History EvenEvilHasStandards / MarvelUniverse

* Black Tom Cassidy is a longtime ComicBook/XMen villain who has committed some truly despicable acts, but he cares for his niece and former partner in crime Theresa. When Tom saw that Theresa had been paralyzed by one of ComicBook/SpiderWoman's venom blasts and mistakenly thought she'd been hurt (or worse), he was genuinely distraught. After realizing that it was his life of crime that had endangered Theresa in the first place, Tom lied to the police and told them that she had nothing to do with his heists, and asked ComicBook/{{Storm}} to look after her.
* In the ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} story ''The Adamantium Men'', Wolverine and his rival combatant ([[spoiler:part of a twelve-man mercenary team, employed by Blackguard and made to emulate Wolverine with laser claws and nanite healing factors]]) are busy fighting in the streets of San Francisco. The two have by this point fought all the way to street level and are about to deliver what might be the deathblow, when they see a schoolbus full of young children. To spare them from harm (and the trauma of their very violent combat) they retract their claws and let the bus pass, then choose to move in case another one passes. The rival was dishonourably discharged for unknown reasons.

* In a one shot issue of ''The Amazing Spider-Man'' illustrating the aftermath of the September 11th WTC terror attacks, Doctor Doom, Kingpin and Magneto turn up to help with the rescue effort at the World Trade Centre along with all the heroes, and superheroes. This drew criticism, because some of the villains featured have been shown to do worse or as bad as that. One of them was Juggernaut, who's actually attacked the WTC himself in the past.

* In an issue of ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'', Jason Macendale (aka the Hobgoblin) tries to sell his soul to the demonic [=N'Astirh=] in exchange for increased power. [=N'Astith=] responds by laughing in Macendale's face, telling him that his soul is so warped and disgusting that not even a demon would want to buy it.

* Speaking of which, the X-Men villain Arcade would later use his Murder World park to orchestrate the deaths of several teen superheroes, including a few students from the aforementioned Avengers Academy, during ''ComicBook/AvengersArena''. In the follow-up, ''ComicBook/AvengersUndercover'', it was revealed that Arcade attempted to use this "feat" as leverage to get ComicBook/BaronZemo to let him join the [[LegionOfDoom Masters of Evil]]. A disgusted Zemo proceeded to inform Arcade that there was nothing impressive about slaughtering a bunch of ''children'', and that the only thing of value Arcade could bring to the table would be the advanced technology behind Murder World. Rather than allow him to join the Masters of Evil, Zemo simply recruited Miss Coriander (the one who actually built Murder World) and had Arcade imprisoned. During the final battle, Zemo even stopped to thank his opponent after he saw her blast Arcade into a wall.

* In ''ComicBook/YellowClaw'', published by Marvel's predecessor Atlas Comics, criminal Rocky Miller rebels against his employers, the Claw and Voltzmann, as soon as he realises they're sending stolen secrets back to the Chinese government. He's a crook and a thug, but he's an American.

** The Kingpin's willingness to help out seems to be a combination of maintaining his VillainWithGoodPublicity reputation, his genuine love for New York City (and the United States--as noted above, like most Mafia bosses, he's a patriot at heart), and his disgust at the idea of committing a crime for the sole purpose of terrorizing innocents, as his own schemes are always a means to a greater end.

-->'''Alyosha Kravinoff''': You're a piece of crap, Gargan.
-->'''Venom''': I'm a ''grieving'' piece of crap.

* In ''[[WestCoastTeam West Coast]] [[Comicbook/TheAvengers Avengers]]'', this leads to the defeat of the Lethal Legion. The villains are more than happy to engage in things like murder and kidnapping, but end up turning on their boss, Grim Reaper, after he expresses white supremacist sentiments at a time when his teammates include Black Talon/Samuel Barone (who is black), Man-Ape/M'Baku (who is black), and Nekra/Nekra Sinclair (who is an albino African American).

* ''Comicbook/MightyAvengers'' introduces a group of German extremists called W.E.S.P.E., who apparently hate Comicbook/{{Hydra}}. When someone mentions Hydra, one of the W.E.S.P.E. members remarks that he and his teammates may be nihilists, but at least they're not Nazis.
* In ''Comicbook/SecretEmpire'', Black Ant and Comicbook/{{Taskmaster}} are initially wary of working with Hydra. Black Ant even says while he and Taskmaster may be amoral criminals and killers, they aren't ''racists'' or Nazis. They end up being persuaded to join after Madame Hydra claims that the rumors of Hydra being Nazis are merely lies spread by their enemies.

