Hero With Bad Publicity - Television Tropes & Idioms

They aren't in it for the glamor.

Being a Super Hero isn't all it's cracked up to be. The heroes' lives and those of their loved ones are constantly in danger from their archnemeses—and sometimes from their own powers, too. Sometimes someone else takes credit for their heroic efforts. But perhaps the most hurtful and confusing drawback comes when the people they've sworn to protect hate their guts.

This could arise for any number of reasons:

A Villain With Good Publicity and/or smear campaign.
Shooting the dog.
Late payments on their Hero Insurance.
Does Not Know His Own Strength
They deserve it.
Just because they're different.
Just because they have powers.
Anonymous rumors
He pulls a Zero Approval Gambit
No reason at all.

But whatever the reason, public sentiment is against these heroes, and there's usually nothing they can do about it. Sorry - You Cannot Please Everyone.

Usually serves as the grass-roots support for a Super Registration Act. Especially ironic when it happens to the Slave To PR. The permanent version of the Untrusting Community. The inverse, where the hero's problems are evident only to intimates, is No Hero To His Valet.

Examples

Anime and Manga

The titular character of the manga Kinnikuman has this problem early on. In the first chapter, aliens actually cancel their invasion plans rather than fight Kinnikuman, the only hero available at the time. A bit later, the Japanese government allows American superhuman Terry Man to become their resident hero, in spite of the fact he charges for his rescues, because it's still better than being saved by Kinnikuman.
Vash from Trigun has a reputation so bad he's viewed as a natural catastrophe. Mostly because people keep trying to kill him and blowing up the nearby towns, blowing up a city himself one time (without causing any direct casualties) and finally because Knives is trying to ~~kill~~ break him.
Lina has a pretty terrible reputation... because she tends to use dragon slave in the middle of towns. Plus steal. But she ~~means well~~ manages to do heroic stuff anyway!
In Gaiking: Legend of the Daiku Maryu, this ends up being the case since the heroes essentially take the fight to the enemy's planet very early on. The episode in which the hero Daiya finds this out is actually called "We're the bad guys?!?"
Victor Freeman from Blaster Knuckle hunts demons that revert to a human form when killed, and have often taken the forms of women and children. The first issue kicks off with him stomping into a saloon and gunning down a pretty brunette pleading for help (she was actually a demon, but...). Did I mention that this story takes place in the 1880's Deep South, and that Victor is Black?
Tenma is The Messiah who is wanted for murders. He's also a foreigner. Is it any wonder that people don't trust him?
The Guyver manga features this after the Zoanoids go public and claim that the Guyver and his allies are the true villains. The recent anime just barely scratches the surface of this plot and is the only non-manga iteration to get up to even that point.
Mist from Knights is generally feared and hated because he's black and he's in a Medieval European-esque setting with an overwhelmingly white population.
A mayor plot-point and cause of grief for Hoichi Kano, protagonist from Cannon God Exaxxion. Good part of it comes from the absurd amounts of damage caused by the titular Super Robot, but the Riofaldian defamation campaign on him (which smashes to dust the We Will Not Use Photoshop In The Future trope) makes things even more difficult.

