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The story features two or more Big Bads, each of whom has their own distinct agenda and resources. The result can be Evil Versus Evil, Eviler than Thou, Enemy Mine, Villain Team Up or Big Bad Duumvirate, but it may be the case that none of the villains have anything to do with each other. Played straight, each Big Bad should be of a comparable threat level to prevent one from overshadowing the other.
Having multiple main villains can bring new dimensions to the story and make it more complex and less predictable. It can force The Hero to face a range of different challenges, for example if one villain seeks to Take Over the World while another is a more personal enemy from his past, though it's possible for both to have identical goals without making the story any less interesting.
The success or failures of one Big Bad can affect the fortunes of another as they may have to consider each other in their plans, or might try to profit from another's defeat. The hero might defeat one villain before fighting another, or might regard one as more dangerous or important than the others. The Sorting Algorithm of Evil may be either avoided- if all the Big Bads are equally powerful and dangerous - or inverted, if some are more powerful and/or more dangerous than others.
Remember this must be simultaneous - if a new Big Bad arises only after another is defeated, then this does not count. See also Rogues Gallery, which is similar but usually forces established villains to act as Monster of the Week. When there are so many Big Bads involved that one needs a score card to keep them straight, this is The Big Bad Shuffle. See also Gambit Pileup; something that usually result from this trope when these big bads plot against each other for power in the same way they plot against the good guys, which can also sometimes result in a Mêlée à Trois between the heroes and the two big bads.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Bleach. Yhwach was introduced as the Arc Villain for the Thousand Year Blood War Arc but Sosuke Aizen is steadily making his way back into the storyline as being somehow involved in the unfolding events and clearly not yet out of the picture.
- Bakura does this a lot in Yu-Gi-Oh! with Pegasus, Marik and Dark Marik, respectively.
- Digimon Adventure features one of these in the Dark Masters, a quartet of Mega-level Digimon who serve as the Big Bads of final ten episodes. MetalSeadramon, Puppetmon, Machinedramon, and Piedmon each have their own armies and territories and only appear together once, when they're first introduced. Otherwise they appear to function as four separate Big Bads whose mutual goals seem to include ruling over the Digital World and killing the DigiDestined who are trying to stop them. Otherwise they don't lift a finger to help one another while the children clobber their way up their hierarchy, and in case of Piedmon, he actually seems to enjoy watching the other three get obliterated one-by-one.
- In Naruto, Orochimaru serves as the Big Bad for Part 1, but Akatsuki takes over after Orochimaru gets saddled with Diminishing Villain Threat. Halfway through the second series is where Danzo throws his hat into the mix. The Kyuubi also finds its way into the lineup, specifically following an Enemy Within storyline for Naruto himself. Becomes The Big Bad Shuffle later on when Oro and Akatsuki are defeated and replaced by Kabuto and Tobi, respecitvely, who form an unstable Big Bad Duumvirate. And then there is Sasuke, the wild card (though he is nominally a pawn of Tobi). The shuffle continues into the final parts of the manga, as Orochimaru is revived and puts Kabuto out of commission, the Kyuubi (or rather, Kurama) turns face, Tobi (or rather, Obito) forms yet another duumvirate with his resurrected ancestor and Predecessor Villain Madara, and the two of them succeed in summoning the Ten-Tailed Beast. Danzo ended up being killed off early into the final arc.
- In One Piece, most villains tend to survive their arcs and maintain possibility of returning.
- The Four Emperors are the most powerful pirates of the world, ruling the second half of Grand Line. The most antagonistic, as well as the ones with the highest resumes, are Marshall D. Teach (or Blackbeard) (who caused the Whitebeard War in its entirety), Kaido "of the Beasts" (who has Doflamingo under his wing) and Charlotte "Big Mom" Linlin (whom Kid and Luffy have personally challenged).
- Several of the Eleven Supernovas could easily turn up as antagonists in the future, but the biggest ones are Eustass Kid (the most savage one by far) and Trafalgar Law (who's made it clear that he will go after Luffy eventually).
- The Five Elder Stars, or Gorosei, are five elders that control the World Government, so they're solely responsible for all the reprehensible policies that the World Government operates with. However, they're more of a Bigger Bad, since Fleet Admiral Sakazuki serves as The Heavy from the Marine side.
- Allied with Marines are the Seven Warlords of the Sea. While their ranks have dwindled and some are on friendly terms with Luffy and his crew, Bartholomew Kuma, Donquixote Doflamingo and Dracule Mihawk are bound to be dealt with at some point. Doflamingo has actually been confirmed for the mastermind behind the Punk Hazard, but he's actually operating under Kaido.
- On the front of former Big Bads not affiliated with anybody yet, there are Sir Crocodile, who decided to head for the New World when he heard of Luffy's return and Buggy the Clown, another rival of Luffy for crown of the Pirate King, who's been gathering an army of loyal followers and also has been contacted by the WG for joining the Seven Warlords of the Sea.
- Whenever there's an Arc Villain in Soul Eater, like Arachne, Shaula or Noah (The Tables of Contents), Medusa and Asura are not too far behind, similar to Bakura from above.
