Magnificent Bastard/Western Animation/DC Animated Universe
Warner Bros.' various DC animated projects have turned out some noteworthy Magnificent Bastards.
- Surprisingly enough, The Riddler of the Batman: The Animated Series universe tiptoes around this trope. Especially in his Start of Darkness episode, he shows several traits of magnificent bastardry: he delivers an ominous riddle to his former boss knowing he'll come after him, and forcing Batman to choose between Robin's life and said boss', knows the hero will choose the former; he has the dynamic duo leave their utility belts behind; and finally, even though his plan is thwarted, manages to avoid capture and emotionally scar his target forever. And in his third and last episode, he almost kills Batman! Two times out of three, the Caped Crusader is able to overcome his adversary thanks to some convenient object at his disposal (namely a micro-computer and an explosion-resistant safe). To top it off, he's voiced by Lionel Luthor himself, John Glover!
- The urbane, sophisticated Ra's Al-Ghul is acknowledged by Batman as his greatest and most deadly adversary. Forming the worldwide, powerful League of Shadows, Ra's secretly tests Batman with a series of clever plots to determine if he is worthy to be his heir in the League and inherit Ra's own wish to save the planet. When Batman refuses, Ra's decides to enact a plan to wipe out most of humanity for the betterment of the world, and each time returns to drive Batman to his limits. Even after his seeming death, Ra's survives by ordering his daughter Talia, Bruce's onetime lover, to allow him to possess her body, so he may rejuvenate and possess Bruce himself in the future. Time and again, Ra's shows exactly why Batman himself calls him his greatest enemy.
- Temple Fugate, the Clock King, starts out as an overly-punctual, high-strung businessman, but after a recommended schedule change by Hamilton Hill, Fugate's business crashed and burned, driving the man into a planned revenge scheme on Hill. Spending years concocting his plans, Fugate began a smear campaign against Mayor Hill, making his running of the city seem incompetent and useless before trying to kill Hill. When confronted by Batman, Fugate displays his exceptional fighting skills, going toe-to-toe with the Dark Knight and escaping him several times with ease. Later manipulating and assisting a scientist in the creation of a time-altering device, Fugate uses it to trap Batman and Robin in a time vortex for days, nearly succeeding in another attempt on Hill by seconds' time. In arguably his finest outing, Fugate disguises himself so well that even Batman is fooled and rigs the Gotham mayoral elections to force Hill's expulsion from the mayoral office, getting away scot-free with it for months until only the combined ingenuity of Batman and Riddler discovers the truth.
- And of course, there's also The Joker, particularly for his actions in Mask of the Phantasm and Return of The Joker.
- Derek Powers from Batman Beyond. Manipulated an entire city with his company, and only grew more deadly when he gained radioactive powers. Using his money, intel, and connections, he kept people under his thumb and proved to be a deadly opponent for the new Batman.
- His son Paxton also qualifies, arranging for his father's exposure to the public and eventual demise despite Batman's best efforts to stop him. He does next to nothing for the entirety of Season Two, but then again, why bother? He had already won in his first appearance!
- Out of all the villains in Batman's Rogues Gallery to be featured in The Batman, Professor Hugo Strange is perhaps the most dangerous of them all. Fascinated by the Batman's crusade against crime, Hugo Strange studies on the minds of criminals apprehended by Batman as means to understand the Dark Knight himself. Using his criminal studies as his foundation, Strange launches various schemes to psychologically destroy Batman such as creating the hyper-intelligent criminal AI known as D.A.V.E., manipulating Batman to spread a fear toxin across Gotham, and capturing members of the Justice League for the Joining. He has come close to victory many times if not for the last minute gambits on Batman's part; and he takes his losses in stride, biding his time for the next opportunity to come. Strange respects Batman's intelligence, citing him to be the most dangerous member of the Justice League, while the Batman begrudgingly respects Strange as a brilliant psychiatrist who can mess with people's heads. Armed with nothing more than his brilliant intellect and morbid curiosity in a world of combat-prone villains, Hugo Strange certainly earns the title of "Gotham's Ultimate Criminal Mastermind."
