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** In ''[[Digimon Adventure 02|02]]'', Daemon and his followers appeared randomly, had incredibly vague motivations (they want the Dark Spores... for some reason) and are defeated in a few episodes after causing some pointless mayhem. They are then quickly forgotten.
** In ''[[Digimon Frontier|Frontier]]'', after seemingly defeating [[Big Bad|Cherubimon]] and destroying his fortress, the heroes fight an IceDevimon who was apparently sealed inside since he was too powerful for even the Three Holy Digimon to defeat. The lack of hinting towards this and his relatively quick defeat suggests that his only purpose was to [[Filler|fill up half an episode]].
* Walpurgisnacht from ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica (Anime)|Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]''. It breaks the rules the other [[Monster of the Week|witches]] follow, with no explanation given for why or how. This is even lampshaded: [[All There in the Manual|Supplementary material]] describes her as the witch of stage setting; she exists so the story can happen.
* ''[[Pretty Cure]] All-Stars'' movies seems to have a tendency to use this trope gratuitously, due to lack of connection between individual ''Pretty Cure'' series. The latest of which, in [[DX 3]], is the entity simply known as Black Hole. It's best described as [[The Heartless]] of every ''Pretty Cure'' villain, ever.
* Kain, the villain the the ''[[Tenchi Muyo!]]'' movie "Tenchi In Love".
 
 
== Comic Books ==
* ''[[Superman]]: The Man of Steel'' #17 introduces the most (in)famous Devil from Nothing: [[Generic Doomsday Villain|Doomsday]]. He basically emerges from the bowels of the earth, squishes a bird, and then goes on a killing spree for no good reason. He's pretty much there just to kill Superman and kick off the "Death" and "Rebirth" story arcs.
* Darwyn Cooke's ''[[Justice League: theThe New Frontier]]'' spends so much time dropping obscure DC character names that it never creates a fleshed out back story or motivation for "The Centre"--a giant living island of dinosaurs determined to cleanse the Earth and then the Solar System. Ironically, the Centre itself is from an obscure source--Dinosaur Island, a [[Lost World]] featured in several "Weird War Tales" comics. Its existence was never previously explained, and Cooke decided to reinvent it as an alien menace.
** It seems to briefly explain its motives by possessing an [[Expy]] for Dr. Seuss, who writes it down in a story before killing himself; it reveals that it's a prehistoric entity which tired of humanity's ''noise'' and yearns to leave Earth to explore the solar system. This will require exterminating humanity for ... some reason.
*** Its plan was to wipe out humanity so the Earth can heal itself from all the damages humanity has done.
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== Film ==
* The Whale Probe in ''[[Star Trek IV: theThe Voyage Home (Film)|Star Trek IV the Voyage Home]]'' is never given any backstory or origin. It's the quintessential [[Big Dumb Object]] that exists to make [[The Kirk|Jim Kirk's]] court martial more of a hero's welcome. (The probe was eventually given a back story in the book [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|''Probe'']].)
** [[Justified Trope|Justified]] in Spock's exact line, "Only human arrogance would assume the message 'must be meant for Man'." One might imagine it was quite chatty with the cetacean life it was sent to contact.
* ''[[Star Trek Nemesis (Film)|Star Trek Nemesis]]'': title is pretty much the description of the writer's intentions: make a bad guy that's bad enough for Picard. All of Shinzon's anger should be directed at his creators/torturers on Romulus, but then Picard wouldn't give a darn. So Shinzon needs to attack Earth with no motivation except to be Picard's Nemesis.
** His anger is directed towards the Romulans, but it's pretty unsurprising that he harbours some bad feelings towards the man in whose image he was created. Attacking Earth is more to with his Reman upbringing since it's implied they are basically a race of [[Blood Knight|blood knights]], and it serves to show up the Romulans who have made several attempts to defeat Earth over the centuries and always failed. He wants to make a statement as the new leader of the Romulan empire.
* ''[[The Fifth Element]]'' introduces The Great Evil, an angry, black sphere that doesn't even have a proper name let alone a motivation. But how would Bruce Willis find a cute thousand-year-old alien girl to nail without it?
