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• Pictured at the right: The many-monikered Dr. Hank Pym, a founding member of The Avengers, who once hit his wife Janet Van Dyne (The Wasp) during a mental-breakdown-induced Face Heel Turn. (This storyline also included attacking the Avengers with a giant robot, just so that he could look like a hero when he stopped it. The whole thing would be a Dork Age if it didn't end with Pym recovering, then single-handedly beating the Masters of Evil.) Writers have explored the issue with various levels of grace since then, but more than once, his hitting Wasp has devolved into a crude running gag which still colors newer depictions of him. In particular, the Ultimate version of Hank Pym is an outright wife-beater — and since The Ultimates is so popular, this has made things even worse for the "real" Pym.*
  According to all involved, the panel as shown was NOT what was actually written. The intended scene was for Hank to accidentally backhand Janet while wildly gesticulating in the throes of an angry rant — the takeaway being that he was so wrapped up in himself that he didn't even know or care where his wife was until it was too late. According to Jim Shooter, the artist on the issue was one of a school that used the most dramatic poses possible, and he misinterpreted the scene into what was published.
  • Also, keep in mind that this is the woman who deliberately used his unstable mental state to force him into marriage with her, and continued to manipulate and abuse his illness in order to maintain their lifestyle, so she's not entirely innocent in the whole fiasco.
  • What's particularly frustrating is that Jan and the other Avengers forgave Hank long ago — it's the writers (and Hank himself, really) who won't. Every time the incident is laid to rest, someone comes along to dig it up again. Most recently, Chuck Austen, in his brief Avengers run, wrote Hank as a misogynist, Jan as a pinball, and Hawkeye as a jerk who's held a grudge against Hank since the '80s (in fact, they've always been close friends, and Clint's support was a big factor in Hank's redemption). Hank and Jan have a profoundly messed-up relationship, but this was no more than a caricature of it.
  • This is shown to be a part of his character in-universe, too, as a consequence of the fact that this is all writers ever do with him; in The Initiative, Trauma loses control of his powers and Hank witnesses his greatest fear: a battered Jan telling him that no one will ever forget how he lost control exactly one time.
  • An earlier scene in The Initiative shows former Slingers hero Prodigy calling Pym a wife-beater under his breath. Apparently, Hank's wife-beating past is common knowledge amongst the superhero set, and not just the Avengers.
  • Extending to the supervillain set too, in Dark Reign, we have Norman Osborn ribbing on him about this. Hank just counters with his killing Gwen Stacy.
  • Perhaps the most extreme form came in Marvel Zombies, where the local Hank Pym bit Jan's head off - to his disgust (zombies hate the taste of zombies) and to little effect (zombie, anyone?). Well, that was because they were arguing over how he was keeping Black Panther as a secret living food supply, but still.
  • The incident in The Ultimates was just the tail end of a fight partially based on insecurities Hank had been suppressing for some time, aggravated by a recent humiliation in battle, he had a substance abuse problem, and the marriage was pretty much falling apart anyway. He seemed to immediately regret what he'd done*
    Abusers often claim this and often mean it, at least until the next incident, but since Jan left immediately, we don't know if he would've followed through.
    , and the second miniseries seemed to be trying to turn him into a Jerkass Woobie. Particularly notable is that even after he got beaten up by Cap, no one really wanted anything to do with him. Like the 616 version, he lost control once and it ruined his life and reputation.
    • In the case of Ultimate Hank Pym, Betty Ross stated clearly that it wasn't the first incident in their relationship: Pym abused Jan while they were in college as well. The fight scene itself also gives the impression that their relationship is regularly extremely rocky, although not usually to that level. That said, Pym's expulsion for the team was more because Nick Fury didn't want the team to gain bad publicity over the incident.
  • The Ant-Man & The Wasp mini-series brings up the incident but in a more positive light, with Hank opening up a center for battered women.
  • Then more recently in Avengers Academy, Striker claimed that he would not allow himself to be judged by Hank, whom he considers to be little more than a filthy wife-beater.
  • The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, a cartoon targeted for 9-14 year old boys, had a Mythology Gag about Hank's wife-beating. In the episode in which the Avengers save Black Panther's kingdom of Wakanda from Skrulls disguised as the Avengers, Wasp punches the Skrull disguised as Ant-Man in the face, then quips, "That felt kinda good!" She never got hit by the real Hank, though.
