Even Evil Has Standards/Web Comics

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• Nale from The Order of the Stick is a diabolical Smug Snake who has few, if any, regards for the sanctity of life. However, he's still civilized.
  • Redcloak, The Dragon to Evil Overlord Xykon, states that this is what keeps him from being the Complete Monster that his boss is. Xykon however revels in his status as a Complete Monster and sees villains with standards as cowards who can't back up their talk, claiming that he's gotten this far by being The Unfettered. Xykon in the prequel played with the trope, stating outright that he refuses to kidnap virgins... because he'd get better mileage out of someone who has been around the block a few times.
    • The prequel plays this straight when Redcloak is horrified by his boss's plan to kill and zombify a woman's physical body, then feed the body to ogres while forcing her soul to watch.
    • The prequel also subverts this trope when Xykon initially says that as evil as he is, he can't do something as depraved as become a lich (a form of undead created by evil magic), then he suddenly reveals that he was only joking and has no objection to becoming a lich at all.
  • While he's more of a Punch Clock Villain, The Monster in the Dark is a Big Eater with no apparent problem considering eating humanoids (but only if ordered to). He won't eat babies, though (including veal), though this is more out of the fact that babies aren't tasty at all and that he much prefers the slop and gruel that he's normally served.
  • When Vaarsuvius wipes out a quarter of the black dragon race the fiends that gave him or her that power in the first place are genuinely surprised.
  • This is the "Empire of Blood", not the "Empire of Blood All Over Our New Carpets".
  • Belkar may be a Heroic Comedic Sociopath, but even he feels that forcing two best friends to fight each other to the death is crossing the line. Later, he refuses an opportunity to date a gnome right after scamming her.
• The Dimension of Pain from Sluggy Freelance is a hellish realm populated with horrible demons that thrive on suffering and pain. However, even THEY have limits...
  • This trope is spoofed in a much later stick figure filler week.
  • And again when two demons are talking and one makes an off-color joke.

Chilus: You know humans! They're a bit late for school! Skip: "A bit late for school?" Chilus: A little tardy. (Beat Panel) Skip: Was that a "retarded" joke? Do you know my brother's handicapped? Chilus: Right, I'm sorry! That was very insensitive of me. Let me get my purse and make a contribution to your favorite mental health charity... What's this? My driver's license... Why, it says here I'm a demon! So [blows tongue at Skip] pbbtbbtbtbtbtbt to you and your retarded brother! Skip: Fine. We're demons. We're evil. Can't you have a little class? Chilus: You're a little late for class.

• Parodied in The Misadventures of Hello Cthulhu, where Cthulhu calls Hello Kitty's parents "unspeakable beasts" for producing offspring. Which, if you consider the Expanded Universe Canon, is built on a lie, making it Hypocritical Humor.
  • Parodied again not too many strips later when Dagon says that even his kind has higher standards than making unholy offspring half-breeds from Sanrio characters.
• Hunter Ravenwood of Suicide for Hire Wouldn't Hit a Girl, though that doesn't stop him from killing women who pay him to do so. Evidence suggests he doesn't like to think of the clients as people at all. The rules of the titular business also include "Suicides may not result in the death of a third party" and "Children under the age of sixteen will not be allowed to kill themselves". A pregnant client is rejected for this reason, as they consider her foetus to be a third party and object to helping her escape responsibility for it.
  • Later, when confronted with a severely battered woman, he first wants to help her kill her abusive husband. Only when she can't go through with the act, despite getting clear instructions via two-way radio, does he help her kill herself. Later, the husband comes to SFH... and his death is not at all pretty. Unusually, Arcturus is as enthusiastic about this job as Hunter.
• Evil, Inc.: "even supervillains draw the line at spam". Also, they stopped production of the power draining devices. Because this quickly gone gross.
• Even Penny Arcade has standards.
• From Wapsi Square We may be demons, but we have rules!
• Axel of Ansem Retort is a homicidal evil Buddhist god that can kill you with freaking sweet mind bullets (and in the very first comic torched an orphanage). Yet he yells "WHAT?" at the idea that he'd abuse his wife, Aerith. He's also shown to be disturbed by Larxene carrying around a human skull.
  • Zexion is a governor that invaded New Jersey, stole tax dollars just to prove he could, and would rather spend the state budget on blowjobs and Doritoes... but he really hates racist pancakes. It Makes Sense in Context.
• During her temporary Face Heel Turn, White Mage of 8-Bit Theater said she would not date Black Mage, even though she was evil.

White Mage: I may be coming to terms with the idea that I'm locked into a lifetime of spreading pain and death across the world, but I still have some standards.

• • Garland also does this in the beginning, when Princess Sara suggests torturing the heroes of light by forcing them to listen to Cher.
  • It's a little jarring to realize that Black Mage, of all people, is the one out of the heroes who is most commonly freaked out by the stuff his companions, most notably Red Mage, pull off.
    • That's because the stuff the others, and especially' Red Mage, do are crimes against logic.
  • Black Mage also manages this after he usurps the throne of Hell. Fighter naturally assumes that he went to Heaven instead.

Black Mage: Even though I am the incarnation of all mortal evils, I just don't have the heart.

• • Towards the end of the series, when they discover that even though they've grown incredibly strong throughout their journeys, Sarda flat out tells them that they'll never be a match for him, and he was still going to render their efforts nil out of spite.

Black Mage: That's messed up, Sarda.

