back to article Vote NOW for the vilest Bond villain

In the 50 years since Her Majesty's Secret Service first let 007 loose on the silver screen, James Bond has faced some truly fearsome adversaries. Menaced by steel-toothed giants, Koreans wielding killer bowler hats, and dagger-shoed Russian madwomen, it's fair to say that the world's favourite spy has survived some of the …

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  1. The Jase

    Lucy Butler was the scariest villain ever...

    But that was another series

  2. wowfood
    FAIL

    What? No Nick Nack?

    Clearly he was by far the most villainous of villains.

  3. b166er

    I always though Stromberg was the creepiest and therefore quite vile.

    1. James Micallef Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      I agree that Stromberg has got to be high on the list. He scores highly for his Proper 'Bond villain' base + supertanker with private army. Also the harpoon gun under the table adds a personal touch to his killings. Somehow having minions do all the dirty work seems to me to be too 'remote' to be a proper villain.

      Blofeld is the 'classic' Bond villain, it's just that for me just pressing a button and having someone die, or being basically a 'CEO' of a villanous organisation without getting your hands dirty doesn't cut it. At the top end of the REALLY getting your hands dirty scale is Sanchez who is personally handling a couple of rather gruesome killings.

      Incidentally, why is teh list a mix of master-minds and henchmen. Odd-Job and Jaws are fearsome opponents but not much in the way of brains. Why not have a vote for best super-villain and another vote for best henchman?

  4. GrumpyJoe

    Hugo Drax needs more love

    "Look after Mr. Bond. See that some harm comes to him."

    1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

      Re: Hugo Drax needs more love

      Indeed. Also: "At least I shall have the pleasure of putting you out of my misery."

      1. Graham Marsden
        Pirate

        Re: Hugo Drax needs more love

        Not forgetting "You defy all my attempts to plan an amusing death for you!"

        1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

          Re: Re: Hugo Drax needs more love

          And while we're at it: "James Bond. You appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season."

          1. Alan Edwards
            Thumb Up

            Re: Hugo Drax needs more love

            Got to be a candidate for the best line of the series...

            At least Drax thought big - kill everyone on the planet and replace them will your own super humans. No small-time suffl like cornering the gold market.

    2. Steven Roper

      In my book

      Hugo Drax was no villain. To me he was a hero and a martyr, who sadly failed in a noble endeavour. If I had his money and resources, I'd certainly do exactly what he tried to do - wipe the human plague off the face of the planet and replace them with a selected few - namely, non-religious people with at least a semi-decent education who aren't concerned with telling everyone else how to live their lives.

      Only I wouldn't do it with mere poison gas from orbiting probes - there's NO substance toxic enough that a handful of bar-fridge-sized probes' worth would wipe out every last human on the planet (yes, I know about botulinum toxin, and no, those probes would not be an effective method of spreading it sufficiently.) My preferred technique would perhaps be a weaponised disease with the fatality rate of ebola and the contagiousness of the common cold, since most other forms of destruction (like my erstwhile favourite, grey goo) would wipe out all other life as well.

      I 'm surprised Elliot Carver didn't get more votes - after all, he's the only one obviously based on a real-life villain, namely Rupert Murdoch. Now there's an evil megalomaniac despot if ever there was one.

      1. Graham Marsden

        Re: In my book

        Well, of course, in Fleming's Book he was an ex-Nazi who wanted to collude with the Russians to nuke London!

  5. DrStrangeLug

    There's a difference

    Between a villain and a henchman (goons? hired goons!).

    Put up two seperate poll's one for the main baddie (Blofield, Drax, Goldfinger, etc) and another for the henchmen (Jaws, NickNack, RandomTask, etc).

  6. auburnman
    Meh

    Hmmm......

    While I remember the villains, I'm struggling to remember what most of them actually did/tried to do, which is making the vote tricky. Carver was pretty vile when he tried to start a war to profit, but wasn't that Blofeld's objective in You Only Live Twice? Where's Emilio Largo on the list? He held cities to ransom with nukes in Thunderball.

    I think El Reg should re-run this poll after ITV have finished their seasonal 'show every Bond film we can afford over Christmas' and we've reacquainted ourselves with the baddies.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Obviously

    the author of this tech news (???) doesn't know the difference between villan and henchman...

