Who Needs Zeus? The 10 Most Villainous Goddesses in Fiction Could End You

A 3rd-century CE statue of Hecate, the Greek goddess of witchcraft, in the Vatican Museums. Credit: Mark Cartwright

"Overpowered" is a word that gets thrown around a lot in geek culture, mainly for characters who are practically invincible. 

But what do you expect when a character is supposed to be a deity?

This god-tier chaos happens an awful lot in fiction. From comics to movies, deities arrive fully loaded, lusting for universal domination and doing damage to superheroes with ease. 

Many fictional deities defy gender altogether. But when they are portrayed as goddesses, they're often in a league of their own. At times self-righteous, sometimes downright malevolent, female deities wield a kind of power that could be all too rare in the real world. 

For this list of goddesses, we're skipping mythological figures like Athena, Eris, or Kali as well as overt depictions of them; they belong to a realm between folklore and religion. Instead, let's bow down at the altar of modern fiction's fiercest bad goddesses. 

These divine beings don't ask for your attention—they demand your reverence. 

Selene

Marvel supervillain Selene in n Ta-Nehisi Coates and Leinil Francis Yu's Captain America #5

For one hot Westchester County, New York minute, Selene ascended to godhood and posed an existential threat to Marvel mutant-kind. Mistakenly worshipped as a goddess in her formative years, it's no surprise that one of the world's oldest mutants wishes to become the real thing so bad. She'll learn to be careful what she wishes for, but Miss Gallio never really goes away. Whether plotting in the Krakoan era or going toe to toe with Captain America, this immortal sorceress-cum-vampire is a nefarious presence who's here to stay. 

Tia Dalma

When she first arrives on "Pirates of the Carribean," Tia Dalma seems like your average, eccentric voodoo priestess. She's eventually revealed to be Calypso, a "heathen" sea goddess bound in human form by pirate treachery. Not to be confused with her namesake, the nymph in Greek mythology, this Calypso can wreak havoc on the high seas, conjure furious tempests, and resurrect the dead, including Jack Sparrow's sworn enemy.

Charlotte Richards

God has a wife? In a show titled Lucifer, that automatically makes her a wicked candidate for this list. Imprisoned in hell, she escapes to the human world in the body of high-powered lawyer Charlotte Richards. Make no mistake about "Mum" though: Beneath the meek matriarch façade is a celestial schemer able to storm the heavens with her divine discontent.

Amara

Before God uttered, "Let there be light," there was Darkness, literally. In the Supernatural universe, God doesn't have a wife but a sister, a cosmic counterbalance known as Amara. So powerful that she had to be locked away with the Mark of Cain, The Darkness is above and beyond the whole good-versus-evil shebang. Even the creatures of Heaven and Hell had no idea this primordial being existed.  

Glorificus

Buffy the Vampire Slayer's main baddies grew more powerful with every season, and Glorificus earned her place as a final boss. A literal goddess from hell, the antagonist on the show's last WB season had gone by many terrifying names over the centuries—The Beast, The Abomination, That Which Cannot Be Named—before reinventing herself in all her blonde-bimbo "Glory" for Y2K Sunnydale. Unserious but ultimately indomitable, Glory makes Slayer powers look puny in comparison, and she does it all in heels. 

Hela

You know better than to mess with Thor's sister herself. Cate Blanchett's turn as the Asgardian goddess of death, based on Hel of Norse mythology, is a scene-chewing masterpiece. As 2017's Thor: Ragnarok showed, she is a one-woman army unto herself, capable of taking on Valkyries and obliterating the Mjolnir to bits. Truly all in a day's work for the MCU's first female villain. 

The Goddess 

The Goddess in Infinity Crusade, Vol. 1

In Marvel Comics' original Infinity War storyline, The Goddess is the embodiment of Adam Warlock's soul. Or at least half of it. In the end, this resplendent manifestation of Adam's virtuous side is a little too extreme for our own good. Believing herself to be the servant of the One-Above-All, she intends to rid space of all sin and inequity. It took heroes and villains alike—yes, even Thanos—to stop her intergalactic crusade. 

Takhisis

Takhisis gets her standalone book in The Dark Queen by Michael and Teri Williams 

As Queen of Darkness, Takhisis mothers all evil on Krynn in the Dragonlance fantasy novels. She's known by a litany of titles worthy of her notoriety—the Corrupter, the False Metal, She of Many Faces, the One God, the Dark Warrior, and Shadow Sorcerer being just some of the most colorful ones. She is often confused with Tiamat, the draconian goddess in the Dungeons & Dragons games (who's in turn inspired by the namesake in Babylonian mythology). Takhisis is uniquely fearsome, however, with some scholars comparing her not just to your typical dark fantasy lord but to Satan himself (or herself). 

Gozer 

A flat-topped, glam-rock nightmare in a skintight bodysuit, Gozer the Gozerian is one of the most iconic preternatural foes in cinema, and you know it gets real when the honorifics start pouring. Referred to as Volguus Zildrohar, the Lord of the Sebouillia, the Destructor, and the Traveler, Gozer ruled as a goddess during Sumerian times. Alongside her hounds from hell, Zuul and Vinz Clortho, she deigns to descend to 1980s New York and test the limits of our technology. We quickly find out she's one ghost you can't just bust.  

Shub-Niggurath

AI imagines the Lovecraftian cosmic horror that is Shub-Niggurath

Often mentioned in ritualistic invocations or cultic incantations in H. P. Lovecraft’s work, Shub-Niggurath is described as an “evil, cloud-like entity.” This Lovecraftian deity is also called "The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young,” tying her lore to the Baphomet goat. She straddles the line between creator and destroyer, a fertility deity with cosmic horror overtones. As the All-Mother, she's both ally to humans and the source of monstrosities: the divine feminine reimagined for the 20th century.