Cut Lex Luthor A Check / Marvel Universe

Marvel Universe

Cut Lex Luthor a Check in this franchise.

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Comic Books

Comic Books

Gaining more money legitimately

• The Avengers:
  • Defied with Kang the Conqueror. He journeyed back to 1900 Wisconsin, and used his futuristic technology to start a company as the aptly named Victor Timely. Mark Waid's run explained that Kang also uses his mastery of time travel to fund his war efforts, being able to start financial schemes in one century and then reap the profits in another.
  • Averted with the Taskmaster. Able to flawlessly imitate anyone's physical abilities after seeing them in action once, he initially made money and his reputation training flunkies for supervillains, teaching them how to take down their superhero opponents. Once it became known he was a mercenary, not merely a dedicated villain, legitimate governments and law enforcement started hiring him to teach their people on how to take down superpowered threats. To the extent that, in his first appearance, he concludes that if he stayed and fought, he could probably defeat the entire Avengers team (and one of their more powerful line-ups at that). However, he sees no profit in it or point to fighting superheroes, and runs away instead.
• Daredevil:
  • Bullseye has the ability to throw any object with perfect accuracy with enough force to kill someone. Before becoming a super-villain (according to one of his many origin stories), he was a major league baseball player whose skill meant he always pitched a no-hitter. He could've easily just stayed in this job and never committed a single crime in his whole life but quit so he could satisfy his inherent bloodlust, and ended his career by using a pitch to murder a batter. "Bullseye." Bullseye even admitted to Norman Osborn that he barely spends any of the money he earns as an assassin, and that he could very well be richer than Norman. The only reason he charges anything is just to see how much people are willing to offer for his services. He kills people because it's fun.
  • Subverted with the Purple Man. Late in The '70s, he had an epiphany. He realized that he didn't really need to be a supervillain to get what he wanted, because he had a Compelling Voice (actually, super-pheromones, but it works the same), so people would just hand him whatever he wanted, and thank him for the privilege. So he tried to quit being a villain and take up a life of hedonistic debauchery. Cue almost a decade of stories in which some Big Bad (like the Kingpin or Doctor Doom) would track him down and force him to help with their latest Evil Plan. Since then, he's apparently become resigned to his fate, and his last several appearances have shown him trying to Take Over the World.
  • Born Again does a Deconstruction. Wilson Fisk is trying to expand into legitimate businesses and be a Villain with Good Publicity, but his vendetta against Daredevil is costing him money and putting that ambition in jeopardy. The first crony to try and point that out to him is "bought out" and later has both his legs broken off-panel; the second is murdered by Fisk then and there. Fisk is trying to turn his criminal genius into more acceptable enterprises, but his obsession with Daredevil and his violent instincts keep overriding his sense.
• Fantastic Four: Doctor Doom could have probably taken over the world financially in far less time, with less effort and without any legal opposition if he just incorporated rather than maintaining his feudal Ruritania and venting his Complexity Addiction, especially since people in the Marvel Universe are constantly shown to value security over freedom. This is mirrored by his heroic counterpart, Trope Namer Reed Richards, who seemingly makes more money patenting and then not selling his inventions, and thus not overly disrupting the similarities between Marvel Earth and Real Life. Doomwar reveals that he actually does use his technology to make money, albeit secretly. Ever wonder how he's able to fund his various schemes or afford to construct all that incredible technology (including his never-ending army of Doombots)? Turns out he's involved in thousands of perfectly legal businesses, and has made a killing in patents for robotics and medical research.
• Z-list Sleepwalker villain 8-Ball, real name Jeff Hagees, is a jet-propulsion engineer. When asked by Moon Knight why he bothers with dressing up like a giant cue ball to rob banks, he points out that after losing his job and social security to his gambling addiction, he didn't have much of a choice as there was no entry-level job in jet engineering available, least of all for someone with a record.
• Spider-Man:
