Whether it be through his unapologetic villainy, his bombastic personality, or his unforgettable
singing courtesy of Jack Black, Bowser has certainly made a splash. But compared to all the
other baddies from Illumination, where exactly does he fall in terms of evilness and power?
I’m Kyle with WickedBinge, and we’re here to ask:
is Bowser the Most Evil AND Powerful Illumination Villain?
Now, if you haven’t already checked out our previous videos related to
the subject - Illumination Villains: Evil to Most Evil and Illumination Villains:
Weak to Powerful - don’t worry, we’ll give you the highlights here. What we’re hoping
to do today is to look back on these villains and see how exactly they compare to Bowser,
along with figuring out if any of them can truly outrank the great Koopa King.
Given Bowser’s high ranking as both a royal and as the strongest in the kingdom,
it only makes sense to start with a look at the powers and strengths of
Illumination’s top contending villains as we ask: Is Bowser the Most Powerful?
Now, obviously when it comes to the more ‘ordinary’ villains of Illumination’s
catalog - your egotistical mice and bunnies, your ordinary humans who may or may not have
more brains than brawn, and your holiday-themed schemers - they can’t exactly go toe-to-toe with
what is essentially a fire-breathing dragon. So villains like Snowball, Mike, the Grinch, Carlos,
Dr. Nefario, Sergei, the Onceler and Aloysius O’Hare are immediately out of the running.
In order for other Illumination villains to truly have a shot, they’d need to not only have their
own sort of ‘fire power’, but also plenty of defenses, resources and enough manpower
to essentially take on an army. For the record, we aren’t going to be counting Bowser’s Power Star as
part of his power-set since it literally makes him invincible for a short time, and that would make
giving him the win over all the other Illumination baddies far too easy. We WILL, however,
include both his army, his right-hand wizard Kamek, and his giant Bullet Bill in his ranking.
Given that many of the villains in this section end up sharing a franchise,
let’s begin with the outlier - that being Sing 2’s Jimmy Crystal. Jimmy is a wolf both figuratively
and literally. While he only really has a couple of assistants and a small army of bodyguards,
the movie still does a good job of making it seem like he has Redshore City in the palm of his
paws. Though he may not be outnumbering any Koopa armies, Jimmy’s wealth and reputation - the good
AND bad sides of it - allowed him to essentially do what he wanted up until his eventual arrest.
This included threatening others, throwing his weight around on projects he was funding,
and even attempted murder. Though, as the end of the film shows, money and showbiz power is
only able to get Jimmy so far before his crimes begin catching up to him. We also can’t ignore
his more animalistic features - namely his sharp teeth and claws. Unfortunately for Jimmy,
however, outside of baring his fangs at Buster, we never see him put these features to good use.
While he may be able to man-handle a tiny koala, Jimmy easily gets overpowered by the
Gorilla Gang. A bit disappointing but, hey, that’s the animal kingdom for ya.
From there, let’s talk about the rogues gallery of the Despicable Me franchise,
starting with the first villain of the series, Vector Perkins. Being the son of a guy who runs
a bank for evil villains certainly has its perks. With his access to his father’s money and support,
Vector is able to build an array of modern weapons and defenses for his lair,
most of them themed after marine life. While it’d be easy to just say he’d be nothing without his
gadgets and his daddy’s money, Vector does prove to have some of his own merit - namely
his intelligence and ability to outwit characters like Gru, figuring out his rival’s weakness (his
daughters) and using that to get Gru to hand over the moon. However, intelligence - especially that
of an egotistical person like Vector, is certainly fallible. His lack of raw
physical strength doesn’t do much to help his standing against a certain giant turtle either…
But if you want someone with a bit more style when it comes to her supervillainy,
look no further than Scarlet Overkill. Considering her former title of Top Villain,
it’s no surprise to see her ranking high in terms of power. Not only is this title well-deserved,
but it has also earned her the respect of the villain community, which she uses to her advantage
when she orders the guests at her wedding to capture the Minions. As for Scarlet herself,
she’s shown being an excellent fighter in hand-to-hand combat, being able to out-dodge
and out-fight opponents that are much bigger than her - though, we should note that these
opponents are still human, much like she is, at the end of the day. Her husband, Herb,
does supply her with some pretty useful weapons and gadgets, including a coronation dress that
helps Scarlet survive a massive explosion. But of course, that was from just a normal
missile - juries still out as to whether or not it’d be able to withstand a giant Bullet Bill.
