The 7 Best Villains in Buffy’s Angel Spinoff, Ranked by Power

After the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel left and starred in his own show with some powerful villains of his own. Angel got his start on Buffy as her love interest. He was a vampire with a soul who made it his mission to protect her. However, he became the main villain in the second season after losing his soul, before he decided in the next season that he should leave. Angel went to Los Angeles and started an agency where he swore to protect the people on the streets. This caused him to make some dangerous enemies.

From a law firm created to help the worst in society to a group of villains who want to start the apocalypse, here are Angel’s seven deadliest villains, ranked by power.

7) Lindsey McDonald

Lindsey McDonald (Christian Kane) wasn’t the most powerful Angel villain, but he was the most popular. He was a young, rising star attorney for Wolfram & Hart, and made himself an enemy by representing the demons and monsters that Angel swore to eliminate. When they first meet, Angel kills a vampire that Lindsey represents, and this causes the attorney to go after Angel personally.

However, things changed. In the second season, Lindsey turns against Wolfram & Hart and helps Angel defeat a demon before leaving Los Angeles. Lindsey returned in the last season, though, wanting to kill Angle before finally joining the side of good one last time to stop the apocalypse. However, Lindsey doesn’t rise any higher since Lorne betrayed Lindsey, shooting and killing him during the climactic battle, knowing Angel couldn’t trust the former lawyer.

6) Darla

Normally, Darla would top the list of the most powerful villains in the Buffyverse, but that wasn’t the case on Angel. Darla actually first appeared on the premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and she was one of the main villains, working with The Master. She was also Angel’s sire, which connected her to him in ways Buffy never could. However, Angel staked Darla to save Buffy on that show.

Wolfram & Hart resurrected Darla and used her to bring down Angel. However, she returned with a soul, which was unexpected, and then, in a shocking moment, she ended up pregnant with Angel’s baby. This is where things get dangerous, as Darla knows the baby can bring “true happiness,” which could doom her, so she stakes herself so the baby can live.

6) Daniel Holtz

Daniel Holtz was the big bad in Angel Season 3, but he was also one of the more sympathetic bad guys, at least at first. This is because he was an 18th-century vampire hunter who sought to kill Angelus and Darla. As a result, the two soulless vampires killed his family, making his vengeance warranted.

However, Wolfram & Hart resurrected him in the modern era and set him off to kill Angel once and for all, and he set his eyes on Angel Investigations. What he did, though, was unredeemable. He kidnapped Angel’s son, Connor, and took him to the hell dimension, where he raised him and made him hate his father, before returning and sending the boy to kill his dad. What makes Holtz so memorable is that he had Justine kill him and make it look like a vampire attack to send Connor over the edge.

4) Lilah Morgan

Lilah Morgan was one of the longest-running recurring characters on Angel, appearing in the first four seasons of the series. When she first appeared, she was a lawyer at Wolfram & Hart. However, she moved up the corporate ladder quickly and ended up as the primary face of the entire law firm. This made her a powerful adversary for Angel. Lilah also had a skill for getting into Angel’s head in various ways.

As one of the Senior Partners’ most trusted allies, she brought back Darla and Drusilla to torment Angel, and she ended up outlasting Lindsey on the Wolfram & Hart staff. She ended up having an affair with Wesley, slipping inside Angel’s defenses. She was a survivor as well, and it took another villain, Jasmine, to pose as Cordelia and kill her. Even that didn’t stop her as she continued to serve the Senior Partners in Hell.

3) Circle of the Black Thorn

One would think that an ancient secret society of demons would be the most powerful villains Angel could have faced. However, the Circle of the Black Thorn left a lot to be desired in the end. They were the main villains in the final season of Angel, and they were who wanted to set the apocalypse in motion, which is what ended up happening in the last episode. However, they had little to do with it.

This group included humans, demons, and vampires, and their entire goal was to control Earth. However, they were not in charge, and they worked for the Senior Partners of Wolfram & Hart. They were also easily tricked, as they believed Angel when he said he wanted to join them. Angel then started killing them one by one, while Illyria, Lindsey, Lorne, Gunn, and Wesley killed the rest. The apocalypse still started on Angel, but the Circle of the Black Thorn was all dead when it happened.

2) Jasmine

Jasmine was one of the most powerful and deadliest villains that Angel had to face on his solo series. She was one of the main villains in Season 4 and was a member of the Powers That Be, the first higher beings on Earth after the creation. She was supposed to be a force for good, helping humans, but she operated more like an authoritarian leader, and her methods hurt more people than they helped.

Jasmine first appeared when she manipulated and used Cordelia as a vessel to get to Earth. She also used Cordelia’s body to kill another major villain in Lilah. She finally got her new body when she had Cordelia sleep with Connor and deliver the baby, which was Jasmine. Cordelia ended up in a coma and eventually died, which was also Jasmine’s fault. In reality, Jasmine was responsible for everything that happened to Angel for seven years, showing her immense power before Connor finally killed her.

1) Wolfram & Hart

While Jasmine was the most powerful villain on Angel, Wolfram & Hart was the most powerful organization, and they caused everything that went badly in Angel’s life. Lindsey and Lilah both worked for Wolfram & Hart, and they are the reason Darla and Drusilla returned, and Daniel ended up resurrected. The Circle of the Black Thorn worked for them. Only Jasmine was unconnected with the Senior Partners (the three demons known as the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart).

Wolfram & Hart is a law firm that represents the most evil monsters imaginable, from mobsters and murderers to corrupt politicians and demons. They are also the group that plans to unleash the apocalypse, which they end up doing in Los Angeles in the final Angel episode. Angel never beat Wolfram & Hart, and they rule in other dimensions, such as Hell, making them an all-powerful villain.

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