Comic Books

The instigation for the events in Marvel Comics' Civil War crossover is due to a large amount of collateral damage (including a few hundred dead children) from a botched mission that turned public opinion against superheroes. The result is that superheroes are put under government control, with Iron Man in charge.
- ...But Iron Man himself becomes a Hero With Bad Publicity after the heroes almost fail to stop an alien invasion. He's kicked out of office and the new boss is Norman Osborn, the "ex-"Green Goblin. As for the current, this seems to get eventually subverted when Norman caught Tony, brutally beats him, and was caught on TV. And suddenly, the people think Tony is sympathetic again.
The anti-mutant prejudice in the X-Men labels probably qualifies, although this can also be seen as a case of Fantastic Racism.
Spider-Man gets a lot of undeserved flak, mostly due to the negative PR campaign by his employer, J. Jonah Jameson. Probably the first superhero to have this as his status quo.
- This is all the more baffling when you consider how little collateral damage Spidey causes compared to most superheroes with super-strength.
- However, This Troper points out that while Spider-Man doesn't do much property damage himself, his rogues gallery does more property damage than all other rogue galleries in comics COMBINED. In fact, some of his enemies do so much property damage that it's practically part of their gimmick (Rhyno, Sandman, Electro, Green Goblin, Hydro-Man, etc.).
- Within the first twenty issues it was revealed JJ felt jealous of Spidey's successes. Later revelations included being beaten by his stepfather, a mistrust of superheroes, and JJ's own failure to live up to the high standards he sets for himself.
- Of course, if he took one look at how Spidey's life normally functions, he'd soon be whistling a different tune.
Over at The DCU, no matter how hard he tries, Booster Gold goes up against negative public opinion fairly often... usually due to his own screw-ups and glory-hound nature.
- In his current storyline, he's getting better ... but the nature of his time-travel mission means that, in the Present Day, he's maintaining Obfuscating Stupidity and a Jerkass Facade, so he still has bad publicity.
Richard Wentworth, The Spider, had a habit of killing crooks by the score. While this behavior was justified within the stories, it did make the police and public think of him as a dangerous criminal in his own right.
Just about all of the masked vigilantes in Watchmen after they fell out of favor and costumed adventuring was made illegal - except for those who work for the American government. Of course, the only other one still active is Rorschach, and he kinda deserves most of it.
The Outsiders' raison d'être is to be the team of superheroes that can do the Dirty Business and know they're going to come out with stains upon their name. Considering that it was funded by Batman, it makes sense, but raises some interesting questions.
- When Batman took control of the team again, he fired several of the members, pointedly because they weren't suited to that sort of reputation:
  Batman: Only criminals operate without constraints anymore, so we're going to cultivate the Outsiders' reputation at a team of outlaws. I didn't think you'd mind sparing Nightwing and Thunder that kind of stigma.
Like Iron Man, in the aftermath of Secret Invasion, Spider Woman has attained a very horrible reputation. Even if she is the real Spider Woman, most of the New Avengers (and some normal people) still see her as the Skrull Queen, the orchestrator of the Invasion that captured and impersonated her for years.
While this tends to come up at some point in most incarnations of Transformers, it was a particularly strong theme in the original Marvel Comics run, where the humans frequently weren't even aware that there were two factions of Transformers, let alone that one of those factions might be better-intentioned than the other.

Film

The movie Hancock seems to be about this; the hero even gets a PR agent to try to improve his image.
The titular hero goes through this during Batman Returns, thanks to the manipulations of the Penguin, the resident Villain With Good Publicity. The mayor hangs a lampshade on this at the end of the movie.
- Yet another Batman movie example: In The Dark Knight, this seems to be one of the most direct results of the Joker's efforts. Batman deliberately takes this on himself at the end when he convinces Gordon to blame him for the murders committed by Dent.
Just about any Cowboy Cop is one of these.
The Ghostbusters, who are largely thought to be charlatans while they are saving the city. The sequel shows that many people continue to doubt their legitimacy even after the climax of the first film.