    1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

      Re: Obviously

      Trust me, I do. However, they're all technically Bond villains, and I decide what's included in the poll. TBH, I'm surprised you clicked on it, since the headline give a strong hint that there's not much tech content.

      1. Ben Holmes
        Happy

        Re: Obviously

        Zing.

  8. jungle_jim
    Pint

    Odd Job

    I am biased because I like hats

  9. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Where's Renard?

    From "The World Is Not Enough" (my favourite Bond film.)

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Where's Renard?

      Slav-looking evil, actually from the UK.

      Beds Sophie Marceau (HNGGG!!)

      Holds Plutonium with bare hands (ok, that's not hard to do).

      Nonchalantly poisons his country fellows.

      ALL MY POINTS!

  10. Risky
    Stop

    Missing the obvious candidate

    Where's Juilan Assange??? I know he hasn't actually had a role yet but he's clearly born for it so it's just a matter of time. It's not hard to picture him with the white cat..........

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Missing the obvious candidate

      To go with his white hare (sic) ?

    2. auburnman
      Trollface

      Re: Missing the obvious candidate

      We could do a budget reshoot of the opening to Casino Royale where 007 tries to extract a wanted man from the grounds of an embassy; only instead of shooting 100 guards in Foreignistan he's knocking in a back window with a half brick in London.

    3. philbo

      Re: Missing the obvious candidate

      I'd have thought the obvious candidate missing was Rupert Murdoch rather than Assange :-)

  11. dogged

    Trevelyan

    Because Sean Bean's RP is one of the most painful things I've ever heard.

  12. Purlieu

    For me it's Blofeld

    Stroking the white cat is a mastertouch of psychotistry.

    So how about Kim Dotcom as Goldfinger and Julian assange as Blofeld

    1. Captain DaFt

      Re: For me it's Blofeld

      And don't forget his tenacity. No other villian kept coming back, again and again, no matter how handicapped, with Bond's death as an essential part of his schemes.

  13. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge

    well

    I've gone for Rosa Klebb,

    But in my mind its a three way tie between Goldfinger, Her and Scaramanga.

    Goldfinger... classic bond villian

    Klebb... a mean ol' witch of a villianess... and the last woman ever you'd want on a blind date.

    Scaramanga.. Played by Christopher Lee.. need I say more?

    1. ColonelClaw
      Thumb Up

      Re: well

      I went with Klebb too. Un utterly chilling, completely unpleasant vicious psychopath with not one redeeming feature. And highly innovative footwear to boot.

      1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: well

        Agreed. The others were obviously villanous, but Klebb was definitely the most unpleasant.

  14. Mako

    I'm going to have to go with Hugo Drax, if only because his stated aim was to wipe out the vast majority of the human race.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Do you regard the "aim was to wipe out the vast majority of the human race" as so bad he deserves the villain title, or a redeeming feature that deserves a vote?

      Having recently watched some celebrity TV, I have some sympathy for him...

  15. PerlyKing
    Go

    Max Zorin

    Christopher Walken creeps me out every time.

    Reading the poll question literally, a lot of the adversaries fail the "most believable" test.

    1. Armando 123

      Re: Max Zorin

      I voted for him, too, in spite of Kevin Pollack ruining Walken in a serious role for me.

      "Frankenstein neveh scahed me."

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I think you've missed my favourite

    Pussy Galore - the whole lesbian flying circus and 'converting' her back to straight sex - saw it at an impressionable age, put a kink in my personality that I've enjoyed ever since

    1. Omgwtfbbqtime

      Re: I think you've missed my favourite

      I'd have Fatima Blush

      Erm I think that cameout right....

  17. A Known Coward
    Megaphone

    Franz Sanchez - Most realistic, most violent

    Franz Sanchez for me. He's the least comic book of the villains, an ultraviolet drug cartel leader based on real life characters. Unlike Blofeld et al he didn't have henchmen doing his dirty work, he got his hands dirty, very dirty. Whether it was dismembering people with a machete or string them up and lowering them slowly to a hungry shark - not to kill outright in one bite as other Bond villains might but to be chewed up piece by piece.

