History PetTheDog / ComicBooks

* ''ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}'': In ''ComicBook/AquamanNew52'', Orm is [[AdaptationalHeroism noticeably less evil than before]] ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint|DCComics}}'', but he regards land-dwellers with disdain. When the prison he's kept in is destroyed, he leaves, but not before murdering one of the guards who was nice to him as thanks (which he does seem to regard as a mercy considering the man was wounded and likely was going to die a more painful death at the hands of the prisoners). He meets a woman, Erin, on the way to the sea, whose son is being attacked by escaped prisoners. He disregards her and tells her that when he was Tommy's age, 8, he had learned to defend himself, and it's her fault for not teaching him. He leaves and goes back under the sea, before returning to help them while admitting that 8 is too young an age to die. Later, it is revealed that he stayed with them through [[ComicBook/ForeverEvil2013 the Crime Syndicate's invasion of Earth]].

* ''ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}'': In the ''ComicBook/New52'' book, Orm is [[AdaptationalHeroism noticeably less evil than before]] ''ComicBook/FlashpointDCComics'', but he regards land-dwellers with disdain. When the prison he's kept in is destroyed, he leaves, but not before murdering one of the guards who was nice to him as thanks (which he does seem to regard as a mercy considering the man was wounded and likely was going to die a more painful death at the hands of the prisoners). He meets a woman, Erin, on the way to the sea, whose son is being attacked by escaped prisoners. He disregards her and tells her that when he was Tommy's age, 8, he had learned to defend himself, and it's her fault for not teaching him. He leaves and goes back under the sea, before returning to help them while admitting that 8 is too young an age to die. Later, it is revealed that he stayed with them through [[ComicBook/ForeverEvil2013 the Crime Syndicate's invasion of Earth]].
* Reggie Mantle of the ''ComicBook/ArchieComics'' gets quite a few, such as helping Dilton get together with a woman he likes on several different occasions ([[HiddenHeartOfGold so long as he keeps it a secret]]).

* ''ComicBook/TheCartoonHistoryOfTheUniverse'' discusses the concept of selective kindness in talking about inter-cultural relationships in the days before diplomacy: everybody is tender to their own people while at the same time acts callously brutal to everyone else.

* ComicBook/{{Catwoman}} obviously can't pet a ''dog'' without ruining the motif, but she's been subjected to a number of Pet The ''Cat'' moments, a prime example being [[http://www2.warnerbros.com/gothamgirls/play/files/GG_06.swf the ending of this web-toon]]. [[spoiler:She's not the least bit disappointed that she wound up saving kitties instead of stealing gemstones.]]
* In the climax of the Drowning Man arc, ''ComicBook/{{Deadpool}}'' shows us that he's given up on redemption by locking Blind Al in The Box, severely beating Weasel, and... petting Deuce the Devil Dog on the head.