- Beware The Batman: Anarky is Batman's Arch Enemy on this show, and a chaos-loving mastermind intent on enabling people to "free" themselves from the binds of morality and order. Introducing himself to Gotham by becoming a "patron" to two thugs and turning them into supervillains, Anarky later steals the comatose body of Ra's Al-Ghul to coerce the League of Assassins into stealing a chemical compound for him, only to reveal he's tricked them into unleashing a plague onto Gotham. Allying with and corrupting District Attorney Harvey Dent while consistently masking his true schemes even to Batman, Anarky succeeds in driving Dent into evil and happily accepts his eventual defeat by Batman, simply proclaiming he's ready to "play again" before enacting his next plans to unlock every door in Gotham and enable the citizens a night of debauchery and anarchy.
- Ra's Al-Ghul has toppled civilizations over the centuries, uses the mercenary Cypher to mind control scientists into creating the Ion Cortex, tricks the Wayne Foundation into funding the project, and plans to strong-arm the leaders of the city into allowing the League to set up shop in Gotham as their new base of operations. Controlling the League through sheer charisma and intimidation, Ra's handily defeats any opponent in combat, notices the most minor errors in his plans and orders them immediately corrected, and nearly took over Gotham in the matter of days, all to enable his growing plan to wipe out what he deemed to be irredeemable crime and filth in the world.
- Deathstroke, real name Slade Wilson, was once a CIA agent who was booted after his excessive cruelty in the name of protecting his country. Becoming a mercenary for hire soon after, Deathstroke pulled off flawless operations before eventually using his amassed resources to target his former mentor, and the man who got him fired from the CIA, MI-6 agent Alfred Pennyworth. Framing Batman as a villain and seemingly murdering Bruce Wayne, all while masquerading as Dane Lisslow, Deathstroke handily tricks the Dark Knight into lowering his guard in a duel by faking his motivations, and later breaks into the otherwise impenetrable Batcave, captures both Batman and Alfred, and prepares to force the latter to watch as he murders Batman before him as a final vengeance against his former mentor.
- In Batman: Under the Red Hood, Jason Todd, following his death at the hands of The Joker and his revival, becomes a much darker figure. Becoming the Red Hood, Jason sets about on his revenge, manipulating Batman, Gotham's criminal enterprises and even the League of Assassins to engineer conflicts to bring him close to the Joker and Batman. Confronting his former mentor, Jason reveals his deep bitterness at the Joker's survival, declaring he believed he would be the last person Batman ever let the Joker hurt. With a manipulative genius to rival even Batman and a hunger to see his own brutal justice enacted, Jason shows he is more than a match for the world's greatest Detective.
- Batman: Assault on Arkham: Floyd Lawton, aka Deadshot, is a highly efficient assassin and master marksman. Employed by Amanda Waller as the leader of Task Force X, aka the Suicide Squad, Deadshot organizes an infiltration of Arkham Asylum to acquire stolen information from the Riddler. Throughout the mission, Deadshot displays his cunning and tactical genius as he repeatedly improvises when faced with numerous setbacks by his more reckless and untrustworthy allies, Batman and the Joker, and even fearlessly stares down the latter at gunpoint and bluffs him into wasting his only bullet. Managing to escape via helicopter in the midst of a prison riot while his allies are either killed or detained, Deadshot then single-handedly defeats the Joker in combat, withstanding multiple near-fatal injuries in the process. In the end, Deadshot achieves his true goal of reuniting with his daughter, and spends the last few moments of the film scoping Amanda Waller a distance away with a sniper, intent on making her pay for using him.
