* TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks is basically one huge flanderization of TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks, especially the "[[DarkerAndEdgier dark]]" contents.
* Most mainstays of the Giffen-era Comicbook/JusticeLeagueInternational suffered heavy Flanderization; that was sort of [[RuleOfFunny the whole point of the books.]]
** A notable aversion occurs with, of all people, Guy Gardner. Giffen and [=DeMatteis=] were concerned with how much Flanderization had already occurred with the character, who initially was more intelligent than Hal Jordan, but by the time of joining the JLI was mostly famous as a JerkAss with severe brain damage. A punch from Batman sends Guy into an alternate, hyper-sensitive persona, [[spoiler: eventually revealed to be a total con, as Guy enjoyed screwing with his teammates. His girlfriend, Ice, sees through it.]]
** The Justice League in general occasionally suffers this problem. The heroes in their own books have multi-faceted personalities, while Justice League in the hands of sloppy writers reduces them to their most stereotypical natures, such as Batman being completely unfeeling and methodical, or Superman's "boy scout" persona. This is in part because each character was originally TheHero in their own titles. They weren't developed with a group dynamic in mind so some of their key character development has also come from them playing off of each other in the team books.
* In a strange case of [[ArtEvolution graphical]] {{Flanderization}}, Kingdok from ''{{Bone}}'' gets more monstrous each issue.
* TheUltimates are a interesting case of Flanderization. In their initial run, Mark Millar tended to take the most famous aspects of each Avenger (Cap being of the 40's, Tony's hedonism, Pym slapping Janet, Jan being slapped by Pym, Hulk's rage, etc) and amplified them all several times over (Cap was painfully old-fashioned in speech and social views, Tony was always drinking and/or flirting with some blonde, Pym was a textbook wife-beater, Jan was a textbook battered wife, and Hulk was a murdering cannibal). This went into overdrive when Jeph Loeb took over the third volume. Tony was always in a drunken stupor and Cap spontaneously picked fights over Wanda's choice of attire.
* Johnny Storm of the ''Comicbook/FantasticFour'' started off as a somewhat-conceited daredevil hero of the team. Since the eighties, he's become increasingly more stupid and narcissistic, to the point where he now appears to be a [[TheDitz ditzy]], AmbiguouslyGay metrosexual completely in love with himself.
** Also, Reed Richards was originally a tad eccentric and rather emotionally stunted, but was Flanderized in the late 1990s/2000s into a borderline savant who doesn't understand human social behavior. This pretty much is part and parcel of Reed's slow derailment from a many-layered, infamously trope-defying character into a generic scientific supergenius strawman.
*** Perhaps most tellingly, Reed was originally written as a veteran of WorldWarII before ComicBookTime forced the writers to cut that detail from his backstory. After 40 years of intense {{Flanderization}}, though, it's practically unthinkable that the current comics' pencil-necked nerd would have ever even ''considered'' serving in the Army, let alone that he would ever have fought in Nazi-occupied France in the Big One.
* Northstar of Marvel's ''AlphaFlight'' (later the ''Comicbook/{{X-Men}}'') started off as an arrogant former athlete with an interest in politics and a devotion to his mentally ill sister. While John Byrne wasn't allowed to write Northstar as explicitly gay, he managed to work in a few hints. When Marvel finally got the bright idea to "out" Northstar... well, suddenly, it seemed like all that mature characterization vanished, and suddenly he was gay. Gay, gay, gay. ''So'' gay. Did he tell you how gay he is? Even worse, he went back to being a self-absorbed douche despite maturing over the course of Alpha Flight.
* [[{{Batman}} Bruce Wayne]] was originally depicted as merely [[RichIdiotWithNoDayJob Comfortably Well-Off]]. Now, he's one of the two richest men in TheDCU. Of course, that's hardly the only example of Bat-Flanderization:
** Killer Croc was originally a somewhat intelligent gangster with a medical condition (a ''very severe'' medical condition), whose misanthropy was the result of being tormented by everyone (family included) for his freakish appearance. This was eventually downplayed, with Croc becoming more bestial and less intelligent as time went on (this was typically explained that his condition was worsening, further separating him from humanity). By the time of ''Hush'', Croc could probably pass for a bulkier version of [[SpiderMan Marvel Comic's Lizard]] (explained away by Hush infecting him with a virus that further increased his mutation).