* The shark from ''[[Jaws (Filmfilm)|Jaws]]'' has no reason to be so big, eat people, and sink boats. But thank goodness it is and does because Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss are a match made in heaven. Of course, how much motivation does a ''shark'' need? Occasionally animals realize humans are pretty easy to kill and start eating them, they tend to keep doing so until they die.
* ''[[Krull]]'': The Beast appears from outer space, invades the world and randomly crashes wedding parties all in the name of being bad. While the backstory of the Cyclops indicates that the Beast has done this sort of thing on other worlds before, there's otherwise no backstory for the Beast itself explaining where it came from and why it decided to go about invading worlds.
* In ''[[The Dark Knight]]'' [[The Joker]] has no [[Start of Darkness]], no backstory ([[Multiple Choice Past|none that you'd believe, at any rate]]). He's just ''there'' at the start of the movie to wreak havoc, havoc and more havoc, [[For the Evulz|just 'cause]], which actually serves to make him even scarier than he might be otherwise. As Alfred puts it: "Some men just want to watch the world burn."
* The ending of the American ''[[Astro Boy (Filmfilm)|Astro Boy]]'' movie. Just as the day is saved and everyone is celebrating, a giant sun-shaped alien with tentacles that shoots lasers out of its one giant eye attacks the town. No reason, no foreshadowing, someone just shouts "Alien!" and it's there.
** It was probably one last [[Shout-Out]] to the Artificial Sun from one of the earlier Astro Boy series.
* Many [[Our Werewolves Are Different|Werewolf Movies]], such as ''[[An American Werewolf in London]]'', ''[[Ginger Snaps]]'', and ''[[Wolf]]'', in which the protagonists are bitten and become werewolves, do not go into very much detail, if any at all, in explaining where the original werewolf came from. This is because it is rarely very important to the story, the focus is on the protagonist's reaction to their condition.
* ''Frankenstein Conquers The World'': The "International" cut climaxes in a fight between Frankenstein's Monster (in city-stomping [[Kaiju]] form) and a giant octopus who suddenly shows up out of nowhere. Not only that, but it's a famous [[Misplaced Wildlife|Japanese Mountain Lake Octopus]], as most of the action takes place in the "Japanese Alps." Although it was filmed at the request of the American distrubutor, he apparently felt the end result was just too silly. The scene was cut from both the Japanese and American versions, but for reasons unknown, was kept in the "International" cut (English language, but for territories outside America.)
* Monster X/Keizer Ghidorah from ''[[Godzilla|Godzilla: Final Wars]]''. He just appears out of nowhere (Though it's implied he was inside the meteor "Gorath" that was heading to Earth), fights Godzilla to a draw, transforms into his more-powerful form, nearly curb-stomps Godzilla to death, and then is ultimately defeated after Godzilla gets a power boost.
* The murderous robber dressed like Santa Claus from the beginning of ''[[Silent Night, Deadly Night]]''.
* The killer in ''HellBent'' is given no origin or motivation, never has his name or actual appearance revealed and isn't even mentioned in the credits. Also, making a literal example of the trope, he's dressed as the devil.
* ''[[The Thief and The Cobbler (Animation)|The Thief and Thethe Cobbler]]:'' The Mighty One-Eye, ''and'' the entire race of [[Always Chaotic Evil|monstrous]] [[Red Right Hand|One-eyed]] men he is the leader of (simply called the "One-Eyes") simply appear into the film without any kind of backstory. They want to conquer and destry a Golden City, also without any explained motivation.
 
 
== Literature ==
* ''[[The Silmarillion (Literature)|The Silmarillion]]'' by [[JRRJ. R. R. Tolkien (Creator)|JRR Tolkien]]: [[Eldritch Abomination|Ungoliant]]; she is said to have "descended from the Outer Darkness, maybe, that lies in Ea beyond the walls of the World." She destroys the Two Trees and almost [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|eats Morgoth]]. After breeding with lesser spiders, she just... wandered off.
{{quote| "Some have said that she ended long ago, when in her uttermost famine she devoured herself at last."}}
** ''[[The History of Middle Earth (Literature)|The History of Middle Earth]]'' gives more details, with Ungoliant originally written as an [[Eldritch Abomination]] 'personification of primeval night' before the world was made, and later this being changed to her being a Maia and former disciple of Morgoth who grew strong enough to equal him in his long years of imprisonment. Also, Ungoliant was originally planned to re-enter the story -- Earendil slew her in one of his adventures on the way to Valinor. It's likely this would have ended up in ''[[The Silmarillion]]'' if Tolkien had ever finished that part of the story.
