When a Dragon Ball fan thinks of the ‘best villain’ in the series, their minds likely go to whoever is the most powerful or the most detrimentally impactful to the series’ main characters (so, basically Frieza), but that’s only considering half of what Dragon Ball has always represented, unlike one villain introduced in Dragon Ball Super, who is proven to be the best foe with a single line of dialogue.
To understand the greatest villain of Dragon Ball, one must first understand the type of manga/anime Dragon Ball is and has always been. From the beginning, in classic Dragon Ball, the series was always at least partially a gag manga. Fun absurdities were all over the place in the original series, though with the sharp turn into Dragon Ball Z, the series became much more focused on the martial arts aspect of the story. Crucially, though, Dragon Ball needs that component as well in order to be evenly balanced. Dragon Ball was overwhelmingly goofy while DBZ was much more dedicated to delivering intense battles and high-stakes stories – and now, Dragon Ball Super confirmed Dr. Hedo as its best villain by confirming he can do both.
1 Line Confirms Dr. Hedo Is Secretly Dragon Ball Super’s Greatest Villain
Goku and friends would fight wacky characters and always come out on top, with no shortage of jokes and meta references thrown in. For instance, Goku once used his Power Pole to trap the villainous Carrotter (an anthropomorphic rabbit who can turn people into carrots with a single touch) on the moon. Not only that, but when Goku first became a Great Ape, series creator Akira Toriyama included an entire caption at the end of the manga talking about how scared he was, and that Goku has become too powerful to even contain on the page. Dragon Ball Super latest villain reveal follows the same trend.
In Dragon Ball Super chapter 90 by Akira Toriyama and Toyotarou, Trunks, Goten, and Krillin have uncovered the truth behind a dark mystery that has plagued their city the last few weeks. In the chapters leading into this one, it is revealed that a horde of the undead were stealing pieces of technology from people in the city while also working at a convenience store/delivery service.
As it turned out, these aren’t the undead at all–they are Androids created from the corpses of random people by the mad scientist, Dr. Hedo (who, incidentally, is the grandson of Dr. Gero, the villain famous for creating 17, 18, and Cell). In this chapter, the three Z-Fighters have finally tracked Hedo to his laboratory, and on their way there, Gohan says something that at first seemed innocuous, but was actually incredibly insightful, as he called Dr. Hedo, “dedicated yet goofy all at once…”.
Of course, Gohan was absolutely right. Dr. Hedo’s plan was to create autonomous androids from the corpses of people whose graves he had robbed only to make them steal a few robots and then be put to work at a convenience store just to make some extra money to continue making androids. It’s absurd! But, that’s Dragon Ball–and Dr. Hedo is no ‘Carrotter’, either. Dr. Hedo proved in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero that he is capable of global calamity after bringing Cell Max to life with little effort or enthusiasm. Hedo could easily be a threat worthy of Goku or Vegeta’s time–but instead, he chose to build zombie androids and make them work retail.
Dr. Hedo is a villain who’s akin to those of classic Dragon Ball but with the potential to be a hard DBZ villain all at once–the perfect combination of dedication and goofiness–making him the all-around greatest villain in Dragon Ball mythos, proven true with one line of dialogue in the latest Dragon Ball Super manga.