- Subverted in Gundam SEED. The series appears to be shaping up to a battle between Muruta Azrael of Blue Cosmos and Chairman Patrick Zala of ZAFT, but the real Big Bad Rau Le Creuset is manipulating both of them in an attempt to bring about The End of the World as We Know It
- Gundam Seed Destiny: Most of the series is defined by a brawl between ZAFT Chairman Gilbert Durandal and Blue Cosmos leader Lord Djibril over control of the world. Interestingly, Durandal is much more competent than Djibril, a fact that is made clear from the start. However, despite his Stupid Evil status, Djibril's resources, combined with the fact that he's essentially pure evil and is a strong believer in There Is No Kill Like Overkill (complete with a Wave Motion Gun and a penchant towards nuclear warfare), means that both of them absolutely have to be defeated in order for the story to end well.
- The One Shadow Nine Fists in History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi, consisting of several Evil Mentor martial artists, many of which verge into Anti-Villain on a handful of occasions, barring Silcardo Jenazad and the mysterious Bigger Bad of the group, Miu's father, Saiga Furinji
- Kimba the White Lion did this with Viper Snakely and Claw.
- Transformers Cybertron did this in a way. Megatron was the obvious one, but Starscream later became a Big Bad in his own right after an attempt to backstab narrowly failed. Then there's Sideways and Soundwave, who seem to be avenging their homeworld. The comic adds in Unicron, Back from the Dead and going all Omnicidal Maniac once again.
- D.Gray-man: While the Millennium Earl has been the main villain since day one and is still the most prominent threat, recent chapters have The Fourteenth and Apocryphos challenging the Earl for the position of Biggest Bad (literally, in the Fourteenth's case). Also, due to the Black and Gray Morality of the series, one could also arguably stick Black Order leader Lveille on the list as well.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL has Dr. Faker and Tron, who are opposed to both the protagonists and each other. It remains to be seen which will prove Eviler than Thou.
- A Certain Magical Index and its spinoff A Certain Scientific Railgun have a lot of evil people who oppose each other or don't even know about each other, with complex plans that intersect and are hard to keep track of.
- In the Getter Robo manga (but not the anime), the Hundred Demon Empire shows up before the Dinosaur Empire is defeated, leading them to clash both with the heroes and each other. The Dinosaur Empire is the underdog in this fight, to the point where the Getter Team swear to avenge the dinosaurs' leader after the demons give him a humiliating death.
Comicbooks
- Almost every superhero worth his salt has their own Rogues Gallery, so this is played several times. However, most comic villains can only be counted as Big Bads within their own stories. The best examples of Big Bad Ensemble are when dealing with crossovers and prolonged story arcs, which can feature multiple villains and can last several months or even up to a year. Some examples from the DC Universe include:
- No Man's Land involves Gotham City being abandoned by the US and falling prey to the crazed villains of Gotham, who take over various parts and rule each as their on fiefdoms. The story climaxes with Luthor and the Joker initiating their own unrelated schemes simultaneously and Batman and co. having to stop them, a takeover under the guise of Villain with Good Publicity and a plot to murder new-born infants to break Gotham's spirit, respectively.
- 52, Chang Tzu, Lex Luthor, Lady Styx, Neron and evil Skeets, courtesy of Mister Mind are all the Big Bad to a variety of heroes starring in a number of inter-connected stories.
- Krona and an undead Swamp Thing, which believes itself to be Nekron, are the two biggest threats in Brightest Day, but Max Lord, Eclipso, Black Manta and Siren, the Queen of Hawkworld, D'kay Drazz, and Firestorm (who is actually serving the Anti-Monitor, are all causing all kinds of trouble.
- The New Krypton arc in the Superman comics has Generals Zod and Lane opposing each other in Evil Versus Evil, though Lex Luthor and Brainiac have their own agendas as well.
- And from the Marvel Universe, we have gotten:
- Dark Reign is about Norman Osborn accumulating substantial political and military power after he is placed in charge of all superhuman matters in the United States. During this he forms The Cabal with Doctor Doom, Emma Frost, Namor, Loki and the Hood, while organizing and running a range of super-teams made up of anti-heroes and lower tiered supervillains. This was a year-long crossover arc that affected several titles, so many heroes in their own stories had to deal both the Monster of the Week and their own story arcs while also having to worry about Osborn or his minions.
- The Messiah Myth Arc in X-Men, which covers a multitude of story arcs from Messiah Complex up to Second Coming over a number of years, has the X-Men dealing with anti-mutant activists eventually united under Bastion, traitor X-Man Bishop and Stryfe, Selene and her vampiric underling, and appearances by Apocalypse and Sinister amongst others, as well as the possibility that the child they are protecting will grow up to be a mutant Antichrist. All of these villains have their own agendas, most revolving around the girl, many of which impact on each other and affect the strength level of the X-Men. Some of this takes also place during Dark Reign, which means Osborn and co. factor in too, notably during the Utopia X story.
- In the Sonic the Hedgehog comics, Dr. Robotnik/Eggman has always been the Arch-Enemy of the heroes and premier Big Bad of the series. However, over the years, more and more villains of equal or greater threat have shown up to rival the doctor — Ixis Naugus, Mammoth Mogul, Enerjak, Dr. Finitevus, Scourge, the Iron Queen, and most recently, the Battle Kukku — so you can't call him the sole Big Bad anymore. This has been most apparent in the issues leading up to and following the Genesis arc, wherein Naugus has currently become the villain most equal to Eggman for the position.
