"You know, I've always measured my success by counting the number of victims I've had. But now, I think I'm going to widen my scope and start counting the number of Earths I conquer instead. You want to go home? Let's go. After all, this Earth has already been brought to its knees."
Of the many characters populating the Arrowverse, here are the most awful and atrocious, ranging from street-level drug dealers to god-level entities.
Shows are listed by first airdate. Other universes (including The Flash (1990)) can be found at their respective pages here or here.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
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Franchise-Wide
- Eobard Thawne, aka the Reverse-Flash, is the Arch-Enemy of Barry Allen. Failing to kill Barry as a child, Thawne instead kills Barry's mother in order to cripple Barry's spirit to prevent him from becoming the Flash. Thawne finds himself Trapped in the Past without his Super-Speed, leading him to Kill and Replace Harrison Wells, instigate the S.T.A.R. Labs Particle Accelerator explosion to recreate the Flash, while also filling Central City with dangerous metahumans. Prevented from returning to the future, Thawne tried to kill the heroes, but is supposedly erased from existence after his ancestor, Eddie Thawne, kills himself. Somehow surviving, Thawne resurfaces, traveling to Earth-X to join the ranks of the New Reichsmen and assist in the Nazi invasion of Earth-1, fleeing when the tides turn. Eventually, Thawne gets incarcerated in the future and scheduled for execution; he manipulated Barry's daughter, Nora West-Allen, into destroying Cicada's dagger—which kept Thawne's powers negated—in the past, knowing it would also erase Nora from existence. Post-Crisis, Thawne returns again, having lost his body, and takes over the body of Nash Wells, trapping his mind, while attempting to murder Team Flash. After Thawne's body is restored, Thawne creates "Reverse-Flashpoint", where he has stolen Barry's life and identity in every way, and has set to erase Barry from existence, which Barry warns him would lead to "Armageddon". Made into the Avatar of the Negative Forces, Thawne uses his newfound powers to go on a killing spree for kicks. Unable to defeat Barry after he becomes the Positive Force Avatar, Thawne decides the best way to kill his nemesis is to take the entire world down with him.
Pre-Crisis (Earth-1 unless noted)
Examples
- Both holders of the Vertigo mantle prove themselves to be sadistic monsters who take glee in subjecting others to their excruciatingly agonizing drug:
- The Count, real name Cecil Adams and also known as Count Vertigo, is a sociopathic drug peddler who seeks to push a new drug, known as Vertigo, onto the streets of Starling City. The Count kidnaps people to serve as test subjects as he tries to perfect Vertigo. He injects them with the drug, causing them excruciating pain, then offers them a gun with one bullet: they can shoot the Count for revenge, or shoot themselves to end the pain. The suicide rate, after nearly thirty victims, is one hundred percent. He also tests the drug on his own minions, as well as using it as a weapon. The Count sees the fatalities that result from Vertigo as making the drug even better, comparing it to a wine ripened with age. After breaking out of prison, and helping The Dollmaker escape, the Count poisons vaccines with Vertigo to spread the drug to unsuspecting people. Having accepted an offer from Brother Blood to kill the Arrow, and discovering the vigilante's true identity, the Count takes Felicity Smoak hostage to lure the Arrow, and threatens to kill her with an injection of Vertigo before being killed. A deranged sadist who considers killing to be "one of life's great pleasures", the Count revels in his crimes, spreading death and misery with a smile on his face.
- Werner Zytle proves to be a worthy successor following the death of the original Count Vertigo, taking control of the drug and modifying it to make the user hallucinate their worst fears. He is introduced forcing a fellow gang leader to take the drug before killing him and taking control of the other gangs in Starling City. He decides a reasonable way to attempt an assassination on Oliver Queen is by firing a rocket launcher into a restaurant full of people. He later tries to kill the remaining gang leaders of Starling City by blowing up the entire stadium they were in; the stadium contained around 20,000 people. In his next appearance, Zytle escapes police custody with the help of a reporter whose family he threatened. He then forces said reporter to try to kill the Arrow via suicide bomb. He then takes several hostages in a drug lab, forces them to make more of the Vertigo drug, and when Team Arrow comes to the rescue, he attempts to burn his hostages alive.
