I stumbled across this blog post that asks how well Voldemort of the Harry Potter books stacks up against the Evil Overlord List. Some highlights:
4. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
Lord Voldemort has, since the end of "Goblet of Fire" insisted that only HE may kill Harry Potter, and that he needs to be captured alive. This is, of course, an idiotic and self destructive notion which I'll come back to later. I comment on it here, because Voldemort has made it clear that killing Harry Potter is a treat reserved for Voldemort himself, thus making Harry Potter too good for death at the hand of a mere underling.
6. I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.
Voldemort not only gloated over Harry at the end of "Goblet of Fire" he waited until his followers had been gathered to kill him as part of a spectacle. The SMART thing to do would have been to Kill the unarmed and still bound Harry the moment he had a new body, and showed off the corpse to his Death Eaters when they showed up.
I might try and do this for other famous villains in the future.
