History Main / BadPowersBadPeople

** [[Characters/MarvelComicsJeanGrey Jean Grey]]'s experiences with the Phoenix Force kinda dance around this line. She has the power to manipulate entire timelines for the better, can go toe-to-toe with [[Characters/MarvelComicsGalactus Galactus]], can make matter with her mind, survive being inside of and eating stars, beat Xavier and Characters/{{Emma Frost|WhiteQueen}} in a telepathic battle, make star-gates, breathe in space, generate all kinds of awesome fire, oh, and burn up the life force reserved for beings who have not yet been born. Good thing she's on our side most of the time. [[ContinuitySnarl For added fun]], her Phoenix powers are actually their own sentient being, which for a while impersonated Jean.

** Himiko Toga's quirk Transform allows her to turn into other people after drinking their blood, and she's an utter psychopath SerialKiller. [[spoiler:{{Deconstructed|Trope}} in that, to fit within society, she had been told to actively suppress it and the related BloodLust, something she did until she just snapped, killed the boy she had a crush on to drink all his blood, and became a serial killer]].

* D-lister mutant The Mandrill, a 70s opponent of ComicBook/ShannaTheSheDevil and Characters/{{Daredevil|MattMurdock}} is a LivingAphrodisiac, secreting mutant sex pheromones that can completely enthrall the minds of women, reducing them to [[LoveMakesYouCrazy love-addled, mindlessly loyal zealots who will die for his pleasure]]. Oh, and prolonged exposure can result in a victim becoming literally addicted to his pheromones. He just happens to be [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain a raging misogynist]] who sees women as toys and who regularly rapes any woman who succumbs to his pheromones... there's a reason the character has been brushed more or less under the rug.

* ''Literature/BooksOfTheRaksura'': The Ruler [[HiveCasteSystem caste]] of the AlwaysChaoticEvil Fell have limited mind-control powers that let them pull a VillainOverride on their minions and make outsiders into {{Manchurian Agent}}s. Given their inclinations, they happily use the latter to sow dissent and soften up communities for slaughter.

Hooray, you've got super powers! Your dreams of becoming a hero and making the world a better place are one step closer to coming true! Only, wait a minute... why do your powers revolve around raising the dead as {{zombie|Apocalypse}}s, or causing another person's muscles to atrophy, or overriding someone's nervous system so that they feel nothing but pain?

Let's face it: there are [[TheDarkArts some powers]] that just aren't conducive to superheroics. {{Necromanc|er}}y? Not so much. [[KissOfDeath Toxic kiss]]? No. [[SupernaturalFearInducer Inducing terror]]? Hardly. [[TouchOfDeath Life-draining touch]]? Not very likely. [[LovecraftianSuperpower Bone tentacles out of your back]]? No way. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Telekinetically tipping]] [[PokeThePoodle cups of milk over]]? Don't you know how important calcium is?!?

* Justified in ''Literature/BlackDogs'', where mages are assumed to be immoral or evil and [[MagicIsEvil magic is a thoroughly nasty practice]] - for example, the most common means of magical communication is to take a living human and possess him or her as an avatar from a distance - completely destroying his or her mind in the process. Magical power is strengthened by doing things such as ritual bloodletting and human sacrifice, and the more powerful magical spells require either of these two things to even be cast. Naturally, the people willing to do this kinda stuff for power are not nice people.

* [[Characters/BatmanPoisonIvy Poison Ivy]], from ''Franchise/{{Batman}}''. What homicidal environmentalist would be complete without [[KissOfDeath a poisonous kiss?]] Besides [[Characters/BatmanRasAlGhul Ra's Al-Ghul]], that is. Ivy is also a case of GoodPowersBadPeople. She could regrow the rainforest, feed the hungry, fix global warming, etc. Shame she's insane, really. In ''Comicbook/{{Justice}}'', Ivy, along with a number of 'former' villains, started a series of goodwill moves across the globe. She was shown in an impoverished desert, either North Africa or Middle East, growing entire orchards and crop fields. The main reason she doesn't [[CutLexLuthorACheck do this more often]] is that she is essentially an eco-terrorist with superpowers who believes she can help the environment more by destroying factories and businesses.

** The Wanderer has the ability to kill near instantaneously via skin contact and views murder and tracking down and killing especially challenging targets her favorite game. She's also got a healing factor and martial arts skills which means most ranged weapons barely annoy her.
** The daughters of Acheron have an ability that can knock someone into a permanent coma or cause other permanent damage even when being used without deadly intent and which causes their eyes to go wholly black and their bodies to start emitting a dark smoke-like substance when in use. The two who are met are both murderers, and Acheron is the name of the river of ''pain'' in Tartarus.
* D-lister mutant The Mandrill, a 70s opponent of [[Characters/MarvelComicsSavageLand Shanna the She-Devil]] and Characters/{{Daredevil|MattMurdock}} is a LivingAphrodisiac, secreting mutant sex pheromones that can completely enthrall the minds of women, reducing them to [[LoveMakesYouCrazy love-addled, mindlessly loyal zealots who will die for his pleasure]]. Oh, and prolonged exposure can result in a victim becoming literally addicted to his pheromones. He just happens to be [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain a raging misogynist]] who sees women as toys and who regularly rapes any woman who succumbs to his pheromones... there's a reason the character has been brushed more or less under the rug.

* Franchise/{{Superman}}:

** Silver Banshee, as the name implies, has a shriek with the capacity to kill. Great for villainy, not so great for anything else.