History Main / BadGirlComic

* ''ComicBook/{{Darkchylde}}'' by Creator/Maximum Press: Not to be confused with the demonic SuperpoweredEvilSide of Creator/MarvelComics' ComicBook/{{Magik}}. A girl who is cursed to transform into monstrous creatures of her nightmares.

During UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks, comics reveled in exploring all previously "forbidden" themes: violence, gore, crime, cynical grittiness, occult or demonic imagery, sex and sex appeal -- usually cranked up to extremes. On one hand, we got the NinetiesAntiHero, with emphasis on the "violence, gore, crime and cynical grittiness" part. On the other hand, we got this trope.

As UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode waned, comic readers re-discovered pre-Code comic books and comic strips of the late 1940s and early '50s, the latter period of the [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]]. A lot of them featured depictions of sexy women, featured in various roles: from [[DamselInDistress Damsels in Distress]] to ActionGirl pilot aces to {{Femme Fatale}}s to outright bloodthirsty villains in some crime books. That style, exemplified in the works of Bill Ward and Wally Wood, was nicknamed "good girl art" by its new fans. Note that it didn't mean "art depicting good girls" (since a lot of these "girls" were quite "bad") but rather "good art depicting good-looking girls".

The Bad Girl genre of the '90s was popular enough to survive UsefulNotes/TheGreatComicsCrashOf1996 relatively unscathed. Bad Girl Comics were mostly published by smaller indie publishers, which appeared ''en masse'' during the Dark Age. In their heyday, Bad Girl Comics gathered a large and surprisingly diverse audience, with female readers comprising a large part of it. That was possibly because the comics featured ActionGirl protagonists who had cool powers and usually didn't rely on men to achieve their goals. Some female readers also liked the risqué costumes, with some even managing to {{cosplay}} them despite their improbable designs, and even fans who didn't like the outfits still liked the characters themselves for being among the more competent, independent, and legitimately badass women in comics of that era.

# She is usually driven by personal motives rather than any kind of altruistic ideals. {{Revenge}} is a popular one here.

* The titular protagonist of the ''Literature/AnitaBlake'' novels is a necromancer and VampireHunter with a DarkAndTroubledPast who helps the police solve supernatural crimes in St. Louis. While earlier novels presented her as a ChasteHero, later books have a much greater focus on sex appeal and depict Anita as having a ''very'' active sex life. When it received a comic book adaptation, it leaned heavily on the tropes of the genre.

* Rayne from ''VideoGame/BloodRayne'', a {{dhampyr}} in a skimpy, form-fitting leather outfit who's mainly the hero because [[AcceptableTargets she's fighting Nazis]]. While she tries to avoid hurting civilians, she is a bloodthirsty sadist in combat and has no problem killing even enemy noncombatants who get in her way, and her main motivation in the second game is revenge on [[IHateYouVampireDad her vampire father Kagan]] for [[ChildByRape raping her mother]]. She even became the first female video game character to [[PublicExposure pose nude]] for ''Magazine/{{Playboy}}''. It's also likely not a coincidence that Rayne resembles Chaos Comics' Chastity in being a redheaded vampire who dresses in black leather.

As the Comics Code waned, comic readers re-discovered pre-Code comic books and comic strips of the late 1940s and early '50s, the latter period of the [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]]. A lot of them featured depictions of sexy women, featured in various roles: from [[DamselInDistress Damsels in Distress]] to ActionGirl pilot aces to [[FemmeFatale Femmes Fatales]] to outright bloodthirsty villains in some crime books. That style, exemplified in the works of Bill Ward and Wally Wood, was nicknamed "good girl art" by its new fans. Note that it didn't mean "art depicting good girls" (since a lot of these "girls" were quite "bad") but rather "good art depicting good-looking girls".

[[folder:Chaos Comics]]

* ''Lady Demon'': Another spin-off character from Lady Death's comics. She was Lady Death's powerful evil side, created by Lucifer. She later escaped to Earth, possessed the body of a deceased mortal woman, and went on a murderous rampage.
* ''Chastity'': A vampire punk/goth girl who worked as an assassin for a council of vampires to kill other vampires.
* ''Jade'': A Chinese vampire-sorceress sired by Purgatori who controlled a powerful crime family for centuries, and then decided to spread her rule to the other Triad families, and then all of China.
* ''Bad Kitty'': An ex-cop who uncovered corruption within the police force, had her boyfriend turned into a zombie, and devoted herself to fighting supernatural threats.

* ''Pandora'': She's ''the'' Pandora from Myth/GreekMythology, fighting against the evil that she once released.
* ''Hellina'': A woman who got magic powers from Lucifer to fight his enemy, and wields a magic dagger that will either purify you of all evil or kill you.

* ''Aphrodite IX'': About an amnesiac android assassin.
* ''ComicBook/MadameMirage'' is a mid-'00s homage to Bad Girl Comics as well as to the pulp vigilante genre (e.g. ''Franchise/TheShadow''), created by Creator/PaulDini. It features a FemmeFatale vigilante with mysterious superpowers on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against an equally mysterious evil corporation. Madame Mirage wears a quite flattering outfit, and her appearance is said to be based on Dini's wife.