- Simon Furman's run on IDW's Transformers Ongoing comics set up a large number of potential villians from the Rogues Gallery. Nemesis Prime and the Dead Universe, The Machination, Shockwave, Doubledealer, The Decepticons, the Deathbringer and his Reapers, Galvatron, and Ramjet all step up to the plate as the bad guys in the numerous plotlines Furman's run had. By the end of his run all of them except the Decepticons and Galvatron have been taken care of however.
- In Sonic The Comic quite a few villains try to take the role of Big Bad from Robotnik, first to try is Emperor Metallix then Commander Brutus, after that Super Sonic.
- In the IDW Godzilla comic series, we have Space-Godzilla, Monster X, Gigan and Hedorah.
Fan Fiction
- In the Jackie Chan Adventures fic Queen Of All Oni, there's Jade, who is the main Big Bad of the story, and Tarakudo, who she intends to replace.
- Don Dynamo and the Black Saltier King in Super Milestone Wars: Year One
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- Princess Jody, the Black Saltier King and Don Dynamo in Super Milestone Wars: Birthday Fic.
- Dr. Beeswax and Princess Jody in Supetastic 6: Year Four
- The entire concept of The Hellbound Hearts, a Disney fanfic where essentially all the former Big Bads come back for revenge, but they all have their own agendas, so it's hard to figure out which one of them will be the Biggest Bad.
- In the Digimon story Zero 2: A Revision, after the Emperor arc is over, it dissolves into this: UmbraDevimon and Demon both have their own plans to conquer both worlds; the Gravemon (an Expy of the Flood) want to absorb everything in both worlds; Piedmon briefly goes off on his own; Darkheart — Davis's Superpowered Evil Side — is created to serve as an agent of UmbraDevimon but eventually splits (more successfully than Piedmon) and starts tormenting the Digidestined for shits and giggles; Dragomon waits in the wings; and Myotismon is pulling strings from the shadows.
- The Legend of Spyro: A New Dawn has three Big Bads at the start, Deadlock seeking revenge on Spyro and Cynder for the death of her family (which wasn't their fault), Empress Tyrania seeking to conquer the Dragon Realms using Deadlock's plans to provide herself the openning to do so, and Boss Kaze who seeks to ransom Pyrus off for the highest amount of money he can. Kaze is only a direct Big Bad for Pyrus' storyline, however. In the end, it's revealed Deadlock's Dragon General Grendel is actually the Man Behind the Man and was manipulating all the others for his own plan of resurrecting an ancient civilization destroying Eldritch Abomination to take revenge on the Dragons for banishing the Naga to the Unknown Realms.
- In Nareto The Scret Of Shiobi, the role of Big Bad is shared between Danzo, Madara, Darkeye, and Apollo Justice. Wait, what?
- In Golden Dawn Lost Sunrise, the role of main villain is shared by Bonetail, a rogue who is building an army to destroy the Clans, and The Watcher, a mysterious villain from the prologue with mysterious intentions.
- The Dark World arc of the Pony POV Series initially has only Discord as sole Big Bad, not counting an attempt by the Valeyard. However, the Valeyard's Final Speech and a few other things hint at the presence of a second force manipulating events in its favor. It eventually turns out to be the Nameless Passenger, the entity who's been manipulating Twilight and her friends from the start. She's revealed to be Nightmare Eclipse/Paradox, an alternate version of Dark World Twilight who was consumed by her hatred of Discord and trapped Dark World in a Groundhog Day Loop to punish Discord forever. This latter being ends up proving Eviler than Thou and acts as Final Boss following Discord's death.
- Fallout Equestria has four main villains, Red Eye, the Goddess, the Enclave, and the Steel Rangers, who all overlap each other and are all at odds. As the trope suggests they serve different purposes. Red Eye is a Not So Different Evil Counterpart who forces Little Pip to confront what she really stands for. The Goddess is a Eldritch Abomination and Tragic Monster, exposing the evils war created. The Enclave serves as example of why no one tried to stop the war and why the wasteland is still a Crapsack World, being the ultimate example of the Bystander Syndrome and Dying Like Animals (the Delusional and Apathetic kind). The Steel Rangers are also an example of Dying Like Animals (the Self Destructive kind), and forcing the main characters into the question of What Measure Is a Mook? (as one of their own is a Mook Face Turn). In addition to this it has numerous Arc Villains unconnected with those four.
Film
- Batman Returns is a chess duel between the Penguin, Catwoman, and original character Max Shreck. The Penguin is clearly the main villain and certainly the main threat as his plans increasingly escalate to mass murder and eventually destroying Gotham City itself, but the other two are formidable problems and all three engage in double-dealing, backstabbing and triple-crossing.
- Lovers Lane features three distinct killers; Doctor Jack Grefe, his daughter Chloe, and sexual sadist Ray Hennessey. All three of them use hooks though.
