History Main / VillainExitStageLeft

* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' [[spoiler:Sylvanas]] loses her temper in a duel and reveals she has no respect for any of her followers. Realizing she has lost their support and her original plans are ruined, [[spoiler:Sylvanas]] chooses to flee by turning into a shadow that flies away.

* In ''Film/TheCrow'', just as Eric Draven is closing in on Skank (one of the four thugs who raped and murdered his girlfriend after knocking him out a window), he finds himself in a conference room where gangster Top Dollar and what appears to be about two dozen of his fellow criminals are holding a meeting. Top Dollar taunts Eric and then orders the whole crew to open fire on him - which, of course, touches off [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge a frighteningly violent from-beyond-the-grave vigilante massacre]] that persuades Top Dollar, his half-sister, and his bodyguard to flee the scene long before Eric has slaughtered the last baddie. The thing is, Top Dollar never even had to flee in the first place: Skank was there too, and [[StupidEvil Top Dollar could have just saved his own life and that of almost everyone else in the room if he'd simply let Eric take Skank]]. Even then, Top Dollar would probably have lived if only he hadn't [[PapaWolf kidnapped the street kid who was Eric's best friend]] - not to mention that he ''[[JustBetweenYouAndMe outright admits]]'' that he was the one ultimately responsible for the girlfriend's murder once he (supposedly) has Eric beaten.

** ''VideoGame/UniversalStudiosThemeParkAdventure'' has a level where you battle the shark from ''{{Film/Jaws}}''. Upon draining his health all the way, he gives up and swims away.

** Scott Tenorman makes his escape through jet pack at the end of “201”. But this time, they didn’t even recognize him.

* Shredder did this every week on the '80s ''WesternAnimation/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|1987}}'' cartoon. No matter where he happened to be at the time, as soon as his plan went sour a great big drill-car thing (referred to as a Transport Module) would burrow up from the ground, he'd hop in and head back underground to the Technodrome, and at no point did it occur to the turtles to simply go down the hole after him. Mind you, the holes did have a tendency to fill up with lava and cool into rock pretty quickly seeing as the BigBad's [[SuperVillainLair HQ]] was at the center of the Earth. In fact, the turtles once attempted to pursue Shred-Head's escape through the driller in one episode... and were quickly rewarded by literally getting the Hot Foot within moments. In seasons where the Technodrome was in Dimension X, Shredder and company would escape via a portable dimensional portal instead.
** Lampshaded in one episode where a guest character shouts "Shredder is getting away!" and Raphael wearily responds "Yeah, you get used to that."
** Averted by Shredder in The 2K3 series, but played straight by Agent Bishop.
** In the 2003 series, when minor villain Dr. Malignus's plans get foiled by [[SupermanSubstitute Silver Sentry]] and Mikey, he manages to escape Silver Sentry, noting how he always has an escape plan. Subverted when he ''does'' get stopped by Mikey seconds later.
* The ''Westernanimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' episode "[[Recap/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheChase The Chase]]" had a three-way fight between Aang, Zuko, and Azula that was joined by the rest of the main cast, minus Mai and Ty Lee. Everyone corners Azula, until she shoots Iroh, the rest of them attack her, she causes an explosion, and presumably runs off somewhere. In the WhoWouldWantToWatchUs episode, we have:

* ''WesternAnimation/LegendOfKorra'':

** Played straight with [[spoiler: Varrick]] in the finale of Book 2 when [[spoiler: he and Zhu Li escape from prison during the BigBad's attack on Republic City]].
* Strangely enough, it was the one-shot ''WesternAnimation/Birdman1967'' villains who escaped capture on a semi-regular basis, sometimes by endangering others, sometimes... just by leaving the scene really fast and letting Birdman hover there declaring to [[NonHumanSidekick Avenger]] that they would meet again. In the end, only one escapee villain (Vulturo) was actually defeated and arrested in a second encounter. This made it all the more satisfying in "The Incredible Magnatroid" when Birdman decides there's enough time left in the episode to actually prevent Metallo from escaping in a helicopter with the following immortal line:

