10 Best Times Superheroes Became Villains

[Music] : bug characters tend to fall into either one of three brackets as do-gooders evil villains often link some role and a morally ambiguous in-between there tends to be a lot of overlap and when there is it's often seriously entertaining villains becoming heroes and heroes becoming anti villains that sort of thing but possibly the most interesting turn is when a hero becomes a villain it's a rare sight to behold a Marvel and DC's respective main continuities which has led to the trend of Elseworlds and various what-if stories broached in the concept of what would happen if the most kind-hearted protagonists suddenly switched moral allegiances factor in the frankly absurd power levels of some of these figures and it's probably even fair to say the end up being twice as terrifying as the characters who take up evil as a full-time job I'm Yoon from what culture and here the 10 best time superheroes became villains number 10 apocalypse is horsemen various enca burner has been going strong for hundreds of years and during that time has constantly practiced a survival of the fittest mantra whereby those to eat to survive his rule are deemed expendable plenty of excellent have been turned to apocalypses cabal in the past including Wolverine on the select few occasions however while Logan's term was certainly significant it wasn't the most famous Dan honor belongs to Archangel after losing his wings in the mutant massacre Warren Worthington was given a second chance by apocalypse to get his powers back so long as he became his servant Warren then takes on x-factor with his new metal wings providing X fans not only with an iconic betrayal but a suitably iconic makeover - number 9 Superman's regime injustice gods among us DC have a long and storied tradition of Elseworlds comics while the best to emerge in recent memory didn't come from the comics medium at all developed by NetherRealm Studios in 2013 injustice gods among us gave DC fans a glimpse of what a world where Superman became a tyrant would actually look like the results were fairly horrifying as the Man of Steel ruthlessly stamped out all forms of resistance were Everett emerged to the point of even murdering Billy Batson in one of the most brutal sequences in DC history ever comitted the screens the injustice verse is brutally unforgiving and illustrative of just how straight-up scary it is to contemplate how certain heroes concerning evil given the necessary push in this case it's because the Joker destroys the entirety of Metropolis and tricks Supes into murdering a pregnant Lois Lane which prompts him to start his own fascist dictatorship alongside the most fickle figures amongst the JLA Batman then heads up a resistance of its own and the results are pretty spellbinding whether you're playing the game or reading the Tom Taylor comic number 8 Jean Grey the Dark Phoenix saga Jean Grey it's one of the noblest x-men in Marvel history which is why her turn as Dark Phoenix of such excites behold when it first happens although fudged in no less than two separate live-action adaptations the Dark Phoenix saga is one of the most lauded story arcs to come from Chris Claremont and John Burns for an uncanny x-men and given how it has been fudged so regularly it sounds to reason they're not everyone is aware of what actually goes down in the story itself here's a brief synopsis during a mission in space the cosmic entity known as the Phoenix finds its way to Jean Grey aware that Phoenix is now on earth the villainous and conspiratorial Hellfire Club mentally manipulate Jean to join their side and they prove successful Jean becomes their new black queen but when she realizes she's being mentally controlled the Phoenix lashes out and takes Jean into space where she then decimates a life-sustaining star to satiate her appetite countless billions inhabiting a nearby planet perish as a result and this brings Jean for the attention of the Shiar Empire a gray eventually sacrifices herself to spare the x-men but even when she returns the threat of the Dark Phoenix lingers making this particular turn one of Marvel's most successful number 7 the maker ultimate Fantastic Four the Ultimate Universe was something of a flash in the pan moments for Marvel Comics it came around at the turn of the century to galvanize the publisher with modernized takes on classic characters with spider-man and the Avengers benefiting the most however things started to fall apart slightly as the years dragged on exemplified in fought by the sheer Bulls the wars craziness of events like Ultimates 3 and ultimatum for a while Spiderman was the only thing keeping the mythos going and it became clear Marvel were making moves to pull the plug on the imprint completely ahead of 2015 Secret Wars which went on to bring mass Perales to mainstream Marvel continuity central to this whole storyline was a foe known as the maker the ultimate universe's version of mr. fantastic who kinda sorta went off the deep end so cause this version to go evil well basically when you live through an event as messed up and traumatic as ultimatum it's kind of forgivable that you go a bit nasty which is what happens to read he starts collaborating with evil aliens and he ultimately develops into a sinister figure one intent on destroying his own reality and finding a new one to call home maker proved successful in his endeavor surviving Secret Wars and making it across the six on six continuity where he's continued to be a pest ever since number six the justice Lords Justice League before injustice came along with its more brutal take on an evil Justice League the DC Animated universe did the same on its long-running and critically acclaimed Justice League cartoon appearing in the episode a better world the story followed an alternate reality but Lex Luthor became President of the United States he publicly execute the flash which leads Superman to murder Lex in the Oval Office thus heralding the start of a new brutal league the rest of the team willingly abide and as fashionable as they may look they're still bad to the bone it takes the main DCAU Justice Li to take them down but the interesting distinction between the Lord's and Superman's regime is that all the league from Li United fronts there isn't any division they're so blinded by Dogma that they all decide to enact a new more authoritarian approach to