Most Evil Regimes In Fiction

It's amazing to think that when Dr. Doom isn't tormenting the Fantastic Four with a variety of evil schemes, he's actually the ruler of his very own country. From a distance, the quaint nation of Latveria looks like any other European backwater, with charming villages and a cheerful populace. But spend a day on the ground and you'll learn that those humble farmers are forced into servility by Doom, made to always appear happy under threat of death.

George Orwell's classic 1984 is probably the scariest portrayal of a totalitarian state. The nation of Oceania is under the thumb of Big Brother, a mysterious dictator who knows all and sees all. The citizens are completely cowed by the government's brutal and dehumanizing methods, featuring torture, subliminal programming and constant surveillance. And, of course, society is stratified into ruling-class aristocrats and scrubbling proles as gears in the machine.

The planet of Apokolips is one of the galaxy's deepest hellholes, pitted with horrible gouts of lava and honeycombed with slums that are home to horrific creatures. The whole place is ruled with an iron fist by Darkseid, one of the most evil individuals in the galaxy. Apokolips exists solely to raise mindless battle-drones to be thrown into war against the forces of justice. Let's face it: if you're born here, you might as well just give up.

You can tell a lot about a country by the kind of entertainments they enjoy. Outworld, ruled by the malevolent Shao Kahn, is famous for... Mortal Kombat. The extradimensional realm is a truly horrendous place, populated by the dregs of races conquered by Outworld and brought over as slaves. It's also full of pits of acid, walls of spikes, and weird four-armed bodybuilders with horrible breath. And whenever two dudes get in a fight, Shao Kahn's always there demanding a fatality.