  • In a similar vein to that is in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, where Yellowjacket is one of the Bosses the Anti-SRA heroes face, and they need to bring him down.
  • What's worse is that in the earliest days, they show Reed Richards hitting Sue far more often then Hank had ever hit Jan, but never got called out.
  • In addition to that, Spider-Man hit Mary Jane in the Clone Saga after being told he was a fake, and nobody cares. But, after all, he's Spider-Man, nobody respects him anyway.
  • Familiar Faces even parodied it as the reason he wasn't in The Avengers.
  Tony: Hank? The wifebeater? Nah-ah, fuck that guy.
  The End
  • Another thing Pym is unable to live down is that he created Ultron, a Killer Robot who rebelled against him and attempted to destroy the human race. It's less joked about than the wifebeater stuff, but it still pops up here and there and Pym is having a hard time not to live that down.
  • Likewise, the frequency with which Hank Pym has changed identities (from Dr. Pym to Ant-Man to Giant-Man to Goliath to Yellowjacket, then back through several of these again, then to Wasp and then back to Giant-Man) has become a running gag as well.
• Jean Grey is probably the most unfortunate victim of this. How many times did she genuinely come Back from the Dead? If you don't count fake-outs, clones, androids, or shapeshifters (never mind that these are all common cop-out tactics to Retcon an actual death into Only Mostly Dead)... once. This puts the poor woman on the low end of comic book resurrections. But those who haven't done the necessary reading just know her for her resurrection, and think it's more common than it actually is, or else going mad. Her ties to The Phoenix Force haven't helped.
  • And it's not just the resurrection. As awesome as the last two issues of the Dark Phoenix Saga are, writers of every comic book story involving her in the past decade, as well as Wolverine and the X-Men and even two out of three movies, seem to think it's the only story she was ever in. 40 years of going through as much as any other character, and the world seems to forget that there's more to Jean Grey that "Goes Phoenix, goes nuts, dies, gets better." (It's also unfortunate that the many issues between "goes Phoenix" and "goes nuts" are forgotten. Non-dark Phoenix is Made of Win, but nobody even remembers it happened). There's one fortunate exception: the X-Men: Evolution animated series. There is no Dark Phoenix in it, except for a couple of seconds in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue (and even those seconds may be open to interpretation).
  • The writers themselves believe it. Many characters use Jean Grey as a comparison for people always coming back from the dead. In Phoenix: Endsong, Wolverine lampshaded it, claiming he was tired of killing her! (maybe meta-humor, counting the film).
  • This trope, in fact, used to be called "Jean Grey Escalation," but tropers kept proving the point by assuming it referred to the false notion that she "always comes Back from the Dead." Examples of characters either getting new power or dying a lot were constantly being listed here, or on works' pages as being this trope.
• In the '90s-era cartoon, Angel gets this too: his time as Archangel is the only aspect of him we see. There isn't a single episode in the series that he's in that doesn't either feature Apocalypse, or remind us of Angel's stint as his herald.
• An odd example in the case of Rogue and Gambit: Antarctica. Neither character will ever live that down. To sum up: After a long and convoluted series of events, the X-Men found themselves in an old base of Magneto's in Antarctica, where Gambit was put on trial for his complicity in the Morlock Massacre. As the story tells it, he was hired by Mr. Sinister to get the Marauders together and lead them into the Morlock Tunnels. He wasn't even told what they were there for. As part of said "trial," Rogue was compelled to kiss him, and absorbed his memories of the incident, as well as the nearly suicidal self-loathing and guilt he was feeling over it at the time. End result? The base collapses and everyone has to make an emergency exit. Rogue grabs Gambit, flies him out of the base... and then dumps him into the snow and leaves him there. Despite Rogue being clearly not herself, and Gambit having justifiable Angst over this, fans have been crying foul over it for thirteen years as of the time of this edit... when they haven't been using it as an excuse to write mountains of Hurt/Comfort Fic that pushes Gambit into the arms of Wolverine, or Storm, or some other partner of their choice.
