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30. Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight, 2008
Comic origin: Detective Comics #66 (1942)
Played by Aaron Eckhart
One of the many strokes of genius that marks The Dark Knight is Christopher Nolan’s decision to make Harvey Dent not just the opposite of Two-Face, but also of every other Harvey Dent we’ve seen on screen.
Billy Dee Williams played him as a smarmy suit in Batman (1989), and Tommy Lee Jones went full-on schizoid ham in Batman Forever (1995), but Aaron Eckhart’s take on the Jekyll/Hyde DA was brilliantly close to whatever Bruce Wayne almost became. A handsome, all-American “White Knight” crime-fighter modelled on the Kennedys, his eventual turn to the dark side is just a coin-toss away from Batman’s own twisted morality – another tortured vigilante with only a subtly different twist of ego and rage.
When Harvey does make the turn, Nolan’s vision of Two-Face’s iconic look is also a long way from the comic’s purple suits and badger streak hair. Telling Eckhart to avoid any obvious slurping sounds or ticks (“He said, ‘You just act, and I’ll take care of the face for you’”), the character’s mix of CG and grisly prosthetics leans hard into horror, playing a close second string in a film that already had a pretty good line in disfigured psychos. Still, it’s the man behind the monster that marks Dent out as one of the greatest bad guys of all time – the true face of real-world political evil in a mire of good intentions gone bad.
The living embodiment of one of his own great quotes, Dent lives just about long enough to see himself become the villain – but it’s his death as a hero that really earns him his place on this list.
Most Dastardly Moment: Deciding little Jimmy Gordon’s fate with a coin toss, and making his dad watch.
Killer One-Liner: “The world is cruel, and the only morality in a cruel world is chance.”
29. Nomak, Blade II, 2002
Comic origin: N/A
Played by Luke Goss
The result of a literal bloodcurdling genetic experiment gone wrong, Jared Nomak was to be the first vampire impervious to sunlight, but instead becomes a powerful patient zero for a new superstrain of feral vamps. Feeling angry, disgusted and self-conscious about his new split jawline, Nomak heads up an entirely new threat for Blade as his Reapers kill vampires and humans alike in order to get to the one he blames for his horrific mutation: his father, leader of the unfortunately named vampire elder cult, the Shadow Cabinet. In order to get in shape for the role, Bros brother Luke Goss got his body fat down to just five per cent through a training regime of karate, boxing and, presumably, extreme competitive conkers.
Most Dastardly Moment: Finally enacting revenge on dear old dad, and finishing off sis for good measure.
Killer One-Liner: “Is the enemy of my enemy my friend… or my enemy?”
28. Adrian Veidt, Watchmen, 2009
Comic origin: Watchmen (1986)
Played by Matthew Goode
Among comic-book villains with a heightened view of their calling, Adrian Veidt stands tall. Driven by unshakeable self-certainty, Veidt believes only he is smart enough to know what’s needed to save us from the Cold War. And if his masterplan involves slaughtering millions – well, call it a “necessary sacrifice”.
The signs of villainy are clear. Super-rich, super-intelligent and super-skilled, Ozymandias took down crime syndicates as a superhero team-leader. Retired from superhero activities, he reinvented himself as a self-made mogul, making a fortune from franchising his superhero identity.
Like multiple supervillains in one, he has lairs, an island, an over-attachment to his pet and a narcissist’s meticulous side-parting. He sees his twisted plot as logical, but it’s also inhumane and arrogant. Just ask his ex-colleagues: besides framing Dr. Manhattan as the cause of a catastrophe that kills millions but unites global superpowers against a shared threat, he renders superheroes redundant. Cold…
Most Dastardly Moment: Slaughtering “15 million people” by destroying “a few key regions”.
Killer One-Liner: “A world united and at peace. There had to be sacrifice.”
27. Phantasm, Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm, 1993
Comic origin: N/A
Played by Dana Delany (voice; also Stacy Keach)
If the measure of great villains is how close they cleave to our heroes, Phantasm scores. Cowled, caped, broad-shouldered and booted, this blade-fisted apparition uses dry ice and ghostly tricks to scare, sharing Mr. Wayne’s theatrical streak. Batman is suspected of actually being the murderous and mysterious crimefighter for a while, but the truth cuts deeper. Loosely influenced by Batman: Year Two’s Reaper, the Phantasm is Bruce Wayne’s ex-lover Andrea Beaumont. Despite the deep sense of family loss she shares with Bruce, Beaumont pursues deadlier kinds of vengeance and drives Wayne to commit full-bore to Batman when she leaves him.
Most Dastardly Moment: Crushing a crime heavy under a stone angel in a cemetery.
Killer One-Liner: “Your angel of death awaits…”
26. Deacon Frost, Blade, 1998
Comic origin: The Tomb of Dracula #13 (1973)
Played by Stephen Dorff
The OG Marvel movie served up a younger iteration of Deacon Frost than the comics but he was just as hellbent on ruling the world, and planned on usurping the pureblood’s rule by raising the vampire god La Magra to take control. “There are elements when you’re afraid of him,” Stephen Dorff said in 1998. “At the same time I’ve tried to have fun as well and make him very relaxed and funny and charming.” The actor brought just the right amount of swagger and ’90s sex appeal to have you both swooning and scared shitless of this ruthless vampire with the good hair to boot.