* ''ComicBook/{{Glory}}'': During Liefeld's original run, she was a blatant WonderWomanWannabe with a couple of added Bad Girl Comic elements, e.g. a sexier outfit and her being a half-demon who tried to overcome her evil side. When Creator/AlanMoore came on board, he toned down most of those and turned her into a mix of a cheerful {{deconstruction}} of Franchise/WonderWoman comics and a prototype for ''ComicBook/{{Promethea}}''. (The 2010s {{retool}} of the series by Joe Keatinge and Sophie Campbell has nothing to do with this subgenre at all.)

* ''Satana'', the Devil's Daughter, was one of the earliest example of this genre. She was created in TheSeventies, but wasn't used much for decades. She later appeared in all her "bad girl" glory in the mid-'00s ''Witches'' miniseries where she played the token evil teammate, and as a BoxedCrook in ''ComicBook/{{Thunderbolts}}''[=/=]''ComicBook/DarkAvengers''.

* [[ComicBook/{{Magik}} Illyana Rasputin]] from the Franchise/XMen started as Colossus' little sister. After some convoluted events, she manifested a SuperpoweredEvilSide called Darkchilde[=/=]Darkchylde, who had a monstrous demonic form at the time. Later, she got killed off, and was resurrected in the mid-00s, as Darkchilde. Her new design and persona were heavily influenced by Bad Girl Comics. She later became Magik again, but retained parts of her Darkchilde personality.

* ''Dawn'', created by Creator/Joseph Michael Linsner. Initially she was just a random cheesecake girl appearing on the covers of the horror comic anthology ''Cry for Dawn''. After some time, she was "promoted" to the role of the HorrorHost, and then started appearing in some stories, getting long overdue CharacterDevelopment. Dawn is an immortal goddess of birth and rebirth, with complicated relations to witches, other gods, and Lucifer. She wields a sword and has a lot of supernatural powers.
* ''Razor'' by London Night Studios. A violent vigilante on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge, she wields blades that extend from her arms causing her pain.

* ''ComicBook/{{Darkchylde}}'' by Creator/Maximum Press: Not to be confused with the demonic SuperPoweredEvilSide of Creator/MarvelComics' ComicBook/{{Magik}}. A girl who is cursed to transform into monstrous creatures of her nightmares.
* ''ComicBook/{{Widow}}'' by Creator/Ground Zero Comics. A woman with mutant genes of a black widow spider, who constantly struggles against her dark animal (insect?) urges of mating with men and killing them, and fights various enemies.

* ''ComicBook/GrimmFairyTales'' by Creator/Zenescope Entertainment, and its various spin-offs. A mid-00s series paying homage to Bad Girl Comics, with settings based on {{Fractured Fairy Tale}}. Among the general comic fandom they're mostly known for two things: their erotic cover art, and their sizeable female reader base.

* ''Fearless Dawn'' by Asylum Press is a mid-00s tongue-in-cheek homage to both "bad girl art" of TheNineties and "good girl art" of TheForties (with a bit of ''ComicBook/TankGirl'' sprinkled on top). It's a cartoonish comic about a heroine in a skimpy costume who fights Nazis and demons.

* ''Crimson Plague'', a short-lived Image title by Creator/GeorgePerez, that was chiefly notorious for the sheer jaw-dropping squickiness of its anti-hero's LovecraftianSuperpower. [[spoiler:Her menstrual fluids make people dissolve into goo.]]

[[folder:Film (Live-Action)]]

* ''Film/TheDemolitionist'' is a sci-fi version, specifically a gender-flipped version of ''Film/RoboCop1987'' in which a slain female police officer (played by another ''Series/{{Baywatch}}'' alum, Nicole Eggert) is rebuilt as a violent, sexy cyborg super-cop in a SpyCatsuit who seeks revenge against the madman who killed her.

* The Dark Queen in ''VideoGame/{{Battletoads}}'' was designed closely around this aesthetic. However, she's a villainess rather than an anti-heroine, and also the main antagonist.

* ''ComicBook/{{Catwoman}}'': In her 1993 solo series she was reimagined with elements of this genre. It was written by Mary Jo Duffy, who later wrote Creator/RobLiefeld's ''Glory'' series, and drawn by Jim Balent, who also drew several other Bad Girl Comics.
* After her 2000s solo series ended, Catwoman teamed up with ComicBook/HarleyQuinn and ComicBook/PoisonIvy for the ''ComicBook/GothamCitySirens'' series, which fits squarely into this as a comic about three borderline AntiVillain[=/=]AntiHero women with extremely fanservicey artwork.

* Rayne from ''VideoGame/BloodRayne'', a {{dhampyr}} in a skimpy, form-fitting leather outfit who's mainly the hero because [[AcceptableTargets she's fighting Nazis]]. While she tries to avoid hurting civilians, she is a bloodthirsty sadist in combat and has no problem killing even enemy noncombatants who get in her way, and her main motivation in the second game is revenge on [[IHateYouVampireDad her vampire father Kagan]] for [[ChildByRape raping her mother]]. She even became the first female video game character to [[PublicExposure pose nude]] for ''Magazine/{{Playboy}}''.

# She usually (though not always) has some kind of occult connection, be it in her powers, her backstory, or the enemies she fights.

* ''ComicBook/LadyRawhide'': Originally appearing in a 90s Franchise/{{Zorro}} comic series as Zorro's sometimes enemy, sometimes ally, this masked vigilante quickly got her own spin-off series.