What is it about limitless power that turns people into such assholes? It’s not the old saying that absolutely power corrupts absolutely, because while there are certainly evil gods out there, these 10 god-like entities aren’t evil so much as they’re just jerks — jerks who use their power to make we poor mortals miserable (whether intentionally or unintentionally). Here are 10 beings whose limitless power is only exceeded by their ability to be dicks.


1) Q, Star Trek: the Next Generation

A member of the Q Continuum, the insanely powerful Q seems to have humanity’s best interests at heart, but that never stops him from helping those best interests in the most obnoxious way possible. His first appearance was in the ST: TNG debut, in which he puts humanity on trial with Picard and crew as the representatives of the human race (as omnipotent beings are wont to do). Then he starts really messing with them: Giving Riker Q powers, transporting the Enterprise directly in the path of the Borg, forcing Picard to babysit him while he was stripped of his powers, making everyone enact a Robin Hood role-play thing, boxing Sisko, trying to knock up Janeway, and more. And this is the shit he pulls because he likes us — imagine what would happen if he didn’t.


2) Mr. Myxzptlk, Superman

This imp from the Fifth Dimension possesses unlimited power, and yet he uses it for one thing and one thing only: annoying the shit out of Superman. Seriously, he’s found one dude, and has devoted his apparently immortal life to making him miserable. His antics have included everything from making Superman morbidly obese, to erasing everyone’s memories of Superman, to making him acting like a dick to his friends, and more. And those are the minor hassles; at one point he (accidentally) gives the Joker all of his omnipotence, and Joker rewrites all of reality to suit his whims. Basically, various writers have suggested a variety of origins and personalities for the imp, but no matter the background, he still spends 99% of his time being a dick to the Man of Steel.

3) The Beyonder, Marvel Comics

While he’s since been powered down considerably, when the Beyonder was first introduced, he was basically a god from another universe, who popped over here because he was bored and then made Marvel’s heroes and villains fight on a distant planet to see whether good or evil was more powerful during the first Secret Wars. That’s always annoying, but he got worse in Secret Wars II when he gave himself a human body but failed to read the instruction manual, forcing Spider-Man to show him how to use the bathroom. Yes, Spider-Man had to toilet train a god. Then he falls in love with Dazzler, destroys the multiverse, and becomes a space baby — basically, the Beyonder is the highest maintenance deity in the Marvel universe.


4) Anthony Fremont, The Twilight Zone

The star of the Jerome Bixby short story "It's a Good Day" and the classic Twilight Zone episode of the same name, Anthony Fremont is an omnipotent 6-year-old who makes the lives of all the people in his hometown of Peaksville, Ohio, a merry hell. He cuts off the town from the rest of the world, controls the weather, removes all electricity , won’t let anybody sing, and then banishes anyone he doesn’t like to “the cornfield,” which no one ever returns from. It’s pretty much just as annoying as if any bratty six-year-old were in put charge of everything, but with the added terror of knowing he could turn you into the world’s most horrifying jack-in-the-box toy if you displease him in any way.


5) Crayak, Animorphs

Although Crayak started out as a pretty omnipotent being, albeit with a cyborg body and a giant blood-red eye for a head, after he fell into a black hole, he gained the ability to control time and space. This made his fight with fellow omnipotent being Ellimist a little more difficult, especially whether they started playing hide-and-seek with planet Earth during the Cretaceous period. Eventually the two gods realized they were going to destroy the universe, so they decide to “play” their “game” through intermediaries; Crayak trying to kill/enslave/generally fuck with every being in the universe and Ellimist… uh… not doing that. Now, killing everybody is pretty standard operating procedure for evil omnipotent beings, but Crayak is enough of a jerk that he’ll send plagues to destroy a planet’s crops, just to make sure people really, really unhappy even when they aren't being murdered by his minions. Even for an evil space deity, the dude has no class.


6) Discord, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

It is not inaccurate to say that Discord is basically the Q of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The “draconequus” (head of a dragon, body of… a bunch of different things) was directly inspired by Q, and is voiced by none other than John de Lancie, who played Q. He uses his seemingly limitless magic to mess with the Mane Six, brainwashing them, turning them into the evil Mirror, Mirror-esque versions of each other, getting rid of their wings and unicorn horns, making them play his twisted games, etc. It’s kinda evil, or at least obnoxious, but Discord at one point makes chocolate milk rain from the sky, which is a weather pattern I’d personally happy to put up with a lot of bullshit for.


7) Gabriel, Supernatural

Seeing as the archangel Gabriel is also the Norse god of lies Loki in Supernatural, that should be a clue as to Gabriel's demeanor in the show — which is of course fucking with Sam and Dean. In the beginning, he only appears to them as a “Trickster,” bringing urban legends to life, forcing Sam and Dean in a Groundhog Day-style repeat-the-same-day trap, and then turning them into stars of a fictional TV show called Supernatural (also, he kills Dean for a while). Even when he’s trying to be more useful, and help Sam and Dean stop the apocalypse, he still manages to make it needlessly complicated, faking his own death, asking Dean to seduce his ex-girlfriend Kali, and then getting several gods, including himself, genuinely killed. Even his final tip to Sam and Dean about how to stop Lucifer has to be transmitted through a porn flick.


8) Trelane, Star Trek

The original crew of the starship Enterprise seemed to meet ridiculously powerful beings every other week, but most of them had very specific motives and or devices that generated their “powers.” Not Trelane, who teleports Kirk and Sulu to his planet to hang out while dressed as a 19th-century general (he’s not very up-to-date on Earth culture). He prevents all scanning and communications, teaches Uhura to play the harpsichord with a wave of his hand, and even moves his planet through space to intercept the fleeing Enterprise. Indeed, the only reason Kirk and crew manage to escape is because Trelane’s parents — two amorphous energy beings — make the immature demigod stop and go home before he kills everybody.


9) Bat-Mite, Batman

Pretty much everything we said about Mr. Mxylztpk and Superman we can say about Bat-Mite and Batman, with the only difference is that Bat-Mite makes Batman miserable by trying to help him rather than outright trying to mess with him. As an omnipotent fan0boy (shudder) mostly he just wants to see Batman kick ass — understandably — but since this usually meaning freeing villains or creating villains for Batman to take down, Batman rarely appreciates this. In the past he’s also given Ace the Bat-hound super powers, masqueraded as Bat-Girl, and several other shenanigans. Although his worst, most heinous crime was canceling the Batman: Brave and the Bold cartoon to make way for a “cooler Batman series. Originally from the Fifth Dimension like Mr. Mxylptlk, he’s also been a creation of Mr. Mxylptlk and a figment of Batman’s imagination while using his back-up Batman of Zur-En-Arrh personality, which, frankly, is still hilarious.


10) Man of Miracles, Spawn

What if God were terrible at his/her job? To learn the answer to this question, all we need to do is head to the Spawn comics, where Man of Miracles is in charge of the universe and fucking everything up. First, she (yes, it’s she, she just prefers to cosplay as Miracleman) puts God and Satan in charge of the same planet, as if that’s not going to be a problem. Then she turns God and Satan into twin babies, thinking this will teach them a lesson; it doesn’t, but it does make them even bigger bastards. And MoM’s whole solution to this plan is to create Spawn, a dude with giant guns, a bigger cape and a face like raw hamburger to try and fix everything. Oh, also, she’s… uh… Jesus? Listen, lady, just stick to your day job.