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"I mean, I already 8eat a last 8oss! The 8lack king was the officially sanctioned last 8oss of our session, and I killed him. This is different. There's always someone stronger w8ing to 8e revealed. Jack showed up shortly after that, and he was MUCH stronger. Eventually the curtains get pulled 8ack, and you find out who was 8ehind every terri8le thing that happened all along. Someone who is invaria8ly stronger than all other adversaries 8y a wide margin. The supreme villain! To 8e honest, I was always kind of w8ing for that guy to show up, whoever he was. For the other shoe to drop, you know? There's always a 8ig 8ad 8ehind everything."
"The ultimate villain of the story, who's causing the problem the heroes must solve."
Note that Big Bad is not a catch-all trope for the biggest and ugliest villain of any given story. The Big Bad is the one who turns out to be behind several other seemingly independent threats.
- 8-Bit Theater: Sarda, the old wizard who plays the role of mentor/Arch-Enemy to the Light Warriors. He is nearly as nasty as Black Mage, regularly abusing his power, screwing with Ranger for no reason, and with the entire town of Onrac just to get revenge on White Mage. He even inadvertently killed Onion Kid's - AKA his own - adoptive parents when he was doing it. All because he can. At least until Chaos Doombringer possesses him and becomes the Final Boss.
- Adventurers! has Khrima and Eternion, both of whom correspond to different kinds of RPG villains; Khrima is the Evil Overlord of Khrima Force, and Eternion is an evil Physical God who leads the Eternals. Both of them even have a PR war/election over who gets to be the Final Boss, with the winner being Khrima.
- Yadmon from Aisopos. The Adaptational Villainy that he received had turned him into a psychotic ruler, addicted to one particularly lady, hunting her, her husband and her son for ten whole years, treating the boy like crap, because he dared not to receive the spear that was aimed at him and for not looking like his mother and then, proceeds to hunt down the kid again for ANOTHER ten years, capturing and treating him in an even nastier way!
- Archipelago: The Great Raven's ability is limited, but he remains in the shadows, giving orders to Captain Snow, as well as collecting loyalties of various civilians, all as a part of his plan to free himself so he can wreck havoc.
- Blue Moon Blossom reveals the big bad to be a giant, incorporeal snake-like demon that turned an entire village to stone, for no obvious reason other than For the Evulz. Due to the lack of text or dialogue in the comic, the extent to which the main cast was aware of its existence for the duration of the story is not made clear.
- The big bad in FireSoup is the Heart Mafia, responsible for turning Micco City into a crime-ridden place where superheroes are just a dream.
- Breakfast of the Gods: Count Chocula (yes, that one), who wants to plunge the kingdom of Cerealia into eternal night.
- Cashmere Sky: Winston Lockridge, president of Lockridge Industries, is this, sending his men on missions that kill innocent people and being willing to sustain the poisonous fog that's taken over most of the world to prevent a mass migration.
- Commander Kitty: Zenith is part fox, part rabbit, part cat, and all perfect. She's so perfect, in fact, that her ultimate plan is to create for herself the perfect mate and take over the galaxy with her perfect children.
Actually, she's Ulysses J. Fortiscue's robot assistant, gone slightly overboard with her directive to "eliminate all life's little imperfections." Once she's rebooted in Safe Mode, she's much more interested in fashion design than galactic conquest. - Curse Quest: It is still vague right now, but there is a suggestion that there are two. The first is Imperius, whose name is dropped by the girls trying to kill Avalon. The task the team was given by curse quest is to kill the evil ruler of the Land of Avalon, who the ruler is is still unknown, it may be Imperius, but it has not been confirmed yet.
- Demonseed Redux: Rhoda and other demons answer to a mysterious In the Hood mastermind of the upcoming war, Galadrel, who has kidnapped many angels and demons to make them "breeding drones".
- Drowtales: Snadhya'rune Vel'Sharen, leader of the Vel'Sharen clan and headmistress of Orthorbbae, is more or less single handedly responsible for the current civil war through her machinations, with the goal of becoming Empress.
- The Dwarfs, the Spirit and the Sorceress: Zoso, the evil spirit who puts an awful curse on one of the dwarf and is worshipped by the dwarves' enemies the Goblins.
- In Endstone, Kyri realizes that the God of the Eternity Spire is behind both of the tragedies of her life, because he controls the Banestone.