    There was always a touch of the absurd to the other Bond villains which made them hard to take seriously, but Franz Sanchez was a cold blooded, psychopathic butcher and by far the vilest of them all. Not my favourite, but that wasn't the question being asked.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Franz Sanchez - Most realistic, most violent

      The guy is now in charge...

      http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_21389331/even-more-brutal-leader-takes-over-mexicos-zetas

      MEXICO CITY (AP) - A falling out between the leaders of the hyper-violent Zetas cartel appears to have put the gang in the hands of a brutal and feared gangster who has been blamed for an eruption of bloodshed in Mexico's once relatively calm central states. Miguel Angel Trevino Morales is a former cartel enforcer who apparently won a showdown with Zetas founder Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano for leadership, law enforcement officials say. Lawmen and even competing drug capos picture Trevino as a brutal assassin who favors getting rid of foes by stuffing them into oil drums, dousing them with gasoline and setting them on fire - a practice known as a "guiso," a Spanish word for "stew."

  18. Alister

    Difficult decision

    One's instinct is to go for Blofeld, but in fact he was quite charming, in all his guises, rather than frightening or villainous. Eliot Carver was quite nasty - much more obviously evil, to my mind, possibly because his plot was almost believable.

    Some of the others mentioned were too over the top to be really menacing, and in fact I always had a sneaking feeling of pity for Jaws, he didn't really come out of things well.

    Red Grant was pretty evil, he came across as a real psychopath, but I would say that the outright nastiest, though, was Franz Sanchez, definitely the most vile.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Eliot Carver believable?

      What about Dominic Greene? He's not too much of a stretch from real life I think... given the opportunity I could see the radical greens giving us a real life villain somewhere between Greene and Drax.

      Speaking of, I think Al Gore will make a great Bond villain someday. Trying to take over the world economy with a mandatory carbon credit regime enforced by the UN. Quick, someone give that man a yacht with a submarine (like Paul Allen has - another real life candidate for being a Bond villain someday) or a volcano island base!

      On second thought, maybe I like my Bond villains a little more comic book (Blofeld) than real (Sanchez).

  19. MJI Silver badge

    Reminds me

    I need to watch my 20th year at work present.

    Box set of Blu Rays of Bond

  20. adrianww

    But...

    ...what I want to know is why Pierce Brosnan isn't on the list?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: But...

      And where is General Orlovski?

  21. Craig Vaughton

    Obvious

    Has to be Trevelyan, he's a Blades fan....

  22. Captain Scarlet Silver badge
    Pint

    For me its Jaws

    Probably because when I was a child it was the first bond baddie I saw and I wanted those teeth!

  23. GitMeMyShootinIrons

    Le Chiffre...

    By virtue that all beancounters are inherently evil, not to mention that he's a pretty unpleasent character in general.

  24. Belgarion

    May Day

    Grace Jones always scared the hell out of me. Still does. And that's just her music...

  25. jai

    what no Onatopp?

    i can see Pussy Galore not being a villain, she'd fall into the Bond Girl category. But surely Onatopp was pretty villianous, especially with her preferred method of assassination, no?

  26. disgruntled yank

    Important omissions

    1. Albert Broccoli

    2. Ian Fleming

  27. Munchausen's proxy
    Pint

    Only one answer

    My vote will always go to the rat bastard that shot Emma Peel.

  28. Gordo Rex
    Devil

    Blofeld

    Perhaps it was just my age, but killing Diana Rigg is traumatically, absolutely, eternally, totally evit.

    I know he was just an actor, but I could never watch Telly Savalas in a any role, ever, again.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Holmes

      Re: Blofeld

      What about Corinne Dufour then? It was all KILL THE CUTIE. Sob!

      I just noticed Corinne also starred in "Story of O". Ah-HA!

  29. Whistler
    Mushroom

    Thunderball

    Where's Largo? I thought he was one of the best. Happily throws people to his sharks, but also leads his men from the front. Some of the others, once bond dealt with the henchmen, were a pushover.

    Largo from the original Thunderball of course, not any remake.

    Big explosion, what all villains love to threaten

  30. kdh0009

    Convincingly unpleasant..

    Has to be Sanchez. Whilst he's far from the 'best' villain or the smartest villain or the most world-dominatingly deluded villain, he can easily be considered the one you would least want to meet.

    A classic Bond villain has enough charm to be tolerable for a while. You would not want to be anywhere near Sanchez for any time at all.

  31. Nick The Geek
    FAIL

    Where are...

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/fail_32.png

    Bambi & Thumper?

    1. Alister

      Re: Where are...

