Villain Decay

Also known as "Diminishing Villain Threat". The process by which a villain who is extremely scary on first appearance becomes a joke after a few more appearances.

In most shows, Failure Is the Only Option for the Villains, because success would mean that the villains Take Over the World, kill all the good guys, and otherwise do things that make future episodes impossible. Inevitably, the viewers start to wonder why the heroes act concerned about an enemy that they've beaten six times already. Note that this does not apply to shows where the villains are supposed to be incompetent jokes from the start.


The character above is Carface, the Big Bad of All Dogs Go to Heaven, was legitimately menacing in the original film (it was his henchmen who were incompetent jokes). The scene where he and his gang threaten Itchy at Charlie's Club may indeed be Nightmare Fuel for some. However, in All Dogs Go to Heaven 2, he loses several IQ points, and becomes the idiot henchman. The Villain Song, 'It Feels So Good to Be Bad', sung by Satan to Carface, seems to be about reversing Villain Decay and going in the complete opposite direction, but nothing ever comes of it. Carface never really regains the menacing quality he had in the first film, and ends up being sent to Fire and Brimstone Hell because he made a really stupid Deal with the Devil. While this plot point seems to be retconned in the series, he seems to only get worse, ending up playing a Scrooge archetype in "An All Dogs Christmas Carol". This was a chain-smoking, gravel-voiced, Manipulative Bastard Bad Boss that waits until Charlie's wasted and rolls a car into Charlie that if he didn't die from the impact would drown, took everything Charlie had, manipulated an orphan for gambling tips, beat Itchy with a gang of Mooks within an inch of his life then almost killed Charlie again until he himself was eaten by King Gator. Essentially if you're a Don Bluth villain in a sequelized franchise, prepare to be decayed. The only way out of that is to never appear in the sequels at all, which many Bluth villains do not.


Other Examples are:
Envy and big time to Gluttony and Dante and Kid Wrath from Fullmetal Alchemist.

Megatron in most versions of Transformers.

Asura from Soul Eater.

Kagura from InuYasha.

Zant from Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess. (Any Villain that gets hijacked by Gannon suffers Villain Decay.)

The Gillian and Plain hollows from Bleach (Aizen picks this up in a different way than the Hollows do; when he first appears, he is a bona fide Magnificent Bastard, but get downgraded to a Smug Snake but he did manage to achieve Complete Immortality before being beaten, so his ultimate fate was simply imprisonment as nobody knows how to kill him.)
Voldemort from Harry Potter.

Father and The Delightful Children From Down the Lane's from Codename Kids Next Door.

Skeletor from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe both versions.

Jack Spicer from Xiaolin Showdown.

Pretty much every Ben 10 Villain. Special mention must go to Doctor Animo and Vilgax.


Cobra Commander G.I. Joe.

The Ice King from Adventure Time.


Valmont and the Dark Hand from Jackie Chan Adventures.

The Commando Droids from Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

T-Rex in Jurassic Park movies.

Vlad from Danny Phantom. 


The Team Rocket trio from Pokémon.


The Hive kids from Teen Titans.

Mandark from Dexters Laboratory.

Doctor Doom in the 90's fantastic four cartoon and to some what in Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes.


Captain Hook in Disney.


Spider-Man The Animated Series: The Hobgoblin experiences this, being outclassed by the Green Goblin in his last appearance.


Dark Vegan of Johnny Test.


In Gaiking Legend Of Daiku-Maryu The "Dragon" and latter "Big Bad" Proist dose not suffer Villain Decay when she slides into Smug Snake territory. But remand a great treat even when Her plans start to become stupid and often dose evil thing when it's not a good idea.