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Ok so whats the worst thing your favorite hero has ever done?

I don't mean when they were brain washed, mind controlled, influenced by red kryptonite, parasites or anything of that nature. But whats the worst things done by some of the heroes in comics, completely of their own free will intent and choosing?

Things heroes have done that they honestly have no excuse or scapegoat for!

Technically, Soarin' Norrin did make a choice to become Big G's herald. It may've saved his civilization, but it condemned countless others to death. And he knew that, making his choice.

So much for the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few (a sentiment, BTW, which did not originate with Star Trek).

Originally posted by Mindship
Technically, Soarin' Norrin did make a choice to become Big G's herald. It may've saved his civilization, but it condemned countless others to death. And he knew that, making his choice.

So much for the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few (a sentiment, BTW, which did not originate with Star Trek). Didn't he originally intend on guiding Galactus to uninhabited worlds to spare civilizations while keeping him substained before Galactus and the power cosmic combined with years of separation from real contact with civilization drove him to indifference?

You've got the right idea though and I'm not saying your wrong jus wanted to mention that point as well

Thor doesn't do bad things.

Doom is a hero and he does bad thing sometimes

http://www.superdickery.com/

Originally posted by Entity
Ok so whats the worst thing your favorite hero has ever done?

I don't mean when they were brain washed, mind controlled, influenced by red kryptonite, parasites or anything of that nature. But whats the worst things done by some of the heroes in comics, completely of their own free will intent and choosing?

Things heroes have done that they honestly have no excuse or scapegoat for!
Adam Warlock- Listening to the damn Inbetweener. After that, making the subconcious decision to expel all good and evil from his being.

Cap(Steve)- Tough one, Cap doesn't give me much to work with. There was the time he flipped out because he got caught in a meth lab explosion that made him tweek out and beat the bejesus out of Black Widow and Diamondback.

Surfer- The one thing that really leaps to mind here is when Surfer encountered a being that absorbed anything organic that came into contact with it so Surfer took it off into space. The bad though, is that the absorbed beings retained their sentience and were so afraid and in such constant pain that they begged Surfer to just destroy them rather than leave them stranded alone on a barren planet... but Surfer wouldn't. He just left them there as they were stranded on that planet because he was going through one of his big "all life is precious and shouldn't be taken" episodes. If that had been the first Surfer comic I'd ever gotten there probably wouldn't have been a second. I mean what a dick move...

Batman threatening to destroy Apokolips in Superman/Batman. Either he was bluffing (and doing an amazing job of it to have fooled Darkseid) or he was seriously considering genocide as a negotiation tactic.

Originally posted by Entity
Didn't he originally intend on guiding Galactus to uninhabited worlds to spare civilizations while keeping him substained before Galactus and the power cosmic combined with years of separation from real contact with civilization drove him to indifference?I don't rightly remember. It doesn't strike a chord, being that Galactus distinctly requires planets with life-force. But I could be wrong.

Originally posted by Mindship
Technically, Soarin' Norrin did make a choice to become Big G's herald. It may've saved his civilization, but it condemned countless others to death. And he knew that, making his choice.

So much for the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few (a sentiment, BTW, which did not originate with Star Trek).
In Norrin's defense, he didn't realize that G was going to tamper with his mind/soul. He signed up for the job with the intention of only leading G to uninhabited worlds. That's why his soul remained so pure even after leading G to all those inhabited planets.

Pym made Ultron.

Originally posted by Bentley
Pym made Ultron.
Ooh... good one.

You know now that I think about it, I think the world should just go ahead and recognize Pym as a villain. The guy's been responsible for causing the Avengers more grief than Magneto(maybe even Loki) overall, they need to just toss his ass in a ward for the criminally insane and be done with it before gets everybody killed.


























And he's a wife beater...

Wanda destryed the Avengers (who cares about the mutants?)

Originally posted by Warlord
Wanda destryed the Avengers (who cares about the mutants?)

Man, you sound as if you lived in the MU

Originally posted by Bentley
Man, you sound as if you lived in the MU

ah yes.
I miss those days...

Tony Stark and his registration act.

Steve Rogers and his Civil War. During the VERY last battle Steve: "Oh NO! Fighting is wrong! We shouldn't do that!" And gives up. Couldn't think of that BEFORE you leveled several city blocks probably killing a few thousand people? Jerk...

Reed tampering Doctor Doom's machine to make him have an accident back in the university.

