Times where the villain creates their own hero in Western Animation.
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold:
- Plastic Man was a henchman and thief until he was Cursed with Awesome as a result of Batman's actions. Batman personally sees to Plas' reform and rehabilitation; now, larceny-related issues aside, Plastic Man is a genuine superhero thanks to Batman's influence.
- Chill of the Night!: Batman confronts Joe Chill (the man who murdered his parents) during a weapons auction, where many of his Rogues Gallery are in attendance. In the fight, Batman reveals to Chill that he's Bruce Wayne. Chill realizes that by killing Thomas and Martha Wayne, he inspired Bruce to fight crime. He's the reason Batman exists. In a panic, Chill admits this to the Rogues. They aren't amused (except for Joker; he thinks it's Actually Pretty Funny).
- In Ben 10, Vilgax trying to get the Omnitrix for his scheme was what eventually led the device to end up on Earth and stick itself on the wrist of Ben Tennyson. This even gets a lampshade in Ben 10: Omniverse.
- Drake Mallard became Darkwing Duck in the first place when his prom dance was attacked by Megavolt. Drake was considered the school's Butt-Monkey, and even nerds and geeks mocked him, so Megavolt didn't take him seriously and defeated him without trouble when Drake first tried to stop him; so Drake improvised the Darkwing Duck's identity on the spot (using props and costumes from the Drama Club), defeating Megavolt and officially starting his hero career.
- DC Animated Universe:
- Batman: The Animated Series:
- In "Trial", Batman is put before a Kangaroo Court with a Joker Jury made up of his rogue's gallery and the Joker himself as the judge, charging Batman with creating them. And just to stack the deck against Bats even further, they also kidnap a District Attorney who has publicly accused him of the same crime to act as his defense. After hearing their testimonies, the attorney concludes that they would have all eventually turned to villainy on their own even without Batman, and in fact, they created him. They proceed to find Batman not guilty... and then because they're such evil villains, they try to kill him anyway.
- "Beware the Creeper" has the Joker inadvertently turn Jack Ryder into the Creeper, who is so utterly bonkers that even the Joker considers him insane.
- Batman Beyond has Terry McGinnis become the new Batman, not long after his father Warren is murdered on the orders of Derek Powers, the main antagonist of the first season. The hitman who actually committed the murder in question is killed by Terry when he inadvertently becomes exposed to the toxin they were illegally manufacturing, but Powers manages to stick around until the Season 1 finale by undergoing experimental radiation treatment that saves his life with some... side effects.
- Justice League presents the darkest version of this trope in "Epilogue", in which Amanda Waller reveals to Terry McGinnis that when she noticed Bruce Wayne was growing too old to be Batman, she decided to create her own hero by collecting Batman's DNA, finding a couple with an identical psychological make-up as Thomas and Martha Wayne, overwrite the husband's reproductive DNA with Batman's without the man's knowledge, with Terry being the resultant child. Then, when he was 7 years old, Waller commissioned the Phantasm to assassinate Terry's parents in his presence. Thankfully, the Phantasm decided to abort the operation to honor Bruce's legacy, instead of taint it. Although Terry points out, as detailed above, that the actions of Derek Powers wound up finishing the job anyway.
- Batman: The Animated Series:
- This happens in DuckTales (2017) in relation to Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers. Black Heron of F.O.W.L. had created an intelligence-granting ray gun and tested it out on a rodent. That rodent, one Gadget Hackwrench, would go on to boost up other rodents, team up and help Launchpad and Dewey save the day.
- Harley Quinn (2019): In "Riddle U", Riddler taking over the university is what inspires Barbara to try to take him down. And teaming up with Harley and Ivy inspires her to become Batgirl at the end of the episode. Harley even lampshades it when Ivy speculates it'll just be a phase. And Harley being right on that makes sense seeing as Ivy's mostly a misanthrope and Harley's a psychiatrist...
- On The Powerpuff Girls (1998), it's eventually revealed that Mojo Jojo was once Professor Utonium's lab partner and caused the Chemical X to be added to the formula the girls were made from. Realising this causes Jojo to suffer a Villainous Breakdown. In another episode it gets even worse for him when he tries going back in time to Ret-Gone the girls and ends up giving Utonium the idea to create them in the first place.
