ended with nearly all of them being killed off or otherwise removed from the board in a seemingly-permanent way, which left the X-Men without any A-List villains for about a year, something that may have contributed to the weakness of the Matt Fraction run.
  • The Thanos Imperative: The Many-Angled Ones. They took over Reality-10011 by tempting that universe's dying Captain Marvel into becoming Lord Mar-Vell and destroying Death. This allowed the Many-Angled Ones to manifest in and rule over what became known as the Cancerverse. In the wake of the War of Kings, they exploit the Fault, a tear in reality, to invade Reality-616 and spread their undeath to the entire Multiverse.
  • World War Hulks: The immediate follow-up to Fall of the Hulks, the Leader and M.O.D.O.K. are still the Big Bads, finally starting their plan to conquer the world, beginning with the overthrow of the U.S. government. When they are dealt with, the Red Hulk briefly becomes the Big Bad by seizing control of the United States himself.
  • Curse of the Mutants: Xarus, son of Dracula, who, having killed his father to usurp his position as Lord of the Vampires, mass produces mystic medallions to protect vampires from sunlight and tries to turn the X-Men into the vanguards of his vampire army as the first steps in his plan of world domination.
  • Shadowland: The Beast of the Hand, the demon served by the Hand, who is slowly possessing Daredevil as his attempt to lead the Hand and turn it into a force for good goes terribly awry.
  • Chaos War: The Chaos King, the embodiment of primordial nonexistence, who wages war on all of reality to return it to nothingness.
  • Age of X: Legion. More specifically, a new alter named X born to protect the other alters when Dr. Nemesis and Professor X attempted to cure Legion of his dissociative identity disorder. Possessing reality-altering powers, X creates an alternate universe where the X-Men are trapped in a seemingly unending Last Stand against a United States bent on wiping out mutantkind all so Legion can be the hero he always wanted to be.
  • Fear Itself: Cul Borson, aka the Serpent, Norse god of fear (no, he doesn't exist in actual Norse Mythology). Claiming to be the rightful king of Asgard, he seeks to claim "his" throne, plunging the world into fear and destruction in the process.
  • Schism: Kade Kilgore, the new twelve-year-old Black King of the Hellfire Club, who stokes anti-mutant hysteria to sell Sentinels and unleashes a particularly deadly one to destroy Utopia.
  • Spider-Island: The Spider Queen, who is turning almost everyone in New York City into Spider People that her mind control can work on. If she has her way, the world is next.
  • Avengers vs. X-Men: This starts as a Good Versus Good event, so it's difficult to pin down a Big Bad. A case can be made for the Phoenix Force being the Big Bad at the beginning. It's coming to Earth, and the X-Men believe it wants Hope as it's host and that together the two can fully restore the mutant species. The Avengers, on the other hand, don't want the Phoenix Force anywhere near Earth given how dangerous and uncontrollable it has proved in the past and because it has already wiped out multiple alien civilizations simply because it couldn't be bothered to go around their planets. Then the Avengers accidentally fragment the Phoenix Force into five in an attempt to kill it, with a fragment ending up in Cyclops, the White Queen, Colossus, Magik, and the Sub-Mariner respectively. The Phoenix Five start off using their powers to reshape the world into more peaceful, just, and prosperous place, but the power of the Phoenix Force proves too much for their mortal minds and they begin resorting to more totalitarian and brutal means to create a better world, ultimately becoming a Big Bad Pentarchy. After the other four are taken out by Avengers, X-Men, and betrayal within their own ranks, Cyclops ends up as the host of the full Phoenix Force and becomes Dark Phoenix and the sole Big Bad. Completely beyond rationality at this point, his out-of-control power threatens to destroy the world.
  • Age of Ultron: A Big Bad Ensemble of Ultron and Morgan le Fay. Ultron takes over the world in mere minutes at the very beginning of the event by seizing control of every computerized device on the planet. Its so bad that time travel is seen as the only way to stop him. Unfortunately, Wolverine's time-travel solution is to kill Hank Pym, Ultron's well-meaning creator. This creates a world almost as bad as the one ruled over by Ultron, as without Hank a series of Disaster Dominoes fell that resulted in the sorceress Morgan le Fay rallying the forces of magic and myth against the forces of science and rationality, a war Morgan is winning.
  • X-Termination: The Exterminators, beings created by the Celestials as agents of death and destruction that would serve as foils to the forces of creation. The Exterminators proved too uncontrollable, however, forcing the Celestials to seal them within the "walls" between reality. The time-travel shenanigans of Age of Ultron and subsequent cross-universal travel damaged these walls, unleashing the Exterminators on the Multiverse.
  • Infinity: Due to following two different storylines simultaneously, it naturally has a Big Bad Ensemble — the main Avengers team has to deal with the invasion of the Universe by the Builders (whose ultimate goal is to destroy Earth as it is the only possible impact point for an incursion, a "collision" between two universes that results in the destruction of at least one of the universes), while the heroes left behind on Earth have to deal with an attack by Thanos and his Black Order, who are hunting down Thanos' son Thane.
  • Battle of the Atom: Xorn, leader of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants from the future. Their goal is the force the time-displaced original X-Men to return to the past, allegedly to avert a Bad Future. In actuality, Xorn's real identity is an older version of the time-displaced Jean Grey, who's been so broken by the pain and suffering she's gone through that she wants reset her life.
  • Vendetta: Stryfe, who still hates Cable as much as he always did and now blames Bishop for his capture by Apocalypse after the former X-Man cut-and-run in Messiah War. He seeks to get revenge on both by convincing Cable's surrogate daughter Hope to kill a repentant Bishop, which would be a betrayal of everything Cable has taught her.
  • The Trial of Jean Grey: Gladiator, emperor of the Shi'ar, who orchestrates Marvel Girl's kidnapping and trial to preemptively punish her for the crimes committed by Dark Phoenix.
  • Revolutionary War: A crossover featuring Marvel UK's heroes, the Big Bad appears to be a resurgent Mys-Tech. The actual villain is Mephisto, who manipulates former hero Killpower, driven mad by years trapped in a hell dimension, to launch a demonic invasion of Earth. It's all a gambit on Mephisto's part to terminate his contracts with the still defunct Mys-Tech and reclaim the power he has invested in abandoned bases and weapons.
