Marvel Universe
Heel–Face Revolving Door in this franchise. open/close all folders
Comic Books
Comic Books
- The Avengers:
- Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch started as members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants then reformed and joined The Avengers and have been ping-ponging back and forth between heroism and villainy ever since. Quicksilver primarily because he'd really like to be a hero but is too self-centered to not do something he thinks will improve his situation just because it's illegal or wrong or something; Scarlet Witch primarily because she has a mental breakdown whenever a writer can't think of something more interesting to do with her near-omnipotent powers.
- Dr. Druid has, starting in 1995, had a bad history with this. While his actions during his time as leader of the Avengers and the Defenders were due to the manipulated by Terminatrix and Slorioth respectively, his actions in Druid (1995), where he went mad with new powers he gained, were his own. While during The Avengers (Kurt Busiek) and Chaos War, he was among those reanimated by the Grim Reaper and Amatsu-Mikaboshi respectively to be pawns, only to break free, he returned as the tyrant of Weirdworld in Squadron Supreme (2015) when he learned he had a body there. Then in Doctor Strange, Surgeon Supreme, he seemed to return for real and want to have a normal life, but the series ended before it could be confirmed if he was telling the truth or lying.
- The High Evolutionary has a very long history of this, and his evil quotient will often depend entirely on the book he is in at any given time. Though his character is a fairly stock Evilutionary Biologist with A God Am I-level delusions of grandeur, he has been cast as the hero (or at least a heroic figure) several times, such as when he memorably faced Galactus in the '70s and again in the '90s in run-ins with Mr. Sinister (another Evilutionary Biologist who was retconned into being The Man Behind the Man to him) and Exodus (who is usually a Knight Templar Anti-Villain, but was flanderized into a Smug Snake to make the Evolutionary look more heroic). Modern stories have gone back to using him chiefly as a villain, most recently (as of 2017) clashing with the New Warriors.
- Captain America:
- Baron Helmut Zemo, Legacy Character to unrepentant Nazi Heinrich Zemo and archenemy of Captain America and the Avengers as a whole, struggles with this. He believes himself to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist who would make the world a better place by ruling it. He constantly stresses over the few morals he has and can't seem to make up his mind as to whether he should be a hero or villain. He's gone from villain to villain pretending to be a hero to Anti-Hero and back around again. Sadly, in the end his massive ego and cynicism keeps him from becoming the truly great hero he has the potential to be.
- Armadillo; originally a low level thief mutated into a humanoid armadillo by Dr. Karl Malus, he fought Captain America but reformed at the end because he wasn't really an evil guy. In his next appearance, he temporarily went mad as his wife (whom he underwent the mutation to get money to save from illness), cheated on him, with Cap again forced to stop his rampage. Since then, he's appeared throughout the Marvel Universe, usually serving as Dumb Muscle for various villains, but has also been an MMA fighter (in Thunderbolts), a rodeo performer, and even joined a hero team in Civil War. His most recent appearances have had him working with the Hood's crime syndicate, & as part of HYDRA's "Army of Evil" in Secret Empire. He then betrayed HYDRA on the advice of Sam Wilson, only to go on another rampage when he realised the heroes weren't putting much effort into finding a cure for him either. note
- Deadpool: Deadpool wavers between mercenary, good guy, or doing merc work for the bad guy of the week. In recent years, Deadpool has been trying very hard to be more of a hero, especially after his long-lost daughter, Ellie, comes back into his life. This put him at odds with his wife, Shiklah, who wants him to stay the killer she married. He has fallen off hard again by accidentally siding with Hydra in Secret Empire. Word of God came out and talked about the new series, entitled The Despicable Deadpool, which will be a part of Marvel Legacy. Word of God states that Deadpool will be ostracized for his mistakes in Secret Empire, and will receive no credit for the things he did to help rectify the situation. Thus, he will finally give up on being a hero, and return to his roots as a mercenary.
- The Eternals: Kro, the immortal Deviant who’s been the ruler of Lemuria on more than one occasion. Sometimes he’s been a clear villain, sometimes he’s been portrayed as a reasonable, if pragmatic leader who just wants the best for his people. He’s been an ally of the Eternals - and of the US government, with an office in the Pentagon and a project to peacefully integrate Deviants into human society. And he’s also been the shadowy mastermind unleashing kaiju on human cities for no particular reason. Kro’s complicated.
- Iron Man: Ghost. He started as a villain, but during Dark Reign he worked against Norman Osborn from within the Thunderbolts and was instrumental in taking him down. Of course, this was immediately followed by him trying to kill Tony Stark yet again. Several times. He subsequently became one of the most heroic of the post-Dark Reign Thunderbolts, despite trying to kill Tony Stark. Again.