** Batman himself has become increasingly ultra-competent and infallible in the past few decades. One could argue the flanderization of Batman was necessary to keep him interesting in the context of the Justice League. He's one of the few characters without a true super power, so the question of why they keep him around (aside from maybe his money) needs answering. Having him be the greatest strategist in existence gives him a purpose and even a reason for being one of the guys in charge.
*** He's also portrayed as the "brooding loner" of the Justice League. This is despite the fact that the "Bat-family" has more members than Superman's friends and allies, two of the five Robins have led the Teen Titans, one of those two also led ComicBook/YoungJustice, the other is considered the most trustworthy man in the hero community, and Oracle acts as the MissionControl. He is a close friend of a lot of superheroes as well, and he managed to be something of a father to [[ComicBook/{{Batgirl 2000}} Cassandra]] [[BrokenBird Cain]].
* [[Comicbook/{{X-Men}} Wolverine]] is a case study. During the [[TheEighties '80s]] considerable CharacterDevelopment evolved the character from a one-note JerkAss prone to UnstoppableRage to a wise, intelligent, multitalented, and skilled warrior/mentor (with just enough issues to avoid CanonSue status). Then he [[WolverinePublicity got popular]] and the LowestCommonDenominator of Captain Fuzzity [=McStabStab=] won out with all the guest-shots even as they ramped his HealingFactor to UpToEleven, making him pretty much the definition of a CanonSue. [[EnsembleDarkhorse And he's still the most popular character of the whole franchise]]. Because being BadAss is the ''only'' thing he seems to need.
* Some readers complain about Surge. While she is initially depicted as being kind-of a JerkAss, it's understandable. While she was always an outspoken, rebellious smart ass, her recent depictions make her much harder to sympathise with. Recently she has been portrayed as an unrelenting bitch and it is becoming her most dominant characteristic.
* During Joe Kelly's run, {{Deadpool}} was a talkative loon full of bad jokes and other wackiness. However he was also portrayed as a total psychotic with a loose, at best, grasp of sanity. All the wackiness was a cover to hide his immense mental problems and self-loathing and just the slightest nudge could send him over the edge in a violent, unsettling rage. Most subsequent writers pretty much ignore the latter part and play him up as little more than a goofy comedy character. That being said, [[TropesAreNotBad the character's popularity has, if anything, skyrocketed]] since his flanderization and his flanderized version has since become his more iconic and well-recognized version. It helps that Marvel already has characters to fill the [[{{Wolverine}} Canadian with Rage Issues, Regenerating Healing Powers, and a convoluted backstory complicated by Swiss-Cheese Memory]], and [[SpiderMan a flamboyant joke-cracker in a red costume, whose snark covers up his inner angst]] roles.
* [[Comicbook/IncredibleHulk The Hulk's]] raw power has been exaggerated to the point that he might as well just be a [[DragonBallZ Super Saiyan.]]
** Well yeah... That's kinda the point of the Hulk, the angrier he gets the stronger he gets; potentially if he gets angry enough he can go to [[DragonBallZ Super Saiyan]] level.
* ComicBook/IronMan used to be a fairly well-rounded character, being not only a super hero, but also a captain of industry, a millionaire playboy, a bit of a womanizer, a technological genius and - rather uniquely - physically crippled from his inception. He also had a bout with alcoholism. During Marvel's Civil War, he got flanderized into a stubborn pseudo-fascist who'd just as soon throw his best friends in jail if they did not fall in line with the Superhero Registration Act. He had not ''nearly'' recovered from the fan-impact of that when Matt Fraction took him on an entirely different flanderization trip by reducing ''all'' his issues to side effects of alcoholism. Now, it seems Tony Stark spends approximately half the time agonizing about how badly he sucks.