  • Original Sin: An obscure villain named Dr. Midas, who hires another villain called the Orb to break into the Watcher's citadel with him to steal one his all-seeing eyes, and then, after the the Watcher is killed, steal the remaining power in his corpse.
  • Death of Wolverine: Abraham Cornelius, one of the Weapon X scientists who bonded adamantium to Wolverine's bones. Despite Weapon X being defunct (at the time), he wants to recreate the success the project had with Wolverine and needs the latter's Healing Factor to do it. Ironically, he has no idea that Wolverine's healing factor has been burnt out.
  • AXIS: The Big Bad of the first act is Red Onslaught, a fusion of the Red Skull and Charles Xavier. He unleashes an army of Sentinels designed to hunt superheroes around the world. When Doctor Doom and the Scarlet Witch attempt to excise Xavier's consciousness from Red Onslaught they accidentally create an Inversion spell that reverses the morality of several heroes and villains. After Red Onslaught is dealt with, an inverted Genesis, the teenaged clone of Apocalypse, takes over as the Big Bad. He becomes leader of the now evil X-Men and designs a Gene-Bomb to kill all non-mutants on Earth.
  • Spider-Verse: Solus, patriarch of the Inheritors. He leads his family on a multiversal hunt of Spider-Totems, with the ultimate aim of sacrificing a special totem called the Scion that will prevent the "birth" of new totems forever.
  • Time Runs Out: The Beyonders, quite possibly the most powerful Cosmic Entities in the Marvel Multiverse.^note Barring the One-Above-All/Above-All-Others, creator of the Omniverse (i.e., everything), and possibly the Living Tribunal, who had to be killed by several Beyonders. They are trying to destroy the Multiverse apparently on a whim.^note Though Defenders: Beyond later revealed they were actually trying to create a "firebreak" against a mysterious, even more apocalyptic threat known only as the Dominion
  • The Black Vortex: Mister Knife, Star-Lord's father and leader of the Slaughter Lords. He wants to use the titular artifact, capable of unlocking a being's cosmic potential, to conquer the galaxy.
  • Secret Wars (2015): The above-mentioned Beyonders, who are trying to destroy the Multiverse just because they can^note Though, again, Defenders: Beyond later revealed they were actually trying to create a "firebreak" against a mysterious, even more apocalyptic threat known only as the Dominion. However, they are rather quickly dealt with in the first issue, and Doctor Doom supplants them after killing them and stealing their power, fusing the remnants of various realities (all that is left in the wake of Beyonders' omnicidal campaign) into Battleworld, which he rules over as God-Emperor.
  • Avengers Standoff: Baron Helmut Zemo, leading a group of supervillains to get revenge on S.H.I.E.L.D. for brainwashing them into believing they were normal, peaceful citizens of Pleasant Hill, and to get their hands on Kobik, the sentient Cosmic Cube responsible for the brainwashing.
  • Spider-Women: Earth-65's Cindy Moon, leader of S.I.L.K., a criminal organization responsible for a multiversal crime spree.
  • Apocalypse Wars: A thematic crossover centering around Apocalypse, each storyline has its own Big Bad. The cast of Extraordinary X-Men end up in a Bad Future where Apocalypse has subjected Earth to his destructive Great Trials and its remnants, known as Omega World, are ruled over by him. The Big Bad of Uncanny X-Men's arc is Apocalype's son Genocide, whose plan is to force Archangel into becoming Apocalypse's heir and lead an army of his clones to purge the world. In All-New X-Men (which sees the time-displaced Beast and Genesis, Apocalypse's clone, travel back in time to Ancient Egypt) the Big Bad is Baal, leader of a tribe known as the Sandstormers. He's trying to reclaim his runaway adopted son, a young En Sabah Nur, the future Apocalypse.
  • Civil War II: As another Good Versus Good event, pinning down a Big Bad is hard. The crux of the issue is an young Inhuman named Ulysses with the gift of Precognition. Captain Marvel wants to use Ulysses' powers to avert disasters and crimes from ever taking place, while Iron Man finds arresting and punishing people before they've committed a wrong morally repugnant. He also has severe doubts about whether Ulysses' visions are 100% accurate (Iron Man suspects he sees a possible future, one that's extremely likely, rather than the future). As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Iron Man is right, for a number of reasons: trying to prevent Ulysses' visions from coming to pass can actually cause the events seen in them, knowing what happens in the future doesn't stop fallible human beings from misinterpreting what they see, arresting people before they commit a crime (or even thought of it) leads to gross civil-rights violations, and Ulysses ultimately has a vision that is simply incorrect. While she's never evil, what Captain Marvel is doing is clearly depicted as the wrong thing and her dogged refusal to accept the evidence that undermines her position smacks of I've Come Too Far.
  • Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy: The Jackal, who's actually Spider-Man's long-thought dead clone Ben Reilly. He takes Spider-Man's Everyone Lives motivation to an insane degree by resurrecting everyone Spider-Man failed to save, including many deceased members of his Rogues Gallery. While his intentions are good, Spider-Man is disgusted by the Jackal's irresponsible playing with life and death, pointing out that while the clones are people, they're not actually the originals Back from the Dead. Worse, the Jackal's cloning threatens to turn the Carrion virus into a pandemic.
  • Inhumans vs. X-Men: Yet another Good Versus Good conflict, this time between the Inhumans and mutants, and entirely lacking a Big Bad until the very end. The conflict centers around the Terrigen Mists, which are responsible for Inhumans developing their powers. It has been released into Earth's atmosphere and is on the verge of permanently permeating it. This is a problem, as the Mists are fatal to mutants. The Terrigen Mists, however, are sacred to Inhumans, integral to their society, and attempts to neutralize it have been met with violence (they are unaware for most of the story that the Mists are on the verge of permanently fusing with the atmosphere). When confronted with the fact that the Mists will lead to the extinction of mutantkind, Medusa destroys them. The X-Men cease their war against the Inhumans, at which point the White Queen, having suffered from severe Sanity Slippage ever since Cyclops' death from the Terrigen poisoning, unleashes Sentinels reprogrammed to hunt Inhumans in an attempt to exterminate their entire race.
