User blog comment:AustinDR/Most Evil Villains (IMO)/@comment-4851935-20181113151247

I used the Complete Monster descriptions from TVTropes so that I wouldn't have to.

1. Nyarlathotep (Cthulhu Mythos) - the dreaded voice and soul of the Outer Gods, is a malignant sadist of a god with an all too human-like personality. A devious trickster by nature who enjoys playing sadistic games with mankind for its own amusement, Nyarlathotep wanders the Earth in a thousand avatars, stringing the night with the screams of those plagued by the horrid nightmares he induces wherever he walks. On record, Nyarlathotep ruins entire societies in the form of the Black Pharaoh, possesses and murders men as the Haunter in the Dark, and personally attempts to spirit Randolph Carter away into the throne room of great Azathoth itself. Nyarlathotep seduces men into worshiping his many avatars and orchestrates madness by the masses wherever he goes, differing from his fellow Outer Gods by virtue of being a wholly evil entity hindered by none of his brethren's eldritch mindsets and possessed of nothing more than a lust for reaping the chaos that defines it.

2. Morgoth (Middle-earth) - Morgoth Bauglir, began life as one of the Valar, but his spite and arrogance precipitated his steady downfall into evil. Beginning by destroying the great lamps of Valinor and creating the pits of Utumno, Morgoth takes as many races as he can and personally enacts hideous, unspeakable tortures upon them until all that remains are grotesque perversions that he can use as his servants. Following his first defeat, Morgoth repays mercy with treachery, destroying the world trees, killing the king of the Noldor elves and stealing their treasures, leading to the deaths of thousands of elves when they pursue him, before setting up his base of operations in Middle-Earth. He delights in corrupting men into darkness, manufacturing and playing off corruption in their hearts to set them against each other and their allies. His "crowning achievement" is tricking and beguiling the first men into swearing an oath of eternal fealty to him, meant to enslave the race forever in body and spirit; mortality is considered a gift for Man, as normally souls of Men leave Arda and Morgoth's grasp. Morgoth launches brutal campaigns of slavery and genocide, including the destruction of Gondolin, the most beautiful and proud elven city, whose citizens are saved solely by the heroism of the city's warriors. He also tries to rape the elven princess Luthien out of nothing more than cruel lust. At one point, he condemns a man to horrible torture and then enacts a curse to see his children grow, suffer horribly and be rejected by both life and death, solely because the man dared to defy him.

3. It / Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Stephen King's It) - without question one of the most horrifying characters ever written. A primordial being as old as time, It awakens from its hibernation every three decades and proceeds to murder and devour the children of the town of Derry, Maine, often using the avatar of a jovial clown named Pennywise to lure children into its clutches. It prides itself on using its shapeshifting and hallucinogenic powers to torment its victims, preying on their phobias and acquired fears and likening the cultivation of their terror to "salting the meat." From 1740 to 1743, It was responsible for the disappearance of three hundred Derry Township settlers. In 1957, It killed Bill's six-year-old brother, George, and devoured Patrick Hockstetter alive while in the form of his greatest fear, leeches. It also drove Henry Bowers to madness, then killed Bowers' friends after they succeeded in luring the Losers' Club into the sewers. After waking up in 1984, It kills a man named Adrian Mellon before resuming its violent killing spree of children. It proceeds to manipulate Henry Bowers into trying to kill the Losers; drives Bill's wife, Audra, catatonic by exposing her to its deadlights; and manages to kill Eddie before its final defeat.

4. Darkseid (DC) - the ultimate God of Evil in the DC Universe. As Evil Overlord of Apokolips, Darkseid subjects its denizens to hellish conditions with the overwhelming majority of the population ill-treated slaves. His Elite fare no better as Darkseid is all too willing to subject them to hideous tortures or obliteration should they fail him. Darkseid detests all that is good in the universe and seeks to extend his influence everywhere he can. While he once loved someone, his mother, Heggra, wanting to make him evil killed Suli, helping turn Darkseid into the Galactic Conqueror we know him as (but not before he had Heggra poisoned). During Final Crisis, Darkseid is dying, and so wants to destroy the multiverse and all life in it as a final gesture. He kills his son Orion to gain dominion over Earth. Once there, he enslaved the minds of everyone he could touch, turning them into savage parodies of themselves, intending to as he said "murder their souls and take them to hell without end." His ultimate motive is to use the Anti-Life Equation to rob everybody of free will and turn them all into mindless zombies who worship him as a god while he tortures them eternally, all for fun. Just as bloodthirsty and monstrous as any of those who serve him, Darkseid combines urbane sophistication, limitless cruelty and insatiable drive for power, and is the one single villain that all the heroes despise and fear.

5. Palpatine / Darth Sidious / The Emperor (Star Wars) - a Dark Lord of the Sith who is the primary villain of the franchise—and by far one of its most evil. Born as a nasty sociopath who loved to inflict pain and sought to extend his influence wherever he could, in his various guises as Darth Sidious and ruler of the Galactic Republic and later The Empire, he has been responsible for orchestrating galactic-level wars; manipulating others and then disposing of them when they have served his needs; personally murdering and torturing a vast number of people; tyrannically oppressing trillions of sentient beings; wiping out billions of lives to secure and then maintain power; and concocting a scheme to destroy the entire Empire and its countless soldiers should he perish. All of this is for no other reason than his desire to dominate others and his boundless cruelty and hatred. Not relegated to one work, his crimes across the Star Wars universe and Expanded Universe are detailed in works like the two Star Wars trilogies of movies; the cartoon Star Wars: The Clone Wars; the Aftermath trilogy; the comic book Dark Empire; the prequel novel Darth Plagueis; and the video game The Force Unleashed.

