Magnificent Bastard/Western Animation/Avatarverse

Both Avatar: The Last Airbender and it's sequel The Legend of Korra feature some of the most particularly charismatic, competent, and effective villains to be found in Western Animation.


 * Princess Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender. She's a sociopathic firebending prodigy, but she does it with such style and planning that you can't help but admire her (but hopefully not too much). She manipulates everyone around her, including her own brother, and her plans in the second season require her to out-maneuver another Chessmaster, Long Feng, which she does, effortlessly. Her Crowning Moment of Awesome was Keep in mind that she's only fourteen.
 * She wove Manipulative Bastard with The Chessmaster by exploiting sleep deprivation. Heck, she She then also
 * Azula is succeeded by Amon in The Legend of Korra, who has obtained this status in record time, SIX EPISODES! Every thing this guy does only gains him more followers. He sends a threat to city hall, and knows that they won't listen and just heighten security at the Pro Bending arena. He then has his fellow equalists disguise as simple audience members and sneak in their weapons by hiding them in their popcorn. Turns out he wanted the entire poice force there so he could take them all out at one before they could stop him and show the whole stadium how powerless they were. He also might have payed off the Pro Bending referees to not call out the Wolfbats team's cheating to ensure that they'd win the match, so Amon could then make an example of them by taking away their bending. And he knows how to take advantage of the situations: he always makes sure that people see the truth of his extremist beliefs that benders abuse their powers. It helps that the first thing we ever see him really do in the show is taking bending powers away from dangerous crime bosses.
 * Technically, he may have achieved this status in THREE episodes, because although he achieved it by the end of Episode 6, he didn't appear in Episode 1, 2, or 5. Yes, this entire feat was accomplished in just three episodes. (Technically, he does appear in the first episode, but just at the very end merely saying "I'm going to put my plan into action now", so he doesn't really do anything until episode 3.)
 * His plan in episode 6 was actually a win/win for Amon. If the committee does listen to his threat and stop the Pro Bender finals, then the government and police force ends up looking weak and useless against him and his Equalist movement. If they don't listen to his threat, well, we saw what happened when they didn't, and it wasn't pretty.
 * Book Two of Legend of Korra gives us Varrick, the goofy, quirky, eccentric, but charismatic business genius who is also a criminal mastermind seeking to profit off of the Water Tribe's war. As he cheerfully puts it, "If you can't make money during a war, then you just plain can't make money!" He does several crooked, rotten, underhanded things that could put the fortunes, reputations, and lives of others on the line while being on the side of the good guys. And even when he's outed as a crook, he keeps the characters' respect by pointing out all the good he's done as well and assisting them yet again by offering them his air ship. He does this from a luxurious prison cell that he had made just for him because he knew he'd go to jail one day, a cell from which he later makes a stylish escape from the moment he sees the opportunity using a hang-glider which he just happened to have smuggled into his jail cell in the event an aerial escape opportunity presented itself. Throughout the season Varrick manages to be surprisingly ingenious in his plots, Crazy Prepared for any eventuality, and genuinely affable to the Krew even as he's manipulating them or screwing them over for his own interests.
 * When he's next seen in Book 3, it's in Zaofu, being treated as a guest of honor and going completely unpunished for any of his actions. Su Yin trusts him and believes him reformed. Come Book 4, he promptly proves her wrong as he helps Kuvira conquer the Earth Kingdom and then subverts that refusing to build Kuvira's weapon of mass destruction, even blowing up the supply of its power source. He is later vital to destroying Kuvira's Humongous Mecha and defeating the Earth Empire. His Character Development even leads to a marriage with Zhu Li in the Grand Finale.
 * Zaheer, the Big Bad of Book 3, is the leader of the Red Lotus, a secret society dedicated to bringing about chaos as the world's natural order. Imprisoned years ago for attempting kidnap Avatar Korra, Zaheer attains airbending after the events of Harmonic Convergence. With his newfound powers, he breaks himself and his fellow members out from prison, before resuming their goal to capture the Avatar. Undeterred by any setback he comes across, Zaheer comes up with plans on the fly that allows him to stay one step ahead of the heroes. Once a deal with the Earth Queen Hou-Ting goes south, he murders her out of contempt for her tyranny, publicly declaring the liberation of the Earth Kingdom and throwing the land into his desired anarchy. After losing his lover P'Li in battle, Zaheer awakens the power of Flight and manages to escape with his remaining comrades with a captured Korra. Zaheer plans to kill Korra in the Avatar state by poisoning her body with mercury and end the Avatar cycle for good, but was narrowly thwarted and imprisoned once again. Briefly returning in Book 4, an imprisoned Zaheer helps Korra recover from her trauma so that she could help fix the mess he created and take down Kuvira. Always polite to ally and enemy alike, Zaheer has both guile and conviction on his side, through which he attains the power of flight, a feat no other airbender has achieved in 4000 years.
