nefarious plans and heroic goals

First of all, the goals of either the heroes or the villains have to make perfect sense to them, either morally, ethically or economically.

Most of the time, the goal of the heroes is to stop the villains from reaching their goals.

For example, years ago I created a villain inspired by Lex Luthor who had invested heavily in "green" technologies, primarily solar power.

When he couldn't get any real investment money, he turned to being an information broker and during the course of that career came across data about a Russian nuclear platform that had been launched in secret in the late 1960s.

So, the villain--Dexter Deveroux--decided to take control of the platform, explode it over the oil refineries in Saudi Arabia and stop all the production of fossile fuel.

Then, he figured, the world would have no choice but to turn toward his solar technology.

He would profit monetarily and make the world a cleaner place...or so that was Dex's reasoning.

For my money, the best characters are ones who have ambitions and reams and goals that are external from the plot.

Bruce Banner is trying to find a cure for the Hulk, but the stories keep happening around him that force him to address different things.

Villains who seem to have a main goal of destroying the hero come off as two dimensional if they don't have alternate things going on.