History HeWhoFightsMonsters / ComicBooks

** It's common for criminals to rant that he and they are NotSoDifferent, that Frank is evil, that killing them won't bring his family back, that he'll never be able to stop crime, etc. This gets at best an "I ''know''" reaction before he kills them.

* In ''ComicBook/KingdomCome'', Orion has killed {{ComicBook/Darkseid}} and became ruler of Apokolips. In order to maintain peace, he has to make many questionable choices and Superman notes that he is now more like his father than ever before.
** It only skirts this if you assume that he isn't trying to justify his becoming this and was telling the truth. Orion states that he tried to make Apokolips a better place. The residents couldn't handle freedom. This forced Orion to become more like Darkseid in order to keep the population under control.

* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'': When the character Lockup was [[CanonImmigrant introduced into the "official" Batman comics]], the moral complexity of Lock-Up was (briefly) addressed by Commissioner Gordon, who admitted that there were times when he sympathized with Lyle Bolton. It is certainly easy to understand Bolton's frustration of having to deal with, year after year, some of the most monstrous human beings (and in one case an animalistic mutant!) who have ever existed, who are collectively responsible for over a thousand deaths over the past decade and have expressed no desire to reform. And since Arkham Asylum is infamously a CardboardPrison, that would almost clinch the argument on his side-- if Lock-Up were not so adamant about tracking down and brutally imprisoning anyone that he deems as responsible [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope which includes the "liberal media," "coddling doctors," and "gutless police".]]

*** Batman has had to be restrained more than once from killing the Joker in a few stories, like the ''[[ComicBook/BatmanHush Hush]]'' storyline when he thought the clown had murdered a childhood friend of his. In ''Under the Hood'', Batman freely admits to the Red Hood that he actually fantasizes about killing the Joker every day, but won't do so because he believes if he starts killing, he won't be able to stop.

*** The cycle continued in ''WebAnimation/GothamGirls''- Nora's sister Dora Smithy became obsessed with vengeance against ''Freeze'' for what ''he'' did to Nora, and in the process became more or less his female double [[spoiler:a fact cemented by Dora's own KarmicTransformation into an icy mutate with no emotion left but her love for Nora, packed away in a cell in Arkham just like her hated brother-in-law]].

* The ''ComicBook/{{Gobots}}'' miniseries by Tom Scioli of ''Webcomic/AmericanBarbarian'' and ''ComicBook/TransformersVsGIJoe'' fame depicts the Guardians' leader Leader-1 in this light. Leader-1's original intent is to defend humanity from Cy-Kill and his renegades, but eventually proves to be capable of being just as ruthless, having no qualms with reprogramming his fellow [=GoBots=] to erase their memories whenever they question him.

** ''ComicBook/ThePunisherKillsTheMarvelUniverse'' had Frank Castle dedicate his vengeance to indiscriminately murdering every superhuman on Earth after his family is accidentally killed by the X-Men and the Avengers and he is hired to kill all superhumans by an organization composed of injured and bereaved civilians blinded by their desires for vengeance against the heroes that inadvertently did them wrong, using the excuse that all superhumans are potentially dangerous to humanity regardless of their intentions. After Frank kills Daredevil and discovers that his true identity is his friend Matt Murdock, the vigilante realizes that he's become the same threat he accused all the heroes he murdered of being and promptly commits suicide.

* In ''Comicbook/XMen'' comics and especially [[Film/XMen the movie trilogy]], {{ComicBook/Magneto}} - a survivor of UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust - [[WellIntentionedExtremist is so determined to ensure that what happened to him never happens to his fellow mutants]] that he becomes increasingly xenophobic and genocidal towards unpowered humans, quite happy to wipe them out in order to ensure mutantkind's supremacy. Magneto ultimately winds up little better than those who prompted him to begin his fight.

** ComicBook/{{Storm}} once warned BlackPanther that he might turn out like Magneto, as like T'Challa, Magneto started off as a good man who only wanted to protect his people. She claimed that if T'Challa didn't ease up with his ruthless methods, he might one day become just as evil as the villains he faces.

* In ''Comicbook/XMen'' comics and especially [[Film/XMen the movie trilogy]], {{SelfDemonstrating/Magneto}} - a survivor of UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust - [[WellIntentionedExtremist is so determined to ensure that what happened to him never happens to his fellow mutants]] that he becomes increasingly xenophobic and genocidal towards unpowered humans, quite happy to wipe them out in order to ensure mutantkind's supremacy. Magneto ultimately winds up little better than those who prompted him to begin his fight.

** From the flip side of the human/mutant coin is Graydon Creed, a baseline human with the bad luck to be born the son of one of the worst CompleteMonster mutants in history. This, combined with being raised by a SuperSupremacist mother who had no use at all for her son once she realized he was not a mutant, turned Creed into a TragicBigot as an adult. Created to be a {{Foil}} to Senator Robert Kelly, Creed shared Kelly's BewareTheSuperman motivation but took it to much greater lengths than Kelly ever did, allying himself with the RoboticPsychopath Bastion and plotting a campaign of mutant genocide upon his ascension to PresidentEvil. Though he and Magneto never met, they were more similar than either man would have ever admitted.

