Doctor Doom has received treatment of this nature from the fans. He is a complex Evil Overlord with a strong (if warped) sense of nobility and a tendency towards frequent badass Awesome Moments, but he is still a villain. For example; the image of 'Doom as benevolent dictator' partially stems from a one-off book, Emperor Doom, in which Doom manages to conquer the Earth and begins to make numerous improvements in how things are run; this book is often used to reinforce the impression that Doom would be a great and benevolent leader if he managed to take over. However, he manages this largely by brainwashing the entire planet into accepting his rule (goodbye, freedom of thought and dissent); and he ultimately gives it up and lets the heroes defeat him because he gets bored, suggesting that he's ultimately not as interested in 'making the world a better place for all' as many would like to think. And yet some create an exaggerated ideal of how noble and benevolent . His vanity, insecurity, egomania, and brutality tend to be underplayed or ignored and writers who attempt to stress Doom's less-attractive qualities can be rejected vitriolically. Doom so embodies this characteristic that people actually brush off his actions in Avengers: The Children's Crusade where he kills the teenage Cassie Lang and takes the credit for Avengers Disassembled and House of M or the story Unthinkable where he murders his ex-love for demonic power and again attacks the Richards family, including possessing Valeria and casting little Franklin Richards bodily into Hell - just to hurt the patriarch.
Doom is also an enormous beneficiary of this thanks to fans of his Running the Asylum who greatly emphasize his few positive traits while massively downplaying his many negative ones and portraying him as a sort of enlightened tyrant who would have brought peace and prosperity to the world a long time ago if not for that meddling Reed Richards. Stories portraying Doom in this way are almost too numerous to count (there have been novels!)
He does also, rarely, benefit from situations that have passed the Godzilla Threshold where he ends up saving the day (purely for his own benefit) because his enemy-of-the-moment is something even worse than him.
Iron Man: Ironically, ever since Civil War (2006) and House of M, Tony Stark's popularity has exploded among the fangirls. Granted, this may have something to do with the release of The Movie, but the seemingly insane fannishness predates even that... but not by much, since while he was always popular beforeCivil War, he was a relatively obscure figure compared to the Household Names of the X-Men and Spider-Man, so, yeah. What makes Tony's ascension so amusing is how he was crafted from the very start to have this effect on readers, being an Arms Dealer sold to readers during the arms dealer-hating The '60s as a hero.
The Mighty Thor: A very...unusual form of this happens with Loki. While he certainly has a lot of fangirls, a lot of people tend to ignore his more heinous acts in the comics by the fact that he's not nearly that much of an asshole in the original mythology, and was basically turned into a villain by years of translations and adaptations that ignored his positive traits and played up his negative ones. There's a large number of people who dislike this, and complain about the fact Loki is sometimes depicted as being a Card-Carrying Villain. Ironically, Stan and Jack did write some issues based on actual stories which had Loki in a much more positive light, being based before he turned on Thor. Note also that Loki has been receiving a lot more of this in recent years as a byproduct of his successful adaptation to the silver screen.
The Punisher: Frank Castle is an extreme VigilanteAnti-Hero at best and a Villain Protagonist at worst, brutally murdering criminals without any remorts or giving them a chance to face consequences by the law. He often clashes with other superheroes like Spider-Man and Daredevil over not believing in the system. However, the Punisher appeals to some fans as killing bad guys and "doing what has to be done" what other superheroes won't dare to do. He even has fans in real-life police and military thanks to being a high-decorated war veteran, ignoring that his action after the war are highly criminal and immoral as he's mostly playing Judge, Jury and Executioner in one person. His creator Gerry Conway even expresses shock of Frank appealing to real-life cops as he never was intended to be a hero or a symbol for justice.
Venom. The alien symbiotes' "costumes" are emotionally striking in very different ways to different people and it's not fully certain whether they are Draco In Leather Pants, in which the characters' brutal acts are handwaved or rationalized, or if it's just their sex appeal. Venom's (Eddie Brock's) Never Hurt an Innocentvow helps with the leather pants-ing. Though that still ignores that Brock HAS killed innocent people if they were in his way.
Carnage, however, there is no excuse for. He was even a serial killer before getting the symbiote.
Peter's Mean Boss at The Daily Bugle J. Jonah Jameson is an odd case. Fans usually side with Spidey whenever he acts like an Ungrateful Bastard and unfairly makes accusations against the hero. (Usually.) However, if there is even a hint that Jonah has been kidnapped, hurt, conned, or - God forbid - killed, fans never fail to send in mail showing support, concern, or outrage, whichever is appropriate. (It seems that Jonah is a thorn in the hero's side that fans just don't want to see go away.) Jolly Jonah has a few things going for him, namely that he's often a great source of comedy (ranging from suffering Laser-Guided Karma to being The Scrooge), used the Bugle to crusade for everything from honest governance (by exposing the corruption of governments and organized crime figures) to the rights of marginalized populations (both real-world ones like gay and Black people, as well fictional ones like mutants) and has a Hidden Heart of Gold, which all make him a lot more likable and nuanced.
Norman Osborn has his fair share of, hum, "enthusiastic" fans; raging from fans trying to excuse his crimes and despicable attitude by over-emphasizing his tragic backstory, blaming the accident for the damage it did to his brain, or the kinky fans who fantasize about him and his random rendevouz (see "Sins Past" *Thankfully retconned, or how he seems to have gotten a little more... active with the ladies ever since he returned from the dead). In parts to blame could also be his live-action portrayals in Spider-Man and Spider-Man: No Way Home, which heavingly lean into the Split Personality aspect of the character, depicting "the Goblin" as Norman's Superpowered Evil Side, while Norman's more villainous aspects as a Corrupt Corporate Executive and an abusive father to Harry are heavingly downplayed in the adaptation, more fitting the view some comic fans have of him.
