Hegemonic villains have the hunger for domination, the desire to take over or rule the world, whether it is the actual Earth or their own world. On larger scales, some try to take over or rule their universe and (for the truly despotic and oppressive) all of the multiverse, space-time and/or omniverse. This is arguably one of the most well-known types of villains.

Some of these villains can also be Necessary Evil and/or On & Off because there could be a more dangerous threat that wants to destroy the world and/or universe instead, which causes some of them to become Scapegoats if it means helping their own foes to defeat the more dangerous threat (e.g. Dr. Eggman is usually bent on world domination, but sometimes, there are a few more "evil" villains such as Black Doom from Shadow the Hedgehog or Zavok and his Deadly Six from Sonic Lost World.).

On the exact opposite end of the spectrum are beings so despotic that they are considered the worst of the worst in their setting, even when such settings have cataclysmic threats and any alliances these particular characters make is purely self-serving and ends in either treachery or later conflict - examples of this would be Darkseid from DC Comics and Shao Kahn from the Mortal Kombat videogame franchise.

It is an evil counterpart of Heroic Hegemonic.