Come now, let’s be fair.
Up until the end of book 4, Voldemort needed Harry alive, to create a new body for himself. After that, they had a brief clash at the end of book 5, and then nothing until the end of book 7.
Anytime a bad guy captures the good guy, BRINGS HIM/HER into their secret lair and instead of immediately shooting them in the face, reveals all their evil schemes and machinations. This never…NEVER ends well for the villain.
Please, feel free. As a jew I’d get a kick out of asking the Christians ‘Why not just celebrate Hanukkah this year? It’s not really religious.’
And–after revealing all–the villain doesn’t kill the good guy quickly.
He & his minions run off to do the next nefarious deed. Leaving behind a a Rube Goldberg setup involving a candle or an acid drip, a rope & a pitful of alligators.
For your action hero–escape is a piece of cake!
“There’s this ancient artifact that offers an incredible supernatural protection to the Jews”
“That’s just what we Nazis need!”
In the video game Overlord [spoiler]The last evil overlord was defeated by 7 heroes plus you (it’s not clear if you were a hero too or someone’s squire) during the battle you were knocked off a cliff and rescued by the minions of the old overlord. Who then stole the body of the wizard of the party faked his own death and proceeded to corrupt the other 6 heroes over to evil. Where it gets mind boggling is where he then sets you up to be his successor and has you destroy the 6 heroes for some reason. After you do this he attacks you at the height of your power (though admittedly he does for a time steal them away from you). Why does he set you up to begin with? To destroy the heroes he already is more powerful then and that he has under his thumb makes NO SENSE. Each of the heroes seem to be the leaders of their respective peoples and he controls them all. No need to destroy them at all. Or at least set them off against one another. Why set up a rival?
I realize that he’s supposed to represent the sin of ‘pride’ but really he represents stupidity.[/spoiler]
Right. Because everyone knows the true meaning of Hanukkah is that all religious beliefs are ultimately the same…Hanukkah, Christmas, worshipping Zeus, it’s all good.
How? The US isn’t buying or selling any of it. It’s not on the market, so its absence isn’t likely to affect the price all that much.
What I couldn’t understand was that the chemicals had been in the water supply for some time. Didn’t anyone boil water in Gotham? Didn’t Alfred make tea?
Not to mention that the gold can be quickly recovered, unless stolen. So the Feds just need to put a fence around the ruins of Fort Knox, then treat it like a gold mine to recover all the gold. It’s quite hard to completely destroy gold.
You gotta give mad props to 24 for ridiculously stupid evil plots. I’m an American patriot and a true Company Man, so I’m gonna let my defense company get involved with supplying evil chemical weapons canisters to Russian terrorists who claim (and, to be fair, are telling the truth) to want to set them off in in Russia.
Yes, having WMD going off in Russia would be greeeeeeaat for America, and its economy. Having a feral, vengeful Russia would be greeeeeeeat for world security. Having a link from those weapons to the United States AND your company would be just awesome for both those parties! Woo!
The point of the plot was not to destroy the gold, but to irradiate it, making it useless to the US government.
I know the OP asked for specifics rather than generics, but I just had to add:
The weapon/device that makes you all-powerful, that’s nearly invincible except for just that one, little teeny-tiny flaw that no one could ever possibly find out about.
**I’m No Saint ** and Bridget Burke, you just don’t get it, do ya? You don’t.
That’s right. Christmas is that time of year when people of all religions gather together to worship Jesus Christ.
Well pretty much any time a shadowy organization asks your help in solving a crime or preventing an assassination, rest assured THEY will commit that crime or assassination and frame you for it. Why they do this to the baddest mo-fo they can find is beyond me (Jason Bourne, Mark Walburg from Shooter, Wesley Snipes from US Marshals, Collin Farrel in The Recruit)
Oh and that hot chick you send to get close to the dashing hero? Yeah…she’s going to go over to his side, you’ll kill her out of spite and he’ll toss you off a building.
Speaking of tossing a punk-ass off a building, maybe if you wouldn’t take hostage the one thing the hero cares about, they wouldn’t go ape-shit trying to kill you! “Mr McClane. I am sending your wife unharmed to the lobby of Nakatomo plaza with a gift basket from the party. Enjoy your holiday.”
You reminded me a lot of the The Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord (scroll down)
I know you said Super-villian, but Edward Norton’s character in The Italian Job offends my villianly sensibilities. Let’s run the van with the heroes off the road into the resevoir. Forgetting that said van is carrying the scuba equipment from the first heist. Then we’ll wait a few minutes and if no bodies surface, we’ll assume they drowned.
And then he thinks of hiring decoy trucks, but not loading them down as if they were carrying thousands of pounds of gold.
How did this guy get to be a major criminal?
Other nominees – Green Goblin in the first Spider Man. Have your deadly device sneak up behind Spider Man. Even if Spider Man hadn’t dodged, the Goblin would have been speared along with him.
The warden in Shawshank Redemption – never have someone smarter than you cooking the books. And never leave him alone with the books.
I should mention that knocking on the bad guys hideout with a pizzabox or flowers conceiling a weapon ALWAYS works.
Skald the Prophet ! 
From Baldur’s Gate again; when the nasty mage monopolists show up to take Irenicus and what’s-her-name into custody for unauthorized magic use, he slaughters them left and right while their magics bounce off him. Then he changes his mind and decides to come along quietly. Yeah, that’s right, bring along a guy who’s just shown he’s nigh-invincible and bring him inside your defenses.