Robert A. Heinlein's The Rolling Stones (1952) points out that for every Superhero, there must be a Supervillain to give him purpose. Heinlein's The Number of the Beast further notes that if the villain is killed, he must be replaced by a son that's just as evil and badass as his predecessor, if the story is to continue.

In short, where would that caped clown be without you, his rival, his foil, his Arch-Enemy? Nowhere, that's where. You've been around for as long as he has, after all!^note Well, ok, technically most villains show up a few years after their respective heroes, both In-Universe and without. But wouldn't it be so boring if we hadn't?

Like your heroic counterpart, you have powers, skills and/or technology that elevate you above the average person, or indeed, the average criminal. Really, mundanity is for suckers. Why rob a bank by barging through the front door in a ski-mask, when you could release crippling fear-toxin through the AC, bust through the wall in your power suit, teleport into the vault, or cast a spell that turns the staff to stone?

Some might ask why you don't use the technology behind these powers to make a legitimate fortune far greater than you could get from bank robbery, without the risk of being beaten up by heroes. These fools just don't get it.^note Except for Lex Luthor and Doctor Doom, they have all the money they really want from their inventions and are after bigger fish now

Of course, you need to look cool while doing this, and don't forget those identifying marks, unless you want to stay under the radar. If you have a day job, you'll wanna keep it quiet too, because those parti-colored do-gooders will be gunning for you.

And while we're on the subject, don't those bastards just ruin everything? Spoiling your plans for as long as you can remember! Heck, they even trashed your house that one time! I mean, you're only knocking over banks...or leveling cities, or taking over planets...y'know, basically doing your own thing. Why've they got such bugs up their butts anyway? What'd you ever do to them, aside from stalking them and antagonizing their loved ones? You do that to everyone!

Anyway, you've had enough! You're gonna bust out of prison again, get some friends together, and really show them this time! It's not even about your goals anymore! It's about seeing those costumed vigilantes pay for their interference! After all you've survived, you know you're due for a win. This time it'll be different! You hope.

Supervillains can be found in most works that feature Superheroes.

Note that these guys may delve off the deep end and into Cartoonish Supervillainy.

See also Diabolical Mastermind, Evil Counterpart, The Psycho Rangers, Dark Magical Girl, Big Bad. Go visit Superhero Stories for works where super-villains are found.

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• My Hero Academia: There's an in-universe difference between normal, petty criminals and villains because most people have Quirks (aka, superpowers). To qualify as a villain, you have to use your Quirk to commit illegal deeds, therefore putting innocent lives at risk more often than not. After all, even if a Quirk is not inherently destructive, odds are you can get creative enough to still wreak havoc with it. Relatively early in the manga, we are introduced to the League of Villains, a criminal organization that comprises ne'er-do-wells who aim to overthrow the government-endorsed hero system.

Comic Books

• New Fun comics magazine probably had the first comic book super villain with Vampire Master. He was immune to traditional vampire weaknesses that Rose Psychic tried to use against him, resistant to the magic symbol that Doctor Occult used to repel a previous vampire, could sprout wings from his coat, and could disappear in blinding flashes. What elevated Vampire Master from merely stronger than usual vampire in the setting to super villain, however, was that after Doctor Occult and Rose Psychic managed to drive him off once, Vampire Master managed to convince a news paper to publish and distribute a letter he wrote, threatening to overrun the city with a flock of vampires unless paid $100,000 every week!Vampire Master was in fact a perfectly human Mad Scientist sending out artificially created monsters that could be adjusted to the tactics used against them from his Super Villain Lair, which he burnt down in spite after his creations turned on him, hoping to catch all of them and Doctor Occult in the blaze as he died.

Fan Works

• Pokémon Untamed: Noctavispa is heavily themed around comic and cartoon supervillains. Its color scheme resembles a villainous uniform or armor, with its wings held like an angular cape, its pupils resembling narrowed eyes, and one hand held behind its back while the other is raised in front of its face in a pose resembling a monologuing or scheming villain. Its personality is also styled as a sinister leader of a vast insect hive filled with minions. Mega Noctavispa doubles down on this with tasseled cape-wings, a more dynamic pose, and a Pokédex entry that emphasizes its malicious cunning and ingenuity.

