While they may not be the most famous or the most impressive, the villains found in Disney’s
Direct to DVD sequels are still memorable in their own right. Sometimes they can be fun
and some of them can even be pretty powerful - to the point where they’re about on the
level of their Disney canon counterparts. So, who has managed to rise high enough to be the
most powerful baddie on the small screen and who is still considered to be a minor threat?
I’m Brad with WickedBinge, and this is Disney Sequel Villains: Weak to Powerful.
Before we begin, we’ve got one quick ground rule to discuss: Because we’re focusing
on Disney’s Direct to DVD sequels - with a couple of theatrical exceptions - we aren’t
going to be including any canon-original villains in our rankings. So no Jafar,
no Lady Tremaine and no Cruella De Vil. With that being said, let’s get to the ranking.
Naturally, we’re going to be starting with our weakest villains before
working our way up to the most powerful and threatening.
Ironically enough, our Weakest Villain was also considered to be our Least Bad villain
in our original Disney Sequel Villains video. Starting this list off once again is Little
Lightning from Patch’s London Adventure. Obviously, Lightning isn’t the strongest
pup around, being a super tiny and not very athletic corgi. That’s not to say he’s
completely out of shape or anything like that, he’s just not much of a fighter or a threat.
Really, the only advantage he has is his ability to scheme, as we see him trying to
convince Thunderbolt that the producers of their show were going to replace him. But even then,
you could argue that Thunderbolt wasn’t exactly hard to trick, so even then his scheming skills
aren’t too impressive - at least, not when compared to the rest of the villains on this list.
Moving on, we have the first Disney sequel villain - Abis Mal. Oh hey look at that,
another Jason Alexander character. They sure did get him for a lot of these things… Anyway,
while not the main baddie of “The Return to Jafar”, Abis Mal does kickstart the
film’s conflict by being the one to find Jafar’s lamp. Although he can be merciless as a villain,
he can also be pretty clueless and immature at times, as we see throughout the second
Aladdin film as well as in the Aladdin TV series. As the leader of an Arabian gang,
Abis Mal often relies on them to fight instead of relying on his own swordsmanship skills. Adding
insult to injury is the fact that most of the other criminals he works with are smarter and more
competent in their crimes than Abis Mal himself. Even when he DOES have a really good idea,
it’s pretty common to see him ruin these plans for himself. Talk about self-sabotage. We also
see Abis Mal try to leverage power against Jafar by keeping ahold of the third wish.
It doesn’t go well… All in all, Abis Mal is fairly memorable but not all that special
in terms of power. Then again, when his name is literally “abysmal”, it’s not all that unexpected.
After him is another bad dog, Buster from Lady and the Tramp 2. Buster is the leader of the Junkyard
Dogs and thus is implied to be the strongest of the bunch. This is also inferred by his
breed - after all, dobermans are known for being strong and intimidating. However, because of his
beliefs, Buster also comes off as incredibly petty and easily prone to jealousy at times. Like Little
Lightning, Buster is a bit of a schemer, given that his whole plan was to try and get revenge
on Tramp by using Scamp. But again, it all comes down to the person he’s trying
to trick - and needless to say, it’s pretty easy to trick a little puppy. At the end of the film,
Scamp manages to trap Buster underneath a pile of junk, with Buster being unable to
get out without any help. So, maybe his strength isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Additionally,
his fellow junkyard dogs don’t seem to have much loyalty, ultimately ditching
Buster at the end of the film. So much for having allies… With no one to really rely on
other than himself, Buster falls pretty far behind the rest of our villainous pack.
Managing to be just a bit more powerful than a couple of dogs thanks to her status, we have the
third Little Mermaid’s Marlena Del Ray. Instead of being a sorceress or someone looking to completely
take over Atlantica, Marlena is simply a Governess to King Triton's daughters - essentially,
she’s a glorified nanny. She does wish to outrank Sebastian, but even when she does briefly get the
title of “Chief of Palace Staff”, that doesn’t really amount to much actual power. Additionally,
while she may be a bit of a schemer, Marlena doesn’t have any magic or extraordinary abilities
- unless you want to count her ability to stylize as ‘extraordinary’. We do see her actually try
to fight people, but she still needs to use outside resources in order to boost her own
strength. Simply put, Marlena is FAR from Ursula’s level - both in terms of power AND memorability.
