James Moriarty

Professor James Moriarty is the archenemy of Sherlock Holmes and is often considered one of the first supervillains in fiction - he appeared in only two novels and despite rarely encountering Holmes personally he is considered the main antagonist of the entire Sherlock Holmes series and is famously described as the "Napoleon of crime".

Professor Moriarty is a criminal genius equal to Holmes in brilliance and was famous for being the villain that Sherlock Holmes fought and apparently fell to his doom with in The Final Problem - however due to a large public outlash Arthur Conan Doyle was forced to retcon these events so that both Holems and Moriarty did not die as was originally planned but rather miracolously survived so that the series could continue.