  • Grounded: A thematic Guardians of the Galaxy crossover that follows the Guardians of the Galaxy struggling to adjust to being stranded on Earth. The Big Bad of Star-Lord's series is the Black Cat, owner of the Bar With No Name Peter Quill's working at and whose amoral ways ultimately end up pitting Star-Lord against her. For Rocket Raccoon's mini-series, the Big Bad is perennial Spider-Man foe Kraven the Hunter, who leads the Alien Kill Krew on a hunt for stranded aliens. In the main title, each member of the team aside from Star-Lord and Rocket have an issue in which they are the focus and have their own Big Bad. For the Thing, it's Whiplash, who feels cheated out of his revenge on Iron Man when the latter falls into a coma and attempts to raid the ruins of Stark Tower whilst the Thing is there. For Groot's issue, the Big Bad is the Armadillo, a C-list villain going on a rampage. Gamora's story doesn't have a Big Bad, as while she's trying to hunt down Thanos he doesn't actually appear and the main antagonist is Captain Marvel, who's trying to put a stop to Gamora's Roaring Rampage of Revenge. For Angela, the Big Bad is Maxilin the Accuser, a Bounty Hunter the Guardians had recently tangled with. The conclusion to the crossover brings the whole team back together for a face-off with Thanos, the Queen of the Brood, Annihilus, and Y-Gaar (leader of the Brotherhood of the Badoon), all of whom are determined to definitively remove the thorn from their collective sides: Earth.
  • Monsters Unleashed: The Leviathon Mother, the matriarch of the Leviothons, a horde of extremely powerful alien monsters who sweep through the Universe annihilating all life on planets so that might make them their nesting grounds (and Earth is their latest target).
  • Secret Empire: Captain America, whose memories and personality have been altered by the Red Skull and his sentient Cosmic Cube Kobik into believing he has been a HYDRA sleeper agent all this time. After several issues of meticulous plotting, Secret Empire sees him execute his plan to take over the United States and refashion in into a fascist state.
  • 'Til Death Do Us Part: A crossover between Deadpool, Deadpool & the Mercs for Money, and Spider-Man/Deadpool, the Big Bad is Deadpool's own wife Shiklah, who leads a war on New York City after one her subjects is killed and no justice is rendered by human authorities.
  • Weapons of Mutant Destruction: A crossover between Weapon X and Totally Awesome Hulk, the Big Bad is William Stryker, who's reactivated the Weapon X project to create mutant-hunting super-soldiers.
  • Worlds Collide: The High Evolutionary, who's executing an insane plan to force Earth and his creation Counter-Earth to merge, something that would essentially destroy both worlds. He sees this as starting over from scratch to allow for greater evolutionary processes.
  • Mojo Worldwide: Mojo, who wants to recreate Earth as a Mojoworld. As is usually the case, the X-Men are made the unwilling "stars" of the new deadly reality TV show he creates to gain power through viewership, forcing them to relive momentous events of their past.
  • Venom Inc.: A crossover between Venom and The Amazing Spider-Man, the Big Bad is Lee Price, a former host of the Venom symbiote who acquires another symbiote to become Maniac. His plan is to take over the criminal underworld by forcibly bonding Maggia leaders to fragments of his symbiote and thus control them.
  • Poison-X: A crossover between Venom and X-Men: Blue that features a Big Bad Ensemble. For the first part of the story, the Big Bad is Killer Thrill, sadistic leader of a bounty-hunting crew that captures Cyclops' father Corsair and his Starjammers. Then the Poisons, an alien species from another universe, show up. They seek to conquer The Multiverse, and their means of doing so is by assembling a superhuman army through the possession symbiotes and their hosts, a process that usually kills the host and renders the symbiote mindless. Unfortunately, both Killer Thrill's crew and the X-Men were playing hosts to symbiotes at the time...
  • Damnation: Mephisto, who becomes ruler of Las Vegas when Doctor Strange magically resurrects the city and its lost inhabitants (destroyed during Secret Empire). Unfortunately, doing this creates a tear in the fabric of reality, allowing Mephisto to manifest his power and realm on Earth. As more people succumb to temptation while in Las Vegas and forfeit their souls to him, his power grows.
  • Infinity Wars: Requiem, who is really Gamora, and Devondra. Devondra is an eater of souls who threatens all life in the Soul Gem and ultimately the universe, while Requiem plots to feed said life to Devondra so she can shape the new reality Devondra will weave upon being satiated. It's a mix of Big Bad Duumvirate and Big Bad Ensemble, as while Requiem is using Devondra to accomplish her aim of creating a world without suffering she is no under illusion that she can control the entity, whose destruction of reality she views as inevitable.
  • Age of X-Man: X-Man, who uses the Life Seed to create another reality where everyone is a mutant and there is no division or discrimination. While his intentions are noble, he kidnaps the X-Men and relocates them to this world against their will, altering their memories in the process. In addition, while X-Man's society isn't a bad one, and is in many ways an improvement over Earth-616's, it's not perfect; any sort of relationship, romantic, sexual, or familial, is forbidden, a ban enforced with authoritarian tactics.
  • Spider-Geddon: The Inheritors, lacking a clear leader after their father Solus' body was destroyed in Spider-Verse, jointly share the reins of the Big Bad. In addition to resuming their hunt for spider-totems, they have the additional goals of turning Earth-616 into their new personal domain and restoring their cloning technology. Once they succeed in recreating their father's body, Solus naturally resumes his position of the Big Bad.
  • War of the Realms: Malekith the Accursed, king of the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim, is the Big Bad. Born in the crucible of his people's constant warring, he became obsessed with starting the greatest war of all. He allies with the Angels of Heven, the Frost Giants of Jotunheim, the Fire Demons of Muspelheim, the Rock Trolls, and the Roxxon Energy Corporation to bring about a war of all ten realms, with the final realm to be subjected to the bloodshed being Earth, which he leads a full-scale invasion of.
  • Absolute Carnage: As the title suggests, Carnage is once again the Big Bad - but this time he becomes this for the whole Marvel universe in this storyline: after being resurrected by a cult, he seeks to free Greater-Scope Villain Knull, the Big Bad from Donny Cates' Venom, from his planetary prison Klyntar - plotting to do this via killing any person who is or has been bonded to the Venom symbiote or its descendants and collecting their codices.
  • Annihilation: Scourge: The Big Bad is the Sentry, who now consists solely of his Superpowered Evil Side the Void after the Sentry's attempt to separate himself from the Void goes horribly right by splitting off his human alter ego Bob Reynolds. He leads the Scourge, an invasion force from the Cancerverse trying to conquer the antimatter Negative Zone, and from there the rest of Reality-616, as well as reclaim Nova, the one being to be cured of a Cancerverse infection.
