Could a villain with more influence over the franchise than Freeza been created?

[Captain Cadaver]

One of the main strengths of the Freeza Arc is how integral it is in the history of Goku and Vegeta, Freeza's actions having laid the groundwork for their initial paths in life and the series as a whole. Freeza's concern over the Super Saiyan would also lead to the franchise's most iconic transformation and be the gateway for all of the Saiyans' forms to follow it.

All that said, it can't be denied Freeza had more impact on the franchise than any other villain. The question is though, was this inevitable, or would there be a way in which a later villain could have made themselves even more integral to the franchise and, if so, how? Off the top of my head, only the Evil Dragons from GT (in concept with better execution) could have made themselves as or more influential upon the franchise due to the importance of the Dragon Balls, and even that idealised version of them would be questionable in surpassing Freeza's presence.

 

[Boo Brand Milk]

Frieza kind of hijacked the spirit of the series, for the better.

 

[Pocket-Gog~]

Maybe if the series regained it's creativity and imagination and stopped being a walking corpse of a franchise - it could potentially write a villain with more influence then Freeza.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

Yeah, for this scenario, it's essential to assume Toriyama is in his prime (or someone who isn't a bad fanfic writer being given the helm ), since obviously having even a decent villain in modern material is a pipedream.

 

[Papasmurf]

With AT and Tracetaro's track record I don't think it can be done without severe asspulling, so it's better to leave that thread untouched. Having an intelligent and self-consistent villain whose transformations are properly foreshadowed and don't require PIS from Galu or Vegina for him to reach is the best we can hope for in Super. In fact, that might even be a pipe dream knowing Tracetaro

I think my version of Yi Xing Long from [mention]Captain Cadaver[/mention]'s old GT rewrite thread hit most of the right notes in being an intelligent and persistent threat, without asspull transformations for the most part. With my version of Baby I focused more on giving the second-generation heroes a time to shine and didn't exactly flesh him out as a villain that blows Freeza out of the water, though if I were writing that rewrite as an entirely scripted series I'd probably make his rivalry with Trunks more prominent with him constantly calling him "King Vegeta's grandson" or something before finally addressing him as Trunks just prior to his death. Or something like that.

Lord knows there's no way to rewrite Super to a palatable standard of writing without doing a rewrite with practically none of the old elements being retained, though