• One of Lucy's personality-cementing moments in Peanuts is the famous trick of pulling a football away from Charlie Brown optimistically trying to kick it (He managed it once...with hilarious results.. The actual frequency of this gag has more to do with the sheer length of the strip; Schultz specifically commented he only did these strips once a year at most to make sure the joke stayed fresh and keep Lucy from appearing too nasty. So she did it 48 times in 17,000+ strips.
  • Of course, doing it at the worst possible moment and getting away with it in the Animated Adaptation might have helped worsen things...
  • Put the previous two together, by the way, and you get X-Nuts◊.
  • Fun fact: the very first football pull was actually performed by Violet, not Lucy; she pulls the ball away because she's afraid he'll kick her hand, not out of malice. And in the last one, Rerun replaced Lucy - we never find out whether Charlie Brown kicked it or not.
  • Of course, she has never been explicitly shown not pulling the ball. Offscreen Inertia doesn't play in her favor.
• John Jameson is most well known being an astronaut, even though he has spent most of his time as Captain America's personal pilot. He's also known for his superpowered alter-ego that sometimes emerges, Man-Wolf.
  • The second part is subverted in The Spectacular Spider Man - when John gets powers, he becomes Colonel Jupiter, following one of the comics from the pre-Man-Wolf period.
  • In fairness, John Jameson was introduced as J. Jonah's astronaut son.
  • And of course the fact that an astronaut and a werewolf are both infinitely more interesting than Captain America's personal pilot.
• Tony Stark / Iron Man's alcoholism has generally been worked into his story with both respect and ridicule. Like Hank Pym, Tony has suffered lately for the sins of his Ultimate incarnation (Ultimate Tony Stark is a drunk, plain and simple).
  • In Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, this is the one thing that Steve Rogers, of all people, mocks and throws back in Tony's face in one particularly gut-wrenching scene.
  • It doesn't help that Tony is a self-destructive sort of fuck-up, as opposed to Hank Pym, who seems to start with lashing out. Tony, on the whole, manages to keep his severe personal issues internalized until he finally falls apart, so no one seems to notice (or care) if he's on the verge of suicidal breakdown (his alcoholism was canonically an attempt to drink himself to death) until it starts becoming inconvenient for other people.
  • This is also the one aspect of the character that is ever seen in parodies like Twisted Toyfare Theater. Even the TTT version of Civil War started when a newly-sober Iron Man enforced prohibition on Megoville.
  • In all fairness, any addiction (making this apply to the Roy Harper example below) is a lifelong battle. Relapses, unfortunately, are a significant and all too frequent occurrence. And he has had his relapses; we see in The Order that the stress of running the Initiative has taken its toll and resurrected old habits.
  • The casting of Robert Downey, Jr. as Stark in the movie may be a nod to this as well, as Downey also battled alcoholism.
• Roy Harper, a.k.a. Speedy/Arsenal/Red Arrow, has narrowly skirted the edges of this trope. His most memorable moment was his 1971 battle with heroin addiction◊. While he hasn't lapsed back into addiction, the fact that he's a former junkie is a significant part of his backstory, and comes up regularly — almost to the point of being a Disability Superpower ("That was tough, but nothing compared to giving up drugs!"). An issue of Titans established that this actually wasn't the last time he did heroin, though, partially justifying the fact that it's constantly mentioned.
  • It's worth noting that Roy's battle with drugs only lasted two issues. Compare to Iron Man's alcoholism, which lasted much longer and was portrayed more realistically.
  • He lapsed back into addiction after his daughter was killed and he lost an arm.
  • In one issue of The Outsiders, Dick Grayson, his best friend, used his past as a junkie against him when the two were having a really ugly argument. That's when the fists started flying.
  • His addiction may no longer be in-continuity as of The New 52 — though he's indicated to be a recovering alcoholic.
• Hal Jordan once slept with a teenager.
  • Guy Gardner, "One Punch!", and his '80s "complete pig" behavior tend to overshadow his current Boisterous Bruiser status. That, and the fact that he used to be a milquetoast schoolteacher, a lawyer, and a grating pantywaist at various points in his life.
    • On top of that, there's nothing at all unusual about a single well-place strike ending the fight. It happens in MMA all the time. Batman knew what he was doing and didn't want the conflict to escalate any further, is all.
