Punch Clock Villain / Western Animation

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• Adventure Time: Lemongrab is a tyrannical ruler who sends everyone to the dungeon for a million years. When he doesn't have a considerable position of power, however, he's just your average, mentally unstable, run-of-the-mill jerk who's only a threat to himself. He only acquired that position of power because it was his duty, not because he wanted to.
• Aladdin: The Series: The Mukhtar is an assassin who specializes in hunting down and killing genies. Not because he has anything against them personally (although that may have been the case in the past). Nowadays, he does it because that is simply what Mukhtar does; it is the only purpose for him. He is actually The Last of His Kind, and is now Only in It for the Money. In his second appearance, Mukhtar makes a full Heel–Face Turn after Genie saves him from a Man-Eating Plant.
• Archer:
  • Lampshaded with this exchange:
    Archer: Are you even really gay?
    Charles: Like big ol' Tangerines!
    Ramon: Then why are you working for Castro? You know his stance on homosexuality!
    Charles: Because, commie, I have something called a "mortgage."
  • The villain of "Movie Star" also counts. She even briefly considers not carrying out her duty as a sleeper agent until she remembers that the Soviets promised that she would get to direct...
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Many Fire Nation soldiers are portrayed this way. Although there are some that seem to enjoy being cruel, most are just normal people doing their jobs.
  • As well as Ty Lee and Mai, who are only doing evil due to being intimidated into it by Azula (Ty Lee) or being bored and needing something to fill time (Mai). Mai takes it further than Ty Lee, on more than one occasion refusing to fight if she doesn't feel it worth her time, regardless of what Azula might do to her.
  • Certain episodes show that the Fire Nation Soldiers, by and large, don't even view themselves as Villains. The Fire Nation uses very liberal amounts of propaganda on the populace, and many are convinced that the war they're waging on the "lesser nations" is in their best interests.
  • Towards the end of the series, Sokka manages to take over a ship from the Fire Nation Airship fleet, by dumping the soldiers into the sea. During a conversation between three soldiers, they are portrayed as decently behaving people...who were on their way to burn an entire country.
• This attitude also extends in The Legend of Korra.
  • When Unalaq takes over the Southern Water Tribe by means of his own army and an army of Dark Spirits, a member of the Northern Water Tribe says that he should have instead stayed at home with his mother-in-law if he wanted to be surrounded by evil.
  • Korra and Asami are captured by the Earth Queen's forces. When Korra and Asami's attempt to commandeer the airship causes them to crash into the desert, the soldiers help them build a sandsailer and their captain declares Korra's beef with the Earth Queen "above his pay grade" and lets her go. (Not that he could take on the Avatar, but he proved to be grateful.)
  • The two Earth Empire soldiers that capture Ikki in "The Calling"; they strike up a rather civil discussion, bonding with Ikki over snacks and how they feel left out of big, important events (Ikki's middle child syndrome and the soldiers being forced to guard a small outpost while the rest of the army marches on Zaofu). Eventually, they even help her find Korra's hiding spot, and she leaves them a few rolls after Jinora and Meelo think she's their captive and knock the guards out.
  • In the comic sequel Turf Wars, General Iroh, Zuko's grandson and Korra's ally, is stuck in this position. As a general of the United Forces, he answers to President Raiko, and President Raiko answers to his poll numbers, which causes him to butt heads with Korra and Tenzin. Iroh himself politely protests his orders to attack the Airbenders and goes so far as to warn Tenzin of what's going to happen and when, delaying as long as he can, but orders are orders. While he had shades of a Military Maverick attitude three years earlier, offering to accidentally engage the Northern Water Tribe's military on Korra's behalf, Raiko scared him off that tactic, and the lesson seems to have stuck. It remains to be seen what happens once Raiko is voted out, and another of Korra's allies, Zhu Li, becomes president.
• Batman: The Animated Series: The real frightening part about Harley Quinn is that she is a person without any reason to kill, but she will do it, and sadistically, only because a man she's in love with tells her it would be fun.
• Cow and Chicken: The episode "The Karate Chick" has Chicken trying to confront a bully on the weekends. The bully says he only bullies on the weekdays and spends the weekends helping the poor.
• Cybersix: The Fixed Ideas are this by virtue of simply being too darned stupid to be anything else. When left to their own devices without an order to follow, they pretty much just chill out with one another or try to coax out a stray cat (Which was actually Data 7 tricking them) so they can pet it.