John Stewart in Cosmic Odyssey, getting so over-confident in his GL abilities that he pushes J'onn to the side and goes to capture part of the anti-life equation himself on Xanshi. The aspect is ready for him with a detonation machine painted yellow, and the planet (plus the whole system) is destroyed.




A caveat: If John was acting out of character that series, that's probably because Jim Starlin had originally wanted Guy Gardner as the GL involved. Such arrogant recklessness would have been more like him in the late 1980's.

Rorshack for killing a bunch of people

Punisher for killing a LOT of people

Ozymandias for killing an ass-load of people

Pym for creating Ultron and for beating the shit out of Janet

Stark to go all George W. Bush on his pals and for cloning Thor for the sole purpose to use it to beat the shit out of his friends.

Originally posted by Bouboumaster
Pym for creating Ultron and for beating the shit out of Janet

I really think people blow that way out of proportion. He was mind-controlled IIRC and he only slapped Janet once, he didn't beat her to a pulp or anything.

pym beat Jan up in ultimate universe. nearly killed her too.

Originally posted by SuperMan103
pym beat Jan up in ultimate universe. nearly killed her too.
The Ultimate Universe has a knack for taking minor character flaws or one-off events and spinning them into identifying character traits. E.G. 616 Tony Stark is a bit of a drinker who sometimes gets smashed when he hits a rough patch or three. In the Ultimate Universe he's a full-blown alcoholic.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
I really think people blow that way out of proportion. He was mind-controlled IIRC and he only slapped Janet once, he didn't beat her to a pulp or anything.

he wasn't mind controlled but it was only a slap

Originally posted by darthgoober
In Norrin's defense, he didn't realize that G was going to tamper with his mind/soul. He signed up for the job with the intention of only leading G to uninhabited worlds. That's why his soul remained so pure even after leading G to all those inhabited planets. I don't really blame him. I wonder what I would've done. In fact, choosing to become a herald seemed so logical in the origin story, I sometimes wonder if Jack Kirby had this at the back of his mind when he first created the Surfer, which was, supposedly, an afterthought in the Galactus story.

Originally posted by Mindship
I don't really blame him. I wonder what I would've done. In fact, choosing to become a herald seemed so logical in the origin story, I sometimes wonder if Jack Kirby had this at the back of his mind when he first created the Surfer, which was, supposedly, an afterthought.

It wasn't that much of a sacrifice, in a way. Norrid had become so bored with Zenn-La's stagnant society, he took this as an opportunity to fulfill a childhood dream.
Kirby didn't want to do an origin for the Surfer in the beginning; that was Stan's idea, that he had a life before Galactus.

Originally posted by SuperMan103
pym beat Jan up in ultimate universe. nearly killed her too.

That was hilarious. Pym used a bug spray on her when they got into a fight. After that, Captain America located him and kicked his ass. Ult Cap = The most bad-ass character in comics.

Originally posted by roughrider
It wasn't that much of a sacrifice, in a way. Norrid had become so bored with Zenn-La's stagnant society, he took this as an opportunity to fulfill a childhood dream. He did leave behind his main squeeze.

Spider-man's origin revolves around him letting his soon to be Uncle's murderer run away.

Pretty much everything batman does in All star Batman and Robin the boy wonder, but one good thing came out of it which was the 'I'm the Goddamn batman!' line

Originally posted by TheTyrant
Ult Cap = The most bad-ass character in comics.


Second only to Hawkeye (In Ultimate 1 and 2)

You could put a lot of the ultimate marvel characters on this list. Ultimate Wolverine let Cyclops nearly fall to his death because he wanted Jean for himself, Ultimate Xavier is always screwing with people mind, Ult Pym bit blobs head off, Ult Thing killed Doom and Ult Cyclops killed Magneto when he surrendered.

I do remember regular Nick Fury taking a select number of heroes and infiltrating Latveria and setting off a bomb killing people and then erasing their memories. Oh and the Illuminate sending the Hulk to space might apply.

I think it was a dick move that Black Panther had a magic dues ex machina plot device that allowed him to identify the Skrulls had infiltrated key organizations and governments all over the Earth and were planning a coup... and even though he could tell who was a skrull and who wasn't, he didn't bother to tell anyone what was going on... not even the X-Men... no one... not even the slightest hint

Wolverine shows up every year on the Anniversary of Markio's death and cuts off one of Matsuo's body parts... which is pretty twisted.

Originally posted by srankmissingnin


Wolverine shows up every year on the Anniversary of Markio's death and cuts off one of Matsuo's body parts... which is pretty twisted.