- Season 2.5: Khem-Adam is the leader of Onslaught, a group of fanatical, religious terrorists, who took advantage of the power vacuum in Kahndaq after the previous dictatorship was overthrown. His main goal is to force his country back into the old, barbaric ways, with women in particular being reduced to nothing more than serving the needs of the men. He has a group of young women forcefully abducted for nothing more than undergoing school education — after murdering their teacher right in front of their eyes. He is later shown to orchestrate mass executions on any one who dares to oppose his godly quest, and assigning the girls to his men as personal slaves to be beaten and raped. When one of the girls kills her abuser in self-defense and manages to escape, he immediately orders the rest of the group to be executed as an example. Misogynistic, cruel, and with a delusional fantasy of carrying out the will of the Old Gods, Khem-Adam earns the disgust of even the hardened, criminal members of the Suicide Squad, with one member in particular being a former military leader of the overthrown dictatorship.
- Season 3: General Matthew Shrieve initially appears as a reasonable and helpful military officer before being revealed as a callous extremist. Regarding China as an economic threat to the United States, Shrieve intends to use the Omega virus to destabilize the country, caring nothing for the lives that would be destroyed by his actions. After usurping Amanda Waller as the head of A.R.G.U.S., Shrieve sends a squad of soldiers after Oliver and the Yamashiros, including young Akio, to eliminate potential witnesses to his impending crimes. Unleashing the Omega virus on Hong Kong, causing thousands of infections and deaths, Shrieve causes the virus to spread even further by disguising injections of it as a vaccine. When Akio is infected, Oliver and Maseo confront Shrieve for a possible cure. After handing them a supposed cure, Shrieve reveals that it was only insulin for his diabetes, using this as a distraction in an attempt to kill them both. After Akio succumbs to the virus, Shrieve taunts his parents, cruelly laughing in their faces. Although the virus is ultimately prevented from spreading beyond Hong Kong, hundreds, if not thousands suffered its effects, something Shrieve shows no remorse for. Militant and xenophobic, Shrieve, despite his delusions of righteousness, is ultimately nothing more than a smug mass murderer devoid of conscience.
- Season 4: Lonnie "Anarky" Machin is far worse than his comic counterpart. A former mob enforcer, Anarky was fired by many organizations for being too unhinged. His attempts to join H.I.V.E. have Anarky attempting to murder mayoral candidate Jessica Danforth, and when that fails Anarky instead kidnaps Danforth's daughter, sadistically breaking her fingers. After getting his face burned by Thea Queen, Anarky develops a creepy obsession towards her. Escaping imprisonment, Anarky seeks revenge by killing his foster parents and then targeting Damien Darhk for rejecting him from H.I.V.E. Anarky kidnaps Darhk's wife, Ruvé, and his daughter, trying to have them tortured. Just before H.I.V.E. carries out Genesis to bombard the world with nuclear weapons, Anarky rampages through Tevat Noah, H.I.V.E.'s sanctuary against the apocalypse, killing multiple guards and Thea's boyfriend, rigging the entire structure to explode, while taking Darhk's family hostage, successfully killing Ruvé. Five months later, Anarky attempts to detonate a bomb that would destroy at least half of Star City. Motivated only by his sick satisfaction of hurting others, Anarky proves to be one of the most destructive monsters Team Arrow has ever faced.
- "Broken Dolls": Barton Mathis, better known as "the Dollmaker", enjoys targeting young and beautiful women in order to "preserve their beauty". After kidnapping his victims, Dollmaker brutally murders them by pouring liquid polymer down their throats until they drown, before dressing them up as dolls and putting the corpses on display. He had murdered at least eight women with said method before being arrested by Quentin Lance. After escaping from prison thanks to Count Vertigo, Dollmaker continues his killing spree while harboring a grudge against Lance. Planning to make him suffer, Dollmaker murders a young woman while forcing Lance to listen to her screams via a telephone. He also attempts to kidnap and murder Felicity Smoak the same way. Later, Dollmaker kidnaps both Lance and his daughter Laurel and attempts to force him to watch his daughter die.