• Daria: Unusually for this trope, we mostly see Helen Morgendorfer off the clock as a generally good, moral mother to Daria and Quinn. It's only in overheard phone calls and a few short scenes where we see her day job as an Amoral Attorney and Bad Boss to her secretary.
• DC Animated Universe:
  • Batman: The Animated Series: Harley Quinn is a frightening example. She's Affably Evil and really doesn't have any reason to kill, but she will do it, and sadistically so, just because the Joker or Poison Ivy ask her to. The Joker is Harley's love interest and Ivy is her best friend. Harley is willing to do almost anything to keep them happy. (She apparently draws the line at having her pets endangered, though.)
  • Batman Beyond: Walter Shreeve started out like this: he tried to kill Bruce Wayne, but only because he was pressured into it by his boss Derek Powers, after Powers threatened to fire Shreeve from his respectable (but nonprofitable) career of sound engineering research. However, he was then caught wearing his super suit at his workplace, meaning that he would be unable to go back without being arrested, prompting him to embrace the moniker Shriek. Then, a battle with Batman caused him to go deaf, so he embraced full-on, city-threatening supervillainy to get his revenge.
  • Batman Beyond also has Inque, who works as a corporate saboteur for hire. While she is exceptionally good at her job due to being a Blob Monster, she still sees it as just a way to get money and provide for her daughter. If she's not paid or otherwise provoked into villainy, she generally doesn't cause trouble.
  • Then there’s Melanie Walker (aka Ten) and Jack from the Royal Flush Gang in Batman Beyond. Melanie is very sympathetic because she only wants to live a normal life and only is a criminal because her parents pressured her; she finally has enough and pulls a Heel–Face Turn. Jack isn’t as sympathetic but he isn’t too bad when not robbing people and is only interested in making a profit from his crimes.
  • Justice League: The episode "Flash and Substance" has Captain Cold moaning about how crime isn't paying enough for him to make his mortgage payments.
• Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines: The Vulture Squadron consists of incompetent and moronic grunts who just do what they are told and only the promise of a medal or a furlough can give them any desire to seriously try to catch that pigeon.
  • Muttley, Dick Dastardly's canine co-hort on Wacky Races, has been described as villainous but has been known to bite the hand that feeds him.
• Gargoyles: Pack member Dingo is pretty clearly just there for the paycheck, and gets increasingly disgusted with his teammates as they slip further into Psycho for Hire-ness. Ultimately, he decides he has had enough and has a flat-out Heel–Face Turn.
  • Ruthless businessman Xanatos himself, oddly enough. He is The Chessmaster, but he is also rather friendly to the gargoyles and seems to enjoy partaking in clichés that won't actually hurt him, like Evil Laughter or Death Traps (for someone he does not particularly want to kill).
• G.I. Joe: Hinted at, when the heroes search a COBRA office and one of them, reading some documents, remarks "Hey, they've got a dental plan!"
  • Later played straight in a profile book, where it is revealed that the vast majority of COBRA's blueshirt grunts were perfectly ordinary people who simply wanted a better life. In the comics, the organization has a habit of recruiting personnel from cities with failed economies and a high-rate of unemployment. When the organization offers steady jobs and regular salaries to the chronically unemployed, they come off looking as saviors.
• Gravity Falls: Bud Gleeful knowingly and semi-willingly assists in Gideon's evil schemes, and is a bit of a jerk to Stan (who reciprocates this energy), but otherwise is completely friendly, affable and jolly.
• Jimmy Two-Shoes: Lucius' two main henchmen tend to be depicted as such, in contrast to the petty Card-Carrying Villain who employs/abuses them.
  • Samy Garvin is a complete toady to Lucius who eagerly assists his boss in rigging contests, producing nasty products and making others miserable (and being made miserable) when at work. But what little we see of his life outside work shows that he's more of your standard longtime white-collar employee disgruntled with his lot in life rather than a full-blown Card-Carrying Villain like his boss (although comments by series co-creator Edward Kay suggest he's a lot more like Lucius than what the show suggests).
  • Molotov is shown to be very loyal to Lucius when on bodyguard duty, having no qualms about harming Jimmy and his friends if Lucius commands him to. However, we also see a lot more of his non-work life compare to Samy, and it depicts him as more of a Henpecked Husband, Papa Wolf, and Family Man with a pretty friendly (if a tad irritable) disposition.