- On Stranger Tides, the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film, has a three-way one between Blackbeard, Barbossa, and the Spaniard. All three want to get to the Fountain of Youth, albeit for different reasons, and all oppose each other- with Jack Sparrow caught in the middle.
- In Satan's Playground we get the psychotic Leeds family, a group of Satanists, and The Jersey Devil.
- In the second Ginger Snaps film, we are introduced to a werewolf who is simply The Heavy of the story, but the Big Bad who comes out on top is Ghost.
- The comedy-horror Psycho Sleepover has a mass breakout at a mental institution, so the main characters have deal with dozens of different psychos.
- Without Warning has the alien hunter, and a psychotic Shell-Shocked Veteran.
- The Hobbit has three Big Bads. The dragon Smaug serves as the overarching Big Bad for the entire trilogy and the ultimate obstacle for the protagonists attempting to retake Erebor, while Azog serves as a more "direct threat" villain, spending most of the first film hounding the heroes. And then there's the "Necromancer", who is revealed to be Sauron. Pre-Face Heel Turn Saruman and the Witch-King of Angmar also make an appearance.
- Layer Cake features a Serbian drug trafficker, Eddie Temple, and Jimmy Price. All three are leaders of prominent criminal organizations, with various motivations for inciting the plot. Eddie Temple is the most benevolent one, and X comes to work for him.
- Star Trek Into Darkness: Khan and Admiral Marcus. The former wants to revive his crew of superhumans and take over the Earth, while the latter plans to sacrifice the Enterprise so he can start a war with the Klingons.
Literature
- In Let The Right One In and it's film adaptions, there is Conny/Kenny, the main characters bully. There is also Lacke who tries to kill the main vampiric character. In the American adaption, Lacke is replaced by an unnamed police officer who is a Designated villain at best. There is also Jimmy, who is the Final Boss and Conny/Kenny's Big Brother Bully, and he takes the role of the Big Bad by storm.
- In Codex Alera there are numerous Big Bads active throughout the series, mostly independent of one another if prone to making and breaking alliances at whim- High Lord Aquitaine, Invidia Aquitaine, High Lord Kalarus, Sarl and the Vord Queen are the biggies, and High Lord Rhodes is billed as one, despite very limited development and pagetime. In the end, though, it's the Vord Queen who surpasses everyone else and takes home the crown of primary threat.
- In Everworld, there are several villainous characters (the majority of the gods actually fall under this), but the most prominent are Loki, Ka Anor, and Senna.
- Robin Hobb did this in the Farseer trilogy with Prince Regal and the Red Ships.
- In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the Big Bads are Lord Voldemort and Cornelius Fudge (with Dolores Umbridge as Dragon-in-Chief), though they have nothing to do with each other.
- The Voyage Of The Jerle Shannara. There's the Isle Witch and her former mentor The Morgawr, who form a Big Bad Duumvirate, and are plotting against both the heroes and one another in their race to claim the books of magic that the Jerle Shannara is voyaging to find. There's also Antrax, the Knight Templar computer system that guards the books against all comers, and operates completely independently of the other two. Between them, they manage to do a whole lot of damage to the heroes' and one another.
- In the first Myth Arc of Warrior Cats, Tigerclaw and Brokenstar were this for a while. Then they teamed up and Brokenstar died. In the Power of Three arc, both Sol and Tigerstar were vying for the spot of Big Bad, and the arc ends with Sol leaving, however he has been confirmed to return in book five of the Omen of the Stars arc, and Tigerstar still around. And then you've got the end of the Omen of the Stars arc, which brings all the Big Bads back to try and get revenge from beyond the grave.
- A Shadow Girls Summer Of Love And Madness has Samuel and Richard.
Live-Action TV
- The Negative Syndicate from Go Go Sentai Boukenger.
- Done on occasion in Power Rangers, although not as often as the "one after another" format.
- Power Rangers Zeo features the Machine Empire and Rita and Zedd, both of them trying to kill the Rangers and conquer Earth, but spending nearly as much effort against each other as against the humans.
- Power Rangers Operation Overdrive (the Boukenger adaptation) had Moltor, Flurious, the Fearcats, and the Ninjas, all of whom had their own agendas, but who kept out of each others' ways for the most part as they took turns trying to kill the Rangers.
- Angel was a master of this trope - at the height of Season 3, the Big Bads (Lila Morgan, Daniel Holtz, and Sajjhan) each got about as much screentime as the heroic main cast. Fans still debate over which of them "won" in terms of being the season's defining villain, while a few nominate a fourth character entirely.
- The series is this, the big bads being Wolfram & Hart and Jasmine, who is directly or retroactively responsible for many events of the series until her death in season 4. After that point, Wolfram & Hart's Senior Partners stay as the undisputed Big Bads of the show.
- By the final arc of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Sisko is having to deal with the entirely separate threads of the Dominion and their allies on one hand and Dukat and the Pah-Wraiths on the other.
- Smallville loves this trope. While the first three seasons had Lionel Luthor as a more or less consistent Big Bad, later ones got much more iffy and complicated, often featuring one human antagonist, and a superpowered one:
- Season 4 had Lionel competing with Genevieve Teague and Margaret Isobel Thoreaux for control of the Stones of Power.
