http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hansen

And with that in mind, let’s have a look at his top ten sci fi/comics/whatever hitlist. Onward!

10. CLARK KENT/SUPERMAN from SUPERMAN

Out of all the people in the world who could do with a helping hand from the Man of Steel, the one guy Supes gives a signal-watch (a device that looks like a watch but actually emits a high-pitched sonic frequency that only Superman can hear) to the Daily Planet’s cub reporter Jimmy Olsen? There’s something not quite right going on there. That being said, the Last Son of Krypton’s later marriage to Lois Lane absolves him of any guilt.

9. CAPTAIN APOLLO from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

Apollo always seemed to leave the womanizing to Starbuck, have you ever noticed that? Maybe he engineered the death of Serina so he could have sole custody of Boxey. Nah, Apollo was too nice a guy to do something like that, besides he was too busy colonising his viper in Sheba to take an unhealthy interest in young Boxey.

8. INDIANA JONES from INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM

What I wanna know is, how did Indy and Short Round meet? Was Indy prowling the backstreets of the slums of Shanghai at the time – and if so what was he doing there? And, more to the point, why did no one report his nocturnal prowlings to the staff of Marshall College. I mean I know the world was a different place in 1935, but come on.

7. QUI-GON JINN from STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE

His constant reffering to Obi-Wan as his “young apprentice” coupled with an unhealthy interest in young Anakin’s “midichlorians,” make it clear why Obi-Wan grew up to become the farmboy hungry predator he was. What seperates Qui-Gon from Obi-Wan however is the fact that Obi-Wan showed zero interest in women, while Qui-Gon’s shameless flirting with Anakin’s mum lets him off the hook. Just.

6. DR. EMMETT BROWN from BACK TO THE FUTURE

All the trademarks of the predator are there from the hanging out with people half his age to luring young men into his car; can’t you just see Doc insiting to Marty that the back of his van really, honestly, swear to God, IS a time machine? That said, he hooks up with Clara in BTTF3, so maybe he was on the straight and narrow all along.

5. NEELIX from STAR TREK: VOYAGER

Neelix, ship’s cook and “morale officer” on board the USS Voyager was obsessed with kids to the point that almost all of his spare time was spent in the holodeck with little Niomi Wildman and tucking in the rest of the Voyager kids at night. Shades of Apollo Adama too in that when he eventually got off Voyager he shacked up with a widow and her young son. And it’s no coincidence that his girlfriend was Ocampan a race with a lifespan of only nine years, either.

4. PAZUZU from THE EXORCIST

Pazuzu (telling everyone he’s the devil himself, of course) possesses the body of a 12 year old girl and forces her to do all manner of unspeakable things to herself with a crucifix? To quote Richard Pryor, “the devil’s a low motherfucker, Jack.” That said, the fact that Pazuzu is a demon kinda-sorta-not really excuses him since that sort of deviat sexual behaviour is expected of a being of pure evil.

3. STEVE ROGERS/CAPTAIN AMERICA from CAPTAIN AMERICA

It’s was a sad day when the Sentinel of Liberty himself proved to be immune to the charms of his teenage sidekick Bucky. Well, ok, so nothing ever actually happened, but his obsession with the death of the youngster and his unhealthy fixation on Rick Jones make Cap somewhat suspect. For a solid ten, fifteen years you couldn’t pick up a CapAm book without reading about how guilty he felt about Bucky. Guilty about what, exactly, Steve? That is the question.

2. OBI-WAN KENOBI from STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE

Order 66 wasn’t the reason Obi-Wan went into hiding on Tatooine. The real reason? The Empire got wind of his extracurricular activities involving luring young farmboys to bars in Mos Eisley and put a price on the sick fuck’s head so large every bounty hunter in the galaxy was scouring the universe looking for him. Last seen luring Luke Skywalker into Chalmun’s Cantina and offering Han Solo seventeen thousand credits to get him “and the boy” off world – with “no questions asked.”

1. BRUCE WAYNE/BATMAN from BATMAN

And so it comes to this. Since the introduction of Robin in 1940, rumours, speculation and half truths have hung around the be-cowled head of Bruce Wayne like flies round shit. After all, this is a case of a fully grown millionaire playboy inviting a young, impressionable orphan to live in his plush mansion – and not only that – but to don bright green underwear and hang out on dark rooftops with his guardian in the night. Nah, something not quite right there. Besides, we have pictoral evidence of his sexual deviance.

Goddamned Batman? Goddamned pervert is more like it.

Disgusted with either the writers of such filth or, indeed, me for writing about it? Comments below! End transmission.

