History FreudianExcuse / ComicBooks

* The Mandarin from Iron Man was orphaned at an early age, and raised by an aunt who hated him. Instead of raising him to be a decent human being, she raised him to be a sort of super-soldier; a savage master of martial arts, science, and deviousness. Worse, she spent every last bit of the gold he inherited doing this, robbing him to pay for twisting him. By adulthood, he was a twisted monster/Übermensch combo without enough money to even pay his property taxes.

** His father ''{{ComicBook/Sabretooth}}'' has it as well with AbusiveParents. Victor's father kept him chained up in the cellar and would come down to rip out his teeth & claws with pliers. He was also fed food in a dog dish. In the original story of his past, his father finally tried to kill him with an ax and his mother tried to save him. She ends up being struck in the head with the ax and Sabretooth screams out in agony when he recalls it. His father also psychologically abused him, referring to him as an animal and denying him as a son. Another telling of his past involves his father encouraging him to act like an animal because it's the only way he'd make it.
*** Recently, another story in Deadpool 2016 includes how his father verbally abused him while making young Victor beg for his food like a dog and call himself a monster. Sabretooth even openly lampshades this before the flashback -saying that all the lives he messed-up are on him, but his father showed him the ropes.

* Has been used at times to explain the motives of ''{{Spider-Man}}'' villains, and to possibly contrast them with Spidey himself, who did not exactly have the best childhood. The worst example was when ComicBook/{{Venom}} was given a cliched tragic backstory (complete with the drunk, abusive father) as part of a bad idea to turn the character into a hero. Some other examples:

** Possibly because of Daredevil's ''own'' BackStory. Maybe not everyone can spin "Blinded by toxic spill at age twelve and single father was coerced into not suing due to carelessly negligent waste handler's mob ties" into "hot-shot lawyer AND superhero", but ''still''...

* Another X-Men villain, the [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain mutant-hating]] Graydon Creed, was a victim of ParentalAbandonment, and his parents were both mutants (Mystique and Sabertooth) even though he is not. When he discovered this, he grew to resent mutants as a result, to the point of founding hate groups like the Friends of Humanity and the Upstarts.

* Backblast from ''GIJoe''. He grew up next to one of the busiest airports in the world, and whenever a plane landed or took off his whole house shook with the force of an earthquake. When he signed up for the military, the first thing he asked was "Where can I go to shoot airplanes out of the sky?"

* ''ComicBook/SupermanBirthright'' gave ComicBook/LexLuthor a small excuse. His father was emotionally distant and he felt alienated from everyone because of his money and intellect. However, he was also a raging sociopath with a superiority complex that dwarfed the heavens and many people point out that Luthor made his own choices. It's still better than his excuse in the Silver Age: that he blames Superman (then Superboy) for a botched chemistry experiment that ''made him bald.''

* In [[ComicBook/TheDeathOfClarkKent the Conduit saga]], Conduit's father's emotional abuse of him (disparaging him for always coming in second to Clark Kent) partially made him the unstable person he became.

** Which would make this one rare example of Cap being a [[JerkAss hypocritical douche]], since he himself did well enough to study art at college before he joined up. The Skull is his ArchEnemy and a [[{{Understaement}} thoroughly unpleasant individual]] besides, so he might probably be forgiven for this lapse.

* 616 DoctorDoom has traces of this as well. His mother sold her [[DealWithTheDevil soul]] to [[BigRedDevil Mephisto]] in order to acquire greater magical powers, and she got killed when he was still a babe. His father tried to use science for the good of mankind, only to be oppressed by an [[AristocratsAreEvil local baron]] forcing him and Victor to run. Depending on the book you're reading, either Victor saw his father freeze to death or they were saved just in time.. only for his father to die of an illness... And then when he is about to save his mother, his most magnificent machine blows up... [[NeverMyFault Because of that Richards]].....

