The Rick And Morty series has included quests, adventures, and shenanigans from all over the universe—multiple universes, in fact. Along the way, a colorful roster of enemies have tried to thwart the show’s infamous alcoholic supergenius and his sidekick grandson.
This has ranged from complete non-threats like Beth’s cannibalistic childhood friend Tommy to people capable of changing the world as Rick and Morty know it. Of all villains that Rick and Morty have faced—or will have to face eventually—a few of them stand out as truly worthy opponents.
Story Lord
The episode “Never Ricking Morty” is akin to the popular Christopher Nolan film Inception as both have relatively confusing plots. In the episode, a villain named Story Lord is in charge of running an inter dimensional train that’s meant to torture Rick and Morty through fictional anthologies.
Story Lord is revealed to be in incredible shape, which allows him to beat up Rick and Morty easily. What’s more, he also possesses some level of intelligence, as he creates the elaborate storylines on his inter dimensional train. However, he can’t really deal much damage to the show’s main Rick and Morty, as it is soon revealed that he, as well as the Rick and Morty he tortures, only exist in a toy train souvenir that Morty got from the Citadel.
The Zigerion Scammers
The Zigerions are the definition of “trying too hard and getting no payoff.” They create an overcomplicated layering of simulations to try and get the formula for concentrated dark matter from Rick, and, not only do they mishandle the acquisition and allow an unsuspecting Jerry to tag along and get a classic Rick and Morty B-story pitching “Hungry for Apples”, but they also end up blowing themselves up in the process.
They make the grave mistake of thinking only a step ahead when Rick is usually thinking three or four. That, and their crippling fear of seeing genitalia, really limit their potential as an actually threatening group.
Heistotron
Rick considers himself the smartest being alive, but he can still be stumped by other intelligent characters in the series, including a machine that he created himself. Built to help Rick uncover the plans of a heist artist named Miles Knightly, Heistotron goes rogue as it tries to create the perfect heist.
Because of Rick’s intelligence, the programming for Heistotron is so flawless that even he has a hard time trying to figure out how to out-heist his creation. If it wasn’t for its realization that there’s no such thing as a perfect heist, Rick would have spent forever trying to escape Heistotron’s elaborate schemes.
The Space Snake Army
After Morty meddles in the Space Snake timeline, they create time travel and come to Earth and fight over killing Morty. They put up a pretty good fight—so much so that Rick and Morty don’t stick around to combat them physically. Instead, Rick goes back in time and gives them the technology to time travel sooner so that they’ll self-sabotage in a Terminator-style parody and catch the attention of the timeline police.
After they go back and scare a cave-snake into not using tools, the threat is pretty much gone, except the extra work created for Rick and Morty, who have to learn snake math and sew snake costumes to complete the time loop.
Meeseeks
Meeseeks is a creature that can be summoned from a box if the user needs help with a mundane task. After completing a task, they will then happily disappear from existence. In season one, Rick gives the Smith family a Meeseeks box as they constantly ask his help for nonsensical tasks. However, the Meeseeks assigned to Jerry soon loses his sanity as he’s unable to help the Smith patriarch from becoming better at golf.
Jerry’s Meeseeks then summons more Meeseeks in hope of helping Jerry. However, they soon turn on Jerry as they realize that killing him also fulfills their purpose. While a Meeseeks might not have superhuman strength or any powers, they’re virtually immortal as they won’t die unless they serve their true purpose, making them a pretty formidable foe.
The Galactic Federation
The Galactic Federation had control over Earth for a brief period of time on the show, and, for that, they’re not entirely harmless—and, although he turned himself in willingly, they did have Rick held prisoner.
Similar to the Zigerions, their mistake was thinking that they could easily outsmart Rick and underestimating Morty and Summer’s ability to help Rick in his escape. They were a pain in Rick’s butt for a long time, but the fact that their entire government was taken down by Rick changing the value of their currency is a huge flaw in their establishment.
Planetina
Although Planetina never faced off against Rick specifically and only appeared in one episode, she has the power of the four elements and is pretty much immortal. In “A Rickconvenient Mort,” Rick and Morty dealt with the real issue of environmentalism, and Planetina did not handle her anger about fossil fuels well.