10. OTTO WEST from A Fish Called Wanda

Played by Kevin Kline, Otto kicks off our list of movie assholes. A foot fetishist who reads (but doesn’t understand) Nietzsche, Otto is a grade A asshole, but the fish scene alone earns him a place on the list. Only a complete and utter dickhead would feed a man his own beloved fish, but feed him Otto does with hilariously douchebaggy results. Like all the best assholes, he gets his comeuppance in a manner most awesome when he is run over by a steamroller driven by an out-for-vengence Michael Palin. Just don’t call him stupid.

9. WALTER PECK from Ghostbusters

Who ya gonna call? Not this dickhead, that’s for damn sure. An agent of the Environmental Protection Agency, an a constant thorn in the Ghostbusters’ collective side, Walter Pecker, uh, Peck, is a prick to the last, arguing with the Ghostbusters in the Mayor’s office when the city is under threat from supernatural badguys. But all the supernatural badguys in the world aren’t as annoying as Peck. And yes, the man has no dick.

8. CAPTAIN THADDEUS HARRIS from Police Academy

The thorn in the side of the one Steve Guttenberg character that I don’t want to stab and a US prime, grade A stamped asshole, Captain Harris, played by G.W. Bailey, is possibly the best thing about the Police Academy movies, although he is absent from 2 and 3. The movies take a nosedive after the first one, but the showstealing douchebaggery from Captain Harris is always watchable. Now move it, move it, move it! Pick it up, assholes!

7. RICHARD VERNON from The Breakfast Club

The quintessential teacher who takes himself too seriously and, when given an inch of power, takes a mile. Arch nemesis of the coolest kid in the detention room, John Bender and master of the bizarre put down (“you mess with the bull, you’re gonna get the horns”) when he’s not making life a misery for Emilo Estevez and Molly Ringwald, Mr. Vernon likes to sneak around and dig up dirt on his fellow teachers. What a dick. And next time he comes in here, he’s crackin’ skulls.

6. BILL DAGGET from Unforgiven

One of those movie assholes who are played by an actor so charasmatic that you cant help but like him, despite the fact that he is an utter, utter prick. When some douchebag cowboy beats the shit out of a prostitute in Big Whisky, Wyoming, Sheriff “Little” Bill Daggett lets him off with a whipping. Despite this, Little Bill can be a brutal disiplinarian when he feels like it, beating Richard Harris to a bloody pulp and murdering Morgan Freeman and putting his body on display as a warning. Will Clint Eastwood stand for this shit? Will he fuck. In the end Little Bill gets what he deserves – even though deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.

5. CLUBBER LANG from Rocky III

I thought long and hard about wether Clubber or Ivan Drago from Rocky IV most deserved a place on the list. Drago killed Appollo Creed and was a remorseless fuck about it, after all, but his last minute attitude shift (“I fight for ME!”) kinda redeems him a little bit. Besides, you get the impression that Drago’s simply doing a job whilst Clubber on the other hand is a bastard from beginning to end, bulldozing his way through the professional ranks to get a shot at the title. He insults Rocky’s manhood, kills his manager and hands him his arse, scowling all the while and creating the legend of Mr. T. His prediction? Pain…

4. JOHNNY LAWRENCE from The Karate Kid

Like Drago, Johhny has a last minute change of heart, but his utter, utter dickheadishness for the hour and a half before that mean that despite his final reel redemption, he still places high on the list. Trained by John Kreese, himself a prime asshole, at the Cobra Kai dojo, itself a training ground for assholes, Johnny is the kind of kid that learns karate not to find his centre or any hippy bullshit like that, but to kick fucking ass on the playground. Not the kind of kid you want to have pressuring you for your lunch money and the kind of little fucking bastard that, despite his “redemption” in the last moments, probably went running back to Kreese and resumed his asskicking of weaker kids the very next day. Incredible resemblence to Owen Hart notwithstanding, the guy’s a dick. Sweep the leg, Johnny. Sweep the fucking leg.

3. DOUGLAS C. NIEDERMEYER from National Lampoon’s Animal House

An asshole so hated, so loathed that ten years after the movie came out, Dee Snider found the actor and put him in two of Twisted Sister’s videos where he gets the utter crap kicked out of him. Played to sneering perfection by Mark Metcalf, Niedermeyer’s ceaseless torture of Flounder (let’s be honest, of all the Animal House characters, we all most closeley resembled Flounder at college) makes him perfect for this list. Along with his lackey Greg Marmalard, Niedermeyer’s sole goal in life is to make life a living hell for the residents of Delta House, the ultimate frathouse. His assholery didn’t end when he finished college, though. According to the movie, he was shot by his own troops in ‘Nam. The prick. Now drop and give him twenty!