crime fighting they did have great costumes though I mean look at that Batman woosh number 5 Shazam kingdom come Kingdom Come is one of the great DC works of the modern era and a fantastic rebuttal of Lee grimdark resurgence that gripped the big 2 during the 90s how better to approach that topic than to turn DC's Golden Boy Billy Batson into one a said dark figures Mark Waid and Alex Ross's client positions the Justice League of yesteryear up against a violent new group of vigilantes led by Meghan it includes a whole host of shocking revelations including that Batman likes his fake well done yeah but the most shocking of all revolves around Lex Luthor's efforts to use the Institute in conflict to seize power and influence Batman discovers that Billy Batson has been mind-controlled by Luthor and after relaying that information to Superman a fight breaks out between them the og Captain Marvel is the only one who could match the Man of Steel and the conflict is rendered in operatic fashion by Ross what makes this turns so good however is how the hero is bringing back the Man of Steel marshes to convince Billy to save the world which then leads to him sacrificing himself in the process it's an incredibly poignant moment but one emblematic of how once optimistic characters had been tinged by cynical darkness as a medium transitioned out of the Bronze Age of comics number four Bucky the Winter Soldier 2005 was sort of a year of odd coincidences for Marvel and DC as both publishers are letter to resurrect long-lost sidekicks as violent gun-toting figures to come back and haunt their former partners for DC this was Jason Todd who was resurrected as the Red Hood in the wake of Infinite Crisis as for Marvel who arguably had the more successful resurrection of the to that figure ended up being Bucky Barnes Captain America's long-lost sidekick Thor m.i.a s World War two neared his climax Ed Brubaker and Steve AB dings Ronan Captain America proved to be highly influential as it progressed but by far its most important art revolved around Bucky's return together the creative Jo fashioned a new legacy for the character that revealed how Bucky had been recovered by the Soviet Union brainwashed and turned into an assassin it thusly falls to Steve Rogers to bring him back with bookies turn being the catalyst that inspired the definitive image of the pair's enduring friendship Bob bookie would eventually turn good again his place as a brainwashed assassin has gone on to inspire dozens of fascinating stories set both in the past and present Marvel continuity number three Tara the Judas contract readers actually discovered Tara to ception in the Judas contract relatively early into the arc in question but that hasn't stopped it from becoming one of if not the most iconic superhero betrayal their strokes plot to take down the Teen Titans its ruthless and creepy in equal respect and it's even fair to see that terrors ourself a victim of the terminators machinations she's pretty much manipulated by him to take down the Justice League's teenage counterpart and pays for it with her life as the story concludes the tragedy behind terrorist Turner's actually carries it out so ruthlessly and that creators Marv Wolfman and George Perez explore the emotional fallout surrounding her betrayal by focusing on each member it lingers on Beast Boy for a while as Tara had merely gotten close to him to further undermine a team and you can tell it really stinks in the end Tara is killed as the Titans confront Deathstroke at the hive headquarters only once the dust actually settles they honor her as a full member for the general public she was still a Teen Titan proving that even though she sold the team out they were mature enough to earn a Stan she was as much a victim as they were number two Ozymandias watchman first things first no one's really right in Watchmen Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons is superhero Santa has no heroes or villains only tragic figures while the biggest misconceptions surrounding Watchmen is that Rorschach is the tales uncompromising hero in reality he was Moore's attempt at satirizing Lee Randian ideals embodied by old dick her current is like mr. a and the old Charlton version of the question which had gradually faltered into the modern age of comics with increasingly darker bore trails of once optimistic figures again Rorschach is not the hero but neither is Ozymandias regardless of either figures position on the moral scale the latter most certainly betrayed his former colleagues and becomes a villain as soon as he announces plan to bring about world peace he murders millions to bring the wall together a truly horrific act but there is an important distinction to be made the heroes only discover his conspiracy once the plan has been initiated so to expose it then would be to invoke nuclear Armageddon of America and the USSR already on the brink of conflict so yes Ozymandias does betray the Minutemen and yes the atrocity he commits is unquestionably evil however once it has been committed Rorschach's attempts to expose the conspiracy with jeopardize world peace and this illustrative of the failings of that old Objectivist philosophy but uninformed his inspiration up until the mid 80s number one Green Lantern Emerald Twilight after Mongol and cyborg superman destroy hal jordan's hometown of KO city he pretty much loses it completely using his powers he remakes ko City as it was before it was destroyed which is a pretty big now as far as the Guardians are concerned they send a few lanterns to apprehend Jordan who instead goes mad with power and kills everyone who stands in his way Jordan then heads to OA kills everyone there consumes a central power battery and reruns as parallax it's actually last a surprising amount of time - all the way up until zero hour where he's finally taken down by Green Arrow many think that Emerald Twilight embodies the obscene scale of a bunch of 90s comics but there is something uniquely interesting about Jordan's switch from good to evil it showcased the sheer power the Lantern Corps wielded and while the reason for his betrayal serve it a not-so-pleasant retcon that doesn't take anything away from the original story [Music] [Music]

Channel: WhatCulture Comics

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Length: 11min 27sec (687 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 08 2019