Affably Evil / Marvel Universe

Marvel Universe

Affably Evil in this franchise.

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Comic Books

Comic Books

• Spider-Man:
  • Otto Octavius, better known Doctor Octopus, once rented a room from Aunt May, and behaved like a perfect gentleman, even helping her around the house. He also came very near to marrying her, after she somehow inherited a nuclear plant. May's inability to understand that he was a bad person was a running gag for a long while. It became Faux Affably Evil during The Ends of the Earth and the following Superior Spider-Man arc.
  • The Venom symbiote is like a lost sweet little kid who though bloodthirsty and arrogant wants to help its hosts unlike its corrupted kind who take complete control of their hosts than draining them of vitality killing them in the process and it can be very friendly to those who are innocent along with the ones that it cares about and loves the most like Spider-Man, Eddie Brock and Flash Thompson. It prefers to be honest with people instead of lying to them since it hates lying to them about things and it does not try to use lethal force unless it has to. It also likes being a superhero which makes it very adorable because it’s a fan of them.
• Doctor Doom, the main enemy of the Fantastic Four, fits this like a glove, proving to be surprisingly likable and charming even as he commits various evil deeds, to the point where he's had several moments past the Moral Event Horizon retconned, ignored, or smoothed over into Well-Intentioned Extremist territory because of fandom outrage. Doom mocks your belief in the Moral Event Horizon! And following Secret Wars (2015), he's pulled off an apparently genuine Heel–Face Turn, even having a go at being Iron Man while Tony's out of action. Everyone is completely completely and utterly baffled by this.
• X-Men:
  • Magneto, during Chris Claremont's first run, went from fantastic fascist to head of Xavier Institute to not quite back again, thanks in large part to his portrayal as an Affably Evil Well-Intentioned Extremist, to the point where his appearance at the end of Grant Morrison's New X-Men run which featured him putting humans into gas chambers and killing Jean out of spite was Retconned faster than a speeding bullet into being a lunatic called Xorn who masqueraded as him. Ever since, he's largely settled as the Good Is Not Nice Foil to the X-Men, willing to do the things that the more moral members baulk at (such as leading what is essentially the latest incarnation of X-Force as part of a long running habit of hunting down the enemies of mutantkind), and as one of their core members following the team's move to Utopia. At the moment, he's serving as The Mentor to the time travelling Original Five.
  • Also, Azazel. Apart from being the mutant equivalent of the Man of Wealth and Taste, he's shown to feel genuine affection (of a sort) towards Mystique and his son Nightcrawler.
• Batroc the Leaper is a super-villain and mercenary, but is on Friendly Enemy terms with Captain America and temporarily reformed out of respect for Cap. When Ulysses Klaw hired him to help stage a coup of Wakanda, he still chided Rhino for needlessly killing an endangered black rhino. "We are guests in this country. It's just good manners."
• Iron Man:
  • The Mandarin has a heart of stone, but he is always impeccably polite and well-mannered. He also has a strict code of honor, which he always makes sure to uphold. He once vaporized his favorite minion on the spot for using poison in a sparring session, and he also upheld the promises he made on at least one occasion when Iron Man defeated him in fair combat, such as stopping his efforts to prevent Stark Enterprises from setting up in Hong Kong.
