Hades

"Ba-boom. Name is Hades, Lord of the Dead. Hi, how ya doing?"

- Hades' famous catchphrase.

Hades is the main antagonist of Disney's Hercules franchise, serving as the main antagonist of Disney's 35th full-length animated feature film Hercules and Hercules: The Animated Series, one of the secondary antagonists in Mickey's House of Villains, and a recurring antagonist in the Kingdom Hearts franchise.

He is the ruler of the Underworld, Pain and Panic's leader and boss, Hercules' uncle and arch-nemesis, and Zeus' younger (older in original Greek mythology) brother.

In all of his appearances, he was voiced by, who also played Falcon in Stuart Little 2, himself in Family Guy, Lex Luthor in Justice League Action, Owlman in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, Dr. Phillium Benedict in Recess: School's Out!, Gloomius Maximus in Rolie Polie Olie, Captain Ahab in The Adventures of Moby Dick, Ned Trent in The Specialist, George Sheffield in Scarface: The World is Yours, Martin Walker in White House Down, Lester Diamond in Casino, Byron De La Beckwith in Ghosts of Mississippi, and Maximilian "Max" Bercovicz in Once Upon a Time in America. His singing voice was provided by in the song "It's Our House Now!" in Mickey's House of Villains. In the musical, he was portrayed by, who also provided the singing voice of Hercules in the 1997 original film.

Personality
Hades is normally cynical, sarcastic, manipulative and ruthless, but he has a serious anger management problem. As an Olympian God, he is immortal and specifically has authority over the dead.

Though temperamental and destructive, he is a persuasive fast-talker and a shrewd bargainer acting along the lines of a seedy car salesman or con-artist. At some point prior to the film, he took ownership of Megara's soul as the result of one of these bargains. Hades is shown to be completely aggressive, resentful, and jealous of Zeus' position as King of the Gods and makes long-term plans to overthrow and kill him.

Also, unlike most villains, Hades really does not like arrogance, but he does have constant mood swings, being entertaining, comedic and laid-back one minute, cloaking his dark aspirations in sarcasm and misdirection, and then argumentative, short-tempered, impatient and angry the next as even the slightest inconvenience sends him into a fiery rage despite his humorous attempts to remain calm.

Despite his villainous and egotistical nature, Hades can also be quite honest and appreciative, even willing to honor his deals to those who served him well. This was confirmed when he happily frees Megara from her servitude after draining Hercules of his super strength, saying that a deal is a deal. Also, when Megara was harmed and killed by the pillar that she protected Hercules from, Hercules' strength was restored, even though it would mean the downfall of Hades' diabolical plan. As well, Hades can also be somewhat friendly and demonstrative at times (hence when he politely introduced himself and greeted Hercules and others).

In House of Mouse, Hades is more polite and thoughtful, but only towards Maleficent (whom he has a crush on). In the Kingdom Hearts videogame series, Hades is the only Disney Villain who is not corrupted by Heartless. He rejects Maleficent at a certain point. He views taking over the multi-verse as not worth his time, when just taking over his world would suit him, at-least once Maleficent's plans to do so have already failed him twice. This edition of Hades, to the collective Disney canon, illustrates that Hades is both pragmatic and strong willed, neither trait out of character for his original movie/cartoon series iteration. In the games it is still demonstrated his anger has a breaking point even if his will does not and enough interference in his schemes will eventually cause Hades to go berserk with rage.

Appearance
Hades is a slender, muscular humanoid. He has bluish-gray skin, flaming blue hair, yellow eyes, and sharp teeth. He is also very tall. Hades' fire hair also affects his emotions: when he is angry, his skin turns red and his hair turns orange. In Hercules: The Animated Series, when Hades is confused or embarrassed, his hair goes out, revealing his baldness. Hades wears a black, gray, and blue robe with skull garments.

