Big Bad/Western Animation

"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.


 * Disney's Zeke, the Big Bad Wolf from Three Little Pigs (1933) and its sequels, was originally the Big Bad of his forest world -- as befits his name.
 * Joey, Marky & Dee Dee in Oggy and the Cockroaches.
 * Vilgax, from Ben 10, is a textbook example. He's wounded grievously in the pilot, drives the plot of most of season 1 from behind the scenes, and finally shows up in person in the season 1 finale, bigger, meaner, smarter, and tougher than anything Ben's faced before. From there on out, he's usually put somewhere between appearances that keeps him from getting involved... He's also an Implacable Man and a Determinator, so he HAS to be kept out of the picture for other plot arcs to happen but it did and later appears in Alien Force and Ultimate Alien.He Was also the Main Villain in the first movie,He is the series's most reoccurring Big Bad for the franchise. Here are the other Big Bads for the following seasons:
 * Season 2: Kevin 11
 * Season 3: Ghostfreak
 * Season 4: The Forever King
 * For Ben 10 Alien Force:


 * Seasons 1: The DNAliens
 * Seasons 2: The Highbreed
 * Season 3: Vilgax
 * Ben 10: Ultimate Alien


 * Season 1: Aggregor
 * Season 2: Diagon
 * The Big Bad of the Cadmus Arc of Justice League Unlimited was constantly being teased. At first it seemed Amanda Waller was the mastermind, then Lex Luthor, until it was finally revealed in the next-to-last episode as.
 * This was far from the only example in the DCAU. Batman Beyond had Derek Powers, a Corrupt Corporate Executive who soon became known as the supervillain Blight, as its Big Bad for the first season.
 * Superman: The Animated Series featured an ongoing arc of Superman's struggle with the Galactic Conqueror Darkseid, and his increasingly daring designs on Earth. (By contrast, Lex Luthor's schemes were almost purely episodic in nature.)
 * Even Ra's al Ghul in Batman: The Animated Series arguably qualified, being introduced in the final moments of one episode, and following up on it later with a cataclysmic two-parter.
 * There were several contenders for the title in the final season of JLU. At first it looked like Grodd, until he was deposed by  leading to an apparent Big Bad Duumvirate between  . In the end, though, the real threat turned out to be.
 * Legion of Superheroes had a Five-Bad Band led by "The Emerald Empress" as the most common villain in the first season, in the second season the Big Bad was deafinetly Imperiex who was a Galactic Conqueror even though Imperiex was upstaged by
 * Teen Titans followed a Big Bad formula similar to Buffy:
 * Seasons 1 and 2: Slade
 * Season 3: Brother Blood
 * Season 4: Trigon
 * Season 5: The Brain.
 * Avatar: The Last Airbender settled this on Fire Lord Ozai, who usurped the throne from his older brother, manipulated his wife into killing his father, psychologically forced his daughter to become a perfectionist and abandoned her when she served her purpose, viciously disfigured and disowned his thirteen-year old son for speaking out of turn, and is the lead suspect in his wife's mysterious disappearance. A real piece of work, all right, and that's just his personal life in the Backstory. Professionally, he's an Evil Overlord, who gleefully burned half of a continent just to quell a few uprisings.
 * The second half of Book Two had Long Feng as its Big Bad, at least until.
 * The Legend of Korra, set seventy years after Airbender, shifts this role throughout four seasons:
 * Book One had Amon, Rebel Leader of an anti-bending faction known as Equalists who wanted to Take Over the City and rid the world of bending forever.
 * Book Two had Unalaq, Korra's Evil Uncle whose plan was to merge with the story's Bigger Bad, Vaatu, the spirit of chaos, in order to become the Dark Avatar who could lay waste to the physical realm and rule over the spirits in their own realm.
 * Book Three had Zaheer and his followers in the Red Lotus who hoped to kill the Avatar for good and dissolve the leaderships of the four nations so that natural order could and total freedom be restored to the world.
 * Book Four had Kuvira, female warlord who turned the Earth Kingdom into a fascist empire and sought to dominate the other nations by harnessing energy from the spirit vines to power a Weapon of Mass Destruction.
 * Megatron in almost every incarnation of Transformers, only to usually force an Enemy Mine when Unicron appears.
 * Generation 1: Led the Decepticons on Cybertron and constantly tried all sorts of evil schemes to steal energy from Earth. Since these plans tended to fail, the writers eventually resorted to an Enemy Mine plot every other episode to avoid Villain Decay.
