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* ''ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}'': When Creator/DCComics decided to transform Aquaman into a more serious superhero, one of the first things they did was transform Black Manta from a minor, if imposing, threat into a deadly straight sociopath who murdered Aquaman's son.
* ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}'':
** [[BigBad Julius Caesar]] is regarded as the Gauls' most serious foe and most scenes that feature Julius Caesar tend to be treated in a more serious manner compared to the scenes featuring his comical and ineffectual mooks.
** Julius Caesar's adopted son [[TheBrute Brutus]] is an even bigger example as he caused one of the darkest moments to happen in the comic by [[spoiler: being the only antagonist in the series to burn the Gaulish village to the ground in ''Asterix and Son.'']]
* While stories about Batman are normally not comedic or light-hearted in nature, ComicBook/TheJoker's ([[LaughablyEvil ironically enough]]) reappearance in ''ComicBook/DeathOfTheFamily'', after a year-long absence, certainly changes the mood to more dramatic, more serious, and terrifying. Where ''ComicBook/NightOfTheOwls'' felt like a mystery/action thriller, ''Death of the Family'' feels like a horror story.
* An even earlier Batman example was "The Demon's Quest" in the early 1970s -- the first appearance of Ra's al-Ghul. Coming just a scant few years after the campy TV series, following a legacy of over three decades of [[RoguesGallery gimmicky, costumed villains]], Ra's was simply [[WellIntentionedExtremist a very wealthy and very warped (albeit semi-immortal) man who, for reasons that made perfect sense to him but no one else, wanted to wipe out 90 percent of the human race]]. This was also the point in history at which Batman himself began to change, returning from the Dudley Do-Right archetype he'd cultivated during the 1950s and '60s to a stern, brooding, and slightly unhinged "dark" vigilante. It's notable that the "Demon's Quest" storyline had the same effect two decades later when it was incorporated into [[WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries the animated series]], and then again a decade after ''that'' with ''Film/BatmanBegins'', which was [[{{Understatement}} quite the palate-cleanser]] after ''Film/BatmanAndRobin''. Even the grisliest Joker stories are guaranteed to have a few laughs; Ra's al-Ghul stories are invariably about genocide, which is almost never funny, especially when the character is no-nonsense.
* When Creator/AlanMoore took over on ComicBook/CaptainBritain, he hit the book with the one two punch of [[ComicBook/CaptainBritainACrookedWorld Jim Jaspers and the Fury]]. Jaspers took over his universe's England and began screwing with everything with his reality warping powers, and The Fury was his creation, an ever-evolving cyborg designed to kill every super-powered being except Jaspers himself.
* ''ComicBook/{{Shazam}}'' is fairly light-hearted adventure most of the time. But all that changes whenever his archnemesis Mister Mind appears. Whereas the rest of the Marvel Family's foes are simple, likable supervillains who come up with a crazy new take-over-the-world scheme each week, Mister Mind is a sociopathic manipulator who only ever makes his presence known when he has a solid chance at victory. He's the only villain whom Captain Marvel unambiguously, genuinely ''hates'' and considers beyond redemption. He's also probably the most dangerous villain in the series, who once ''nuked a city through sheer manipulation''. Most terrifying of all is that Mind has no real motivation to continue committing crimes beyond getting back at Captain Marvel for humiliating him and [[ForTheEvulz the sheer fun of it]]. Even other hardened supervillains like Lex Luthor fear Mind. This is all the more impressive because Mister Mind is a two-foot tall caterpillar from Venus and yet still manages to be terrifying.
** Freddy Freeman/Captain Marvel Junior was an aversion -- his solo stories were DarkerAndEdgier but seldom in the original Fawcett run did that turn up in the combined Marvel Family titles let alone the others' solo ones. This became a flat-out inversion in [[Film/Shazam2019 the movie trailer]] when he delivered the line that shifted things from the grimdark Creator/ZackSnyder DC tone to the Big Red Cheese Festival.
** ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'' had a LighterAndSofter subplot around Captain Marvel nemesis ComicBook/BlackAdam, complete with PluckyComicRelief and BigEater Sobek, a cartoonish animal who was always whining about how hungry he was; Almighty Isis, Adam's new wife, and Osiris, Isis' wide-eyed idealist little brother. [[spoiler: Turns out Sobek is hungry because he's a bioengineered avatar of famine, and eats Osiris on-camera.]]
* ''ComicBook/CerebusTheAardvark'' didn't actually have one of these; the major turns for the DarkerAndEdgier usually (but not always) involve the scary-as-hell matriarchal fascists called Cirinists, but there's no one character that fits the bill.