- Darkseid from the Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League. Even though Superman usually won the day, he took every defeat (and victory) with the same steely expression. Even when Darkseid was beaten on his own planet, Superman threw his body to his slaves on Apokolips and said they could do whatever they wanted to with him. The slaves began to pick up their cherished leader and take care of him. While being carried off, Darkseid gave a confused and horrified Superman a parting line:
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"I am many things, Kal-El, but here...I am God." |
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- Arguably just as impressive (even if it didn't succeed) was his brilliant Evil Plan in the Justice League episode, Twilight: Playing Both Sides in the conflict between Superman and Brainiac. He successfully manipulates both Superman and Brainiac into believing he's on their side, pitting them against each other and playing both sides. He boxes them both into this even though both Superman and Brainiac know that they can't trust him and know that he'll betray them. But appealing to Superman's (and the Justice Leagues') sense of morality and Brainiac's self-preservation he does it. By the end, Superman is incapacitated and Brainiac is under Darkseid's control with him moments away from achieving his ultimate goal. Only the last minute arrival of Batman, Wonder Woman, and Orion (which nobody could've forseen) foiled him.
- Lex Luthor from the same series tends to shift between Magnificent Bastard and Smug Snake constantly, usually depending on his current plan. He was clearly in the Magnificent Bastard zone in Justice League Unlimited, where he secretly finances Project Cadmus to be a constant thorn in the Justice League's side while also running a fake presidential campaign to personally rile up Superman, culminating into open warfare between the two factions. Luthor uses that conflict as a cover for his real plan: steal Cadmus technology and upload his mind in an immortal android body. When Brainiac took over his body as its new vessel, Luthor convinces the Kryptonian AI to share control and become a god together. After being defeated and exposed as a criminal, Luthor joins the Legion of Doom as Gorilla Grodd's subordinate, only for him to quickly usurp leadership after Grodd's plan to turn mankind into apes fails. To solidify his authority, Luthor creates secret contingency plans for each Legion member. In the series finale, when his plans accidentally revive Darkseid, Luthor and his followers team up with the Justice League to stop the New God's conquest of Earth. At the climax of battle, Luthor is able to convince Metron to lead him to the forbidden Source Wall. Despite the dangers, Luthor survives the ordeal and returns to Earth with a prize in his hand: The Anti-Life Equation. Knowing that Darkseid could not refuse the offer, Luthor is able to take the Lord of Apokolips with him into the Source Wall, thus putting an end to Darkseid's reign forever and saving the universe in the process.
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Lex Luthor:"President? Do you have any idea how much power I'd have to give up to be President? That's right, conspiracy buff. I spent $75 million on a fake presidential campaign. All just to tick Superman off." |
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- Just as ruthlessly efficient as her comics counterpart, Amanda Waller is one of the few to stare Batman down without being remotely intimidated. Waller repeatedly acts to keep the League and other superpowered beings under control, creating multiple countermeasures and plans against them, even designing disposable superheroes with short lifespans as Project Cadmus's own personal attack force. Even in old age, Waller manipulates the implantation of Bruce Wayne's DNA into a man to father a child who will be Bruce's son, while planning to have the parents murdered to recreate Batman for the future.
- Granted immortality as a caveman, Vandal Savage spent millennia educating and bettering himself in countless aspects of human culture 'til making his move for global domination by using a time machine to grant a version of himself during World War II knowledge of future events and weapons. Taking over the Nazi regime, dubbing Hitler a "raving lunatic" as he overthrows him, Savage slowly but surely turns the tide of the war in his favor, reformatting the Nazis into his own army before being stopped solely by the arrival of a time-travelling Justice League. In the present, Savage maneuvers himself into marrying into Kaznian royalty, poisoning the current king to grant himself the throne before trying to use a rail gun to wipe out Paris and cow the world into submission. In his final appearance in a future timeline where Superman was seemingly killed, Savage easily murdered the entire Justice League and conquered the planet, only for his technology to go out of control and wipe out humankind except himself. Spending tens of thousands of years in isolation, Savage rebuilds cities, amasses libraries, and builds massive gardens to try to make amends for his crimes, and sacrifices himself to bring Superman back to his own time and stop his younger self from killing the League, thus saving humanity, with his final words thanking Superman for fulfilling his wish.
