Magnificent Bastard/Live-Action TV: Difference between revisions

* How about another Devil, [[The Devil]] from ''Brimstone''? He manipulates [[The Hero]], Zeke Stone, into going to earth to reclaim 113 damned souls who fled hell, holding out the promise of a new hope of heaven over Stone's head. Throughout the series, the Devil is charming, witty and sarcastic, constantly monitoring events and arranging things to have Zeke return his quarry to hell while demonstrating a frightening amount of insight, while always teasing Zeke and pushing him to do his job. While playing Zeke constantly, the Devil 's main interest is keeping the status quo, while always willing to welcome the new damned souls into his domain. Also happens to be another Magnificent Bastard played by John Glover.

* Ryan O'Reilly from ''[[Oz]]'' is an Irish convict in the Emerald City wing of the Oswald State Correctional Facility who controls the prison's drug trade, has all this rivals killed by other people, starts gang wars between the ethnic clans and is one of the few characters to {{spoiler|survive the show's entire run}}, and never has anyone other than his mentally retarded brother for muscle. As he replies when one character asks him how he became a leader of the prison riot despite his lack of a gang: "I'm like the Lord of the Fucking Dance. I've got moves." Ryan O'Reilly possesses a sense of charm and bravado unmatched by many of the thuggish inmates in Oz, and his uncanny ability to get others to do his dirty work for him and turning his enemies against each other makes him one of the few characters to successfully survive the entire run of the show.

* Jim Profit of ''[[Profit]]'' is an amoral sociopath whose life's goal is to become President of Acquisitions at the multinational company Gracen & Gracen Enterprises, thus giving him control over one of the most powerful economic entities in the world. He uses various schemes such as leaking bad stories to the press and blackmailing his predecessor's secretary in an attempt to get him fired before later having him framed for murder to permanently dispose of him. Jim also ingratiates himself with the company elites and their loved ones, zeroing in on their personal demons and shortcomings to use against them and sow discord, such as causing a falling out among the Gracen brothers to maneuver himself into becoming the CEO's right hand man and using his equally manipulative stepmother Bobbi to seduce and further control his boss. When the head of security catches on to his scheming, Jim forces her psychologist to perform hypnosis on her and then presents himself as her rescuer to discredit her claims against him. Jim Profit is an expert manipulator and schemer whose machiavellian plots allow him to get away with murder, extortion, and ruining people's lives multiple times and always has more cards left to play when faced with adversity.

* The title of ''[[Super Sentai]]'''s [[Magnificent Bastard]] goes to Dr. Mikoto Nakadai of ''Bakuryu Sentai Abaranger'', an [[Insufferable Genius]] who takes on the mantle of AbareKiller, the [[Evil Counterpart]] of the Abaranger. Within five seconds of his introduction, he captures the [[Monster of the Week]] and turns the poor thing into his personal maid, complete with apron. He sets up a series of [[Deadly Game]]s for the heroes just to amuse himself and demonstrate that [[Humans Are the Real Monsters]] to the [[Wide-Eyed Idealist]] heroes. He seizes control of three of their (sentient) zords via [[More Than Mind Control]]. He decides to take over the villains' headquarters and install himself as [[Big Bad|their new leader]] just for kicks. Oh, did I mention that the [[Super Prototype]] [[Transformation Trinket]] he uses will eventually blow up with the force of a nuclear warhead and that not only is he fully aware of this, ''he doesn't mind one bit''?