* [[BigBad Slade]] does this in the first season finale of ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'', after his mask gets knocked off and he's decided he's had enough. He ''does'', however, trigger his lair's self-destruct so that the Titans won't be able to follow him. The season four finale has a variation, as Slade is actually [[EnemyMine not really a villain at that point]] and gets flung away by [[{{Satan}} Trigon]] from the final battle, not to be seen again. Later on, though, Robin expresses his belief that Slade survived and returned to his villainous ways.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' that has Batgirl and Catwoman join forces to find who stole a cat-shaped artifact from a museum ends with Catwoman trying to swipe the item for herself, but then being persuaded by Batgirl to turn herself in. However, as the police cart her off, Catwoman somehow forces them out of the squad car and drives away herself. Robin tries to give chase, but Batgirl ''grabs him by the cape'', reasoning that they'd encounter her again sometime.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': Almost literally in "[[Recap/FuturamaS4E18TheDevilsHandsAreIdlePlaythings The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings]]". In the end, the Robot Devil throws a smoke bomb and vanishes (but not really: in the shot of the baffled audience we see the Robot Devil escaping in the background. On the stage right side.)

* The ''WesternAnimation/SpiderMan1981'' episode "When Magneto Speaks... People Listen" ended with Magneto getting away and Spider-Man being unable to go after him because he couldn't lift the door Magneto exited through.

* In the episode "Animorphosis" of ''WesternAnimation/Ben102016'', after Vilgax's plan of creating an army using the DNA samples of the Omnitrix is foiled by [[EnemyMine Ben and Animo working together]], the alien overlord leaves by walking through a wall of flames. Ben and Animo ''do'' chase him… after a few seconds, since Ben was in awe of the cool exit Vilgax made.
* In ''WesternAnimation/DCSuperheroGirls'', the villains in Harley Quinn's gang will often escape in the end because otherwise their secret identities would be exposed.

* ''Very'' frequently done on ''WesternAnimation/SonicBoom'', usually after FiveManBand Team Sonic[[note]][[TheLeader Sonic]], [[TheLancer Tails]], [[TheBigGuy Knuckles]], [[TheHeart Amy]] and [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Sticks]][[/note]] put BigBad Dr. Eggman's evil plan for the day to a halt. He's reacted a variety of times to this happening, such as giving the classic WeWillMeetAgain speech to the heroes, or just calling it a day because he knows he'll no doubt be defeated again should another evil plan come to mind.

* At the climax of ''Red Menace'', Krueger gets word that the Eagle is on his way to compromise the mission, he orders his men the Mountain and the Mole to take care of him. Mountain and Mole think the action's gotten a little too hot and they're being asked too much, so they steal Krueger's car and get the hell away instead. However, at the very end, the last two pages, [[spoiler:The Eagle hunts them down and kills them before they even made it from LA to Las Vegas.]]

* In the ''Literature/ProseEdda'', after Utgard-Loki explains to Thor how he and his companions were bested by forces far more powerful than they appeared, he uses his magical powers once more to make himself and the halls of Utgard disappear before Thor can DropTheHammer to smash them.

* ''Literature/HighSchoolDxD'' usually averts this as the villains are usually dealt with by the end of the volume. Only the major arc villains have so far played this straight, but not always cleanly:

* In the second half of ''Literature/TheSagaOfDarrenShan'', Darren and two other vampires are tasked with chasing down the leader of the enemy clan of vampires. The EitherOrProphecy says that they will encounter him four times, and if they don't kill him in those encounters, their clan will fall. In three of those encounters, of course, he escapes, setting up for the final showdown.

* ''VideoGame/{{Contra}}'': Bahamut does this in one of the endings of ''Contra: Hard Corps''. [[spoiler: Lance Bean]] does this in ''Shattered Soldier'' and Master Contra does this in ''Neo''. Leviathan does this in ''VideoGame/HardCorpsUprising''.

** Also very fond of this are Captain Whisker and his crew, the [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot robot pirates]] from ''VideoGame/{{Sonic Rush|Series}} Adventure''. Since the cutscenes are just character art and text on a background, there was no need to explain ''how'' this was possible, and so the phrase "he got away again!" and variants thereof get used many, many times. This is also repeatedly {{lampshade|Hanging}}d:

* In the episode "Animorphosis" of ''WesternAnimation/Ben102016'', after Vilgax's plan of creating an army using the Dnas of the Omnitrix is foiled by [[EnemyMine Ben and Animo working together]], the alien overlord leaves by walking through a wall of flames. Ben and Animo ''does'' chase him… after a few seconds, since Ben was in awe of the cool exit Vilgax made.