When a villain is physically and mentally dominant over the protagonist, and is completely set in their ways of being a villain (so no redemption arcs for them), and the protagonist still has to figure out a way to defeat them (usually involving time travel shenanigans). I feel like these are always way better than Mary-sue protagonists because these guys are morally wrong, and you know they’re gonna get defeated eventually…right?

1. Bane - The Dark Knight Rises  
He’s one of the only villains in this series who can physically compete with Batman without any army, and he STILL has an army. He’s also not some big, dumb, brute (as some might portray him), he literally takes over Gotham using a pretty foolproof plan imo. His main drawback is the fact that he wasn’t the main antagonist of the movie, but he still got everything done which is way more important. He’s also the only villain on this list who wasn’t defeated because of time-travel shenanigan, but instead, the sneak attack.

2. T-1000 - Terminator 2: Judgement Day  
As if T-800 wasn’t bad enough, we have one who’s more lethal, smarter, AND can shapeshift! I mean, we’ve all seen the clip of him shape-shifting into the floor. The T-800 himself was barely even able to beat him, and he’s THE Terminator. Technically, he wasn’t killed by time-travel shenanigans, but he also kinda was because the T-800 came to help the Conners.

3. Janet Smythe - Best Friends Whenever  
Okay I genuinely don’t know if anyone else is going to know who this character is but I’ll do my best to justify her. So pretty much, the entire series revolves around these two best friends who can time travel, and Janet Smythe is the head of a company that makes wireless tech. The girls think that she’s trying to steal their powers so they travel back in time to prevent her company from ever being made (by stopping her from having the idea to make wireless tech). Because they do this, Janet is able to figure out who they are, when they’d reappear, and nearly kill them and their friends to get the powers in another dimension. So, the girls undo what they did and just let her be a billionaire, but because they do this, Janet figures out who they are, when they’d reappear, and nearly kill them and their friends to get the powers in THIS dimension; further, she figures out the secret to time travel (kinda), and she creates a device that allows her to remember every dimension even if the girls changed something. She ends up taking over the world. If you can’t tell I really like this show.  
  
4. Lila Rossi/Cerise Bianca - Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir:  
This girl is THE WHOLE REASON I say this is a “mixed trope”. Because yes, she’s just as smart and capable as the main character(s), and for most of the series she has financial and political backing, and she’s morally incorruptible (in the sense where she’s immoral, but you won’t change that), so she fits. But, in the first 4 seasons of the show, she is the worst-written character in a sea of badly written characters. She’s supposed to be a master manipulator type character, but she’s really just that kid in second grade who told you his dad owns Pokémon. By seasons 5 and 6, however, she becomes one of the best characters in the series. She ends up actually stealing a miraculous, finding out (almost) all the secrets in the show, stealing the Ladybug and Black Cat miraculous, making her wish, destroying the universe, and winning. And you’ll never guess who they beat her…Time Travel Shenanigans. She’s still the main villain of the series as of right now, though, and I’m looking forward to watching her schemes in the rest of season 6 IF IT EVER COMES ON DISNEY PLUS. 

5. Thanos - MCU:  
I kinda felt like he should be an honorable mention or something, like he doesn’t fit the list, but I cannot for the life of me think of a reason why. I mean, he’s stronger than most of the Avengers combined, and the ones he can’t beat he has his army do it for him, and he’s a pretty smart dude, and he wins the first movie he’s in for longer than 5 seconds. Plus, there were literally 14,000,604 futures where he won officially, and the ONLY future where he didn’t win involved (I think we all know by now) Time Travel Shenanigans. And even then he still nearly won, and it wasn’t even the version of himself that won originally. Honestly, he might be the best example of this trope because he doesn’t even feel like a Mary-Sue as you’re watching him.

[Mixed Trope] Mary-Sue Antagonists