 * In Beast Wars, he was the Big Bad twice. Firstly he's the standard ruler of the Predacons, fighting against the Maximals. During The Reveal, it is shown that the G1 Megatron had orchestrated the plan, ordering the Beast Megatron to go back in time and kill the G1 Autobots while they were in stasis. Only for that plan to be ignored. Beast Wars Megatron only followed this plan as a last ditch effort, in only one plot, which failed. (Thankfully so, or they all would have been killed by Unicron at some point). Other plots include successfully killing both Optimuses (Optimi?), inventing new classes of Transformers (Transmetal 2, Vehicons) and introducing ham to prehistoric Earth.
 * Beast Machines: succeeds in conquering Cybertron and ruling over a planet of mindless, sparkless drones. All the happens before the series begins. During the series, he absorbs every spark on the planet and comes within a millimetre of godhood. Yes, godhood.
 * Armada: Leads the Decepticons and gets his servos on the three most powerful minicons in the universe and would probably have destroyed the Autobots if Unicron hadn't forced them into an alliance.
 * Energon: Rallies the Decepticons into once again fighting against the Autobots, then hijacks Alpha Q's plan to restore his home planet and instead manages to successfully revive and, for a time, control Unicron. Oh, and he reformats Scorponok's and Demolisher's sparks to make them less moral and more loyal to himself.
 * Cybertron: Goes after the Omega Lock and the four Cyber Planet Keys to steal the power of Primus and become a god. He intends to use the Unicron Singularity to destroy the universe and then recreate it as he pleases. Starscream successfully betrays him and nearly usurps this spot, but Galvatron beats him in an epic showdown.
 * Transformers Animated: His body was destroyed in the pilot, leaving him a head in a scientist's lab. Hooked into the lab's computers, and with the right words to Professor Sumdac, he spends the first season working on getting a new body and taking shots at the Autobots through intermediaries. When he gains a new body and comes bursting out of Sumdac Tower in the first season finale, the 'bots know exactly how screwed they are. Circumstances still force him to spend most of his time plotting, but it's still a step up from "Decepticons, RETREAT!"
 * Transformers Prime: Arrives on Earth via space bridge during the Five Episode Pilot, armed with "Dark Energon", which has the power to revive Cybertronian corpses as mindless berserkers. . This series so far as a pattern of alternating between Megatron and someone else for chunks of episodes, going Megatron-> Starscream-> Megatron->  -> Megatron.
 * The Japanese series have added some other Big Bads, such as Scorponok, Devil Z, Overlord, Deathsaurus, Violen Jiger, and Dark Nova.
 * The Japanese sequels to Beast Wars also had their own. Beast Wars II had brothers Galvatron and Megastorm, and Beast Wars Neo had Magmatron.
 * The comics also added a few of their own, including Shockwave, Thunderwing, Ratbat, Bludgeon, Straxus, Scrash, Trannis, Clench, and Jhiaxus. The finale of the Generation II comic revealed that ALL of the G1-era Big Bads were unknowingly reporting to Unfortunately, the comic was canceled immediately after this revelation, so that storyline never went anywhere.
 * Monster Allergy had Corrupt Corporate Executive Magnacat in season 1, Evil Overlord Moog Magister and Hector Sinestro, a dark Tamer, in season 2.
 * Wakfu has Nox for the first season, and Rushu for the second.
 * Actually Rushu ended up just being used by the real big bad:
 * Winx Club:
 * Season 1: The Trix
 * Season 2: Lord Darkar
 * Season 3: Baltor
 * Secret Of the Lost Kingdom(First Movie): Mandragora/The Ancient Witches
 * Season 4: The Fairy Hunters
 * Magic Adventure (Second Movie): The Trix and the Ancient Witches
 * WITCH had Evil Overlord Phobos in season 1, who was succeeded by Nerissa, a Chessmaster and former Guardian, in season 2. Nerissa was manipulating from behind the scenes even during season 1. Pretty impressive, considering she was trapped in a coffin for quite a while.
 * Jackie Chan Adventures:
 * Season 1: Shendu
 * Season 2: The Demon Sorcerers (Shendu's brothers and sisters)
 * Season 3: Daolon Wong, usurped by Shendu in the season finale
 * Season 4: Tarakudo
 * Season 5: Drago
 * The Professor in Huntik Secrets and Seekers.
 * While the The Spectacular Spider-Man had several characters vying for the title of boss of the New York underworld, the title belongs to Tombstone, who serves as the Big Bad for the series until he is deposed by.