2. BIFF TANNEN from Back to the Future

Wether it’s 1985 Biff, 1955 Biff, 2015 Biff, alternate-1985 Biff or 1885 Biff, you can be sure of one thing. If he’s a Tannen, he’s an asshole. Making life a misery for the McFlys is a Tannen family tradition, at least untill Marty changed all that and reduced the once-great asshole to waxing George McFly’s car. It was a sad day for assholes all over the world. But the sheer and utter dickheadery that led up to that moment makes it all worthwhile. From shooting Doc Brown, to almost dateraping Lorraine McFly, to crashing George’s car and making George pay to dry clean his suit (he spilled beer on it when he crashed, y’see), to killing George and marrying Lorraine in an alternate 1985, to stealing the DeLorean and wiping himself out of extistence – this stuff can make your head spin. Suffice to say, Biff, and all his decendants, are assholes. Butthead.

1. CAPTAIN RHODES from Day of the Dead

Like there was any other choice. The baddest motherfucker in the history of zombie cinema, the best thing about an already awesome movie and , officially, the biggest asshole on movie history, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Captain Rhodes. The man in charge after the death of his commanding officer and a man who has had enough and isn’t gonna take it anymore, goddamnit. There’s fucking zombies everywhere and the science team want to study them? To hell with that. Turning the air blue with the kind of epic swearing that Tarantino can only dream of, Rhodes is the kind of guy that talks a good talk AND walks a good walk, but when the going gets too tough, he turns tail and gets the fuck out of there, leaving his lackies to do the dirty work. The prick. Played by Joe Pilato (who deserved an Oscar), Rhodes is, without doubt, the biggest asshole of all time. Plus, best fucking death ever. Now go on and run, run you fucking lunatics.

There it is, the top ten most dickheaded douchebags in film history. Comment below if you agree, disagree, or just want to tell me how awesome I am. End transmission.

10. Roy Batty from Blade Runner

I gotta admit, Blade Runner is not one of my favorite films. It’s awfully involved and it’s not a film you can watch passivley, which is perhaps the reason it’s not as well liked as it might be. I’ve watched it four or five times, and every time I leave feeling like I’ve somehow missed something; like I’m not “getting” it somehow. Regardless, Roy Batty is a fascinating villain and the “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t beleive” speech alone earns him a place on this list. “Time to die…”

9. T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgement Day

A “mimetic poly-alloy,” ten times as advanced as the T-800 and therefore ten times as awesome, the T-1000 is played by the always cool Robert Patrick in Terminator 2. I’ve always maintained that T2 isn’t as good as the first one, but it’s still undeniably brilliant. CGI was still in its infancy when T2 was made, so when you see a truck drive over a bridge or a motorcyle drive through a window onto a helicopter, that’s exactly what you’re seeing – no cop out pixelated bullshit. Except when it comes to the T-1000, of course, who sometimes appears as CGI and, like Jurrassic Park, it’s CGI that looks a million times better than 99% of shit that’s out there now.

8. The Alien from Alien

I don’t understand people who claim that Aliens is better than Alien. It’s bigger, louder, dumber, more things blow up, there’s more smart mouthed John McLaine dialouge and the alien is bigger. If that adds up to a better film, then I must know nothing about film. But anyway, the Alien (or Xenomorph, if you’re a big Alien geek) is a great villain: utterly terrifying and damn near unstoppable. In classic monster or slasher movie style, the Alien keeps mostly in the shadows, picking off crewmembers one by one and ratching up the tension to damn near unbearable levels. Brilliantly designed and realised, the Alien is as instantly recognisable and iconic as any of the classic movie monsters.

7. Count Baltar from Battlestar Galactica

No not the guy with the long hair and the suit, we’re talking original Battlestar Galactica here, bitches. In the slimy and despicable tradition of villainous actors such as James Mason, former Klingon John Colicos made Baltar the perfect boo-hiss badguy. After selling out the human race to the Cylons causing the destruction of Caprica and the deaths of untold millions (and being an utterly remorseless bastard about it), Baltar makes it his mission to kill Adama and destroy the Galactica. Fans of nuBSG will undoubtedly point out that Baltar and the rest of the the original run characters are more one dimensinal and less interesting than their reboot counterparts, but you know what? If I want realism and hard hitting emotional drama, I wont watch a show involving spaceships and robots.

6. Doctor Zaius from Planet of the Apes

Given the wonderfully contradictory title of Minister of Science in Charge of Advancing Ape Knowledge and Chief Defender of the Faith, Zaius is, like his job title, one of the biggest bastards in sci fi and yet his motives are entirley understandable and almost commendable. Carrying the knowledge of the true history of ape civilisation around with him whilst trying to maintain the status quo is hard enough, but when Charlton Heston shows up and uncomfortable questions start being asked, it seems fair enough that he would want to supress the true facts. It’s when he starts resorting to lobotomies and vasectomies for Taylor’s crewmates that he stops being a little over zealous and starts being a bit of a bastard. Plus, he’s an orangutan, undoubtedly the shittest of the great apes. That said, he did get his own TV special, so what do I know?

