30 greatest Arrowverse villains, ranked

10. The Thinker

Season 4 of The Flash delivered something that was long overdue: a big bad who wasn’t an evil speedster. Clifford DeVoe was not the fastest man alive, but he had the fastest MIND. DeVoe was a different kind of threat to Team Flash as he was able to plan for any eventuality and always seemed to be one step ahead of them.

His supreme intellect allowed him to completely discredit Barry Allen at work and even managed to get Barry sent to prison, although briefly. DeVoe’s body was deteriorating; while his mind was expanding, his body was failing. As such, he devised a plan involving 12 newly created metahumans to allow himself to continue existing and gain a multitude of powers in the process.

After discovering Dominic Lanse’s whereabouts, DeVoe was able to use his abilities to transfer his mind into the other “bus metas” bodies, thereby prolonging his life. As his plan moved on, he eventually took the body of Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man, and was able to return to his natural form.

Unfortunately, towards the end, it seemed as though DeVoe’s meticulously thought out plan became a lot simpler. He intended to reduce the intellect of everyone on Earth and rule over them in something called The Enlightenment. He believed that intelligence was one of the key factors behind wars and removing it would allow him to also remove the free will of the people. After a highly detailed plan, it all just seemed a bit too supervillain-y.