6. The Joker (Batman) - The Joker, a sadistic Monster Clown with a Multiple-Choice Past, is Batman's Arch-Enemy. Over the course of his long career, despite being mostly without superpowers, he has: crippled Barbara Gordon and tried to psychologically torture her father into madness; sold nuclear weapons to terrorists; savagely beat Jason Todd with a crowbar, then killed him and Jason's mother with a time bomb; repeatedly emotionally and physically abused his girlfriend, Harley Quinn, going so far as to try to kill her multiple times; attempted to infect the entire world by poisoning the atmosphere with Joker-venom when he believed he was dying; tried to kill every newborn baby in Gotham in order to break the city's spirit, killing Commissioner Gordon's second wife, Sarah Essen, in the process; and stealing the powers of Mister Mxyzptlk, becoming a nigh-omnipotent god-like being who turned the world into a hellish caricature of itself, tortured Batman to death only to revive him and repeat the process continuously until Batman was driven insane, devouring everyone in China, and attempting to wipe out all of existence. The Joker's sole motivation, in committing every crime there is, is amusement, based on what his disturbed sense of humor deems funny.

7. Norman Osborn / The Green Goblin (Spider-Man) - Best known as the Green Goblin, Norman, one of Spider-Man's long-time arch-foes, came to infamy after he threw Spider-Man's girlfriend Gwen Stacy to her death as the Goblin. Seemingly killed afterwards, Norman would resurface in the nineties where he totally excised himself of any redeeming traits and became one of the web slinger's most monstrous enemies. Through his manipulations, Norman has caused the death of countless people, orchestrating The Clone Saga while burying Peter's Aunt May alive and even murdering Spider-Man's clone Ben Reilly with his glider simply to hurt his nemesis. After this, Norman's streak of evil would continue including founding the Dark Avengers and keeping them in line through horrid abuse. As the Green Goblin, Norman regularly caused countless amounts of death and destruction and even tried to replicate what he had done to Gwen with Spider-Man's new girlfriend, Mary Jane Watson. As the Goblin King, Norman put himself on top of a vast criminal syndicate while crushing all of his opposition and vowing to Otto Octavius to kill everything he considered precious to him during the latter's time as the Superior Spider-Man. As himself, Norman attempted to murder his own son to earn public sympathy; triggered a war with Asgard by having the U-Foes attack Asgardian warrior Volstaag in a football stadium, resulting in thousands of casualties; and infused himself with the Carnage symbiote by tempting it into further pursuits of torture and death while bonded to him.

8. King Ghidorah (Godzilla) - eveling in the destruction that he causes, King Ghidorah flies from planet to planet, exterminating life for his own entertainment. Having already annihilated the civilization on Venus (Mars in the dub), King Ghidorah arrives on Earth, intent on repeating the process. Beaten by Earth's protectors, Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra, King Ghidorah did not accept his defeat gracefully, and returned again and again, ravaging the Earth on behalf of the Xiliens in Invasion of Astro-Monster, the Space Hunter Nebula M aliens in Godzilla vs. Gigan, and finally the Kilaaks in Destroy All Monsters, which proved to be the Great King of Terror's last stand. Essentially a life-hating demigod in the form of a dragon, King Ghidorah, undoubtedly the very worst of Godzilla's Showa Era, was responsible for the loss of millions of lives.

9. Scar (The Lion King)- Defined by his envy and hatred of his elder brother Mufasa. Hating that he isn't king, Scar hatches a scheme to remove Mufasa from the equation as well as the heir to the throne, Mufasa's young son Simba, When Scar's first attempt to murder Simba and his best friend Nala fails, Scar has his Hyena cohorts cause a stampede and personally throws Mufasa in to be trampled when he tries to escape it. He then convinces Simba the whole thing was his fault, convincing him to go into self imposed exile before ordering the hyenas to murder Simba anyways. Scar's incompetence as king leads to a famine, and when Simba returns, he sees Scar refuse to allow anyone to leave to go anywhere else, uncaring that this will condemn everyone to death. He proceeds to backhand Mufasa's widow Sarabi when she compares him unfavorably to her husband, and when he confronts Simba, Scar tries to break him by bringing up Mufasa's death. He only pauses in his attempt at a public execution to mock Simba that Scar was Mufasa's true murderer. Later, in a desperate attempt to save his own skin, he tries to blame everything on his loyal hyena henchmen, attempting to kill Simba even after the latter agrees to spare his life.

10. Angel Eyes (The Good, the Bad & the Ugly) - A sociopathic mercenary whose only concern is making as much money as possible. In the opening scenes of the film, he tracks down and murders a man at another's behest. When his victim offers him money if he will spare his life, Angel Eyes replies, "Once I'm been paid, I always see my job through to the end." He kills the man and his son, takes the money, and reports to his employer...whom he promptly kills, since he wants to keep the gold he's found out about for himself. He proceeds to beat the information about the location of the gold out of a hooker. Later on, he has Tuco tortured and watches with absolutely no emotion on his face. While this is going on, he has his men force the POWs to sing in order to cover up the sounds of their friends being tortured. He's less a character than he is Greed in a trench coat and cowboy hat. He's so bad that the other two main characters — no saints themselves — both agree to shoot him in the three-way Mexican Standoff that ends the film, despite their extreme distaste for one another. Cold-blooded and without remorse, Angel Eyes will cross any lines, and commit any crime as long as he can make a profit doing it.