  • Kyle Rayner's first girlfriend Alex was the trope-namer for Stuffed into the Fridge (she even appeared as a Black Lantern inside a fridge construct in Blackest Night!) and since then, things have not gone well for his love life. Since he lost the position of the star of Green Lantern, many writers and fans seem to remember him only for this, and the list of his loved ones killed has gone on to include Jade, Donna Troy (although both have gotten better - and Jade has moved on), and his mother. His latest girlfriend, Soranik Natu, escaped being killed, but her fate was hardly better - Kyle put his foot in his mouth and broke her heart, and last we saw she's now a bitter ex.
• Frank Miller is usually remembered for writing prostitutes and The Goddamn Batman.◊ Thankfully, there are no plans to write a Goddamn prostitute Batman.
  • ... that would actually be pretty awesome.
  • Ironic, given that Miller has stated his biggest regret regarding The Dark Knight Returns (before it became the template for "Grim & Gritty") was making Selina Kyle a used-up madame.
  • In addition, his fight against Superman is often one of the most cited examples of "Batman always defeating Superman", never mind the measures that Batman had to take just to hold him down for periods,the fact that Superman was constantly holding back, and that he had outside help.
• Marvel's Captain Mar-Vell is best known for dying of cancer - something he didn't like finding out when he "came back" (read: arrived in the present day via Timey Wimey Ball). Though we ultimately find out that he's not the real Captain Marvel and there was no Timey Wimey Ball.
• DC Comics supervillain Doctor Light was a largely unused character who gained some relevance when it was revealed that he had raped the wife of a superhero. Since then, the fact that he's a rapist has become such an integral part of his character that he could very well be renamed Doctor Rape. To quote Plastic Man, "It's like that's his power now."
  • This was basically a calculated use of this trope by DC writers, which turned Light into a major villain overnight (albeit one whose major goal seems to be raping women instead of world domination.) Note that before the rape revelation, he'd never been portrayed as possessing any sort of sexual deviancy. Even when he was killed off, he was in the middle of an orgy with a bunch of hookers dressed as superheroines.
  • The way he keeps mentioning it over and over makes him seem more of a joke character: a Harmless Villain by The Verse's standards constantly reminding us of the one time that he managed to do something nasty in a failed attempt to assure heroes that he's evil, no, really, he is!
  • In the series Teen Titans Raven has a moment with Doctor Light that seems like payback for this: shown here as seen on tv. Robin has to comfort him after she is done with Light as he begs to Robin "Make it stop". Did I mention this show was made for kids?
• Green Arrow and Black Canary had a twenty-year-long romantic relationship, during which time GA's total non-Dinah activity consisted of a) being raped and b) kissing another woman (once). Somehow, both writers and fans take from this that Oliver is a total slut who constantly sleeps around on the long-suffering Dinah. To justify this, writers added him sleeping with Black Lightning's niece, and later Manitou Raven's wife, to make his 'total manwhore' status valid.
• Transmetropolitan has a variation on an old joke about goats and names, delivered by a character known as Bill Chimpfucker.
• Gwendolyn "Gwen" Stacy from Spider Man started out as a dominating vixen who combined Alpha Bitch, the Tsundere, and the Yandere, and was furious that a dork like Peter wasn't interested in her (in fact, it was the thing that got her to ever pay attention to him. Someone who dared have concerns other than the fact that she was in the room bore further investigation. It was an Establishing Character Moment - her selfish "why doesn't he fawn over me like everyone's supposed to" type thoughts juxtaposed with his "super villains, having to let civilian friends down again, sick aunt, etc." thoughts.) After John Romita replaced Steve Ditko as head artist, her character was softened considerably and she became the Betty in a Betty and Veronica Love Triangle. Her death led to her being remembered entirely for her later, sweeter era, as a Girl Next Door and Proper Lady. Eventually, this evolved into her being seen as a saintly martyr, Peter's one true love who was Too Good for This Sinful Earth.
  • Dying is also a NLID Moment, since almost every fan introduced by something other than reading the Silver Age stories only know her as 'the blond haired love interest that died'. Hell, some fanfic rewrites of the mythos tend to introduce her with the explicit intent of killing her off.