  • In The Secret Origin of Tony Stark, 451, the rogue Rigellian Recorder, is kind, friendly and really does want to help people, particularly humans and Earth. Even when Tony figures him out and snaps at him, repeatedly insulting him, he is still unfailingly polite. He's looking to guide the universe towards a peaceful future after seeing a highly altruistic species with almost no concept of warfare massacred for their pelts by the Skrulls. It's just that he's a Well-Intentioned Extremist writ large, believes that Utopia Justifies the Means and those means tend towards the incidentally genocidal - he doesn't want to hurt anyone, and he's genuinely remorseful when he does, but that doesn't mean that he won't if you can/do threaten his plans. And considering the scale of his plans, the length of time that he's been enacting them (500 years) and his requirements for those plans, this means that he has a kill count upwards of 40 million, including several species and at least two entire planets. After his plans hit a significant roadblock he was Out-Gambitted by Howard and Maria Stark, who raised their biological son, Arno, in secret, and adopted Tony as a decoy and he was faced with the possibility that it was All for Nothing he ended up in a Villainous BSoD and attempted a Heroic Sacrifice.
• The Sleepwalker villain 8-Ball carries himself with a swaggering, casual manner. He is completely unfazed by the appearance of the bizarre alien Sleepwalker, and simply tries to smooth-talk Sleepy when he demands to know what 8-Ball and his gang are doing. He even cheerfully accepts Sleepwalker's claim of being an alien without blinking an eye, and kindly explains the Earthly concepts of money and power to Sleepwalker...before he attempts to murder Sleepy by dropping a bank vault on him.
• Hoss, the redneck demon from Ghost Rider: Road to Damnation.
• Thanos of Titan. The quintessential example of this aspect of his character would probably be the confrontation with the Gardener over his Time Gem: the entire incident consisted mainly of cordial conversation between the two as Thanos made a futile attempt at convincing the Gardener to willingly relinquish his Gem, with even the eventual fatal conclusion being devoid of malice from both sides.
  • Some of Thanos' conversations with Adam Warlock evoke this. Warlock is the only being to have peeked inside Thanos' soul, and so is perhaps the only one who understands him. When they talk to each other, they almost sound like friends.
• The Serpent Society is a group of snake-themed supervillains with shades of this. In addition to members being friendly with one another, when one of them, Diamondback, semi-reformed, she also began dating Captain America. Not only were her friends within the group supportive of her, but they also helped thwart other villains' attempts at ruining her first date with him.
• The Punisher comes across a lot of these, presumably because they're such good foils to his usual demeanour.
  • The Russian is a jovial killing machine, more than likely to chat amicably with you while reducing your bones to a fine powder. He even killed an ally by accident while giving him a friendly one-armed squeeze.
• Diablo from Ultimate Fantastic Four is unfailingly polite to his enemies and captives. He was even nice to Enid while he was trying to sacrifice her to create the elixir for eternal life.