- Girl Genius has The Other, a strange being that almost wiped out Europe in the past and starts regaining power a while after the comic starts. When we first hear of them, their identity is unknown, but over the course of the comic we learn that they are Lucrezia Mongfish, aka the mother of our heroine Agatha. The Other is also shown to have been behind all sorts of evil in history via their ability to possess different bodies, such as the destruction of an ancient civilization and killing Agatha's siblings shortly before her birth.
- Heart Core: Royce Lashiec, Lord of Asgar, mightiest of demons, horrible parent and the bane of the entire Beastman species.
- The ultimate antagonist of Homestuck is Lord English, assisted by his Dragons Doc Scratch and Her Imperious Condescension and with various Jack Noirs as competing villains. He acts as the Greater-Scope Villain for a good chunk of the story while the other antagonists also compete for top spot.
- Part 1 (Act 1-Act 4) starts off with the Black King before Jack Noir turns rogue and kills him. As it turns out, Jack Noir is the true cause of the Reckoning that destroyed Earth.
- Part 2 (Act 5) has Jack Noir continue his rampage, and also introduces Doc Scratch into the mix, who is manipulating everyone into helping revive Lord English. In the end, Scratch wins.
- Part 3 (Act 6 Act 1-Act 6 Intermission 5) introduces the Condesce as the antagonist during the main parts of the act while Lord English starts his rampage across Paradox Space. The Condesce technically works for English, but most focus is put on her independent tasks.
- Part 4 (Act 6 Act 6-Act 7) has Lord English (through his various incarnations), the Condesce, and Jack Noir finally have their ultimate confrontations with the protagonists, ultimately leading up to a massive final battle.
- By Chapter 2, the Man in Grey emerges as this for Jenny and the Multiverse — a sinister Card-Carrying Villain with an ambiguous agenda, he is the Corrupt Corporate Executive in charge of the Altern Corporation (which started financing Laura's experiments in Chapter 1) as well as the employer of Colonel Major and Jenny Nowhere, sending them after Laura and Jenny respectively.
- Kirby Adventure has Miracle Matter, Talzo's superior and the one who masterminds all of his and the other villains' attacks on the Kirby Adventure Squad.
- Kuro Shouri: Mentioned fairly early in, Akujin is the bad guy who controls nearly every other villain character.
- The Law of Purple: Silver, Lord of Caligula. He plans to eliminate 2nd Kind are the reason why the Fayse siblings fled to Earth in the first place.
- The Life of Nob T. Mouse: The Pie Ghosts of Somewhere in Pie Noon and probably also King Nastie from the Nasties stories, although he's also something of a Dragon.
- M9 Girls!: The feud that the Professor, mentor of the M9 Girls, has with Alpha Prime, sets in motion all the events in the M9 Girls saga, from their creation to their ultimate encounter with Alpha Prime.
- In the Manhua webcomic My Guardian Angel, the Big Bad appears to be Yeh Xiaohan's note father, a malevolent ghost obsessed with devouring his daughter's soul who seeks to become a powerful wicked spirit by consuming other ghosts. Lin Xiaoyou note was a ghost who got away, preventing his becoming a true wicked spirit, and he needs her to complete his apotheosis. However, the true Big Bad is Wang Quanzhen note , who's using Xiaohan's father because he believes that he can use the power of a wicked spirit to send his deceased girlfriend, herself a wicked spirit, to the afterlife. He was responsible for releasing Mr. Yeh after Xiaohan bound him before the events of the story and allowed the specter to possess him in order to strike at Xiaohan. When his plan to use Mr. Yeh falls apart, Quanzhen attempts to turn Xiaoyou into a wicked spirit to use her power instead.
- The Order of the Stick: Lord Xykon, a lich sorcerer with dire plans for the world and a serious lack of empathy for living things. He's the leader of Team Evil and the reason the Order of the Stick was formed is to take him down. As the story goes on and the scope of his threat with releasing the Snarl becomes clearer, more factions, most notably Azure City, act against him, both directly and indirectly.
- Problem Sleuth had Mobster Kingpin, the Mafioso mastermind responsible for locking the heroes in their office building; with the second half of the story is devoted to defeating him.
- In Sonic the Comic – Online! the role is first taken by the leader of The Syndicate Dr Zachary, then the role is taken by Don Long-Legs head of The Family,then by Grimer who is behind the Neo Metallix as well as Kane also telling The Family about The Syndicate planning to destroying the Special Zone which cause The Family to travel to Mobius, then by Dr Robotnik and The Drakon Empire.
- With this page Voodoo Walrus seems to be setting things up to suggest that Rip Flintolocke, a character who hasn't even been seen beyond being a shadowed figure, is responsible for everything that's happened in Grymm and Creepknight's lives.
