A hero is only as good as their villain, right? And in many cases, a villain is only as bad as the heroes that oppose them. In fact, many of the most notorious screen villains were actually responsible - sometimes directly, others less so - for creating the very heroes who eventually brought them down. From simple (or exquisitely complex) plots of vengeance to more literal acts of creation, sometimes a villain is even the actual parent of their nemesis. More often, a villain brings their foil about, either through their own villainous acts, or through experiments that (inadvertently or otherwise) give someone else the power they need to stop the villain's reign of terror.
Here are a few cases of film baddies who maybe should have quit while they were ahead and instead created the hero who ultimately struck them down...
"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
The Creation: When Inigo Montoya was just a child, his father was slain by a man with six fingers; ever since, he has been training and traveling the world in hopes of finding the villain so that he can finish him off. He even knows the speech he will give when that fateful day arrives...
The Hero: Inigo may not be the primary protagonist of The Princess Bride, but he is certainly one of the most memorable, thanks in no small part to his engaging backstory and the repeated refrain he has been practicing for years to deliver to his father's assassin when they finally meet.
How It Ended: When Westley realizes Prince Humperdinck's evil vizier Count Rugen has six fingers, he puts together that he's found the man Inigo has been searching for. Rugen and Inigo eventually cross swords, where Montoya recites the speech he's been practicing over and over again, before finally putting an end to his father's murderer.
Fatal villain mistake?"You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?"
The Creation: We all know the story by now, right? A young Bruce Wayne sees his parents gunned down in an alley after a trip to the theater (what they're going to see varies, but it's often Zorro). He inherits his father's fortune and eventually grows up to be the costumed crime-fighter Batman. Who pulled the trigger also varies from one version of the story to another, however, and in Tim Burton's 1989 film, the trigger man is a young Jack Napier, played by Hugo E. Blick in the flashback. The same Jack Napier who will later become Batman's most famous nemesis, the Joker, by which time he is played by Jack Nicholson.
The Hero: Does Batman really need to be explained to anyone at this point? He's rich, he's the "world's greatest detective," he has "wonderful toys," and, in Burton's version, anyway, he was played by Michael Keaton.
How It Ended: Batman has gone up against the Joker countless times in the comics, in animated series, and even in more than one film. The vast majority of the time, the Joker survives the encounter and ends up committed once again to Arkham Asylum. Those versions of the Joker usually aren't Jack Napier, however, and are rarely responsible for the demise of Batman's parents. In Burton's version, the Joker suffers a much more permanent fate, plummeting to his doom from the tower of a cathedral after a final skirmish with Batman.
Fatal villain mistake?"Are you not entertained?"
The Creation: When Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) learns his father, the emperor, believes he is unfit to rule and plans to have Maximus (Russell Crowe), a general, rule in his stead as regent, Commodus chokes his own father to death. He demands Maximus's loyalty, and when the general refuses, Commodus has him imprisoned and his family slain.
The Hero: After defeating his captors and escaping, Maximus is ultimately taken by slavers and becomes a gladiator, eventually going on to fight in the Colosseum before the eyes of Commodus himself.
How It Ended: During his training as a gladiator, Maximus is told he must "win the crowd" in order to gain true victory. Using this knowledge, he eventually maneuvers his own popularity to make it impossible for Commodus to simply have him put to death, and takes down the upstart emperor in a duel, despite the fact that he "fixed" the duel by mortally injuring Maximus beforehand. The gladiator succumbs to his wounds and his body is carried from the Colosseum as a hero.
Fatal villain mistake?"It can't rain all the time."
The Creation: On "Devil's Night," the night before Halloween, a young couple planning to be married the next day are attacked in their apartment by several members of an underworld gang. Eric Draven (Brandon Lee, in his final film role) is stabbed, shot, and thrown out the window, where he perishes. His fiancee suffers for 30 hours before succumbing to her own wounds.
The Hero: Brought back from the grave a year later, Eric returns to seek revenge on those who slew him and his fiancee, eliminating the crooks who committed the act one by one. The mastermind behind the whole thing, however, is a crime lord named Top Dollar (Michael Wincott), who eventually takes Eric's young friend hostage in order to force a confrontation, where he hopes to steal the power of Eric's immortality.
How It Ended: Not well for Top Dollar, as you might imagine. Though with his immortality gone and mortally wounded, Eric is able to deliver the 30 hours of pain his beloved suffered to the crime boss, causing him to fall from the roof of a church where the two had been fighting.
Fatal villain mistake?"Life is an endless series of train wrecks with only brief commercial-like breaks of happiness."
The Creation: Wade Wilson was a mercenary who was diagnosed with cancer of the... well, everything, pretty much. In desperation, he was recruited by a team led by Ajax, who claimed they could cure Wilson's cancer, which they attempted by injecting him with a serum designed to awaken latent mutant powers, and then basically torturing him for a long time.
The Hero: While he'll be the first to tell you he's no hero, Deadpool is a mutant whose powers include a healing factor that allows him to recover from just about anything, including the aforementioned cancer. Unfortunately, it also leaves him disfigured, leading him to seek vengeance against Ajax.
How It Ended: Despite the protestations of Colossus, an X-Man who keeps attempting to convince Deadpool to be a good guy, Deadpool ends up shooting Ajax in the head. To be fair, though, he does so only after Ajax did a bunch more bad stuff, including kidnapping Deadpool's former fiancee.
Fatal villain mistake?"Death is too good for them. They must suffer as I suffered. They must see their world, all they hold dear, ripped from them as it was ripped from me."
The Creation: Alexander Dumas's classic 1844 adventure novel has found its way onto screens many times over the years, since as early as 1908, some of them more faithful to the source text than others. The most recent is the 2002 version, directed by Kevin Reynolds (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) and starring Jim Caviezel and Guy Pearce - and also a young Henry Cavill. As in the book, the eponymous Count begins life as Edmond Dantes, a common man who is betrayed by his best friend Fernand and imprisoned in the Chateau d'If.
The Hero: While serving out his sentence, Dantes meets another prisoner who plans to escape. In exchange for his help, this fellow prisoner teaches Dantes a variety of disciplines, including swordfighting, and also tells him of the location of a vast treasure. Once he makes his escape, Dantes finds the treasure and uses it to establish himself as the Count of Monte Cristo in order to get revenge upon those who wronged him.
How It Ends: In a fatal duel, naturally. After arranging for the ruin of the others who betrayed him, Dantes reserves his final punishment for his former friend. Though Fernand initially attempts to flee, he realizes that Dantes has, by then, taken everything from him, and instead challenges him to a duel, in which Dantes is ultimately victorious.
Fatal villain mistake?