Originally posted by willRules
Spider-man's origin revolves around him letting his soon to be Uncle's murderer run away.
soon to be uncle? did his aunt may marry ben after he died?

Originally posted by TheTyrant
That was hilarious.
Near-fatal spousal abuse is hilarious?

http://i603.photobucket.com/albums/tt112/Spire84/th_cruel1.jpg http://i603.photobucket.com/albums/tt112/Spire84/th_cruel2.jpg

Originally posted by Omega Vision
I really think people blow that way out of proportion. He was mind-controlled IIRC and he only slapped Janet once, he didn't beat her to a pulp or anything.

He wasn't quite mind controlled, but was on a villain-induced mental breakdown.


The worst thing Janet ever did, probably, was find out Hank Pym had disassociative personality disorder (i.e. two personalities), not tell his friends, marry the other personality, and then when his personality disorder was cured she held his main personality- which she knew didn't know about it and had no choice in the matter- to the marriage.

That's messed up on multiple levels.


Not to mention Hank was interested in her in the first place because she looked just like his dead wife, who he had made up the wasp costume for before meeting Janet which he gave to her almost immediately after meeting her.


Then Hank started a thing with Jocasta who's his robot 'granddaughter' with the personality of the woman who had tricked/forced him into marrying her and whom he had run simulations on whether or not Janet would get back together with him...



Let's just say their relationship had many problems.

Originally posted by srankmissingnin
I think it was a dick move that Black Panther had a magic dues ex machina plot device that allowed him to identify the Skrulls had infiltrated key organizations and governments all over the Earth and were planning a coup... and even though he could tell who was a skrull and who wasn't, he didn't bother to tell anyone what was going on... not even the X-Men... no one... not even the slightest hint

Wolverine shows up every year on the Anniversary of Markio's death and cuts off one of Matsuo's body parts... which is pretty twisted.

BP is actually kind of THE selfrighteous jerk.

Originally posted by Q99
He wasn't quite mind controlled, but was on a villain-induced mental breakdown.


The worst thing Janet ever did, probably, was find out Hank Pym had disassociative personality disorder (i.e. two personalities), not tell his friends, marry the other personality, and then when his personality disorder was cured she held his main personality- which she knew didn't know about it and had no choice in the matter- to the marriage.

That's messed up on multiple levels.


Not to mention Hank was interested in her in the first place because she looked just like his dead wife, who he had made up the wasp costume for before meeting Janet which he gave to her almost immediately after meeting her.


Then Hank started a thing with Jocasta who's his robot 'granddaughter' with the personality of the woman who had tricked/forced him into marrying her and whom he had run simulations on whether or not Janet would get back together with him...



Let's just say their relationship had many problems.

And this is the guy Edgar Wright wants to make a movie about?

I don't get it, myself.

Originally posted by roughrider
And this is the guy Edgar Wright wants to make a movie about?

I don't get it, myself.

You have to admit, Hank and Janet have interesting lives.

Zatanna basically fractured the Justice League and was rewriting the minds of villains to be good... uh... that's not ok.

Solar destroyed an entire universe. Beat that.

Peter Parker, for making a deal with the devil for his aunt's life, who said that she was at peace.

And Batman, for not killing Joker, repeatably. How many innocents does Joker have to murder before Batman has the balls to stop it for good?

Originally posted by Tron

And Batman, for not killing Joker, repeatably. How many innocents does Joker have to murder before Batman has the balls to stop it for good?

One questions why the legal system doesn't do it. It's not like Batman doesn't turn him over to people who can kill him.

Originally posted by Tron
And Batman, for not killing Joker, repeatably. How many innocents does Joker have to murder before Batman has the balls to stop it for good?

-Tosses a sideways glance at PR and Omega Vision-



Due process, I imagine. Once Joker's in custody he needs to have a trial. Doesn't matter how ****ed up he is, he needs to have a lawyer. Lawyer's stall, court proceedings take forever, and Joker's usually only in prison for ex amount of weeks, sometimes months. Even if someone is convicted of murder and sentenced to death, there is a lot of time between the conviction and the execution to allow for appeals, and the like.

However, you'd think that a cop would just say "**** it" and shoot the guy by now. If some white cop in Oakland California of all places can get away with blowing an innocent dude's head off; no one's going to make too big of a deal if a cop decides to shoot a mass murderer like the joker, unless Gotham's even more liberal than the bay area.