* Hey, has Dr. Light told you how much he likes [[MoralEventHorizon rape]] [[http://livingbetweenwednesdays.blogspot.com/2006/11/can-we-talk-about-something-else.html lately]]? "It's like it's his power now." It finally got to the point where [[EvenEvilHasStandards other villains refused to work with him]] and the Spectre turned him into a candle and lit him on fire -- as he was about to do some nasty things to hookers ''dressed as the ComicBook/TeenTitans''.
* Magica [=DeSpell=]'s obsession with Scrooge [=McDuck=]'s NumberOneDime. Though her introduction does have her focused on attempting to steal it, other Carl Barks stories usually had Magica simply wanting to become rich, and would often have her working on schemes completely unrelated to the dime. Nowadays, she's completely psychotic about that coin, and you rarely, if ever, see a Magica story without it as her prime goal anymore.
** The dime itself also went through a sort of Flanderization. In the original story with Magica the dime had no initial magic powers. Magica just needed it as a spell component. Later writers seem to have missed this point and decided that the dime was somehow the source of Scrooge's wealth. In some stories, Scrooge can lose the dime over simple theft and suddenly his entire empire is crumbling. DonRosa [[TakeThat mocks this]] in the GrandFinale of ''Comicbook/TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck'', where the Flanderization [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall extends to rumors in-universe]]. Scrooge finds the idea that he owes his entire fortune to a lucky charm (which he had for ''twenty years'' before he even started to make his fortune!) incredibly insulting. That said, Rosa's take on the characters has also that Magica's spell would indeed work should she get her hands on the coin, and that losing the dime would indeed cause Scrooge to lose such spirit that he'd be no match for his enemies.
* SquirrelGirl begun as an [[AscendedFanboy Ascended Fangirl]] in training, but nowadays her single most defining trait is her victories over Marvel's who's-who of the most powerful super villains.
* BoosterGold started as a well-meaning hero whose love of money often got him in over his head. Over the course of the '80s and '90s, writers forgot about the "well-meaning" part and turned him into a money-grubbing jerk. Thankfully, over the course of ''Infinite Crisis'' and ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'' in the mid-'00s, DC built Booster back up, and now he's a genuine hero again--though the lure of fame and fortune still ''occasionally'' tempt him.
** Even better, he now ''intentionally'' acts like that, so [[strike:no-one]] [[SecretKeeper no-one except Batman & Superman]] realises that he's grown into a competant hero in his own right, whilst he roams the timestream protecting history from enemies who — if they ever saw past his foolish reputation and realized he was the one foiling their schemes — would not only kill him but do it in such a way that Booster Gold never existed. So now instead of promoting himself, Booster must do everything in his power to make people think he's an inept idiot, in order to carry out his mission to defend time itself.
*** Even before 52, some writers had started pointing out that there was more to Booster Gold than met the eye. At one point one of the other heroes muses that, being from the future, Booster must have been aware that Doomsday was a monster that was fully capable of killing Superman. And he still stepped up and took the first actual punch Doomsday aimed at a hero on his personal forcefield, to protect another member of the League. Both this acknowledgment and the moment itself hint that some people never completely forgot that Booster was kind of badass.
* AlanMoore's TopTen has [[ShockAndAwe Shock Headed Peter]] who comes off at first as simply a prejudiced working class cop who actually has some character depth to a 2-D [[StrawmanPolitical Straw]] [[FantasticRacism Robo-Racist]] when a Robot character gets introduced to Precinct 10.
* Archie's ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehog'' comic: Sonic's attitude has been cranked UpToEleven, to the point where he's making wisecracks during a battle with Enerjak, a being with seemingly limitless energy (though this may have been more for comic relief than anything, it was a tad excessive). [[TropesAreNotBad To be fair]], though, it seems to have slightly boosted his {{Badass}}-ness--at the cost of emotion (again, though, to be fair, he never really showed much emotion anyway).
** The part about emotion is slowly being subverted as of #200; ever since Sonic's apparently driven Robotnik totally, droolingly insane, he seems to actually regret having broken down the guy so completely.