* In the twelfth ever issue of ''Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}'', Matt Murdock happens to be on the very cruise ship boarded by fearsome pirate the Plunderer. After changing into his Daredevil costume and pounding the Plunderer's goons, he makes a break for the man himself. But the Plunderer's taken hostages and threatens to toss them overboard into the shark-infested waters unless Daredevil surrenders. Not willing to risk their lives, DD relents, and one of the Plunderer's crewmen suggests tossing ''him'' overboard instead. The Plunderer is positively outraged at the very suggestion: "''Silence'', you scurvy toad! [[IGaveMyWord I have given my]] ''[[IGaveMyWord word]]!''" For his part, Daredevil is impressed.

* ''Comicbook/SuperiorSpiderMan'' establishes that ComicBook/DoctorOctopus, despite all his faults, has one particular BerserkButton: [[WouldntHurtAChild harming children]]. He savagely beats (and nearly kills) the Vulture after seeing him strike a child, and goes out of his way [[PetTheDog to save the life of a young girl]] he had earlier injured during one of his schemes. (According to his various origin stories, Octopus was physically abused by his father. He can relate to child abuse victims.)

* Black Tom Cassidy is a longtime Comicbook/XMen villain who has committed some truly despicable acts, but he cares for his niece and former partner in crime Theresa. When Tom saw that Theresa had been paralyzed by one of Comicbook/SpiderWoman's venom blasts and mistakenly thought she'd been hurt (or worse), he was genuinely distraught. After realizing that it was his life of crime that had endangered Theresa in the first place, Tom lied to the police and told them that she had nothing to do with his heists, and asked Comicbook/{{Storm}} to look after her.

* ''ComicBook/TheMightyThor'': Even though Comicbook/{{Loki}} wants to take his father's crown and rule Asgard, he does ''not'' take kindly to anyone trying to destroy it. Asgard is still his home, after all. This is taken to its extreme during the ''Ragnarok'' arc, where Loki commits mass murder on a grand scale and even causes the death of his own mother. He's appalled when he learns that Asgard is going to be destroyed, as all his murderous actions prior to that had been so that he could rule it. In his mind, at least the horrible atrocities he committed ''had a point to them.''

** In general, the Juggernaut has a fairly developed code of conduct as bad guys go. Theft and property damage might be A-OK in his books, but hurting kids, backstabbing people after they've helped you or hurting people purely for the sake of being a {{Sadist}} are all no bueno as far as he's concerned. During the ''Gauntlet'' storyline, he was even chosen by the Enigma Force to become the latest Captain Universe to repair the tectonic plate damage he had caused while digging his way out of concrete after his original battle with Franchise/SpiderMan (albeit after the Enigma Force's originally chosen host preferred to try and vent his vendetta against the Juggernaut rather than complete his assigned mission).
* In an issue of ''Comicbook/AvengersAcademy'', the kids end up in a fight with Comicbook/SpiderMan's enemies the [[VillainTeamUp Sinister Six]]. Mysterio orders Rhino to kill the students, to which the thug responds by saying even if they're superheroes, he's not about to murder ''children'' just to soothe his employer's damaged ego.
* Speaking of which, the X-Men villain Arcade would later use his Murder World park to orchestrate the deaths of several teen superheroes, including a few students from the aforementioned Avengers Academy, during ''Comicbook/AvengersArena''. In the follow-up, ''Comicbook/AvengersUndercover'', it was revealed that Arcade attempted to use this "feat" as leverage to get Comicbook/BaronZemo to let him join the [[LegionOfDoom Masters of Evil]]. A disgusted Zemo proceeded to inform Arcade that there was nothing impressive about slaughtering a bunch of ''children'', and that the only thing of value Arcade could bring to the table would be the advanced technology behind Murder World. Rather than allow him to join the Masters of Evil, Zemo simply recruited Miss Coriander (the one who actually built Murder World) and had Arcade imprisoned. During the final battle, Zemo even stopped to thank his opponent after he saw her blast Arcade into a wall.

* In the ''Marvel Knights: Comicbook/XMen'' miniseries, the [[DirtyCop corrupt Sheriff Jasper]] happily covers [[BigBad The Cook]]'s drug trade and even helps him deal, but has a FreakOut upon The Cook telling him [[HumanResources exactly what the drugs are made of]] and [[BoomHeadshot gets his brains blown out]] for his trouble.

* In the ''ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}'' story arc "Get Mystique", at the end, after their climactic fight to the death, Wolverine confronts a dying Comicbook/{{Mystique}}:

* In ''Comicbook/TheUnitedStatesOfCaptainAmerica'', Speed Demon states that he would never willingly work for Sin (the daughter of the Red Skull), as while he may be a career criminal, he's not a Nazi.

