Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas / Comic Books

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• One issue of a Dutch comic Agent 327 has the villain defeated by one of his own mooks, after said mook heard the song "Always think kindly of your mother" being used to torture the hero.
• Amalgam Universe: In Spider-Boy Team-Up, Spider-Boy remarks after he and Spider-Boy 2099 defeat Kang the Time-Conqueror and unmask him as Chronos-Tut the Time Pharaoh that Chronos-Tut has a face only a mother could love, which enrages Chronos-Tut.
  Chronos-Tut: Don't you dare make light of my mother! My mother was a saint!
• Astro City:
  • The supervillian Glowworm (who is African-American, though his skin color is obscured by his constant Power Glow) is specifically incensed that his mother saw a comic book that depicted him as a white supremacist. Publisher Manny Monkton tries to appeal to reason somewhat by asking how she feels about him robbing banks, which pissed him off further.
  • Steeljack's efforts to reform himself are partly an effort to live up to the standards his mother set, and he visits her grave repeatedly.
• In Back to Brooklyn, Paul Saetta's last words before dying is to ask his brother Bob to take care of their mother. Too bad their mother is just as bad as Paul, and Bob ends up killing her.
• In The Batman Adventures, Mario serves as Scarecrow's contact in a street gang (it's possible, but never stated he's their leader) doing the groundwork to render Gotham City illiterate 1. for a ransom before he'll undo the effect and 2. to make a social point about education. After escaping an encounter with Batman, he ends up fleeing back to his mother's place, only to find paramedics half-useless in a room where she has lost the ability to read her medications; they can't, he can't, and then Batman shows up, saves her life and his loyalty to Scarecrow apparently wavers pretty quickly.
• Batman: Black and White: In "Greetings from... Gotham City", one of the gangsters Batman fights is a dreadlocked brute who does his level best to beat Batman to death with a two-by-four. The last page of the story shows him in his cell sending a nicely-worded postcard to his mom back home apologizing for not being able to make it home for Thanksgiving this year.
• Batman himself is also an example, although he's more a case of Even Badasses Love Their Mamas. The Dark Knight's entire shtick is inspiring fear in criminals by being as terrifying, fearless, and sometimes emotionless as possible. But bringing Martha Wayne into the conversation will immediately show off Batman's human and kind side. To cite just a few examples from various stories:
  • In Batman: The Long Halloween, Batman learns that the Scarecrow has escaped Arkham Asylum on Mother's Day, and is utterly furious at the thought of anyone violating the sanctity of that particular holiday for him. When Batman's hit with a blast of Scarecrow's fear gas, he breaks down utterly and hallucinates his mother as he runs from the police, rushing to her grave and sobbing at it like a frightened child.
  • Played for Drama in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. When Big Bad Dr. Charles Cavendish attacks an already-injured and weakened Batman, he endlessly screams "MOMMY'S BOY! MOMMY'S BOY!" at the Dark Knight. The insult proves to be the final straw for Batman, and he's too stunned by it to fight back, even though Dr. Cavendish is much weaker than he is. Ultimately, Batman has to beg another psychiatrist, Dr. Ruth Adams, to save him, and she instinctively slashes Cavendish's throat with a razor.
• Black Moon Chronicles:
  • Ghorghor Bey is a dreaded warlord who could snap a person in half thanks to his enormous size. However, he dearly loved his late mother, since she was pretty much the only person in his village who loved the half-ogre boy, a result of her being raped during an ogre attack. He makes a point to visit her grave when he and his army are marching through the area when he's an adult.
  • Wismerhill himself is an Anti-Hero at best, but his mother was the only person he knew for the first few years of his life since she had to keep her bastard son hidden from her husband, who eventually finds out and kills her. Wismerhill repays him for this (and the abuse he suffered at the lord's hands) years later by hacking off his fingers and letting him fall to his death.
• Dark Avengers: The only thing approaching a soft spot the manipulative and amoral supervillain Daken seems to have is for his deceased mother, Itsu. He hates his father Wolverine with a passion, yet he seems to have a very loving memory of his mother, in spite of her dying shortly before his birth.
  Ares: I'm wondering what woman in her right mind would crawl in bed with that ferret of a man—
  Daken: That's my mother you're speaking of! (nobody present was aware that Daken was actually Wolverine's son at the time; their expressions were priceless).
• In Death of the Family, this is James Jr's reason for selling Barbara (his sister) out to Joker.
• Doctor Doom, resident Big Bad of the Marvel Universe, spent years of his life trying to rescue his mother from Hell after she made an unfortunate Deal with the Devil during his childhood. Doom eventually succeeds, due to a clever plan but in the process sacrifices her love for him.
• The Flash: Villain Mirror Master regularly donates money he steals to the orphanage where he was raised.