  • It probably doesn't help that every new adaptation changes her personality and character completely, from becoming a tough punk-rock bad girl, to a nerd with a temper and occasional snark tendency, to basically Mary Jane with science smarts, the only tying factor between every character is romantic feelings towards Peter (some more than others), and being the daughter of a Reasonable Authority Figure police Captain.
• Also from Spider-Man, there's Flash Thompson, who was a Jerk Jock for the first few years of the comic book. He later joined the army, and had matured considerably by the time he got back. Since then, he's been a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, at worst, and quite often a Boisterous Bruiser. Throughout the seventies and eighties, he was one of Peter Parker's best friends (and the best man at his wedding, even!) He even became the new (heroic) Venom and joined the The Avengers, and yet he's still just remembered as a teenage Jerk Jock.
  • Adaptation Distillation: Most fans are first introduced to Spider-Man in a high school context, usually whatever film or animated adaptation is running at the time, and the same Silver Age stories are reimagined and updated, including resident Jerk Jock Flash.
    • The 2012 The Amazing Spider-Man film played him less Jerk Jock, especially as he's the first one in the film to console Parker about Uncle Ben's death. Peter doesn't take it well, but eventually forgives him.
    • Likewise, The Spectacular Spiderman did start out this way, but he swiftly got Character Development. He actually helped Peter break loose of the symbiote via a well-worded What the Hell, Hero? on how he was treating his friends, and matured quite a bit in the second season helped by his new girlfriend. The show was meant to have five seasons, which would have probably meant more development if the show had not been Screwed by the Lawyers.
• Speaking of Spidey and ignored Character Development, try asking anyone who doesn't support the Spidey Marriage their reasons for such, and most will cite that MJ left him 'tons of times'. MJ's left by her own free will (not counting OMD) aproximately once. And it was before they were even dating. But, she left while turning down his initial proposal of marriage and did so in a very shallow manner which out of context makes her look like a total bitch...Of course, like Flash, this was before she grew out of her shallow party girl faze. When she came back after some growing up, she apologized and sought out a relationship with him.
• An in-universe example: The Trapster, a B-list Marvel supervillain. Charter member of the Frightful Four, wields fairly dangerous adhesive-based weaponry. He also debuted calling himself "Paste-Pot Pete" and had a string of humiliating defeats at the hands of the Human Torch and Spider Man. And the Marvel heroes never let him forget it - to the point where just calling him "Pete" while he's in costume has become his Berserk Button.
• The Scarlet Witch, in adaptations, is usually a member of Brotherhood of Evil Mutants or an ex-member. Since she's Mags' daughter, it's not hard to see why one would be in a lot of stories with the other, of course, but in the comics, she was a member of the Brotherhood for what, five appearances? She and Quicksilver become Avengers soon afterward, and she remains an Avenger for decades. Assuming the usual demographics hold, your parents were probably in elementary school last time Wanda fought the X-Men alongside the Brotherood. She is very rarely seen as an Avenger in adaptations. (Of course, Evil Is Cool makes her infinitely more interesting that way...)
  • This has more to do with the fact that they are Magneto's children and the fact that most mutants seem to automatically fall under the X-Men franchise in adaptation (The exception seems to be the villain Whirlwind, who has always been an Avengers villain, even though he's a mutant). Incidentally, it took 20 years until Wanda and Pietro were retconned into being Magneto's kids.
  • Wanda actually does show up as a member of the Avengers (and Tony's team that's clearly partially based on their West Coast incarnation, respectively) in both the 90s animated Iron Man series and The Avengers United They Stand.
• The Comedian of Watchmen attempts to rape Sally Jupiter once, and is stopped by Hooded Justice. Now, Attempted Rape is bad all by its lonesome, and we do not know where he would have stopped if he had managed to get through with it, but it is still a singular event that he never even managed to accomplish. Lots of people, including a number of contributors to This Very Wiki, refer to him as a serial rapist. The misunderstanding is exacerbated by the events in Vietnam, where he kills the mother of his unborn child, but there the implication is that he fathered the child consensually and later backed out of supporting the mother or committing to a relationship. Again, not a sign of good character, but not rape, either. What makes it so ironic is that the Comedian is a person you can hate for several legitimate reasons (like the aforementioned murdering of a pregnant woman, or the implication that he assassinated John F. Kennedy), but readers seem focused on the one thing we never actually saw him do.
