Breakout Villain in Comic Books.
The following have their own pages:
Other
- Top Dollar was just a lowly member of a largely interchangeable gang of thugs in the original The Crow comic book, but was promoted to protagonist Eric Draven's Arch-Enemy in the 1994 film, the 1998 live-action television series, and the 1999 comic book series published by Image Comics.
- Disney Ducks Comic Universe:
- Flintheart Glomgold started out as The Rival to Scrooge for the title of Richest Duck in the World. Flintheart only appeared in three stories by his creator Carl Barks, but by his third appearance, he had ascended to Scrooge's Evil Counterpart and was one of the few villains to demonstrate murderous intent against Scrooge and his nephews. The Second Richest Duck in the World was mostly forgotten for the next twenty years, until Don Rosa reintroduced him in "Son of the Sun". Comics, the cartoon series DuckTales (1987), and video games have since portrayed Flintheart as a step above Scrooge's usual villains to the point of being his Arch-Enemy.
- Another breakout villain for Scrooge would be John D. Rockerduck. He was originally a one-shot character created by Carl Barks, but for some reason Italian duck artists made him a recurring character decades later.
- The Angel gang in Judge Dredd were introduced as villains of the arc, and one by one were killed by Dredd as the "Judge Child" saga progressed. However, fan response was so positive that Mean was brought Back from the Dead, in one of the exceedingly few occasions that Tharg's rule against resurrections has been ignored. Mean has since become one of the iconic characters of the series.
- A better exaple is Judge Death who went on to become the most recurring villain in the series.
- Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (Boom! Studios) has Lord Drakkon, an alternate universe version of Tommy Oliver who remained evil even after the Sword of Darkness was destroyed, and continued working for Rita on his own volition, helping her defeat the Rangers for good and conquer the world, before killing her and taking over her empire. He was introduced as a villain of an earlier arc before being defeated, but proved to be immensely popular, and thus he returned to kickstart the Shattered Grid'' event, where he was seemingly defeated for good at the end. Except it wasn't the case, and the writers decided to bring him back again. He even went to appear as a playable character in Power Rangers: Legacy Wars.
- Mortadelo y Filemón: Ibáñez introduced the rival organization ABUELA only once, as a one-time Villain of the Week in "El plano de Alí Gu-sa-no". This didn't stop other writers to use it as the arch-enemy of the organization TIA.
- As the page image on the main page shows, Scourge the Hedgehog from Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) was absolutely humongous in the Sonic fandom, even to those who didn't read the Archie Comics. Interestingly, he happened to be one of the very first Original Generation characters, being introduced in Issue #11, the first comic in the series written by Ken Penders, as Anti-Sonic. However, he was originally a scrappy who was known as a generic Evil Counterpart that had no motivation besides making Sonic and the rest of Mobius' lives miserable. That is, until Ian Flynn took over in Issue #160, and his first order of business was transforming Anti-Sonic into Scourge, resulting in him exploding in popularity. It helped that he now had an understandable motivation, wanting to be better than all of his opponents, seeing Sonic as a Worthy Opponent instead of a Chew Toy, and that he managed to usurp the title of King in his home dimension of Moebius. It's also worth noting that, while Mobius Prime was undergoing a pseudo-continuity reboot during the "Genesis" story arc of the main series, Scourge and the rest of the Destructix in Sonic Universe were busy having a prison break from Zone Jail in "Scourge: Lockdown". Flynn even wanted to bring Scourge over to the post-Super Genesis Wave timeline, complete with a 3D model
◊, but since Penders technically owned the rights to Anti-Sonic, Scourge was unfortunately Screwed by the Lawyers, upsetting many a fan. - Spawn
- The Violator/Clown who debuted in the second issue went on to become the most recurring villain in the series even getting his own series.
- Cy-gor went from a toyline exclusive to becoming a recurring character in the comics.
- Spirou & Fantasio
- Zorglub was introduced as the Big Bad of two back-to-back stories, before the ending of the second (Shadow of the Z) mentally regressed him into an infant by his third appearance, after which he made a Heel–Face Turn and made infrequent appearances. Despite this, he's been made the main villain of various comics by other authors, the 2006 animated series, and even returned to villainy in the main series in the 2010s. He even became the star of his own series!
- Cyanure/Cyanide is a bizarre case. In the comics, she was a one-shot villain, but in the 1992-1995 animated series, she became one of the most recurring villains, to the point of gaining Joker Immunity.
- Doctor Aphra, from the Star Wars (Marvel 2015) spin-off Star Wars: Darth Vader, became hugely popular practically overnight, getting her own spin-off and later even won a poll to get a collectible Action Figure made.
- If you were to watch any modern incarnation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, you would think arch-ninja The Shredder is the end-all-be-all of Turtles baddies. Originally, though? He died in the very first issue of the original comic, and was later brought back for a handful of issues—as a clone—only to be killed off again soon after, never to return.
- Tintin: Rastapopoulos was originally just the villain of the Cigars of the Pharaoh-The Blue Lotus story arch. Then near the end of the series, he reappears for The Red Sea Sharks and Flight 714 and was also planned to appear in the left unfinished book Tintin and Alph-Art. He's also featured as the main antagonist of the animated film Tintin and the Lake of Sharks. While he has only four major roles in the main series, he's retroactively considered the main antagonist of the franchise.
- The Transformers (Marvel): Bludgeon and Thunderwing were initially unassuming Decepticon Pretender toys, with no real notoriety to them. Once writer Simon Furman took over the US book and included them, however, they became more defined characters, with both of them taking Megatron's job of being the leader of the Decepticons at various points. As such, the two have had more homages and new toys than any other Transformer from 1989, and their toys tend to go for higher prices on the second-hand market as a result.
- Usagi Yojimbo: When the series first started, Lord Hikiji served as the Big Bad and personal Arch-Enemy of Miyamoto Usagi, with several issues introducing one-shot villains who weren't planned to appear again (and usually didn't). One such villain was Jei-san, a homicidal madman who believed himself to be (or actually was) enacting the will of the gods, and got struck by lightning and disintegrated at the end. Readers, however, found Jei a much more unique and interesting villain than those who had come before him, including Hikiji, and he later returned (in an at-the-time Unexplained Recovery that Usagi himself lampshaded). Several times. He's since taken over as Arch-Enemy, and proved popular enough to be the main antagonist of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) crossover three-parter.