• Kim Possible: Ron once stumbled into a bunch of Dr. Drakken's goons in what appeared to be an employees' lounge, suggesting that they are all punching a clock somewhere too. At one point, Drakken himself mentions that he holds an employee picnic for them. In a further parody, one episode features a trip to Henchco, a temp agency that does nothing but supply henchmen (and equipment) to aspiring villains.
  • At some point, all villains on the show have had some version of a punch-clock villain. One went so far as to involve Kim and Ron in a fight between punch-clock villains and punch-clock spies.
  • Even Shego, Drakken's right-hand-woman, clocks off for the weekend if they are still in the planning stages of the Evil Plan.
    • Or at the end of the (inevitably failed) plan, unless Drakken drags her to Karaoke Night (where the civilians politely clap as Drakken sings; yet another example of an off-duty villain).
    • Fortunately, while Drakken is an incompetent villain, he is a pretty decent boss to work for. When Shego took a Christmas vacation in "A Very Possible Christmas", she was surprised to learn that Drakken had footed the bill for her vacation, including hotel accommodations and meals.
  • When Drakken gets a cold that is going around, his temporary partner-in-crime actually hires someone from a temp agency. The guy gets into his job, seeing new career opportunities around every corner.
    • Shego calls in sick, and while she is off the clock, she stands there watching as Ron hauls away the MacGuffin (though she does help by sneezing on him and thus, rendering him too sick to do mission work, like Kim was prior).
  • In "And the Mole Rat will be CGI," after Junior runs away from the movie set, his henchmen stick around to ask for jobs as hairstylists and stuntmen. Then, once Junior comes back, he hires them to work for him again.
• Kulipari: An Army of Frogs: Killara and his band of mercenaries. Killara himself starts to take a liking to the hero Darel and lets him off on technicalities of his contract ultimately leading him to taking a larger payment from Darel to betray Marmoo.
  Killara: There's only one rule for mercenaries: We don't fight for a cause, we don't fight for glory, we fight for money.
• Lilo & Stitch: The Series: One episode shows Mertle's henchgirls Yuki, Theresa and Elena reveal to Lilo they only act as stuck-up as Mertle when around her. In reality, they secretly despise her and do whatever they want in her absence.
• Looney Tunes: Several shorts where Ralph Wolf is trying to steal sheep away from Sam Sheepdog. There is an actual punchclock in this one, and both the wolf and the dog punch in and out at sunrise and sunset. They also get an hour-long lunch break, during which they eat lunch together and occasionally have a smoke (probably the reason why television doesn't show these anymore). This is also exaggerated to the point that even falling rocks freeze in mid-air once 5 P.M. comes. One specific instance that highlighted the punch-clock job aspect of it was at the end of one episode, Sam actually told Ralph that he has been working too hard and to take tomorrow off (interestingly enough, careful observations indicate that Ralph's injuries in the episode were self-inflicted via disastrous accidents — akin to Wile E. Coyote's mishaps with Acme Products — unlike the usual injuries at the paws of Sam, hence that's what Sam meant.)
  • Like many cartoon series, it took some tweaking to arrive at the formula. In the first one, only the sheepdogs punch the time clock, a new shift continues pummeling the wolf. In the second, both the wolves and sheepdogs punch in and out, but at separate clocks -- no interaction off work. By the third, the two would greet each other at the clock, and by the series end, they even shared a house!
    "Good morning, Sam." "Good morning, Ralph."
  • Taz replaced Ralph when Sam resumed his role in a Taz-Mania episode.
• Metalocalypse: Dethklok's manager, Charles Foster Ofdensen, is quiet and restrainedly affable, but will kill or torture anyone threatening his "bread and butter". Given that Dethklok are unambiguously a force for evil in the world (though a popular one and only one of a few), and he also doesn't care how many people are killed or maimed by Dethklok as long as there will be no untoward consequences for the band and his job, he qualifies as a villain.
  • Every antagonist (Revengeancers notwithstanding) on the show falls into this category, one way or another; even the Tribunal is only out to get the band because they challenge the status quo and it's their job to maintain it.
