- None of the Dark Warriors from 8-Bit Theater are particularly, ahem, villainous, especially when compared to the Light Warriors. Even Drizzl has a pretty good Freudian Excuse, what with the genocidal light elves hunting his race to extinction. When Thief and Black Mage discuss why they've not backstabbed one another into oblivion, they express disbelief: "They're all too... nice."
- King Radical of The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, as seen here.
For those who don't know, King Radical is the one in the red and yellow suit. Yeah. That is the Big Bad. - Akuma's Comics
- The Undertaker is one of the major villains in the Sprite Comic, who seeks to become as powerful as possible and leads a Legion of Doom to help. Despite his ambition the Undertaker rarely goes after anyone innocent, always keeps his promise and acts in a civil manner.
- Jenny Wily is partly looking to Take Over the World like her dad Dr Wily and causes havoc to prove her superiority against the likes of Mega Man and Dr Light. However she never harms people and is perfectly capable of working with heroic characters like TJ.
- Solon from Aisopos in "Part 3". Sure, he wants to bring democracy to Athens and free the slaves but you have to admit that staging a coup where every Arcon is killed during a celebration is going too far. And then the coup goes horribly wrong and Yadmon co-opts it for his own purposes. His My God, What Have I Done? is completely justified.
- Hardin from Beyond the Western Deep. He seeks to save his Dying Race and give them a new future and glory, no matter how callous he needs to be to accomplish this. In this setting's Gray-and-Gray Morality, he's not exactly in the wrong.
- Palpatine in Darths & Droids. He uses extreme methods, like planet-destroying weapons, to try to bring peace to the galaxy, but he balks at doing things he sees simply as evil. The players discuss it at the end of the Return of the Jedi section: The Game Master says it's up to the players to make up their minds whether he was good or evil; the powergamer says he was good because ends justify the means; the young activist says he was evil because of his oppressive rule; the roleplayer of complex characters says he was morally grey. The most normal guy, possibly summing this up all as being rather confusing behaviour, suggests he was
Chaotic Neutral, and The Ditz says they need to cast Detect Evil on his corpse to figure it out. - Gen. William Howe in The Dreamer. He really doesn't want to fight the Americans, but he has to follow orders.
- Grace's brothers from El Goonish Shive, at first. Abraham, as well.
- Girl Genius:
- Baron Klaus Wulfenbach doesn't want to rule most of Europe with an iron fist (in fact, he hates his job and wishes he could retire to his lab), but his empire is the only check against mad science-induced anarchy. If not for his employees and his willingness to experiment on Othar Tryggvassen (Gentleman Adventurer!)'s brain, he wouldn't even be a recognizable villain. Even the "recognizable villain" bit can be debated, given that Othar is a homicidal genius, and Klaus's experiments were specifically about the nature of mad scientist-hood and how it might possibly be cured — and Klaus let Othar escape after threatening him. As with all characters of sufficient complexity, the villain-hood of Klaus is questionable, and all depends on what you believe is more important: a sort of forced world peace or people's right to be all that they can be. Adding fuel to the debate: after he goes missing and a two-year time skip follows, his reign is described as seeming "like some lost golden age".
- Agatha has realized she MAY be a villain protagonist right about here.
- I Don't Want This Kind of Hero: Conversely, while some members of Knife are vicious or at least questionably sane, some members such as Orca and Kanna treat the entire thing as more of a job that they're occasionally tired of. Or, like Song Ha, are considerably honourable to the point where you have to wonder why the heck they're with Knife. Guineung outright lampshades this trope, commenting that kind villains are all the rage since they subvert stereotypes.
- The cast of The Last Days of FOXHOUND, excepting Ocelot and Mantis, are partially or wholly anti-villainous. Raven would never be counted as a villain by anyone aside from his involvement with the group when it goes rogue, Wolf is at worst a Punch-Clock Villain and a genuinely decent human being away from her job, Octopus is often a bit slow on the draw but a laid back prankster who has never killed anyone, and while Liquid had a few Kick the Dog moments in his past, his sheer childlike dorkiness and deep seated complexes and neuroticisms tend to obscure that.