* ''TheFlash'' has a pile of unhappy backstories subverted (and not) to varying degrees, including --

** SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker himself likes to make fun of this trope, by making up horrible child abuse stories in order to mess with people's minds. He did this most notably in ''Mad Love''.

** In the ComicBook/{{New 52}}, it's established that as a teenager, Lex had the chance to develop a cure that could have save his [[IllGirl dying sister Lena]]. Instead, he sat by and did nothing because he was afraid of what would happen should he fail. When Lena died later that year, a grieving Lex vowed to never let anything stand in the way of him reaching his goals ever again. [[spoiler: This turns out to be a lie. Lex DID try to find a cure, but it failed and left her an invalid. However, unlike his fictionalized account, Lex claims this failure made him stronger]].

* Marvel's Comicbook/{{Loki}} would probably count. First, there is the fact that he is a midget giant who was abused by his real father for being weak and small. After he helps kill said father, he is adopted by Odin, who does so only because he is convinced that it is the only way to appease the spirit of his own dead father. After he is adopted, it is implied that [[TheUnfavourite Odin neglected him wholly in favor of his real son, Thor.]] Thor, in return, is implied to be one of maybe a hand full of people who like Loki, as well as maybe being one the only people who actually love him. For Loki, this boils down to a seething self-hatred, which he in turn projects onto Thor, which he only does because he knows that his brother will never completely turn him away. Lampshaded by Valeria Richards and Loki in issue #7 of ''Comicbook/LokiAgentOfAsgard'':

** Which would make this one rare example of Cap being a [[JerkAss hypocritical douche]], since he himself did well enough to study art at college before he joined up. The Skull is his ArchEnemy and a [[Monster/MarvelComics thoroughly unpleasant individual]] besides, so he might probably be forgiven for this lapse.

* {{Defied|Trope}} in the first strip of ''The Grievous Journey of Ichabod Azrael (and the Dead Left in His Wake)'': the {{narrator}} says he'd like to say Ichabod became a killer because his father beat him,but in reality, his childhood wasn't any harsher than any other kid at the time. Some people are just born mean.

** Subverted with Mr. Zsasz, who had a happy, pampered childhood and youth, and ruined his life himself after his parents' death, by becoming a compulsive gambler who later took to murder to make sense out of his life.

*** It's also established in ''Comicbook/SuperiorSpiderMan'' that he had an abusive father who used to beat the shit out of him. It's one of the reasons Ock WouldntHurtAChild.

* 616 Doctor Doom has traces of this as well. His mother sold her [[DealWithTheDevil soul]] to [[BigRedDevil Mephisto]] in order to acquire greater magical powers, and she got killed when he was still a babe. His father tried to use science for the good of mankind, only to be oppressed by an [[AristocratsAreEvil local baron]] forcing him and Victor to run. Depending on the book you're reading, either Victor saw his father freeze to death or they were saved just in time.. only for his father to die of an illness... And then when he is about to save his mother, his most magnificent machine blows up... [[NeverMyFault Because of that Richards]].....

* {{Defied|Trope}} in ''ComicBook/XMen Noir''; [[spoiler:Jean Grey]]'s MotiveRant includes lamenting that Professor Xavier never truly accepted that she was ''always'' extremely immoral and manipulative. "Nobody touched me, nobody corrupted me. ''This is me.''"

* Marvel's Loki would probably count. First, there is the fact that he is a midget giant who was abused by his real father for being a weak, midget giant. After he helps kill said father, he is adopted by Odin, who does so only because he is convinced that it is the only way to appease the spirit of his own dead father. After he is adopted, it is implied that [[TheUnfavourite Odin neglected him wholly in favor of his real son, Thor.]] Thor, in return, is implied to be one of maybe a hand full of people who like Loki, as well as maybe being the only person who probably actually loves him. For Loki, this boils down to a seething self-hatred, which he in turn projects onto Thor, which he only does because he knows that his brother will never completely turn him away. Lampshaded by Valeria Richards and Loki in issue #7 of ''Comicbook/LokiAgentOfAsgard'':

* In ECComics' "...So Shall Ye Reap!" (''Shock [=SuspenStories=]'' #10), a 20-year-old boy about to be executed reflects on the sad course of his life, as do his parents. The son's recollections, juxtaposed with those of his parents, show them to have been jealously overprotective and morally hypocritical, yet in the final panel he only blames himself for not having listened to them.

