"Some men just want to watch the world burn."
"I have turned one hundred thousand worlds to dust, looking for Anti-Life. Looking for those who robbed me of my glory. I will stride across their bones and bask in the glow of Anti-Life. And all of existence shall be mine."
Given the source material, it is little surprise that film adaptations of DC Comics have some especially evil villains.
- Animated works can be found here.
- Related material can be found here (literature) and here (video games).
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
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DC Extended Universe (by release date)
Examples
- Wonder Woman (2017): General Erich Ludendorff demonstrates that even in a world of gods and monsters, some humans can be the most evil beings around. A ruthless German general in World War I who believes in continuing the war, Ludendorff executes a man simply for complaining supplies are low and encourages the inhumane research of Isabelle "Dr. Poison" Maru, testing her gas on live subjects. When he encounters his high command who wish to sign an armistice, Ludendorff gasses them as well, but throws in a single gas mask, well aware it will do nothing to stop the gas. Ludendorff later tests the gas on a civilian village, and when he engages Diana herself in a battle to the death, he is in the process of having the gas loaded into a plane to subject all of London to a horrible death.
- Justice League:
- 2017 film: Steppenwolf, military commander of Apokolips, had burned countless worlds when he came to Earth, killing millions and raising them as monstrous Parademons, before he tasted defeat. Returning thousands of years later, Steppenwolf seeks to recover the lost Mother Boxes to enact his plan of wiping out life on Earth to turn it into a blasted hellscape like his own homeworld, hoping to offer Earth to his master Darkseid and end his exile. Massacring the Amazon warriors guarding their Mother Box and later doing the same to the Atlanteans, Steppenwolf captures humans who may know of the third Mother Box, killing them when they don't have the info he wants and preparing to torture another until he talks. When the newly formed Justice League moves to stop him, Steppenwolf puts his plan into motion and unleashes his forces on civilians, intending to annihilate all life on Earth to erase the memory of his past failure.
- Zack Snyder's Justice League: Darkseid, once known as Uxas, is the dark ruler of Apokolips hell-bent on finding the Anti-Life Equation to subjugate all life in the Multiverse. To this end, Darkseid conquers 100,000 worlds and terraforming them into a new Apokolips, cleansing them with fire and turning its inhabitants into soulless slaves aware but without freedom. Darkseid would later invade Earth upon learning it contains the Anti-Life Equation, and tries to terraform it, only to be defeated and driven back. Darkseid would later banish Steppenwolf from Apokolips, forcing him to conquer thousands of planets should he ever want to return. Upon learning that Steppenwolf found the Anti-Life Equation, Darkseid orders him to scorch the planet; when Steppenwolf failed, Darkseid simply crushes his decapitated head. In the "Knightmare", Darkseid kills most of the Justice League, brainwashes Superman into being his servant, and reduces the Earth into a barren wasteland.
- Birds of Prey (2020):
- Roman Sionis, aka Black Mask, is the disgraced former heir of the Janus Corporation and the most powerful crime lord in Gotham's East End. Roman is a flamboyant, misogynistic, mood-swinging sadist with a Hair-Trigger Temper who once forcibly strips a woman and reduces her to traumatized tears because—he thinks—she's laughing at him. Roman demonstrates his love of torture via his fondness for having people's faces sliced off while they're alive, having a crime boss and his entire family tortured to death this way. He considers sparing the man's daughter, only to have her killed because he's disgusted by a snot bubble in her nose from crying so hard. Roman, throughout the film, hunts for the Bertinelli family diamond to make himself the most powerful man in Gotham—the Bertinelli family itself massacred down to the children, save for Helena "Huntress" Bertinelli, according to Roman's design—and Roman attempts to kill everyone in his way to get to it, from Harley Quinn to Cassandra Cain to his own singer and driver Dinah "Black Canary" Lance.
- Victor Zsasz, the right-hand man of Roman Sionis, is a vicious killer who enjoys "releasing" others from existence. Years ago, Zsasz gleefully participated in the Bertinelli family massacre and, as Roman's enforcer, Zsasz does most of the killing for him, including peeling the faces off the victims while they are still alive. Zsasz carves a tally into himself for each victims, boasting of having many, many such marks over his body, and when he finds that young Cassandra Cain has swallowed the Bertinelli diamond, his recourse is try and force Dinah Lance to slit her open before killing all the other heroines.
- The Suicide Squad:
- Dr. Gaius Grieves, aka "the Thinker", is the pet Mad Scientist for Project Starfish. For thirty years, the Thinker has subjected Starro the Conqueror to grotesque experiments and tortures with full knowledge that his superiors in America and Corto Maltese intend to use the alien as a weapon against other nations. A self-serving slime of a man whose loyalties lie with whomever can keep him alive, the Thinker has sacrificed thousands of innocent people to Starro, tortured the results in every way imaginable, and is even accused by Starro of rape, a sentiment that the deviant Thinker doesn't deny. The Thinker is completely remorseless over the lives he's consumed for "scientific advancement", even spitting at the squeamishness of his own American superiors for refusing to host his experiments on their soil.