Films

Films

• Blade II: Asad may be a vampire but Asad is noticeably always polite and collected.
• Blade: Trinity
  • Drake views Blade as a Worthy Opponent and even finds his insults rather amusing. He even does Blade a solid by making the FBI think Blade is dead allowing the daywalker to continue his crusade without worrying about the manhunt for him.
  • Danica was a Catholic who believed in power within the vampire race.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Iron Man 3: Trevor Slattery, the "fake" Mandarin, is actually pretty nice. He is completely oblivious to the machinations of the film's true villain, Aldrich Killian.
  • Loki Odinson from Thor is very sympathetic and tragic given that his fall to villainy was all because his adoptive father Odin wouldn't respect him as his son nor allow him to take the throne of Asgard.
  • In Captain America: Civil War, Zemo is very a noble and wise human being who shows great respect towards the Avengers despite his vendetta against them for creating Ultron who killed his family. He is also very understanding of other people and would show great sympathy towards them, as he did with T'Challa whose father he killed and framed Bucky for the murder.
  • In Spider-Man: Homecoming, Toomes is a very respected and father and former businessman turned supervillain. He values his daughter Liz deeply as much as any father would and even warned Peter to treat her right while dropping them off at the High-School Dance. And despite his vendetta against both Iron Man and Spider-Man, he even defended the latter from a prison inmate in The Stinger.
  • Thor: Ragnarok has the secondary villain The Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum, and that casting says a lot right there), who rules a trash planet and delights in all manner of hedonism, in particular making "prisoners with jobs" (aka slaves) fight to the death in Gladiator Games. At the same time he's rather pleasant to be around provided one doesn't wind up on the wrong end of his "melt stick", and even then he doesn't think that, say, talking out of turn is a killable offense. As Loki puts it to Thor, "He's a lunatic, but he can be amenable." In the "Team Darryl" bonus short on the DVD release, he even becomes Darryl's roommate on Earth after being overthrown!
  • Thanos of all people turns out to be this as well. Unlike in the comics, Thanos is actually a Well-Intentioned Extremist who thinks the only way to save the universe and its limited resources is to wipe out half the life in the universe. He commends bravery and sympathizes with his opponents, and is a man of his word.
  • Xu Wenwu, aka the true Mandarin from Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings may be an immortal Diabolical Mastermind and one of the most dangerous individuals in the entire MCU, but he's also polite, patient, empathizes with Katy's Heritage Disconnect and genuinely loves his family, to the point that he was willing to set aside the Ten Rings so he could live out his final days with his beloved wife before her murder at the hands of the Iron Gang. His love for his children is also shown when he locks them up rather than actually hurt them and his final moments are spent rescuing his son Shang-Chi and passing down the Ten Rings to him. Also, while it's a downplayed aspect in the film, he's implied to be a good leader and inspires great loyalty in his men.
• In Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Doctor Octopus starts quirky and approachable, and continues to geek out over every (however, now, turbulent) reappearance of the Web-Head. There's just that scene in the middle where the scientist accelerates from tying him up for a saliva sample to looking forward to seeing the interdimensional instability take Spidey apart to, as the picture becomes clear, the tentacles coming out.
• Spider-Man Trilogy: Doctor Octopus, Harry Osborn, and Sandman all qualify.
  • Dennis Carradine is this to a certain extent, as he actually takes the time to thank Peter for not stopping him from getting in the elevator.
• The Amazing Spider-Man: The nameless robber who ends up killing Uncle Ben. He robs a convenience store, but on before heading out he hands Peter Parker the chocolate milk that the latter couldn't buy because of the clerk was being too petty. Also, him killing Uncle Ben was completely an accident and he's very visibly shocked over his action.
• Venom (2018): The Venom symbiote despite being aggressive and violent can be friendly, polite and kind to those it genuinely cares about and loves like with Eddie Brock and Anne Weying. It doesn't kill anyone senseless unlike Riot and even protects those who are innocent as it shields people in the next building from the Life Foundation's forces gunfire even though it didn't need to do that at all as it could have just protected Eddie instead.
• In X-Men: Days of Future Past, Bolivar Trask is polite, believes in world peace, and does not even hate mutants. However, he still allows often fatal experiments on mutants in an attempt to achieve that peace.

