Dark Is Not Evil/Comic Books

""What makes a man a man? A friend of mine once asked. It's the choices he makes. Not how he starts things, but how he finishes them.""
 * Sandman's Death of the Endless, or, for that matter, Dream of the Endless.
 * Batman. The Dark Knight is often one of the best barometers of what the writer wants you to think is morally acceptable in all of comicdom, despite his black clothing, bat-motif, and fear-based methods.
 * DC Comics continuity has a realm called the Great Darkness, which is sometimes referred to as the Darklands or Shadowlands. To make a long story short, when God said "Let there be light," this inadvertently created something called the Great Evil Beast, a creature composed of darkness and shadow on par with God itself. While this creature did go on something of a small rampage on account of not knowing its own nature, when it got to the gates of the Silver City, it merged with God to create a sort of yin-yang creature. However, the part of reality where it had formed was left over, and is called the Great Darkness. Many heroes and villains in The DCU make use of this realm and its power to manipulate shadow and create shadow constructs.
 * The DC superheroine Nightshade has darkness-based powers, including the ability to create and manipulate darkness, and to create shadow-creatures.
 * Likewise the DC superhero Obsidian, son of Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott. He had a Face Heel Turn for a while, but he's back now.
 * The Punisher is an Anti-Hero example who only kills bad guys and he has black clothes with a skull.
 * Depending on the Writer. Oftentimes it's pretty clear that he's a psychopath who is only conveniently aimed at people that are (usually) worse than he is.
 * The Shroud is a hero in Marvel's Los Angeles who is often an ally of Spider-Woman; his background with the Cult of Kali gives him the power to manipulate darkness itself. A clever and pragmatic hero, the Shroud purposely lets people believe he is a criminal (as most believe Dark Is Evil), gaining a reputation as such among other criminals, in order to crush the leaders of the underworld from within.
 * The Shade, one-time villain of the Golden Age Flash. He ended up as a mentor to Jack Knight, aka the hero Starman, so the Shade probably counts for this trope. He gained his power during a magic-related incident in Victorian England that killed 104 people. Shade is probably far and away the most powerful of any of the DC characters that draw power from the Great Darkness, as not only is he ageless and immortal, but he has far more control over his shadow abilities and can directly travel between normal reality and the Great Darkness at will. Notably, he's been said to be capable of standing up to The Spectre (also known as the physical personification of the Wrath of God) and at one point, a future incarnation was able to transport Jack Knight centuries and lightyears across time and space.
 * The DC superheroine Shadow Lass from the Legion of Super-Heroes.
 * And Raven of Teen Titans - unless she's in one of her "daddy's girl" phases. Which unfortunately happens a lot.
 * The very, VERY obscure comic Hybrid has Nocturns.
 * Nightcrawler is covered in indigo fur from head to toe, has pointed ears, fangs and a prehensile tail with a spade at the end, as well as the ability to teleport in a cloud of black smoke that smelled of brimstone, leading to more than a few demonic comparisons (even before that whole Azrael mess). He is also a devout Christian, a fan of Errol Flynn movies and one of the nicest guys in the Marvel Universe.
 * In the Adventures in Olympus arc of Flare, Aphrodite tells Pan that "Nyx is not evil. But she does hate Eos."
 * Trauma from Avengers: the Initiative is a half-demon who can shapeshift into a person's worst fear, invoking responses that range from a freakout session (Armory and Cloud 9) to reliving one's worst personal shame (Yellowjacket) to ending up in a mental institute (Trauma's mother). That being said, Trauma himself is a pretty nice guy who seems to have found a calling in helping people overcome their fears.
 * The Ghost Rider is a burning skeleton riding a motorcyle made of hellfire. He's also the hero of his story. And in one storyline is actually revealed to be an angel.
 * Hellboy. And I know this quote is from the end of the movie, not the comic book, but it applies:


 * Not that it's especially easy to find any actual light-aligned entities in his setting, and he tends to slaughter the dark ones he meets with extreme prejudice, although since he finds them by following the bodies there's a certain sampling bias and if it's not a whole army of skeletons or similar he treats folks like folks... mostly. But, as an Anti-Anti-Christ, he's trope-worthy for sure.
 * Blue Devil, especially after a Deal with the Devil turned him into an actual devil and he obtained a powerful Evil Weapon. He's still a superhero and a devoted churchgoer even though being in a church literally burns his flesh. Somewhat deconstructed when he learned that he had received a place in Hell's hierarchy as a Rhyming Devil because his heroic deeds have given Hell good publicity -- he's made Hell "cool".
 * One of the only examples of this in the Bionicle series is Takanuva after he survives a shadow leech attack. As for everything else, Greg Farshtey seems hell-bent on averting this trope.
 * In a literally sense, Onu-Matoran generally wear dark colored armor, live in neigh-unreachable caves and enjoy darkness, and some Earth Toa actually look pretty frightening (Onua with his humongous claws, likewise Nuparu, who also had a punk-themed mask decorated by spikes). Yet they're among the nicest of characters.
 * Subverted in Brian Bendis' Powers with . Although a good guy, the source of   powers certainly isn't. Which then.
 * The Creeper is a yellow skinned, green haired giggling madman who looks eerily similar to the Joker and possesses a laugh terrifying enough to physically paralyze anyone who hears it. He's also one of Gotham City's vigilantes and was present alongside the other heroes who came to oppose Hush following Batman's death, described by Dick Grayson as "trusted allies sworn to preserving my father's legacy".
 * The "Nega-Scott" in Scott Pilgrim does look like an evil doppelganger of the title character, but he's got a much more bigger and significant purpose than that.