heroes

Libra

The lead-in to "Villains" showed Sylar regaining his lost powers, shown as the final scene of the "Generations" finale. Tim Kring has said that the new volume will bring a cadre of villains to the show, hence the title. On December 5, 2007, at the Jules Verne Film Festival Adventure, Tim Kring showed a video-preview of volume three. According to an interview with Allan Arkush, filming for season three began on May 1, 2008. On May 9, 2008, a season three promo clip was released with hints at possible "inner villains" within the heroes. The promo stated, "In every hero there could be a villain," before plastering the words "hero" and "villain" over the face of every major character. Finally, during the featured Heroes panel at the San Diego Comic-Con, the entire first hour of the first episode of the "Villains" arc was shown.

In July NBC began airing a teaser for season three featuring Noah Bennet talking to Claire stating, "Since before you were even born, I was finding these people and locking them away so that they couldn't hurt anybody. Now a dozen of them have escaped, and they will kill...and they will terrorize...and they will conspire...and they will cause...unimaginable destruction to the world...they're villains, Claire," while a montage of clips play. Zachary Quinto, who plays Sylar, has stated that the Villains story arc will last for thirteen episodes.

At the San Diego Comic-Con 2008 Kring screened the first part of the season opening episode of the "Villains" arc, entitled "The Second Coming", which was shown in its entirety at Comic-Con and received a positive response from fans.

The name of Volume Four was revealed by Heroes creator Tim Kring at the 2008 Edinburgh TV Festival. "Fugitives" will make up the last 12 episodes of Season 3.