Examples
- Season 2: Hunter Zolomon, aka Zoom, is a sociopathic speedster from Earth-2 who was a notorious Serial Killer with a staggering body count both before and after becoming a speedster. Dying from abusing the Velocity drug, Zoom tries to steal the speed of Jay Garrick, the Flash of Earth-3, before taking Jay's identity to create hope so he can crush it, while imprisoning the real Jay as a trophy. Discovering Earth-1, Zoom sends metahumans to attack, then gains Barry Allen's trust by pretending to be Jay. In their first confrontation, Zoom breaks Barry's spine and shows him off for the city to see. Zoom also takes Harry Wells's daughter, Jesse, hostage to force Harry into helping him steal the Flash's speed. Once cured, Zoom unleashes an army of metahumans on Central City for the fun of it, before forcing Barry to watch as he murders Barry's father, Henry. As his endgame, Zoom makes a Doomsday Device to destroy the entire multiverse, only sparing Earth-1 as his personal domain. A brutal, sadistic maniac devoid of remorse, Zoom remains one of the most monstrous enemies Barry has ever faced.
- "Tricksters" & "Running to Stand Still": The Trickster, real name James Jesse, is a bloodthirsty terrorist with a flair for the dramatic and the personality of a deranged child. After a killing spree that landed him in prison, the Trickster is introduced by breaking free from prison with the help of his son Axel, who he manipulated and groomed into becoming as dangerous a psychopath as him. With his help, the Trickster takes Henry Allen hostage and tries to have him impaled with knives while also poisoning the guests at a party so he can blackmail them into giving him money, with one guest dying as a demonstration. During his second appearance, the Trickster uncaringly abandons Axel and teams up with Mark Mardon/Weather Wizard for a chance to kill the Flash. And to do so, he disguises himself as a mall Santa and distributes over a hundred gift-disguised bombs to children, and forces the Flash to let Mardon torture him to death on threat of detonating the bombs and killing the children and their families.
Examples
- "A Whole World Out There": Jacob Shaw evaded punishment after getting caught by transferring his mind from his body to a Pocket Dimension found during his occult studies, where he essentially became a god-like Reality Warper, able to live out his sick fantasies as much as he wanted. When a group of teenagers accidentally trespasses into his realm, he takes this as an opportunity to live out his sadistic pleasure even more. He starts hunting the teenagers in the real world by appearing on reflective surfaces, driving them nearly insane, and then brutally killing 3 out of 4 via impaling, dismembering with a knife, and suffocation. Afterwards, he keeps the souls of the deceased in his realm, where he keeps on torturing them and tells them that they will experience a never-ending circle of getting hunted down and killed by him, all just because he enjoys it.
- "Waiting for the Man": "The Man" is introduced as a Satanic redneck who abducted three little girls and murdered them, afterwards raising their spirits to make them his mindlessly devoted "brides". He sends them off to find another bride for him, and while waiting for them to return he brutally tortures and murders a bypassing, helpful man in a ritualistic way, for seemingly no other reason than being near him at the wrong time. It is revealed that "The Man" also murdered his real wife six years ago as a sacrifice for Satan. Later, John and his crew arrive in the nick of time, just before "The Man" was going to subject the fourth girl to the same horrific fate his three brides suffered. "The Man" is such a despicable individual that John Constantine and Jim Corrigan decide to outright murder him instead of just having him face the law.
- Season 2: Benatu Eshu is a ruthless Zambesi warlord and the season's Big Bad. Desiring the Totems of Zambesi, Eshu led a raid on Mari's village when she was an infant, massacring scores of innocents, upon learning that the village possessed the Anansi Amulet; among those killed was Mari's father, who Eshu callously executed when he attempted to stand against the madman. In the present, Eshu arrives in Detroit under the guise of an ambassador and continues his quests to find the Totems. To achieve his goals, Eshu bribes a thief into stealing the Fire Totem for him, then promptly kills the man once he's no longer of any use. With the Fire Totem in his possession, Eshu attempts to kill Mari to steal the Anansi Amulet. Failing in this, Eshu goes on a city-wide rampage in a fit of homicidal rage, burning down a massive portion of Detroit in an effort to draw Mari out. When Mari and her allies attempt to stop him, Eshu incinerates Mari's sister Kuasa right before her eyes before trying to kill Mari herself. Even when he is stripped of the power of the Fire Totem, Eshu continues his attempt to murder Mari in order to steal her amulet and harness its powers for his own purposes.