- The protagonists of Narbonic are a Mad Scientist, her creation, a Psycho for Hire and Dave Another, if unaware, Mad Scientist. They... cope.
- Nightmare Factory: It's made clear the Nightmare Exchange is (probably) the main villain, and Phirre Lotus has been imprisoned. He doesn't want to be the Game Master, and it's implied he's incredibly lonely, which is why he takes joy in torture. It's his only human contact.
- The Order of the Stick:
- Redcloak, The Dragon and the comic's resident Well-Intentioned Extremist. Redcloak and his entire species (goblins) are the victims of Jerkass Gods who created them for the sole purpose of being XP Fodder, and declared that all goblins are evil so that the followers of those gods could then slaughter goblins guilt free. Redcloak himself is the survivor of a raid by Knight Templar paladins that slaughtered most of his family and community, and is intelligent, well meaning, has kept his standards, is repulsed by acts of Card Carrying Villainy, and, as the spiritual leader of all goblins, is trying to improve their lot in a world where, most of the time, they are attacked or killed on sight. (By committing an act of Black Mail against the gods by threatening to unleash a world destroying, god killing Eldritch Abomination, as you do). To some degree, Redcloak even seems to have Word of God on his side, as author Rich Burlew has stated "Some people choose evil, and some are driven to it by what life has forced them to endure. Xykon is not one of these. Redcloak, however, might be."
- Miko is an antivillain by Word of God — Rich Burlew actually used the word in a post on the Giant in the Playground forums: "In my mind, Miko is an antagonist, simply because she is an obstacle that the true protagonists of the story (the OOTS) must deal with/overcome. I think of her kind of as an 'anti-villain', a person in the villain's role who is not actually villainous." This sums up the trope quite nicely. In trope definitions, though, she's somewhere between this and Hero Antagonist. She genuinely believes she's doing the right thing (saving the world, protecting Azure City), and was a functioning paladin most of her life. A combination of mental instability, a moral code with no shades of gray, an absolute belief that she has a special destiny chosen by the gods and a personal grudge with the heroes makes her antagonistic to the main characters, but even in the midst of her break with reality she's still trying to do what she sees as the right thing. Unfortunately by that point what she thinks is the right thing only has a tenuous relationship, at best, with what is really the right thing.
- Dark Flame from Project Blackfire is shown to have emotional vulnerabilities, is opposed to the killing of innocents, and treats those who work under him with quite a bit of respect and admiration.
- Arguably, Max Powers of PvP, although it's tough to pin down if he's a villain at all, or if Cole and Brent just take their frustrations out on him.
- Word of God has it that Max is not a villain and never was; he is simply a Nice Guy (though a successful one). Only in the deranged protagonists’ minds is he evil.
- In his very earliest appearances, he was a pranking Jerkass who didn't seem to realize that the PVP crew didn't think he was funny, but Characterization has marched on since then.
- Eventually Max asks the protagonists why they dislike him so much. He takes their more reasonable points to heart, and his willingness to finally address the elephant in the room causes the protagonists to reflect on their opinion of him as well. He's still considered fairly flawed by them, but they all mellow out around each other. Later, he goes away for a while on a journey of self-discovery - by the time he returns, he's finally able to see Skull the trollnote , signifying his complete Heel–Face Turn.
- Word of God has it that Max is not a villain and never was; he is simply a Nice Guy (though a successful one). Only in the deranged protagonists’ minds is he evil.
- Posey from The Sanity Circus appears to be straightforwardly evil, albeit affably towards Attley. She's trying to help Attley in two ways — one of which is definitely bad news as she's trying to reawaken Attley as a Scarecrow, but the other way is protecting her from the harsher Scarecrows who would kill her for being useless.