  • The Superior Foes of Spider-Man has Beetle, who despite being a Valedictorian of Columbia Law dreams of becoming a supervillain. Her father Tombstone is disappointed in this, stating that she's much too smart for such antics as he feels that being an Amoral Attorney is essentially legitimized crime that you can't get arrested for.
  • In Spider-Man and the X-Men, Sauron discusses this trope with Spidey. Spider-Man points out to Sauron that he could cure cancer with his technology, which allows him to alter a person's DNA as he pleases. Sauron bluntly replies that he doesn't want to cure cancer, he wants to turn people into dinosaurs.^note Funnily enough, megafauna tend to have more copies of cancer-suppressing genes, so in a way he would be curing cancer. In fact, he is so committed to this desire to turn people into dinosaurs that when the world was under threat of being destroyed by black goo in Deadpool #10, he joins forces with Deadpool to stop it, because if the world was destroyed, he would no longer be able to turn people into dinosaurs.
  • Played with in an issue of Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man. Mysterio has apparently gone straight, and starts a very profitable Broadway special effects show. However, the show is actually just a distraction so that Mysterio can go out and rob nearby hotels and businesses. When called out on his seemingly boneheaded move, Mysterio says it was never about the money, but the challenge and the thrill of deception.
  • Many Spider-Man villains, like Vulture and the Ultimate Spider-Man version of the Shocker, zig-zag this trope: They started out wanting to be legit entrepreneurs and inventors but after being victimized by unscrupulous Corrupt Corporate Executive types they turn to crime. Subverted, perhaps even Deconstructed, with retcon-villain Clash, from the post-Secret Wars (2015) "Learning to Crawl" subseries in The Amazing Spider-Man. A brilliant nerd (not unlike Peter) who was present as Spider-Man's first fight with Crusher Hogan, Clash begins using his supreme intellect to craft a "superhero" identity for himself, utilizing sound wave. His intention is to be an entertainment act, like Spider-Man was before Uncle Ben's murder. Instead, he winds up quite believably sliding down the Slippery Slope before becoming a full-on supervillain, who gets thrashed by Spidey, arrested, and because of his criminal record, forced to be a henchmen for several years. Finally, he runs into Spider-Man again, who promptly offers him a job at Parker Industries (on the condition that he leaves his Clash shenanigans behind).
  • Subverted in Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2022). Rabble tried to refurbish used cell phones to sell for cheap in an attempt to make money, but her efforts went unrewarded as people opted to buy the latest models instead. This is Double Subverted by the fact that she could clearly build an Iron Man-esque suit of Powered Armor, seriously upgrade the tech of other supervillains, and hack into school databases on a limited budget but never thinks of trying to apply her skills to get into another technical high school when she loses the Brooklyn Visions lottery to Miles.
• X-Men: For all that he ends up being Worfed in practice, Juggernaut is in theory one of the most powerful people on Earth, combining strength roughly equal to The Mighty Thor's with being indestructible. Even if being capable of lifting mountains, immunity to any non-magical attack, not even being fazed by being Stripped to the Bone, and being incapable of getting hungry or tired (he doesn't even need oxygen!) doesn't present options in the legitimate world, Juggernaut could be a lot more of a villain than simply being a roving Brute. You would think he could make millions as a running back in American Football, even as he is today. Justified, since his powers come from a God of Evil named Cyttorak that wants him to wreak havoc. If Juggy ever did go legit or try to be a less mindlessly destructive villain, Cyttorak would depower him. Which is exactly what happened when Juggernaut made a Heel–Face Turn and joined the X-Men; his power kept declining to the point that the Wrecking Crew (superhuman in their own right, but normally Juggy could beat them in his sleep) flattened him. Not long after, Juggernaut was in a fight with the Hulk and to get the power he needed he cut a deal with Cyttorak that he'd return to his evil ways afterward. This provided a good example of how strong a fully empowered Juggernaut is, as Hulk couldn't overpower him and could only win by turning Juggernaut's unstoppable momentum against him. Sure enough, in the 2020 Juggernaut miniseries, Cain finds a way to keep his powers without being beholden to Cyttorak and promptly gets a job leveling buildings for Damage Control.