- Mayor General—later Presidente—Mateo Suárez is the bloodthirsty henchman of Silvio Luna. In taking over Corto Maltese, Suárez directly participated in murdering the entire royal family and anyone still loyal to them, then after Luna dies, Suárez celebrates the occasion by burning the late Presidente's birds alive. More savage and xenophobic than Luna ever was, Suárez immediately begins making plans to unleash Starro against entire countries and slaughter millions. In his meantime, Suárez also subjects a captured Harley Quinn to a brutal round of torture.
- Black Adam (2022):
- Ishmael Gregor is a mercenary, member of Intergang, and a descendant of King Ahk-Ton. Ishmael helped to throw Kahndaq into chaos, poverty, and oppression, even killing his own man for "beating" him too hard during an act. Ishmael, like his ancestor before him, intends to obtain the Crown of Sabbac to bring the armies of the Underworld onto the world, and he keeps people fearful, threatening acts of violence by Intergang. Once Ishmael manages to obtain the crown—through kidnapping and threatening Adrianna Tomaz's young son Amon—he becomes "SABBAC" and leads the army into Kahndaq with the desire to solidify his firm grasp over it, before turning the world into Hell on Earth.
- The insatiably cruel Ahk-Ton himself ruled Kahndaq in ancient times with an iron fist while creating the Crown of Sabbac for ultimate power over the world. Having enslaved numerous natives of Kahndaq to build his empire and mine for the material Eternium, he regularly threatens and sacrifices the lives of dissenters, including executing the slaves as a "reward" for their work. When Teth-Adam's son Hurut becomes the champion for "Shazam", after Ahk-Ton tries to publicly execute him, and uses his powers to fight against him as Kahndaq's protector, Ahk-Ton has his mother Shiruta murdered, and Adam himself is gravely wounded in the process. When Adam is saved by Hurut transferring his powers to him, Hurut himself ends up being killed by Ahk-Ton's forces instead.
- Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom: Kordax, younger brother of King Atlan, was the ruler of the seventh kingdom of Necrus. Exploiting Orichalcum to fuel his burgeoning kingdom, Kordax is implored by Atlan to cease doing so, as his actions are poisoning the Earth. Paranoid that Atlan will take his power away, Kordax forges a special Black Trident out of Orichalcum infused with dark magic and uses it to forcefully turn all of his own people into undead slaves, making himself into a Lich and waging war on Atlan before he is defeated and imprisoned by Atlan with his own blood. In the modern day, Kordax manipulates Black Manta after the latter acquires the Black Trident, having Manta begin burning Orichalcum to cause an environmental collapse, killing off thousands of people both on the surface and in the sea in order to weaken his prison. He then has Manta kidnap Arthur's son to try to sacrifice him in order to free Kordax's armies so he can once more ravage the world.
Other Continuities
Examples
- Batman Film Series: Of the numerous villains faced by Batman and his allies, this duo stands out:
- 1989 film: The Joker, real name Jack Napier, is an insane, sadistic criminal. Murdering the young Bruce Wayne's parents, Jack is only stopped from killing the boy himself when his partner warns him the cops are approaching. After being transformed into the Joker, Jack goes on to kill the mob boss who betrayed him, before killing the other Mafia higher ups to take over the Gotham syndicate. Using Smylex mixed in with everyday products, Jack causes a string of deaths of unsuspecting innocents. Jack also abuses his girlfriend, Alicia Hunt, disfiguring and eventually killing her, before trying to seduce Vicki Vale immediately after her death. Taking advantage of Gotham's 200th anniversary parade, Jack tries to gas the gathered civilians with Smylex to amuse himself and takes out his frustration over Batman stopping his plans by killing his loyal second-in-command.
- Batman & Robin: Poison Ivy, formerly Dr. Pamela Isley, relishing in her newfound power, declares herself Mother Nature and wishes to start anew for the world. Delighting in murdering numerous men with her painful poison kiss, Ivy tries to turn Batman and Robin against one another with her pheromones, seemingly murdering the sleeping Nora Fries to provoke Nora's husband, Mr. Freeze, to true despair. Deciding to help him kill every living thing in the world after freezing Gotham solid, Ivy intends to enact her own fantasies of creation upon the new world she creates.
- Catwoman (2004): Laurel Hedare is the scheming wife of Hedare Enterprise's CEO, George Hedare, who proves herself to be leagues worse than her husband. To obtain more money, she produces a skin care product called Beau-line, which has some side effects that make a woman skin look like a living marble if it was used constantly and can also cause a woman's face getting disfigured if the usage is discontinued. After one of her employees, Patience Phillips, accidentally overhears her plan, Laurel then orders her top henchmen to murder Patience in order to prevent the information from leaking out. After Patience becomes an Anti-Hero known as the Catwoman and tries to find the truth about her death, Laurel then tricks her under the pretense that her husband wants her dead. After Patience founds out the truth, she kills both her husband and a scientist, Dr. Ivan Slavicky, in order to frame Catwoman, and tries to ship the Beau-line products across the world.
