The good guy always wins. This is basically the number one rule of children’s programming. The coyote will never catch roadrunner, Skeletor will never defeat He-Man, and Inspector Gadget will always foil Doctor Claw. It’s not a bad rule. In fact its entire purpose is to promote morality in children. If the bad guys won then wouldn’t they be encouraging bad behavior to our youth?

The problem with this rule is that the good characters were often either completely incompetent, total jerks, or just well…bland. As kids become more and more aware of their heroes’ flaws, they start seeing how arbitrary the good guy’s victory is. They might even begin to feel like the villain, with all his plotting, cool weapons, and henchmen might have even deserved the win.

From the moment of that observation kids can sometimes find themselves drawn to the villainous characters. Look around at epic cartoon shows, you’ll find that there is often just as big a fandom for the villains as there are for the heroes, and why not most of the time the are awesome. On that note Worst Cartoons Ever brings you our list of top 5 cartoon Villains.

#5: Beast Wars: Megatron

Megatron can kick your ass in Grape, Orange, and Cherry flavors.

I know this will probably get me mutilated, but I consider this character the best Megatron in the Transformers franchise. With 3 different forms over the course of the show Megatron went from almost every boy’s favorite dinosaur, the T-Rex, to a freaking Dragon. With a great voice, a hilarious verbal tic, and a talent for double crosses, Megatron exuded evilness. He would match every heroic platitude he encountered with s smirk, a laugh, and a laser blast. He is a character that proves you don’t need to be a gravely voiced violent psycho to be an evil badass and for that he gets spot #5…yessss.

#4: MiB: Alpha

Alpha in one of his more "Kid Friendly" forms.

One of the few recurring villains from the old cartoon show: Men in Black. Alpha was one of MiB’s oldest and best agents…before he went rogue. When he is first introduced the other agents speak very hesitantly about him. There are few details other then he is a major threat. When we finally get our first glimpse of this legendary bad ass he’s a…..nice old man? Yup Alpha first appears as a very polite, very normal guy. It’s not until he is crossed that we see why he left MiB. The dude is freaking made of nightmares. Using some sort of alien technology he was able to meld his body with all kinds of killer aliens. He has claws, robot arms, giant jaws coming out of his stomach. The dude was like every monster you could imagine compacted into one body. In medium that tends to pull its punches when it comes to truly scary imagery, Alpha was a rare exception and for that he earns a spot on our top five list.

#3: Reboot: Megabyte

The physical embodiment of the Blue Screen of Death

Megabyte was an evil computer virus who spent his life trying to destroy the city of Mainframe. Voiced by the amazing Tony Jay, Megabyte was one of the most hardcore villains on kid’s show. Spending most of the first season being a fairly harmless villain, Megabyte really broke out by the end of the show’s second season. How you might ask? He basically banished our main hero Bob to the inescapable hell of the Internet (Ha). He then took over half the town, forcing the remaining heroes to retreat. Finally after the disappearance of the hero’s one remaining Guardian, he turned his own sister into a super weapon. By the time our main characters were able to return to Mainframe, Megabyte was the ruler of the city. Megabyte was one of the few villains to actually achieve his goals. Whether he was fighting, scheming, or backstabbing all in sight Megabyte was without a doubt a badass villain.

#2: Avatar the Last Airbender: Azula

Who said softball was boring?

Azula is perhaps one of the most textbook cases of a sociopath to ever appear in a cartoon. Depicted as a completely emotionless fire bender, Azula was rarely anything but awesome. She conquered an entire nation, defeated a group of elite warriors, could summon lightning at her whim, and still managed to find time to hunt and torment her own brother. Azula also displayed a level of intelligence almost unseen in mainstream villains. She was smart enough to know that when a hero is charging his unbeatable attack, or transforming into his ultimate form…to freaking strike. She practically killed the Avatar by not waiting for him to enter his most powerful state. For that reason alone she earns a sport in the top three. The fact that she was an unrepentant psycho with drive and power earns here spot number two.

#1: Batman the Animated Series: The Joker

Hail to the king baby.