* ComicBook/{{Hellboy}} is a huge demon with enough strength to tear a car in half. He is the badass to end all badasses. As such, his action figure comes with the following props: A six-pack of beer, a revolver, and a... kitty?! Yes, the son of Satan is a cat-lover.
* ''ComicBook/HellblazerRiseAndFall'': After witnessing Thomas slap John for mouthing off to him, Lucifer tells him something that makes Thomas apologize for his abusive behavior towards John, Thomas asking if he wants to bond over a pint later. Lucifer admits he had a pragmatic reason for it, considering Despondeo feeds on despair and John's self-destructive behavior is rooted in his dysfunctional relationship with his dad.
* ''ComicBook/IronMan'': When Tony Stark is proven innocent and the FBI still charges him with resisting arrest, FBI agent Neil Stretch argues about it again with Nick Fury. Neil Stretch is transferred to the Alaska field office as a result. Neil also tells Tony not to be mad at Pepper Potts because she did not break easily: she was in distress, and he played her like he was trained to do. "You want to be pissed at anyone, be pissed at me."
* Vril Dox has a couple of these in ''ComicBook/LEGIONDCComics''. Right before he is raped and killed, he confesses to his unconscious teammates that he really does care about them, but he doesn't really know how to express that. When Lyrissa Mallor dies, he mourns for her, believing that without her, L.E.G.I.O.N. would not have gotten as far as it did. When Vril Dox finally gets to see his son, after Stealth believed that he would become just as controlling as he was of the rest of the group, Vril remembers his father being a controlling jerk, and himself being controlling to the Durlan. So he lets the mother have the child. Awww.
* ComicBook/{{Lobo}} of ''Franchise/TheDCU'' parodies this: he is a relentless killing machine who often kills his bounties instead of capturing them, yet at the same time has a soft spot for "space dolphins". But he ''did'' once spare ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}'s life because he felt he couldn't hurt somebody who loved dolphins as much as he did. He also displays a fondness towards Ryan Choi and is the reason Ryan, as ComicBook/TheAtom, is inducted into the JLA, despite Batman's wishes for Ryan to not join.
* In ''Magazine/{{Mad}}'', this is parodied and even deconstructed in an article on "Compassionate Conservatives." The "compassionate" parts of the conservatives are typically described as hypocritical (deporting all illegal immigrants except for their gardeners) or inconsequential (giving last meals and a choice of an execution method to death row inmates while denying them appeals on DNA evidence.)

* In ''ComicBook/{{Negation}}'', the Saurian party member subverts her pet the [[CallASmeerpARabbit Kaliman retriever]] moment when she names him "tasty treat" in her people's language.

* In ''[[ComicBook/ThePunisher Punisher]] War Journal'', the Rhino has a few. First, he writes an apology letter to the widow of a cop he had accidentally killed and sends her money with each score he pulls off. Second, in the last issue, he convinces the Punisher to leave the Stilt-Man gang alone (on Christmas, no less) because he could tell they were just stupid, not evil.

** Doctor Octopus has gotten a few Pet the Dog moments over the decades, including trying to save Aunt May from Hammerhead and trying to develop a cure for AIDS in order to save his ex-girlfriend.

* [[http://katiecookie.deviantart.com/ Artist Katie Cook]] draws figures like Darth Vader and General Grievous playing with kittens in her ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' comics.

* ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan'': When Nick Fury first meets Miles Morales, who's hated by just about everyone else at the time, he talks to the boy. When in danger, he escorts him by hand to what he thought to be safety. After Miles proves himself, he gives him a new costume (oddly the one Miles was hoping to design himself) and allows him to be Spider-Man.
* ''ComicBook/UsagiYojimbo'' has [[AxCrazy Jei-san]] and [[CheerfulChild Keiko]]. The former declares the latter innocent and rescues her from bandits who had just killed her grandfather; [[TagalongKid letting her travel with him afterward]] is probably one of the only genuinely kind things he's ever done.

* Sabretooth has had his share of these over the years, but ''ComicBook/WeaponX2017'' has the closest literal example: a baby tiger he takes a liking to. There's also the instance of him saving his son Graydon from {{Hell}} in the same series.
* ''ComicBook/WhiteTigerMarvelComics'': Ayala allowed her sister-in-law Soledad in her house, and it is implied that she is supporting her throughout her depression after her brother's death. Despite the fact that Soledad intended to file for divorce immediately after her husband White Tiger (Hector Ayala) was wrongfully arrested for murder, because Hector had promised her he'd give up being a superhero. And part of the reason Hector had a break down after he was convicted was because during the trial, when the prosecuter questioned their marriage, she couldn't stand the pressure and left the courthouse. Despite all that, Ayala does not hold that against Soledad and still helps her. When Ayala's son Rey protests allowing Soledad in their house after how she treated Hector during his trial, she states that Soledad is Hector's widow, she's family, and she has not been well since Hector's death.
* ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}'s son Daken is a murderous, manipulative sociopath and AntiVillain. However, he does have a genuine soft spot for his little sister [[ComicBook/{{X23}} Laura]] and her 13-year-old clone Gabby. In ''ComicBook/AllNewWolverine'', he comes to Roosevelt Island not to save lives, but simply because Laura wants him to be there.
-->'''Laura:''' Daken? You came to help?\\