 * In Spider-Man: The Animated Series, the Kingpin and Norman Osborn/ Green Goblin took turns vying for this title, though much moreso the Kingpin than Osborn.
 * XANA from Code Lyoko. An artificial intelligence villain who's never seen, but whose influence is certainly felt.
 * Dragon, from Skunk Fu!. Ironically, he is not The Dragon.
 * Danny Phantom
 * Vlad Masters. He's introduced in episode seven, but his influence is felt as early as the opening scenes. Until his Villainous Breakdown, only two people could claim to lay an effective hand on him: Pariah Dark and Jack Fenton, the latter aided with anti-ghost technology. Some have compared him to Slade in deviousness.
 * Pariah Dark himself, despite only appearing twice, one of those being a cameo during a Gondor Calls for Aid situation, probably counts as well. He's essentially Ghost Darkseid, and is one of the strongest characters, if not the strongest seen in the series.
 * Each of the double-length movie episodes has one. First is Pariah, as mentioned above. Next is Dark Danny, who is somewhat less powerful but a more personal (and psychotic) threat. Then is the ordinary Muggle Freakshow, who spends the movie trying to get his hands on an Artifact of Doom that will give him reality warping powers. The final Big Bad is not a person, but rather the ecto-asteroid. As Vlad is still the series-spanning Big Bad, he was active in all of these storylines as well (except for the third).
 * X-Men has Apocalypse.
 * In X-Men: Evolution, Magneto is the Big Bad for the first two seasons, and Apocalypse takes the role in the last two.
 * And in Wolverine and the X-Men, Mastermold is the Big Bad of the Bad Future Xavier is stuck in, while Magneto largely takes the role among several long-term villains . The Sequel Hook set up   as the Big Bad for an aborted second season.
 * Buzz Lightyear of Star Command has Zurg.
 * Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles usually has Shredder as the Big Bad, but in the cartoons he is often topped by some alien threat. In the 2003 version of the cartoon, he usually comes out on top, since he took about a hundred levels in badass.
 * In the 2003 cartoon, he cements his position as the Big Bad even further by making plenty of Xanatos Gambits.
 * The Tengu (the demon whose legend inspired the Shredder) for season four and five and Darius Dun in season six. The 'original' Shredder made his triumphant return in season seven as a digital program and in the flesh in the concluding film.
 * Thanks to the Sorting Algorithm of Evil, the Big Bad of The Fairly Odd Parents has changed a few times. In the first three seasons, Crocker was Timmy's worst enemy, appearing as the bad guy in every special that had a true villain. "The Big Superhero Wish" was the first special where he was not the main bad guy, and "Channel Chasers" reduced him to a cameo. After that, Anti-Cosmo of the anti-fairies and HP of the pixies took over for the next three seasons as a Big Bad Duumvirate, especially in season six, where the characters never appear separate. Then The Darkness for the "Wishology" trilogy. With the birth of Foop, he took over for season seven (he's been confirmed as the villain in that season's finale). The Movies are a good example of this.
 * Abaca-tasprohe: Crocker
 * Channel Chasers: Vicky
 * Schools Out The Musical: HP and the Pixies
 * Fairy Idol: Norm the Genie
 * Fairly Oddbaby: Anti-Fairies along with the Pixies
 * Wishology: The Darkness and later Destructinator
 * There's also the Jimmy/Timmy Power Hour crossovers

"Bobby: C'mon, Dungeon Master, who is it? Or what is it? Dungeon Master: His name is not for your ears, Barbarian! He is not life as we know it. He has many identities, on many different worlds! But all know him as... Evil! (Dungeon Master teleports himself and the children to the other side of the world) Dungeon Master: The ruler of many universes! But his goal is to rule the entire cosmos with evil."
 * Part 1: Crocker and a malfunctioning Goddard
 * Part 2: Professor Calamitous and Anti-Cosmo
 * Part 3: The Villain Whose Name Isn't Shirley
 * Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series: The Evil Incarnate summoned by the Box of Balefire, which Venger attempts to welcome, calling it "master", until it accuses him of failure and reduces his (most recent) castle to a lava-filled crater. Then it goes after the main characters.


 * Arguably, Tiamat was the more commonly-encountered form. Even Venger hauled ass when she showed up.