Possibility of gaining more money legitimately

In theory, any supervillain who uses expensive, fantastic technology for theft could subvert this: provided the technology is a one-time expense, they would eventually make back the money and start profiting if they manage to steal enough, meaning they can do it for the money and For the Evulz. The problem is, in a world where superheroes are everywhere thwarting your every move, this isn't likely to happen.

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• In the Spider-Man/X-Men Expanded Universe novel Time's Arrow: The Present, written by Adam Troy-Castro, Spidey muses on "the guys who spend six million dollars building robot suits so they can rob banks". He compares this with his own initial decision to make money as a masked wrestler/novelty act, rather than sell his webbing formula to an adhesives company, and concludes that it's not really about the money; it's about proving something to everyone who ever laughed at them.
• In the first issue of The Hood, a friend of the Villain Protagonist spots Electro in a bar and speculates on why Electro doesn't just take a job with the electric company and earn millions that way. He points out that his friend would never last an hour at a straight job. Practically any supervillain or any other character who is subject to No Conservation of Energy could take over the world by offering themselves as a free energy source, which everyone would inevitably end up depending on.
• In Heroes for Hire, a mercenary named Paladin breaks into a special armory where the props and weapons of various former gimmick villains are stored, seeking valuable weapons to both arm himself with and to sell. He comes across the "alchemy gun" of the former supervillain Chemistro, and comments amusedly that "This guy invented a gun that could turn lead into gold, and all he could think of was to rob banks with it." Moments later, he had a lightbulb moment, saying "You know what? Forget the rest of the stuff, I'm good with just this." He immediately tries to escape with his prize, realizing of course that he won't need to steal and fence the other items once he has a device that can make gold, but unfortunately the heroic female version of the Scorpion destroys the gun while trying to subdue him and prevent his escape. He is understandably furious. He presumably was unaware of the fact that any object transmuted by the alchemy gun turns into dust after exposure to heat or after a certain amount of time.
  • Luke Cage would eventually comment that Chemistro was just one of those guys who had power and wanted to throw it around so people knew he meant business. If he turned things into gold and made himself rich, no one would be afraid of him or know who was boss. Chemistro's alchemy gun is in fact a subversion. In one issue of Iron Man, Curtis Carr tells Tony Stark that he has in fact tried to create new alchemy guns by attempting to duplicate the radiation field that gave his original gun its powers. As much as Carr might want to mass-produce his invention and get rich that way, so far he's had no luck.
  • Even if he just had the one gun, there are millions if not billions to be made by hiring yourself out to turn dangerous and unwanted things— think nuclear waste, surplus WMDs, or other Mad Science gadgets— into gold, then letting them disintegrate into harmless powder. Or he could just turn random objects into gold, sell them for big bucks, then be gone before they disintegrate. Illegal, but not in the high-profile way that tends to attract superhero attention. Or for that matter, there's surely some industrial process for which some company would happily "rent" large quantities of short-term gold.
  • All that aside, Curtis Carr was another subversion in that he invented his alchemy gun intending to get rich legally. However, he developed it on company time using resources owned by the company he worked for. Curtis's boss said that meant the gun was legally the company's property, and the boss wasn't likely to pay Curtis royalties. Curtis's original reason for becoming Chemistro was to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against his crooked boss, which led to the boss hiring Luke Cage for protection.
• Iron Man:
  • The comic loves to simultaneously avert, lampshade and justify this trope, by pointing out negative implications of letting weaponized supervillain tech (or, more frequently, Iron Man's repulsor tech) out into the world. Once one of his enemies implanted repulsor-variant technology into terrorists' bodies, turning them into high-end suicide bombers. Hundreds were killed and Stark Industries was completely wiped out.
  • Iron Man once defeated a villain called the Living Laser. An alternate universe comic has him simply hiring the certified genius as Tony Stark. Unfortunately, this doesn't work because like most villains, he doesn't fit into society. This is arguably the best reason for not cutting Lex a check... villains who don't fit in still don't with money.
  • Gregor Shapanka, the original Blizzard, is another subversion who started out as a legitimate Stark International engineer. However, he embezzled money from Stark's company to finance his own personal projects. When Stark fired him for theft, Shapanka became the costumed villain Blizzard to get revenge on Stark.
  • Stark pointed this out in an Iron Man annual (as part of an interview in Playmates magazine) — "Take the Melter, for instance: there had to be three-hundred separate industrial uses for that molecular destablization ray of his, and what does he end up using it for? Robbing banks and suchlike. Just plain stupid. He could've licensed that thing to Stark International and made ten times more money than he'd ever see from his ill-considered extortion schemes."
• Marvel's Plantman has the same problem as Poison Ivy, except he was always considered a pretty lame villain by heroes, and didn't care much for the environment, only using his powers for selfish reasons or a deluded dream of world conquest. Spider-Man once called him out on it with the typical You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good! speech (to which the villain thanked him for the career advice, but said he "always had my heart set on world domination", and Plantman himself admitted in Paradise X how much more well-off he'd have been if he had used his powers to fight world hunger. (Of course, he seriously Took a Level in Badass when he joined the Thunderbolts and changed his name to Blackheath.)
• Sleepwalker:
  • Subverted with the villain 8-Ball, who actually started out working for a defense firm as an engineer, before he was fired when his employers thought he was selling company secrets to pay his large gambling debts, leading him to create his weapons and costumed identity.
  • Subverted with Spectra, who first got a job in a laboratory so she could rob the place, only to obtain superhuman powers after Sleepwalker interferes in the robbery. At first, she seems poised to become a criminal, but when she reappears it turns out she's gotten a legitimate job using her light-generating powers.
  • One of his first villains was Crimewave, who wanted to, among other things, kidnap models and hold the valuable clothes they were wearing hostage... using his remote-controlled, armored van with a tentacles-and-guns self-defense system. This is justified, as the bad guy cares more about fame—he even has his own cameraman—than actually making a profit or toppling Kingpin.
• Minor Marvel Comics D-lister Alexander Gentry is a subversion. He started out as a weapons designer for the military and developed a suit of porcupine-themed armor equipped with a wide variety of different weapons. Gentry thought that the U.S. government wouldn't pay him what he deserved for the armor, so he kept it for himself and became the supervillain Porcupine. Given how badly his villain career turned out, he probably would have been better off selling it to the military...
• Ultimate Fantastic Four:
  • Subverted by the Ultimate version of the Thinker, who turned to crime after he was fired from Roxxon for proposing alternative energy based on Vibranium.
  • The Ultimate Mad Thinker, though, fails to use her Super-Intelligence productively because A) she's insane (a girl who cuts out chunks of her own brother's brain to graft to her own brain and "boost her thinking capabilities" is clearly not playing with a full deck), and B) she's out to get revenge on the governmental think-tank that expelled her for being too crazy.
• Averted in some Marvel comic or other. Molecule Man chats with another supervillain: "So eventually I got out of prison, and I thought?" "Now I shall have my revenge!" "No, no. Who needs the grief? With my powers I can live in luxury without ever doing anything to draw the heroes' attention."
• The Avengers once ran a series of text pieces chronicling the history of the team. One entry featured this quote about Baron Zemo, one of Captain America's enemies from World War II:
  Rick Jones: Funny thing, a guy like [Zemo]. He invented some kind of super-glue or something. I mean, if he would've found a practical use for it he would be the President of 3M or something. Right?
  • For the record, Heinrich Zemo is an actual Nazi in most continuities. He probably did make a fortune back in the day, but he might have trouble finding buyers after the war.
• Spider-Man:
  • An issue of Ultimate Spider-Man lampshaded and subverted this trope with Ultimate Shocker. Unlike the main universe version, the ultimate version is a real loser seen as a joke by everyone and constantly mocked by Spider-Man. However, after learning that Shocker had created his blasters himself, Spider-Man asked him why he didn't make a fortune selling the technology. The subversion: Shocker reveals that he had worked for a big company creating inventions, and while said company made even more money, he was fired without seeing a single cent. Which also added a tragic aspect to the formerly laughable character, because he also explains how he studied at MIT until his eyes bled.
    • The main universe Shocker discusses this trope in the 2016 Venom series. When interviewed and asked why he didn't try going legit with his engineering skills, Shocker mentions how he already had a criminal record before he made his most impressive works of engineering, which would block off a lot of his options for legitmate work and lead him to make his decision to use his gear robbing banks.
  • Lampshaded and played straight, one right after the other in Spider-Man. When the Man Who Would Be Hobgoblin first examines the Green Goblin's cache of equipment, he remarks on how incredible the technology is. Specifically, that the personal bat glider must surely represent a breakthrough in the field of aeronautics, and how this proves Norman Osborn's insanity, since he could have made far more money by patenting the design than he could ever have hoped to by using it for crime. In his very next breath, however, the man states that keeping such a thing to yourself would be one part of proving yourself better than those around you, and thus using it for personal gain makes sense.
    • Averted after getting hit with the Inversion spell in AXIS, Roderick Kingsley decides that he's going to franchise out the Hobgoblin name, turning it into a hero thing. It works, just that some people don't like that idea. By the end, he's even technically a reserve member of the Avengers.
  • The Vulture is another one of those subversions who started out making money honestly. It was only after he had been ripped off by his business partner that Adrian Toomes decided to use his new flying harness as a professional criminal. In one of the Web of Spider-Man comics he actually goes further into this when asked by a fellow prisoner (who was the leader of a gang blackmailing him to build a vulture suit to fly out) why Toomes didn't just sell his technology (his partner is gone and can easily build the equipment with little resources — he was making it in prison for at least the second time). He tells him that since the partner who betrayed Toomes looked down on him as weak, he uses the equipment to do whatever he wanted so that no one ever would think he was weak again.
  • One of Spider-Man's oldest enemies is the Tinkerer, an Insufferable Genius who specializes in making powerful weapons out of used technology. At first he was both a supplier to criminals and a criminal himself. However, after too many defeats that almost proved lethal for him, he gave up committing crimes himself, but still worked as an underworld weapons supplier. He may be an egomaniac (something that Spidey himself has called him) but he is perfectly lucid and could probably bring in far more profit if he worked for honest customers. (To emphasize how good he is... he's also the Crazy-Prepared type. His inventions usually tend to have some sort of mechanism in them that he can trigger if a client refuses to pay him, making sure that they regret it.)