Literature

In The Lord Of The Rings and others of Tolkien's writings, Galadriel — the Lady of the Golden Wood — has a bad reputation with the Riders of Rohan, as well as Gondorians.
- It might have something to do with how uninvited guests rarely survive entering her realm. The elves of Lothlórien are even more xenophobic than their Mirkwood cousins.
By the end of the second book in the Warchild Series, Captain Azarcon and his men have acquired this reputation.
Harry Potter, despite being the Chosen One, gets this treatment frequently throughout the series, mostly being portrayed as an Attention Whore:
- In Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets he is suspected of being the Heir of Slytherin due to always being seen with the victims shortly before it happened and being able to speak snake;
- In Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire he is accused of tricking the eponymous goblet into allowing him to participate in the Inevitable Tournament;
- In Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, the Daily Prophet convinces the populace that he's a psychotic attention-seeker who is pretending that Voldemort has returned to get himself more Woobieness;
- In Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, the newly Voldemort-controlled Daily Prophet accuses him of murdering Dumbledore and the anti-Voldemort resistance movement starts to lose faith in Harry because of his sudden disappearance, secretly criticizing him for being a Chosen One Who Doesn't Do Anything. Of course he makes up for it in the end, and all is forgiven.
This trope could also apply to Severus Snape. No matter how many times he has demonstrably saved Harry's life, or failed to cause him any harm besides a few detentions and sarcastic remarks when he had plenty of opportunities, Harry continued to hate his guts until the very end. Also, everyone believes him a traitor after book seven because he killed Dumbledore even though he did so at his request.
The demigod children who form the focus of the Percy Jackson and the Olympian series are usually branded as troublemakers because their heritage causes ADD and dyslexia, but it's even worse for the main character. Poor Percy seems to start every schoolyear by getting into a fight with monsters sent by the Big Bad, destroying them, and then being blamed for all the damage because the Mist obscures the eyes of mortals who witness the event.
- Even worse, exactly how mortals see through the mist is determined by what the gods think of Percy at the time. And since he has a habit of pissing off gods or getting framed for things, its almost always bad.
Arguably, the entire New Jedi Order in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. It Got Better

Live Action TV

Buffy is feared and/or disliked by much of the teaching staff at Sunnydale High School. Initially, it was because they'd heard rumors about how she burned down the gym at her old high school, but later she's the focus of a smear campaign directed by her principal.
- Even more pronounced in the Season Eight comics, where the Slayers are, suffice it to say, controversially heroic, partially due to there being a few Vampires With Good Publicity.

Tabletop Games

This is a common problem for Solar and Lunar Exalted, since they've been branded as psychotically evil demons by the main religion of the setting.

Theater

Elphaba from Wicked probably qualifies as she is definitely engaged in heroic activities saving Animals from the fascist dictator of Oz. However due to the Wizard's efforts to paint her as wicked she rapidly becomes the most hated figure in Oz.