- Season 5 had Lex Luthor up to no good while Braniac attempted to free General Zod.
- Season 6 had Lex continue his villainy amidst the Phantom Zone prisoners running amok, culminating with Bizarro's debut.
- Season 7, had Brainiac and Lex Luthor as the primary antagonists, the former out to end the world, the latter attempting to find out Clark's secret no matter what the cost.
- Season 8 was probably the most complicated, with Brainiac back and firmly in Omnicidal Maniac territory, while new villains Tess Mercer and Doomsday entered the scenario, with Lex and Faora as their respective Man Behind the Man's and Bigger Bads. One would expect that one of the Chessmasters would win out, but when the dust settles it's Doomsday and his host, Davis, who are the last villain standing, serving as the main emotional and physical threat as the season draws to a close.
- In Season 9, Zod and Checkmate, led by Amanda Waller and Maxwell Lord, competed with one another and the main cast for control of the metahumans and the world.
- Finally, Season 10 would appear to have Darkseid as the Big Bad, with Rick Flag and the Suicide Squad trying to take down the government and the Justice League, Slade Wilson and the Vigilante Registration Agency (VRA) trying to force all heroes onto the government payroll, and Alexander Luthor, Earth-2 Lionel, and the real Lex all waiting in the wings. It ends up subverted though, as Slade is a Disc One Final Boss corrupted by Darkseid himself, and the others are just Big Bad Wannabes when compared to the Ultimate Evil that is The Great Lord of the Dark.
- Supernatural tended to have more or less consistent Big Bads for its first four seasons, before using this trope in season five:
- In season five Lucifer is freed from his Cage, and starts the Apocalypse. He wants to wipe out all humans, as well as the demons, and turn the Earth into his own personal playground, considering it a last testament of God's work. On the other side of this are the forces of Heaven, led by the Archangel Michael. While Michael is the Lesser of Two Evils between the two, he still intends to destroy part of humanity as a "necessary sacrifice" for defeating the forces of Hell and bringing about Paradise on Earth. The Winchesters finds them both despicable, and strive to find another way to beat the devil. In the end, Lucifer and Michael both get trapped in the Cage.
- Season six takes it even further, featuring four seperate Big Bads. Early on in the season, to start with, we have Crowley - the new King of Hell - who wants to find Purgatory and take control of its souls, and the Archangel Raphael, who is trying to take control of Heaven and restart the Apocalypse. Then, midway through the season, we meet Eve, the "Mother of All", who wants to overrun the world with her "children". And then, a few episodes before the season finale, we find out that Castiel has been in a tentative alliance with Crowley to find Purgatory so that he can defeat Raphael and prevent his plans from coming to fruition.
Eve is killed about the same time we find out about Castiel and Crowley's alliance, so that knocks her out of the competition. This all comes to a head in the season finale, where Castiel cuts Crowley out of the deal; Crowley retaliates by teaming up with Raphael, only for Castiel to Out Gambit them both. He absorbs the souls of Purgatory, kills Raphael, and sends Crowley running, all before proclaiming himself the new God.
- Season eight has the Winchesters fighting both Crowley and the angel Naomi — the latter indirectly most of the season through her Manchurian Agent Castiel — for control of the Word of God tablets. Abaddon gets in on the act near the end of the season as a potential Starscream for Crowley while Naomi has a Heel Realization in the finale, only to be killed by Metatron, who casts a spell to banish all angels from Heaven.
- Season 2 of Nikita is shaping up to this: in addition to the Evil Versus Evil rivalry between Division and Zetrov (the Big Bads in this case being their respective leaders Amanda and Sergei Semak), there are also the various members of Oversight, The Man Behind the Man to Division (to whom Amanda has become The Starscream). Oh, and former Big Bad Percy — despite his current condition of being locked in a maximum security prison — is still semi-active and plotting against everyone else.
- Update as of the middle of the season: Oversight — bar one member who pulled a Heel Face Turn — have all been killed on orders from Percy, who's escaped prison and is plotting revenge. Meanwhile, Amanda is revealed to be in a secret alliance with Semak's Dragon Ari Tasarov; together, they're plotting against both Semak and the protagonists. So in some ways things have gotten simpler, and in some they've gotten even more complicated.
- Season 4 of Farscape has Commandant Grayza of the Peacekeepers and Emperor Staleek of the Scarran Empire, who are actually at war with each other as well as with the protagonists.
- Once Upon a Time: The Evil Queen/Regina and Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold. While they've worked together, by the end of the first season they've ended up in a Magnificent Bastard versus Magnificent Bastard tennis match, with all of the good guys in the middle of the fight.
- Then in the second season, we get Regina's more evil mother Cora and Rumplestiltskin's sworn enemy Captain Hook. They start out as a Big Bad Duumvirate, but Hook is later cast out of it while Cora gets her daughter to join her. And in the last quarter of the season, another Big Bad Duumvirate appears: a pair of Muggles, Greg and Tamara, who are assited by Hook.
- Person of Interest: Straddles the line between this trope and a Rogues Gallery. Occasionally multiple villains will show up in a single episode.