The result was total destruction of a mine and the murder of all of its miners. Additionally, she is not Morty’s biggest fan after their messy breakup, and she was holding onto a lot of anger toward him as she flew away. She hasn’t returned since their split, but, if she does, Rick and Morty will have a target on their backs for sure.
Reggie
There are a lot of powerful beings on Rick and Morty, but there’s only a few of them who have achieved god-like status. In the episode “Chrildrick of Mort”, Rick faces off against a being called Reggie, who bears a lot of characteristics similar to the Greek god Zeus.
Reggie has given Jerry a staff that’s powerful enough to conjure a plague. In addition, he was also skilled enough to overpower Rick in a space fist fight, considering he was gracious enough to reduce his size to make it a fair battle. If it wasn’t for Morty and Summer’s accidental flight into space, Rick would’ve been squashed in between Reggie’s god-sized fingers.
Mr. Nimbus
Fans were surprised when it was revealed that Rick’s nemesis is none other than Mr. Nimbus, a seemingly harmless ocean-themed villain. Although, he does appear to be more powerful than he seems on the surface. As his tagline would suggest, “he controls the police,” and that seems to be a pretty strong card to play. Rick believes that he’s better than everyone, so, for him to call someone his nemesis is a big deal. In Rick’s own words, he’s an “ice-cold d*** killer.”
He’s also able to call Rick out, attacking his insecurities, which is a big threat in Rick terms, and he saves Rick, Morty, and Jessica from the wine portal people when even Rick admits that they’re in trouble—then beats him to a pulp when he realizes Rick was trying to steal his magic horn.
The Council Of Ricks
Although the Council is currently under the control of Evil Morty and his regime, they’ve definitely been a thorn in Rick C-137’s side. Whether they’re accusing him of murdering other Ricks or trying to assassinate him, all they do is cause trouble for Rick and Morty.
They represent everything Rick hates: government, authority, and himself. Despite his superior intelligence, Rick tends to self-sabotage, and that includes other versions of himself sabotaging him. They all match the show’s Rick in intelligence, but, because C-137 is “the Rickest Rick,” they view him as an enemy and combine forces in a never ending effort to destroy him.
The President Of The United States
One of the most competent characters on the show, the President of the United States and Rick are a shockingly even match. For just a regular human, the President has power and technology that held its own against Rick’s gadgets and genius. Rick even had to orchestrate a fake apology using a decoy Fishing Rick to get the family on good terms with the U.S. government again.
When they fight again in season 5, the President predicts the details of Rick’s turkey pardoning plan, and, if the government hadn’t changed the wrong turkey into the President’s human form, he would have won. Instead, the two worked together, utilizing the President’s secret alien army to defeat the super-strong turkey forces.
Tammy And Phoenixperson
Rick has an unexpected soft spot for people he considers his friend, and an especially bleeding heart for the likable character Birdperson, his best friend. When Tammy infiltrates both Rick and Birdperson’s lives, Rick never suspects her of being a Federation spy. Then, she single-handedly kills and injures a lot of people Rick cares about during “The Wedding Squanchers.” The biggest crime she commits against Rick, however, is turning his best friend against him.
Tammy takes Birdperson’s almost lifeless body and transforms him into Phoenixperson. While she is trying to kill both Space Beth and Rick, she uses Pheonixperson as a powerful weaponized character that almost kills Rick. In the most recent episode, “Rickternal Friendship Of The Spotless Mort,” Rick has to dive deep into Phoenixperson’s psyche to bring him back, terrified that he’ll lose one of the few people that matter to him, and he almost dies in the process.
Evil Morty
Evil Morty out-Ricked Rick C-137, and he still doesn’t know it. Not only did he trick the show’s Rick into thinking that he was merely a victim of another Rick’s plan, but he then infiltrated the Citadel, made a name for himself as a wholesome Morty political candidate, got everyone to vote for him in the election, won, and then callously slaughtered dozens of Ricks and Morty’s to cement his place as a dictator.
Fans have no idea what Evil Morty’s grand plan is, but his cool demeanor and desire to have absolute power lead viewers to theorize about how Evil Morty might exact revenge. He’s only been featured in the vignette-style “Never Ricking Morty,” but, when he finally returns to face Rick C-137 and Morty, he’ll have a whole army of Ricks and Mortys behind him.
