5 Great James Bond Villains (That Have Never Been Seen On Film)

5. Irina 'Babushka' Sedova

Crafting villains must’ve been one of the hardest parts of authoring the Young Bond series, given that a teenage iteration of the character couldn’t realistically go toe-to-toe with them physically as a result of his age or be subject to elaborate deathtraps given the younger target audience.

Charlie Higson certainly did a respectable job across his five novels, however, even if his creations had to largely make use of young adult henchmen as proxies. Irina Sedova, codenamed Babushka, stands out in such an environment given how her entire existence revolves around operating from the shadows, manipulating others in her role as a leader of the OGPU, the Soviet precursor to the KGB.

Though she only appears in two of Higson’s novels and is actually an ally rather than a villain in By Royal Command, Babushka, named after the Russian dolls of the same name, is an imposing presence in all of her scenes, notably walking away from Bond at gunpoint under the assumption that he cannot bring himself to pull the trigger.

The series has had few female villains and though Sedova channels the most well-known of these, Rosa Klebb, in many ways, a modern interpretation could certainly work.