- In Justice League Doom, Vandal Savage, the Big Bad, steals all of Batman's plans aimed at incapacitating the Justice League should they ever turn to darkness or prove too dangerous, taking them and making them far more lethal and dangerous. Recruiting his very own Legion of Doom, Vandal has them lure the League into traps before putting the countermeasures into placing, nearly killing every single member of the League in a single night. Vandal reveals his true plans to cause a solar flare to strike earth so he may cause the conflict that he feels is necessary for human advancement and cause the world to submit to his rule, offering to share the rulership with his new Legion. A charming, sophisticated villain, Vandal shows he has surpassed the savagery he has born into, nearly completely erasing the League in one fell stroke with the world falling perilously close to Vandal's utter victory.
- Slade from Teen Titans normally falls on the Smug Snake side of things, due to his overconfidence and habit of grabbing the Villain Ball at inopportune moments, but in the three-part season finale "The End" he graduates to full Magnificent Bastard by orchestrating the downfall of a nearly all-powerful demon at no real cost to himself, getting his humanity back (which was his main goal all along) and doing it with style. Of course, being voiced by Ron Perlman helps.
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Demon Warrior: "Fool. You cannot hope to defeat pure evil!" |
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- Despite Slade's rather silly portrayal in Teen Titans Go!, this, ironically, could very well be the most competent version of him. Under the alias of film director, Jade Wilson, he played on all the superheroes sense of self entitlement by filming movies of them which he used as a front to steal the material he needed for his Doomsday device, and even tricked them into helping him build it. Coming into conflict with the Titans, he takes advantage of their childishness by playing silly MIND MANIPULATION games on them, however when the Titans wise up and take the crystal he needs to power up his device, he tricks Robin into letting him go by playing on Robin's desire to have his own movie, and under his Jade Wilson persona he goes the Divide and Conquer route to break him up from his friends. While filming a scene where Robin pretends to open a fake vault. He tricks Robin into letting him into the real Titans vault by setting him up into being knocked by a falling stage light. Upon reacquiring the crystal, he mind controls the entire world, sans the Titans. He also mind controls Robin by playing on his insecurities. Narrowly losing to the Titans after he all, but succeeded in his world domination scheme, Slade goes out a Graceful Loser, claiming that the Titans "I Am" Song was "monumentally dope".
- Greg Weisman, responsible for the above Magnificent Bastards of W.I.T.C.H., The Spectacular Spider-Man, and Gargoyles, has also produced The Light of Young Justice, a Legion of Doom note to erase any conception of the Legion of Doom as campy or incompetent. Vandal Savage and Lex Luthor in particular stand out as this trope.
- Vandal Savage is the leader and founder of the Light. Intending on creating a secret group to counter the Justice League, Savage directs most of its greatest moves, such as forming alliances with various villain factions, continuously using fronts and proxies so when the League defeats them, the Light remains undetected. Making alliances with alien groups like the Reach and Apokolips, Vandal engineers the near downfall of the world and at one point completely enslaving the Justice League and sending them off-world to fulfill the Light's purposes, framing them as criminals on another planet. Bent on creating a world of conflict where humans will be forced to evolve and adapt, Vandal constantly shows why he is worthy of being the head of the Light.
- Lex Luthor is as charming and intelligent as ever. Forming Project Cadmus to create Superboy with his own DNA, Lex constantly stays a step of the heroes, even filling Superboy himself with doubt over his true place. Organizing a peace treaty between the countries of North and South Rhelasia, Lex manipulates events so both will unite under the Light's guidance and constantly proves invaluable in assisting Vandal with the best of the Light's schemes. Upon realizing the danger of the Reach, he and Vandal help to form counter measures against them, ending the second season by escaping completely free of their own crimes and proving why they're a match for any adversary.