"I should have known, you repulsive cockroach! If your family won't learn obedience, your deaths will inspire the rest of the world to fear the name Jafar! But first...the street rat. I assure you, I am thoroughly going to enjoy this."
—Jafar, to Queen Aida, "What If Jafar Won?
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"Cinema has brought us numerous iconic villains. Through the minds of Walter Banasiak and Rob Walker, we can see just how terrible they can be.
Entries are sorted by release date.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
- "What if Luke Skywalker Died in 'Return of the Jedi'?" (link): Emperor Palpatine is the sadistic head of the Galactic Empire. Overseeing the creation of the Starkiller Base by ordering the hollowing out of the moon Endor, Palpatine lures the Rebel forces into a trap and tries to tempt Luke Skywalker to the Dark Side, only to resort to torturing him with Force Lightning when the latter refuses. Palpatine also issued several contingency plans to set into motion in the events of his death, as shown when Endor is rigged to detonate, ensuring posthumously that Palpatine took enemies and allies alike with him in a fiery blaze.
- "What If 'Ghostbusters II' Was Better?" (link): This take on Vigo the Carpathian is much darker than his canon counterpart. A bloody tyrant who killed and tortured thousands in life, as a ghost, he lords over a hellish dimension where he torments the spirits of his victims and feeds off their fear. Orchestrating a series of hauntings in New York to grow his power and influence, and according to a prophecy would return from the dead with a bride and child at his side; from this, he targets Peter's pregnant fiancée Dana and plans to bind her soul to his with a cursed wedding ring. Through his minions, he gets the Ghostbusters shut down as he continuously makes advancements on Dana. When the time is right, Vigo's army is unleashed upon the city, possessing its many statues to wreak havoc and endanger its people. When the Ghostbusters team up with Vigo's vengeful victims to break his hold, Vigo briefly possesses Peter and attempts to forcibly marry Dana in a last ditch effort to win.
- "What If Scar Raised Simba In 'The Lion King'?' (link): Scar is as monstrous as his animated counterpart. Kidnapping Simba after staging a wildebeest stampede, Scar brands Simba's right eye and brainwashes him into believing he was his father. He was also apathetic to the hyenas' overhunting, leading to the devastation of the Pride Lands. Subjecting the young cub to years of systematic abuse and starvation, Scar and Simba invade the Pride Lands with Scar halting his victory to gleefully rub Simba's transformation in Mufasa's face before killing him. Scar then captures the crown prince Kion, and plans to execute him the next morning, falsely promising to spare him if he affirmed his rule to the pride. When Simba betrays him, Scar tries to kill him without an iota of remorse.
- "What If The Joker Was In 'The Dark Knight Rises'?" two-parter: The Joker as usual is a cruel and nihilistic monster. After being released from Arkham Asylum by Selina Kyle, the Joker decides he likes the new Gotham. Taking over the Narrows, the Joker runs a court where he sentences people to death by walking across the frozen river. Angered at Bane, Joker has his men suicide bomb his territory. Taking Gordon and his men hostage, Joker taunts him, shoots some of his men, and attacks Miranda Tate, before sentencing them to the ice. Killing Bane and Talia al Ghul, the Joker tries to make sure the bomb goes off, determined that they all go out together.
- "What If We Fixed 'The Haunted Mansion' Movie?" (link): The Phantom, real name Henry Ravenswood, the owner of the mansion, is worse than any villain from the film. Once a wealthy man who got rich from mining coal and was searching for the gold from Big Thunder Mountain, Ravenswood murdered four of his daughter Melanie's past suitors to keep the gold for himself. Ravenswood killed the fifth, Jake, on his and Melanie's wedding night, when Jake found some of the gold, before blowing up the mine to cover his tracks, killing several miners and destroying a large portion of Thunder Mesa. Ravenswood's final living act was to curse everyone at the party, including Melanie, to a never-ending cycle of torment. In the present, Ravenswood rules the mansion and the Phantom Canyon with an iron fist, tricking the caretaker Clyde into helping him keep power. When Jim Evers, Sarah, and her children arrive, Ravenswood tries to repeatedly stop them from learning the truth, including invading their dreams and attempting to kill them in a mine shaft, before trying to kill the two children just to spite them. A petty, selfish man, Ravenswood saw everyone and everything in the mansion as his property to do with as he pleases.