Originally posted by RE: Blaxican
-Tosses a sideways glance at PR and Omega Vision-



Due process, I imagine. Once Joker's in custody he needs to have a trial. Doesn't matter how ****ed up he is, he needs to have a lawyer. Lawyer's stall, court proceedings take forever, and Joker's usually only in prison for ex amount of weeks, sometimes months. Even if someone is convicted of murder and sentenced to death, there is a lot of time between the conviction and the execution to allow for appeals, and the like.

However, you'd think that a cop would just say "**** it" and shoot the guy by now. If some white cop in Oakland California of all places can get away with blowing an innocent dude's head off; no one's going to make too big of a deal if a cop decides to shoot a mass murderer like the joker, unless Gotham's even more liberal than the bay area.


There is so much red tape and procedure to fallow even in a normal arrest, that I imagine Batman's involvement in apprehending the Joker probably makes it next to impossible to get any of the significant charges to stick... not to mention that Batman is usually the primary witness to Joker's crimes... and its not like he takes the stand to testify. Real cops probably hate him and defense attorneys probably love him.

Gotham seems pretty "old money" I would imagine it leans pretty far right.

Originally posted by srankmissingnin
There is so much red tape and procedure to fallow even in a normal arrest, that I imagine Batman's involvement in apprehending the Joker probably makes it next to impossible to get any of the significant charges to stick... not to mention that Batman is usually the primary witness to Joker's crimes... and its not like he takes the stand to testify. Real cops probably hate him and defense attorneys probably love him.

Gotham seems pretty "old money" I would imagine it leans pretty far right.


Gotham is even more corrupt then Tortuga in the pirating days. If you got some money, you can walk free.

Originally posted by Tron
Peter Parker, for making a deal with the devil for his aunt's life, who said that she was at peace.


Good one!

Originally posted by Tron
Peter Parker, for making a deal with the devil for his aunt's life, who said that she was at peace.

And Batman, for not killing Joker, repeatably. How many innocents does Joker have to murder before Batman has the balls to stop it for good?
The one time he was going to kill Joker James Gordon stopped him. There are a number of reasons why he doesn't do it, but I'd rather not turn this thread into a fifty page argument when there's ten of those already.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
The one time he was going to kill Joker James Gordon stopped him. There are a number of reasons why he doesn't do it, but I'd rather not turn this thread into a fifty page argument when there's ten of those already.

And there are at least a couple of hundred reasons why he should kill him, and most of them are buried in Gotham's cemetery. But you're right, we won't get into that debate here, there's already a thread in the Batman Forum for that.

http://www.killermovies.com/forums/f50/t515708.html

Originally posted by Tron
And there are at least a couple of hundred reasons why he should kill him, and most of them are buried in Gotham's cemetery. But you're right, we won't get into that debate here, there's already a thread in the Batman Forum for that.

http://www.killermovies.com/forums/f50/t515708.html
Couple thousand actually IIRC.

Originally posted by janus77
soon to be uncle? did his aunt may marry ben after he died?

Suddenly it's Aunt May who has become morally questionable

Originally posted by Bouboumaster
Ozymandias for killing an ass-load of people


The really twisted thing about this one? Not only did he get away with it, he thinks he's the hero for doing so

Originally posted by willRules
The really twisted thing about this one? Not only did he get away with it, he thinks he's the hero for doing so

It's left ambigous as to whether he gets away with it or not, and judging by what a crapsack world he lived in I'd say he made the right call in the long term.

Originally posted by Martian_mind
It's left ambigous as to whether he gets away with it or not, and judging by what a crapsack world he lived in I'd say he made the right call in the long term.

Well that's the beauty behind the ambiguous nature of the text. I personally saw him as an intelligent madman. For me he was more Lex Luthor, less Superman. More bad guy, than good.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Couple thousand actually IIRC.


And one good reason not to. If Joker was killed, he'd come back only demon-possessed or something, no way he's staying dead

Originally posted by Q99
And one good reason not to. If Joker was killed, he'd come back only demon-possessed or something, no way he's staying dead
Yeah killing someone in comic books is almost never a permanent solution.

Originally posted by willRules
The really twisted thing about this one? Not only did he get away with it, he thinks he's the hero for doing so

Well what really was the alternative? I mean anyone that makes that statement I ask, What would you have done different?

I mean there really was no alternative solution in my opinion. Unless you'd been Dr. Manhattan, they said not even he could've stopped it entirely but I really find that hard to believe. Besides as you saw reading the story he really just didn't care or even believe he could change things. I donno maybe he really couldn't. Seeing things from his perspective could really show things we can't even conceive and perhaps he's right. We really have no way to judge.