Taking a trip back to the 80s, let’s talk about another gadget-welding villain, Balthazar Bratt.
Like Vector, Bratt is another villain that may be easy to underestimate due to his status as
a goofy man-child. But between his expertise at disguises, his surprising intellect when it
comes to creating powerful weapons and breaking into secure areas, and his access to robots in a
variety of different sizes, Bratt has quite a few tools at his disposal. Even when he’s without his
bots and sonic key-tars, he knows how to throw down with his speedy ‘dance fight’ skills that
even Gru has trouble counteracting. Unfortunately, while all these things make him a force for other
human villains to be reckoned with, it’s hard to say how he’d fare when put up against a more
inhuman opponent. Even with someone as slick as Balthazar Bratt, we’d imagine he’d still
have a pretty hard time dodging every single fire-ball and Koopa shell that comes his way.
Finally, we have the only villain here who could potentially match Bowser in terms of
raw strength - the unforgettable El Macho. Being literally the most macho guy around,
El Macho - AKA Eduardo Perez - was known for eating glass, drinking snake venom and stopping
armored trucks with his bare hands. Needless to say, he’s incredibly strong and durable,
especially once he gets injected with the PX-41 mutagen. The guy’s in his 40s and is
practically a brick wall, yet he still manages to be pretty light on his feet surprisingly enough.
We also can’t forget El Macho’s intelligence, as while he might have still needed Dr. Nefario
to figure out the mutagen formula, the idea of using Gru’s minions to take over the world was
all his. He also successfully framed another business at the mall, getting the AVL off his
trail. Add in his access to bombs, missiles and weapons, and you easily have someone who could,
in fact, go toe-to-toe with Bowser… Although we do have a couple of notable concerns. For one,
even if he did still have access to his rabid minions, an army as disciplined as Bowser’s
would have a good chance at taking them out, especially since the Minions would have such
a hard time following actual orders in their rabid state. Furthermore, while El Macho is
insanely strong and durable, he’s not necessarily invulnerable. Hell, even something as small as a
lipstick taser had enough of a charge to take him out - and that was AFTER his mutagen power-up.
Overall, while a couple of these villains such as Scarlet, El Macho and Bratt would have a chance
at taking down the Koopa King, we strongly feel that even if he was briefly pushed into a corner,
Bowser would still be able to pull out a win in the end more often than not.
Whatever - or whoever - he can’t melt with fire-balls, he could easily punch or slash into
submission with his large, clawed fists. After all, this is the same guy who threw Mario through
windows, tossed around cars like they were nothing and nearly killed Donkey Kong, a giant ape who’s
pretty damn strong in his own right. Additionally, with his army and access to Kamek’s magic,
outnumbering him would be nearly impossible, and even if another villain could somehow manage to
survive a blast from a giant Bullet Bill, we doubt the fight would last much longer
after that. Simply put, the Mario Movie makes it incredibly clear that the brothers were only able
to turn the tides and finally defeat Bowser in the end because of the invincibility given to them by
the Power Star. Without that, you can’t really claim that Bowser would have still been stopped
in the end. So, we’re happy to declare that Bowser is indeed the Most Powerful Illumination Villain.
But, naturally, that leads us to our second question:
Is Bowser the Most Evil Illumination Villain?
It should be noted that many fans were actually a bit surprised how
much Bowser said things like “kill” and “die” in the film,
not expecting such dark-sounding dialogue in a bright and happy family film. I mean, he
was about to ritualistically sacrifice a bunch of prisoners for his wedding. That’s pretty hardcore.