  • Empyre: Quoi, the Celestial Messiah, a once-heroic figure who, influenced by his hate-filled father, the Cotati version of the Swordsman, and disillusioned after a bad experience with a group of humans, leads the Cotati in a crusade to wipe out all animal life in the Universe. R'klll, a former Skrull empress and Hulkling's grandmother, is also revealed to be a Big Bad. She manipulated events to unify the Kree and Skrulls into a single empire and place Hulkling on the throne, and then she secretly imprisons and replaces him in order to destroy the Cotati and the Solar System, a move she believes will cement Hulkling's position as emperor.
  • King in Black: Knull, the titular King in Black and god of the void and symbiotes, leading an army of said symbiotes to wipe out existence and restore the black emptiness that was before the universe.
  • X of Swords: The demon Annihilation, possessing Apocalypse's wife Genesis, leader of the lost mutant land of Arakko. Through her, he's waging a war of conquest of Otherworld, which, to make things worse, also hosts the nexus of the Omniverse, i.e., everything.
  • Heroes Reborn: Phil Coulson appears to be the Big Bad, having used the Pandemonium Cube to change reality into one where the Squadron Supreme of America are the world's greatest heroes, the Avengers don't exist, he's the President of the United States, and everyone worships Mephisto. However, he's only a pawn to Mephisto, who uses these events to demonstrate his powers and form the Council of Red, a group of Mephistos from across the multiverse.
  • The Last Annihilation: Dormammu, who possesses a willing Ego the Living Planet to manifest in "normal" reality and form a galaxy-spanning pentagram to drag said reality into his Dark Dimension. It also turns out that Doctor Doom and the renegade Skrull Sister Talionis are also Big Bads, having manipulated Ego into serving Dormammu and getting the whole ball rolling in order, for Doom, to steal a significant chunk of Dormammu's magic and, for Talionis, to become queen of the Chitauri.
  • Devil's Reign: The Kingpin, who uses his authority as mayor of New York to outlaw superheroes and his control over the Purple Man to sway the minds of the populace.
  • Judgment Day: A Big Bad Ensemble between Druig, Uranos, and the Progenitor. Druig, the new Prime Eternal, plans to kill all mutants, who he perceives as excess deviation, in order to preserve his credibility as the Prime Eternal. Uranos is released by Druig in his efforts to wipe out the mutants, decimating Arakko, in the process trying to manipulate Druig into freeing him once more. After Druig frees him before his defeat, he plans to continue his genocidal campaign on Earth. Lastly, the Progenitor, revived by Iron Man, Mister Sinister, and the rouge Eternals in order to stop the war, becomes disgusted with the people of Earth, and decides to judge all of Earth to determine whether they deserve to live. After both Druig and Uranos are defeated, the Progenitor, judging humanity as a failure, becomes the sole Big Bad as it sets out to destroy the Earth.
  • Dark Web: A Big Bad Duumvirate of Marvel Girl's clone the Goblin Queen and Spider-Man's clone Ben Reilly, aka Chasm, both of whom suffer existential angst over their nature and have grievances, somewhat justified in the former's case and unjustified in the latter's, against their genetic templates. The two agree to help each other achieve their respective goals (Chasm's being to steal Spidey's memories, Madelyne's to retrieve a copy of Jean Grey's memories of her son Nathan). The Goblin Queen lends her demonic army of Limbo to Chasm to invade New York City and capture Spider-Man, while Chasm provides a distraction for and assistance (in the form of his girlfriend Janine Godbe, aka Hallow's Eve) in infiltrating the X-Men's headquarters, something Madelyne cannot do herself due to an agreement to not harm Krakoa. When Marvel Girl willingly shares her memories, Madelyne tries to end the invasion, prompting an incensed Chasm to steal her position as ruler of Limbo and unleash its full fury on the city, becoming the crossover's sole Big Bad.
  • Avengers Assemble: A Big Bad Ensemble of Mephisto and Doom Supreme, an extremely powerful, extremely evil alternate-universe variant of Doctor Doom. The former is executing the final stage of his (years long in the making in the real world) Evil Plan to shatter the God Quarry and unleash the remnant of the First Firmament to wipe out The Multiverse, having become sick of existence, including and especially his own. Doom Supreme, on the other hand, aims to collect a small fraction of the First Firmament to rewrite reality in his image.
  • Sins of Sinister: Mr. Sinister seems to be the sole Big Bad at the start, having introduced his DNA (and thus his personality) into Krakoa's leadership, the Quiet Council; then all of Krakoa's mutants; and then most of Earth's inhabitants, all for the purpose of accumulating as much knowledge as possible to further his quest to become a godlike superintelligence known as a Dominion. Unfortunately for him, the Sinisterized Quiet Council supplants him as Big Bad, as having his personality mixed with theirs made them equally power hungry but not necessarily dedicated to his goals, and they instead set out on a genocidal, imperalist conquest of the stars and force him to heel. There's also other major threats with their own agenda making their own moves: two other Essex clones, Mother Righteous and Orbis Stellaris, the latter of whom is allied with Destiny and Mystique. The two Essex clones are also seeking to become Dominions, while Destiny and Mystique are working with Orbis because Destiny foresaw that it was in this timeline that Mystique lives longest. Orbis, Destiny, and Mystique also steal Sinister's Moira Engine, which he uses to save scum and escape undesirable outcomes. The universe spirals into a hellish nightmare world, and a thousand years later, the mutant empire has split into feuding polities led by former Quiet Council members. In this climactic era of the event, the final Big Bads are an ensemble of Professor X, Emma Frost, Mother Righteous, and Mr. Sinister (who escaped his servitude to the Quiet Council).
  • Carnage Reigns: Cletus Kasady (or more specifically his codex copy), currently possessing Iron Man's Extrembiote and on a murder spree to ensure he is remembered, not just as a part of Carnage.
• Blaze of Glory has Clay Riley, former OG!Ghost Rider villain The Tarantula, who attempts to run out the residents of the town of Wonderment, Montana.
• In both Journey into Mystery and Loki: Agent of Asgard, the main villain turns out to be Loki, God of Mischief and Lies. The twist is that Loki is also the hero in both stories.
• The original 1992 series of The Awesome Slapstick had the Overlord of Dimension X serve as a Starter Villain in the first issue, with the rest of the series having Slapstick fight one-shot villains. The 2016 series, however, has the Princess of Dimension Ecch as the main antagonist, who uses technology supplied by the Scientist Supreme to render everyone in Dimension Ecch devoid of genitalia and pin the blame on Slapstick.