  • This gets even more ironic when one considers that the Comedian's driving force is precisely that he believes he IS about as bad as it can get. Between his aforementioned crimes and his allusions to other ones ("I did terrible things...") he believes that he is on par with the worst scum of his day, and suffers an extreme BSOD when he believes that there is someone or something even WORSE than himself.
  • Somebody who chooses to rape another person absolutely deserves to be referred to as a rapist for the rest of their life. It is also strongly implied that Sally was not the first woman he tried that with.
    • Full relevant quote: "I mean, I done some bad things. I did bad things to women. I shot kids! In 'nam I shot kids..."
• Bane, Batman's foe, received a number of augmentations, such as subcutaneous shields, and the "Venom" drug that increased his already formidable strength. He beat Batman mostly through simple intelligence, and was captured by "AzBats" pulling the Venom tube out of his head (but he was still far from helpless). In the comics, he weaned himself off the drug while in prison, has allied himself with and fought Batman on several occasions without any chemical assistance, and is established as a Batman-level strategist. Every single interpretation of him in other media is a thug who goes down the second he's deprived of Venom, and is often Dumb Muscle to boot.
  • Batman Arkham Asylum is... a bit mixed on this. Although it portrays him as still a Venom addict, and has him almost completely paralyzed when Dr. Young removes all traces of it from his body, merely being unhooked from his Venom pump barely slows him down. The roof collapsing on him manages to buy enough time for Batman and Commissioner Gordon to get out... but he turns out to have been feigning defeat to try to catch Batman off guard. Unfortunately for him, Batman actually anticipated this, and knocks him into the river with the Batmobile when he tries to ambush them. Not quite "Batman-level strategist without chemical dependencies", but a step in the right direction. And, his mannerisms and speech also show that he's anything but Dumb Muscle.
  • In Batman The Animated Series, Bane only uses Venom at a strategic point of the decisive fight, and is defeated when Batman opens the valve to his tank, severely overdosing him with the drug.
    • It seems to be played straight in Batman Beyond, where Bane is a cripple on life support due to the Venom use, but once you take into account the condition of other users after mere weeks...
  • Young Justice shows Bane to be a cunning tactician without the use of Venom. In his normal human form, he is even able to use his knowledge of martial arts to briefly overpower Superboy during a struggle. However, he does go down rather easy once Superboy and Miss Martian work together to beat him up, making it a bit of an inversion of the other examples; he's extremely intelligent, but not very strong.
  • The Dark Knight Rises actually portrays Bane's tactical skill and physical strength, and omits the Venom completely (instead, he's hooked up to anesthesia to dull the pain from an old injury).
    Christopher Nolan: Bane, to me, is something we haven’t dealt with in the films. We wanted to do something very different in this film. He’s a primarily physical villain, he’s a classic movie monster in a way — but with a terrific brain.
• The time that Doctor Doom was defeated by Squirrel Girl, when the ultimate scheming badass of the Marvel Universe got owned by somewhone who was essentially a joke—-GAK! SILENCE TROPER! IT WAS A DOOMBOT. A DOOMBOOOOOOOOOOOT!!
• Superboy-Prime had become an immature whiny sociopath in Infinite Crisis, but still had some motives that made him slip near Well-Intentioned Extremist. But in Countdown to Final Crisis, he said one line, after which fans forgot about that and marked him as an complete idiot and nobody could treat him seriously after that. This line was:

  Prime: I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU TO DEATH!

  • Considering it was in Countdown it seems Superboy-Prime's unforgivable crime was being in Countdown.
  • That line aside, Superboy-Prime's dialog in the whole story makes him come as an immature nitwit, and his actions make it hard to view him as anything but a monster since after seeing a museum devoted to an Alternate Reality Superman, he loses his temper and murders that Superman, his pregnant wife, the Earth's Justice, and destroys the entire Earth. Really, that scene does a better job establishing as a whiny Psychotic Manchild than the above Memetic Mutation.
• Jimmy Olsen will never live down turning into the Giant Turtle Man◊. Out of all the things he's turned into, that seems to be the one people are most determined to remind him of.