- 24 has this in its final two seasons. Although there's the main Big Bad that serves as the chief antagonist there's also a clear threat in a former hero working against everyone trying to kill said antagonist for personal reasons and who also has to be stopped because if he succeeds the consequences could actually make things even worse: Tony Almeida in season 7 and Jack Bauer (despite being the protagonist) in season 8.
- Season 2 of American Horror Story takes place in an asylum run by a tyrannical nun, who is fighting with one of the doctors who experiments on their patients, while a demonically possessed nun, a Serial Killer posing as a one of the doctors, and some aliens run around the asylum doing awful things to the rest of the cast for kicks.
- The Secret Circle: So far, there's at least both Charles and Dawn — who often seem on the verge of stabbing each other in the back — and the witch hunters (especially Eben), neither of whom really seem to know about each other. There's also the threat of demons, along with anything else that may come up.
Tabletop Games
- In Exalted, it's not a question of who's trying to destroy Creation — it's a question of who's pulling ahead in the race. The Deathlords want to feed the world into the great cosmic garbage disposal in the name of their eternally-dying-but-not-yet-dead god bosses, the Yozi want to make Creation indistinguishable from Hell on the very off chance that they might be allowed to move in then, and the Fair Folk view Creation the same way one would view a turd in the swimming pool and want it to stop ruining their beautiful chaos.
- Warhammer 40000, being a supremely cheery place, has entire armies of this trope. At the very top of the Sliding Scale of Villain Threat are the Chaos Gods, the C'Tan, and the Tyranid Hive Mind, and going down there are the Daemon Primarchs, Necron Lords, Chaos Lords, Ork Warbosses, and the various sundry madmen and psychopaths the galaxy breeds like mosquitoes.
- Don't you need at least one "good" faction for this trope? The Imperium, Eldar, and Tau would be over-the top villains by the standards of any other setting too.
- In Magic: The Gathering, Yawgmoth was the main villain before he got wiped from existence. Now the story has this trope between the remains of Phyrexia, the Eldrazi, and Nicol Bolas.
Videogames
- Batman Arkham City has most of Bat's Rogues Gallery vying for the position of Big Bad over the course of the game. At the end, Hugo Strange and The Joker take their positions as the two Big Bads of the game, with Ra's al Ghul as Bigger Bad to the former.
- Street Fighter has this with Bison and Akuma, who both have their own agendas which revolve around the hero Ryu. Bison's goals revolve around his plan to Take Over the World, while Akuma is more of a Noble Demon and Blood Knight trying to goad Ryu into surrendering to the Dark Side to give him an ultimate showdown. In Street Fighter IV, Seth adds to the list, while in Street Fighter III (which chronologically takes place after IV) Gill takes the place of Bison.
- World of Warcraft originally had this, with players having to fight several Big Bads of varying importance such as Van Cleef, Nefarian or Hakkar. Latter patches and expansions generally focus on one threat, but the ensemble is still technically present, mainly with the Scourge, the Burning Legion and the Old Gods.
- The Disciples series of Turn-Based Strategy games has a number of major villains in conflict with one another, including Mortis, Bethrezen, Uther, and Gallean. None of them are powerful enough to claim the title of the Big Bad, but all of them are serious threats to the setting.
- Knights of the Old Republic II featured the former Big Bad Triumvirate of Darth Nihilus, Darth Sion and Darth Traya. Prior to the story they led a massive assassination campaign against the Jedi still alive after the events of the first game, but Sion and Nihilus turned on Traya, the teacher and parted ways, though Traya survived; thus, all three are up to no good in the story and have to be deat with. Sion seeks to kill you; Traya seeks to corrupt you; and Nihilus, the most powerful, doesn't really care about you, but is the greatest and most imminent threat to the galaxy.
- There are two more, actually - Atris, the one who summoned the Jedi to Katarr and unwittingly drew Nihilus into the universe; and GO-TO, the one who put a bounty so large that every criminal wants a piece of it.
- The main Halo trilogy has the Prophet of Truth at the head of the Covenant and the Gravemind representing the Flood.
- Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction had a definite Big Bad in the form of Emperor Tachyon, but Ratchet was also menaced by Captain Slag, who serves as the games second major villain.
- Seiken Densetsu 3 has 3 different Ultimate Evil entities competing for the power of the Mana Tree. Which one succeeds and ends up becoming the main villain depends on which hero you choose as your main character.
- Likewise with Legendof Mana, which has multiple plot-arcs running together simultaneously throughout the game, each of which features a world-threatening Big Bad behind everything.
- In Dragon Age II there are many people that could qualify as being a Big Bad. In the framing story, one character thinks that it's you.
- The Mortal Kombat series has multiple Big Bad characters, and in the later games (especially Mortal Kombat Armageddon) they ended up operating at the same time due to the series' tendency to keep old characters while introducing new threats. The most prominent would probably be The Emperor Shao Kahn, the God of Evil Shinnok, the preceeding and resurrected emperor Onaga, and (to a slightly lesser extent) the duo of The Starscream sorcerers Shang Tsung and Quan Chi. Shao Kahn would probably be the one with the best claim to being the Big Bad of the series, as he was the main villain in the largest number of games, and also the canonical winner of Armageddon according to Mortal Kombat 9.