* The appearance of the Anti-Monitor in ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' was such an up to eleven example (just like everything else about ''Crisis On Infinite Earths'') of this trope that he not only ushered in CerebusSyndrome for ''the entire DC multiverse'', but induced a {{Cosmic|Retcon}} CerebusRetcon upon its entire history. However, instead of taking the danger to a new level, he instead warped the fabric of reality into MediaNotes/{{the Dark Age|of Comic Books}} and all its DarkerAndEdgier '90s-ness, since no one since has ever been able to come close to either his [[SlidingScaleOfVillainThreat threat level]] or [[SlidingScaleOfAntagonistVileness evilness level.]]
* The [[DimensionLord Dread Dormammu]] was this for original ComicBook/DoctorStrange stories. Before him Strange was usually foiling the plans of the likes of [[EvilCounterpart Mordo]] and [[DreamWeaver Nightmare]], which, while usually pretty vile, were't anything he couldn't deal with in ten to twelve pages. Dormammu was the first opponent who required multi-part storyline to be dealt with, setting a much more serious tone. By his second appearance, he threw Strange, [[TheMentor Ancient One]] and [[LoveInterest Clea]] into a desperate fight for survival that lasted through the rest of Creator/StanLee and Creator/SteveDitko's run.
* ''ComicBook/{{Empowered}}'':
** Willy Pete gruesomely killed a bunch of people by raping them to death (which is all too easy for him to do, as he is a fire elemental who cannot shut off the powers that make his body superhot) in his very first appearance. Note that we're talking about a comic book that was almost purely comedic up until this moment. Since he is a fire elemental, his raping them to death [[spoiler:wasn't done in any of the normal ways, because the meat burned away too quickly. So he'd use an eye socket, since the skull would hold the pressure better. More durable sorts he tended to cannibalize (occasionally as they watched), since he couldn't eat normal food because it burned up in the same way; superhero meat would resist longer and be perfectly cooked by the time he could eat it.]]
** Ninjette's pursuers, while having their moments of black humor, ventured firmly into this territory when [[spoiler: they hunted her down, and after suffering much pain, decided that the best way to bring her back without further incident was to ''chop off her arms and legs'', which she wouldn't need anyway to fulfill her destiny as a ''ninja baby-maker''. She was saved by her friends in the nick of time, but the mental image of what they tried to do left her a bit unhinged for the whole next volume.]]
** Deathmonger became one of these by way of CerebusRetcon. In volume 1, she is not seen on-page and sounds like a simple Grim Reaper-themed villain with an army of "scythebots", albiet one described as a large-scale threat. However, when she finally appears in volume 6, she is reimagined as a powerful necromancer who [[HeroKiller targets heroes to make zombies out of them.]]
* Franchise/TheFlash is one of the most lighthearted heroes from the DCU. However, all that goes out the window whenever a Reverse-Flash shows up. To clarify:
** Professor Zoom/Reverse Flash I is a time-traveling sociopath who killed Iris Allen, traveled back in time to kill Barry's mom for the heck of it, and is best exemplified by his standpoint in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueTheFlashpointParadox'', where he is perfectly willing to be obliterated with a timestream if the Flash goes with him.
** If Professor Zoom was bad, Zoom/Reverse-Flash II is worse. A FallenHero with an absurdly DarkAndTroubledPast, Zoom is a violently delusional borderline sociopath who believes he is a better Flash than Wally West because he has survived so much tragedy. [[InsaneTrollLogic Therefore]], [[MiseryBuildsCharacter he seeks to perfect the Flash by causing him as much misery as he can.]] His idea of misery? Causing a huge explosion which makes the Flash's wife miscarry, [[KickTheDog then looking through the timestreams and informing Wally he'd have had twins.]]
* Not in the series itself, but apparently John Aman, Prince of Orphans, was this for Orson Randall's time as ComicBook/ImmortalIronFist -- Orson would have various adventures with his pals in the thirties, but whenever John showed up to hunt him, things would stop being fun. It finally led Orson to leave the team before John kills them to get him.
* And with the advent of ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'' Justice League ally Max Lord was retconned into being one of these. His return as a White Lantern ramps this up to eleven.
* During the 90s comic book phase of 'grim and gritty', DC's ''[[Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica Justice League]]'' was played for laughs by Giffen and [=DeMatteis=] until the arrival of Despero in JL #38 and his subsequent killing spree (including killing a team member's parents) and introducing a new 'serious' phase in the history of the book... whose readership then tailed off.
* ''ComicBook/LesLegendaires'' uses this at several points to different level. The series typically stars as goofy and comical, [[MoodWhiplash only to turn surprisingly dark and serious]] whenever the major villain of the current arc is introduced :
** Darkhell is believed dead several time, but everytimes he shows up, it always ends up with people dying. Even more extreme, the flashback show that he did ''a lot'' of horrible things in the backstory : so far, almost everything bad to ever happen on Alysia has somehow a connection to him... no wonder he became TheDreaded in all Alysia.