 * Kuvira in Book 4, like Amon, is a Dangerously Genre Savvy Chessmaster Villain with Good Publicity who has so far managed to outmaneuver anyone who's challenged her. She even breaks Amon's record and earns her status in one episode! In "The Battle of Zaofu" she anticipated that Suyin would try to attack her and set up a clever Batman Gambit to capture them making it look like they were the aggressors while maintaining her Villain with Good Publicity status. That forced Korra to challenge her to a one-on-one duel for Zaofu, which Kuvira wins (though granted, the fight was full of Idiot Ball moments on Kuvira's part and she only won due to something she couldn't have planned on). She then attempts to kill Korra, which works out either way because it would either eliminate the Avatar or force Jinora and Opal to violate the duel. The latter gives her just the excuse she needs to invade Zaofu. And though Bolin and Varrick managed to escape, Bataar Jr. has seen enough of the spirit vine experiment to restart the project with Zhu Li's help. In other words, she won decisively. And then there's "Kuvira's Gambit" Kuvira knows that Republic City has been warned of her coming attack, so she moves up the schedule to one week instead of two. In addition, they believe that she is transporting the cannon by rail, so they attempt to disable rail transport; anticipating this, she deploys the cannon on a Colossus instead. And when presented with a Sadistic Choice of leaving Republic City or never seeing Bataar Jr again, her response is to (though not without a great deal of regret) Shoot the Hostage.
 * Zaheer, the Big Bad of Book 3, is the leader of the Red Lotus, a secret society dedicated to bringing about chaos as the world's natural order. Imprisoned years ago for attempting kidnap Avatar Korra, Zaheer attains airbending after the events of Harmonic Convergence. With his newfound powers, he breaks himself and his fellow members out from prison, before resuming their goal to capture the Avatar. Undeterred by any setback he comes across, Zaheer comes up with plans on the fly that allows him to stay one step ahead of the heroes. Once a deal with the Earth Queen Hou-Ting goes south, he murders her out of contempt for her tyranny, publicly declaring the liberation of the Earth Kingdom and throwing the land into his desired anarchy. After losing his lover P'Li in battle, Zaheer awakens the power of Flight and manages to escape with his remaining comrades with a captured Korra. Zaheer plans to kill Korra in the Avatar state by poisoning her body with mercury and end the Avatar cycle for good, but was narrowly thwarted and imprisoned once again. Briefly returning in Book 4, an imprisoned Zaheer helps Korra recover from her trauma so that she could help fix the mess he created and take down Kuvira. Always polite to ally and enemy alike, Zaheer has both guile and conviction on his side, through which he attains the power of flight, a feat no other airbender has achieved in 4000 years.
 * Kuvira in Book 4, like Amon, is a Dangerously Genre Savvy Chessmaster Villain with Good Publicity who has so far managed to outmaneuver anyone who's challenged her. She even breaks Amon's record and earns her status in one episode! In "The Battle of Zaofu" she anticipated that Suyin would try to attack her and set up a clever Batman Gambit to capture them making it look like they were the aggressors while maintaining her Villain with Good Publicity status. That forced Korra to challenge her to a one-on-one duel for Zaofu, which Kuvira wins (though granted, the fight was full of Idiot Ball moments on Kuvira's part and she only won due to something she couldn't have planned on). She then attempts to kill Korra, which works out either way because it would either eliminate the Avatar or force Jinora and Opal to violate the duel. The latter gives her just the excuse she needs to invade Zaofu. And though Bolin and Varrick managed to escape, Bataar Jr. has seen enough of the spirit vine experiment to restart the project with Zhu Li's help. In other words, she won decisively. And then there's "Kuvira's Gambit" Kuvira knows that Republic City has been warned of her coming attack, so she moves up the schedule to one week instead of two. In addition, they believe that she is transporting the cannon by rail, so they attempt to disable rail transport; anticipating this, she deploys the cannon on a Colossus instead. And when presented with a Sadistic Choice of leaving Republic City or never seeing Bataar Jr again, her response is to (though not without a great deal of regret) Shoot the Hostage.