Bad Powers, Bad People: Difference between revisions

* Mano, one of the villainous Fatal Five from the ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes (comics)|Legion of Super-Heroes]]'', can disintegrate anything he touches...and sometimes more; in at least one continuity, he ''[[Doomed Hometown|destroyed his home planet]]'' this way.

* Melter of the Young Masters of Ev...er, [[Young Avengers]] is told this. Then again, being able to turn people into puddles of steaming goo doesn't often have "good" uses.

* [[Mind Control]] is a pretty nasty power; many mind controllers from comics, like Purple Man, The Controller, and Scarecrow, from [[Daredevil]], [[Iron Man]], and Batman, respectively, are in the [[Complete Monster]] category or damn close to it. Xavier, who has [[Psychic Powers]], is often mentioned to have [[Mind Over Manners|a code against controlling someone else's mind.]] There are some exceptions, like the Pied Piper from [[The Flash]], who reformed.

** Maxwell Lord, former member of [[Justice League of America|Justice League International]], fits this. He was originally a good guy who headed the League and had some psionic powers, then we found out his powers had increased a great deal and he had been manipulating the League for a long time. He went speeding past the [[Moral Event Horizon]] by murdering Ted Kord, the second [[Blue Beetle]], then used mind control to give [[Superman]] and [[Batman]] hallucinations and endanger their lives, forcing [[Wonder Woman]] to kill him to save them. {{spoiler|He's back to life as of [[Brightest Day]] and making his former teammate's lives a living hell. His powers are once again increased and he also nearly killed Kord's successor as the [[Blue Beetle]], Jaime Reyes. Unambiguously a bad guy at this point.}}

* Trauma from Avengers: the Initiative has the ability to shapeshift into a person's worst fear, which has, on at least one occasion, driven someone to insanity. As such, he has found the perfect application for this power...as Camp Hammond's resident counselor, with a specialty in helping people confront and cope with their fears.

* ''[[Avengers Academy]]'' plays with this trope; [[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]] recruit and train several teenagers with either bad powers or budding sociopathy to specifically prevent them from turning into supervillains. How they eventually deal with this remains to be seen.

* [[Alpha Flight]]'s Purple Girl/Persuasion had a rough start, but has consistently been one of the good guys since, despite the mind control powers she inherited from her evil father...Until recently, that is, where she pulled a [[Face Heel Turn]] and now is a bad guy and calls herself Purple Woman.

 

*** Ebon Dragon charms come closest to being type 1, since, by their very nature, they shift you towards being like the Ebon Dragon (who is, how you say, kind of a dick), but you can still use them in a [[Noble Demon]] way by turning the spite and antagonism towards [[Pay Evil Unto Evil|people who are nastier than you]].

*** And even then it's worth bearing in mind that only a few of his Charms are actually dickish. Witness to Darkness<ref>improved night vision at the cost of light sensitivity, and improved lie defence at the cost of being bad at telling the truth</ref> ''seems'' malevolent at first, but it makes you just as much like [[Batman]] as it does the Ebon Dragon, and Nemesis Self Imagined Anew<ref>you temporarily overwrite your Motivation with "the exact opposite of what that guy's is"</ref> can be used on a guy whose motivation is "Kill Everything" to ensure you gain substantial benefits to defend everything. Even Golden Years Tarnished Black<ref>makes a cherished memory horrible</ref> can be used to make people who enjoy horrifying blood sports feel shame and guilt for what they watched. Of course, there ''are'' other Charms that ''are'' Douche City, but you don't actually have to take those if you don't want to.

 

 

** ''Diablo II'' justifies this by explaining that the necromancy class is a quasi-religious order devoted to cosmic balance between life and death, good and evil, light and darkness, etc. Maybe True Neutral, in D&D terms, but in a world where literal demons are trying to take over, True Neutral is right there, standing side by side with Lawful Good. It doesn't hurt, of course, that the only bodies he raises as his minions are those of slain demons and such. It actually points out that there's nothing inherently evil about necromancy (unless you consider desecrating graves to be evil), especially if used to fight a REALLY evil army, unless the necromancer doesn't have enough bodies and goes out of his way to make more.

* On the topic of necromancy, we have Gauldoth the [[Only Mostly Dead|Half-dead]], a campaign hero in [[Heroes of Might and Magic]] IV. Raised as a slave-apprentice to a Necromancer, he converted half of his body into a zombie-like state to save his life. Being an [[Anti-Hero]], he was satisfied with using only the naturally-deceased bodies for his army and, at times, even pay for the life of a living villager to become his zombie messenger. He turned out to be very [[Genre Savvy]] by clearly stating to his subordinate that:

** In fact, that should be called [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]].

* Shuu Shirakawa from ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' is an odd example. He initially appears as a [[Final Boss]] whose dark and evil powers (literally from being the avatar of an evil god, thanks to his mother sacrificing him to it) seem to fit this trope -- after his death, however, he is resurrected, but the link to the dark god is severed by accident...and he's shown to be a <s>nice, gentle guy</s> [[Marty Stu]] who just happens to have dark powers.

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==

* ''[[The Boondocks]]'' - When Caesar asks Huey "if you could have any super power then what would it be" he responds with:

'''Caesar:''' [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|You know how I say you go too far sometimes?]] <br />

'''Huey:''' [[Bad Powers, Good People|Hey, I never said I wouldn't use it for good!]] }}