** From the flip side of the human/mutant coin is Graydon Creed, a baseline human with the bad luck to be born the son of one of the worst CompleteMonster mutants in history. This, combined with being raised by a SuperSupremacist mother who had no use at all for her son once she realized he was not a mutant, turned Creed into a TragicBigot as an adult. Created to be a {{Foil}} to Senator Robert Kelly, Creed shared Kelly's BewareTheSupermen motivation but took it to much greater lengths than Kelly ever did, allying himself with the RoboticPsychopath Bastion and plotting a campaign of mutant genocide upon his ascension to PresidentEvil. Though he and Magneto never met, they were more similar than either man would have ever admitted.

** In ComicBook/UltimateMarvel, Charles highlights this listing several dictators, leading to Erik snapping Xavier's neck in anger. Magneto later realizes Xavier was right, especially after he finds out that [[spoiler: Mutants in their universe were made by the government in an attempt to recreate/improve the SuperSoldier concept and process that Captiain America was made from.]]

* ''ComicBook/{{Blade}}'' pretty much constantly struggles with this. In fact, the storyline Midnight Massacre in Midnight Sons, where Blade's hatred of the occult led him to accept the power of a spirit in exchange for the ability to exterminate all supernatural life made him rethink just how he goes about his mission.

** Sinestro is this even more. To bring order to his planet, he established a totalitarian regime, becoming the symbol of tyranny in a star system. Once Hal Jordan took him down, he decided that Guardians are not up to the job of bringing order and defeating crime in the Universe and swore to destroy the Green Lantern Corps and replace it with his own order. He has no problems teaming up with several Franchise/DCUniverse villains and, in the end, created his own corps, openly acknowledging that most of its members are of the same kind as those he once fought. [[spoiler: When his daughter, Soranik Natu, had to become ruler of their native planet, Sinestro was more than interested if she is gonna follow the same path as him]].
** Guardians tried so hard to ensure GLC victory in the war with the other Corps that they established several oppressive rules, allowing Corps members to kill and banning relationships between the members. They had no problems with giving Larfleeze a star system and giving him the location of the Blue Lanterns' (who wanted to become their allies) headquarters to make him stay away from rest of the Universe.

** In ''ComicBook/ForTheManWhoHasEverything'' he [[spoiler: nearly beats Mongul to death]] but was distracted.

** In ComicBook/UltimateMarvel, Charles highlights this listing several dictators, leading to Erik snapping Xavier's neck in anger. Magneto later realizes Xavier was right, especially after he finds out that [[spoiler: Mutants in their universe were made by the government in an attempt to recreate/improve the SuperSolider concept and process that Captiain America was made from.]]

** In ComicBook/UltimateMarvel, Charles highlights this listing several dictators, leading to Erik snapping Xavier's neck in anger. Magneto later realizes Xavier was right, especially after he finds out that [[spoiler: Mutants in their universe were made by the government in an attempt to recreate/improve the super solider concept and process that Captiain America was made from.]]

* In ''Comicbook/XMen'' comics and especially [[Film/XMen the movie trilogy]], {{SelfDemonstrating/Magneto}} - a survivor of TheHolocaust - [[WellIntentionedExtremist is so determined to ensure that what happened to him never happens to his fellow mutants]] that he becomes increasingly xenophobic and genocidal towards unpowered humans, quite happy to wipe them out in order to ensure mutantkind's supremacy. Magneto ultimately winds up little better than those who prompted him to begin his fight.

* In ''Comicbook/XMen'' comics and especially [[Film/XMen the movie trilogy]], {{SelfDemonstrating/Magneto}} - a survivor of the Holocaust - [[WellIntentionedExtremist is so determined to ensure that what happened to him never happens to his fellow mutants]] that he becomes increasingly xenophobic and genocidal towards unpowered humans, quite happy to wipe them out in order to ensure mutantkind's supremacy. Magneto ultimately winds up little better than those who prompted him to begin his fight.

** Ozymandias could count toward this as well, seeing as [[spoiler: his solution to keep Russia and America from wiping each other out with nuclear strikes was to kill three million people before the missiles could be launched. Veidt strongly hints in his last conversation with Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhatten) that he has nightmares of being taken into a ghost ship to be surrounded by murderers, in exactly the same manner as the ending to ''The Black Freighter.'']]

** In UltimateMarvel, Charles highlights this listing several dictators, leading to Erik snapping Xavier's neck in anger. Magneto later realizes Xavier was right, especially after he finds out that [[spoiler: Mutants in their universe were made by the government in an attempt to recreate/improve the super solider concept and process that Captiain America was made from.]]

** It's common for criminals to rant that he and they are NotSoDifferent, that Frank is a CompleteMonster, that killing them won't bring his family back, that he'll never be able to stop crime, etc. This gets at best an "I ''know''" reaction before he kills them.

* ComicBook/ThePunisher from Creator/MarvelComics is often presented this way whenever he makes a guest appearance in more idealistic books like ''Comicbook/SpiderMan'' or ''Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}''. However, in his own books, he's portrayed as a profoundly messed up individual, more tortured machine than man. (Although, the Punisher told Spidey ''to his face'' once that Spider-Man could have wound up the same and still could, ''especially'' if he didn't have super-powers; Spidey didn't get the point, as clear as it was.)