- The Movie reveals Mojo Jojo was the reason the Powerpuff Girls decided to even become heroes in the first place. When they were created, the Girls hadn't yet "dedicated their lives to fighting crime and the forces of evil", and were in fact feared and hated by most of Townsville for reckless use of their powers. Then Mojo tricked the girls into helping him build his lair and create an army of super-intelligent primates. Eventually, the girls figured out that they could stop Mojo and the monkeys by using their powers to fight them, and the rest is history.
- Samurai Jack: Ironically in Season 5, the High Priestess raising her seven daughters to kill Jack is what led to her eldest daughter, Ashi, pulling a Heel–Face Turn, assisting Jack in his quest, and being the key to Aku's ultimate downfall.
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Adora was raised in the Horde as an officer cadet, and as a result of her subsequent Heel–Face Turn, the Horde's greatest enemy is using its combat training. Light Hope tells her in Season 3 that she was only on Etheria to become She-Ra at all because of Hordak's portal experiments, but Season 4 reveals this to be a complete lie.
- Scorpia only becomes a hero at all, as opposed to staying a Token Good Teammate to the Horde, because Catra kept treating her like shit.
- Entrapta ends up back with the Rebellion because after she's exiled to Beast Island, it's the Rebellion that comes to get her.
- Spider-Man: The Animated Series: While not responsible for creating Spider-Man, who the Kingpin sees as the main threat to his criminal empire, he is responsible for creating two other superheroes. Not only did he kill Daredevil's father, but he also had the radioactive waste that gave him his powers illegally transported in the city. Kingpin also transformed Felicia Hardy into the Black Cat by making her the guinea pig for the improved super soldier serum.
- In Steven Universe, Pink Diamond created the Rose Quartz line. One of those Rose Quartzes would go on to found the Crystal Gem rebellion. At least that's the story Rose spread. In reality, she and Pink Diamond were one and the same. It was all part of a plan to free herself from her role as a Diamond and to free the Earth and the Crystal Gems. Which goes around to making Pink an example, as the other diamonds probably created her and their aloof, condescending attitude indirectly lead her to sympathize with Earth life and Homeworld's undesirables.
- Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters reveals via flashbacks in the second season that Stretch Monster killed two scientists, signed onto a project to undo any attempts he'd make to turn other people into monsters, but the child of those two scientistsnote would grow up to carry out revenge against the monster.
- Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!: the Alchemist's last act before the Dark Ones' corrupting influence transformed him into the Skeleton King was to create and empower the Hyperforce so that they would protect the universe from him. Antauri later tries to reach out to Skeleton King by reminding him of this, to no avail.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987): Shredder attempted to kill his rival Hamato Yoshi by pouring a caustic chemical down the sewer where Yoshi was living. The chemical turned out to be a powerful mutagen which made the Turtles anthropomorphic and transformed Yoshi into an anthropomorphic rat named Splinter. Shredder tried to use this information to convince the Turtles to join his side, but they declined.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) also does this, though less directly. The ooze that mutated the turtles and Splinter was a by-product of experiments by the stranded Utroms...who were only stranded in the first place because Shredder made their ship crash. Donny spells this out for everyone in the Clip Show episode. Shredder also personally killed Hamato Yoshi, who in this version was Splinter's owner when he was a normal rat. The mutated Splinter took this very personally, and is committed to stopping Shredder as a result.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012):
- The mutagen that mutated Splinter and the Turtles was created by the Kraang for the purpose of mutating Earth to be more habitable for them.
- Prior to the events of the series, April's parents were abducted by the Kraang and her mother was experimented on to create a human-Kraang hybrid mutant. April was born with psychic powers as a result of said experiments. While the Kraang intended to use her in their plan to conquer Earth, she ends up being vital to their defeat.
- The Transformers: The episode "War Dawn" shows a young Autobot named Orion Pax being gunned down by Megatron, and later rebuilt as Optimus Prime.
- Zak Storm: If Golden Bones, second-in-command of the Big Bad Skullivar, would have just listened to the titular hero when he offered him exactly what he wanted instead of attacking him, he may have been not only successful in his mission but also saved himself from every defeat Zak and his crew dealt him throughout the show. Instead, he pushed Zak to the point the young boy had enough and started fighting back.