• Sinestro Corps member Karu-Sil was taken in by a pack of beasts after her original family died, and while otherwise feral, she's always accompanied by constructs of them.
• Hybrid Force: Dr. Insomnia may be a Mad Scientist bent on bending all humanity to his will, but one thing he used his genetic research to do is save his mother's life. You can imagine how he feels about her being one of the three defecting protagonists of the comic.
• In the Havok & Wolverine miniseries, Wolverine gets into a barfight in Mexico after somebody called his mother a puta.^note whore
  Havok: Logan, you don't even know who your mother was.
  Wolverine: No reason not to treat her with respect.
  • The sad part is Wolverine's mother Elizabeth actually abused and rejected him upon seeing pop his claws for the first time.
• The Hood loves his mother and part of the reason he got into crime (aside from being able to support his wife and daughter) was to take care of her.
• Iron Man baddie Blacklash/Whiplash, after hearing of a vigilante targeting supervillains, went on a mad robbing spree in an attempt to amass enough money to take care of his mom once he's killed.
• In Jew Gangster, Reuben Kaplan might be a hardened member of the mob, but he always makes sure to visit his mother and ensure she is financially taken care of.
• Coldcast of Justice League Elite may be a Scary Black Man, but he still cares for his blind mother. He was also the reason for her blindness; his powers first emerged when he tried to save her from being raped by a gang, and well, he didn't have very good control over all the energy he produced...
• Kobalt: The 11th issue has Kobalt fight a villain named Dozer and taunt his tractor-like appearance by asking if he looks like that because his mother had a fling with John Deere. Dozer replies that Kobalt better be careful what he says about his momma, with Kobalt replying that if Dozer's mother looks like him, she likely wouldn't even get a date with a tractor.
• Lady Death is a female example: An undead Dark Action Girl originally conceived a '90s Anti-Hero who would overthrow Satan for the control of Hell. She is mostly driven to save her mother's soul, who was sacrificed at the hands of LD's abusive father.
• Loki, for all his Daddy Issues, even has this once in a while. Tyr once got Loki to help him overthrow Asgard by saying Odin had dishonored Frigga (aka Loki's adoptive mother). Loki switched sides the second he found out that wasn't true. Unfortunately unlike the MCU below Loki’s care for Frigga is one-sided in the comics as she has nothing but emotional abuse and neglect for him.
  • In The Ultimates, this is how everything got started... he just wanted Momma Laufey's approval, and it all snowballed into Asgard getting destroyed.
• In Lord Havok And The Extremists, this is the motivation behind Lord Havok's turn to villainy. Born horribly deformed, his father, the Czar of Russia, rejected him while the Czarina harbored him and paid for his education overseas. When he receives word that the Czar killed his mother, the only person who ever cared for him, he returns to Russia to attend the funeral, kill his father, and utterly obliterate his home country as his revenge.
  Lord Havok: You see, Father, I can take, too.
• Lucky Luke:
  • Joe, William, Jack and Averell Dalton love their Ma, and not just because she sends them... iron-enriched... cakes in prison.
  • In Black Hills, a Dumb Muscle-type named Nebraska Kid is challenged to a swordfight which requires both participants to strip to the waist. He does so reluctantly, revealing a giant flower tattoo with "To My Mommy" written around it. He then warns the people watching that the first to laugh gets it good.
• In Luke Cage Noir, we never see it in action so much as get it spelled out for us. Josephine tells Cage that there isn't a lot to like about a creep like Tombstone... but he was always a mama's boy.
• Snivelitch from the Madballs comic published by Star Comics (a now-defunct subsidiary of Marvel Comics) must have loved his mother a lot since a picture of her can be seen on his desk in the second issue.
• A couple of Marvel Comics villains use their ill-gotten gains to support their mothers or grandmothers, most notably the Wrecker, an enemy of Thor, and 8-Ball, an enemy of Sleepwalker.
• Walter in The Mask Dark Horse comics universe — we never learn anything about this mysterious mute killer in the series other than that he has a "♥ Mother" tattoo on his right shoulder.
• The Mighty Thor: In issue 174, Mad Scientist Jasper Whyte is convinced to sacrifice himself to stop his creation the Crypto-Man after Thor points out to him that Jasper's mother will be among the lives endangered by the Crypto-Man.
• Disney Ducks Comic Universe: In the Carl Barks story "The Money Champ", Flintheart Glomgold is sad for having betrayed his mother's hopes when he used crooked means on his efforts to become the world's richest duck and feels he must get the title so this betrayal won't be in vain.