• • Thief states that Black Mage has hit a new low when he hears his plan to get into White Mage's robes after she temporarily turns "evil" involving what he thinks is alcohol but may be paint thinner. When the other Light Warriors point out that it'll likely kill White Mage, Black Mage simply responds that the corpse will still be warm for a little while.

Thief: That... may be the worst thing you've ever said.

• During the Christmas Carol arc of Brawl in the Family, as Mario saves Peach, he asks if she's fine and she says that Bowser never laid a hand on her. Bowser chimes in, "Well, I'm not a monster."
• The Cyantian Chronicles features Filaire ^{[dead link]}, a gold fox who works for a wolf who is apparently a cannibal.
  • He's proposed roasting a sentient rabbit if she doesn't meet with his expectations. Definitely NOT a case of inverted Carnivore Confusion.
  • But it's a subversion, as Filaire decides she will "eat rabbit" if it means vengeance on the current fox king, as seen a few strips beyond the link above.
  • Played straight in the fact that Filaire will not sleep with Rama. ^{[dead link]}
• Minmax in Goblins may be a Fantastic Racist who struggles to comprehend the idea that monsters exist for reasons other than to be slaughtered by adventurers, but when he learns that Dellyn rapes and beats his Yuan-Ti slave, his attiude shifts from hero worship to revulsion almost immediately, and he throws Dellyn through a window.
• In the The Beast Legion , The shadow Nexus second in command stampede is Ruthless when it comes to battle but carries a great sense of honor & loyalty unlike his master.
• Shinga gleefully makes jokes about selling coat hangers to pregnant women, but feels that her soul is being ripped out by making her characters be in Reality TV.
• Questionable Content does this to a lesser degree. Marigold is willing to guilt-trip her roommate into making out with her. But she is a Horde woman to the end, even in real-life.
• Lil' E from Sinfest is the devil's fanboy, admires everything he does, and really, really enjoys murder. However, he will NOT tolerate people spitting in his sandwiches.
• The Trolls of Homestuck may be a race almost entirely composed of violent Jerk Asses, but most of them are still disgusted with Vriska's Chronic Backstabbing Disorder.
  • Of course, with their Blue and Orange Morality, what is evil and what is not can at times be hard to judge. Karkat's explanation as to why she's despised seems to call her out more for being Stupid Evil than anything, and the fact that her vicious streak could be used to actually do something productive rather than just punting puppies left and right.
  • Karkat's universe's version of Jack Noir is just as much an Ax Crazy Knife Nut as any other version. But even he thinks that Karkat's angst over his "candy-color blood" is one of the saddest things he's ever seen and becomes Karkat's Blood Brother out of sympathy.
• Vexxarr before leaving Earth had to thank Sony... for unburdening his conscience.
• This Chopping Block comic.
• El Goonish Shive:Even pitch-black evil guy Even Magus, while aggressive, rough-and-tumble, not entirely adequate and at the moment desperate enough to deal with both insane godlings who mess with humans For the Lulz and life-sucking abominations, won't help Chaos ruin Verres to just to kill Abraham just to punish Raven for being a disobedient son.
  • Also, during Painted Black, Hedge did everything in his power not to bring women back to Damien, knowing that he only wanted them for breeding. Once Damien was no longer around to control them, all of Grace's brothers surrendered without a fight.
• In Jason Love's cartoons, other bank robbers don't approve of Cherry and Serry.
• Mike from Shortpacked. He may be a Jerkass who has engaged in cruelty that crosses the line seven times, but at least he cops to it. Then he meets the aptly named Asshole Guy.

Mike: Hey, are you the asshole? Guy: Dude, I'm not an asshole. I'm just, you know, what do they call it, anti-social. I can't help it. Mike: You diagnosed or something? Guy: Diagnosed? Naw, that's gay. I just think I probably have antisocial tendencies or something. I can be pretty mean and irrational sometimes, but whatcha gonna do, really? *Smug smirk* (later) Amber: Is somebody on fire? Mike: I can't help it. I have antisocial tendencies.

• • Speaking of Mike, even he's disgusted by what Amber's abusive dad did to her.
• In Captain SNES, Even Kainazzo was disturbed by Cid's daughther's story about how her father got her mother to marry him, complete with a Family-Unfriendly Aesop.
  • Similarly, Magus is surprised to find out that Max Force's slaughter of the innocent Mushroom retainers offends him.
• Attempted by Triquetra Cats in a filler comic, which had a Complete Monster demonic serial killer suddenly break character and deliver a message about the evils of transphobia. The attempt failed miserably.
• Book 12, Part III of Schlock Mercenary has Professor Pau, a scientist who's abducting humans and using their bodies as factories for illegal blood-nannies, a process which leaves their bodies hideously bloated, discolored, and covered in blisters through which the final product is harvested. But while this is happening, they're kept in full-immersion sims that leave them blissfully happy and unaware of their condition.

Professor Pau: You don't think I'd hang people from the ceiling, bloat them with chemicals, harvest their blistered hides, and then leave them miserable, do you? Ennesby: Sorry. Our bad. We'll get your sainthood application processed right away.

• In Dominic Deegan Arcangelo Scarlatti has a brief moment here.
• Kolonel Haken in Irregular Webcomic may be a card-carrying Nazi, but he will not stand for genocide - he's an archaeologist, not a mass murderer. Eventually, he assassinates Hitler by stuffing a very large frog down his throat. Only in one webcomic could you find a sentence like that, folks.
• Girl Genius with Bang. Sure, she's a bloodthirsty, sadistic lunatic… but mind control? This annoys her seriously.