Dark Reign gave Bullseye and Mac Gargan (Venom III) fangirls, thanks to the Ho Yay they had with Daken (you can read more on him below). For that matter, the Dark Avengers as a whole got this treatment from fans and Dark Avengers was a popular book. Hell, some fans say Norman Osborn did a better job as "top cop" than Iron Man.
Also, Moonstone. Even though she's a therapist who used to make her patients off themselves for fun and stole her superpowers from another patient, a lot of fans like her Manipulative Bastard nature, and because, well, they find her damn sexy. These fans tend to brush off or otherwise ignore that, unlike other characters who are all but endorsed as Leather Pants wearers by the writers themselves, Moonstone is consistently portrayed as a Smug Snake who greatly overestimates her own competence and becomes a one-trick pony with no cards to play when her usual Manipulative Bastard gambits fail.
Baron Zemo, like Dr. Doom above, is an example of a Draco caused by writers Running the Asylum who fell in love with the character and genuinely began to buy his own sell. The original Baron, Heinrich Zemo was a stock Nazi Nobleman archetype, while the Zemo of Thunderbolts was Heinrich's son Helmut, a Legacy Character whose original goal was Avenging the Villain. He originally created the Thunderbolts for this purpose, until he and his team all began Becoming the Mask and liking the idea of being heroes. Since that series Zemo has become much more of a Well-Intentioned Extremist who, like Doom above, is written as being so enlightened that he probably could bring about a peaceful era if only the heroes of the Marvel Universe (and his own ego) would stop getting in his way.
Wolverine's son Daken gets a lot of this, even though he kills his lovers (both men and women) for shits and giggles. Doesn't help that his justification is his father'sabsence from his life. Fans who identify with his misplaced rage against said father, or the position said father fills on his team, or maybe just like the idea of an explicitly bisexualversion of their favorite badass, flock to him in throngs. In the first issue of his 2010 ongoing it's strongly suggested that Daken raped a female assassin sent to kill him. Fandom has broken into three parts - those who deny it saying he just mocked her before delivering the killing blow, those who are disgusted by it and... some really sick individuals saying that she deserved it. This article argues convincingly that Daken is a deliberate deconstruction of this character trope: he's the dark romantic hero without a wounded soul to protect.
Wolverine's Arch-Enemy, Sabretooth, is an even more storied and flagrant Leather Pants recipient, despite being one of the most singularly deserving characters of the Complete Monster label. From brutally murdering Wolverine's girlfriends to playing on the above Daken's daddy issues to pit him against Wolverine and get him killed, to literally eating babies, if there's a horrible act you can imagine there's a good chance Sabretooth has committed it. And yet, in spite of this truly heinous history, the character has been the recipient of multiple attempts to reform him, first as a Villain Protagonist who happened to be A Lighter Shade of Grey and then making him good outright via A Wizard Did It during the AXIS storyline. Sabes has since reverted to his usual abhorrent personality, but given the above attempts and others it's a safe bet that it's a matter of time before the Bullpen tries foisting a Leather-Pantsed Sabretooth on readers again.
Without a doubt, though, the archetypal X-Men Draco is Magneto, largely thanks to Chris Claremont transforming him from standard ranting Ax-CrazySuper Villain into a sane, polite, eloquent and culturedWell-Intentioned Extremist, as well as a Holocaust survivor determined to prevent mutants from suffering the same fate as the Jews, who regretted having to fight the X-Men and even joined them for a while. He was also rendered Progressively Prettier, with a deaging incident or two, that turned him from typically villainously ugly to a Silver Fox (he even has a six-pack), even ultimately getting a white-haired attractive pretty-boy clone (believed for a time to be a deaged and innocently amnesiac Magneto) called Joseph who ended up hooking up with Rogue. As a result, Claremont's characterisation became the predominant one for Magneto, with more classically villainous moments being retconned as his powers driving him insane, outside influence, etcetera. He even joined the X-Men for good in House of X.
However, as of Magneto: Not A Hero revealed in his "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the resurrected Joseph, a) just because he's changed his methods does not mean he has changed his goals, b) he doesn't give a damn about 'hero' or 'villain' - "There is just what I want and how I'll get it." In other words, he's not gone soft, as such - he's just more of a hardcore Anti-Hero/Anti-Villain these days.
Emma Frost has spent 80% of appearances as a Heel–Face Revolving Door who even when working with the good guys is a textbook Rich Bitch who looks down her nose at most other people and mutants as a Smug Super. Yet since she’s a drop dead beautiful and sexy Dressed Like a Dominatrix blonde Emma constantly gets forgiven for her misdemeanours with some fans parroting Cyclops’ excuses for Emma’s bad behaviour “She doesn’t mean it, it’s fine”. A lot of fans are happy to focus on Emma’s nicer Took a Level in Kindness moments seen in Generation X and just ignore the dozens of other times she committed atrocities or aided the likes of Doom Doom and Green Goblin. Similar to Magneto, Emma’s later bouts of villainy and douchery often excused away with retcons such as her Questionable ConsentMental Affair with Scott being because of Cassandra Nova’s influence. Hell you will also find other fans whom like Emma simply because she’s more dangerously “exciting” and “interesting” compared to other goody two shoes X-Ladies like Jean or Storm.
really sick individuals saying that she deserved it. This article
argues convincingly that Daken is a deliberate deconstruction of this character trope: he's the dark romantic hero without a wounded soul to protect.