• Minoriteam: Strike breaking lowlife Scab is really just trying to feed his kids with villainy. And the Black Coq works for the White Shadow because he has nowhere else to go after losing his family and restaurant.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • The "World Famous" Flim-Flam Brothers, who try to drive the Apple Family out of business so that they can secure the local cider market, are only technically bad guys because they are taking aim at the Apple Family. All their claims about the quality and quantity of their cider and how superior it is to the Apple Family's are 100% spot on, and the only reason they even get the opportunity to take down the Apples to begin with is because Granny Smith accepts a challenge from them just because they called her a coward. It is not until their second appearance where they both become classic versions of the Snake Oil Salesman, and emotionally blackmail Applejack into endorsing their product that they cross the threshold into true dick country.
  • Coco Pommel in "Rarity Takes Manehattan" is a mild example of this. She is a talented seamstress who serves as the Beleaguered Assistant to fashion designer Suri Polomare. When Suri develops a plot to eliminate her competitor Rarity from a fashion-related contest, Coco provides most of the extra work needed for the plan's success. She does not agree with the plan, but wants to keep her job. When Suri fails to reward her for all the hard work, Coco has a Mook–Face Turn.
• The Neverending Story: The Animated Adventures of Bastian Balthazar Bux: Vermin has no real interest in doing villainy, but is held in ruinous debt to the Shadow Goblin, forcing him to steal things or act as Shadow Goblin's muscle in an effort to try and get out from under his thumb.
• Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero: Rippen and Larry are these, contrasting with our titular character and his friends, who are the sister trope (if you couldn't tell from the show's title). Their day jobs are being an art teacher and principal, respectively, though Rippen's main goal throughout the series is to gain enough Villain Cred to make it a full-time job. Larry isn't even evil in the slightest, initially taking the job because it seemed like fun and staying because he and Rippen became each others best (and only) friends.
• Phineas and Ferb.
  • Dr. Doofenshmirtz's evil plans are a routine; he usually won't even start trying to use his newest invention until his arch-nemesis (and best friend) Perry the Platypus shows up to foil him, and he seems to realize that he usually loses. He also has a teenaged daughter who lives with him part-time; she fits this trope too, though far less enthusiastically, as if assisting her father were simply a normal chore. His plans usually involve creating potentially evil devices for silly, petty reasons.
  • Suzy is terrorizes Candace whenever her brother is around (since Candace threatens her control over him), and is nice when she is "off the clock."
  • Buford refers to himself as a bully, but spends free time with his usual "victims", if there is no major bullying to be done.
• The Return of the King: The Orcs are implied to be this in contrast to their usual portrayal as Always Chaotic Evil. While marching they sing that they don't want to go to war but Sauron and their Officers tell them to. This may be close to J. R. R. Tolkien's idea that many of the soldiers fighting for evil are actually misguided and serving their masters due to fear and lies.
• Robot Chicken: One sketch featured Jason Voorhees eagerly awaiting Friday the 13th, where he went on his normal killing spree. The following day, he is disappointed to go back to a normal routine.
  • The Star Wars sketches have Gary the Stormtrooper, a Mauve Shirt who stars in a few sketches. He's happily married, loves his daughter, and although one of the ones who killed Luke's aunt and uncle, it was actually an accident.
• Samurai Jack: The Guardian serves as the main antagonist in "Jack and the Traveling Creatures", but he is simply doing his job to protect the time portal.
• The Scarecrow: Wooden only works with Count Grisham because he pays him lots of money. Sure enough, when Grisham decides he's going to kill Polly, he immediately races off to warn her.
• Sealab 2021: Sparks reveals himself to be a madman bent on world domination, and offers Marco a position in his organization. Marco considers the job, depending on the benefits package.
• The Secret World of Santa Claus: Dudley severely dislikes Gruzzlebeard and only helps him because he is forced to.
• The Simpsons: Homer unwittingly ends up working as a Punch Clock Villain for megalomaniacal but very affable CEO Hank Scorpio in "You Only Move Twice". When Hank mentions that he is "having problems with the government" (actually a full-scale base invasion straight out of James Bond), Homer expresses sympathy, but doesn't join in the fight (though he earlier prevented the escape of "Mr. Bont").
• South Park: Satan is portrayed in this fashion. He is also rather meek, insecure and Affably Evil, certainly less evil than Cartman, and chats pleasantly and enthusiastically with his victims (who appear to only be truly bad people) after torturing them.
  • Played for Drama in "Fatbeard" where Cartman and some of the kids go to Somalia to become pirates. One of the pirates explains to Ike and Butters that he would prefer going to school instead of attacking ships, but robs ships because otherwise he would have no money to support his family. He lives everyday fearing death when attacking a ship, or not getting anything to help his family. This causes a My God, What Have I Done? moment in the two, when they realize a pirate's life is full of hardship.