But of course, if you’ve watched Illumination’s other films, you know that quite a few of their
villains are down for murder and aren’t shy about letting the heroes - or the audience - know this.
So, in order to truly see whether or not Bowser is eviler than his fellow Illumination villains
or is simply on the same level as many of them, we’ll have to go a bit more in-depth. Again,
we’ll skip over the bottom half of our previous list - the half that includes many of the more
redeemable Illumination villains who either had a change of heart, did something to make up for
their evilness, or the ones who simply didn’t do much evil in the first place.
So, let’s skip on ahead to that list’s five Most Evil villains, starting with the wicked circus
owner, Sergei. Simply put, he’s greedy, callous and uncaring towards nearly all of his animals,
save for a pet monkey he names after himself. Regardless of the animal,
even if it’s just a baby, Sergei isn’t afraid to push and even threaten in order to get the results
he wants for his show. Speaking of those threats, he even goes so far as to use both a whip and a
gun in order to get his point across. He’ll also use other animals, like his wolves, as some extra
back-up. So yeah, pretty evil dude, and outside of his kinder interactions with Little Sergei,
this guy has no soft-side to really speak of. In other words, when it comes to his ranking,
it’s less about what good there is to him and more so about how all the villains
above him manage to be even more evil with their crimes being on a much larger scale…
Getting back to some familiar villainous faces, let’s talk about Vector. Outside of him being an
obnoxious rival for Gru and an egotistical thief, Vector doesn’t exactly start off all that evil.
Though it may hurt their home country’s tourism industry, stealing monuments and landmarks isn’t
quite as evil as mistreating innocent animals. This makes it all the easier to underestimate
Vector, thus surprising the audience even more when his true evilness starts to come out. His
pettiness against Gru is so great that Vector is willing to not only kidnap Margo, Edith and Agnes,
but also continue holding them hostage even once he has the moon in his possession. At this point,
Vector seems like he wants Gru to lose EVERYTHING - and he’s willing to put the girls in serious
danger in order to accomplish that, even grabbing Margo as she’s escaping before
accidentally tossing her off his ship. Even if that wasn’t his initial plan, the fact that
Vector didn’t care enough about the girls’ safety to try and prevent it says a lot. In some ways,
Bowser’s kidnapping and threatening of Luigi is fairly reminiscent of Vector’s
biggest crimes - though, of course, that’s only the tip of the Koopa King’s list of crimes…
But kidnapping and child endangerment is one thing, how about attempted murder? Based on
implications, Jimmy Crystal seems to know a lot about that. Jimmy is actually fairly similar to
Bowser in that they both will do whatever it takes to get their way. With Jimmy,
he’s willing to be just a bit more subtle and manipulative at first, throwing around money,
charisma and his own reputation to try and get on top of things. When those avenues fail to work,
he’s more than willing to be more forceful, even going so far as to threaten to throw people off
roofs for daring to try and make a fool out of him as well as sending his security guards after
those who’ve wronged him. Additionally, while he may spoil his daughter, Porscha, it’s easy
to see that he doesn’t actually care about her in a meaningful way, only focusing on his own
ego instead of comforting her when she’s upset. Bowser may be just as callous towards his men,
if not more so, but it’s still kind of shocking to see considering that Porscha is still Jimmy’s
daughter. Let’s just hope that if Bowser Jr. is ever brought into a sequel, Bowser manages
to be a better and more loving dad than Jimmy. Honestly though fingers crossed for that because
if you’ve seen the Nintendo Switch parental control ads, Bowser is definitely a good dad.
From the Wolf of Redshore City to an infamous sitcom star, we’re going back to Balthazar Bratt.