** While the Guardian was more of a LawfulNeutral type than an actual villain, his role as an antagonist in Book 2 caused [[spoiler:the whole cast to die, ironically because of him).]]
** While Skroa didn't really have time to cause much harm at his introduction in Book 2, his come-back in Books 7 and 8 caused ''a lot'' of death and almost led to [[spoiler:the extermination of the Jaguarians]].
** [[GodOfEvil Anathos]] is probably one of the most extreme level; whereas the serie had already got quite serious and dark at this point, his appearance made the whole story goes ''[[FromBadToWorse even darker]]'', starting with him [[spoiler:[[DemonicPossession possessing one of the protagonist]], [[ScarsAreForever scarring or crippling all the others]] and almost succeeding in a [[OmnicidalManiac genocide of humanity]]. Even after he was eventually defeated, the serie seems so far to retain a darker tone that it usually had.]]
* ''[[ComicBook/NewMutants New X-Men: Academy X]]'' had originally been slowly building up [[PsychoPsychologist Sean Garrison]] to be this, but his arc was [[AbortedArc aborted]] when the original writing team got fired. New writers introduced the cast to classic X-Men antagonist [[SinisterMinister William Stryker]]. And people started to die.
* The ''ComicBook/{{Nodwick}}'' print comic, in order to move from the gag-a-week strips shown in ''Magazine/DragonMagazine'' into a MythArc, introduced one of these as a BigBad: GodOfEvil Baphuma'al, who was a lot more competent than ''Dragon'' villain Count Repugsive (though, really, outdoing a villain whose first 'EvilPlan' was using his undead armies as part of a blockbusting scheme isn't that hard to beat...). Repugsive did get ADayInTheLimelight in the print comic (where he ironically came closer to conquering the world than Baphuma'al did), but the plan was mostly PlayedForLaughs (it involved turning the universe into an 8-bit platforming game) and the heroes defeated him fairly handily. [[spoiler:Repugsive inadvertently got mixed into the main storyline and ended up helping to save the day in the end; the villains attempted a GrandTheftMe scheme to upload [[TheBrute Utharr]]'s mind into his body, and failed because Repugsive's mind refused to let itself get entirely booted out]].
* The Black Dahlias in ''ComicBook/TheOrder2007'' were an all-girl gang that attacked and brutally murdered the Order's former members, which was quite a change from the science fiction villains that they'd previously dealt with.
* ''ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures'' has Due and High Caste Evronians (or [[FromBadToWorse higher]]). Where most of the series tend to be still comedic in spite of being DarkerAndEdgier for Disney comics, Due's four appearances are some of the few times where Paperinik nearly gets killed, and the Evronians, usually relatively harmless villains, shows exactly ''why'' they are [[TheEmpire the dominant power in the galaxy and have never suffered a major defeat before]] when High Caste members show up. Needless to say, those times where ''both'' Due and Evronians of the highest caste showed up were among the most dangerous issues of the entire run, with Paperinik only surviving due sheer luck (the first time the Evronians were ''pissed'' at Due for hijacking a group of newborn warriors and saved Paperinik by taking them back and waiting until they were recovered before ''blowing up everything'', and the other was only due the Evronian ChronicBackstabbingDisorder getting in the way at the last moment).
* ''ComicBook/ScottPilgrim'' is a crazy comic, and starts out very happy until Gideon Graves showed up and [[spoiler: stabbed and killed Scott and Ramona (well, Ramona almost gets killed)]].
** To a lesser degree, the Katayanagi twins also messed up the comic's quirky nature.
* ''ComicBook/SonicTheComic'', while becoming somewhat dark as the issues passed by, really started becoming dark once Super Sonic appeared. It got even worse when he separated from Sonic and even more worse when Chaos appeared.
** Metallix (The STC version of Metal Sonic) also counts. The first model was the first real threat Sonic faced, with Sonic's victory over him being narrow and the stories afterwords getting much darker. While his successor didn't exactly make things darker, he lead into the next iteration:The Brotherhood of Metallix, an entire army of Metallix as strong as the first model who Sonic barely defeats... only for them to return, as strong as ever and use a pirate omniviewer to rewrite time [[spoiler: So that Dr. Ovi Kintobor never became Robotnik and thus never put in the one thing that could stop them: A self distruct. This forces Sonic to create his worst enemy just to stop them. On top of this they held Porker Lewis captive for a month, the trauma of which lead to him quitting the Freedom Fighters.]]
** After Metallix came Commander Brutus, an elite Badnik commander with Robotnik's brain patterns who broke away from his boss and proved to be just as much of a threat.
* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'' started out rather lighthearted, but Robotnik was gradually made more and more into an actually menacing villain, and as he did the general tone of the series grew darker, and the constant gags and attention to construction that fueled the early installments gave way to constant peril and at least one issue that was almost entirely traced. Then Robotnik ''died'' and the comic turned to high school relationship drama, and I'll leave it up to you what effect that had on the tone of the series.