* With the exceptions of Blaine the Mono and Andy the Messenger Robot (Many Other Functions!), pretty much every robot in ''[[The Dark Tower]]''. They show up, kill, maim, or psionically alter someone, then are either destroyed or returned to hibernation.
* "The One" from ''[[Animorphs (Literature)|Animorphs]].'' It is a literary [[Giant Space Flea From Nowhere]], introduced in the very last book after the [[Puppeteer Parasite|Yeerks]] are defeated. There is no explanation of where it came from or what it wants, it merely becomes the remaining Yeerks' [[A God Am I|new god]], [[The Assimilator|assimilates]] Ax, shapeshifts to a bunch of random things to freak the heroes out and gets its spaceship rammed. [[KAK. A. Applegate]]'s [[Word of God|comments]] seem to indicate that she just wanted the good guys to get screwed by a new war and created a [[Diabolus Ex Machina]] to let them go out in a blaze of glory.
** Whatever it was that sent Jake to a [[Bad Future]], as some kind of test, in ''The Familiar'', the definitive [[BLAM Episode]] of the series.
* In the ''[[Warrior Cats (Literature)|Warrior Cats]]'' series, the [[Big Bad]] Tigerstar had nine lives at the beginning of the (then) final book, ''The Darkest Hour''. In order to avoid making him seem like a pathetic weakling, the authors had a random cat called Scourge show up, kill Tigerstar all nine times, kill ''the protagonist'', Firestar, and take over the Clans. And then Scourge died.
 
 
== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Star Trek: theThe Next Generation]]'''s pilot episode introduces "Q", a god like entity that begins harassing the crew seemingly for the sake of it. He simply appears on the bridge and creates unnecessary drama. While he eventually becomes a beloved character by the end of the series, I dare you to see how he was important to the plot of the pilot and realize how tight the adventure would have been without him. [[Word of God]] says that the pilot was originally going to be one episode, but [[Executive Meddling]] forced it to become a two part episode. So Q was made up to fill the extra hour.
* ''[[Star Trek: theThe Original Series (TV)|Star Trek the Original Series]]'' had the Doomsday Machine from the episode of the same name, a giant weapon that flies through space eating everything it comes in contact with, up to and including entire planets. Spock believes it came from another galaxy, and Kirk theorizes it may have been built as a form of [[Mutually Assured Destruction]] in a war, intended as a bluff or deterrent but ultimately used, however the true origins and purpose of the machine are never revealed.
* The enemy from the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "[[Doctor Who/NS/Recap/S4 E10 Midnight|Midnight]]" -- we never see its true form, or learn its name. It just appears out of nowhere, possesses Sky, places the Doctor and everyone with him in grave danger, {{spoiler|and is eventually defeated - but certainly not killed - by a random bystander, as it's incapacitated the Doctor}}.
** Considering how often the Doctor exhibits an encyclopedic knowledge of...everything...throughout his adventures, many count the episode as one of the eeriest in all Who, to the point of [[That One Case]].
* In ''[[Kamen Rider Decade]]: All Riders vs. Great Shocker'', there's King Dark, the Big Bad of ''[[Kamen Rider X]]'', who only rises after all the other villains are killed. It was never hinted anywhere in the movie that he would even appear at all. Since there is already a personification of the Great Leader, recurring Bigger Bad of the Showa era in {{spoiler|the eponymous Decade}}, it means that there are two Great Leaders running amuck. He was probably just included to give an excuse to use the giant [[Kamen Rider J]] (the movie did say ''All Riders'').
** And then {{spoiler|[[Kamen Rider ZO|Doras]] shows up in Decade's [[Grand Finale]] after dealing with both [[Villain Protagonist|Tsukasa]] ''and'' [[The Remnant|Super Shocker]] almost out of nowhere.}}
* The creators of ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]'' promised in an interview that the end of season four would end with an intriguing [[Cliff Hanger]] in which a previously seen "evil" character would reappear. Most fans bet their money on Mordred. However, it turned out to be something completely random. In an early season four episode Merlin discovers a dragon's egg, hatches it, and calls the baby dragon Aithusa, said to be a symbol of the forthcoming Golden Age of Camelot. The audience was given absolutely no reason to believe that Aithusa was anything but a harmless baby dragon, who is not seen or mentioned until the end of season four, where it appears in the forest to heal an injured Morgana for no apparent reason and fly off again.