This guy was so bitter about being tossed aside by the entertainment industry that he had planned on
using a giant robot to destroy Hollywood before sending it and everyone in it into space… Need
we say more? True to his name, Bratt is just an insane egomaniac who only cares about himself and
about finally getting revenge on those who ruined his career. It’d almost be sympathetic if his
efforts to make himself feel better weren’t so destructive - though we’re sure Bowser,
at the very least, would be able to understand. In addition to being a large-scale threat, Bratt
actually manages to be a decent personal threat as well. He kidnaps the girls in order to lure
Gru and Lucy to Hollywood before then attempting to obliterate Gru with his robot’s laser. Granted,
he didn’t exactly try to directly harm the girls himself, but placing them on a high
building where they could have easily been knocked off or hit by collateral damage
wasn’t exactly sparing them either. Arguably, Bratt’s crimes are just as bad as Bowser’s,
with the two of them having similar goals of ‘if I can’t have what I want, then everyone else has to
suffer too’. But as similar as these two may be, there’s still one more top baddie to talk about.
Finally, we’ve made it back to the former Queen of Villainy herself, Scarlet Overkill. Don’t let her
beauty fool you. Scarlet is ambitious, cunning, manipulative, vengeful and incredibly prideful.
Seriously, don’t cross her and DEFINITELY don’t ever make her lose face, otherwise you’ve pretty
much signed your own death certificate - which is a lesson that Kevin, Stuart and Bob end up
learning the hard way. Her sense of hypocrisy also ties into her evilness, as she cared more
about Bob briefly becoming king and accidentally stealing her glory than the Minions actually doing
what was asks of them, prompting her to overreact and sense them to torture and execution. But of
course, these are just her crimes against the Minions. Putting aside all the crimes
she managed to commit prior to meeting the little yellow corn puffs, Scarlet’s end goal was to rule
as Queen of England. Considering how prideful and power-hungry she was, we can only imagine
what exactly Scarlet would have done as Queen, had she stayed in power for longer than a day or so.
Honestly, between Bowser and Scarlet, it is an incredibly close call! Both these guys are callous
and just downright heartless at times. Funnily enough, they both are two of the more ‘romantic’
Illumination villains, although Scarlet seems to have a much healthier and much more loving mutual
relationship with Herb than Bowser could ever hope to have with Princess Peach. You could argue that
Bowser DOES have a nice rapport with Kamek though, considering how well the two of them get along,
even if Bowser did have one moment of taking his frustrations out on the poor wizard.
Getting back to similarities, both Bowser and Scarlet are willing to kill large
amounts of relatively innocent creatures - that being the Toads and the Minions respectively,
though Bowser was also going to sacrifice his prisoners. Since their crimes are about on par
with each other, we have to instead look at the motivations - both of which are,
admittedly, pretty selfish and self-serving. Scarlet wanted to be queen simply because it
was something she’d wanted ever since she was a little girl, essentially wanting power just to
feel powerful. Bowser just wanted a bride in the hopes of being happy, but didn’t necessarily care
if Peach didn’t completely love him back nor did he mind forcing her into a marriage,
only really wanting someone to rule beside him. While his actions can hardly be excused,
some fans have found Bowser to be just a bit more sympathetic,
even if they are still a bit shocked and horrified by his actions within the film.
So the question is… does Bowser manage to outrank both Scarlet and Bratt in terms of
evilness. Honestly, we can’t really say that he does. He’s plenty evil, sure,
but between the similarities in their motives and plans, their shared callousness and selfishness,
and even their similar personalities, the best we can say is that Bowser manages to tie with these
top-tier Illumination villains. Maybe we just hope Bowser has some good deep within him - and we do
mean DEEP - down to keep them from the very top. So, for now, we’ll say that Bowser isn’t THE most
evil Illumination villain, he’s going to have to settle for a tie… Which we know he probably
HATES. But hey, he’s still the most powerful guy on this list. Score one for the Koopa King!
But let us know in the comment section if you agree with our ranking,
and tell us what we should cover next! Remember to hit that notification bell
and binge more of our videos. But most importantly, stay wicked!