** Played with upon Robotnik's return and revamp as "Eggman". While he's still the biggest threat in the series for the large part, and has played part in the mass genocide of several notable characters [[spoiler: (as well as robotocizing Sally Acorn and seriously wounding Antoine)]], it is merged with an unusual dark comedic wit and whimsy that matches his other more inneffectual counterparts. He even has his two mooks from the games to banter with [[MoodWhiplash as he simultaneously terrorizes Mobian civilians]].
** While more a villain for Knuckles, anytime a character with the [[PhysicalGod Enerjak]] name shows up, things are going to get bad. Knuckles' current ArchEnemy [[OmnicidalManiac Dr. Finitivus]] also qualifies. He's completely uncomedic, and his first EvilPlan led to Knuckles becoming the new Enerjak and the death of Knuckles' father Locke.
* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogIDW'' started out being a LighterAndSofter reboot of the ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' comics. But, when the Metal Virus gets introduced halfway through the comic, things start getting bleak for the heroes, especially since most of the heroes ended up being infected by the virus. After this event, the comic started introducing some darker stories from this point forward.
** The Deadly Six's appearance in the comic, which occured during the Metal Virus Arc, made things even worse and in all of their appearances afterwards, the story takes a dark turn whenever they are introduced to the plot.
** Dr. Starline is an interesting case as he can be a LaughablyEvil villain at times and is an ineffective villain overall. However, he has committed some of the evilest acts in the comic which jumpstarted some of the comic's darkest events such as the Metal Virus and the Imposter Syndrome arc.
* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'':
** ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye'': Has all sorts of quirky humor and conflicts. The Decepticon Justice Division's appearance turns their arc into a desperate struggle for survival against a team of KnightTemplar troops. Their ruthlessness makes all Decepticons current and former dread. [[spoiler: Overlord]]'s appearance ''ComicBook/TheTransformersLastStandOfTheWreckers'' didn't have the light tone to make him contrast as much, but here, he just decides to go out and murder a bunch of people, and goes on a rampage through the ship.
** ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMarvel'': Galvatron serves as this in the UK side of things, his first appearance in Target: 2006 protraying him as an unstoppable and highly intelligent force that forces the Decepticons and Autobots to work together, and he still ends up scoring a NearVillainVictory and his plan is only foiled by a trick from Unicron. He is played as a major threat and played very seriously in all appearances, and heralded the beginning of a more 'epic' UK stories that had a larger impact on continuity (as well as the UK stories being considered darker and more complex than their US counterparts), as well as increasing Furman's willingness to write out or kill existing characters.
** In the US stories, Shockwave serves as this in the New Order arc. When the Autobots have seemingly defeated Megatron's Decepticons and are celeberating their victory, he suddenly turns up and oneshots and captures all of them (barring Ratchet, who was elsewhere), takes over the Decepticons, and strings up the Autobots' remains like hunks of meat, and kills Sunstreaker as an example to Megatron. He even decapitates Optimus and probes his severed head for the power of the Creation Matrix, leaving the Autobots more helpless than they had ever been at any other point.
* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'':
** ComicBook/{{Carnage}} serves as a classic example from the main continuity. Being a psychotic serial killer with a symbiote that both runs on and craves blood, he particularly stands out amongst Spidey's colorful RoguesGallery because he's not interested in money or power; all he wants to do is kill as many people as he can, as violently as he can.
** Morlun from [[ComicBook/TheAmazingSpiderManJMichaelStraczynski JMS' run]] -- not for the run itself (because he was the run's first antagonist), but the series as a whole. Because he significantly ramps up the threat level, his mere presence is a sign things are about to turn grim. ''ComicBook/SpiderVerse'' takes this up to eleven when ''his entire family'' is introduced.
** In ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan'', expect things to get dead ''freaking'' serious whenever [[BigBad Norman Osborn]] or anything else having to do with him shows up, possibly even more so then in the main continuity. Venom, too, has this distinction, symbolized by the fact that he's the first villain Peter fights without his Spider-Man costume. Just Venom's suit alone can threaten ''nuclear war!''
* The supervillain Harm in ''ComicBook/YoungJustice''; the first page of his first appearance is marked by Arrowette, bloodily impaled with one of her own arrows, saying, "But that's n-not funny..."
* 9-Jack-9 from ''[[ComicBook/{{Zot}} Zot!]]'' -- among all the villains he is most cold, ruthless, calculating and menacing and his appearance pawed way for both other dark villains like Zyvox and lead to more serious, focused on real-life issues Earth Stories -- as Creator/ScottMcCloud admitted, Jack's appearance made him realize Zot's world is not as innocent as he thought.

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