- The Dark Knight Trilogy:
- Professor Jonathan Crane is a sadistic doctor who experiments on his patients with his fear gas, leaving them irreparably mentally shattered in some instances. Attempting to torture Rachel and Batman with said gas, Crane is eventually apprehended after having used it with Ra's al Ghul to hold the city hostage. While the city is dying, Crane gleefully participates in the uprising to kill at will. In the intervening years following his freedom, Crane enjoys using the gas to inspire others to serial murder and to destroy the minds of random drug customers. Finally freed from Arkham, Crane presides over Kangaroo Courts in Bane's "utopia" of Gotham, sentencing countless members of the upper crust to certain death by "exile," including Jim Gordon and his police.
- The Dark Knight: The Joker is a self-described "agent of chaos" out to give Gotham a "better class of criminal". Introduced by killing each of his goons after a bank robbery, the Joker proceeds to exploit the mob's desire to be rid of Batman, casually murdering henchmen, politicians and police to force Batman to unmask himself. He also makes the lawyer attempting to unmask Batman a target; ties a crime boss to a pile of money which he then burns; kills a gangster by making a pencil disappear...eraser-end first; blows up a hospital; leads police into a trap where they will shoot innocent civilians before getting killed by his men; attempts a Prisoner's Dilemma scenario to get a boatload of civilians and prisoners to blow each other up; and, primarily by manipulating a Sadistic Choice leading to Rachel Dawes's death, and then by mind raping an injured Harvey Dent in the hospital, is the driving force behind his transformation into Two-Face. The Joker's main motivation is fun, but he also wants to show that anyone and everyone can and will become a monster if pushed far enough, or even if just given the chance. He's proven wrong, but doesn't care, just giving an annoyed shrug and attempting to blow the two boats sky high with his own detonator.
- Jonah Hex (2010): Burke is the right-hand man of Quentin Turnbull, and matches his boss's emotionless cruelty with sheer psychopathic sadism. Assisting Turnbull in all of his crimes, Burke personally, and happily, burns Jonah Hex's wife and son alive, then holds Hex in place to be branded by Turnbull and left for dead. Fully aware, and approving, of Turnbull's plans to use his super weapon to wipe out thousands of innocents, Burke blows up an entire train to obtain parts for said weapon, killing the dozens of soldiers, citizens, and children on board, and later massacres the population of a small town to acquire the ammunition for Turnbull's super weapon. Kidnapping Hex's Love Interest Lilah to use as a hostage, Burke takes sadistic glee in smacking her around; threatens innocents with death for kicks; and regularly taunts Jonah about his family's deaths. Dying while laughing at Hex's misfortune, Burke was a homicidal lunatic who seemed to only work with Turnbull to satisfy his lust for sadism and mass murder.
- Justice League of America: Dr. Wellesley Eno, the diabolical Weather Man, uses technology capable of manipulating the weather to enact various disasters across New Metro City that put countless lives at risk. After failing to convince his empowered employee, Tori "Ice" Olafsdotter, to join him, Eno attempts to trap her and the Justice League and then cook them all alive with a heatwave, before unleashing a tidal wave to flood the city unless he's paid a hefty ransom. When instead confronted by the heroes, Eno destroys his own technology so the tsunami can't be stopped, damning the city with a grin on his face.
- Steel: Nathaniel Burke is a slimy, sociopathic ex-soldier defined by his greed. Kicked out of the military for causing an accident with the weapons of John Henry Irons that kills a visiting senator and cripples the good-natured Susan Sparx–-to his utter apathy, blaming everyone else for keeping from from "going places"-–Burke reinvents himself as an Arms Dealer using stolen technology from Irons. Burke, throughout the movie, murders a rival and an elevator full of people with her when she calls him out on his reckless demonstration of his weaponry; has a failed minion of his assassinated; has another used as a live target during a weapons pitch to the criminal leaders of the world; and eventually murders his own associate, to make himself the sole and most powerful arms dealer in the world to let them use his advanced weaponry to wage wars with. Burke even attempts to murder Sparx and Irons's young friend, gloating he wants to see Irons utterly crushed before killing him.
- Swamp Thing & The Return of Swamp Thing: Dr. Anton Arcane is a wicked Mad Scientist with dreams of immortality and power over the world. In the first movie, Arcane seeks to exploit the invention of the noble scientist Dr. Alec Holland, a solution capable of solving world hunger, having the staff of Holland's facility massacred by his mercenary entourage while personally murdering Holland's sister. Arcane later takes the formula for himself while testing it on one of his own men as gratitude for procuring it for him, mutating him into a freakish pig-man. In the second movie, Arcane facilitates the experimentation on countless dozens of innocent people, resulting in most of them killed in the process and those who survived afflicted with horrific, mutative growths, while throwing away the lives of his own subordinates to use their DNA to extend his own life and eventually killing his own daughter to reverse the degeneration of his body. The epitome of selfishness and dark ambition, Arcane's ultimate wish is to force the world to bow to him or starve, concerned only with his power and legacy above even the lives of his closest friends and family.
