20 Movie Villains Who Were Unbelievably Petty
4. Syndrome - The Incredibles
Long before there were multiple superhero movies released every single year, there was The Incredibles, to this day one of the strongest in Pixar's entire catalogue. There is a lot to love about the film, and one of the biggest is that it avoided the too often seen comic book movie trope of treating the villain like an afterthought.
Syndrome (Jason Lee) was one of the best things about The Incredibles. He was a legitimate threat, he was detestable, he actively avoided typical villainous pitfalls, he had a strong connection to Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson), and he was extremely petty.
When he was a child, Buddy was Mr. Incredible's biggest fan and styled himself as Incrediboy. However, his hero spurned him when he offered his help. In the eyes of Mr. Incredible, it was reasonable not to want a child involved in stopping genuinely dangerous criminals, but Buddy just felt the sting of rejection without truly seeing the reason why.
But even as Buddy grew up, he didn't let go of this emotion, and spent the next 15 years building the perfect plan to become the greatest super of all time, killing dozens of others along the way, and had all gone to plan, that would have included Mr. Incredible. All because he wasn't allowed to fight a criminal with a bomb when he was a child.