Top 10 Most Diabolical TV Villains of the 80s 

Wayne Arnold may be a strange character to start our top 10 TV villains of the 80s with, but it’s fully justified. Is there a worse brother in the history of television than Wayne? He tortured poor Kevin Arnold every chance he got. Anyone who had an older brother who was mean could relate to poor Kevin and whenever Wayne would get his comeuppance it was always awesome.

Actor Jason Hervey did such a great job playing Wayne that he said he would often get confronted in the street with people hating his guts! To be fair, they did turn Wayne around towards the end of the series and he did become a bit nicer… However, many of us still think of him as the total jerk that he was when Kevin was younger!

Hmm, this is a hard one, Skeletor is arguably the most iconic animated villain of the 1980s. He looks so cool and many of us remember him being this evil monster that was so dark! Truth be told, Skeletor in the Masters of the Universe series was a bit of a camp character. However, he hated failure and he was not shy about bragging in regards to just how evil he was!

I loved Skeletor as a kid and felt that any list of classic 80s bad guys would not be complete without him. I am going to cheat here a little by also mentioning Hordak, who was the main villain in the She-Ra: Princess of Power TV show. Hordak was a far more menacing, intimidating, and competent villain than Skeletor, but he lacks the mainstream recognition of Skeletor.

Played amazingly well by the legendary Joan Collins, there was no way that I could leave Alexis Colby off this list. Many people who watched Dynasty back in the 80s wanted to reach through the screen and shake her! From trying to ruin her ex-husband Blake’s marriage to the constant interference in her children’s lives, Alexis is the kind of character that you love to hate!

The way Joan Collins played her was just perfect and it’s what launched her as a huge star in the 80s. The thing with Alexis is that you could argue she only wants what is best for her kids, but at the end of the day, she doesn’t care about what her kids want, only what she wants! Just imagine having Alexis Colby as your mother-in-law, what a nightmare that would be!

Out of all the shows on this top 10 TV villains of the 80s list, Bravestarr is the one that I am most surprised has not been brought back. Tex Hex is like a classic Western villain, he is evil through and through and he is not scared to take down anyone that gets in his way, damage the environment, or just in general be a jerk as long as he gets what he wants.

The 80s was a time when animated shows were not worried about having scary-looking villains and Tex Hex is certainly very creepy, especially when he is on his evil-looking Skull Walker. Bravestarr was a show that tried to have a moral lesson at the end of the show and this allowed them to not hold back when it came to the kind of dastardly stuff Tex Hex would get up to.

You may be thinking, why have I gone for Starscream and not Megatron or even Galvatron? Well, Megatron and then Galvatron were certainly more fearsome villains, but there is something so dastardly about Starscream I felt I had to include him on this list.

Starscream was a vile character, he was as bad as you can get, but he could also be a coward too! He wasn’t scared to stab his own Decepticons in the back if it meant getting what he wanted. He could be pretty fearsome in battle, but he was one of those cowardly villains who would turn and run, probably leaving the likes of Thundercracker and Dirge to face the consequences from a bunch of angry Autobots. Starscream is one of the worst kinds of villains, he is a cowardly villain without an ounce of bravery or honor in his metallic body! 

Next up I have a bit more of an obscure character for you, but based on his horrific appearance alone, D’Compose from Inhumanoids had to make my top 10 TV villains of the 80s list. Think of D’Compose as a zombie dinosaur and you have a good idea of why he is one of the creepiest looking TV villains of the decade. The most insane thing about D’Compose was that he could open up his rib cage and imprison his enemies in there!

Also, by just touching another creature, he can turn it into part of his undead army! Inhumanoids was only on the air for a very short period of time, but due to his grotesque appearance and dangerous powers, D’Compose is a character that many people will remember, even if they can’t remember his name or the show he is from. Also, a fun bit of trivia is that his voice actor, Christopher Collins, also provided the voice of two more of the 80s best TV villains in Cobra Commander from G.I. Joe and Starscream, our previous entry!

Thundercats was such a huge deal back in the 80s! The toys were so cool, the TV series was fun, and it got a movie and a ton of merch. One of the main reasons that Thundercats was as popular as it was is because the show had an epic villain in Mumm-Ra.

Mumm-Ra looked like an old mummy, but he could turn into a jacked-up super monstrous version of himself and he had all kinds of crazy powers that made him such a dangerous foe. While Skeletor may have looked dangerous, he was a bit of a joke. Mumm-Ra was the opposite, he looked fearsome and imposing, but this guy was pure evil and bad to the bone and he alone was more than enough to keep the Thundercats in his place!

Tom Selleck as Magnum P.I. is one of the best TV characters of the 80s and he would go up against more than a few dastardly foes during the shows eight season run. However, for me, none of the villains that Magnum and his buddies came up against could match Ivan!

Ivan was the antagonist of the two part season premier of season 3. Ivan, who is played by Bo Svenson, was the evil and brutal man that held Magnum and Co. captive during the Vietnam War. Now, he has come back and he is looking to kill them.

It’s a great case of someone’s past coming back to haunt them and having to face the troubles of their past to move on with their future. One of the things that made Ivan such a great villain was that even though he was only here for a short time, the writers and the actors truly made you believe that he was a person to be feared.

I am kind of cheating here as technically, The Borg are more of a ’90s villain – but they did first appear in the 1989 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation “Q Who,” so they need to be on this list.

Captain Pickard and his crew dealt with some very troublesome aliens as they explored space, but none felt as dangerous as the all-assimilating Borg who just take what they want and assimilate anyone they come across into their ranks. These are fearsome cyborg beings, but what I think makes The Borg such great villains is that they brought out the best in Captain Pickard as he had to do whatever it took to stop them. On a personal level, to this day, The Borg are my favorite Star Trek villains and some of the best villains in all of sci-fi!

Come on, you cannot have a list of the top 10 TV villains of the 80s without JR Ewing from Dallas being on it! While Dallas may have started in the late 70s, it would become one of the biggest shows of the 80s, and Larry Hagman as JR Ewing would become one of the most hated and iconic TV characters of all time.

He was as ruthless as you could get when it came to business. This was a man who did not care who he had to step on, hurt, or flat-out ruin to make sure that he stayed on top. The whole “Who Shot JR?” thing to this day is one of the biggest pieces of TV history and unless you were around when it happened, you simply cannot fathom how huge this storyline was! JR is about as classic as you can get when it comes to a bullish 80s TV villain!