- God Of War 3 has Zeus, Gaia and Athena.
- Archie and Maxie, the leaders of Team Aqua and Magma, in Pokémon Emerald, and any adaptations of the plot of the Advance games (In the Anime and Manga), even though in Ruby and Sapphire only one of them was the villain while the other helped the protagonist.
- In Resident Evil Survivor, we have a janitor Driven to Madness by the zombie outbreak, the leader of a mercenary group sent to cover up the outbreak, and the Umbrella executive responsible for the whole mess.
- Lord Deus and the Gohma from Asura's Wrath. Plus The Golden Spider/Chakravartin as the Bigger Bad.
- Prototype has Greene and Randall being the big nasties of the Infected and the Military factions out to get each other.
- Mass Effect 3 has this with Harbinger and the Illusive Man... initially. While The Illusive Man and Cerberus are a separate threat in their own right, and fight the Reapers occasionally, by the end The Illusive Man is ultimately nothing more than Harbinger's unwitting pawn.
- Star Craft II has Mengsk, Kerrigan, the Tal'darim Protoss, and The Dark Voice.
- Sacrifice, the bad guys are Charnel, Pyro, Stratos, and Marduk.
- Warhammer 40000 Space Marine has Grimskull and Nemeroth.
- Fallout New Vegas only has one Big Bad in the vanilla game: Caesar, leader of a horde of barbaric Rome wannabes, who is trying to defeat the New California Republic and annex New Vegas. However, with all DLC installed, it's revealed that there are more villains who have their own plans- all of which are even more dangerous than Caesar. The ensemble ends up consisting of Caesar, Ulysses, Father Elijah, and Dr.Klein.
- Final Fantasy X has three major antagonists: Seymour Guado, Yu Yevon, and Sin, aka Jecht.
- Though Jecht as Sin is merely an extension of Yu Yevon's Will and is mostly just his Dragon in Chief by all accounts.
Webcomics
- In The Order of the Stick, there are several factions, both good and evil, and most of the evil ones can qualify as independent big bads:
- Xykon is the most prominent throughout the story, though he might not be the ultimate big bad. Redcloak pretends to be his Dragon.
- The IFCC is a Big Bad Triumvirate.
- As revealed in Start of Darkness, the Dark One, the goblin deity. Redcloak is really his Dragon.
- Elan's brother Nale probably doesn't count (though he certainly thinks he does), but his father Tarquin is shaping up to be one.
- 8-bit Theater had a sort of "guess the Big Bad" thing going on with several characters being built up as potential "Final Boss" candidates:
- Black Mage, Villain Protagonist and hinted at eventually (seriously) betraying his comrades. Which does happen before the plot gets Hijacked By Sarda.
- The Dark Warriors. In the beginning, Garland seemed to be a joke villain who had a greater role in the story. It turns out their purpose was to become Fake Ultimate Heroes.
- Sarda, the biggest threat whose motives were hidden, but came across as a Trickster Mentor. He turns out to be the "real" Big Bad but is assimilated by Chaos.
- The Fiends, who were teaming up in Hell as they were killed. Killed by Black Mage.
- "Darko," who was The Dragon to Bigger Bad Chaos and trying to manipulate Black Mage (and previously Garland) into bringing about his plans. He eventually gives up.
- And finally, Chaos, said Bigger Bad the villains were destined to eventually face. They do, at a point in time they're woefully unprepared for it. Chaos is killed off-screen by White Mage instead, saving the world and setting up the Dark Warriors as the ones who defeated him.
- El Goonish Shive, has Lord Tedd, Pandora Raven, Sirleck and Magus and formerly Damien.
- Homestuck started out with the Black King, who's supposed to be the final boss of Sburb. Then Jack Noir powered up with the Black Queen's prototype ring and wrestled the position of Big Bad away from him. Then Doc Scratch was introduced, manipulating things from behind the scenes for Bigger Bad Lord English. Then the Imperious Condence was introduced as a potential Big Bad (and then finally became one in Act 6.) Then Doc Scratch died to summon Lord English, who's shaping up to be the Biggest Bad of them all.
Web Originals
- In The Gamers Alliance, many major antagonists are working for different goals separate from one another during the Godslayer era:
- In the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, The Emperor, Lord Doom, Doctor Simian, Abyss, the Blood Red King, and Omega all present a threat to the whole world. They do this simultaneously, though they don't do it cooperatively.
- The Whateley Universe has a ridiculous number of potential Big Bads. The most prominent is Hekate's Master, but there's also Lady Jettatura, The Palm, Necromancer, Dr. Emil Hammond, Dominus and whatever Bladedancer saw in her dream. Plus dozens of smaller bads. The only reason the world didn't implode by now, is because there's also a ridiculous amount of heroes and other elements to balance things out.
- In particular, in "Ayla and the Birthday Brawl", Hekate and The Necromancer team up to attack Team Kimba. Hekate is stuck hiding in a magical bunker, and The Necromancer is using her talents since it's his bunker: he owes Hekate's Master a huge favor.
- And this leads to another supervillain stepping in, during the big battles, and the Necromancer doesn't like him, so things get confusing.