• This is often how J'onn J'onzz feels about his time with the Justice League International.
  • Ironic in that previous to his International days, he had just come off of the "Detroit" League, which was one of the lowest points in the Justice League of America's history. One would think he would be more ashamed of that.
    • Most of them died at the end.
• The rape of Carol Danvers from The Avengers #200. It wasn't supposed to be a rape, it was just bad writing that made it into one, but the fan backlash pretty much ensured that neither Marvel Comics nor the character would ever live it down, and it remains one of the biggest elements of her backstory to this day. Avengers Annual #10 (itself best known today only as "the one where Rogue had her first appearance") allowed Carol to deliver a well-deserved What the Hell, Hero? speech to the assembled Avengers for their non-chalant attitudes towards what had happened to her. *
  Apparently, the storyline in Avengers #200 did not sit well with Chris Claremont — he had created Ms. Marvel, and felt that her actions were out of character — and he took the opportunity to put an Author Filibuster to it in the story. Tropes Are Not Bad, true believers!
• In-Universe Example: Guy Gardner will never live down the time Superman almost stole his girlfriend Ice from him, even though it wasn't Supes' fault. Ice just said that she thought Superman was cute.
• The Juggernaut suffers from this occasionally in that some think he has made his sole purpose in life to kill his stepbrother Charles Xavier. Even an extended run as a hero didn't seem to change that. But, that was written by Chuck Austen, so you can see why some will ignore that.
• Whether as a Shout Out, coincidence, or someone involved in the comic actually having something to do with the site, Witch Girls had two characters named Denora DeSade and Claudia who are quite similar to characters with the same names from the long-defunct transformation fetish site "The Shrinking Sorceress." Cue detractors of the recent, better-known RPG spinoff Witch Girls Adventures (which features the same characters and a rather large amount of artwork dedicated to witches transforming helpless victims into various objects) ranting about how it's a Bleached Underpants version of the site and nearly every adult character is lifted from it.
  • MANGA GRAPHIX, the company that publishes Witch Girls is mentioned in the copyright blurb on Shrinking Sorceress. Malcolm Harris, the author of Witch Girls and the owner of Channel M (which owns WGA), lists himself as a writer for MANGA GRAPHIX in his resume.
• For many, Cyclops abandoning his wife Madelyne and son Nathan as soon as he heard that Jean Grey was alive in X-Factor #1 defined his personality forever*
  in actuality, he didn't even abandon her, he wanted to see if Jean was really alive, she got md and told him not to come back, and he ended up geting busy with X-Factor, an team he wasn't even planning on co-founding and didn't want to be on at first, then when he did go back to her, she'd already left thanks to a supervillain attack. He's by no means unblamable, but he's not the deadbeat dad people often claim him to be
  , Marvel's later attempts at damage control - which included stating he was under Mister Sinister's influence, and retconning Madelyne into a manipulative witch - notwithstanding. That Grant Morrison later had him turn away from Jean for telepathic adultery with Emma Frost made matters worse.*
  Bare in mind, Jean herself contemplated having an affair herself at the time while he was currently in the middle of an emotional breakdown that Emma took advantage of.
  • Following Avengers Vs X Men, Cyclops now has becoming Dark Phoenix himself, and killing Charles Xavier while under its influence. The Marvel fandom is split between if he's really to blame or not, but one thing's for sure, he'll never live this down.
• In issue #134 of Sonic the Hedgehog, Princess Sally slapped Sonic across the face. Since then, some fans have used it as "evidence" that Sally has always been a bitch. However, that one instance was terribly out of character (per editorial order), and since then she's been restored to her old self. More than a few call backs have been made to this moment in universe in the comic (usually with Sally shown to be highly remorseful about it) something that is almost certainly an attempt to fix this treatment with fans.
  • What makes it funnier is that she had already shown worse acts of dickery in the past. Take for instance that issue in which Sonic fell under mind control by Robotnik. Her reaction when she realized Sonic was under mind control? Ordering without hesitation to have him fucking drowned. Granted, the stakes were high as Robotnik ordered him to show him Knothole's location, but you would think that she would try to come up with a better solution than murdering Knothole's champion.