  • Averted with Dr. Octopus in most of his incarnations: He was a scientist who invented and used his arms for legitimate research purposes. It took a lab accident fusing the arms to his body and driving him insane to turn him into a supervillain. Further subverted with the Ultimate Marvel version of Dr. Octopus. He was caught in an explosion as per usual, but S.H.I.E.L.D. scientist Henry Pym let his condition deteriorate to the point where his arms couldn't be removed. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero. Ock went on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the man he blamed for the explosion until he was captured. He later escaped from prison twice, both times attempting to continue his revenge spree against first S.H.I.E.L.D. and then his ex-wife, who was trying to profit off of his story. Upon subsequent arrest and running out of people to get revenge on, Ock made a deal with the FBI to use his knowledge of Spider-Man's DNA to produce Spider-Man clones for the agency. In the end it's played straight in a fight with Spider-Man, as Ock realizes that he likes being a supervillain, even if it's stupid and doesn't work out for him.
    • Even further subverted by him once he steals Peter Parker’s body and becomes the Superior Spider Man. He decides that with his new lease on life that he’s going subvert this and Reed Richards Is Useless by becoming the, well, superior Spider-Man, attempting to prove that given the chance he would be a greater hero than Parker ever was. He even manages to start a mega-corporation, Parker Industries, and begins using his technology both to fight crime more effectively and make a profit as well. Unfortunately, using his technology that way allows the Green Goblin to hijack it and use it to further his own criminal schemes.
    • In the novel Spider-Man and X-Men: Time's Arrow: The Present, Spidey connects his early career, where he thought he was in it for the money, but was appearing on wrestling shows rather than selling his webbing, to the similar decisions made by his villains. It's not actually about the money; it's about proving everyone who laughed at you wrong.
  • Like the Vulture, above, there's the recurring Spidey foe Slyde; Jalome Beecher created a frictionless, non-stick coating he planned to market for pans, but his place of business was taken over by a Corrupt Corporate Executive and he was fired (since the guy was using the place as a front to launder money for The Maggia.) Needing money to start his own business and market the coating, but unable to get a bank loan, he covered a costume with the coating and set out rob banks. He never planned to be a villain, seeing it as simply a means to a legitimate career (even saying he'd "trash the suit" and live a normal life when he got the money he needed). However, he fell prey to Motive Decay and became a villain for reasons, only to eventually be killed by Hammerhead as an example to other villains that wouldn't join him during the Civil War.
  • Spider-Man and the X-Men series:
    • Spider-Man pleads with Sauron and tells him that he could use his technology to cure cancer instead of wildly impractical pursuits like transforming people into dinosaurs. Sauron's response is a rather popular meme;
      Sauron: But I don't want to cure cancer. I want to turn people into dinosaurs.
    • A later issue of that same series reveals that apparently, Spidey foe Mysterio is actually something of an aversion of this. Turns out that a few years back Mysterio copyrighted the term "Sinister Six" behind the backs of his teammates. Now whenever other villains try to use the name for team-ups he forces them to pay royalties. Given how many villains have tried to steal the name since Dr. Octopus's death, this was probably a pretty smart move.
    • The first novel in the Spider-Man: Sinister Six Trilogy discusses the irony of Mysterio's situation. The main thing that pushed him over the edge and caused him to become a supervillain was that he was an underpaid B-movie makeup and effects artist who felt nobody appreciated him or took his work seriously. Now, in the age of modern sci-fi and superhero blockbusters, someone with Mysterio's skills could make millions by working on major Hollywood productions, but his criminal actions have damaged his reputation to such a degree that he has zero chance of landing a legitimate job ever again.
• The Trapster follows this trope to a T. He invented a type of super adhesive and decided to use it to rob banks instead of just patenting it, for some reason that they never explained. He even got a pardon after his first criminal outing, by helping the Avengers defeat Baron Zemo and yet still went back to crime after that. In a rather excellent print short story, the Trapster completely subverts this trope. He changes his name and begins selling his products on behalf of a Seen on TV company. His inventions are successful, he starts dating, and he even gets to ham it up on television. Unfortunately his old colleague the Wizard sees him enjoying himself and threatens him into going back to his Trapster identity and threatening a live studio audience, but his girlfriend talks him down in a touching on camera scene just before U.S. Agent clocks him in the jaw. As the story ends, Trapster is a sympathetic reformed criminal who keeps the girl and his job and gets legal representation to help clear up his parole problems. None of this is canon.
  • In a much later issue, Black Panther fights the Trapster, and notes that the villain's traps are all incredibly advanced and well designed. While beating the stuffing out of him, Panther casually mentions that he might have work for the Trapster when he gets out of jail.
• The third issue ever of the Fantastic Four has an inverted invocation of this trope: the villain in this case, the Miracle Man, is a stage magician who used his skills as a hypnotist and illusionist to fool the Fantastic Four into thinking he had powers far greater than theirs. Then he used these powers to fight them off as he went around stealing jewelry. Reed Richards ultimately deduced that his powers were phony and pointed out that if those powers were real, the Miracle Man could easily have conjured up all the jewels and treasure he wanted without having to stoop to such petty thievery in the first place.
• Linkara called the one-shot Daredevil villain "The Surgeon General" on her whole organ-stealing shtick, which inherently relies on being a skilled surgeon. Of course, what Linkara probably forgot is this schtick is Truth in Television, and the organ trade is very real, as That Other Wiki shows.