Most Dastardly Moment: Turning Blade’s mother into a vampire and making her his lover.
Killer One-Liner: “For fuck’s sake, these people are our food, not our allies.”
25. Red Skull, Captain America: The First Avenger, 2011
Comic origin: Captain America Comics #7 (1941)
Played by Hugo Weaving
A botched batch of Super Soldier serum turned evil Nazi scientist Johann Schmidt into a waxy red skeleton with the power and wrath to wage his own world war. Foiled by Cap in the ’40s, he was condemned to spend eternity as a caretaker for the Soul Stone – with Ross Marquand donning the make-up after Hugo Weaving passed on the last two Avengers sequels. “I’m glad I did it,” Weaving says, “but it’s not something I would want to do again.”
Most Dastardly Moment: Trying to destroy every American city at once with a barrage of Tesseract-powered nukes.
Killer One-Liner: “Captain America! How exciting! I’m a great fan of your films!"
24. The Vulture, Spider-Man: Homecoming, 2017
Comic origin: The Amazing Spider-Man #2 (1963)
Played by Michael Keaton
After a Stark-funded agency pushes him out of a contract, a resentful Adrian Toomes uses Chitauri tech to start selling advanced weaponry. Far removed from the comics’ ‘old man in a bird costume’, this Vulture flies under the radar of the Avengers, only to tangle with Spider-Man instead. Michael Keaton keeps the winged character grounded, but ramps up the menace once things get personal with Parker.
Most Dastardly Moment: Becoming a prom date’s worst nightmare as Parker’s secret dawns on Toomes, mid chaperone duties.
Killer One-Liner: “Don’t you ever, ever interfere with my business again. ’Cause if you do, I’ll kill you, and everyone that you love.”
23. Bane, The Dark Knight Rises, 2012
Comic origin: Batman: Vengeance Of Bane #1 (1993)
Played by Tom Hardy
The most intimidating physical presence that Batman has ever faced, Hardy’s supersized revolutionary looking to turn Gotham to ashes draws Batman out of retirement, before breaking his back like a toothpick. Hardy gained 30lb of muscle to play the imposing brute, and doesn’t remove his mask for the whole film. Of his get-up, the Brit actor says, “It’s hard to breathe. I can’t hear anyone, and no one can see me speak… And the magic begins.” His muscular portrayal eradicated all memories of the cartoonish Bane in Batman & Robin.
Most Dastardly Moment: Threatening a closed-off Gotham with a thermonuclear weapon.
Killer One-Liner: “When it is done and Gotham is ashes, then you have my permission to die.”
22. Slade, Teen Titans Go! To The Movies
Comic origin: (As Deathstroke) The New Teen Titans #2 (1980)
Played by Will Arnett (voice)
Forget The Hero With A Thousand Faces, here’s the Baddie With A Thousand (give or take) Names. Slade is a ’toon take on vintage villain Deathstroke (a moniker deemed child-unfriendly); he also masquerades as filmmaker Jade Wilson in order to implement his very 21st Century scheme of kidnapping minds via a new streaming service. In Arnett’s words, Slade is “bombastic and… bigger than life” but with “a tinge of doubt” – possibly because he keeps getting mistaken for Deadpool (“Lots of people have guns and swords, OK?”).
Most Dastardly Moment: Brainwashing DC’s finest into attacking the Titans.
Killer One-liner: The Titonium crystal… the perfect plot device!”
21. Nebula, Guardians Of The Galaxy, 2014; Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, 2017; Avengers: Infinity War, 2018; Avengers: Endgame, 2019
Comic origin: the Avengers #257 (1985)
Played by Karen Gillan Cybernetic.
Sullen. Almost impossible to kill. If you wondered why Nebula had so many issues, you just have to look at her father, a purple, intergalactic tyrant you may have heard of. Thanos punished Nebula every time she lost a fight against her adopted sister, Gamora, grafting cybernetic enhancements to her piece by piece until she became the seething, inhuman, resentful badass we first met in Guardians Of The Galaxy.
“To me, she’s the Boba Fett of the movie,” says James Gunn, director of Guardians Vol. 1 and 2. “She’s the one that you really dig because she’s the cool one that we need to get more of.” And more we certainly got, with Nebula following up her kick-ass moments in Vol. 1 (that scrap with Gamora; her aerial assault on Xandar) with depth-mining returns in Vol. 2 and the Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame double-whammy.
Of course, she’d be nothing without actress Karen Gillan, whose deadpan delivery and raspy vocals lent Nebula a sultry mystique. “What immediately jumped out at me was [that she is] this overlooked sibling that was fighting for the attention of her father,” Gillan says. “I was like, ‘Brilliant!’” Training full-time to perfect Nebula’s limb-snapping fight choreography, Gillan also shaved off her famous red locks (“I would go shopping in the supermarket for eggs and milk, bald... it was fun!”), and she proved so compelling in the role that Nebula’s original Vol. 1 death scene was spiked, paving the way for Nebula to become an integral part of Phase 3.
Most Dastardly Moment: Pretending to be ‘Good Nebula’ in order to return Thanos from the past in Avengers: Endgame.
Killer One-Liner: “I tried to kill you several times… but eventually, we become friends. We become sisters.”
Click through to Page 4 to continue our ranking of the best comic book villains of all time