Western Animation
- In Jackie Chan Adventures there are numerous major villains, and some smaller ones as well. The major villains are Shendu, his siblings, Daolon Wong, Tarakudo and the Oni, and Shendu's son Drago, while the minor villains are too numerous to name here.
- The Spectacular Spider-Man started out with one Big Bad, Tombstone, but gained more as it went on in the form of Doc Ock, Green Goblin, and Venom. Hammerhead thinks he's another one in the second season's Gang War arc, but he was just Green Goblin's Unwitting Pawn all along.
- Xiaolin Showdown starts out with only Wuya as the Big Bad, but adds Chase Young and Hannibal Roy Bean in successive seasons, with the various alliances between the villians changing almost every episode by season 3. Technically, one could call Jack Spicer a Big Bad in his own right after Wuya ditches him, but he mostly ends up getting manipulated by the other villains.
- Taken in a literal sense in the finale, when all the villains line up at the heroes' doorstep.
- Gargoyles initially had the Big Bad Duumvirate of Xanatos and Demona, but after they went their separate ways and new villains of Big Bad caliber such as the Archmage, Thailog, Oberon, and Castaway were introduced it ended up like this.
- South Park has a variation: the Council of Nine from the Imaginationland episodes is a Big Good Ensemble (consiting of Jesus, Wonder Woman, Aslan, Morpheus, Luke Skywalker, Gandalf, Glinda the Good Witch,Zeus, and Popeye).
- A true Big Bad Ensemble was the celebrity alliance in "200/201" (with Tom Cruise, Rob Reiner, and Barbara Streissand being the foremost of them), and the Ginger Kids led by Scott Tenorman.
- The Big Damn Movie, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, has Sheila Broflovski, Saddam Hussein, and Satan. Satan actually manages to be the most sympathetic of them all.
- Very much so in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. The show starts with a mass supervillain breakout, and while most of these villains are essentially powerful mooks, several of them are of Big Bad calibre, such as Baron von Strucker, Baron Zemo, and the Leader- to say nothing of villains who weren't imprisoned at all, like Loki and Kang the Conqueror. All of these guys have distinct agends; sometimes they work together, more often at cross-purposes. Ultimately, it was revealed that Loki was directly or indirectly behind everything except Kang, cementing him as the Big Bad.
- The second season is similar, though with Alien Empires being the big bads in this scenario. The first are the Skrull, and the other major one is the Kree (Who are also fighting each other, of course). Then all of a sudden, Galactus arrives.
- Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: The most active villain throughout the first season was Professor Pericles, but the finale revealed that Mayor Jones was the true instigator of the plot, and had been manipulating the gang throughout the season.
- Hot Wheels Battle Force 5 has had at least two Big Bads per season. Season one has Kalus leading the Vandals and Zemerik leading the Sark as the main villains. Season 2 introduced the Red Sentients lead by Krytus, Sage's Evil Twin brother, as a third Big Bad. While Zemerik was pushed aside somewhat, he still remained a main threat. Not, only the Red Sentients remain, but Sage states something worse than her brother is coming and a Sark Cult called the Alpha-Code has shown up, implying that season three will also have a Big Bad Ensemble with at least these two groups.
- Elmyra and Montana Max in Tiny Toon Adventures.
- Beast Wars has Megatron, the Tripredacus Council, and the original Megatron, though the latter two get far less screen time than the first.
- In another Transformers example, there's Transformers Prime season 2 — while Megatron is recognized as the main villain, Silas and Airachnid have taken on equal standing as threats, with the role of The Heavy shifting between them depending on the episode. Starscream is also running around independently, but with his recent string of bad luck he's more of a cross betwee a Big Bad Wannabe and a Wild Card.
- Around the middle of the season, though, Airachnid has been put out of commission (for the foreseeable future) and Starscream has obtained armour which makes him a genuine threat, ending his Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain run.
- And by the end of the season, as a result of Silas' apparent death and Starscream rejoining the Decepticons, Megatron solidifies his position as sole Big Bad.
- Tzekel-Kan and Hernando Cortez in The Road to El Dorado. They meet and form an alliance toward the end of the movie, which ends in Cortez dragging Kan off to be executed after being fooled by the protagonists into thinking Kan was setting him up for a fall.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 did this in its fourth season, with a number of villainous characters attempting to fill the power vacuum left after the Shredder was exiled to a deserted asteroid by the Utroms. The Big Bad Duumvirate of Agent Bishop and Baxter Stockman were The Heavy throughout most of the season, with the Shredder's adopted daughter Karai (having inherited her "father's" trademark armor) and Dragon Ascendant Hun occasionally swooping in for a shot at the heroes, as well. Bishop's artificial plague, once he loses control of it, necessitating a teamup with the Turtles to stop it, might count as well, even though it's not sentient. The season finale also revealed the Foot Mystics, who until that point were assumed to just be Elite Mooks, had their own agenda, as well.
- In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2012 the Turtles deal with the Kraang who are the first villains they face, and the Shredders Foot Clan.
- Though most seasons of the Ben 10 franchise only have one Big Bad per season, season 2 of Ben 10: Ultimate Alien ends up aligning no less than three Big Bads fighting or scheming against each other: Vilgax, Sir George and Diagon.
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