Alternate Universe Big Bads

• The Marvel 2099 line in the '90s had the Alchemax Corporation as the overarching villain, which had taken over the planet in the dystopian future. Its CEO Avatarr was eventually revealed as the literal God of Corrupt Corporate Executives.After his death it's just Tyler Stone.
• The Ultimate Marvel universe (2000-2015) started with Magneto as its big bad. He was finally killed in Ultimatum. Gregory Stark was The Man Behind the Man during the Avengers and New Ultimates runs, and they finally settled with The Maker from then on.

Films

Films

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• Blade Trilogy
  • Blade (1998): Deacon Frost, an upstart vampire who wants to resurrect the Blood God so bloodsuckers can rule the Earth.
  • Blade II: Jared Nomak, the leader of a mutated strain of vampires who intends to usurp the main breed.
  • Blade: Trinity: Drake, who plans to eliminate Blade and lead the vampires in finalizing their dominance over humanity.
• Captain America (1979): Lou Brackett, who kidnaps Steve's scientist friend and forces him to build a bomb in order to destroy the city of Phoenix.
  • Captain America II: Death Too Soon: Miguel, a notorious terrorist who ransoms Portland under the threat of killing the population with a serum that causes Rapid Aging.
• Captain America (1990): Red Skull, whose attempt to launch a missile at Washington leads to Steve getting frozen, and come Cap's return decades later, plots to brainwash the President.
• Daredevil (2003): The Kingpin, who controls all of the crime in Hell's Kitchen and sends Bullseye to kill Daredevil.
• The Fantastic Four: Doctor Doom, Reed Richard's Evil Former Friend who's bent on killing him after an experiment of his nearly killed him; assembling a laser that he threatens to use to destroy New York City.
• Fantastic Four (2005): Like in the previous film, Doctor Doom is the main villain; a billionaire who was caught in the same cosmic storm as the Fantastic Four and plans to use his new powers to achieve godhood.
  • Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer: The sequel has a Big Bad Ensemble between a returning Doctor Doom, now seeking to obtain the power of the Silver Surfer's board for himself, and Galactus, an ancient planet consuming cosmic entity who threatens to destroy Earth.
• Fantastic Four (2015): Victor von Doom is the villain yet again; this time wanting to destroy the world under the belief that humanity's a threat to Planet Zero.
• Ghost Rider: Blackheart, the son of Mephisto who seeks to obtain the contract of San Venganza and gain the power of a thousand evil souls.
  • Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance: Mephisto, the Greater-Scope Villain of the first film and the duology's overall Big Bad, who seeks out his biological child, Danny to use as a vessel in order to gain full access to his power and bring about The Antichrist.
• Hulk: David Banner, being responsible for destroying Bruce's life and creating the Hulk by experimenting on himself and his son out of an obsession with advancing humanity beyond its limits. He intends to drain Bruce's powers use them to get his revenge on the military.
• Marvel Animation
  • Ultimate Avengers: Herr Kleiser, a Chitauri general bent on world domination who attempts to destroy Washington D.C., and then Wakanda in the sequel.
  • The Invincible Iron Man: The Mandarin, a long-dead Chinese emperor who tasks the Elementals with resurrecting him so he may bring about the end of the world.
  • Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme: Dormammu, who aims to free himself from Nexus and destroy Earth.
  • Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow: Ultron, who killed most of the world's superheroes and conquered half the planet; with Iron Man raising the Next Avengers to defeat him.
  • Hulk Vs.: Loki, who abducts the Hulk and uses him to conquer Asgard in Hulk vs. Thor, and Professor Thorton, the head of Weapon X who kidnaps Wolverine and Hulk in an attempt to kill them in Hulk vs. Wolverine.
  • Planet Hulk: The Red King, the evil ruler of Sakaar who comes into conflict with Hulk.
  • Thor: Tales of Asgard: Algrim, who wishes to use the Sword of Sultur to destroy Asgard as revenge for Odin allowing the destruction of the Dark Elves.
  • Iron Man: Rise of Technovore: Ezekiel Stane, who plans to use his technology to destroy humanity and recreate the world in his own image.
  • Iron Man & Hulk: Heroes United: Zzzax, a powerful electrical being created by Hydra.
  • Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher: Orion, one of the heads of Leviathan, who transforms innocents into mindless super soldiers to sell to the highest bidder.
  • Iron Man & Captain America: Heroes United: Red Skull, who plots to brainwash millions of people with a super soldier serum to aid him in taking over the world.
  • Hulk: Where Monsters Dwell: Nightmare, a dream demon who aims to escape to the waking world and plunge Earth into a never-ending nightmare.
  • Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors: Hala, a Kree Accuser who has Exile capture young Inhumans to be used as weapons for the Kree Empire.
• The Punisher (1989): Lady Tanaka, the Dragon Lady Yakuza boss trying to take over New York's crime scene.