- "What If Harley Quinn Was In 'Batman' 89?" (link): The Joker, real name Jack Napier, commits many of the same crimes his canon counterpart does, such as releasing Smilex on Gotham City; gassing the museum to be alone with Vicky Vale; trying to spray Vicky with his acid; and gassing the crowd at the parade. Instead of his original brutalization of Alicia, he instead mutilates and psychologically tortures his lover, mob therapist Dr. Harleen Quinzel, and turns her into Harley Quinn, who he has kill a hostage for him. Eventually wanting Vicky instead though, the Joker tries to murder Harley by pushing her from the balcony, and reacts with joyful indifference later on when she confronts him about it.
- "What If Qui-Gon Jinn Trained Anakin Skywalker?" (link; covers The Phantom Menace & Attack of the Clones) & "What If Qui-Gon Jinn Was In 'Revenge of the Sith'?" (link; covers Revenge of the Sith): Sheev Palpatine is the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic and is also Darth Sidious, the Dark Lord of the Sith. He incites the Clone Wars, betrays his apprentices and allies left and right and instigates the destruction of the Jedi all as he did before, but in addition to all that, Palpatine emotionally manipulates Anakin Skywalker into fighting and helping him kill Mace Windu and helping orchestrate the death of Anakin's pregnant wife Padme, tricking Anakin into thinking he's revived her to convince him to become Darth Vader. Palpatine's actions further result in Anakin receiving life-threatening injuries and killing Qui-Gon Jinn. Palpatine then continues to keep Anakin in line with the incredibly cruel false promise of Padme being alive and staying alive.
- "What If Jafar Won?" (link): Jafar is the Royal Vizier to the Sultan of Agrabah who usurps the throne by means of Genie and the magic lamp, sending Aladdin and Abu to the ends of the Earth and unraveling the magic carpet in the process. Imprisoning the Sultan and enslaving Jasmine, Jafar at first attempts to use Genie's magic to force her to marry him, but then uses his own to resurrect her mother Aida for the same purpose, only to cast her out onto the streets instead when she begins to decompose, and threatens his guards with beheadings if she ever returns. Years pass and Jafar has Genie kept imprisoned in his lamp, starves the kingdom and keeps them in line with threats of his power, and tortures and kills two would-be thieves of the lamp. When Aladdin, Razoul, Aida and the rest of the resistance attempt to storm the palace for the lamp, Jafar uses his magic to threaten them, kills Razoul and threatens them again as a giant cobra.
- "What if the Incredibles Got Older?" (link): The Screenslaver and Winston Deavor are made into a Composite Character, and lack the redeeming or sympathetic qualities of the former, while being much more villainous than the latter. This version of Deavor was a disgruntled former agent of the Superhero Relocation Program, who felt society has lost its way by accepting Supers back into the public. As the Screenslaver, he brainwashes hundreds of Supers into an army and attacking the public, such as what he does to Frozone, and promotes fearmongering of a Super uprising in society in hopes of turning the public against them. After he brainwashes Bob and Helen Parr, it's revealed Deavor plans on having his army commit a terrorist attack and kill civilians at an amusement park. When foiled by the Parr children, he arms himself with a bomb and takes a roller coaster full of people hostage, intending as taking as many as he can with him. During the ensuing fight, his attempts to justify himself are shot down, showing his motivations boil down to seeing Supers as "lesser" than normal people.