- The Incredible Hercules: Ares started as a Card-Carrying Villain who was causing wars and conflicts only because he liked it, but was also fighting alongside other Olympians against a common enemy. Then he realized the other gods would never accept him, went to Earth and lived peacefully among the mortals. Then, when his son got kidnapped, he joined the Olympians in the fight against evil Japanese god Amatsu-Mikaboshi. Later he joined one of the incarnations of The Avengers but often acted like a typical villain towards Hercules. Then he joined the Dark Avengers in Dark Reign, a team of villains posing as heroes, and was fighting both good and bad guys as well, while being one of the few members who were treating the heroic part seriously. At the same time he was training a team of killers for Norman Osborn and let his son join Nick Fury, who was opposing Osborn. Then he betrayed Osborn after finding out he lied to him about Asgard being ruled by Loki and died, fighting alongside Norse Gods he was beating minutes ago. Then he returned after Secret Wars (2015) in Contest of Champions (2015) on the good guys' side.
- The Incredible Hulk: Due to his simple and unstable psyche and tendency to go into blind rages, the Hulk has gone from hero to villain and back again his entire existence. For instance, Hulk will save a city one minute, then someone (typically his nemesis General Ross) will piss him off and he'll start ripping apart the city he just saved. In the end, though, Hulk will usually end up doing the right thing, even if it's just by accident.
- Speaking of Ross, he himself tends to go through the door over and over depending on how obsessive and what lengths he's willing to go to bring down Hulk that issue. Sometimes Ross is willing to help Banner be cured of the Hulk or leave him be for the moment if he does something good, other times he's been out to straight up murder Banner from the outset and nothing will deter him from it. He eventually joined The Avengers as Red Hulk, but left to form the new Thunderbolts after becoming dissatisfied with their methods.
- Betty Ross as Red She-Hulk has pulled one of those in The Incredible Hulks arcs "Super Spy Banner" and "Heart of the Monster". She's a Face for good at the end of "Heart of the Monster". And then she seemingly resumes Heel status after becoming Red Harpy, only for it to turn out she is actually Face.
- The Sentry: The Sentry has gone back and forth endlessly between being the universe's greatest hero, its greatest threat, or both at the same time. He was a bundle of mental issues even without factoring in The Void (which was either a Split Personality, an Evil Counterpart that was created when he gained his powers, or his true self), so it's no surprise that his Heel-Face status is as unstable as the rest of him. After some years of this, the narrative finally settled on "greatest threat" in Siege, where he merged with the Void and became a Humanoid Abomination. He then died and got reborn (again) as one of the Final Horsemen of Apocalypse, which would seem to close the door on him once and for all, but Doctor Strange managed to bring him back to the side of good.
- Spider-Man:
- Venom had a tendency to hop back and forth between villain and anti-hero (usually dependent on whose perspective a given book was shown from), with the two characters that made up the original Venom — Eddie Brock and the symbiote — going through the revolving door at different speeds. Sometime in the '90s it just became accepted that he was an anti-hero, never really being cast as a proper villain, even when working as an enemy to Spider-Man. This is likely because his villain gig was taken over by his "son", Carnage. Then there was a period where the Venom symbiote was bonded to the Scorpion (definitely a villain). Then it got bonded to Flash Thompson, who did his best to stay on the anti-hero side but in effect was practically a straight-up superhero. Then it went to Lee Price, very much a villain. Then back to Eddie Brock, who has been trying very, very hard to be a straight-up superhero and so far hasn't dropped the ball.
- Toxin was created to fit the other end of the Venom scale, as the symbiote child of Carnage who bonded onto a law-abiding police officer. While the struggle with the symbiote's natural killing desire is intense, Toxin is a more straight example of a heroic Venom.
- Meanwhile. Eddie Brock, the Venom symbiote's original host (not counting Spider-Man) ended his feud with Spider-Man after becoming Anti-Venom, then after he lost his new symbiote, became a symbiote-hunting Anti-Hero, and ultimately became the new host of Toxin. Then he reunited with the Venom symbiote in 2017.
- You almost have to feel sorry for the Sandman. His original Heel–Face Turn lasted years (of real-world time) and even became a reserve member of The Avengers. But meddling by his old partner the Wizard made him evil again, and made him go nuts. Since then, he's been in an identity crisis where it seems the good and evil inside him, along with his sanity, can shift as easily as the sand that makes up his body.
- Same with Morbius, who started as an anti-villain, then went to being the anti-hero of his own series, then eventually got upgraded to a '90s Anti-Hero who constantly fought against Spider-Man yet would help people in need, unless he felt like eating them.