• The Punisher (2004): Howard Saint, a mob boss who Frank wages war with after he has his family killed.
• Punisher: War Zone: Billy Russoti/Jigsaw, a mob boss who sets out to kill Frank Castle as revenge for disfiguring him.
• Spider-Man
  • Spider-Man Trilogy:
    • Spider-Man: The Green Goblin, who goes insane after exposing himself to an experimental gas, with his Green Goblin persona going on a rampage throughout the city.
    • Spider-Man 2: Doctor Octopus, who is driven to recreate the experiment that fused him to his robotic tentacles, regardless of the danger it puts New York in.
    • Spider-Man 3: The Venom symbiote, whose influence over Peter leads him to take a level in jerkass and come dangerously close to Jumping Off the Slippery Slope, before bonding to Eddie Brock in order to kill Spider-Man as revenge for rejecting it.
  • The Amazing Spider-Man Series
    • The Amazing Spider-Man: The Lizard, whose transformation and subsequent plan to make all the city into creatures like him inspires Spider-Man to become a true hero.
    • The Amazing Spider-Man 2: The Green Goblin, with Electro as The Dragon, as his attempt to cure his condition leads him into resenting Spider-Man for refusing to help him and killing Gwen.
  • Sony's Spider-Man Universe
    • Venom (2018): Dr. Carlton Drake, the Life Foundation CEO who funded the discovery of the symbiotes and is using them for inhumane experiments, and Riot, who later teams-up with Drake to bring more of his kind to Earth in order to conquer it.
    • Venom: Let There Be Carnage: Carnage, alongside his host, Cletus Kasady, who want to kill Venom so they can spread chaos to their hearts' content unopposed by another symbiote.
    • Morbius: Milo Morbius, who has embraced his newfound status as a vampire after taking Michael's experimental cure, and becomes a bloodthirsty villain.
  • Spider-Man: Spider-Verse
    • Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: Wilson Fisk / Kingpin. He has Alchemax create a Super-Collider that can connect with other dimensions so he can find a universe where his wife and son are still alive. His actions run the risk of destroying of New York, end up stranding the other Spider-People into Miles' home-dimension, and is directly responsible for the deaths of his universe's Peter Parker and Aaron Davis.
    • Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: Initially considered a D-lister, The Spot hones his abilities to become a multiversal threat and his intent to make Miles suffer for his condition drives the plot of the film's first half. Even when Miguel takes over as the Hero Antagonist in the second half, The Spot's impending return to Miles' universe and murder of Jefferson Morales still makes him the overall threat, and Miles is more focused on returning home to stop him.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • X-Men: Magneto, who intends on sacrificing Rogue to power a machine capable of turning normal humans into mutants, but is unaware that the artificial mutations are unstable and will kill the affected.
  • X2: X-Men United: William Stryker, who intends to use a machine called Dark Cerebro to rid the world of mutants, although Magneto hijacks the role after he's killed and attempts to use the machine to kill all humans instead.
  • X-Men: The Last Stand: Magneto, again. This time, he builds an army and prepares to attack Alcatraz island, where a cure for mutations is being developed. His efforts lead him to recruit the unstable Phoenix, who goes on a rampage during the film's climax.
  • X-Men Origins: Wolverine: William Stryker, who Wolverine sets out to kill after making him undergo the horrific Weapon X procedure.
  • X-Men: First Class: Sebastian Shaw, the leader of the Hellfire Club who intends to start World War III by stirring the conflict between the US and the USSR, which leads to the X-Men joining together to put an end to his plan.
  • The Wolverine: Ichiro Yashida, who's responsible for bringing Logan to Japan as apart of an Evil Plan to steal his Healing Factor.
  • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Mystique and Bolivar Trask compete for the title of main villain; it's Trask's Sentinels that lead to the Bad Future, but it's Mystique killing him and being captured for experimentation that leads to the Sentinels getting approved by the government, making her the one whose Evil Plan needs to be stopped. That is, until Magneto hijacks both their plans.
  • Deadpool (2016): Ajax, the one responsible for Wade Wilson's scarring and insanity, and hunts Wade down for destroying his facilities and reneging on their deal.
  • X-Men: Apocalypse: Apocalypse is the main threat, given the film's Antagonist Title; assembling four mutants to act as his horsemen to aid him in conquering the world.
  • Logan: Dr. Zander Rice. He's the scientist responsible for the mass suppression of the Mutant gene and the one ordering Pierce to capture Laura.
  • Deadpool 2: The headmaster whose abusive treatment of mutant orphans is what set Russell Collins on the path to his Start of Darkness.
  • Dark Phoenix: Vuk, the leader of an Alien Invasion that seeks to seize control of the Phoenix Force and use it to wipe humanity off the face of the Earth.
  • The New Mutants: Cecelia Reyes, who keep the New Mutants captive to evaluate for the Essex Corporation's program where they'll be weaponized.