Powers and Abilities

 * Pyrokinesis: Hades controls fire and can shoot it in any direction, which destroys any object in its path.
 * Magma Manipulation: As the god of death, Hades can not only manipulate fire but also lava and magma.
 * Conjuring: He has the ability to create objects out of black mist
 * Teleportation: He can teleport himself from one point to another in black smoke.
 * Reality Warping: He has the ability to warp reality by using his deals (like when he took Hercules' strength or when he healed Megara's former lover).
 * Resurrection: As an immortal god, Hades can manipulate life and death and bring someone back from the dead, like he did with Jafar.
 * Sickness Inducement: As the god of death, Hades can manipulate sicknesses and other deadly diseases that can make someone die.
 * Terrakinesis: Hades has shown to have the power to manipulate the terrain when he was chasing after Prometheus and Hercules.
 * Telekinesis: Hades can move any object with his mind, like when he threw an altar on Hercules.
 * Underworld's Creatures control: He has the ability to control monsters like Cerberus, a three-headed dog, guards his palace. He can also create monsters.
 * Immortality: He is unaffected by age and he cannot die (unless he were to drink the magic potion that made Hercules mortal).
 * God-like strength and durability: As a god has shown huge levels of superhuman strength, endurance, durability, stamina, enhanced senses, and superhuman healing factor. However, his strength is noticeably inferior to Zeus' and equal to Poseidon's.
 * Dark Magic Manipulation: Hades is highly skilled in dark magic, including necromancy.

Former Powers and Abilities

 * Lightning Manipulation: In the episode "Hercules and the Tapestry of Fate", Hades briefly altered fate to create an alternate universe, were he was King of the Gods and his brother Zeus was the God of Death. In this altered world, Hades also copied and stole his brother's lightning powers. However, after Hercules fixed the tapestry and restored the real universe, Hades then lost his position and lightning powers and was reverted to being the God of Death.

Allies

 * Jafar - Resurrectee and Friend
 * The Fates - Assistants
 * Pain and Panic - Minions and Enforcers
 * Titans - Uncles and Aunts, former enemies turned allies

Enemies

 * Kronos - Father and Attempted Killer
 * Olympian Gods - Family turned Enemies
 * Zeus - Brother turned enemy
 * Poseidon - Brother turned enemy
 * Hera - Sister turned enemy
 * Megara - Former Minion turned Enemy
 * Phil - Enemy
 * Hercules - Nephew turned Enemy and Attempted Victim
 * Aladdin - Attempted Victim
 * Abu - Kidnapped
 * Icarus - Kidnapped and Attempted Minion
 * Magic Carpet
 * Pegasus
 * Cassandra - Former Minion

Trivia

 * Hades is ranked #8 in the Top 30 Disney Villains.
 * Hades has a surprisingly large fanbase. Various fans have sympathy for Hades, claiming that he truly could be a good person if he was never humiliated.
 * Another reason why Hades has a large fanbase could possibly be the fact that he is a very comedic villain. Originally, he was supposed to be less comedic and more serious. However, when James Woods auditioned for the role, Hades became the comedic villain that he is today.
 * Hades is the only Disney Villain who is loved by various fans as their personal favorite hilarious animated villain for various furious failures and funny humiliation.
 * Hades is considered the most loved and favorite villain by fans in all the world.
 * Hades' voice actor, James Woods has stated that Hades is his favorite voice role and he reprises the role at any opportunity and has successfully done so with only one exception where his singing voice was provided by Rob Paulsen.
 * Also, James Woods ate a watermelon while recording to make the slurping sounds more authentic in the scene where he is eating worms.
 * His defeat (thrown into the River Styx) is potentially a reference to the Devil being thrown into the Lake of Fire in The Revelation of Saint John. However, the difference is while Hades was merely trapped in the River; Satan is completely and utterly destroyed from his fall into the Lake of Fire.
 * It was unknown how Hades became evil in the first place, but it can be assumed that it was out of jealousy that Zeus got to rule Olympus while he got stuck ruling the Underworld.
 * In classical mythology, Hades was actually a relatively passive and acquiescent god; he was simply feared, because of his position among the Olympians (i.e. he ruled over the Underworld).
 * Due to his immortality, Hades and Governor Ratcliffe are the only two Disney Renaissance villains who do not die at the end of his film, meaning that he would be able to find a way out of his fate. Although Jafar did not die at the end of the Aladdin, he actually dies at the end of the 1994 sequel The Return of Jafar.
 * He was originally supposed to be voiced by, who also portrayed Frank Costello in Martin Scorsese's The Departed, Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, The Joker in Tim Burton's Batman, Jimmy Hoffa in Danny DeVito's Hoffa, Colonel Nathan R. Jessup in Rob Reiner's A Few Good Men, and Daryl Van Horne in the 1987 film The Witches of Eastwick by George Miller. However, Nicholson turned down the role because he felt that his payment was bad. Curiously, James Woods was considered to portray the Joker before Nicholson obtained the role.
 * , the late, , , , the late , and were all considered for the role of Hades.
 * Before the release of Descendants 3, it was theorized that he was Mal's absent father since the film's trailer. This is later confirmed in the film when it was released.
 * Hades' supervising animator was.
 * Although Hades is the main antagonist of the film, he has only around 17 minutes of screen-time.

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