When Palpatine took over as Emperor of the Galaxy, he became exceedingly rich. It is impossible to actually say just how wealthy the Sith known as Darth Sidious actually was, but most Star Wars fans agree that he probably possessed a limitless level of riches that few could fathom.
It is also believed that the creation of the Death Star would have taken an amazingly large amount of resources and manpower, and was probably constructed at the cost of entire worlds. There is no doubting that the evil mastermind is one of the richest fictional villains of all time, but does he top the pile?
Without being able to actually calculate Palpatine’s assets properly due to the fact that the character is infinitely rich, it is hard to compare him to the other richest fictional characters which have appeared on screen over the years. Some would assume that the Dark Lord is the wealthiest character ever written.
However, there are in fact a number of characters who could be worthy challengers for the crown. According to Lottoland, of the richest fictional characters ever created, Scrooge McDuck tops the pile. The Walt Disney character is worth around $44.1 billion thanks to a lot of shrewd investments. But the cartoon duck was hardly an evil genius, so perhaps his morality stopped him from reaching the levels of fortune Darth Sidious amassed.
It could be argued that the next richest character ever was quite evil. He literally sat on top of a large pile of riches. Smaug, the dragon from JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit, lived in a huge mountain cave and guarded a momentous amount of gold that he had stolen from the dwarves. The enormous beast didn’t do much with his fortune, though, instead choosing to sleep on it for over 200 years until the dwarves attempted to reclaim what was theirs.
Another well-known mogul is a Marvel Comics character – Magneto. Max Eisenhardt is usually the leader of the more evil factions of X-Men characters. The metal-controlling supervillain is often portrayed as the antagonist to Charles Xavier and his team. Magneto gained his wealth when he found a hidden stash of Nazi gold in Israel, and is now thought to be worth around $500 million. Magneto is not out-and-out evil, but he does have a vendetta against humans and believes that mutants are the superior race.
Superman’s main rival, Lex Luthor, is considered one of the richest comic book villains ever created. The DC Comics character is said to be worth a whopping $75 billion due to his multinational business, LexCorp. The corporation covers everything from airplanes to high-tech items. Luthor is like the super evil version of Donald Trump, and around 15 times richer than the US president.
There’s no denying that these villains have a serious amount of money between them, but deeming whether anyone is actually richer than Darth Sidious is pretty tough. It would be interesting to see all of them together in the same room, plotting who could devise the most hideous scheme with their riches.