Live-Action TV

Live-Action TV

• Blade: The Series: Marcus Van Sciver is portrayed as the main villain of the series.
• The Gifted (2017):
  • Season 1: Dr. Roderick Campbell takes over as this for the first Season as soon as Jace goes to him for help, providing him with the means to continue the hunt for the Mutant Underground after being taken off the case and even going so far as to giving a Department of Justice officer a stroke to proceed with the operation.
  • Season 2: Reeva Payge for the second season, being the leader of the Hellfire Club with plans to annihilate both humans and opposing mutants.
• Helstrom: Kthara, the demon possessing Victoria, is the most active antagonist and master of the demons the Helstrom siblings face. The siblings’ father, Marduk, is The Ghost and Greater-Scope Villain outside of flashbacks and the Sequel Hook, with his past actions having a huge impact on the backstories of a large majority of the cast. Not the least of which is that he's also the father of Kthara.
• Legion (2017): The Shadow King was the primary antagonist of the first two seasons, although he ends up a Disc-One Final Boss in the Season 2 finale, with David Haller easing into the role of Villain Protagonist for the latter half of the episode.
• Spider-Man (Japan): The main villain of the series is Professor Monster, who has laser-beam eyes but tends to sit around commanding things.

Video Games

Video Games

• The Amazing Spider-Man: Alistaire Smythe, creator of the Spider-Slayers and the new head of scientific research at Oscorp after Curtis Connors was imprisoned.
  • The Amazing Spider-Man 2: A Big Bad Ensemble between Kingpin and Carnage, with the main plot revolving around taking down Kingpin and finding Cletus Kasady.
• Captain America and the Avengers: The Red Skull, who assembles various supervillains in a plot to takeover the world.
• Deadpool (2013): Mister Sinister, who plots to take over the world with his clone army.
• Guardians of the Galaxy (2021): Magus, the personification of Adam Warlock's dark thoughts and the one behind the Universal Church of Truth. Grand Unifier Raker is the public leader of the Universal Church of Truth, who sought to bring his son back to life. Having been lied to by Magus, he planned to feed "Faith Energy" to the Matriarch, who was Nikki being possessed by Magus, to complete the Fulfillment, which he falsely believed would bring back the dead for the Church's followers. Magus then planned to use the harnessed energy to consume the universe, before taking over Adam Warlock's body in order to destroy the universe when that failed.
• Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series: Hala the Accuser, who seeks the Eternity Forge in order to revive the Kree, who had been eradicated by Thanos, so they can reestablish their galactic empire.
• Hulk: Leader, who assembles several other villains to aid him in creating an army of gamma mutants to takeover the world.
• The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction: Emil Blonsky and Devil Hulk make up the game's Big Bad Ensemble; with Devil Hulk spending the game trying to take control of Hulk and destroy the world, while Blonsky is the main obstacle for most of it due to his pursuit of Bruce Banner. After Devil Hulk's defeated, the focus of the game is stopping Blonsky, who has surrendered himself to the Abomination.
• LEGO Marvel Super Heroes: A Big Bad Triumvirate of Loki, Magneto and Doctor Doom. However, Loki is the one behind the other villains teaming up and has the most plot significance out of all of them, due to Loki seeking to control Galactus and destroy Earth and Asgard.
  • LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2: Kang the Conqueror, who abducts various locations across time and space to create Chronopolis and find worthy opponents to challenge him.
• Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects: Niles Van Roekel, the alien creator of the Imperfects leading the invasion on Earth.
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance series:
  • Marvel Ultimate Alliance: Doctor Doom, leader of the Masters of Evil, who plans to steal the Odinforce from Odin.
  • Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: The Tinkerer, mastermind behind the Fold.
  • Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order: Thanos and the Black Order, seeking the Infinity Stones. However, Thanos' son Thane, who acquires the Infinity Armor, serves as the Final Boss.
• Marvel vs. Capcom and predecessors:
  • X-Men: Children of the Atom has Magneto in a very loose adaptation of the Fatal Attractions (Marvel Comics) comic book arc.
  • Marvel Super Heroes has Thanos in a very loose adaptation of The Infinity Gauntlet comic book arc.
  • X-Men vs. Street Fighter has Apocalypse randomly kidnapping X-Men and Street Fighters for some reason.
  • Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter has Apocalypse doing it again, with his enhanced enforcer Cyber-Akuma serving as a Dragon Their Feet.
  • Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes has Onslaught in a loose adaptation of the Onslaught comic book arc.
  • Marvel vs. Capcom 2 has the mysterious entity Abyss, an Original Generation.
  • Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Ultimate has the Big Bad Duumvirate between Albert Wesker and Dr. Doom, which unwitingly brings in Galactus for a Final Boss fight.
  • Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite has Ultron-Sigma, the merged form of Marvel's Ultron and Capcom's Sigma in a bid to Take Over the World and eliminate all organic life.
• Marvel's Avengers: Monica Rappaccini. Five years ago, hoping to steal Terrigen Crystals, Monica hires Taskmaster to attack San Francisco, inadvertently causing A-Day and leading to the mass empowering of many Inhumans. In the present, Monica acts as second-in-command of A.I.M. to George Tarleton. In her position, Monica kidnaps and tortures Inhumans in order to replicate their powers through Adaptoids, as well as subjecting Tarleton to a regenerative serum derived from Captain America. When Tarleton, now calling himself M.O.D.O.K., finds out about Captain America, he kills Monica, and serves as the Final Boss. After M.O.D.O.K.'s defeat, Monica, who survived through a clone body, takes over A.I.M. as the new Scientist Supreme and continues her experiments.
• Spider-Man (2000): Doctor Octopus, who breaks out several supervillains that Spidey must deal with and unleashes numerous symbiotes across New York to bond with and advance humanity.
  • Spider-Man 2 – Enter: Electro: The titular Electro, who seeks out a device that can harness and amplify human bio-electricity in order to enhance his electrical powers and become godlike.
• Spider-Man (Insomniac):
  • Spider-Man (PS4): Doctor Octopus, the Evil Mentor of Spider-Man, who teams up with Mister Negative to form the Sinister Six and releases the Devil's Breath onto New York in an attempt to expose Norman Osborn's crimes.
  • The City That Never Sleeps DLC has Hammerhead try and take control of New York's criminal underworld after the absence of supervillains creates a power vacuum.
  • Spider-Man: Miles Morales: A Big Bad Ensemble between the Tinkerer/Phin Mason, Miles Morales' friend, the leader of the Underground whose vendetta against Roxxon threatens to destroy Harlem, and Roxxon President Simon Krieger, who distributes the deadly Nuform and plans on rebuilding Harlem in his own image. While Krieger is definitely the more evil of the two, he's a Non-Action Big Bad and so the Tinkerer serves as The Heavy and the Final Boss.
  • Marvel's Spider-Man 2: For the first half of the game, Kraven the Hunter is the main villain, as he captures several of Spider-Man's previous villains with the intent of hunting them, a threat that forces Spider-Man to use the Venom symbiote to stop him. However, Kraven is defeated just before the start of the third act, and killed by Venom, allowing the latter to take the stage as the main villain and Final Boss.
• Spider-Man: Friend or Foe: Mysterio, who brainwashes various villains to bring him shards of the Venom symbiote to strengthen his army of P.H.A.N.T.O.M.s for him to takeover the world.
• Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions: Mysterio, who travels across dimensions to gather the fragments of the Tablet of Order and Chaos to become the most powerful being in existence and remake the multiverse in his own image.
  • Spider-Man: Edge of Time: The Alchemax CEO/Peter Parker 2099, who plans to gain the power to control time and change history.
• Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin: The Kingpin himself, who frames Spider-Man for stealing a nuclear bomb, which he intends to use to destroy New York City in a bid to take over the world.
• Spider-Man: Web of Shadows: Venom, who leads a symbiote army in taking over New York.
• Ultimate Spider-Man (2005): Bolivar Trask, being the one who tricks Peter's father into selling the Venom suit over to his company, hires Silver Sable to hunt down Venom to be used as a bioweapon against his competitors. Venom takes over the position in the final level, going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and killing Trask.
• X-Men (1992): Magneto, the leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants, who are reaking havoc.
• X-Men (1993): Magneto, being responsible for infecting the main computer of the X-Men's Danger Room with a virus that traps them and makes the simulated danger lethal.
  • X-Men 2: Clone Wars: The Phalanx, a race of parasitic aliens bent on world domination.
• X-Men: Destiny: Bastion, an AI who creates hostilities between humans and mutants in a bid to destroy humanity.
• X-Men Legends:
  • The first game features a Big Bad Ensemble between Magneto and General William Kincaid, with Kincaid gradually becoming the central threat and the Final Boss.
  • Rise of Apocalypse has Apocalypse, who the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants team-up to stop from conquering the world.
• X-Men: Next Dimension: Bastion, who attempts to depower all mutants so he may kill them all.