Video Games

Marona, Marona, Marona!
Everyone calls him a legendary hero, but only a few knows that there's something more benevolent to Zero's "extremist" actions.
Georg Prime of Suikoden fame is frequently accused of committing regicide against the Queen of Falena. It's true, but she WANTED him to do it.
AVALNCHE in Final Fantasy VII is branded as a terrorist group. It's basically true, but the government that labels them so consists almost entirely of Corrupt Corporate Executives.
Pretty much everyone wants to arrest and/or kill Yuri Lowell in Tales Of Vesperia.
- Well, he is guilty of two murders.
  - Yeah, but the fact that those two were by far the most vile characters in the game kinda mitigates that.
- Considering Flynn seems to be running the government for most of the game anyways, he's never given bad publicity. Flynn does take all of the credit for things he and the party does though. That makes it more like Dude Wheres My Respect than Hero With Bad Publicity. It's also partially averted because the only people you really talk to in game know that you did everything. They only say that Yuri is getting no credit. It caused this troper to not take them very seriously.
  - This Troper feels differently. She was annoyed beyond belief when she finally got back to the Lower Quarter. Everyone (except for the duo running the inn) was praising Flynn for getting the Aqua Blastia back. Who was it that fought through hoards of henchmen in that Tower of Gears and took down the leader of one of the Five Master Guilds to get that back?
  - Considering Yuri actively encourages Flynn to take the credit and goes out of his way to refuse it, it is more Another Trope.
  - Not to mention Flynn's response to all this unearned praise.
Villain smear campaigning causes Link to suffer this fate in The Legend Of Zelda: A Link to the Past, where the palace guards have the townspeople convinced that he's responsible for Princess Zelda's disappearance. He has to slink around Kakariko Village in order to achieve his objectives; if his neighbors spot him, they send for the guards to kill him.
Shadow the Hedgehog. Not that he seems to care much.
Subverted in Infamous. The player character starts out with bad publicity because he was the delivery boy who carried the immensely destructive Ray Sphere into the heart of the city, where it exploded, but as time goes on (and if you choose to play the good guy), his publicity gets much better.
Quest For Glory IV starts out like this, due to suspicious townsfolk who are fearful of strangers and especially anything to do with magic, although the hero will gradually win their trust by helping them out.
Tassadar has a bit of a publicity problem in Starcraft due to his alliance with the Dark Templar and the Terrans. Arcturus Mengsk used to be one too, back when the Confederacy was in power. Jim Raynor has been one ever since the Dominion rose to power.
Marina from Mischief Makers takes flak from the evil double's paper-thin disguise.
Archer from Fate Stay Night got executed because nobody liked him.
Similar to the Transformers example above, Jedi are almost universally hated and hunted during the time of Knights Of The Old Republic II because the galaxy percieves the whole Jedi-Sith war that nearly tore apart the Republic as "a religious dispute between two factions of Jedi". Many people refuse to see any distinction between Jedi like the PC (if light side) and the Sith Lords and assassins that seem to follow him/her wherever they go.
What with the Illusive Man resurrecting and manipulating Commander Shepard to save the galaxy with a Cerberus logo on his ship, s/he spends pretty much all of Mass Effect 2 as this, no matter how much Paragon you earn.

Web Original

There are several examples in the Whateley Universe:
- Battery, whose final battle against his arch-enemy destroyed one of the New York City bridges and injured hundreds,
- The Flying Bulldozer, who wasn't smart enough to avoid massive collateral damage when fighting evil: one of his recurring villains, Doctor Debt, figured out how to make millions by surrendering to FB and collecting rewards from insurance companies for preventing the incipient damage
- Tennyo, because she is powerful even by school standards, and (through no fault of her own, other than naivete) is a major trouble magnet.
The <3-Verse has the Shadow (no, not that one), a vigilante, shunned for his violent methods against regular crooks.

Western Animation

Danny Phantom for the majority of Season One and the beginnings of Season Two. He gains good publicity eventually.
Some instances of Batman, such as in The Batman until Gordon becomes the commissioner at the end of the second season.
A bit of a problem for the Autobots in season two of Transformers Animated, presumably after the property damage of the first season starts sinking in. In the first season, it's mainly just Bulkhead who has a problem with this, as he's a klutz who's strong enough to throw cars.
- In Transformers Super God Masterforce, Hydra and Buster attack Ginrai in a populated with the intention of causing considerable enough collateral damage to turn public opinion against the Autobots. They actually succeed for a short while.
The few policemen and civilians who remember Darkwing Duck hate him. In one episode he manages to get Lighter And Softer and everyone loves him...until his Evil Twin Negaduck takes advantage of his non-violent policy.
In The Incredibles, all supers have Bad Publicity after they're sued for causing damage while saving lives. The result is that using superpowers becomes illegal and they all have to go into the "Superhero Protection Program."
Justice League Unlimited has this build up in the first season, then reach it's peak in the second season when they're framed for using their base defense system to destroy a city.
Catman from The Fairly Oddparents is a "hero" who's always getting sued, usually because his insanity causes more trouble than it solves. In fact, only Timmy's help keeps him out of jail
The Street Sharks get this constantly, to the point in which one of their friends has to point out to the police that if they were really guilty of one of the crimes they're accused of, they'd have to have been in two places at once. The Big Bad also gets everyone to blame their dad for creating them, so yeah.
Gargoyles has... well, the titular gargoyles. Brooklyn even lampshades their "publicity problem" in "Hunter's Moon."