Troperville
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Choirs of daemons howl in salute as they sense his flagship exiting from warpspace at the edge of the system. Chains of cities across the surface of the planet are set ablaze in welcome as his battle barge slides into orbit. Thousands of slaves are sacrificed in celebration as he sets foot upon the surface, the very earth beneath him soaked in the blood of his victims.
Somewhere below the Eldritch Abomination but above the Evil Overlord lies this guy. Maybe just below Dimension Lord and Multiversal Conqueror.
Maybe he wants to conquer the universe. Maybe he wants to kill everyone in it. Maybe he just eats planets. Whatever he does, he'll be crazy-mad powerful, so it's going to take a whole boatload of heroes to take him down.
Sometimes he'll have an army to back him up, but more often than not, he'll work alone, relying on his incredibly vast cosmic powers to crush the good guys. Many have both.
These characters are usually male, although fortunately changing gender roles are offering more and more females the opportunity to enslave entire galaxies. Remember, ladies, just because you're members of the fairer sex doesn't mean you too can't plunge the universe into an eternity of chaos and torture!
Distinguishable from the Eldritch Abomination in that these guys have somewhat human motives for what they do. Often, this is what the Sealed Evil In A Can turns into once it's unsealed.
Examples
Anime
- The Holy Nightmare Corporation, the Big Bad of the Kirby anime, is stated to have already successfully conquered the universe and defeated at least one major resistance movement... but a Kid Hero is shaping up to take them down.
- Freeza from the Dragon Ball series. Immensely powerful to the point of being considered invincible, he nonetheless usually has his army to do the actual fighting. Known for exterminating large portions of planets' populations and enslaving the rest, or simply killing off the entire population and selling the planet to the highest bidder, his name was feared by all spacefaring civilizations throughout the galaxy. The fact that he could blow up your planet on a whim just served as further incentive to surrender.
- Zoltar from Battle Of The Planets (and only Battle Of the Planets. The original Gatchaman was set entirely on Earth, villains and all!)
- Zarkon and Lotor from Voltron.
Comic Books
- The Marvel Universe's Thanos of Titan has embodied this trope in the past, with his obsession with ultimate power and Death being his primary motivations.
- This is a general characterization for most cosmic-centric supervillains within the Marvel Universe. Some prominent terran-centric supervillains like Doctor Doom and Kang The Conqueror occasionally branch off into this trope, when their ambition exceeds their normal boundaries.
- Annihilus, The Supreme Intelligence, at times the Skrulls and, whenever Lilandra isn't in charge, the Shi'ar emperor/empress tends to fill this role too, especially since Vulcan is in charge now.
- Terminus the cosmic strip-miner.
- A large percentage of the giant monsters from Marvel's pre-super hero days were alien invaders (Goom, his son Googam, etc.). Even Groot, who has since done a Heel Face Turn, started out this way.
- Darkseid of The DCU.
- Brainiac of the The DCU. His goals and methods have varied a lot over the years, but he still usually fits this trope.
- Mongul fits it to a T.
- Despero and Kanjar Ro are much lower-tier versions of this trope. Kanjar Ro is usually treated as a joke villain these days.
- Starro the Conqueror, although his more powerful appearances drift him more towards being an Eldritch Abomination.
- Larfleeze of the Orange Lanterns once held an entire solar system under his control, and possesses the power of an entire Corps, though his interests tend more to fulfilling his endless greed. He also commands a vast army of Orange Energy constructs to obey his every whim.
- Megatron from the various Transformers canon.
Film
- Palpatine from Star Wars is the consummate example of this trope, though he did it through pure Magnificent Bastardry rather than outright force. He got voted into absolute power, after masterminding a civil war after a millenium of peace, resulting in him receiving popular support for his authoritarian reforms. By the time he declared himself Emperor, he already had absolute control of the Republic.
Live Action TV
- Anubis in Stargate SG-1. As well as the Ori, who have already conquered one galaxy.
- The Master in Doctor Who.
- Pretty much any villain race in Star Trek at some point has aspirations of galactic conquests. But as far as individuals in the series go, the Borg Queen is the best example.
- His Divine Shadow in Lexx.
- Super Sentai and Power Rangers have a few:
Tabletop Games
- Warhammer 40000 has more than its fair share of these, some evil... some really evil. (See page quote.) The most successful was undoubtedly the Emperor of Man, founder and god of the Imperium, the setting's "good guys".
- The other "good guys" of 40, the Tau Empire, also have this as a goal. Most of the other races are more interested in some combination of killing, raping, torturing, or just eating everyone. Black And Grey Morality indeed.
- In Traveller Cleon I, founder of the Third Imperium is this. In something of a subversion he not only succeeds but his empire is actually a more-or-less nice one once it is created whatever one can say of the means he used. Cleon was a skillful politician, businessman, and diplomat. He knew when to entice and when to bludgeon , and how to weave together multitudinous plans and in general he was a very Magnificent Bastard.
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
- The DC Animated Universe covers many different generations of heroes, across different decades (even centuries) and facing varied and divergent foes, but none can compare to the ultimate Big Bad, whose mere presence is enough to cow raging mobs of bloodthirsty beasts. There is a reason it is his quotation that is the lead-in to the Evil Overlord page.
- The Irken Invaders of Invader Zim are a whole caste of Galactic Conquerors who are capable of conquering entire planets single-handedly with proper equipment. The main character is a former Invader who lost his rank after destroying his home planet with a Humongous Mecha and halting the first galactic invasion of his people.
- On The Fairly Oddparents, both Dark Laser and Princess Mandie scheme to conquer the galaxy. Though, in Dark Laser's case, he seems content to blow up the Earth.
- Cy-Kill from Challenge Of The Go Bots. He's mostly concerned with conquering his homeworld, but he'll conquer Earth as a useful stepping stone toward that goal, and he'll gladly conquer other planets once that's done.
- Nemesis from Robotix.
Literature
- Subverted and played straight with Emperor Zhark in the Thursday Next series. In his book series he regularly destroys and enslaves whole worlds. In person he's a pretty nice guy, though he does tend to overreact a bit, like responding to a shoot out in a Western book by deploying Space Marines.
Religion
- Xenu in Scientology conquered many worlds and dropped his excess population into Earth's volcanos, leading to many of the evils that plague mankind.
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