Fictional Characters #1 - The Villains

As you all undoubtedly can tell I've been in a blogging slump, so in order to solve that I decided to create a list of my favorite fictional characters.  I was shooting for roughly fifty and came up with forty-seven entries, which is close enough.  There was no set criteria or scientific process involved, just me, rattling off a bunch of favorites and trying to group them in some interesting way.  So here it goes, in no particular order....

Today's entry?  The Villains, not necessarily the baddest (though they're bad enough), but in my opinion the most memorable and interesting.

Darth Vader (from the Star Wars movies)
Head-to-toe black, telekinetic strangulation, a secret past, and a whole fleet of deadly looking ships waiting to blow you out of the sky, and if that weren't enough just his breathing can scare the crap out of you.

The Cigarette Smoking Man (played by William B. Davis in X-Files)
The ultimate poster child for a "Smoking is Bad" campaign, he expertly toyed with and tortured Mulder and Scully in episode after episode.  The only thing more satisfying in the final episode than seeing the dynamic duo in full mushy mode was watching the Cancer Man go up in a ball of flames.

Lex Luthor
There are lots of versions of Superman's nemesis, one of my favorites is Kevin Spacey in Superman Returns, a little bit goofy, but pure evil.  One of the best things about Lex Luthor is that in most versions he doesn't have any super powers of his own, he's just clever and absolutely ruthless, demonstrating that Superman's biggest strength, his goodness, is also his greatest weakness.

Screwtape (from The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis)
In all seriousness, Screwtape  may be the scariest villain of all, because every one of us, in a manner of speaking, fights him every single day.  His truest statement,  "The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slopes, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

Ursula (from The Little Mermaid)
Nothing is more delightfully wicked than belting out "Poor, Unfortunate, Souls."  The fact that she reminds me of a junior high teacher who scared me to death is just a bonus.