 * There are two main villains whose overarching schemes drive the plot of Gargoyles: Xanatos and Demona. As the show progresses, however,  gets character development leading to a Heel Face Turn (kind of), leaving   the unchallenged Big Bad by the time of the Grand Finale. In season 3 Castaway and his Quarrymen took on the role, while the (canon) comic continuation has   stepping in to fill the empty shoes of main bad guy.
 * Aku on Samurai Jack. His destruction is one of Jack's two big goals, the other being getting back home.
 * Skrawl on Chalk Zone.
 * Duke Igthorn is the Gummi Bears' greatest enemy.
 * The Almighty Tallests in Invader Zim.
 * Depends more on how you look at it: Are they stupid? Yes. But, all Irkens are very materialistic and wasteful, and they are willing to kill everyone on a planet just to they can use them as silly thinks like parking garages and package shipping.
 * Depending on whose side your on, Zim, Dib, or Tak can also qualify.
 * Looking at it from Dib's POV as the Hero Antagonist, you could say that Zim is the Big Bad trying to take over the world, Tak is the Big Bad's more competent rival, and the Tallest are the Bigger Bad trying to take over the whole universe.
 * On Codename: Kids Next Door, Father was undeniably the top of the villain hierarchy.
 * Though, The Movie revealed an even more dangerous foe: Grandfather.
 * Mr. Boss plays Big Bad a couple times, too, and if there's a Legion of Doom to be had, he's usually the leader (though it should be noted Father rarely participates in these).
 * V. V. Argost's schemes drive the plot of The Secret Saturdays.
 * Ms. Censordoll in Moral Orel.
 * Lucius Henious VII on Jimmy Two-Shoes
 * Some episodes have Lucius as the Big Bad while others have him as a Villain Protagonist.
 * Futurama doesn't always call for a Big Bad, but when it does, it's almost always Richard Nixon's Head or Mom. Each of the movies have had one.
 * Bender's Big Score: Nudar.
 * The Beast With A Billion Backs: Act 1: Dr. Ogden Wernstrom. Act 2: Zapp Brannigan. Act 3: Yivo. Act 4: Bender.
 * Bender's Game: Mom/Momon.
 * Into The Wild Green Yonder: The Dark One/ . Mr. Wong also counts.
 * Horde Prime is the guy giving orders to the much more famous Skeletor and Hordak. He's also a prime example of why Nothing Is Scarier, as when he finally came out of the shadows in the comics, this was the result.
 * Van Kleiss from Generator Rex, though it might end up being a bit more complicated than that seeing as White Knight, nominally the Big Good, isn't the nicest guy himself...
 * According to Word of God, Chris McLean will always be the true villain of the Total Drama series, regardless of which contestant is causing trouble that season.
 * Re Boot has Megabyte. He is the main villain in this show and never suffered from Villain Decay. He even strands Bob in the Web for 10 episodes. Even after the Daemon arc, which threatened the entire net, Megabyte's return invokes a lot more fear in the heros. This fear is well founded, as Megabyte takes over the Principal office in less than 2 episodes since returning.
 * While the Galaxy Rangers had an extensive Rogues Gallery for a cartoon of The Eighties, the one who ruled them all was The Queen of the Crown. Mass Genocide? Check. Enslaving a planet and putting the inhabitants under concentration camp conditions? Check. blowing a chunk out of Earth's Moon just to prove a point and demand 5000 human lives as tribute? Check. Mash her prisoners down for Life Energy, and use the resulting Soul Jar to power a high-end mook? Check. Sends the wife of the one of the heroes to a Fate Worse Than Death? Check. Casual Mind Rape of The Hero? Oh, check. With a side of really squicky Foe Yay.
 * Avenger Penguins - Caractacus P Doom. As if life could hold anything else in store for a chap with a name like that.
 * Disney and Pixar villains:
 * The Evil Queen from Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs
 * Chernabog for the "Night On Bald Mountain" segment of Fantasia, though not for the film itself.
 * Lady Tremaine from Cinderella
 * Captain Hook from Peter Pan
 * Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty
 * Cruella de Vil from One Hundred and One Dalmatians
 * Share Khan and Kaa from The Jungle Book
 * Prince John from Robin Hood
 * Madame Medusa from the first The Rescuers film, and Percival McLeach from The Rescuers Down Under.
 * The Horned King from The Black Cauldron
 * Professor Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective
 * Sykes from Oliver and Company
 * Ursula from the first The Little Mermaid film, Morgana from the second, and Marina Del Ray from the third.
 * Gaston from the first Beauty and the Beast film, and Forte from the second.
 * Jafar from the first two Aladdin films and Sa'Luk from the third.