But more on point, as just a single mere man watching armageddon unfold right before the worlds eyes. What else can you do besides sit back and watch the world end or deal with it and make the hard choice, no one wants to be responsible for, for the greater good and save the world in the process?

Originally posted by willRules
Well that's the beauty behind the ambiguous nature of the text. I personally saw him as an intelligent madman. For me he was more Lex Luthor, less Superman. More bad guy, than good.

Thats something about Lex Luthor, normally he's portrayed as just a rich arrogant self centered bastard but I've always loved best the few stories when he's portrayed as more of a gray area misguided anti hero. When its shown he actually believes he can and wants to help humanity grow. Believing Superman doesn't deserve his power, isn't willing to do what he really can, whats necessary and is holding humanity back by making us dependent on him. If written right it's a point of view that can really be more understood and allow Lex to be seen as more than a pure mustache twirling evil selfish dickhead.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Yeah killing someone in comic books is almost never a permanent solution. I donno. With the exception of Jigsaw most of Frank Castle's solutions are permanent!

Originally posted by Entity
I donno. With the exception of Jigsaw most of Frank Castle's solutions are permanent!
There was one instance where in an Elseworld's Tale someone (I don't recall if it were Batman or perhaps one of the Robins) kills Joker. Joker came back from the dead empowered by Hell itself. Hell isn't any more a permanent solution than Arkham apparently.

Originally posted by Entity
Well what really was the alternative? I mean anyone that makes that statement I ask, What would you have done different?

I mean there really was no alternative solution in my opinion. Unless you'd been Dr. Manhattan, they said not even he could've stopped it entirely but I really find that hard to believe. Besides as you saw reading the story he really just didn't care or even believe he could change things. I donno maybe he really couldn't. Seeing things from his perspective could really show things we can't even conceive and perhaps he's right. We really have no way to judge.

But more on point, as just a single mere man watching armageddon unfold right before the worlds eyes. What else can you do besides sit back and watch the world end or deal with it and make the hard choice, no one wants to be responsible for, for the greater good and save the world in the process?

I don't want to derail this thread so I'll just say this. Firstly, I don't have to offer an alternative to say that I think an action committed was wrong. Ozymandias made the difficult choice and he clearly felt, aside from Dr Manhattan (bear in mind, who didn't do this) qualified to make the choice to destroy NY. Now everyone will agree that he was stuck between a rock and a hard place and we might agree that he was qualified enough to make the call. What is ambiguous is whether it is morally justifiable. You can on one hand laud him as a hero, but in retrospect it's unusual for hero and mass murderer to go hand in hand. He ultimately falls into the morally grey question of "Does the end justify the means?" Or worse still the terrifying possibility: was he in a situation where there was no right answer, just two awful outcomes?

The biggest issue is that he HAD to believe he was doing he right thing, HAD to believe he was qualified enough to do this. Note by the end of the novel, he receives no reassurances from Dr Manhattan, further heightening the moral ambiguity of his actions. The very fact that he did it without consulting anyone, even with some attempting to outright stop him suggests a strong degree of controversy behind his actions. Assuming Dr Manhattan was truly God-like and had committed the act himself or clearly condoned it, then Ozymandias, by the very nature of morality would be justified. But this doesn't happen, hence the ambiguity.



Originally posted by Entity
Thats something about Lex Luthor, normally he's portrayed as just a rich arrogant self centered bastard but I've always loved best the few stories when he's portrayed as more of a gray area misguided anti hero. When its shown he actually believes he can and wants to help humanity grow. Believing Superman doesn't deserve his power, isn't willing to do what he really can, whats necessary and is holding humanity back by making us dependent on him. If written right it's a point of view that can really be more understood and allow Lex to be seen as more than a pure mustache twirling evil selfish dickhead.

I think you're absolutely right. It's that layer of complexity that aligned him in my mind with Ozymandias. A real life villain doesn't commit a crime and explain their actions as "COS I'M EVIL!!!!" (Although that's exactly what Wally West does when possessing Luthor in JLU animated series). The terrible reality of life is that even those who are doing wrong don't think that they are the villain. Everyone thinks they are the hero of their story and Luthor shouldn't be written as an exception to this rule.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Yeah killing someone in comic books is almost never a permanent solution.

"Your 'no-nonsense' solutions just don't hold water in this modern world of time travel and jet-powered apes."

Personally Batman feels he has a good reason for not killing the Joker and thats it really. I won't even attempt to provide a rational explanation though. I'll just repeat it over and over again.