Examples
- Season 1: Brainiac 8, known better as Indigo, is a Coluan imprisoned on Krypton for attempting to destroy the Kryptonian people. When she introduces herself on Earth, she turns every light in National City green, causing accidents and endangering hundreds of lives. Soon revealing her darker side, Indigo tries to launch nuclear missiles to destroy National City, planning to wipe out humanity. When defeated, she later teams up with Kara's uncle, Non, and activates Project Myriad to put humanity into a trance-like state. Indigo then puts her plan a step further into motion: to enhance the power to kill everyone else on Earth and then leave the planet, leaving Kara stranded as "queen of a dead world". Even in her last moments, Indigo gloats that she had left Project Myriad impossible to stop, taking comfort that humanity will follow her to the grave.
- Season 2: Queen Rhea, the ultimate Big Bad of the season, is the queen of Daxam, wife of Lar Gand and mother of Mon-El. After escaping Daxam's disaster, Rhea and Lar Gand find Mon-El on Earth and try to get him to join them. When he refused, Rhea blames Kara for it and tries to get her killed by issuing a bounty against her, then tries to kill her herself. Once Lar Gand decides to let Mon-El stay on Earth, Rhea accuses him of "betraying" her and murders him. Returning to Earth, Rhea manipulates Lena Luthor into creating a transmatter portal for her forces to come through, and starts an invasion to take over the planet and reduce humanity into slavery. To forge a connection with humans, Rhea forces Mon-El and Lena to get married by threatening to destroy a hospital full of children, stating they could rot in a cell for all she cares afterwards. Challenged by Kara in a trial of fight, Rhea doesn't honor their agreement when she loses and orders her forces to destroy National City, then tells Kara that she will destroy city after city until her whole world is gone. A petty, self-centered individual as well as a horrible mother, Rhea's inability to accept any responsibility for her actions is what makes her a monster.
- Season 3: Morgan Edge, the CEO of Edge Global, is introduced as a self-absorbed and sexist man, but quickly proves himself to be much worse. Having plans for the Waterfront of National City, Edge hires a terrorist for an attack on the underwater foundation of the district, endangering hundreds of people attending a public Supergirl event. After Lena Luthor buys CatCo from under his nose, Edge shows just how low he is willing to stoop to destroy somebody for a perceived personal slight, by poisoning an entire public school full of children and then blaming it on Lena's countermeasure against the Daxamite invasion. When Lena confronts him, he has her knocked out and strapped on a remotely controlled plane, carrying more chemicals, which he intends to crash on the city. Edge also shows himself to be completely dismissive of his employees' lives, having two of them killed to protect his reputation after failed assassination attempts on Lena, or even using one of them as a Human Shield at one point. In a world full of superpowered menaces, Morgan Edge still manages to stand out as a despicable human being, only concerned with his own position of power.
- "Survivors" & "Supergirl Lives": Veronica "Roulette" Sinclair is a ringmaster who organized an underground fight club in National City, commanding aliens to fight to the death for money to entertain rich people, including herself. In her first appearance, when J'onn and M'gann refuse to fight, Roulette releases Draaga to try to kill them both, but gets arrested. Upon being freed due to her connections, Roulette, with the help of an alien doctor, plans to sell humans in a slave market on Maaldoria in exchange for a large amount of diamonds. Utterly apathetic to aliens and human beings alike, Roulette is a Rich Bitch who has no qualms against making quick money at the expense of others.
