B - Baddies

I feel that the media tends to put baddies in a negative light.  Despite their evil tendencies to enslave the world, murder people and whatnot, you have to admire their ingenuity, persistence, and intelligence.  Their actions may be motivated by personal greed, but the work is hard, the hours are long, and it tends to destroy your social life.  Dinner parties are difficult to arrange when you live inside an orbital doom laser.

As a celebration of bad guys everywhere, I thought I’d honour my favourite villains in the form of a best of list.

And the award for most inappropriate fighting footwear goes to...

10 – Heihachi Mishima

The Tekken series is chock full of token evil-doers, but few match up to Grandpa Evil himself, Heihachi.  To list all of his evil achievements would take too long, but his highlights include fathering the devil, throwing his 5 year old son off a cliff, throwing his grown up son into a volcano (same son, might I add), and gambling his entire corporation and billions in personal wealth, just so he could beat up his family members.  He makes Gaddafi look like Mother Teresa.

9 – Krang

Some think that Shedder was most evil person from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but I reckon it was Krang by a long way.  Not only is he a hideous pink evil squid genius, but he hollowed out a guy just to live inside him.  That would make for a brilliant Halloween version of Grand Designs.

8 – Professor Monkey For A Head

Here’s an inspiring example of a villain who overcame a disability to become a feared galactic presence.  Professor Monkey For A Head has to be one of the best villains ever created, mainly because of the simian hanging off of his scalp.  It’s a comedic concept that still makes me grin inanely today.

7 – Scorpius

If you’re not sure who this leather-bound ghoul is, he’s from the Farscape series.  Just a cursory glance at Scorpius is enough to get him listed here.  Evil acts and misdemeanours are by the by when you are sporting the fetishised corpse look.  What?  Yes, I did watch Farscape.  The BBC used to put it on after The Simpsons.  Don’t judge me!

6 - Dick Dastardly

Animal abuse advocate Dick Dastardly was like a blueprint of villainy during my childhood.  When I think back, Dick Dastardly did very little apart from try and stop a bird from delivering letters and viciously thump his asthmatic dog, but his is an enduring character.  He had all the hallmarks of evil though.  He sported a devilish moustache, wore dark colours, and had a wicked cackle.  Plus his propensity for attaching ludicrously dangerous devices to flying machines was admirable.  I’d have loved him to catch that pigeon, just once.

Stop that pigeon NEEEEOWWW!

5 – Kain

Kain is a vampire lord with one of the meanest streaks I’ve ever seen.  When his lieutenant Raziel grew a pair of wings, Kain tore them off in a jealous rage and threw him into Oblivion.  When Raziel comes back from the dead for revenge, Kain leads him on a wild chase over space and time, which are frontiers that most baddies don’t normally meddle with.  Then there’s his propensity for farming humans.  Civilisation only exists because Kain allows it to in order to satisfy him at snack time.

4 – The Claw

Although we never saw him fully, The Claw had two noticeable characteristics.  The first was his steel claw which he liked to stroke cats with, almost skinning them alive in the process.  The second was that deliciously evil laugh.  “I’ll get you next time Gadget, next time...mwahurhurhurhur!”.  That delectable, throaty laugh is the defining laugh that all baddies should aspire to.  Interestingly, my spell checker doesn’t like the word ‘mwahurhurhurhur’, which I assure you is spelt 100% correctly.  Seriously, go and listen to it now.

3 – Brian Fury

Brian Fury is a cyborg who likes to crush people just for the fun of it all.  During his time in the Tekken series he is seen tearing tanks open like sardine cans, breaking an opponent’s bones even when they’ve been knocked out cold, and killing a scientist who saved his life, all while laughing like a monumental maniac.  You have to admire his callous disregard for everyone in the name of fun.

2 – Darth Vader

You just knew that everyone’s favourite negligent father had to pop up somewhere on the list.  Darth’s evil deeds include cutting off his son’s hand, not paying any child support whatsoever, and overseeing the construction of a planet sized weapon of mass destruction.  The Death Star is the pinnacle of evil achievements, sweeping aside the fact that it was destroyed easily by a lone fighter.  We also need to ignore his empire’s overwhelming defeat to a bunch of teddy bears.  In fact, Darth is directly responsible for some glaring mistakes when you think about it.  Gotta love that outfit though.

1 – Psycho Mantis

The guy looks like a mustard gas gimp.  Although he’s rocking that World War II look, Mantis can read your mind, dodge bullets with relative ease, make you go blind, and float around with the power of his mind.  As a child, Mantis razed his entire hometown to the ground in some sort of crazed psychotropic fury, the effect of which probably made him a little touched to say the least.  Fighting Psycho Mantis is akin to overloading on hallucinogens, then trying to punch a balloon in a hurricane.  Of course, you could always plug your controller into port 2.  “Nooooo!  I can’t read you!”.

Your memory is completely clean, dumbass!