Villain Decay/Quotes

I see a Nine Inch Nails video. I see an NBC Mystery Movie of the Week. I see a video game politicians decry in order to win voters. I see Dante being ripped off for the umpteenth time in the course of history. But most of all...I see that you haven't achieved anything the humans haven't already thought of before. You and the other Dark Generals have been at this for so long that it stopped being original centuries ago. The Yamiko used to be fear itself...gloriously pure and horrible. Now you're just another thing to be afraid of.

—Dark General Cobalt, Sailor Nothing

Wotch! You've foiled my plans for the last time! You've turned my own minions against me, but who needs them! Plan #340 will spell my triumph!

—Elseworld!Xaos, The Wotch

You're not the 'Big Bad' anymore. You're not even the 'kind of naughty'.

—Xander, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Icy: What's going on here?
Darcy: It looks like monkey in the middle.

Icy: And Baltor's the monkey.

—Winx Club

"He has defeated us numerous times; what makes him think he can do it again?"

—Tom Servo, MST3K commentary for Prince of Space

Messy: You may have beaten us this time! And you may have beaten us last time!

Lame: And you'll beat us next time! And the time after that! And the five times...um, what was our point again?!

—Mad Magazine, "Hokéycon"

Prince Ali, yes it is he, but not as you know him
Once the baddest of the bad, but now a flunky
A blast from Setsuna's past
The most vicious man in the cast
But now reduced to a spaz, it's Prince Ali!

Yes, Ali's destined to be another flunky
A sad fate not even saved by the goatee
His rivalries are all gone
He's just an Innovade pawn
And all his screentime is brief little clips
And he's just Evil Amuro's bitch
And his fights are shortened, his character thwarted
Killed by Lyle Dylandy
Farewell, ex-Prince Aaaaalllliiiii!!!!!

—Mobile Suit Gundam 00 song parody, to the tune of "Prince Ali (reprise)" from Disney's Aladdin

Maybe this is the Collective's new strategy. They don't assimiliate anymore; they just show up and look helpless.

—B'Elanna Torres, Star Trek: Voyager, "Drone"

My dear Spencer...how the mighty have fallen. Your umbrella has folded and now you have become a fugitive in the same world you once sought to control. We shall meet again before the conclusion of this drama. Then, you will learn of the history... I will write for this world!

—Albert Wesker, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles ending

"In the first film, the Nothing was an abstract entity. In the second film, the Emptiness was the human form of dying imagination. In this film, it's literally just a bunch of bullies named "the Nasties"? How fucking uninspiring is that?! To go from complex ideas destroying worlds to one half of Tenacious D acting like a dick-mule! Boy, they keep upping the ante, don't they?"

—The Nostalgia Critic, in his review of The Neverending Story III: Escape From Fantasia

Pity the modern supervillain. Unlike Professor Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes, he is not a master criminal. Unlike Ming the Merciless, he cannot be a inscrutable Other whose villainy can be neatly reduced via racist pseudoscience to his origins. The Cold War is over and the overseas box office necessary for capital-intensive movies to actually make back their production and distribution costs narrows the range of potential foreign adversaries for heroes to battle. A combination of Hollywood political correctness and understandable audience discomfort with ten years of war nixes al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or Iran from the list of possible villains. Most Americans have studiously ignored the horrific slaughter perpetrated by Mexican drug cartels. So what drives the modern supervillain and how does he (or she) carry out dastardly deeds?
The modern supervillain is truly a sad creature.

— Strategy and the Supervillain Problem by Adam Elkus on Grand Blog Tarkin

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