  • And while we're on that subject, former head writer Ken Penders, despite being on the title for over 15 years and had created some memorable (and not-so-memorable) characters and stories, will forever be remembered as the man who decided to try to take back each and every one, then declare that he was going to make better stories with them from his own company. Despite, y'know... each and everyone being derivatives of our heroes and villains?
  • Some fans, especially those who hated the character, will never live down the fact that Antoine used to be a Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey, completely ignoring that he Took a Level in Badass. It doesn't help that some Sonic fans only watched the Sonic Sat Am cartoon, where he didn't get any Character Development.
• In the first issue of the All-New Batman: The Brave And The Bold, Batman has a team-up with Superman. Superman claims that Krypton believes in invisible crooks. After solving the mystery in Kandor, Batman mentions the invisible crooks. Superman quotes the trope line as in question form. Batman's answer is "no."
• In-universe example: Batman will never let Huntress live down her body count of mobsters. Which is especially hard for her, because she is getting better and, despite her claims to the contrary, his approval does matter to her. Of course, this makes it all the more awesome and heartwarming when Batman praises her efforts.
  • It's also overused by writers as well. It's hard to keep track of all the stories that involve her nearly killing a criminal, only to be talked out of it at the last second by one of her companions.
• Another in-universe example: The Sentry once threw the Void into the sun. Subsequently, whenever a team he's on are dealing with a particularly powerful foe, someone will always suggest that they just have Sentry throw them into the sun.
  Sentry: I don't throw everything into the sun...
  • To make it funnier, after his death, Thor threw his body into the sun.
• Aquaman has still to live down his portrayal on the Superfriends, and comics writers frequently show people mocking him for his abilities just before he proves them wrong. There's really no reason people in the DC universe don't take him seriously except for carryover from Superfiends.
  • This is on full display in the New 52's first issue of Aquaman. Criminals and police alike are confused by Aquaman intervening in a non-water related crime. Patrons of a seafood restaurant are concerned to see him ordering fish. People confusing his ability to command sea creatures as 'talking to fish' is starting to wear on him too.
• Subverted: Susan Storm-Richards of the Fantastic Four's long-running romantic interest in Namor the Sub Mariner throughout her 40+ year marriage to Reed Richards gets thrown around a lot from fans, but isn't treated too seriously by the characters. The reason is probably the fact that a lot of fans think she had an out-and-out affair with Namor (not true), but also think that the attraction between them is all in the past (also not true). The Fantastic Four are just fucked up that way.
• A future version of Damian Wayne was shown owning a cat named Alfred in Batman #666. This one scene has caused fandom to frequently portray Damian as a cat lover (and usually being embarrassed and secretive of it) as well as him wanting a cat in the present day.
  • This prompted Fan Art. Lots and lots of Fan Art.
• Magneto's hatred of humanity is explained by his having been a victim of persecution for being different before. But in many variants, he seems to have a problem with all humans. (Of course, this goes back and forth. Sometimes he hates just the bad ones but will do what he thinks he has to do, and on a day that's not something nasty, he's one of the good guys. Sometimes he thinks the whole human race is irredeemable and anything goes. However, Grant Morrison's Magneto was very much Out of Character even compared to his next-most-evil portrayal, and Retcon has long since taken it from plain Fanon Discontinuity to Canon Discontinuity.)
• While Novas Aventuras De Megaman did have rampant nakedness, that only started with issue 12 of 16. The comic is now mostly known for this.
• This Cracked article is an example of how the reputations of comic book characters who make Out of Character Moments will forever be ruined for it.
• George Tuska will always be remembered for giving the Iron Man armor a nose.
• Writer Ron Marz will never live down killing neophyte Green Lantern Kyle Rayner's girlfriend Alex and having her body the original Stuffed in the Fridge. Even though the death a loved one, male or female to give a hero's backstory more tragedy was already an old trope when he did it in the early Nineties.
• Lori will always be remembered as the bitch who lets down her husband and cheated on him with his best friend.
• The Joker and, well any writer who portrays him as a poor fighter who goes down with one hit. Some have actually written him as a very capable fighter, due to his unpredictable nature and high pain tolerance. In "Mad Love" he even held his own against Batman. But the fandom seems completely blind to this.