** Bullseye has a MultipleChoicePast, so it's possible "The Crappy childhood" is a lie. In some versions of his origin, he was bad even as a kid.

* In ''ComicBook/UltimateFantasticFour'' #7, it is explained that on Victor Van Damme's tenth birthday he was presented with his family history dating back to Vlad Tepes Dracula and the blueprint for his villainous mindset, and from that day on at dinner he was required to recite said family history from memory, receiving beatings when he got it wrong and being forced to start over until he got it right. Not much of a Freudian Excuse, but... the last page of the flashback shows 10-year-old Victor sitting in the chair where he received the original lecture and instruction in five panels depicting it slowly getting darker. In the last one, he says "It's my birthday." If you don't feel sorry for him (at least the child version, not necessarily the one who proceeds to recite the names of his ancestors and ask if his father can hear him now while attacking the FF with a rocket launcher) after that, then you have a heart of stone.
** Played straight with the new Ultimate Doctor Doom as well; [[spoiler: Reed Richards]]. Abused by his father, not respected by his peers, bullied in high school, and the world didn't change the way he wanted it to.

* In the [[TheTransformersIDW IDW Transformers]] continuity, Megatron forms the Decepticons because he is oppressed by the corrupt Autobot Government, with his band originally formed as ''freedom fighters''. In a sense, most of the Decepticons fall under this trope.

* ComicBook/{{Magneto}} of ''ComicBook/{{X-Men}}'': his parents and family were okay people, but they were Jews in Nazi Germany. He was the only one who lived; some issues say that he was forced to clean their ashes out of the incinerators. Magneto is constantly going through the HeelFaceRevolvingDoor, [[WellIntentionedExtremist always working to make the]] [[FantasticRacism oppressed mutants]] safer, often [[KnightTemplar going too far]]. By some accounts, he can't make himself believe that peaceful coexistence is possible.

* Subverted in the ''Magazine/{{Mad}}'' parody of ''TouchedByAnAngel''. The somewhat jerky boss objects to a flashback of him being abused by his father that is used to explain his behavior, saying that it isn't real, but the angel showing it tells him that they need it for TearJerker material.

* Marvel's SelfDemonstrating/{{Loki}} would probably count. First, there is the fact that he is a midget giant who was abused by his real father for being a weak, midget giant. After he helps kill said father, he is adopted by Odin, who does so only because he is convinced that it is the only way to appease the spirit of his own dead father. After he is adopted, it is implied that [[TheUnfavourite Odin neglected him wholly in favor of his real son, Thor.]] Thor, in return, is implied to be one of maybe a hand full of people who like Loki, as well as maybe being the only person who probably actually loves him. For Loki, this boils down to a seething self-hatred, which he in turn projects onto Thor, which he only does because he knows that his brother will never completely turn him away. Lampshaded by Valeria Richards and Loki in issue #7 of ''Comicbook/LokiAgentOfAsgard'':

* 616 DoctorDoom has traces of this as well. His mother sold her [[DealWithTheDevil soul]] to [[BigRedDevil Mephisto]] in order to acquire greater magical powers, and she got killed when he was still a babe. His father tried to use science for the good of mankind, only to be oppressed by an [[AristocratsAreEvil local baron]] forcing him and Victor to run. Depending on the book you're reading, either Victor saw his father freeze to death or they were saved just in time.. only for his father to die of an illness... And then when he is about to save his mother, his most magnificent machine blows up... [[NeverMyFault Because of that Richards]].....