WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Utopia, available now on Amazon Prime Video.
When it comes to labelling villains as twisted in pop culture, a lot depends on their personalities and how sadistic their plans are. Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader, for example, are quite intimidating, but their plans aren't airtight, which takes away from their overall fear factor.
Watchmen's Ozymandias and the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Thanos both executed their plans flawlessly, damaging humanity -- and in the latter's case, the cosmos -- badly. Given their speeches, how unstoppable they were and how elegant they appeared, it's safe to say with their egos, they're among the most twisted villains ever. Now, there's another like-minded villain: Utopia's Mr. Rabbit.
Ozymandias' Squid Pro Quo
Ozymandias' plan in Watchmen makes him quite devious, especially because by the time Rorschach's team gets to him, he's already dropped a squid bomb on New York. It's meant to trick the world and unite them out of fear, so they focus on a fake invasion and ultimately, each other, rather than nuclear war. It's actually a solid plan -- mankind does come together in mourning, realizing through this loss how vulnerable all world powers can be.
Through his plan, Ozymandias proves how easy it is to manipulate humans, which is why Doctor Manhattan buys into and accepts the facade. It's a forced hand, admittedly, turning man away from being monsters by scaring them. As Manhattan notes, how peace is achieved doesn't matter, so long as it is achieved.
The movie follows this arc but per the HBO series, that togetherness doesn't last, so Ozymandias' plan doesn't have the long-lasting effect he intended. In any case, this relies a lot on hope, because Ozymandias has to assume mankind will mature and work together for years to come, when really they're emotional and petulant kids. It's why the plan falls apart and why he's not as twisted as similar villains.
The Terrible Thanos
In the MCU, Thanos got the Infinity Gauntlet in Avengers: Infinity War, filled it with Infinity Stones and snapped away half of all life across the universe. In his eyes, this was a means of population control. As he saw when his home, Titan, fell, there weren't enough resources for all of reality to exist. He simply had to cull the population to allow the remaining people to have more.
This would also give the universe time to heal, because the survivors would live in fear and panic. They'd have to come together, domesticated and scared, knowing instantaneous loss could happen again at the drop of a hat.
His snap did have the Ozymandias effect and there was a much higher intimidation factor, because so many people died. However, seeing as there were Avengers and other heroes left behind to mount a comeback, it's hard to gift Thanos the top spot as most twisted villain -- especially since he seemed more content with stroking his ego than truly defeating the team.
The Deceptive Mr. Rabbit
There's no sympathy to be gained for John Cusack's Kevin Christie in Utopia. Mr. Rabbit has been concocting a nasty sterilization plot. He mixes Ozy's plan and the Mad Titan's scheme into one giant petri dish by faking a viral outbreak, then faking a cure and distributing a vaccine for kids that'll render the next three generations sterile.
He's made it clear he has no issue taking out kids and what further makes Christie the most twisted is, if it wasn't for his own cult messing up, his plan would have been undetectable.
It's also a two-pronged assault, because he's slowly been seeding out other viruses to kill off people, thus giving him more control. This would eliminate the weak and the old, so Christie tweaks until he gets the numbers he wants and a world where only the strong survive. To top it off, he has a society molded at Home, via the Harvest program, that doesn't believe in discrimination, so it's just a matter of slipping these agents into public until he gets a utopia filled with love, all under his watch.
His viral scheme also instills fear into humanity and calms them down a bit. Seeing as it's more cerebral than relying on bloodshed and war, Rabbit is way smarter and more demented than Thanos or Ozymandias. He seeks unity without needing a spectacle, all while mankind thinks he's a messiah.
Created by Gillian Flynn, Utopia stars Dan Byrd, Ashleigh LaThrop, Jessica Rothe, Desmin Borges, Javon "Wanna" Walton, Sasha Lane, Farrah Mackenzie, Christopher Denham, Cory Michael Smith, John Cusack and Rainn Wilson. The series is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.