      Bambi and Thumper?

      You really class them as vile?

  32. jason 7
    Thumb Up

    I must say....

    Mr Wynt and Mr Kidd puzzled and disturbed me as a 10 year old from a sheltered background. I felt there was something a bit different about them

    I still find them a bit unsettling (not so much the fact they were a couple, I get that now) in their tone and mannerisms. That's what makes good villains.

    Highly underrated in the Bond world.

  33. QuinnDexter

    Goldfinger

    He was the villain that echoed all that was good about Connery as Bond. Iconic

    Very close second should be Kananga - "Names is for tombstones, baby"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Goldfinger

      "No Mr. Bond I expect you to die!"

      Best. Line. EVAR.

  34. EddieD

    Amateurs, all of them.

    Where is "Jimmy" Bond/Dr Noah?

    http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0058417/

  35. OrsonX
    Thumb Up

    Dr.Evil

    frikkin lazers!

  36. Blofeld's Cat
    Devil

    Ernst Stavro Blofeld

    I may be biased of course.

  37. asdf

    Putting Blofeld first virtually assures the win. He is still my favorite even if Kojak (Telly Savalas) ruined the character forever.

  38. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Happy

    Red Grant

    Well, red wine and fish, how more vile could you get?

    1. Tom 7

      Re: Red Grant

      The right red wine and the right fish are superb.

      The French have terroir, we have parochial.

      1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: Re: Red Grant

        ".....The French have terroir, we have parochial." Yes, but we have Bond, and the Fwench have... well, white flags.

  39. MondoMan
    FAIL

    Maximillian Largo -- how could you leave out a Bond film with Kim Basinger and Barbara Carrera?

  40. Colin Brett
    Pirate

    Baron Samedi FTW!

    Most of the other chief villains are obsessed psychos with massive personal wealth and an ego to go with it. This is their major failing: they will lose when their ego goes out of control and they start making mistakes (like telling Bond their plan when they should have just put a bullet in him from the start).

    That's why I voted for Baron Samedi, the loa Lord of the Graves. Bond might beat all the rest but can even 007 beat Death himself?

    Colin

    Skull icon because that would be his symbol!

    PS: Others have called for the poll to be split into villains and henchmen. I propose two more polls: "Best Bond Movie Quotes" (hero or villain) and, of course, Best Bond Girl (preferably with 8x10 glossies :-) )

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Baron Samedi FTW!

      But that was in "Mona Lisa Overdrive"?

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Novartis CEO?

    If we consider they were involved in;

    * Human testing of LSD, LAE, BZ and other psychoactives for MKULTRA.

    * Selling drugs they know don't work, to cover costs of marketing more than the R&D costs.

    * Creating potentially deadly retro-viruses by using pig organs in people, and pumping those people full of immune system inhibitors.

    * Implicated in the manufacture of a biological weapon that possibly then led to HIV (hep-c tests on people who were considered very sexually active)

    All of those items are independently verifiable (see Mark Thomas, xenotransplantation, MKULTRA files, etc... etc...)

    I'd say that Novartis are a whole hell of a lot worse than any of the fictional bond villains.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: Novartis CEO?

      Not sure whether antivaxer....

      supicious_dog.jpg

      Additionally, a CEO is just a CEO. He changes and works for the shareholders. So it should be the shareholders wot done it.

  42. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

    Le Chiffre. Played by Peter Lorre.

    1. jon 72
      Thumb Up

      I accept your reality

      Sir Alan Sugar for role of Blofeld

  43. Spoonsinger
    Boffin

    And afterwords we can run amok! Or if you're too tired, we can walk amok.

    So why is Dr. Noah not on the list?

    (icon looks appropriate)

  44. Patrice
    Devil

    Goldfinger

    Goldfinger is certainly the most watchable villain performance of the series. There is something about the look and the voice of that performance that is very memorable and enjoyable.

    And the best line of the series ever is Goldfinger's: "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die".

    It even has an XKCD strip for it http://www.xkcd.com/123/

  45. The Nameless Mist

    Telly Savalas' Blofeld

    Has to be for his revenge attack on James & Tracy at the end of OHMSS (OK Bunt does the shooting but Blofeld's the boss).

  46. Chris Hunt
    Devil

    Only one winner

    The most vile villain Has to be Rupert Murd... I mean "Elliot Carver".

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