* ''ComicBook/XForce2008'' {{deconstruct|edTrope}}s this trope in [[TheChessmaster Eli Bard]]'s backstory. He was a Roman senator named Eliphas who was regarded as a push-over by his family and peers, but he had a MoralityPet in form of a little girl that served as a slave. When he crossed paths with [[TheVamp Selene]], she offered to love him forever and make him immortal if he sacrificed every soul in Rome to her. Eliphas agreed to do it, but decided to warn the little girl to leave the city with her family. She told her parents, who proceeded to warn the guards about him, who interrupted him just in time he was about to perform the spell to sacrifice all Romans. This led to him getting cursed by Selene and turned into a vampire-like mutate, living in constant torment for not being together with his beloved. In short, [[LoveMakesYouEvil after he took the path to evil]], [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished his one moment of kindness cost him everything]].
* While Emma Frost from ''ComicBook/XMen'' is still a bitch after [[HeelFaceTurn joining the team]], she gets more than enough Pet the Dog moments around [[MoralityPet X-23/Laura Kinney]]. While at first seemingly hostile to the younger girl due to her being a [[DistaffCounterpart female clone]] of Wolverine that was created solely as an assassin. It's eventually revealed that this is because Emma see's the [[NotSoDifferentRemark same capacity to hurt others in Laura that she had when she was younger]] with the main difference being that the latter has no choice in the matter due to her conditioning to a "trigger scent" (which sends X into a berserker rage). Later on, we see Emma eventually warm up to Laura to the point where whenever whenever we see Emma in one of X-23's books, it more often than not involves her lamenting on how they've failed to treat her right. Emma goes into full MamaBear mode when Kimura tries to kill X-23. Emma psychically immobilizes Kimura then points out exactly why she enjoys hurting X (her own bad childhood), before proceeding to [[CruelMercy erase her only happy childhood memory and then sending her off to kill the people who sent he to kill Laura in the first place]].

** In the [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver]] and [[UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks Bronze Ages]], Lex Luthor used to get PetTheDog moments once in a while (such like trying to protect his little sister Lena in ''ComicBook/TheGirlWithTheXRayMind''), showing that EvenEvilHasStandards and that he hadn't completely forgotten he UsedToBeASweetKid before he turned criminal in ''ComicBook/HowLuthorMetSuperboy''. Creator/ElliotSMaggin was the writer most likely to play up [[NobleDemon this aspect]] of Lex's personality, though other writers like Edmond Hamilton and Carey Bates did so as well. By contrast, both the [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] and ComicBook/PostCrisis versions of Lex have been portrayed almost exclusively as totally evil.

* Edward Blake in ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' has a couple of moments like this. The first is when he is talking to a teenaged Laurie and tilts her chin up to look at her eyes, which he says are like her mother's. It turns out that [[spoiler:she's his daughter,]] and he looks a little sad when Sally Jupiter drags her daughter away from him. The second instance of this for him is when he [[spoiler:cries after finding out about Adrian Veidt's plan to achieve world peace by killing millions worldwide.]] He even cries when talking about this to an old archenemy, who he says is "the closest thing I have to a friend." Considering that Blake has several instances where he could be said to cross the MoralEventHorizon, these moments are probably sorely needed for his character.

* ''ComicBook/{{Maus}}''. When stuc in Auschwitz, Vladek finds himself called upon to repair a badly damaged boot for a Gestapo officer stationed at the camp. After Vladek actually manages to perform the repair adequately, the Gestapo officer gives him a huge sausage (something that would be a rare treat for a German civilian, and an absolutely priceless treasure in the camp, at that point in the war) for his troubles. When Vladek asks why, the officer just shrugs and says that Vladek did good work on his boot.