- Succubus Fuchsia in Sinfest has undergoing massive Character Development from Chaotic Evil The Vamp to Chaotic Neutral Noble Demon post-Criminy influence.
- Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus take on this role in Sluggy Freelance. They never do anything evil (well, except for accidentally destroying Tokyo that one time), they just happen to be engaged in a long running feud with the strip's resident Nominal Hero, Bun-Bun.
- Doctor Schlock, cornered by constant pursuit from Hereti Corp, eventually takes it over to protect his own life by becoming the Big Bad.
- Sir John Jacobs, Big Bad of "Oceans Unmoving", just wants to ensure a stable, living time bubble and society in Timeless Space. Bun-bun by contrast is far more villainous in motives and methods.
- Snowflame seems to be going this way in the webcomic of the same name, although it's too early to tell which Anti-Villain subtrope he will fall into. He seems to have some compassion for civilians and tries to save Arkham Asylum after it is flooded with fear gas, even setting aside differences with Green Arrow to do so.
- Shadow the Hedgehog from the British Sonic the Comic continuity (not the games) is a clear example of this, being Sonic's Evil Counterpart. (This is in the unofficial online continuation of the original paper-and-ink comic book.) As such, Sonic is arrogant, boastful, and hot tempered, whereas Shadow is humble, polite, and focused, even managing to pull off a Heroic Sacrifice against the heroes in his last scenes. Sonic has become a little less of an asshole lately, maybe realising that people are having trouble working out who's the good guy.
- Sweet Home (2017): Ihyun may be firmly on Joon's side and his monster personality is the most vicious character of all of them but he remains a perfectly reasonable person, has several Pet the Dog moments, genuinely puts his life on the line for the group, and doesn't take joy out of the heinous acts the rest of his team commits.
- Tower of God:
- Jue Viole Grace appears this way soon after his introduction. He's scary and tries to eliminate everyone else taking the same test as him, and he reveals himself to be a Slayer candidate for the nefarious FUG organisation, which makes him practically an Antichrist in Tower terms. But when Wangnan and the other characters get to know him, he turns out to be a pretty decent guy who has no desire to hurt anyone unless he has to. Then even the Anti-Villain trope is subverted, because Viole turns out to be The Hero of the entire series who was introduced before but now has been given a new haircut and forced to work with FUG, and he steps firmly back into the protagonist slot.
- Everyone entering the Hidden Floor a "sworn enemy" in the form of someone they hate or fear. This enemy is sent after them if they become too dangerous or step out of line. Thanks to some issues he has, Bam gets his own self from a little way back as his enemy. Well, that sworn enemy may be compelled to attack the real Bam, but he's still a copy of a Nice Guy and refuses to attack others when a real villain tries to use him as part of a Villain Team-Up.
- Matthis Quigley from Unsounded. He's a Punch-Clock Villain working for the Red Berry Boys who's Only in It for the Money. While his boss, Starfish, is a monster who's willing to cut out childrens' organs to transport some kind of illegal pymaric substance in their bodies, Quigley flat out refuses to work with the man unless all of the children are freed once their job is done. He also has a Morality Pet in his eight-year-old, blind son, Matty, a tragic backstory where Aldish nationalists murdered his wife for treason, and a few Pet the Dog moments, such as when he refuses to execute the captive Crescian peaceguard captain, Toma, despite the captain's efforts to arrest them.
- Professor Broadshoulders from Zebra Girl counts. He wants to banish Sandra to Hell simply because she's part demon, but he honestly believes she's a threat to the people around her. He spent his life fighting demons, Buffy style, to protect people.
- In Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal (2022), Silly Seal does bad things simply because Ziggy tells him to.
- Adina from Zoophobia is often seen as a villain, but she sees herself as the hero who kills unrepentant demons that have infested themselves completely in the fabric of mortal society. Unfortunately, she doesn't realize that even "evil" demons can be good friends, and that Devin really is just a teenage kid with psychopathic but manageable tendencies and a supportive cast of friends.
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