 
 
== Mythology ==
* In Hesiod's ''[[Theogony (Literature)|Theogony]]''--an early [[Trope Codifier]] of [[Greek Mythology]]--Typhon is one of these. He shows up out of nowhere to wreck havoc after the Olympians win their war against the Titans and Giants. Zeus Curb Stomps him and the world is finally at peace. Some later retellings either edit this bit out for being too random or write the battle as a more grandiose affair.
** Various tellings of the story change a bit of that; Typhon is discribed as a child of Gaia and Tartarus, set against Zeus by Gaia when she realized his rule wouldn't be much better than his father's. The battle was less a curb stomp, with Typhon having the edge early on(ripping out Zues' tendons) before being defeated by having a mountain dropped on him.
 
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== Video Games ==
* Jenova in ''[[Final Fantasy VII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VII]]'' appears from the sky two-thousand of years ago and murders most of the planet's population. After being dismembered and frozen she is revived in modern times and starts all over again. No motive or origin is ever given.
** Sephiroth hints that the cycle of parasitic destruction is Jenova's true purpose: it crashes into a planet, sucks out the Lifestream energy, and then leaves to crash into another planet. However, it's very vague at best. Sephiroth's goals may be his own, rather than an extension of Jenova's. However, in ''Advent Children'' Sephiroth ''does'' explicitly claim that he shall sail the Cosmos to find another planet to find a shining future, like his mother once did. So maybe he really ''is'' following Jenova's Goal after all. As usual of the trope, the explanation comes 10 years after the game and from a different writing team.
*** In ''[[Dirge of Cerberus]]'', Omega Weapon's purpose is similar to Jenova's: to take the life energy of the planet and find a new planet when planet-shattering catastrophes happen.
* Necron in ''[[Final Fantasy IX (Video Game)|Final Fantasy IX]]''. The last boss of the game, it is basically the god of death, and where he comes from, how you get to the area he resides in, or why he wants to kill you all is not even close to explained.
* Sulphur from ''[[Phantom Brave]]'' is this monstrous demon thingy that wants to kill everyone. Nobody knows why, nobody asks why.
* ''[[Chrono Trigger (Video Game)|Chrono Trigger]]'': Jenova's grandpappy, Lavos: it {{spoiler|[[Gainax Ending|(he?)]]}} falls from the sky in the distant past and (after an initial firestorm) proceeds to wreck the place {{spoiler|after the premier magicians in the world [[Too Stupid to Live|tried to use it for fuel]]}}.
** And then there's ''[[Chrono Cross (Video Game)|Chrono Cross]]'', where the final boss {{spoiler|is yet again Lavos, who somehow exists in a non reality unplace of infinite nothing never where the countless versions of people are erased over.}} Oh, and then he {{spoiler|decides to eat all of time because oh Crono's actions in the first game.}}
* The Dark Star in ''[[Mario and Luigi Bowsers Inside Story (Video Game)|Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story]]''--someone accidentally dug it up one day, realized that whatever the hell it was, it was ''bad news'', and immediately called upon the royal family to seal it away. [[Big Bad|Fawful]] thinks that it might be useful. {{spoiler|[[Evil Is Not a Toy|He is dead wrong]].}}
* The titular mothership of the ''[[Fallout 3]]'' add-on ''Mothership Zeta'' deserves mention. Without any previous foreshadowing, the [[Player Character|Lone Wanderer]] is abducted by the aliens and must spend the next several hours (days, in game time) fighting his way through the mothership just to get home. At which point, the entire experience is never mentioned again. What exactly the aliens were ''doing'' with all the people they've been abducting over the past thousand years or so is left vague at best.
** One must bear in mind that the aliens in Fallout are basically the Western equivalent of the Silent Hill UFO endings: completely out-of-place weirdness done as a joke that became a running gag in the series. To drive the nail home, the UFO stuff in New Vegas only appears when you have the "Weird Wasteland" trait active; this also allows such things as the [[Monty Python and The Holy Grail|Holy Hand Grenade]].