- Venom had a tendency to hop back and forth between villain and anti-hero (usually dependent on whose perspective a given book was shown from), with the two characters that made up the original Venom — Eddie Brock and the symbiote — going through the revolving door at different speeds. Sometime in the '90s it just became accepted that he was an anti-hero, never really being cast as a proper villain, even when working as an enemy to Spider-Man. This is likely because his villain gig was taken over by his "son", Carnage. Then there was a period where the Venom symbiote was bonded to the Scorpion (definitely a villain). Then it got bonded to Flash Thompson, who did his best to stay on the anti-hero side but in effect was practically a straight-up superhero. Then it went to Lee Price, very much a villain. Then back to Eddie Brock, who has been trying very, very hard to be a straight-up superhero and so far hasn't dropped the ball.
- Sub-Mariner: Namor the Sub-Mariner deals with this so often that the trope may as well be named The Namor. He fought the original Human Torch (that's bad) and allied with him against the Axis in World War II (that's good) then swore revenge against humanity when he thought they'd destroyed Atlantis (that's bad) then swore to defend Atlantis once it was discovered again (that's good), and the frogurt is also cursed (that's bad). To put it another way: Marvel currently has two "ruling councils" of good guys and bad guys. Namor is on both of them. There have been occasional efforts to explain Namor's moral flexibility as a psychosis induced by his biology (he's a human/Atlantean hybrid and a mutant) and/or his amphibious environment. On balance, though, readers and creators prefer him being a treacherous dick because that's just who he is.
- To expand on some of Namor's more recent history: Turns out he had sleeper-agents in America (bad), but then he helps Captain America's side in the Civil War and promises to have all sleeper agents removed (good), he lied about the sleeper agents (bad), successfully stops his son Kamar from an attempted coup and starting a war with America (good), unfortunately this chain of events leads to Atlantis being destroyed and Namor has reforging his alliance to Doctor Doom and now the Atlantean military is based in Latveria (bad), both men join Norman Osborn's Cabal and Namor attacks Tony Stark at the behest of Osborn (also bad), but them Namor (in alliance with Emma Frost) betrays Norman Osborn and joins the X-Men and helps them setup and defend Utopia (good), later he becomes one of the five X-Men possessed by the Phoenix Force (who are all going a bit A God Am I now and the the Big Bads of Avengers vs. X-Men) and stages an unprovoked invasion of Wakanda (very bad).
- Ultimate Marvel:
- Ultimatum:
- Sabretooth started a villain, and in the X-Men tie-in he joined the Alpha Flight against Magneto, and then left that team and joined Magneto during a fight.
- Multiple man has his mind distributed on so many duplicate bodies, that he's basically losing himself, and his duplicates gradually start to think by themselves. This is fully explored in the X-Men tie-in, but it also appears in the main story, as some duplicates tried to blow up the Triskelion for Magneto, and another duplicate (neither of them the "main" Multiple man, whose original is elsewhere) tried to kill Magneto because mutants also died in the flood.
- Ultimate X Men: Rogue has been with Weapon X, the Brotherhood, the X-Men, Fenris, Gambit, the X-Men again, Weapon X again, the X-Men again, betrays the X-Men to Stryker, betrays Stryker to the X-Men...
- Ultimatum:
- X-Men:
- Magneto. Takes wider swings across the spectrum than any character in comics. Sometimes he's a straight-up villain, other times (most of them) an Anti-Villain, and also an Anti-Hero. He formed the Evil Counterpart of the X-Men, the Brotherhood of Mutants, but has also not only been a member of the X-Men, but even led them at one point.
- Mystique's been a Card-Carrying Villain, federal agent, terrorist, spy and full-fledged X-Man at various times, and that's not even getting into her Expansion Pack Past.
- Wolverine of all people could be considered this. Although he'll never outright betray the X-Men and is always there for them if they really really need him, he'll also constantly run off for his own personal reasons at the drop of the hat. Despite being warned often that he can't come and go as he pleases if he wants to be a full member of the team, he always does, and the X-Men always take him back.
- Chuck Austen, of all people, got the Juggernaut caught in one of these, introducing a redemption arc for the character that was one of the few positively-received elements of his X-Men run. Juggs eventually went back to villainy due to Status Quo Is God, but for a good long while there you could flip a coin to figure which side of the hero/villain line he was going to be on. Even after a hard Heel–Face Door-Slam he is still on an uneasy frenemy status with some X-Men, most notably Havok (who was one of his strongest defenders in the Austen run) and Nightcrawler (who hesitated to call Cain an enemy even after being used as a hostage by him). The 2020 Juggernaut miniseries portrays him as fundamentally directionless (ironically for a character defined by being unstoppable) and trying to figure out what he actually wants to be doing.