• Space Jam features the Moron Mountain workers who get supercharged by stealing some NBA All-Star players' skills with a magical basketball, turning them from the shrimpy Nerdlucks into the hulking Monstars. Despite maintaining a fanatical devotion to their stogie-chomping boss, however, this trope gets subverted in the end:
  Michael Jordan: "Why do you do what that guy says, anyway?"
  Monstar #1: "Because he's bigger!"
  Monstar #2: "He's bigger...!"
  Monstar #3: "Than we..."
  Monstar #4: "...used to be..."
  ''The Monstar then tie up their boss and send him in a rocket back to Moron Mountain.
  • This trope actually has a happy ending as well — after returning the All-Stars' powers, the Toons agree to give the now depowered Nerdlucks a place to stay in Toon Town.
• The Spectacular Spider-Man: The Shocker started out like this; he was a Hired Gun, who seemed fairly honorable. After his initial defeat, his grudge against Spider-Man seemed rooted in his wanting to do the job he was paid to do.
  • Also, Sandman, who maintains his lack of a villainous nature from the comics. He's only in it for a "big score", not all the vindictive vendettas most of the other villains have (he often says how much he hates revenge), and generally tries not to hurt anyone (except Spiderman and the cops) when on a job. This becomes even more clear in a recent episode, where he, while waiting for a contact, helps a kid get rid of some bullies, and, after accidentally setting an oil tanker on fire in a fight with Spider-Man, helps save the crew, and almost kills himself containing the explosion.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • Man Ray is shown taking a vacation at Squidward’s house in “Man Ray Returns”, and as a result has no evil plans and acts friendly towards SpongeBob and Patrick, who are suspicious of him because he’s a villain; in their words, “evil never takes a vacation”. Ultimately Subverted when he reveals that he gave Squidward a fake check and realizing that SpongeBob was right about evil never taking a vacation.
  • The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie: The Cyclops is ultimately this. For all the fear he inspires in the protagonists and as dangerous as he is compared to the other villains, he is just a normal guy who owns a seaside gift shop and goes deep-sea diving to collect stuff for his store. He is only a villain from the perspective of the characters and probably doesn't even realize how all the fish he captures feel about him.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Buff Frog starts out as a loyal lieutenant to Ludo who rules a castle's worth of monsters. By the second season, he is a single father struggling with feeding a dozen adopted children with an assortment of odd jobs, and a trusted friend of the main characters.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The battle droids are frequently depicted as near-slaves forced into a war they have no part in, who are all too aware of their strategic significance.
• Steven Universe: Peridot, whose job was to re-establish the Homeworld Warp Pad on Earth, manually re-activate the underground lab at one of the Kindergartens, and report progress on some still-active Gem experiments. All of this would screw over the Earth in a big way, but Peridot's just doing the job she was literally created to do. It's only until she's captured by the protagonists and accepts that she's stuck on the planet that she decides to alert the heroes to the danger they're all in and help them stop the threat, becoming a proud member of the team at the end of the second season and helping successfully defeat the Cluster a few episodes afterward.
• Total Drama could apply to many of the antagonists throughout the seasons, who see their actions as purely strategic moves, and it is hinted that they aren't nearly as vicious outside of a competitive setting.
  Heather: I was only playing the game the best way I knew how. It was never personal.
  • This is especially notable in the case of Alejandro, who shows zero remorse for any of his actions, as long as it gets him further in the game. However, in the end, he has nothing against any of the contestants (barring Owen), and once he and Heather are both eliminated in All-Stars, their relationship becomes as genuine as any other on the show. While it appears that when there is money in it, both still act villainous, but outside of the game, it is clear that Alejandro is generally a nice person when he has no reason not to be.
• Transformers:
  • Transformers: Animated: Mixmaster and Scrapper worked for Megatron because he had the better oil, and because he didn't try to scare them off. They really had no vested interest in Megatron's cause, and were only really motivated to fight when Starscream shot their oil. With their construction worker theme, it wouldn't be surprising if they used an actual punch clock. Furthermore, they started out as friends to Bulkhead, one of the Earth team Autobots, and in "Human Error, Part 2", Scrapper joined up with Sari's group of Substitute Autobots to break Soundwave's brainwashing of the "first-string" Autobots.