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== Web Comics ==
* Parodied in ''[[Adventurers (Webcomic)|Adventurers]]''--possibly even a direct parody of [[Final Fantasy IX (Video Game)|Necron]]--when, after finally defeating the distinctly non-Space-Flea [[Final Boss]] and fleeing his collapsing lair, the party is suddenly faced with [http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/20060103.html Necrevil], "the embodiment of evil ''itself''!"... and they just keep running.
** [http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/0170.html Eternion on his first appearance] is also an abrupt [[Giant Space Flea From Nowhere]], but he becomes a recurring villain and arguably has more of an impact on the plot than the [[Big Bad]] himself.
** While he's decidedly more human than most examples of this trope, [http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/0295.html this guy] still qualifies by dint of location.
* Morthol Dryax in ''[[Problem Sleuth]]'', who [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=4&p=000916 pops up], is soundly defeated 22 pages later, and isn't mentioned anywhere else. [[Eldritch Abomination|Fluthlu]] counts as one too, and [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=4&p=000950 appears shortly after beating Morthol Dryax.] It's also never mentioned again in the series, apart from a [[Mythology Gag]] or two in ''[[Homestuck]]''.
* ''[[Homestuck (Webcomic)|Homestuck]]'' kind of plays with this trope. The [[Anachronic Order|nonlinear]] nature of the story means that for the reader it doesn't come out of nowhere, but from the perspective of most of the trolls {{spoiler|Bec Noir was this, suddenly appearing shortly after they defeated their [[Final Boss]].}}
 
 
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Teen Titans (Animationanimation)|Teen Titans]]''
** Slade, whose backstory and motives were never revealed, despite the fact that he was the [[Big Bad]] for the first two seasons, the [[Dragon Withwith an Agenda]] in the fourth, and had cameos throughout. The heroes, especially Robin, speculate as to who he is, but nothing concrete is ever reached.
** Also, the [[Monster of the Week|Monsters of the Week]] from the episodes "Stranded" and "Things Change" similarly come out of nowhere and, though the characters wonder out loud what they are, are never given even a vague explanation.
** Also Red X has no explanation or origin for his appearance, and no back story. He just appears out of nowhere and makes trouble for everone. Beast Boy tries to speculate, but Raven says it could be anyone and no one else bothers speculating.
* Dr. Claw in ''[[Inspector Gadget]]'' is a faceless enemy that is constantly plotting against the titular hero. His organization seems to have no other purpose than to "Get Gadget". Claw's face was not even revealed until nearly twenty years after the show's run ended. [http://progressiveboink.com/archive/drclaw.html Except on a toy].
* ''[[Transformers: theThe Movie]]'' features [[Big Bad]] Unicron who drifts out of the vastness of space and starts eating things and making bargains with Decepticons. Though he appeared from the vacuum, he certainly didn't vanish afterward though.
** Further incarnations were slightly more careful with this. Armada hinted he was in the background for a while, Energon followed as a sequel, and [[Transformers Prime]] dropped hints about him every now and then before he appeared for real.
* ''[[Thunder CatsThundercats]]'': In the series finale, after Lion-O fights an epic final battle against his [[Arch Enemy]] Mumm-Ra, the Ancient Spirits of Evil randomly throw "their champion," a giant warrior named Pyron, at Lion-O just to fill up the last couple of minutes or so of the episode.
* Although not many of the villains in ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' have elaborate origins, the [[Nanomachines|nanobots]] in "Nano of the North" seem especially noticeable in this regard. They're a swarm of microscopic robots that come out of a cloud that forms over Townsville but nothing else surrounding it, start devouring all the carbon to make more of themselves, and demonstrate some kind of group intelligence in the way the cloud changed to focus the forces onto the Powerpuff Girls. Although they're all destroyed by the end of the episode, no clue is given as to their origin or why they were targeting Townsville specifically, and indeed no one even ''asks''.
** The evil alien force from "Forced Kin" qualify as well.
* The Loc-Nar from ''[[Heavy Metal (Animationanimation)|Heavy Metal]]'' is never given a backstory, but it's the embodiment of Pure Evil that drives all the vignettes in the movie.
 
{{reflist}}
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