Designated Villain / Webcomics

• Zig-zagged in 1/0 with Junior. He is created to be evil, but as there is not much evil to do, he is in danger to be killed as an one-dimensional character, who only insults his creator constantly. Eventually, he kills Mock, leaves, commits suicide, then returns (as a ghost), and gets a Heel–Face Turn near the end of the comic.
• In Cthulhu Slippers Cthulhu himself is ostensibly the head of the evil Cthulhu Corp and one of the most evil beings in the universe. In reality he's one of the nicest characters in the story, and though he was present at the end of the world he hasn't actually done anything wrong (penchant for Girl Scout Cookies aside).
• Gene Catlow: Matt is seen by all the heroes as an evil demonic figure who wants to bring in Cat Supremacy, but whenever he is present, he tends to come off more as a tragic figure who is surrounded by people who want to and will backstab him at every opportunity. His mentor and former bosses hate him, but he cares more about the survival of Feline Family than any of them do; he is opposed to treating anyone who disagrees with him with violence, he allows the members of Feline Family to leave if they don't agree with him, and overall seems like a fair employer and a competent family leader. He also made Cydnee realize her skills as matagot when previous leader of Feline Family, Jeremy, knew about Cydnee's matagot powers but chose to not tell her about them and forced her to be a dancer.
• The journalists that Vriska assaults in Homestuck: Beyond Canon. The only thing they did wrong was call Vriska a terrorist, and it was the cops that fired on her, not them.
• How I Became Yours: Mai. She gets mad at her husband—with whom she's genuinely in love—for having an affair, whereupon he strikes her. Not only that, but the fact she hid the letters telling Zuko about his child is apparently hideous treason. It's not a nice thing to do, sure, but she had good reasons to do so and it's certainly not treason. Particularly when Katara had every intention of hiding the child from Zuko anyway, and the only reason the letter came anywhere close to Mai or Zuko is a clerical error.
• It's (Not) Your Fault: Luna. The author wants to sell the idea that was Luna who incited Sam to rape Lincoln due to her insane jealousy and assaulting them after instantly believing that the two had kissed. However, far from being a jealous girl, it's more plausible that Luna was just wanting to protect Lincoln, afraid that Sam might hurt him. Also, was Sam who raped Lincoln and really traumatized him, and as a result, the family should throw Sam out and side with Luna, because, as quick as she was to condemn Sam, she did it to defend Lincoln and his family. However, the Loud family apparently kicked Luna out of the house (or she ran away in embarrassment; not sure) and took Sam in, which is like a family of rabbits adding a predatory wolf to their family and kicking out a rabbit that punched the wolf out of sheer survival instinct (and all this after the wolf DEVOURED a family rabbit!).
• Alejandra in Las Lindas stops at nothing to shut down Mora's farm as revenge for all the emotional pain Mora caused her in the past. Her evil deeds include an offer to buy the farm at a generous price, retracting the offer when Mora storms Alej's office with violent hostility, and legally purchasing the farm from the bank when Mora's plan for exploiting free labor doesn't work out. Alej's crowning moment of villainy came as a response to the hero announcing her intentions to commit murder. And who's supposed to be the villain of this story?
• Misfile: Heather, of The Resenter variety. Though later strips show she does have positive qualities as well, so it's kind of a Deconstruction.
  • Cassiel as well, despite being treated like trash by pretty much everyone, the worst she's done is made the guys drive a long ways for no reason and served Rumisiel and Vash sub-par snacks.
• Original Life: To some, Angela, who exists in the strip as a Straw Character on occasion, but is considered a lot more reasonable than the protagonists by her fans.
• PvP:
  • Max Powers. Even though he seems to be a nice, cheery, and outgoing person to everyone around him, the entire magazine crew seems to hate him, especially Cole, constantly saying how "evil" he is even though we have almost never seen him do anything objectionable. When the website Websnark did its analysis of Powers, it came to the same conclusions. Kurtz himself admitted that this was close to the truth. Max isn't supposed to be an actual villain, but instead, one of those guys who is so nice and perfect and successful that it inspires jealous hatred. The closest he comes to "evil" is that he can't see Skull, and only "innocents" can see him. That said, he managed to motivate Roby and Jase into becoming physically fit and productive people. It may not have lasted, but it was a fairly beneficial change without nasty consequences.