Honestly, if this is a surprise to anyone I’ll eat my freaking hat. This character is the true legacy of Mark Hamill. Forget Luke Skywalker, the Joker is without a doubt the best thing Hamill has ever done. While Nicholson and Ledger’s portrayals of the character are both great, Hamill is one who truly redefined the character for a generation of Batman fans. His voice combined with the great writing made this character terrifying and hilarious at the same time. Children and adults alike can find themselves disturbed by the menace of the character, but also smile every time he showed up. Joker episodes had a level of violence and fear that other villains could not hope to recreate. The animated Joker is the standard that animated villains should strive for. Popular, scary, and most of all fun as hell the Joker stands the tallest among villains.

If you have any recommendations for Villains, or just feel we were off base, Worst Cartoons Ever invites you to leave your own list on the comments section.

Making animated Camp cool, over 20 years before Brave and the Bold

Spider Man is an interesting figure in comics. He is a comic icon, a character whose popularity rivals such figures as Superman and Batman. The character has spawned several different comics, over four television shows and three major motion pictures. Ironically, much like the character himself, the Spider Man franchise is defined more by its failures then it successes.

Ask a comic fan for his thoughts on Spider Man, and you will likely hear a diatribe about either the infamous “One More Day” story, or the “Clone Saga”, or the resurrection of some ancillary character. Mention the film franchise and be prepared for lots of complaints about the use of Venom, or the emo dancing. While these complaints might seem bitchy, the truth is they have a point. Spider Man is an institution with amazing highs and some very awful lows.

The character’s forays into animation are also riddled with success and failure. However, we here at Worst Cartoons Ever, are really only concerned with the failures. The failure we are most interested in debuted in 1999. It was the year that Spider Man the Animated Series had been cancelled. SAS had been the #1 show on Fox. It had managed to adapt the most popular comic stories for younger audiences, while at the same time revamping various characters that had long since become unpopular to comic fans. It did all of this with a low budget and constant conflict with Fox executives. Fox, not wanting to lose their viewers, however, decided to make a new series. This show would become the infamous Spider Man Unlimited.

Spider Man Unlimited arguably should have been popular. It came out the same year SAS ended, limiting the risk of losing an established fan base. It had flashier animation and the ever popular 90s strategy: a darker and edgier plot. However, it only took about 3 episodes for viewers to see what this show really was: a crappy retooling of an already popular franchise.

Spider Man Unlimited basically did everything it could to separate itself from SAS and the Spiderman franchise as a whole. The premise was basically: Spiderman accidentally boards a spaceship to a strange new world called Counter-Earth. There he fights a poor man’s magneto without the magnetism powers, called the High Evolutionary. He is supported by a cast of characters that can only be called rejects from the Island of Doctor Monroe.

What was the main problem with this show, you might ask? Well, it took the character of Spiderman and stripped him of all his supporting cast and his classic setting. Counter Earth is a poor man’s replacement for Manhattan. The new setting is basically a generic sci-fi local with random sections that try to emulate Spidy’s old stomping ground.

The new characters are also poor imitations of the classics. Gone is JJ, Mary Jane, the Osborns, Kingpin, Aunt May, and all the other characters that helped make the Spider Man franchise so great. In their place are two hulked out versions of Venom and Carnage…who for some reason are working together now, despite every other medium presenting them be enemies? The green goblin is now a heroic Hispanic guy who looks like a reject from some bad Disney show. In fact, the show often made use of Bizaro…I mean “Counter-Earth” versions of classic villains. What was their twist? They were heroes on this planet. How ingenious. I mean who doesn’t want to see all their favorite characters changed into completely different characters with blander personalities and limited to only one or two guest spots.

It’s needless to say that these changes were not popular. Every change the creators made seemed only to annoy fans. Even Spiderman’s costume was a flashier, but less interesting version of his classic suit. All these alterations and the lack of interesting new characters quickly drove fans away from the show, proving once again that a gimmick is not enough to keep an audience.

Spiderman Unlimited got cancelled before it even finished its season. Several episodes went unaired. And until recently the show was all but forgotten. Disney’s Jetix block has recently been airing the complete 13 episodes. So if you are curious about how bad this show truly was, you can find out for yourself.

Verdict: Spider-Man Unlimited might not have been so bad if it hadn’t been about Spiderman. If it had been some generic Sci-fi show about humans versus animal men, it might even have become popular. Instead it was seen as an insult to the fans of SAS and Spidy in general. The mere existence of this program is evidence that some networks think the only thing that makes a franchise is the title character. Spider-Man Unlimited is defiantly one of the great failures of the Spider-Man franchise, but thankfully the character is able to keep bouncing back.

The true heir to SAS, only took 9 years...yay