Rick and Morty has largely avoided major recurring antagonists over its first three seasons, but enough seeds have been planted that it's conceivable the show is setting up its own spin on the Legion of Doom. The beloved Adult Swim series - created by Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland - was recently renewed for a staggering 70 episodes after protracted contract negotiations had fans a bit skittish about the show's future. That level of creative freedom could potentially open the door to some long game plotting, one of the most intriguing being the chickens coming home to roost for Rick.

Rick and Morty is unlike anything else on television. The series mixes some pretty complicated, high minded science fiction concepts with scatological humor and somehow manages to say some profound things about depression, the nature of family, and Szechuan sauce. The show has a deeply devoted, occasionally toxic fanbase, and it became a mainstream sensation during its triumphant third season; thesis papers will be written on "Pickle Rick" alone. The show occasionally revisits concepts and characters, but it's eschewed the serialized storytelling of other popular shows of its era, never building toward any sort of big bad or massively hyped confrontation at season's end. Part of the show's greatness has been the way its utilized all kinds of different story structures and concepts while maintaining the same themes of bleakly hilarious existential despair. There is really no show that captures the surreal mood of 2018 America quite like Rick and Morty.

But over three seasons, Rick has left a trail of emotional and literal destruction in his wake. There's always been a sort of dark inevitability to the fact that Rick is so much smarter than everyone else in the universe that he can escape any jam - even the ones he's for which he's wholly responsible - largely unscathed; it's like if Doctor Who had a very flexible moral compass and a serious drinking problem. But that path of destruction has yielded plenty of survivors, ostensibly powerful people with an axe to grind against Rick. An obvious way to take him on would be the classic comic book trope of the villain supergroup - perhaps most famously in the Legion of Doom, which Warner Bros. appears to be prepping for their DC Extended Universe films. There are a lot of competing agendas among these people, but if they could manage to put those aside to rid themselves of a common foe, they could get on with their various forms of universal conquest. Let's run down the most likely candidates for Rick and Morty's potential spin on a cabal of evildoers.

Evil Morty

Rick and Morty Evil Morty

Any list of terrifying Rick and Morty villains has to begin with Evil Morty. Introduced in Season 1's "Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind," Evil Morty was first seen using a remote control device to have Rick murder other Ricks throughout the multiverse (and torture and kill quite a few Mortys as well). He eluded capture, slipping into a crowd of Rickless Mortys who were rounded up and sent to the Citadel of Ricks. Evil Morty survived our Rick's attack on the Citadel, which resulted in the death of the Council of Ricks and a new, democratic society. Through some ingenious subterfuge, Evil Morty managed to win election as the new President, and swiftly murdered all of his political rivals, promising a dark new direction for the multiversal society.

Evil Morty's personal animus toward our Rick (or the Rick of C-137, if we're being technical) hasn't really been established - he was framing him for murder due to his relative amorality compared to the other Ricks - but he likely understands that he's a more powerful Rick than the standard issue, and that taking him off the board could make his plans go much smoother. But unlike a lot of entries on this list, Evil Morty is likely to continue being a treacherous little snake whether or not he runs afoul of our beloved Rick.

Supernova

Supernova using her powers in Rick and Morty

Even by Rick's considerably dubious standards, the undoing of the intergalactic superhero team the Vindicators was horrendous. Jealous of Morty's idolization of the group, Rick gets blackout drunk and ends up trapping himself, Morty, and the Vindicators in a Saw-esque death trap puzzle. Vance Maximus, Alan Rails, Million Ants, and poor, sweet Crocubot all end up dead by Rick's indirect hand; many of them are pitted against each other in the process, with the team's sole survivor, Supernova (voiced by the brilliant Community alum Gillian Jacobs), pushed over the edge into homicidal mania. Having murdered her lover Million Ants, Supernova is forced to flee before she can kill Rick and Morty.

Despite the fact that she allowed her relationship drama to fuel her bloodlust, Supernova has a pretty valid reason to want Rick dead; he very clearly detonated her entire world for no real reason other than the fact he's a jerk. She's both powerful and motivated, and even has experience in supergroups. She's an obvious candidate to join any group bent on Rick's destruction.

Tammy Guetermann and Phoenix Person

Tammy Guetermann and Phoenix Person in Rick and Morty

Tammy was introduced in the Season 1 finale "Ricksy Business" as a popular schoolfriend of Summer's who finds herself hooking up with Birdperson, Rick's alien best friend, at a party. The relationship turns out to be an enduring one, with the pair tying the know in the Season 2 finale "The Wedding Squanchers." The marital bliss is short-lived, however, as Tammy is revealed to be a covert agent for the Galactic Federation, who have lured Rick there to answer for his myriad crimes against the universe. Tammy ends up gunning down Birdperson, much to Rick's horror.