  • Recently addressed in the comic after a Mistaken for Gay brief storyline:
    Cole: It's not because of a girl, or because you always succeed where I seem to fail. It's just that, well, you're a better person than I am, or ever will be.
    Max: Stop it.
    Cole: It's true. I'm petty, selfish, jealous, and small. You're none of those things, Max. You never have been. You're a big reminder of just how flawed I am, and how very little I've grown. Sometimes that's hard to be around. But I'd like to try, Max. I'd really like to try.
• The Perry Bible Fellowship has an In-Universe example in this strip, in which a book describes Farmer Ben as "mean" for wanting to protect his crops from the rabbit protagonists, something that is shown to be entirely justified when the last panel shows the farmer and his family experiencing famine due to losing their crops.
• Sandra and Woo: Zoey is spoken of as a popular jerk, but the most we've seen of her so far is being a victim to Larisa. Apparently, her meanness takes place off-screen.
  • Not always, though.
• In Sinfest, Baby Blue in a flashback got F's in all spiritual matters -- D in harp. The thing is, we haven't seen her do anything evil at that age; this appears to be her Start of Darkness.
  • For what that matters, the Patriarchy and most of the male cast in the Sisterhood Arc can be seen as such. While they are supposed to see them as little more than misogynistic jerks, many readers think that Xanthe and her friends go to such extreme, cruel lengths when dealing with them that the shallow and perverted antagonists end up being far more sympathetic and reasonable than the Sisterhood: it's incredibly hard to root against misogynistic perverts who really don't do much "wrong" when doing so means you're rooting for violent misandrist terrorists who just roll around hurting people and destroying things.
    • A lot of real-life feminists don't particularly care for the Sisterhood either, since they're rabidly transphobic and anti-sex. The strip pretty much shouts that it's laughable at best and insidious propaganda at worst to say gender is more than genitals, or that it's possible for women to desire and enjoy sex.
  • Ironically, in earlier strips, exaggerated caricatures of feminists were portrayed as evil or at least lame. Tatsuya Ishida's complete 180 on the subject has been the source of much speculation.
  • At this point, Tats' QAnon-tinged Filibuster Freefall makes most if not all of his villains designated.
• Sluggy Freelance has an in-universe example as part of a Harry Potter parody. Gandledorf (a Captain Ersatz of Dumbledore) explains why House Wunnybun (the Ersatz Slytherin) must always be treated like scum:
  "Wunnybun is the house for bad guys. Reward them amiably? Treat them with respect? They may become good. And then our paperwork would be all screwed up."
• Sly Cooper: Thief of Virtue: Torus is seen as a tyrannical director who oversteps his bounds and abuses his power by everyone in the comic and often written to seem like it for the sake of making a political statement, but his actions and veiled ideals are actually rather justifiable from a realistic standpoint and even in the Sly universe considering how incompetent Interpol is in the game.
• Something*Positive: PeeJee learns her childhood teddy bear somehow wound up in a thrift store, where it was purchased by a seller of furry fetish paraphernalia who sewed a penis sheath into it and put it up for auction online. While it's understandable that it would be upsetting to find out your treasured teddy has been turned into a sex toy, the seller didn't do anything illegal or even arguably wrong. The artist may have been aware on some level that it's not a great look to portray someone as the scum of the earth for making products catering to a niche kink that some people are grossed out by, so he made the seller guilty of an actual crime as well (he and his girlfriend were shill-bidding on the items he was auctioning to drive up the price).
• If the heroes of Sonichu are the definitions of Designated Hero, then many of the villains are easily in the Designated Villain spot. Due to a massive case of Life Embellished, the author paints various characters this way. The worst case of this is the entirety of issue 10 which has the main characters murder people who amount to nothing more than simple Internet Trolls.
• Vegan Artbook: Shawn, Cuntons, Diva, Chanel, Bindiya, Bongo, and anyone who commits the mortal sin (in the eyes of the author anyway) of not being a vegan.
  • Especially obvious in the case of Cuntons...who supposedly hates vegans and stalks and harasses Brie, despite the comic never offering any proof of this being the case (and despite her actually being something less of a Chew Toy in her interactions with the rest of the cast than Shawn).

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