The incompetent villain is something that is often explored in cartoons or children’s video games. It seems that these bad guys can’t ever seem to do their job well, whether it be taking down a certain hero or conquering some part of the world. These villains are often tied to moments of comedic relief rather than frustration (though it can be done poorly).
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#1 General Grievous- Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
You’ve probably read a few articles that state just how awesome General Grievous was, and that’s still very true. The only problem is all of the awesome things he did were never shown on screen. The majority of them were in the Expanded Universe, which is no longer canon according to Disney. That means a lot of his days as a Jedi hunter are now lost to different timelines and stories. It’s a pure shame because he did some really cool things.
#2 Dr. Eggman- Sonic the Hedgehog
That being said, Dr. Eggman isn’t very good at his job. One of the greatest sayings of all time is “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results.” Dr. Eggman apparently didn’t get the memo. He often uses the same strategies- build some evil robots to defeat Sonic while he gathers all the Chaos Emeralds. Because of this, much smarter villains have actually mocked and chastised Eggman for his lack of efficiency. It gets all the worse with his role in the Sonic Boom franchise, where he is even more useless than before. At least he gives some memorable boss fights.
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#3 Wreck-it Ralph- Wreck-it Ralph
Then Ralph gets very tired with being treated like a villain and attempts to become a hero, which is contrary to his intended purpose. In the process of trying to be a good guy, he ends up screwing up the entire arcade world. It was all because he wanted a silly medal too. In the end of the film, Ralph goes back to his position as a video game antagonist, but does a lot of the same stuff. The only thing that changes is that he brought in the characters from Q-Bert for the bonus levels, which only makes his job that much harder. Not a great plan.
#4 Apocalypse- X-Men Apocalypse
The movie version suffers from several problems, one of them being that he wasn’t anywhere his comic book incarnation. The biggest problem he had in the film was that he often didn’t use his powers to their full potential. What I mean by that is there were many times where he could kill people with a simple look, but he doesn’t use any of those powers when he fights the X-Men in the climax. As a result, he ends up being terrible at being a villain. Had he just decided to bury everyone in the dirt, he could’ve easily done that. Instead he chose to fight without using these powers and gave the team the easy opportunity to destroy him, as well as the opportunity for Magneto to become good again. Yawn.
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#5 King Dedede- Kirby’s Dream Land
The world of Dream Land is a very interesting and cutesy world starring our favorite pink puffball, Kirby. This little guy can do some impressive things, and in his early days, they led to a climactic battle with the gluttonous penguin, King Dedede. Dedede over the years became more of an antagonist to Kirby, but once Kirby’s Return To Dreamland came out, that was no longer the case. King Dedede became a playable character who desired to help Kirby, which isn’t a bad thing, but it really makes you wonder if proper villains can exist in the world of Dream Land.
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#6 Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz- Phineas and Ferb
I will say that this is by no means a bad thing, because Doofenshmirtz is one of the most hilarious villains of all time. His incompetence makes him identifiable as well as funny. His tendency to break the 4th wall and point out really bizarre aspects of logic lead to some very entertaining moments. There’s never a dull moment on screen when Doofenshmirtz is around, and we’re very sad that the show is done and we won’t be seeing Doof for a really long time.
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#7 Magolor- Kirby’s Return to Dreamland
The fight that ensues then is one of the most epic fights in the Kirby franchise. Magolor becomes a much stronger version of himself and uses all kinds of space-bending attacks to try and take down Kirby once and for all. Then he turns into some kind of demonic hellspawn to really test the player’s skills. It’s all great and epic until you play Kirby’s Dream Collection. This game features challenge stages where you can playfully race Magolor. The character appears at the beginning of the Challenge Mode and states that he did attack Kirby in the past, but they’ve since then made up and became good friends. Just like that. As a fan of Magolor and Kirby’s Return to Dreamland, this really upset me.
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#8 Neftin Prog- Ratchet and Clank: Into the Nexus
Ratchet and Clank: Into the Nexus didn’t have a lot going for it, because Insomniac wasn’t trying to top their nearly perfect Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time. Instead, this short but fun game was meant to be an epilogue of sorts that capped off everything the series had done in the Future Trilogy. This game sees Ratchet and Clank in a prison where a supervillain duo, Vendra and Neftin Prog, escape from their incarceration and go to cause all sorts of chaos around the galaxy.
