In Their Own Image

"Yes... I, Grodus, will build a new world! A perfect, ideal world, made by me, about me, and FOR me!"

- Grodus, Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door

So things aren't going to well for you. Maybe you want to turn over a new leaf. Maybe you want to start your life anew. Instead, maybe you don't want to half-ass it, you want make all life anew. Or, you could just be a Card-Carrying Villain. This trope is when a character gets the bright idea to go back to the beginning of time, or a foundational event in the timeline, because their mere presence or actions will cause For Want of a Nail to its logical extreme.

Anime and Manga

 * Cyrus, leader of Pokémon's Team Galactic, attempts to use the pokegods of Time and Space in order to remake the universe in his image.
 * This is the plan of the the Big Bad Pucci in Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure part 6; to reset the universe and create a world where everybody knows their own destiny (also, the Joestars won't exist, but that more Avenging the Villain).
 * At the end of Transformers Cybertron, this becomes Galvatron's goal. He seeks to send the multiverse ending Black Hole into overdrive to destroy everything, using the Omega Lock and Cyber Planet Keys to survive the end of the universe, then rebuild it as he sees fit.

Comic Books

 * In an issue of The Incredible Hulk the Leader goes back to make everyone a gamma freak (they'll turn out Leaders, Hulks, or Abominations) and Hulk & the Avengers go back to stop him.
 * Sise-Neg from a Doctor Strange story in the Marvel Universe. Note that Sise-Neg is "genesis" spelled backwards.
 * In The DCU's Crisis Crossover Zero Hour, Hal Jordan as Parallax tried to go back to the big bang and reboot the universe the way he wanted it. This resulted in another Cosmic Retcon and a partial Continuity Reboot to several DC series (Hawkman and Legion of Super-Heroes, most notably).
 * The Anti-Monitor did this in Crisis on Infinite Earths after his original plans to destroy all universes were defeated by superheroes. He is stopped again, but random changes (most notably the elimination of all Parallel Earths) happened as a result.

Fan Fiction

 * Fanfic version: In the Undocumented Features arc Twilight (no relation), Loki sneaks into the building containing the supercomputer Yggdrasil, planning on reprogramming it to grant him infinite cosmic power. However, Urd stops him.

Literature

 * In the Corwin part of The Chronicles of Amber series, the seeks to recreate the universe to  own image by
 * Sonic the Hedgehog's UK book Sonic In the Fourth Dimension had a band of imaginary creatures facing Fantastic Racism attempt this. Surprisingly a good read, even after a decade.
 * Played with in Eric by Terry Pratchett. The not-really-evil conjurer demands Rincewind make him live forever, which means starting at the beginning of creation..... Mayonnaise ensues.
 * Subverted in the 2nd Dragonlance trilogy, the Twins set, when Tasslehoff ends up in the future, and manages to get to a pivotal point in time to avert said future.

Live-Action Television

 * This is Brajira's ultimate goal in Tensou Sentai Goseiger.

Western Animation

 * In Justice League, this turns out to be the overarching scheme of Darkseid: He will discover the Anti-Life equation and use it to destroy reality itself, before commandeering the recreation process and rebuilding it in his image and create a universe of perfect order and obedience.
 * One-off villain Lord Chronos tried this using his time-travel suit, a far cry from his original hobby of going back to steal objects no one would ever miss.
 * After being taken over by Brainiac, Luthor asks what the plan is after analyzing and destroying all worlds. When it turns out he doesn't have one Luthor suggests they do this, and Brainiac acquiesces. As a result, Superman's "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight appeal fails miserably.
 * In Pinky and The Brain, the Brain once went back in time to make a world ruled by mice. He succeeded, but changed his mind when he ended up with a world full of Pinkies.
 * In an episode of Aladdin, Abis Mal gets his hands on a time travel device and decides to go back to the day Agrabah was founded, so that he could found it instead of the ancestors of the current Sultan. Instead, he ends up squabbling with his ancestor and not really getting anything done, before Aladdin shows up to take the time travel device away and set everything right.

Video Games

 * The villains of Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door and Super Paper Mario. Grodus of the former gives us the page quote.
 * SHODAN, after having the player fight off the Annalids, tries to take control of the hyperspace module to rewrite the universe to her specifications.
 * The Dark Voice from Starcraft seems to fit this pretty well.
 * This is the point of the Reasons in Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne. Each Reason holder seeks to recreate the world according to their guiding philosophy. The only one who attempts this and fails is, who believes that her God will tell her the Reason, failing to realize that she is meant to come up with it herself. However, the MC can still unlock it as available ending. It's worth mentioning that her motivation is relatively unselfish compared to the others:

Web Comics

 * Sarda the Sage attempted this in Eight Bit Theater but inadvertently beat himself to the punch when he sent White Mage there ahead of himself.