• The Circus of Crime may be D-list villains, but they're excellent circus performers. If they would go straight and abandon the "hypnotize the crowd and rob them blind" shtick, they could pull in plenty of money without getting beat up and thrown in jail. At least one comic had them propose doing that... then lament that it wouldn't really be all that profitable, since not too many people care about the circus anymore. (Indeed, the reason they turned to crime in the first place was because their leader, Maynard Tidboldt the Ringmaster, felt his relatively small circus couldn't compete with the enormous ones that Americans were familiar with. Thing is, more modern depictions of Tidboldt's circus are rather large and seem pretty good in comparison.)
• Minor-league Marvel Comics supervillain The Ringer thoroughly subverts this trope. He actually started out working as a legitimate engineer for NASA, but he got a serious case of Green-Eyed Monster syndrome when he saw wealthy business executives like Kyle Richmond getting rich off the hard work of people like him. The Ringer originally embarked on his career to get revenge for the little guy by robbing Kyle Richmond, who was secretly the superhero Nighthawk. After Nighthawk defeated him and he escaped from jail, the Ringer tried again with an upgraded battlesuit that allowed him to gather condensed air particulates and assemble them into a substance that was almost as strong as steel and that he could use to make additional rings whenever he needed them. Despite the fact that this invention could probably have revolutionized the steel industry, to say nothing of manufacturing in general, the Ringer simply uses it to... try and market the battlesuit to his criminal contacts, but then the Beetle forces him to fight Spider-Man and he gets his ass kicked.
• Another minor league supervillain, the Water Wizard, originally got the power to control water after a freak accident, but simply couldn't figure out what to do with it. It was only after a friend of his suggested he use his powers for crime that he became a supervillain, although he turned out to be an utter washout as a supervillain. He improved somewhat after changing his codename to Aqueduct, but not by much.
• X-Men: Arcade is a hitman who disposes of victims by dropping them into ridiculously elaborate, carnival themed deathtraps he calls Murderworlds. Arcade charges a million dollars per victim, which doesn't come close to covering his expenses. However, Arcade also happens to be one of the wealthiest men on the planet, so doesn't need the money-he just does what he does because he's a psychopath that enjoys the misery he puts people through in his Murderworlds far more than the money he'd get killing them.
• The Prowler, a former Spider-Man enemy turned friend is yet another subversion. Hobie Brown worked as a window cleaner and used his engineering talents to create special equipment to make his job safer. He hoped to make money legally with his inventions, but mistreatment from his racist boss turned him into an "Angry Black Man" Stereotype who modifies his gear to use it for crime as the Prowler. He's confronted by Spider-Man, who convinces him to give up crime. After his Heel–Face Turn, Hobie continues using the Prowler identity and equipment as a superhero, assisting Spider-Man several times. He even uses his Prowler gear to make money as a superhero for hire, working for Silver Sable, and as a Costume Copycat and bodyguard for Peter Parker.
• Fabian Stankowicz is a particularly hilarious subversion. Stankowicz was an ordinary guy who became a multimillionaire after winning the lottery. Having a lot of engineering smarts but not a lot of common sense, Stankowicz decides that the only natural thing to do with his fortune is...build an army of killer robots and try to fight The Avengers. He turned out to be an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, to the point that many heroes even didn't think him worth fighting. His lowest point was arguably when he was defeated by David Letterman, a middle-aged talk show host with no superpowers or combat training.
• Stuart Clarke, who debuted in Marvel's Champions comics, is a subversion who shows that science smarts don't always translate to business smarts. Clarke was a brilliant engineer who started out running a legitimate technology company similar to Stark Enterprises, including competing with Tony Stark in selling Powered Armor, but unlike Tony Stark he was an inept businessman. His company was hit hard by the recession, but he refused his accountant's advice to sell it. Blaming the federal government's trade practices for his company's downfall, he used his armor to start robbing banks as the supervillain Rampage, intending to use the money to pay off his creditors. He rationalized that only the government would suffer, since it insured the banks and would compensate their losses. He was crippled when he crossed paths with the Champions, and things went downhill from there.
• This defines the second Moonstone of Marvel comics, Karla Sofen, cannot go straight even when she actually tries. She has a medical degree in psychiatry and was making good money on it. However she could have been making even more money if she had actually gained a reputation for curing her patients, which in many cases she could, rather than purposefully undermining their self worth to see if she could induce suicides. Even refusing to cure a patient and just continually subscribing them treatment in an otherwise long and healthy life would make her more money than she has, but that simply isn't enough induced suffering to satiate her sadistic streak. While tormenting the original Moonstone, Lloyd Bloch, she inadvertently breaks him so hard that the alien technology he was relying on become hers. Instead of using this lucky break in any number of legal revenue avenues she intentionally searches out criminal outfits to join, which finally destroys her reputation as a psychiatrist. Almost every legitimate business venture she has since started has turned out to be a scam. In the rare instances she has done something completely legal it still ended up branching into illegal activity at the earliest opportunity it seemed like a quicker way to earn money more or she thought she could get away with causing someone else discomfort for giggles.
• Thunderbolts involves the Masters Of Evil disguising themselves as superheroes and committing the occasional good act. Some members, like Songbird, genuinely want to reform but don't want to go through the legal process. Some, like Atlas, literally had no where else to go. Others just wanted to rob the adoring public blind. In issue twelve, Baron Zemo reveals the whole thing had been a front for his latest attempt to Take Over the World, but Moonstone tracks him down, beats him up and takes over the group because taking over the world is much less profitable than using the Thunderbolts as cover for low-key scams.