    • Swindle from the same series is more of a lovably sleazy Con Man who'll sell you anything you need if the price is right and you don't look too closely at the clauses. Selling to Decepticons and criminals makes him rich; if he could rip off the Autobots instead for similar profits, he would. It just so happens the good guys don't pay well enough to keep Swindle on the straight and narrow, but he holds no ill will about it. The lore heavily implies that Swindle actually defected from the Autobots, but many of the Decepticons resent him more than the Autobots do precisely because he's motivated by greed rather than loyalty to the cause. Swindle seems to hardly notice or care about this animosity either.
  • Transformers: Prime: Decepticon Knockout only fights Autobots on occupied human territory if ordered by his authorities (Megatron and Starscream). In his leisure time, he's taken up street racing, checking out automobiles at car shops and watching human-made movies at drive-in theaters. He's the sole Decepticon to be infatuated with human culture.
• The Venture Bros. is partially built around this trope:
  • The Monarch's henchmen, particularly #21 and #24, are losers and social outcasts who are just trying not to get killed. In one episode, #24 is overheard complaining that working for the Monarch was the only job he could get after the factory he worked at closed ("It was either this or the Army"). In another scene, they both try to recruit new henchmen by searching for out-of-work deadbeats in need of a paycheck. They accidentally hire a bunch of hardcore gangsters they can't control.
  • Over the course of the show, it's revealed that both heroes and villains are really just bored Idle Rich people who use their wealth to live a fantasy lifestyle. The Guild of Calamitous Intent keeps the battles from getting out of hand with a laundry list of rules and regulations. Arch-nemeses are gained by an interview process rather than personal vendetta. Battles are sometimes even scheduled like play-dates. Anyone who doesn't play by the rules is rounded up by the Guild, and anyone who is legitimately dangerous is taken out by the secret group Sphinx.
  • Sergeant Hatred takes dullness to its extreme after he becomes the new arch-enemy of Dr. Venture. He politely schedules danger-free "attacks" and is a gentle, neighborly non-threat to his alleged nemesis. This is subverted when he reveals the real target of his anger: rival villain The Monarch, who wants to "arch" Dr. Venture, but is not allowed to. In a clever twist, Hatred exploits punch-clock villainy for maximum pettiness.
    The Monarch: You can't touch me, grandpa. The Guild would bury you.
    Sergeant Hatred: No, you'll be fine. You'll live to see me treat your arch-rival like a goddamned king. Venture is my arch-enemy now and I am gonna cook him breakfast in bed! I am gonna make his life WONDERFUL and you can't do squat about it!
  • The inversion to the rule might be Monstroso, whose day job as head of a corrupt and powerful law firm actually makes him more evil than his costumed villainy after-hours.
  • Subverted by Red Death, a legendary supervillain who (despite having a Skull for a Head) is an easygoing, fatherly man who lives with his family and only "arches" once a year. The Monarch and #21 assume that Red Death is past his prime, not to be taken seriously, and not even very scary. After they provoke his wrath, the (terrified) duo realize that the old man deserves his reputation as The Dreaded and that it's a good idea to Beware the Nice Ones. After resolving the standoff, Red Death helpfully explains that learning to "separate work from life" has only enhanced his villainy. He encourages the younger villains to do the same.
• The Watchdogs, Lord Hater's Adorable Evil Minions in Wander over Yonder. They love Lord Hater and want to see him succeed, but many of them are friends with All-Loving Hero Wander as well.
• Xiaolin Showdown: Jack Spicer begins to cross into this territory during the second season premiere, after a temporary alliance with the heroes comes to an end. When Omi pleads with him to not return to evil, Jack sighs and says that, though he's still going to fight them for control of the Shen Gong Wu, he promises they'll go out for ice cream sometimes when they're all off the clock, which cheers Omi up.
• Done literally in Yin Yang Yo!. One early episode has Yin and Yang fightin a monster named Roger, until his wife calls him away to watch his daughter’s recital. Roger then puts on a hat and tie, before clocking out to join his family.
  Yang: He’s really lost his edge since he got married.
• Young Justice (2010) has a strange example in Lobo's cameo: he arrived on Earth searching for his mark, beated up the guards, Batgirl and Wondergirl because they were in the way, showed Batgirl and Wondergirl that the guy they were protecting actually was an alien spy, and then left with his mark and no ill feelings.

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