Films — Live-Action

• Chronicle: After the mental stress and anguish of having an abusive dad, an ill mother, being a social reject, and accidentally killing a friend all pile on Andrew, he snaps. Being the most powerful of the boys, he first grows convinced that they are Apex Predators. He gets the idea to use his telekinetic abilities to illegally obtain money for his mother's treatment, but it ends badly. Impotent and full of rage, Andrew rampages on the city and has to be killed by another of his friends.
• The Crimson Ghost: Rather than just sell the Cyclotrode to a foreign government, the Crimson Ghost plans to use it to hold cities to ransom.
• Glass (2019): Continuing from Split, this is once more deconstructed. In this case, how utterly outmatched normal people are against a superpowered killing machine.
• King of the Rocket Men: Dr. Vulcan's henchmen assume that he wants to steal secret technology to sell to a foreign power. Turns out his ambition is far greater—using a Weapon of Mass Destruction to hold the wealthiest city in the world to ransom.
• Split: Where its predecessor, Unbreakable, deconstructed the idea of a superhero story, this film uses Beware the Superman to the fullest extent and shows what happens when a mentally ill man has similar abilities to those of the hero.
• Unbreakable: Deconstructed, in that the film explores what would drive a real person to become one, and what massive loss of life the scale of true super-villainy would entail. The hero-villain relation is also reversed; the villain isn't there to give the hero purpose in the plot, the villain created the hero to give himself purpose in the 'plot' of life.
• V/H/S: Viral: John is a down-on-his-luck amateur magician who finds a magic cloak that grants him the ability to perform genuine magic in exchange for regular meals of human flesh. Subverted in that he has no superhero arch rival. Instead, he is defeated by a mundane aspiring magician who happens to know one clever trick that John himself taught her.

Literature

• The Reckoners Trilogy: After some people started awakening superpowers, the world was thrown into chaos because all of them, called the Epics, believe Might Makes Right, and so they took to rule the world through violent, psychopathic means. As a result, Earth is a world teeming with supervillains but not a single superhero.
• The Villains Series: It's heavily implied that the Traumatic Superpower Awakening experience all ExtraOrdinaries suffer has a Lack of Empathy as a feature instead of a bug. As a result, EOs spawn the gray-to-black end of the morality spectrum. Despite their urban legend status, those who use their newfound powers to commit crimes and/or harm people are essentially supervillains with less infamy but not an ounce less of brutality.

Live-Action TV

• The Ink Thief: The Ink Thief becomes a supervillain after consuming power from a page of his Book and gaining different superpowers. His goal is to become a real human so he can take over the world. For that purpose, he feeds on imagination from books, art, and Bumps.

Tabletop Games

• Before I Kill You, Mister Spy...: Players take the roles of supervillains in a spy movie, building supervillain lairs in which they can capture and kill superspies (including "Mr. Bond" in the original version of the game). You can kill a captured superspy and collect points for doing so.

Theatre

• Golden Bat: Nazō, a mad scientist or alien who creates various treats to fight Ōgon Bat and take over the world. Much like Ōgon Bat is the first Japanese Super Hero, Dr. Erich Nazō can be seen as the first Japanese Supervillain, having an influence on many characters since in Japan.

Toys

• Living Dead Dolls: Onyx tried to be a world-conquering technological villain, but a ray gun accident killed her before she accomplished much. Not that death has stopped her.

Video Games

• Plague Inc.: The number of horrible symptoms and sinister ways to spread the disease can cause one to feel like a supervillainous Omnicidal Maniac as you rain death down upon the world. When you aren't trying to kill the entire world, you're either seeking to turn everyone into slaves to your Neurax Worm, Neanderthals, or vampires, or making everyone believe fake news.

Webcomics

• Almighty Protectors: Zap, a bank robber with an electric energy-type power, is the first supervillain the team faced.
• Danger Zone One: In chapter 2, Mr. Jack dons a jack-o'-lantern mask, commands costumed henchmen, and concocts a criminal scheme that involves kidnapping the mayor and detonating a bomb in downtown Pallad City.
• Hero by Night: The Iron Talon, medieval alchemist and the mastermind behind some of the III'd Reich's crimes.
• Supervillainous: The protagonist is Crimson Claw, a supervillain and family man. Life's interesting for the Claw: defending his hover fortress, organizing major heists, and dealing with parent-teacher meetings are all on the agenda!

Western Animation

• The Amazing Spiez!: The villains in this show, while they do still have really stupid Freudian Excuses, they're costumed and have powers or gadgets related to their "theme". The old show had some shades of it, but this show has more obvious Super Villain inspiration. Even the villains that do return from the original show have undergone a reworked design more befitting of a supervillain.
• League of Super Evil: The members of the eponymous team do their best to become fearsome supervillains but, most of the time, only manage Poke the Poodle moments. By contrast, the secondary characters are all established, evil supervillains with either superpowers, mad genius, henchman armies, or all three.
• The Mighty B!: The Mighty B's first antagonist: Evil Mr. Pants, who controls others to do his bidding. This even spawned another villain, The Ghastly Giraffe (that's pronounced grr-affe, not jir-affe), who is actually Millie under Evil Mr. Pants' control.