- "What If We Fixed 'Ghostbusters' 2016?": (link) Ivo Shandor is a businessman CEO leading the Cult of Samhain. Wanting to force the world into eternal darkness, Shandor brings about the creations of multiple monsters and ghosts from Urban Legends, putting numerous people in danger in the process. Impeding the Ghostbusters' efforts to stop him once he becomes a ghost himself, Shandor, using the Empire State Building, seeks to harness power to bring Samhain into the real world, and to this end possesses and plans to sacrifice hundreds of trick-or-treating kids. He also possesses and threatens the life of Erin's son as a means of further preventing the Ghostbusters' opposition.
- "What If Christian Bale Was In 'Justice League'?" (link): Steppenwolf, on behalf of Darkseid, is the military commander of Apokolips who years earlier attempted to assure Earth's destruction with the three Motherboxes, only for him to instead slaughter those who stood against him and prevented him from doing so. Leading his Parademons to Mars for one of the Motherboxes, Steppenwolf institutes a massacre of every Martian on the planet and personally burns Martian Manhunter/J'onn J'onzz's wife and young daughter alive. While missing that Motherbox, Steppenwolf however achieves the other two by means of leading attacks on both Atlantis and Themiscyra, nearly killing the members of the Justice League who try to stop him. He then breaks into the Batcave for the last Motherbox and nearly kills Batman/Bruce Wayne by means of almost crushing his neck.
- "What If Boo Grew Up?" (link): Randall Boggs and Johnny Worthington lll are the main sources for the energy crises in the city. The two work together to bring back mass children scaring, with Randall Boggs disguising himself as Everdark, a social media influencer encouraging young children to become violent and attack the monsters, despite them trying to entertain the children, while Worthington created a mass army of invincible monster robots, strong-arming a desperate Celia to sign off on them to replace the monsters. With Randall throwing Boo/Mary in prison by the police and Worthington kidnapping Mike Wazowski, the two plan to mass scare children across the world, not caring for any mental trauma they get. When confronted, Worthington threaten to blow up the group of monsters while attempting to crush Wazowski with his foot, as Randall uses a robot Everdark to beat Sully to near death.
- "What If Harley Quinn Was In 'The Dark Knight'?" (link): The Joker is once again in top form as the monstrous "agent of chaos" he claims to be. Once again committing multiple murders and robberies all around Gotham as he did before—including the murder of Rachel Dawes and attempting to blow the two boats in the Prisoner's Dilemma yet again—the Joker, while manipulating and twisting Harvey Dent into becoming Two-Face, reveals to him that he abducted his fiancée Harleen Quinzel and tortured and brainwashed her through electroshock into becoming his accomplice Harley Quinn. The Joker then lets Harley get arrested in his place in order to facilitate his own escape by the end of the story.
- "What If 'Spider-Man 4' Happened?" (link): Adrian Toomes, aka the Vulture, is the thought-dead CEO of AT Enterprises, obsessed with maintaining his youth. To this end, Toomes has taken to abducting, experimenting on, and killing people over the decades to create a youth serum, while using his youthful persona, Arthur Avis, as the public face of the company. When his former partner, Walter Hardy, discovered these experiments, Toomes had him killed, before taking over his company. When the serum begins wearing off, Toomes plans on draining Spider-Man for a more enhanced serum. Growing impatient with Dr. Miles Warren's lack of progress, Toomes drains him and drops him to the streets, framing Dr. Curt Connors for the murder, and threatening his family to blackmail him into continuing Warren's research. When his crimes are exposed, the Vulture tosses several bystanders off a building to distract Spider-Man in their ensuing fight.
- "What If Tiana Wasn't Turned Into A Frog?" (link): Dr. Facilier is portrayed here as a vengeful voodoo Witch Doctor, who wishes to rule New Orleans after being swindled out of his share of Eli LaBouff's business, despite using Black Magic for his own benefit. Turning Naveen into a frog while pretending to be him to marry Charlotte, Facilier makes the deal with his Friends on the Other Side to sell the souls of everyone in New Orleans. Kidnapping Eli and Charlotte to kill them both, Facilier attempts to sway Tiana into joining him, proving himself to be simply a petty, selfish man who gave voodoo a bad name.