Western Animation

Western Animation

• Avengers Assemble:
  • Season 1 had the Red Skull, who assembles the Cabal to take down the Avengers and attempts to use the Tesseract the conquer the entire world.
  • Season 2 primarily had Thanos as the main villain. His search for the Infinity Stones causes them to crash land on Earth, and nearly uses the Infinty Gauntlet to take over the universe. After he's taken out midway through the season, Ultron and Nighthawk take turns as consecutive Arc Villains until Thanos returns for the season finale.
  • "Ultron Revolution" (Season 3) had Ultron take center stage as the main villain. His plans to wipe out humanity results in the massive influx of Inhumans seen throughout the season. He later disguises himself as Truman Marsh and attempts to have the Avengers round up the new Inhumans so he can weaponize them against humanity.
  • "Secret Wars" (Season 4) had Loki during the first half, having reformed the Cabal to get rid of the original Avengers and conquer the world in their absence. During the second half, the Beyonder takes his place as the main antagonist. He assembled Battleworld to satisfy his own curiosity, and the Avengers are forced to ally with Loki to return everything to normal. Sure enough, Loki betrays his new allies once he's taken care of.
  • "Black Panther's Quest" (Season 5) had Killmonger, who reformed the Shadow Council to overthrow T'Challa and use Wakanda's vast resources to conquer the rest of the world. His actions lead to increased tensions between Black Panther and the rest of the Avengers, and nearly lead to Atlantis declaring war on the surface world.
• The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes:
  • Loki was the ultimate Big Bad of the first season. He was the one responsible for causing the massive breakout of supervillains across the various prisons and had the Enchantress form the Masters of Evil to keep Thor busy back on Earth. His ultimate goal was to conquer the Nine Realms using the Odinforce and nearly succeeded had it not been for the Avengers.
  • Queen Veranke, the leader of the Skrulls, was the main villain for the first half of Season 2. She leads her people in a secret invasion of Earth, and has her troops replace various key figures using their race's shapeshifting abilities. She personally disguises herself as Mockingbird, and one of her spies causes the Avengers to split up right before her invasion goes public. Galactus is the Greater-Scope Villain who caused the destruction of Skrullos, leading to the Skrulls' invasion of Earth. He comes to Earth in the finale as the Final Boss.
• Iron Man: The Animated Series: The Mandarin is the main antagonist of the series. In Season 1, he launches various schemes with his henchmen that are stopped by Iron Man and Force Works. In Season 2, he spends the majority of it retrieving his scattered rings, and is the main antagonist of the Grand Finale.
• Iron Man: Armored Adventures
  • Obadiah Stane serves as a central threat in the first season and the first part of the second season. He wants to turn Stark Industries into a weapons manufacturer and weaponize the Iron Man armor, having taken over the company following the presumed death of Howard Stark. Doing everything in his power to ensure Tony cannot take the company back when he is old enough for his birthright to demand it, he eventually hires the Ghost to steal designs from Tony, kicking off the show's version of "Armor Wars", and eventually becoming Iron Monger. Being the father of Tony's love interest Whitney, who later becomes Madame Masque, also complicates things between them.
  • In the second season, Justin Hammer steps up to the plate as a rival corporate executive vying for control over Tony's technology, eventually becoming Titanium Man, dethroning Stane by causing him to fall into a coma, and buying out Stark Industries outright.
  • Gene Khan is the antagonist of the Makluan Rings arc that runs throughout the show's two seasons, outlasting Stane and Hammer. He was searching for the Makluan rings, initially only seeking five but later learning there were ten, because he believed it was his destiny, and it was revealed that he was the one that caused the plane crash that lead to Howard being presumed dead and Tony nearly dying (requiring the Iron Man suit to save him). He usurps his manipulative stepfather Zheng Tong as the Mandarin and poses as Tony's friend, using his help to take several of the rings. In reality, Howard Stark was not dead, and Gene took him prisoner to use Howard’s expertise on the rings so he could get them. When he finally gets all ten rings, he brings the Makluan species to Earth in the finale, only for the Makluan Overlord to betray him and become the show's Final Boss, leading Gene to pull a Heel–Face Turn and become an ally of Tony.
• The Marvel Super Heroes had some of the heroes' archenemies serve as the most frequently appearing or most prominent villain in the heroes' respective segments.
  • The Red Skull is established as the main threat in Captain America. While phased out after the series adapts Captain America ending up in modern times following his time as a Human Popsicle, the Red Skull does eventually come back in the final episodes, the very last segment being an adaptation of when he obtained the Cosmic Cube.
  • The Mandarin is the most frequently recurring antagonist in the Iron Man segments, each of his appearances having him try to kill Iron Man or his secret identity as Tony Stark.
  • Loki is the main villain in The Mighty Thor, most of his appearances having him scheme to find a way to defeat Thor in spite of Odin forbidding him from returning to Earth.
• Spider-Man: The Animated Series: Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin acts as the main antagonist. He's the head of a vast criminal empire and The Man Behind the Man to many of the villains in the series, including all the incarnations of the Insidious Six and the Spider-Slayers.
• Spider-Man Unlimited has Herbert Edgar Wyndham/The High Evolutionary, the dictator of Counter Earth, a tyrant who keeps humans oppressed under the heel of his creations, the Bestials.
• The Spectacular Spider-Man: Lonnie Thompson Lincoln/Tombstone serves as the primary antagonist. Unlike his comic counterpart, Tombstone is a ruthless crime lord who nearly all of Spider-Man's rogues gallery answers to. He spends the series sending various super humans to kill Spider-Man so his criminal empire remains unopposed. However, come the Grand Finale, Green Goblin deposes Tombstone and becomes the show's Final Boss.
• Ultimate Spider-Man (2012)
  • In season 1, Norman Osborn schemes to acquire the secrets of Spider-Man's powers, intending to make super soldiers with them (and leading to the creation of Venom). However, Doctor Octopus betrays him for his mistreatment and turns him into the Goblin at the end of the season.
  • In season 2, Doctor Octopus continues to menace Spider-Man by assembling the first two incarnations of the Sinister Six, before transforming the cured Norman Osborn back into the Goblin once more.
  • In season 3, Taskmaster races against Spider-Man to recruit potential assets for a plot to spring Goblin from SHIELD prison. This is followed by Goblin going through the Spider-Verse to encounter all the different versions of Spider-Man.
  • In season 4, Doctor Octopus forms a Big Bad Duumvirate with HYDRA, as lead by Arnim Zola, and combats Spider-Man's allies with the Sinister Six once more.
• The Super Hero Squad Show:
  • Doctor Doom is the Big Bad in the first season, forming the Lethal Legion to help him recover the Infinity Fractals and reform the Infinity Sword, which was shattered during a fight between him and Iron Man prior to the series. The season finale would later see Galactus come to Earth, eclipsing the Lethal Legion as a much more powerful threat.
  • Thanos is the Big Bad in Season 2, tracking down the Infinity Gems so he can use the Infinity Gauntlet to take over the universe. Halfway through the season, Thanos is supplanted by the Silver Surfer, who has become corrupted by the Infinity Sword, and uses both the Sword and the Gauntlet to wreak havoc across the universe as the Dark Surfer.
• X-Men: The Animated Series has Apocalypse in a more series-wide capacity, since Magneto's Heel–Face Revolving Door was played up. Mister Sinister clearly holds this status in Season 2, though.
• In X-Men: Evolution, Magneto is the Big Bad for the first two seasons, and Apocalypse takes the role in the last two.
• And in Wolverine and the X-Men (2009), Master Mold is the Big Bad of the Bad Future Xavier is stuck in, while Magneto and Senator Robert Kelly largely takes the role among several long-term villains though the Inner Circle also has a pretty good claim on driving a lot of the plot. The Sequel Hook set up Apocalypse as the Big Bad for an aborted second season.

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