Examples
- Season 3: Mallus is a primordial demon who desired to break apart the timestream. He was opposed by the Zambesi people, who used the mystical Totems to seal him away outside time. Unable to directly influence reality while trapped inside his prison, Mallus instead recruited followers, including possessing Nora Darhk as a vessel, and had his cult kill numerous London civilians to collect enough blood for a ritual to resurrect Damien Darhk. Mallus also had his cult cause temporal anomalies throughout history to fracture time and break his prison. Becoming fascinated by Sara Lance due to her tie with death, Mallus is determined to make her into a follower to wield the Death Totem, successfully possessing Sara and having her rampage across the Waverider. Taking great glee in Mind Rape and psychologically tormenting the Legends, Mallus revealed his end goal was to subject all of reality to "unendurable pain" and eradicate all of existence, marking his return by attempting to destroy Zambesi village.
- "White Knights" & "Fail-Safe": Valentina Vostok is a Soviet physicist allied with Vandal Savage, who leads "Operation Svarog" to create a Soviet Firestorm to use against America in the Cold War. To this end, Vostok spent years experimenting on humans, resulting in countless casualties from failed experiments. After discovering Martin Stein possessed knowledge about the Firestorm project, Vostok has his friends kidnapped and thrown into a Soviet gulag. Using various methods to interrogate Stein, including a drug that causes excruciating pain, Stein finally talks upon being Forced to Watch his teammates being tortured. Discovering Stein himself is one half of Firestorm, Vostok forcibly fuses herself with him, becoming a new Firestorm, whereupon she manically fire-balls others. In a Bad Future, she creates an army of Firestorms which wipes out nearly every country by the 21st century, content with her own country being destroyed so it can be rebuilt stronger.
- "Outlaw Country": Quentin Turnbull is the ruthless Arch-Enemy of Jonah Hex. After the town of Calvert rebelled against him for extorting taxes from them, Turnbull trapped the entire town's population in a church, including women and children, and then burned it down with everyone inside. Using dwarf star alloy from a time pirate he murders, Turnbull creates powerful bullets and takes over the town of Salvation, before forcing its civilians to work in the mines. He also intended to conquer enough towns to form his own country, which comes to pass in a Bad Future where he takes over the entire western half of the United States, renaming it "Turnbull Country", a lawless country where the only authority is himself.
Freedom Fighters: The Ray (Earth-X)
- Overgirl lacks her canon counterpart's genuine love for her husband. The leader of the New Reichsmen and chief weapon of the Axis powers, Overgirl prosecutes a brutal war campaign that has left New York a burnt-out ruin, leveling entire cities in the hunt for "undesirables". After killing three of the Freedom Fighters, including the original Ray himself, Overgirl learns the location of the resistance base and leads an assault to slaughter the thousands of rebels down to the last man. Along the way, the New Reichsmen capture the hero Vibe, whose ability to traverse universes Overgirl plans to use for a Nazi conquest of the multiverse.
Black Lightning (2018) (Unknown Earth)
Examples
- Season 1: Martin Proctor is the racist in charge of the Freeland operations of the sinister A.S.A. Repackaging a dangerous vaccine as a drug to circulate within his city to create an army of superpowered pawns, Proctor's plans lead to an epidemic of death while he takes the survivors in for experimentation. Forcing his rival Gambi into surrendering to him by holding a crowd at gunpoint, Proctor expresses sadistic disappointment at Gambi's surrender forcing him to spare their lives. Seeking to ruin hero Jefferson Pierce's reputation, Proctor, when his plans finally fall apart, aims to take the surviving teens from his experiments with him to continue his abominable operations.
- Seasons 2 & 4: The Looker is a metahuman with the power to control minds who enslaves the white population of South Freeland as her "Sange". When called out for her hypocrisy of claiming to have saved the town from a drug epidemic by her mind control being far worse, she casually murders him for questioning her. Viciously prejudiced, the Looker has her slaves hunt down and lynch the town's black population and stops at nothing to hunt down the children of the Sange to ensnare them in her racist, subservient cult.
Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019)
- Mobius, the Anti-Monitor, is a being born of the Antimatter universe. Manipulating Dr. Harrison Nash Wells into freeing him, Mobius sadistically curses him to be his "herald", "Pariah", forcing him to try to warn universe after universe of Mobius's coming, to no avail, all while Mobius obliterates them, feeding on the new antimatter he leaves in its place. After consuming countless universes, Mobius wipes out almost all existence and engineers the death of his goodhearted counterpart Mar Novu, the Monitor. Upon his actions being reversed, Mobius simply returns to obliterate existence again, to rule over what remains as its god king.
Post-Crisis (Earth-Prime unless noted)
Examples
- Batwoman (2019) Season 1: Miguel Robles, a corrupt member of the Crows, is also the murderer of Lucius Fox. Having accidentally shot Fox when sent to beat him for his journal, Robles attempts to cover his tracks by sending assassins after those who can expose him. When this fails, Robles takes on the mantle of the deceased Detonator, kidnapping people and tying them to explosives with chances to save themselves by pressing a detonator to destroy a building that contains information that might incriminate him. His final target is Wayne Tower, uncaring if he kills dozens or hundreds of innocents to escape his punishment.
- Legends of Tomorrow Season 5: Atropos is one of the three Fates, alongside her sisters Clotho and Lachesis, with Atropos cutting the threads to end people's lives, something she took pleasure in doing. Relentless in her search for the Loom of Fate after it was dismantled and scattered by Clotho/Charlie, Atropos massacres her way through everything in her path, including Charlie's old punk band; the Supernatural crew; and most of the Legends. Atropos kills either by stabbing her victims, or showing her true form—which is described as excruciatingly painful—while also being willing to torture her own sister Clotho to make her submit. In order to stall the Legends stranded in London, Atropos summons a Zombie Apocalypse to ravage the entirety of Great Britain. The Fates use the Loom to rewrite reality, creating "Loomworld", a world devoid of freewill and choice. Here, Atropos forces her workers to sanitize history's records, while killing people on a whim.
- Superman & Lois Season 1 note : Zeta-Rho is the abusive father of Tal-Rho and the former husband of Lara Lor-Van who plots to use Lara's Eradicator to resurrect Krypton via brutal colonization, stealing her Sunstone from Kal-El's rocket in revenge for her leaving him and intent only on destroying it after she witnesses his triumph. Zeta, for all his rhetoric of saving his race, is nothing but an egomaniac who cares for only two things: rebuilding Krypton into his supremacist vision of "proper greatness"; and punishing the House of El, viewing Lara's bloodline as treasonous for defying his will. To these ends, Zeta sent Tal-Rho to Earth and tortured him for months to burn away his "weakness", molding him into the herald for Krypton's resurrection. Tal, taking the persona of Morgan Edge, experimented on humans to replace their minds with those of Kryptonians on his father's behalf, even having Superman overtaken by General Zod. When Edge fails, Zeta forces him through a Death of Personality to become the Eradicator and raise their army, with Zeta taking Superman's son, Jordan, as his own host. The culmination of Zeta's machinations are witnessed in John Henry Irons's universe: the near-extermination of humanity, with entire cities razed by his loyal Kryptonian "subjekts".
- The Flash (2014) Season 9's "A New World" four-parter: The Negative Speed Force is the antithesis of the Speed Force and the source of power for Eobard Thawne, who the Negative Speed Force chose as its avatar and enabled him to commit his countless atrocities. The Negative Speed Force sought revenge on Barry Allen for killing Thawne, where it manifested as a crystal called Cobalt-97 that houses its sapience and was capable of possessing people. Sending Barry to the past and trapping him on the day of his mother's murder, the crystal possesses Joe West and attempts to kill Barry while daring him to change the timeline. In the present day, the crystal possesses Mark Blaine and attacks and demoralizes the members of Team Flash, intending to "gut [Iris] like a fish and [her] baby too". In 2049, the Negative Speed Force resurrects Eddie Thawne and tempts him with the life he never had, so he would become the new avatar. It also possesses Barry's daughter Nora and tries to make her kill Barry who it sent there. It's revealed that due to Barry being the Speed Force's anchor, killing him would extinguish the Speed Force, which by extension would destroy the entire timeline and kill everyone in it. It successfully corrupts Eddie into Cobalt Blue and very nearly causes the end of temporal existence.