5. The Thing from The Thing From Another World! and The Thing


Released in 1951, the original Thing movie – The Thing From Another World! – is a masterpeice of Cold War paranoia, second only to Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. Likeable characters, snappy dialouge and a great, if cheesy alien, this brilliant film was remade (though, it could be a sequel, depending on how you look at things) and perfected by John Carpenter’s 1982 The Thing. The original, though great, fails on one point – the alien does not shapeshift as it does in the original short story. Carpenter remied that and gave us not only one of the best sci fi villains, but one of the best aliens and monsters in cinema history. The air of mistrust and paranoia and the tension that Carpenter creates is every bit as nail bitingly awesome as anything Hitchcock created.

4. Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon

“Foolish Earthlings! Who will save you now?” The oldest villain on the list, the Emperor of Mongo made his first apperance in 1934. His first major non-comics apperance was in the Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers serial in the late 30s, but the incarnation of the character we’re concerning ourselves with is Max Von Sydow in the 1980 Flash Gordon. Von Sydow is one of those actors not afraid to risk making himself look silly and so he threw himself with reckless abandon into the part of Ming and made a stock villain into the most leering, most over the top villain this side of Skelator. The film goes every bit as over the top as Von Sydow’s performance and everybody plays their parts to the hilt – well, everybody except Timothy Dalton, who apparently never noticed it was supposed to be satire. In any case, Von Sydow’s performance alone puts him on the list. And just look at those eyebrows!

3. Darth Vader from the Star Wars Saga

Want a reason why the Star Wars prequels suck? If not for them, Vader would probably have made the number on spot on his list, but after seeing him as an annoying kid and a whiney emo teenager, he just doesn’t seem so awesome. But sticking with the Original Trilogy for the time being, Vader is pure concentrated badass, remoselessly choking his own officers and trying to kill his own son with equal abandon. Not the kind of villain who’s scared to get his hands dirty, Vader is just as happy orchestrating attaks or taking part in them in his oh-so-aweome custom TIE fighter. Taking the Prequel Trilogy into account though, we see that Vader isn’t the be all and end all of galactic evil, but merley a puppet; his strings being pulled by Emperor Palpatine, the real power behind the dark side of the Force. But that aside, Vader as he is presented in the OT is fucking killer. The black mask, the cape, the red lightsaber, the oh-so-ominious heavy breathing and the sonorous tones of James Earl Jones all add up to a great sci fi villain. Plus, his offical title is Dark Lord of the Sith, and that just sounds fucking cool.

2. Khan Noonien Singh from The Wrath of Khan

“KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!” The only villain on the list to have his origin in a TV show (Baltar was in a movie first, albeit one only released in Canada), Ricardo Montalban’s Khan made such an impression on Nicholas Meyer that he decided to bring him back as the villain in the movie The Wrath of Khan. Khan is an Ahab-esque obsessive who has spent the last 15 years of his life plotting revenge against Captain Kirk for imagined wrongs against him, stopping at nothing to avenge himself upon him. He hijacks a starship and steals the Genesis device, planning on using it to destroy Kirk and the Enterprise. Operatic and grand without becoming parody, Montalban’s perfomance is a masterclass of villanous acting. So sad that when he died last year it caused barely a blip on the British media radar. “Do you know that old Klingon proverb, Kirk, that says revenge is a dish best served cold? It is very cold… in space!” Brilliance.

1. Emperor Palpatine from the Star Wars saga

If Darth Vader was the puppet, then Emperor Palpatine is the puppet master. And when Darth goddamned Vader is your puppet, you’re one powerful fucking puppetmaster. The man behind Order 66, the Great Jedi Purge that saw all but two Jedi killed and the man who turned the conflicted Anakin Skywalker into the brutal cyborg Darth Vader, Palpatine is an almost soley behind-the-scenes villain, conspring to take over first the Senate, and then the universe, all the while amassing an army the likes of which the universe has never seen. This is, after all, the man who decided to build a space station with the ability to destory a planet for no other reason than he thought it would put the shits up people, a man who decided to encase his apprentice in an imposing black metal suit rather than something less terrifying for no other reason than he thought, once again, it would put the shits up people. Evil, cunning, conniving, treacherous, vindictive, feindish, conspiratorial and bowling shoe ugly, Palpatine is the perfect bad guy. Plus, he can shoot lightning out of his fucking fingers. If you don’t think Palpatine is the best sci fi villain, well then “my young Jedi, you will find that it is you who are mistaken… about a great… many… things.”

So there you have it. Comments below if you feel the need. End transmission.