- It's a fairly well documented fact that any time a villain becomes popular enough, Marvel will take a stab at making them a hero, or at least an anti-hero. The most ridiculous example: their repeated (at least three times) attempts to make sociopathic casual killer and rapist Sabretooth into an X-Man. At least they recently seem to have realized that rehabilitating him will never pan out, and resorted to coercing him into behaving himself. Although there have been at least two alternate universe versions that exist primarily to allow a heroic Sabretooth without all the baggage.
- And now there's a flashback storyline running, from a period when Sabretooth was somewhat less insane (presumably, the processes that Weapon X had used to control him when he was an assassin hadn't completely worn off yet) and not yet in a blood feud with Wolverine, in which he's a Punch-Clock Hero. He doesn't much care about helping young mutants, but as long as the checks keep clearing...
- AXIS seems to be trying to make this stick, as he's the only villain whose Inversion stuck, thanks to being caught in a special barrier made by the Superior Iron Man. He realizes this is a second chance and seeks to find his Inner Wolverine by becoming part of the Avengers Unity Squad.
- The latest update from X-Men (2019) is that Sabretooth, back to his evil ways, manages to break Krakoa's first law (no killing humans) before it's even codified. He's sentenced to living entombment underneath the island — and it's heavily implied the ruling Council handed down this punishment because they knew he, out of all mutants, would be least likely to follow the new laws.
Films
Films
- Spider-Man Trilogy: In Spider-Man 3, Harry Osborn changes sides three times. The first time, he lost his memory in an accident. Once he regained it, he became a bad guy once more. When he finds out how his father actually died, he redeemed himself.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe: Loki seems to have this problem as of Thor: Ragnarok . He spent the first part of his adult life fighting for Asgard, which, at that time, at least, played the role of peacekeeper and protector of the nine realms. However, since going mad after learning he is a Frost Giant, he has mostly played the role of antagonist. In Thor: The Dark World, however, he helped Thor save the universe and avenged Frigga's death, and during Thor: Ragnarok, the damage he helped cause to the nine realms was mostly due to inaction as the ruler of Asgard and the actions he took to get back at his father rather than the deliberate malice that characterized his past appearances. However, during the course of the third film, he does betray Thor again to no one's surprise, but in the end decides to come back last minute to help save the citizens of Asgard. At one point, when Bruce Banner asks him if he still wants to kill everyone like he did the last time they met, he even admits that it changes from moment to moment. He also seems very confused about whether he still wants Thor dead while he is watching the gladiator match between Thor and the Hulk, alternately cheering when the Hulk hurts his brother, jumping up in concern when he hurts him too much, pretending he isn't concerned, and then cheering the Hulk some more, all in the ridiculously short time span of a few minutes. The constant side-switching appears to be due to the fact that the character himself is very confused, in this case.
- The final two Avengers movies add even more to it. In Avengers: Infinity War, he continues the heroic streak he started from the end of Ragnarok and takes it all the way until the end of his life. He is ultimately Defiant to the End and dies heroically against Thanos in his effort to save Thor. While this means that Loki died a hero because he was Killed Off for Real there, Avengers: Endgame has the heroes go back in time to the end of the first Avengers, where they run into Loki when he was at his most evil. Past Loki escapes with the Tesseract and is never caught, meaning that past Loki could return as a villain later even though present Loki died a hero. Which gets followed up away from the films in the Disney+ Loki series
- X-Men Film Series:
- X-Men: Days of Future Past:
- Magneto, as usual, especially given his Friendly Enemy relationship with Charles. In the Bad Future, he makes a final peace with Charles. In the past, he plays both sides.
- Furthermore, we see Past Magneto fully ascend to the Big Bad even as Future Magneto and Charles share the Big Good role among the future X-Men. As such, this movie shows him at his most good and his most evil.
- In X-Men: Apocalypse, Magneto temporarily sides with Apocalypse, but in the end Professor X persuades him and Storm to turn on Apocalypse.
- Once again in Dark Phoenix (the last film in the series), though to a lesser extent. Magneto and several other mutants conspire to kill Jean when they think she is out of control, but at the end he and Charles apparently reconcile.
- X-Men: Days of Future Past:
Live-Action TV
Live-Action TV
- Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: After being firmly on the bad guy's side in Season 1, Grant Ward spends most of Season 2 bouncing back and forth between helping Coulson's team and hindering them. However, the season finale seems to have cemented him as a villain, though a version of him in Season 4 ends up squarely on the side of good thus proving both his Freudian Excuse and the circumstances around it being the major contributing factor to his actions.
Video Games
Video Games
- Ultimate Spider-Man: The game has Silver Sable going from attacking Peter now that she knows he's the titular hero to helping him save the innocents to attacking him again to finally letting him go after Trask.