Rick of course toppled the Galactic Federation in the Season 3 premiere "The Rickshank Rickdemption", but Tammy survived and had Birdperson rebuilt as the cyborg Phoenix Person. This is another case where Rick is more than a little responsible, since he not only introduced Tammy and Birdperson, but is almost certainly guilty of at least some of the horrible things the Federation wanted him imprisoned for. Birdperson was also one of the few people Rick had a genuine emotional connection with, and having to deal with the undead version of his best friend would likely be harrowing even for him.

Page 2 of 2: More Rick & Morty Villains Who Could Team Up

Rick and Morty Quiz - Beta Seven

Beta-Seven

In "Auto Erotic Assimilation," Rick rekindles his romance with Unity, a hive-mind being who he once dated. Unity's consciousness occupies every sentient being on an entire planet, leading to some sexually inventive adventures between her and Rick, much to the chagrin of Beta-Seven (voiced by Patton Oswalt), another hive-mind pretty obviously based on Star Trek: The Next Generation's nightmarish space zombies, the Borg. Despite their passionate reunion, Unity breaks up with Rick again, acknowledging Rick brings out the worst in her. Rick attempts to reconcile, but finds himself blocked by Beta-Seven, serving as many, many shoulder for Unity to cry on post-breakup.

Beta-Seven clearly wants a deeper relationship with Unity, who seems to view him only as a friend. Beta-Seven is portrayed as a spin on the toxic "nice guy" trope, the hovering, socially awkward friend who pines for a female friend from afar in ways that tend to belittle and objectify the target of their affection. Beta-Seven taking out that passive rejection on Rick would be a consistent use of that trope and a prime opportunity to take some jabs at some of the show's more unsavory fans.

Zeep Xanflorp

Zeep Xanflorp looking angry in Rick and Morty

In "The Ricks Must Be Crazy," Rick reveals to Morty that his car is powered by a microverse battery; it's essentially an entire civilization that exists for the sole purpose of generating electricity to move Rick's car around. When the battery stops working, Rick and Morty shrink down and enter the battery to see what's causing the problem. There they find Zeep Xanflorp (voiced by Stephen Colbert), a scientist just as brilliant as Rick who has also discovered microverse technology, meaning the residents of his universe now no longer need to generate power via Rick's "gooble boxes."

After getting stuck in the teenyverse (created by a scientist inside of Zeep's miniverse) for months, Rick, Morty, and Zeep return to the microverse, with Rick and Morty escaping back to the main universe. Zeep realizes he has to stop his experiments with the miniverse or Rick would effectively dump a defective battery, killing his entire civilization. His people end up as docile slaves on gooble boxes, as Zeep seethes. This is a case where Rick is objectively in the wrong, and despite the fact he earlier tried to murder Rick and Morty, Zeep's loathing of Rick is wholly warranted - and he's both smart and amoral enough to tangle with Rick on even footing given the opportunity.

The President of the United States

The President of the United States in Rick and Morty

No, not that one. In Rick and Morty, the President of the United States is an unnamed African American man voiced by the dulcet tones of Keith David. After a mutually beneficial encounter in "Get Schwifty," Rick and Morty both express their reluctance to keep accepting boring missions from the leader of the free world in the Season 3 finale "The Rickchurian Mortydate." The President learns of their disillusionment, and an increasingly deadly game of one-upmanship follows.

Rick ends up diffusing the situation by telling the somewhat skeptical President that he switched places with a different multiversal Rick (he didn't), but it's easy to see how the rivalry could be reignited with very little provocation. The President would probably be reluctant to join forces with a cavalcade of genuine supervillains, but he'd likely overlook it to rid himself of such a monumental thorn in his side.

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One of the recurring themes of Rick and Morty has been how Rick's near omnipotent power has allowed him to sidestep some of the more conventional pitfalls that science fiction protagonists tend to face with relative ease, while still leaving him utterly incapable of escaping the more existential horrors that mere mortals have to deal with. There would be some poetic justice in the two dovetailing; the very real, human cost of his sci-fi hijinks coming back to haunt him with the sort of force that even he would be hard-pressed to overcome. This is the sort of big, long game confrontation Rick and Morty has largely avoided, but if Rick is ever going to answer for all the ways he hurts people, it would likely need to be a cosmic event.

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