* Orm in the New 52 ''Comicbook/{{Aquaman}}'' book is [[AdaptationalHeroism noticeably less evil than before Flashpoint]], but he regards land-dwellers with disdain. When the prison he's kept in is destroyed, he leaves, but not before murdering one of the guards who was nice to him as thanks (which he does seem to regard as a mercy considering the man was wounded and likely was going to die a more painful death at the hands of the prisoners). He meets a woman, Erin, on the way to the sea, whose son is being attacked by escaped prisoners. He disregards her and tells her that when he was Tommy's age, 8, he had learned to defend himself, and it's her fault for not teaching him. He leaves and goes back under the sea, before returning to help them while admitting that 8 is too young an age to die. Later, it is revealed that he stayed with them through [[ComicBook/ForeverEvil2013 the Crime Syndicate's invasion of Earth]].
* Reggie Mantle of the ''ComicBook/ArchieComics'' gets quite a few, such as helping Dilton get together with a woman he likes on several different occasions ([[HiddenHeartOfGold So long as he keeps it a secret]]).

* ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}'s son, ComicBook/{{Daken}}, is a murderous, manipulative sociopath and AntiVillain. However, he does have a genuine soft spot for his little sister [[ComicBook/{{X 23}} Laura]] and her 13-year-old clone Gabby. In ''ComicBook/AllNewWolverine'', he comes to Roosevelt Island not to save lives, but simply because Laura wants him to be there.
-->'''Laura:''' Daken? You came to help?\\
'''Daken:''' I did. But I'm not here for the island.\\
'''Laura:''' ''(hugs him)'' Thank you.

* Comicbook/DoctorDoom, who is [[DependingOnTheWriter often]] a benevolent ruler of Latveria, whatever his treatment of the outside world. For example, his heir is Kristoff Vernard, whom he adopted after Kristoff's mother was killed by his enemy, [[TheWrongfulHeirToTheThrone Zorba Fortunov]], while she was talking to Doom (and thus, in Doom's view, under his protection).
* In "Spider-Man Family #4" the Puppet Master of the ComicBook/FantasticFour meets a young boy named Louis, and not only comforts him when he's picked on by bullies, he gives him the Spider-Man doll he was making to use in one of his evil schemes, willingly abandoning one of his evil plans to comfort a distraught boy he has only know for a few minutes.

* ComicBook/IronMan: When Tony Stark is proven innocent and the FBI still charges him with resisting arrest, FBI agent Neil Stretch argues about it again with Nick Fury. Neil Stretch is transferred to the Alaska field office as a result. Neil also tells Tony not to be mad at Pepper Potts because she did not break easily: she was in distress and he played her like he was trained to do. "You want to be pissed at anyone, be pissed at me".
* Believe it or not, even an AlwaysChaoticEvil CardCarryingVillain like ComicBook/TheJoker does these every now and then. One issue of ''Deathstroke'' had him rescuing a small girl from her abusive SleazyPolitician father (setting her up to go live with her mom instead) at absolutely ''no'' apparent gain to himself (well, okay, he "rescued" her by poisoning the city's blood banks and using that to coerce the politician, but if that was all he wanted he could've just gone ahead and done it; after the girl's safe, he even leaves the antidote behind!).