Films

Films

Gaining more money legitimately

• In Ant-Man, Darren Cross is already head of Pym Technology, so he doesn't need to create shrinking Evil Knockoff Powered Armor. Even then, his inability to shrink organic matter still leaves him with A: Functional suits that can fly around and shoot laser beams, which would still sell a ton; B. Shrinking technology that works on inorganic material, which would still change the world; and C. An incomplete shrink ray that reduces people to a pin drop of goo (which he already weaponised as a gun in one scene!). Justified, however, in that his experiments with Pym particles have slowly driven him insane, making him obsessed with perfectly replicating Hank Pym's invention in order to surpass/impress his mentor.
• In Spider-Man, Norman Osborn becomes the Green Goblin when he tests an experimental formula on himself. He gains superpowers but goes mad. It allows him to operate the experimental armor and aircraft he was trying to sell to the military, which needed a working version of the formula to operate safely. So he uses it to destroy his competitor's project and then kill his board of directors when they try to kick him out of the company.
• The Amazing Spider-Man: The Oscorp bio-cable, which comes from genetically modified spiders created by the research of Peter's father and Connors, is already being sold. It's implied it's used for things like airplane towing cables. It is also, presumably, rather expensive. Peter steals some of it to use as his webbing. This is also, it's implied, the most profitable use anyone's been able to get out of the work of Pete's dad since he vanished with the formula.
• Averted in James Cameron's unproduced Spider-Man screenplay. In it, Electro uses his powers to become an obscenely wealthy businessman, as it turns out that his electrical abilities are rather useful for things like corporate espionage and making sure his rivals meet with unfortunate "accidents".
• Played with in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Adrian "The Vulture" Toomes and his gang are making money from selling their inventions, but since said inventions are all made from stolen technology, they're considered illegal, and thus the Vulture can only do business with the criminal underworld.

