Villains in comic books usually have to deal with becoming intimately familiar with failure. In most cases, comic book antagonists tend to face defeat time and time again at the hands of superheroes and other do-gooders.
Once in a while, however, villains have their day. Perhaps the most famous example is the former superhero Ozymandias, who famously carried out his master plot in Watchmen without incident. Yet Ozymandias is not the only antagonist in comics who managed to get everything he wanted. They may have fewer victories than heroes, but some villains have managed to reach their goals—sometimes on a shockingly large scale.
10 Ozymandias: Slaughtered Half Of New York City To Achieve World Peace
“I did it thirty-five minutes ago.” With those fateful words, Ozymandias confirmed that Nite Owl and Rorschach arrived too late to halt his devastating scheme to end world conflict. After tasking several scientists and artists with creating a monster with a brain cloned from the psychic Robert Deschaines.
Ozymandias had teleported the creature to New York City, knowing the shock would kill it and cause its brain to unleash a deadly psychic shockwave. Half the city was consequently killed, while many survivors lost their sanity. Believing a common alien threat had attacked Earth, however, most of the world’s major powers ceased hostilities, as Ozymandias had predicted.
9 Kraven the Hunter: Proved To Himself He Was A Better Spider-Man
Kraven had been sometimes treated as a bit of a joke before “Kraven’s Last Hunt.” Yet that storyline proved that Kraven was not to be underestimated. Believing Spider-Man to be the latest incarnation of an imaginary being he called “the Spider,” Kraven shot Peter and buried him underground in a coffin. Kraven then began wearing his own version of Spider-Man’s black costume, believing he had to prove he was a better Spider than Peter was.
Once he felt he had proven himself by singlehandedly defeating Vermin—a supervillain Peter was unable to defeat by himself—Kraven took his own life, satisfied.
8 Piccolo: Killed Raditz And His Archenemy, Goku
Before Piccolo was a staunch ally of Goku’s, he was the Saiyan’s mortal enemy. The two reluctantly joined forces, however, to fight Goku’s brother Raditz, whose power dwarfed theirs considerably. Yet Piccolo had an ace up his sleeve: the Special Beam Cannon. Created specifically to kill Goku, the powerful energy attack could bore right through even significantly stronger opponents—but required time to charge.
Raditz dodged Piccolo’s first Special Beam Cannon, yet Goku managed to grab his brother in a full nelson while Piccolo charged the second. The plan worked, but the Special Beam Cannon pierced Raditz’s and Goku’s bodies, killing them both.
7 Black Adam: Retook His Country, Kahndaq
Black Adam was always a bit of an odd fit for the JSA, given his preference for using lethal force on his enemies. This culminated in “Black Reign,” a storyline where Adam, having left the JSA sometime earlier with Atom Smasher, gathered a group of like-minded superbeings to aid him in conquering his homeland, Kahndaq.
Black Adam and his allies succeeded, and Adam once again became Kahndaq’s ruler and protector, as he had been thousands of years prior. Black Adam’s reign ended during the series 52, but he once again became the country’s ruler, fittingly enough, in the New 52 continuity.
6 Magneto: Was Given Control Of Genosha By The United Nations
Most nations refuse to negotiate with terrorists. Magneto, however, can drive an especially hard bargain. During the Magneto War storyline, the Master of Magnetism resurfaced after a long absence with an ultimatum: until the United Nations recognized him as the new leader of Genosha, he would wreak havoc with a worldwide electromagnetic storm.
While the X-Men and Magneto’s clone, Joseph, eventually stopped the attack, Magneto was still handed Genosha anyway, although the battle had weakened his powers. Magneto remained Genosha’s leader until Cassandra Nova decimated the island nation with her army of Wild Sentinels in the storyline "E is for Extinction."
5 Darkseid: Conquered Earth And Discovered The True Anti-Life Equation… Twice
The most infamous of the New Gods has successfully claimed the Earth as his own on two occasions, both involving the Anti-Life Equation. The first was during the JLA storyline “Rock of Ages,” where the Worlogog’s destruction in the present had somehow allowed Darkseid to conquer Earth in the future, and control many of its citizens with the Anti-Life Equation. Yet his reign was erased from history by the time-traveling Flash, Aquaman, and Green Lantern.
Darkseid also took over Earth in the present day during Final Crisis, even turning certain superheroes into his servants with the Anti-Life Equation. He was seemingly destroyed, however by Superman.
4 Loki: Defeated Thor And Conquered Asgard
In Robert Rodi and Esad Ribić’s Loki, the God of Mischief finally seized control of Asgard and defeated his adoptive brother... but found himself miserable. Plagued by allies to whom he owed debts and taunted by his imprisoned enemies, Loki Laufeyson became irritated and on-edge, especially after learning that every other version of Loki in existence was doomed to failure.
Goaded into executing Thor, Loki instead relented, realizing the thunder god had been the only one to ever show him affection. While Loki tried to convince Thor to rule alongside him, the Odinson did not let Laufeyson finish making his offer and vanquished him with Mjolnir.
3 Golgoth: Ruled The World Without Being Deposed
The entire premise of Mark Waid and Barry Kitson’s Empire revolves around a man who got everything he ever wanted. The series follows Golgoth, a supervillain who actually succeeded in taking over the Earth and winning against its heroes, including his archenemy Endymion.
Despite Golgoth’s success in conquest, however, a certain unrest exists in his global empire, thanks to the political scheming of his ministers and advisers, as well as some shocking surprises involving those closest to him. Despite the inner turmoil surrounding his rule, however, Golgoth’s control over Earth has thus far remained absolute.
2 Lord Drakkon: “Killed” His Good Self, Entered The Morphin Grid, And Rewrote Reality
Lord Drakkon had already found great success when turning his reality into the World of the Coinless. His first attempt to conquer the main Power Rangers timeline, however, ended in failure. Things changed in “Shattered Grid,” however when he seemingly killed the main universe’s Tommy Oliver and used the Morphin Grid to replace the multiverse with a single world where Drakkon was Earth’s greatest hero.
Yet, Drakkon’s reign was soon challenged by Tommy, whose spirit had survived thanks to the Ranger Slayer’s efforts. Aided by his fellow Mighty Morphin-era Rangers and Drakkon’s own doubts, Tommy defeated his evil self, and reality returned mostly to normal.
1 Doctor Doom: Took Over The Entire Earth… And Later Took Over The Remains Of The Multiverse
For a man who rarely admits failure, Doctor Doom has had no shortage of setbacks. Yet there are two occasions where he indisputably succeeded. The first was in the Emperor Doom graphic novel, in which Latveria’s supreme ruler used a device powered by the Purple Man to make the world accept Doom as Earth’s emperor. Yet Doom grew bored of ruling Earth, and ultimately let the Avengers and Namor defeat him.
Years later, Doom used the Molecule Man to absorb the Beyonders’ power and rearrange the Earths they hadn’t destroyed into a new Battleworld, which Doom ruled uninterrupted (and without Reed Richards) for eight years.