Originally posted by Q99
He wasn't quite mind controlled, but was on a villain-induced mental breakdown.


The worst thing Janet ever did, probably, was find out Hank Pym had disassociative personality disorder (i.e. two personalities), not tell his friends, marry the other personality, and then when his personality disorder was cured she held his main personality- which she knew didn't know about it and had no choice in the matter- to the marriage.

That's messed up on multiple levels.


Not to mention Hank was interested in her in the first place because she looked just like his dead wife, who he had made up the wasp costume for before meeting Janet which he gave to her almost immediately after meeting her.


Then Hank started a thing with Jocasta who's his robot 'granddaughter' with the personality of the woman who had tricked/forced him into marrying her and whom he had run simulations on whether or not Janet would get back together with him...


Let's just say their relationship had many problems.

Plus there is Ultron, Pym's 'son', who wants to kill his 'father' and has a thing about Jan, his 'mother' and transfers Jan's essence into Jocasta so he can marry her.

It's really no wonder Pym is so messed up.

^ ****ing hellll. God damn thats some ****ed up shit. When you read stuff like this as a kid it all seems so innocent.

facepalm @ anyone calling Pym a wife beater. The Ultron thing does stick out though.

Cyclops with X-Force and the Skrulls.

Black Panther keeping the cure to cancer to himself.

Hal and his whole Parallax thing...

Originally posted by -Pr-


Black Panther keeping the cure to cancer to himself.


And boasting about it. He's really not too far from being Doctor Doom. Jack Kirby would be appalled.

Originally posted by -Pr-

Black Panther keeping the cure to cancer to himself.



When did this happen?

Originally posted by RE: Blaxican
When did this happen?

a year or two back, when Hudlin was writing the Panther books.

Originally posted by basilisk
Plus there is Ultron, Pym's 'son', who wants to kill his 'father' and has a thing about Jan, his 'mother' and transfers Jan's essence into Jocasta so he can marry her.

It's really no wonder Pym is so messed up.

Also Ultron, based on Pym's mind, once possessed Tony Stark, and turned his body into a copy of Janet's.


It's lucky the grand children (Vision, Victor Mancha) have managed to mostly steer clear of this kind of thing. Probably because their brains aren't based on Hank or Janet.

No one else agrees with Solar?

Originally posted by willRules


I think you're absolutely right. It's that layer of complexity that aligned him in my mind with Ozymandias. A real life villain doesn't commit a crime and explain their actions as "COS I'M EVIL!!!!" (Although that's exactly what Wally West does when possessing Luthor in JLU animated series). The terrible reality of life is that even those who are doing wrong don't think that they are the villain. Everyone thinks they are the hero of their story and Luthor shouldn't be written as an exception to this rule.

I think comics & other media have gotten further along with this. No one is calling themselves the Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants or the Secret Society Of Super Villains anymore. Bad guys tend to think of themselves as independent operators, unwilling to be constrained by society's rules. Lex sits in that strata of grey when written at his best. They are certainly worse people in the world. Only when you get to the godly layer of existence, do beings like Mephisto & Darkseid declare evil to be good because it works.

Originally posted by roughrider
I think comics & other media have gotten further along with this. No one is calling themselves the Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants or the Secret Society Of Super Villains anymore. Bad guys tend to think of themselves as independent operators, unwilling to be constrained by society's rules. Lex sits in that strata of grey when written at his best. They are certainly worse people in the world. Only when you get to the godly layer of existence, do beings like Mephisto & Darkseid declare evil to be good because it works.


I agree with you except I'd say that even Lex is like Darkseid in the sense that he (through his actions) declares evil to be good. He is after all, a villain. Darkseid is essentially a glorified version of this immoral attitude.

Other than that, I think you're spot on. Simply put; Lex thinks he is good, but is not.

Originally posted by roughrider
I think comics & other media have gotten further along with this. No one is calling themselves the Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants or the Secret Society Of Super Villains anymore. Bad guys tend to think of themselves as independent operators, unwilling to be constrained by society's rules. Lex sits in that strata of grey when written at his best. They are certainly worse people in the world. Only when you get to the godly layer of existence, do beings like Mephisto & Darkseid declare evil to be good because it works.
Darkseid doesn't really tend to think that 'evil=good'. His conversation with Anarky pretty much cements the notion that he's an unrepentant, unapologetic force of pure evil, only going through the usual "good and evil are relative" spiel to piss off Anarky.

Though it varies with the writer, sometimes he genuinely seems to believe that reality is chaos and only by imposing his will on it can there be true order.