 * Scar from the first The Lion King film, and Zira from the second.
 * Governor Ratcliffe from Pocahontas
 * from the third Toy Story.
 * Judge Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame
 * Hades from Hercules
 * Shan Yu from Mulan
 * Hopper from A Bugs Life
 * Clayton from Tarzan
 * The Carnotaurus from Dinosaur.
 * Yzma from The Emperors New Groove
 * from Atlantis: The Lost Empire
 * from Monsters, Inc.
 * Doctor Jacques von Hamsterviel from Lilo and Stitch: The Series
 * Alameda Slim from Home on the Range
 * Syndrome from The Incredibles
 * Chick Hicks from the first Cars film, and  from Cars 2.
 * "Bowler Hat Guy" and DOR-15 are the Big Bad Duumvirate in Meet the Robinsons
 * AUTO from WALL-E
 * Charles Muntz from Up
 * Doctor "The Shadow Man" Facilier from The Princess and the Frog
 * Mother Gothel from Tangled
 * Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes had  as the ultimate Big Bad of its first season, and Baron Strucker, Baron Zemo, the Leader, Kang the Conqueror, and Ultron as Big Bads of smaller arcs within the season.
 * Simon the gremlin in Trollz.
 * The Red Guy in Cow and Chicken and I Am Weasel.
 * The Ice King in Adventure Time, though the Bigger Bad would be The Lich.
 * Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated: The end of Season 1 revealed that  was the one behind the whole plot, and he actively confronted the gang in the finale. However, it could also be argued that he shared the role with Professor Pericles who is much more active a villain throughout the season. And in any case, at the end of the season   is arrested, leaving Pericles to take on the role fully.
 * Russ Cargill from The Simpsons Movie, yet Homer is treated like the main antagonist. Mr. Burns usually fits the role in the show.
 * Stavros Garkos from Hurricanes.
 * The Shrek films:
 * Shrek: Lord Farquaad
 * Shrek 2: The Fairy Godmother
 * Shrek The Third: Prince Charming
 * Shrek Forever After: Rumplestiltskin
 * In the spinoff Puss in Boots, it appears that Jack and Jill are the Big Bad
 * Green Lantern the Animated Series has Atrocitus, leader of the Red Lanterns.
 * Eric Cartman in South Park typically plays this role.
 * Swiper in Dora the Explorer can be seen as this.
 * The Light, which consists of  in Season 1 of Young Justice.
 * In season two, the Light replaces  with  . Whether they'll be *the* biggest threat of the season is unclear, but their actions are still the cause of
 * In Thundercats and Thundercats 2011 there's Sorcerous Overlord Mummy/Lich Mumm-Ra, foe of the titular Cats as they foil his attempts to Take Over the World.
 * There were, however, four Bigger Bads behind Mumm-Ra, who are never confronted directly and only appear in statue form. Mumm-Ra isn't even their strongest follower; that honor goes to Pyron, who appeared out of nowhere to be the Final Boss of the original series.
 * Fritz Huhnmorder in Robot Chicken, since he forces the chicken to watch the crossovers on the television.
 * The Big Bad of both Star Wars Clone Wars and Star Wars the Clone Wars is, surprising probably nobody, Palpatine/Darth Sidious.
 * My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic doesn't have an overall Big Bad, with its antagonists being mainly on an episode-to-episode basis (due to Executive Meddling wanting to keep things simple enough for new viewers to jump in whenever without getting confused). That being said, the villains of the show's two-parters are always much more powerful and much more dangerous than any of the monsters and jerks who compose the rest of the show's villains.
 * The series premiere "Friendship is Magic" had Nightmare Moon, Princess Luna's Super-Powered Evil Side, who wants to bring about The Night That Never Ends.
 * The season 2 premiere "The Return of Harmony" had Discord, the spirit of chaos, who wants to create a World Gone Mad.
 * The season 2 finale "A Canterlot Wedding" had the Changeling Queen Chrysalis, who as part of a plot to take over Equestria.
 * The Season 3 premiere had King Sombra, an Evil Overlord turned Eldritch Abomination who's out to enslave the Crystal Empire.
 * The Season 4 finale had Lord Tirek, a demonic centaur who serves as Equestria's Satan and
 * Season 5 had Twilight's Evil Counterpart Starlight Glimmer in both the premiere and the finale.
 * The Equestria Girl movies had Sunset Shimmer in the first film, the Dazzlings in the second, and Principal Abbacus Cinch in the third.