Following him is the circus owner and thief,
Sarousch. Certainly one of the least popular Disney sequel villains, and for good reason.
Buuuut since this is a ranking list based on power, we won’t spend too much time roasting
him on his vanity and complete lack of any sort of intimidation factor. Anyway, Sarousch is both
a circus ringmaster and a master thief, using his circus as a cover to steal famous treasures and
riches. He’s manipulative, though this only really applies to his assistant, Madeline,
and Phoebus, who he briefly tricks into thinking that Madeline is the mind behind all the thefts.
With a whole circus crew at his disposal, Sarousch is able to steal some pretty big items - like a
giant bell from Notre Dame. He’s also smart enough to plan ahead, kidnapping both Zephyr and Djali to
use as leverage. But while we will acknowledge that he’s technically smarter than some of the
other villains we’ve listed so far, the fact that he’s defeated so easily in the end really shows
that this guy is mostly all talk and doesn’t have much personal strength to back it up. He
can be sneaky and manipulative, but the moment he’s outnumbered - it’s game over.
Next is Extremely Goofy Movie’s Bradley Uppercrust the 3rd. We’ve finally reached our first sequel
villain with some significant status. Given the way he dresses, acts AND the fact that he’s the
head of the Gamma Mu Mu school fraternity, Bradley very much comes off as the ‘legacy’
type of student - the type of person who’s able to get into a prestigious school based on money
and name alone. As a fraternity leader, he’s got plenty of ‘henchmen’ to help with his cheating and
back him up in any fight - although most of these guys either disappear or turn against Bradley, so
we’ll only give him a half-point for his crew. To add onto all that,
while Bradley isn’t as skilled as Max, he’s still a decent athlete in his own right. Not bad for
such a scrawny looking guy. In addition to his influence and physical skills, Bradley is also a
master manipulator and a successful schemer. Prior to the X-Games competition with Max,
Bradley and his team were able to get away with cheating at least four separate times
using a variety of plans and gadgets. While these things couldn’t completely
save him in the end, he was extremely close to victory - moreso than any of the
villains we’ve named so far. So, Bradley’s earned himself a decent spot on our list.
Although not a Direct to DVD villain, we felt that we should include him since a few of you
were asking about him last time. Next up is the Australian poacher, Percival McLeach.
Being a man who’s only interested in catching and selling animals for profit, McLeach has a variety
of useful skills - from tracking and hunting, to using various dangerous weapons like rifles,
knives, double-barrel shotguns and bushwackers. When he REALLY needs to threaten someone,
he’s also got a small collection of hungry man-eating crocodiles. Speaking of which,
while it still takes the sight of a giant waterfall to make them back off,
McLeach is still able to fend the crocodiles off long enough to avoid getting bitten or eaten by
them - definitely an impressive feat. Although he claims that he never studied past the third grade,
McLeach is also a master at coming up with effective lies, allowing him to trick Cody
into leading him to the eagle and her eggs. In what is admittedly a great plan to get
the authorities off his tail, McLeach also takes the time to throw Cody’s backpack into the water,
making it look like he’s already been eaten. Between his hunting skills, his physical
strength and his weaponry, McLeach manages to be much more than just a simple poacher.
Following him is another fairly minor villain but one we felt should be included: Frozen 2’s
King Runeard. While he only had a couple scenes, his status as a former king pretty much forced us
to give him a fairly high spot. For some villains, status - and how it’s utilized - is key in terms
of how they’re able to influence others and build their own sense of power. However, Runeard’s royal
status is pretty much his only real significant note of power. Part of this is simply due to
his small amount of screentime, but even in the scenes we do see him in, we have to say that we
aren’t exactly impressed. Sure, he came up with the whole ‘betray the Northuldra people’ plan,
but all that amounted to was just stabbing the leader in the back when he wasn’t looking.
