6 Abandoned Sites That Would Make Great Supervillain Lairs

The mine has been abandoned since 1977, and since Hasard Cheratte is considered a protected heritage site, the very laws designed to keep it untouched make it ripe for hostile takeover. All that's keeping you from setting up evil shop is some barbed wire, a polite "keep away" sign, and an army of mustachioed, beret-wearing sentient gorillas.

On the other hand, land lairs are easier to manage, as supply runs on sea fortresses are a right proper bastard to organize and you've got to fly the mildew guy in, like, every week. If only there was some way to combine the two ...

Easy to defend and even easier on the eye, your aquatic death ray will find no better home than Nassau Coral World. Located on the small island of Silver Cay in the Bahamas, Coral World was a beach resort, aquarium, and observatory built in 1987. It was quite popular right up until it received a face full of Hurricane Floyd in 1999, rendering it unsafe for tourists. Its owners, not willing to risk the wrath of Mother Nature for a second time, decided to abandon it.

The rusting, weather-beaten hulk of the observatory tower now looms ominously over the coastline, surrounded on all sides by gorgeous coral reefs and, once you take charge, murderbots. Apart from the tower and its underwater observatory (which clearly is and forever should be the epicenter of your operations), the island features handy structures like a quaint villa hotel for your mer-themed henchmen and aquatic animal pools to hold your army of sharktopuses.

Luckily, there's one place that can complement your murderously wacky antics straight out of the box: Japan's Nara Dreamland.

Nara Dreamland began life in 1961 as a blatant Disneyland ripoff, but after being abandoned in 2006, it's been quietly dwindling into oblivion. Nature is reclaiming the park, turning it into a twisted version of its original inspiration. Its Sleeping Beauty-esque castle is bleak and tarnished. Its huge fountains are dry, revealing their spiky, rusting pipes. Its Main Street has become Elm Street.

The park is mostly intact, but it's just broken enough to give off some serious Scooby-Doo vibes. Like the haunted house:

Or the cute little horses in the carousel:

Or how about the shooting gallery?

The whole place is a psychotic playground full of potential deathtraps and ominous smiling figures lurking in the shadows. Some call it haunted. Some call it condemned. For the low, low price of your sanity and basic morality, you can call it ... home.

That's right -- you can do battle with your archnemesis inside the gigantic skull of Theodore goddamn Roosevelt. Sure, you'll probably be thrown to your death from Lincoln's forehead by a man with a flag on his chest and patriotism in his heart, but boy, when it happens -- you will look awesome falling.

The park closed in 2007 and sits even now, just waiting for a master twisted enough to take charge. So if you have hatred in your heart for Uncle Sam and want to decorate your villainous set pieces with irony, maybe it's time to pack the Axis D'Evil into the transatlantic U-Haul and stake your claim.

Don't have a Nazi-theme devil-robot to call your own yet? Worry not: The animatronic figures that still litter the park, like these gigantic teddy bears, would make excellent guard robots:

And what better way to deliver an insane monologue than through the mouth of animatronic Abe Lincoln?

Hell, part of us thinks the designers of this park knew it would one day be taken over by a madman. How else do you explain a cowboy having a tooth pulled by the looming specter of death?

Or the haunted house of melted ... naked bald ladies, drowning in fat?

You know what? This one might be too hardcore even for you, Reichstab. Maybe stick with that decrepit observatory on Mount Terror. At least you'll be able to get some sleep there.

Sooner or later, your villainous plots are going to involve space. It is basically inevitable -- was one planet ever going to be enough for you? No, it's Master of the Universe or bust. And that's why you need the Buran space launch station.

A remnant of the Soviet Union's most blatant attempt to copy NASA, the launch station is a massive abandoned space center in Kazakhstan, conveniently located near the still-operational Baikonur Cosmodrome (where all manned Russian space missions are launched) in case you want to ... expand your operation. The area comes complete with literal tons of space equipment, just waiting for you and your mad scientists to re-enact Moonraker with less wacky antics and more secret agents strapped to the bottom of live rocket boosters.

The station also offers plenty of ground-based opportunities for mayhem. Facilities large enough to house space shuttles are large enough to house anything. Can you say Godzilla cage?

The mess of rusting industrial sprawl looks perfect for converting into an intricate labyrinth filled with a series of elaborate deathtraps:

And then there's the Buran mover:

That warship-size vehicle was originally designed to move the shuttles around the facility on special tracks, but in your hands it can be the first piece of your very own Terror Drome. Slap a few flamethrowers on there, maybe a giant golden eagle clutching the world in its claws, and boom -- you've got a mobile domination platform that'll make all the fly honeys swoon. Be careful, though: The acidic vomit of the fly-honeys is no joke.

Yes, the Horseshoe Falls at Niagara totally has an abandoned lair lurking behind it. And it's not just some measly two-henchmen shack, either -- we're talking a 10-story hydroelectric power plant, complete with gigantic machinery and sprawling underground corridors. It has something for everyone, whether you're an evil baron, a mad scientist, or a simple screeching mutant looking for a place to lurk away from the judging stares of the normals.

This place says "villainy" right from the get-go. Here's its worn and crumbling facade, proudly standing by the falls on the Canadian side of the border:

Here's the factory that lies within its depths:

And here's the platform you'll use to throw your treacherous second in command into the raging waters below, then watch as he tumbles helplessly into the frothing abyss:

Impressed? Don't unpack your leather onesie and hydro-drill just yet, because we've only covered the literal tip. As cool as the main building is, it's actually just a tiny part of the facility -- the shaft is where all the real action happens (ladies ... and/or lady-bots).

Under the plant is a network of mammoth brick tunnels, perfect for a dramatic last-minute escape while cursing those do-gooders' names. The tunnel system was the biggest in the world when it was built in 1906, and we're betting it's still a pretty serious contender today. It was originally used to provide water for the plant's generators, but now the empty tunnels lie in wait for their rightful master. The complex has been abandoned for more than 30 years, visited only by the occasional spelunker who will provide your Mannigators with a steady supply of fresh meals.

Pauli is a contributor to the De-Textbook and will probably call off his army of chainsaw bears if you buy it. Follow him on Twitter.

Related Reading: Not yet settled on your lair? Click here. The Whitley Park Estate is ideal for any truly classed-up bad guy. If you prefer your creepy nightmare home closer to America, check out North Brother Island. To maximize your chance of being straight-up haunted, visit this buried World War One trench.