Possibility of gaining more money legitimately

• Played both ways in Iron Man 2 with Ivan Vanko. Vanko's capable of replicating the Arc Reactor with his father/Tony's father's incomplete diagrams. Though not as efficient as Tony's, it's nevertheless a functional copy and Tony even points out that a man like Vanko has the kind of connections necessary to market it to whoever he wants, legitimately or otherwise. Vanko retorts that his motives are personal. Vanko's father did try to sell it for massive profit but Howard Stark would have none of it, exiling him from the U.S. instead. Ivan is out for Tony's blood as his family stole the opportunity to have that check cut for them. In other words, the ship already sailed long ago for Ivan as far as making money, he's just interested in making Tony suffer by this point.
• Spider-Man Trilogy:
  • Dr. Octopus is researching a new power source in Spider-Man 2. In order to control it, he invents a system of mechanical arms that interface with his brain, have artificial intelligence, are indestructible, have the strength to throw cars, and never seem to need new batteries. Every aspect of the things would seem to merit a Nobel Prize, but Octavius and the rest of the world initially only treat them as a simple tool. By his Face–Heel Turn, Octavius was more obsessed with achieving his dream of creating a living sun than a Nobel Prize. Justified in that the chip allowing him to have control over the mechanical arms was destroyed and it was their artificial intelligence manipulating him.
  • In Spider-Man 3, Sandman needs to raise money for his sick daughter and turns to a life of crime. When he becomes living sand, you'd think he could strike a deal to work off his debt to society for a little government health care. It's not like a guy who can meld with sand wouldn't come in handy in any construction projects or ongoing warzones. Instead, he simply robs banks.
• Avengers: Infinity War features Thanos successfully using the Infinity Gauntlet to wipe out half the Universe as he claims there aren't enough resources to support everyone. He could have simply used the gauntlet to create more resources. The problem is that Thanos is motivated by pride as much as anything else -He wants to prove his original proposed solution of culling half the population to save his homeworld would have worked. Increasing resources wasn't an option for him then, so he isn't interested in doing it now. In Avengers: Endgame, when faced with hard evidence that it doesn't work, his response is to blame the survivors for refusing to move on and attempt to destroy the entire universe so he can remake it as grateful to him.

Live-Action TV

Possibility of gaining more money legitimately

• Luke Cage (2016): If a real-life nightclub could pull the headliners^note Actual famous musicians making cameo appearances, like Faith Evans, KRS-One, and the Delfonics and crowds that Cottonmouth is able to host at Harlem's Paradise, the owner would be a multi-millionaire. But Cottonmouth doesn't seem to notice or care that he has one of the hottest clubs in all of New York City. Mariah even points out that his legitimate business interests are successful enough on their own that he doesn't need to run drugs or guns in order to be one of the most powerful men in Harlem.
• Iron Fist (2017): Madame Gao develops a synthetic form of heroin that works by skin patch and prevents the user from building a tolerance, making each hit as strong as the first. Had she marketed her innovation to the medical industry for its usefulness in pain management^note One of the biggest downsides to most painkillers is diminishing returns, she could have made billions legally and had an easier time selling it on the streets if she so desired. And since it's not injected, it would prevent the spread of diseases from sharing needles, namely HIV and hepatitis. In short, Gao could have cornered the medical and recreational opium markets had she set her sights higher than local druglords. The Defenders (2017) justifies this by confirming she's Really 700 Years Old and part of an Ancient Conspiracy that wants to Take Over the World. So it's likely she wanted to keep to the shadows and wouldn't risk the scrutiny that would come with patenting the skin patch.

Video Games

Video Games

Possibility of gaining more money legitimately

• Mysterio in Spider-Man 2 is able to build things like a working jetpack, a fleet of UFOs, and anti-gravity robots. Even one of those things could make him rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Instead, he uses them to act out because a superhero is more popular than he is.

Western Animation

Western Animation

Gaining more money legitimately

• This overlapping with Revenge Before Reason is the downfall of Adrian Toomes, aka The Vulture, in Spider-Man: The Animated Series. Norman Osborn's attempt at buying Toomes' company out from under him was based entirely on Osborn's claims that Toomes' experiments in anti-gravity flight were failures that would end up bankrupting the company. At that point, however, Toomes had finished a fully-functional anti-gravity personalized flight suit. If he'd just flown it over to the board meeting and shown it off, Osborn would have been thrown out of the building and Toomes' company would have been rolling in money. Instead, Toomes took up the identity of the Vulture to assassinate Osborn for trying to take over, which cost him everything.

Possibility of gaining more money legitimately

• Played straight by Mysterio and the Tinkerer on The Spectacular Spider-Man, who create amazingly advanced technologies including Ridiculously Human Robots which they use in working for high-paying crime lords and foreign governments.

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