• Subverted in Ms. Marvel. After Ms. Marvel defeats Moonstone, she ripped away the latter's power source, leaving her to die in 3 days unless she can find it again. Ms. Marvel then puts it on Moonstone's mother's tomb, hoping that this trope would apply and Moonstone would pull a Heel–Face Turn after apologizing to her deceased mother for what she has done. Turns out Evil Cannot Comprehend Good, so Moonstone reclaimed her power source... and smashed her mother's tomb. Moonstone killed her own mother and thought she was a weak failure. She never loved her mother or anyone else except herself.
• 100 Bullets: Remi and Ronnie Rome. Very much so.
• The Penguin in Penguin: Pain and Prejudice is devoted to his ailing mother.
• Bork, a misguided, mutated criminal, in Power Company. Committing robberies to cover for his ailing mother's medical bills, he surrendered only after Batman assured him that she would be taken care of.
• Plastic Man: In a Golden Age story, Plastic Man convinced Woozy Winks to give up crime and make a Heel–Face Turn by asking him what his mother would think of him being a criminal.
• Played straight in The Punisher MAX comic. Leon Rastovich was part of a child pornography ring that was busted. He turned over on a lot of his partners for a lighter sentence, but no matter what the prosecution offered him, he never turned on his mother, who was suspected of involvement.
• Marv of Sin City visits his frail old mother. Later he concedes to sign a confession for the villains when they threaten his mother, though he breaks the lawyer's arm first.
• Bohr in Sojourn. Even if this means to Mercy Kill her.
• The first Dr. Ivo Robotnik from the Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics). He had two pictures of his mom, one in his bedroom and one in his office, and once the Freedom Fighters attacked, he said that he couldn't run away as he was holding scissors and his mother always told him that he should never run with scissors.
• Spider-Man:
  • Villain Doppelganger is a pitiful mindless creature who knows only rage, confusion, and love for his surrogate mother Shriek, who dotes on him and refers to him as her "son."
  • This also applies to the Rhino. During the Fallen Son arc mourning Captain America's death, Spidey is visiting the grave of Uncle Ben and sees Rhino walking through the cemetery. He attacks, thinking he's up to something (despite Rhino pleading that he isn't here to fight), and their fight breaks a gravestone belonging to Rhino's mother... which was the only reason he was there in the first place. When he realizes this, Spider-Man attempts to apologize, but Rhino is, understandably, far too angry to listen.
  • The first sign of the Sandman's eventual Heel–Face Turn was a Christmas story where he broke out of jail to visit his elderly mom, who had no idea he was a villain. It's later established that he changed his name so his mother wouldn't know he was a crook. Much later, before he apparently dies, he asked Spider-Man to tell his mother he was sorry for not being a good guy.
• Supergirl story arc Day of the Dollmaker, features Dollmaker, a psychopathic, delusional child kidnapper and murderer with tons of psychological issues stemming from his father ignoring him and his mother taking him away and later abandoning him. Still, despite hating his father, he does not hold a grudge against his mother (even though she treated him worse than his father ever did).
• A sibling variation with Terra, of Teen Titans fame. Terra used everyone, hated good, and only cared for herself. The only times she showed true compassion were when she interacted with her long lost older brother.
• Out of all of the Terror Titans, the third Persuader, Elise Kimble, seems to have had a loving relationship with at least one of her parents. Her father utterly adored her, but her mother eventually drove him away, and it was because of her upbringing that Elise became a killer. She actually killed her mom when she found out. When she's reunited with her father years later, he tells Elise that he wanted to take her with him, but she was a dependent, which meant she was worth money to her mother. Her mom threatened to make it look like he was abusing her if he tried to take Elise, so her dad tried to spare her a life of being on the run from the law by leaving. Their happy reunion is cut short when Elise's boss, Clock King, kills her dad right in front of her.
• Daniel "the Battler" Axum from the brief Thunderbolts retool was a colossal, superstrong ex-supervillain and ex-con who made a living out of metahuman fights and spent a lot of his earnings on gifts for his poor mother.
• Watchmen has an inversion of the trope. Nominally good guy/Ax-Crazy Knight Templar Rorschach hates his (abusive) mother. Upon learning that she died, forced to drink cleaning fluid by her pimp, he comments: "Good." Even Good Men Hate Their Mamas, sometimes.
• An issue of Wolverine revealed that Sabretooth of all people was this. Having his old mother living in one of the most expensive nursing homes in the world and often visiting her when he wasn't out murdering people. An earlier instance happens when Wolverine calls him "A Motherless piece of—", prompting Creed to slash him down the front, up the back, and send him flying with a final slash for bringing his mother into it.
• Wonder Woman Vol 1: When Heracles was changed from a god back to a demigod, he wasn't mad about his reduced power, because he was glad to have his mother's blood back in his veins.
• X-Men: Fantomex, an amoral mercenary who was raised to become a heartless weapon, visits his blind, old mother regularly in her world.

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