Live-Action TV

Live-Action TV

• With the MCU's expansion onto the small screen and many of Netflix's series being confirmed as canon in the MCU (though they were heavily implied to have been so regardless), some villains (politely) decided to accompany it.
  • Agent Carter's Dr. Ivenchko hypnotises an SSR agent into killing himself, but gives him commands to have a drink at his favourite bar first. There's no reason for this, except it's better for the guy to be happy and relaxed when he dies than otherwise.
  • Daredevil (2015): Wilson Fisk a.k.a. the Kingpin. He's polite, intelligent, respectful, articulate and has sincere love for his girlfriend Vanessa and mother. He's also a violent and ruthless crime lord with a Berserk Button you do not want to touch who will stop at nothing to make Hell's Kitchen a better place for everyone. Even as the series goes on and he becomes more cynical and crueler, he never loses his demeanour of a gentlemanly businessman, even towards Matt Murdock himself.
  • The Falcon and the Winter Soldier sees the return of Baron Zemo, who not only retains his polite and likeable persona from the movie, but he actively aids Sam and Bucky in their conquest to defeat the Flag Smashers. He also makes (relative) peace with Bucky and apologizes for his actions.
  • Hawkeye (2021):
    • In a case of "hero serving as opponent", Yelena Belova, who has come to New York hoping to murder the title character, who was told to Yelena as having killed her 'sister' Natasha (he didn't, Clint even wanted to perform an Heroic Sacrifice but Natasha beat him to it). Black Widow (2021) already showed Yelena is a very endearing person, and this manifests in her Friendly Enemy demeanor dealing with Hawkeye's unwilling partner Kate Bishop — Yelena breaks into her apartment, and casually helps herself to some mac and cheese, cracking jokes and talking about all the New York tourist destinations she wants to visit... all while she casually discloses her intentions to kill Clint, too. The next time both meet and have some altercations, Yelena is so polite and affable that Kate downright says "Stop making me like you!"
    • Maya (a.k.a. Echo) is troubled and vengeance-driven, but is not unreasonable and has people she genuinely cares about. Her father was also a "criminal", but in name only.
    • Kingpin from Daredevil (2015) also makes his official MCU debut post-Loose Canon, and remains the same brutal but fair mob boss he's always been.
  • In Loki (2021), the titular character is his usual conniving but charming and fun self, or at least his variants are... yes, all of them. With significant Character Development, the main Loki comes to the same Heel Realization as his original self did and has committed a full-on Heel–Face Turn. The true villain of the show He Who Remains, is a manipulative, nigh-omniscient and unscrupulous individual who planned and pulled the strings of virtually everything that happens, but he's also a Well-Intentioned Extremist who is unfailingly polite and courteous towards Loki and Sylvie.
  • In Moon Knight (2022), Arthur Harrow is a deluded and ruthless cultist, but he's unfailingly polite and cordial, welcomes anyone willing to abide into his circle and does what he does because he sincerely believes it will help the world will become a better place.
  • In The Punisher (2017), Billy Russo, Frank's best friend and former army brother, is a sociopathic and power-hungry individual who will screw over pretty much anyone if it means he gets something big out of it. Despite this, he's also charming, polite, does possess a few morals and is usually relatively easy to get along with. He also tends to keep his word even when he doesn't really need to.

Western Animation

Western Animation

• Avengers Assemble:
  • The Beyonder, he's pretty polite, you know, for a guy who literally took chunks out of entire worlds, dooming their inhabitants if it isn't fixed soon enough.
  • The Squadron Supreme as a group are quick to compliment members of the Avengers they view as worthy opponents. Nighthawk respects Falcon for his technological skill while Hyperion seems to have a respect for Hulk's strength and Zarda respects Thor's power and warrior-skill. Hyperion also is notably affable when around his teammates.
    • Subverted by their final episodes, where the Squadron reveal their true colors, treating both their enemies and each other with nothing but disgust and hatred, showing that said "affableness" was much more Faux than perhaps first believed.
    • Inverted, and notable for its absence. Unlike the other members of her group, Zarda is all business and very cold, for the most part. Played straight in Midgard Crisis, until it transpires that she's being Faux Affably Evil to try and turn Thor. That said, she does have a genuine regard for Thor, he being the only one of the Avengers who impresses her.
    • Nuke is generally a nice guy to both the Avengers and his partners on Squadron Supreme.
• Doctor Doom has always been this, but his version in Fantastic Four: The Animated Series is even better, having a polite conversation with the captive Sue Storm and sincerely apologizing for kidnapping her. He even laments destroying New York because he never got to see Cats.
• Spider-Man: The Animated Series: Doc Ock is very polite and friendly towards Peter and Aunt May.
• The Spectacular Spider-Man: Most of Spider-Man's villains in this series are Card-Carrying Villains who are happy to show the world just how dastardly they can be. That said, there is the exception of L. Thompson Lincoln, aka Tombstone, aka The Big Man. He's one of the biggest normal humans in the series, with unusual strength, reflexes, a form of albinism, and sharp teeth. That said, he's maintained a reputation for being a charitable, honest business tycoon that (for a while) has the reporters at the Bugle (minus Peter Parker) fooled. He's polite to Spider-Man, despite clearly disliking him, and even offered to pay him to "look the other way" (something Spidey can never allow himself to do again). He's also willing to form an Enemy Mine (however briefly) with Spidey if it's in his best interest. That said, he's a ruthless kingpin who's willing to kill off his employees if they cross him, and is one of the few Badass Normals to beat up Spider-Man.