* Comicbook/PoisonIvy
** When Gotham City is destroyed by an earthquake, Ivy takes over the city park and makes it a haven for the city's orphaned children, caring for them like her own children. When the police see her as a dangerous terrorist and try to take back control, the herbicidal chemicals they use poisons one of the girls inside, and Poison Ivy chooses to give herself up to save her life.
** In another story, she uses her mind control abilities to make sure JerkAss negligent father pays for his son's art school tuition.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Punisher}} War Journal'', the Rhino has a few. First, he writes an apology letter to the widow of a cop he had accidentally killed and sends her money with each score he pulls off. Second, in the last issue he convinces the Punisher to leave the Stilt-Man gang alone (on Christmas no less) because he could tell they were just stupid, not evil.
* In the beginning of ''ComicBook/ThePunisherMAX'' comic ''Kitchen Irish'', Frank is eating lunch in a diner when a bomb goes off in the pub across the street. People all around him get butchered when the diner's large window shatters, and once the debris settle he finds a man whose chest had been shattered, revealing his heart, giving the following Pet The Dog moment from Frank.
--->'''Injured Man''': ''help me''
--->'''Castle''': (So I do. For no reason I can pin down it becomes very important that this guy makes it. Maybe he has a wife and kids. Maybe he wants to see them again like nothing else on Earth.)
** Frank works on keeping the man's exposed heart from bleeding out, and when a rookie EMT gets there they spend an hour working together on the man before finally succeeding in stabilizing him. It takes several more minutes for the traumatized EMT to notice that the man who helped him save an otherwise-doomed life did so with six inches of glass sticking out of his arm - and that he is a mass-murdering vigilante. He treats the wound without another word, and an understanding is silently reached; the EMT will go on saving lives, and the '''Punisher''' will track down whoever started a war in downtown New York.
--->'''Castle''': (Not every day you meet your polar opposite.)

* ComicBook/{{Sabretooth}} has had his share of these over the years. But the closest literal example is a baby tiger he takes a liking to in Pak's ''Weapon X''. There’s also the instance of him saving his son Graydon from {{Hell}} in ''ComicBook/WeaponX2017''
* ComicBook/DoctorOctopus from ComicBook/SpiderMan has gotten a few pet the dog moments over the decades, including trying to save Aunt May from Hammerhead and trying to develop a cure for AIDS in order to save his ex girl friend.

* ''ComicBook/SpiderVerse'' does this for the [[ComicStrip/SpiderMan Spider-Man Newspaper Strips]] universe by [[spoiler:having the Master Weaver use ComicBookTime to pull Morlun away from that universe and claim that it was temporally unstable, all the while shunting the universe into a pocket universe, sparing a universe where Peter and Mary Jane are still married.]]
* Artist Katie Cook [[http://katiecookie.deviantart.com/]] draws figures like Darth Vader and General Grievous playing with kittens in her ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' comics.

** ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'': Vril Dox has a couple of these in L.E.G.I.O.N. Right before he is raped and killed, he confesses to his unconscious teammates that he really does care about them, but he doesn't really know how to express that. When Lyrissa Mallor dies, he mourns for her, believing that without her, L.E.G.I.O.N. would not have gotten as far as it did. When Vril Dox finally gets to see his son, after Stealth believed that he would become just as controlling as he was of the rest of the group, Vril remembers his father being a controlling jerk, and himself being controlling to the Durlan. So he lets the mother have the child. Awww.
** In the [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver]] and [[UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks Bronze Ages]], ComicBook/LexLuthor used to get PetTheDog moments once in a while -such like trying to protect his little sister Lena in ''ComicBook/TheGirlWithTheXRayMind''-, showing that EvenEvilHasStandards and that he hadn't completely forgotten he UsedToBeASweetKid before he turned criminal in ''ComicBook/HowLuthorMetSuperboy''. Creator/ElliotSMaggin was the writer most likely to play up [[NobleDemon this aspect]] of Lex's personality, though other writers like Edmond Hamilton and Carey Bates did so as well. By contrast, both the [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] and ComicBook/PostCrisis versions of Lex have been portrayed almost exclusively as totally evil.

* ComicBook/{{Thanos}} though still doubtless a sadistic GalacticConqueror, has his relationship with his adoptive daughter ComicBook/{{Gamora}} fall under this. It is consistently shown that he does have a uncharacteristic soft spot for her to the point of giving Gamora a doll for space Christmas and while he had no compunctions putting Gamora through TrainingFromHell and replacing her limbs with cybernetics it’s shown in the 2019 series he did the latter with genuine care (something that shocks Death aka Magus in disguise). However this Pet the Dog behaviour from Thanos actually put Gamora at risk from the Black Order, who weren’t happy that some little green tyke they picked up on a war torn planet was getting more care from their master than them.

* ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan'': When Nick Fury is dealing with ComicBook/MilesMorales, who was hated by just about everyone else at the time. First meeting him, he talks to the boy. When in danger, he escorts him by hand to what he thought to be safety. After Miles proves himself, he gives him a new costume (oddly the one Miles was hoping to design himself) and allows him to be Spider-Man.

* ''ComicBook/{{White Tiger|MarvelComics}}'': Ayala allowed her sister-in-law Soledad in her house, and it is implied that she is supporting her throughout her depression after her brother's death. Despite the fact that Soledad intended to file for divorce immediately after her husband White Tiger (Hector Ayala) was wrongfully arrested for murder, because Hector had promised her he'd give up being a superhero. And part of the reason Hector had a break down after he was convicted was because during the trial, when the prosecuter questioned their marriage, she couldn't stand the pressure and left the courthouse. Despite all that, Ayala does not hold that against Soledad and still helps her. When Ayala's son Rey protests allowing Soledad in their house after how she treated Hector during his trial, she states that Soledad is Hector's widow, she's family, and she has not been well since Hector's death.
* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'':
** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': In ''ComicBook/JudgmentInInfinity'', the Adjudicator's overseers may not care about Earth but they do not actively wish harm upon humans either, so they teleport all heroines back to their respective Earths when they take the Adjudicator away.

* While ComicBook/EmmaFrost of the ''Comicbook/XMen'' is still a bitch after [[HeelFaceTurn joining the team]], she gets more than enough Pet the Dog moments around [[MoralityPet X-23/Laura Kinney]]. While at first seemingly hostile to the younger girl due to her being a [[DistaffCounterpart female clone]] of Wolverine that was created solely as an assassin. It's eventually revealed that this is because Emma see's the [[NotSoDifferentRemark same capacity to hurt others in Laura that she had when she was younger]] with the main difference being that the latter has no choice in the matter due to her conditioning to a "trigger scent" (which sends X into a berseker rage). Later on, we see Emma eventually warm up to Laura to the point where whenever whenever we see Emma in one of X-23's books, it more often than not involves her lamenting on how they've failed to treat her right.
** Emma goes into full MamaBear mode when Kimura tries to kill X-23. Emma psychically immobilizes Kimura then points out exactly why she enjoys hurting X (her own bad childhood), before proceeding to [[CruelMercy erase her only happy childhood memory and then sending her off to kill the people who sent he to kill Laura in the first place]].
* ''ComicBook/XForce'' vol. 3 {{Deconstruction}} this trope in [[TheChessmaster Eli Bard]]'s backstory. He was a Roman senator named Eliphas that was regarded as a push-over by his family and peers, but he had a MoralityPet in form of a little girl that served as a slave. When he crossed paths with [[TheVamp Selene]], she offered to love him forever and make him immortal if he sacrificed every soul in Rome to her. Eliphas agreed to do it, but decided to warn the little girl to leave the city with her family. She told her parents, who proceeded to warn the guards about him, who interrupted him just in time he was about to perform the spell to sacrifice all Romans. This lead to him getting cursed by Selene and turned into a vampire-like mutate, living in constant torment for not being together with his beloved. In short, [[LoveMakesYouEvil after he took the path to evil]], [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished his one moment of kindness costed him ''everything'']].

* ComicBook/{{Sabretooth}} has had his share of these over the years. But the closest literal example is a baby tiger he takes a liking to in Pak's ''Weapon X''.

* ''ComicBook/TheCartoonHistoryOfTheUniverse'' discusses the concept of selective kindness in talking about inter-cultural relationships in the days before diplomacy: everybody tender to their own people while at the same time callously brutal to everyone else.

* ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}'s son, ComicBook/{{Daken}}, is a murderous, manipulative sociopath and AntiVillain. However, he does have a genuine soft spot for his little sister [[ComicBook/{{X 23}} Laura]] and her 13-year-old clone Gabby. In ''ComicBook/AllNewWolverine'', he comes to Roosevelt Island not save lives, but simply because Laura wants him to be there.