* The mainline Sabretooth regretted assisting a supervillain in brainwashing Deadpool to kill his own family. [[DownplayedTrope Not enough to not go through with it, mind you]]. Just enough to regret it. Additionally for all his depraved cruelty Creed does believe a real parent should care for their offspring and not hurt them, case in point Characters/{{Mystique}}'s [[AbusiveParents appalling treatment]] of their only son Graydon '''''utterly repulsed him''''' and he was [[BerserkButton genuinely angry]] when she once turned into Graydon to taunt him and in ''ComicBook/WeaponX2017'' was further angered at Raven's willingness to leave Graydon in hell after [[OffingTheOffspring having put him there herself]].

* {{ComicBook/Venom}} (Eddie Brock) is notable for the fairly large amount of standards he has. Like the Rogues mentioned above, he refuses to ever harm innocents and resists the symbiote's more violent urges, though he unwittingly tends to cause loads of collateral damage in his fights with Spider-Man. He's also disgusted by his psychotic "son" Carnage; when Carnage first appeared, Venom was willing to set aside his feud with Spider-Man to work together and stop Carnage from hurting anyone else. This is all because in Brock's delusional mind, he's the "lethal protector" of New York and ''Spider-Man'' is the monster threatening the city.
** Indeed, Venom's disgust with Carnage is nearly universal across every continuity and medium they both appear in, and although Venom has vacillated between AntiHero and villain of the worst sort, '''regardless''' of his position on the moral spectrum at the moment he's always willing to drop everything and team up with everyone from Spider-Man to Captain America to take Carnage down.

** ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}'s nemesis Sabretooth pulls an epic HeelFaceTurn and becomes a well-respected superhero. He still started off as a pretty bad guy, but realized he'd had enough upon learning that Apocalypse planned to kill off the entire human race. (It should be noted that in this reality Sabretooth was less animalistic and frenzied than his standard counterpart.)

* The mainline Sabretooth regretted assisting a supervillain in brainwashing Deadpool to kill his own family. [[DownplayedTrope Not enough to not go through with it, mind you]]. Just enough to regret it.

* [[Characters/MarvelComicsSabretooth Sabretooth]] is one of the most despicable mutants and [[AxCrazy bloodthristy]] mutants to ever live and is fully capable of any kind of sadism (DependingOnTheWriter even rape and cannibalsim). Yet Creed does seem have the moral stance that a real parent should care for their offspring and not hurt them, case in point Characters/{{Mystique}}'s [[AbusiveParents appalling treatment]] of their only son Graydon '''''utterly repulsed him''''' and he was [[BerserkButton genuinely angry]] when she once turned into Graydon to taunt him and in ''ComicBook/WeaponX2017'' was further angered at Raven's willingness to leave Graydon in hell after [[OffingTheOffspring having put him there herself]].

* In an issue of ComicBook/MarvelAdventures Spider-Man, the Grey Gargoyle is commissioned by a wealthy client to steal the Venus De Milo. Once he returns with the stolen statue, the client has one more job for him; to petrify a kidnapped super model so he can chop off her arms and put them on the statue. The Gargoyle responds by apologizing to the young lady for what she's been put through then petrifying his former client before he leaves.

* ''ComicBook/WolverineAndGambitVictims'': Once BigBad [[spoiler:Arcade's]] real motives are revealed, his lieutenant Martinique quits in disgust. [[spoiler:She also uses her MasterOfIllusion powers and telepathy to leave him trapped in a mental loop after the police capture him - endlessly hallucinating that he's caught in a lift full of copies of the assistant he murdered]].

* This trope explains it all, and made life difficult for the Marvel Universe ''Nazi'' villain ComicBook/RedSkull, as the other villains he has teamed with, notably ComicBook/{{Magneto}}, have ultimately attempted to kill him. At one point he even left him BuriedAlive. Of course, being a Holocaust survivor who lost family to the camps, Magneto has [[ItsPersonal a significant personal score to settle.]] This also goes for ComicBook/DoctorDoom, being of Roma descent, though they've managed some very occasional TeethClenchedTeamwork when Doom thinks there's something big in it for him. The Kingpin also refuses to do business with Red Skull, because like most old-school Mob bosses he's a patriot at heart, not to mention a devoted capitalist.

** ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}'s nemesis Sabretooth pulls an epic HeelFaceTurn and becomes a well-respected superhero. He still started off as a pretty bad guy, but realized he'd had enough upon learning that Apocalypse planned to kill off the entire human race. (It should be noted that in this reality Sabertooth was less animalistic and frenzied than his standard counterpart.)

** During the time when Deadpool was working for the Butler, he was sent to go and kill a married couple, and was accompanied by Sabertooth. Once all was said and done, Deadpool would have his memory erased of the event. Deadpool pretty much blew up the house. Turns out, [[spoiler: that couple were Wade's parents. Wade pretty much blew up his childhood home, and doesn't know because his memory was erased afterwards.]] It is very obvious ''Sabertooth'' thought this was awful, and clearly felt bad for Deadpool.