Not exactly something that took a ton of planning or thought. Furthermore, while the rest of his
men were able to survive the attack of both the Northuldra people and the spirits of the forest,
Runeard wasn’t so lucky, ultimately dying in the attack. From that, we can guess that he wasn’t
very strong or skilled when it came to fighting. If we have to give Runeard credit for ANYTHING,
it’s the fact that he was able to figure out how to weaken the spirits of the forest as well as
the Northuldra people using a dam. But while this was clever - you know, in a super evil
way - we felt that we just couldn’t put him any higher based on all his other weaknesses.
Let’s take a dip in the ocean for our next entry - Ursula’s crazy sister, Morganna. Like her sister,
Morganna is a sorceress who’s been exiled from Atlantica for trying to usurp King Triton
and for threatening his granddaughter, Melody. Being much skinnier than her sister, Morganna
is incredibly fast with long and fairly strong tentacles to boot, which is what allows her to
briefly kidnap a baby Melody in the first place. We also see how she’s a bit of an escape artist,
easily avoiding being captured by Triton’s guards. Unfortunately, this is where Morganna’s impressive
feats end. When it comes to their magic skills, Ursula and Morganna just can’t be compared. While
she knows how to mix potions, they aren’t nearly as powerful or as successful as her sister’s.
She even has to use a potion that was created by Ursula to change Melody into a mermaid. Now, she
DOES briefly become more powerful when she’s given Triton’s trident, but since
she doesn’t keep the weapon and is defenseless against it when Triton finally gets it back,
we’re not going to count it in our ranking. We will say, however, that Morganna is yet again
another fairly skilled manipulator, though we’d argue that Melody’s somewhat dysfunctional
relationship with her mother played a big part in that manipulation being so successful. While
we may feel sorry for Morganna, being stuck in Ursula’s shadow and all, we can’t deny
the facts - but we CAN still give her a spot in the upper half of our list.
Next up is Tarzan 2’s Mama Gunda. Mother of two pretty huge gorillas,
Mama Gunda isn’t the evilest antagonist around, but she may just be one of the strongest. Oh sure,
she may not look like much due to her height, but she’s still a gorilla - which, let us remind you,
is a pretty strong animal. She’s even able to go toe-to-toe with Zugor when they fight each other
towards the end of the film. What truly puts Mama this high up, however, are her sons. Both Uto and
Kago are two of the biggest gorillas we’ve seen in the Tarzan franchise, potentially dwarfing
even Kerchak in that regard. They also have pretty impressive amounts of stamina, to the point where
they can just smash rocks for hours on end, further adding to how tough they can be to
fight head-on. But while these two are extremely powerful when it comes to their physical strength,
they aren’t the brightest bananas in the bunch - which is why they need their mother to give them
orders and tell them what to do. If it weren’t for her sons being so loyal to her, we doubt
Mama would’ve made it this high up. As it stands, however, it’s safe to say that this is one mama
you don’t wanna mess with. Although, there is still ONE animal villain that outranks her.
Entering our top 5, next is Erik Hellstrom. No, he’s not an actual god - though he does
have a pretty rad god-like name. Featured in the final part of “Atlantis: Milo’s Adventure”,
Erik is on the older side, and unfortunately for him, his mind hasn’t exactly aged gracefully.
This madness also partially came from the loss of his company and all his money.
So in other words, he doesn’t have much of a status these days. What he DOES have, however,
is an ancient spear called the Gungnir, one of the many old artifacts from Atlantis. Using the spear,
Erik awakens two ancient demons - Surtr the Chaos Lord of Fire and Ymir, the Chaos Lord of Ice.
You’d think having a couple demons on your side would give you a pretty big power boost, and to
be fair it does take a lot to finally take them down. But the fact that it only takes dropping
some land on them to defeat them means that they aren’t invulnerable or even super durable.
Erik also loses the spear in the end, once again leaving him with absolutely nothing.
Still, for a time he was ALMOST a god, and we have to give him a bit of credit for that.