** An aversion may come from the early comics, which had a much zanier and cartoony format thus exaggerated a lot of the characters' traits compared to their ''[[WesternAnimation/SonicSatAM SatAm]]'' counterparts, e.g. Sonic existed as a KarmicTrickster with a TotallyRadical mannerisms akin to his ''[[WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog AoStH]]'' counterpart, Sally's somewhat neurotic and no-nonsense attitude was exaggerated into a spoiled, mean-tempered prude and Robotnik was converted into even bigger a bumbling CardCarryingVillain than his 'Eggman' incarnations. This was reversed as the comic's writing tone became more serious and akin to the show, though some genuine cases of flanderization do pop up on occasion.
* Considering how often ComicBook/{{Cyclops}} and Havok end up fighting one another, they sometimes get Flanderized into being locked in an eternal CainAndAbel, being unable to abide one another at the best of times and one of them being a super-villain (usually Havok) at worst. This portrayal appears in the Ultimate, Legends, and Misfits universes, where (unlike their 616 counterparts) they don't need the influence of any psychic brainwashing to bait them into fighting.
* Hank Pym (aka {{Ant-Man}}) has suffered from this perhaps more than any other Marvel character. During a single incident in which he was suffering a nervous breakdown, Hank struck his wife, Janet Van Dyne (TheWasp). Dozens of writers over the years have gone back to this time and again, with at least three different stories having been told about the two of them coming to terms with what happened. As of this writing Janet is dead in Marvel's main continuity and Hank's remorse is so Flanderized and extreme that he's calling ''himself'' the Wasp.
** It's worth noting that both both Spider-Man and Mr. Fantastic have hit their significant others in moments of extreme stress. While fans didn't much like either incident, neither character is regarded primarily as a "wife-beater" the way Pym is.
** And of course almost every female romantically tied to a superhero — whether she herself is super-powered or not — has struck her significant other, and none of those incidents have ever been exaggerated as a trait of the character. [[AbuseIsOkayWhenItsFemaleOnMale But that's a different problem entirely.]]
* Cat Grant in ''{{Superman}}'' was introduced as sort of a GoodBadGirl BrokenBird. Someone who had a bit of an immoral past that she was trying to move beyond, and was looking for a good man like Clark Kent to be her anchor. Nowadays she's portrayed as an LoveableSexManiac at best and just ReallyGetsAround at worst.
** It's been mentioned that this is a facade Cat is using because of the pain of losing her son so many years ago.
* ComicBook/{{X-Men}} villain Mojo was introduced in a miniseries as a psychotic EldritchAbomination obsessed whose very presence actually caused living things to wither and die and who casually committed MindRape. He also commissioned genetically-engineered slaves to act in movies to entertain him. Even Comicbook/DoctorStrange feared what would happen if he stayed on Earth for long. As soon as he was brought into the main X-Men comics, the mystical powers and murderous demeanor were downplayed and the media obsession was turned UpToEleven, so Mojo immediately became a comedic villain used to spoof the entertainment industry.
** He's still pretty damn horrible, though, and his comedic personality makes it worse when he does something like torturing Nocturne ForTheEvulz, or cheerfully sending someone to ''have their spine freaking removed''.
* When the LittleLulu comics first introduced [[MeaningfulName Wilbur Van Snobbe]], he was accurately depicted as a {{Jerkass}} SpoiledBrat who would go out of his way to try to best either Lulu or Tubby, with no success. However, when the anime version was created, the creators took away his snobbish characteristics and turned him into a well-mannered rich boy who served as TheSmartGuy to Lulu and the others. Then, when ''The Little Lulu Show'' was created, his snobbish personality was fortunately returned intact, just like in the original comics.
* The Guardians Of The Universe in ''GreenLantern'' have always been distant and aloof, but were once wise and respected, having created an organization of star-patrolling peacekeepers that has survived for eons. With each passing year though, they become more incompetent, single-minded, and corrupt, lying to their members, holding their own mysterious agendas, and constantly having their mistakes blow up in the faces and inevitably needing to be saved by the Earth Lanterns (and then clearly resenting the aid). One recent comic even had a Guardian admit he didn't remember why they started the Corp in the first place. By this point, it's a genuine curiosity how they got an organization as advanced and well-functioning as the Green Lanterns working outside of dumb luck.

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