Just outside the Podium of Power, we have the follow-up to Scar - Zira. While Scar may have
had an army made up of hungry hyenas, Zira had a whole team of lionesses by her side for most
of the film. Now, we say MOST because she does lose her support in the end. Still, even without
her fellow lionesses, Zira is fierce and shouldn’t be taken lightly. Like most lions, she’s strong,
fast, comes with killer claws and has a keen eye when it comes to hunting. We don’t see her
fight too often in the movie, but her status as leader of the outsiders indicates that she
must be the strongest of the bunch. She’s also a great strategist and a total manipulator when it
comes to her kids. Really, if not for Kira, Kovu and the power of love, Zira very well could have
gotten the war that she wanted all along - and she might have even won in the end. We can’t give her
our top spot since she still loses a huge chunk of her power - that being her team of lionesses
- in the end, but we can certainly call her the most powerful Disney Sequel Animal character.
Earning the Bronze Medal of Power is the musical mastermind himself, Maestro Forte. Between his
uncanny CGI face and his Tim Curry vocal performance, Forte is a truly unforgettable
villain. Luckily for this maestro, when it comes to his power level, he seems to do pretty well
in that category too! Although he’s bolted to the wall and can’t exactly move around or leave
the room he’s stuck in, Forte still manages to be an active villain. Through his enchantingly
haunting songs and the trippy imagery that comes with them, he’s able to sway the Beast’s
feelings and thoughts, being arguably the most notable manipulator on our list. He’s a schemer
and, what’s more, he refuses to give up even when it’s made clear that the Beast will choose Belle
over him. This is where Forte’s final ability comes into play. With his extremely loud music,
he nearly brings down the entire castle, which would have killed everyone - including himself,
which he doesn’t even care about. Really, if not for the Beast being physically stronger - and, you
know, having actual limbs - the story of Beauty and the Beast would’ve had a bummer of an ending.
For our Silver Medal of Power, we’re giving it to Sa'luk from the third Aladdin movie. Sa'Luk
is described as a ruthless, violent, and rather impatient thug who takes
a sort of sadistic pleasure in killing those he deems ‘weak’. Needless to say, even without any
sort of magic powers or abilities, Sa’luk can still be incredibly threatening. The guy’s got
a pretty impressive amount of physical strength, to the point where Aladdin is forced to outsmart
him and use the Hand of Midas in order to defeat him. He’s even strong enough to kill a shark
with his bare hands! But that’s not to say that Sa’luk is more brawn than brains. The guy can
be pretty sneaky and clever, easily usurping Cassim as the leader of the Forty Thieves.
We also can’t forget the small handful of allied thieves he keeps on his side
despite him betraying the rest of the gang, showing that he still has the power of numbers
on his side - something characters like Buster or Bradley don’t have by the end of their respective
films. But with all these strengths, who could be even MORE powerful than Sa’luk?
Finally, the Gold Medal of Power is going to go to Arthur from “Ralph Breaks the Internet”.
While not exactly a character in the traditional sense, it’s still the main ‘villain’ of “Ralph
Breaks the Internet” - or rather, as close as you can get to having a main villain.
Created by the dark web’s Double Dan, Arthur is an insecurity virus created
to spread infections around the Internet. It’s ability to detect insecurities is impeccable,
being not limited to just the physical composition of the target but also emotional insecurities,
as we see when it scans Ralph's grief over ruining his friendship with Vanellope.
All he needs is one scan, and he can destabilize not only entire games and servers but potentially
the ENTIRE internet. But beyond these powerful abilities, what truly puts Arthur at the top
of our list is the simple fact that Arthur is the only Disney sequel villain who doesn’t get
defeated or killed at the end of their movie. We never actually see what happened to Arthur,
which means that he could still be out on the internet somewhere, lying in wait and looking for
more insecurities to spread. For these reasons, we just had to give Arthur our Gold Medal of Power.
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 our Weak to Powerful playlist,
where we break down who the most powerful characters are in your favorite cartoons,
shows and movies. But most importantly, stay wicked!