Hated characters from the DC Universe who've subsequently been Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.
A No Recent Examples rule applies to this trope. Examples shouldn't be added for 9 months. This is measured from the point when the character was introduced or became hated.
- Robin: Damian Wayne, the son of Batman and Talia al-Ghul, initially came off as a violent jerkass. But after he becomes the new Robin next to Dick Grayson's Batman after his father's death, he became much more likable, thanks to some character development by Grant Morrison and Paul Dini, who have effectively made him into the Tsundere youngest member of the Bat-Family who, despite his bravado, has grown to appreciate his new family and has been told that there is much he still needs to improve on. He also started acting more his age instead of trying to pretend he was older and more mature. This is also a reason people liked Colin Wilkes aka Abuse: Damian was interacting with someone his own age without showing massive disdain for the person. There's one moment in particular between him and Dick Grayson that shows how he's starting to open up more: after Dick, Damian, and Alfred realize that Bruce really is still alive, and are exploring secret parts of Wayne Manor to find clues Bruce left for them in the past:Damian: If my father returns... we can't be Batman and Robin any more, can we?
Dick: No, I guess not. It's a small price to pay for getting him back alive.
Damian: What will I do? Do you think my father will let me stay on as Robin?
Dick: You honestly think he'd put up with you the way I do? [pause] ...Damian, I'm joking. - Legion of Super-Heroes: Matter-Eater Lad started out as a total weirdo with a lame power who was eventually written out of the comic, first by going back to his home planet and eventually going into a coma after saving the universe by eating a "Miracle Machine" that was warping reality. During the "Five Years Later" era, though, he was re-imagined with a rock-star persona (Cool Shades and all), gleefully reveling in his own absurdity.
- Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner initially received a lot of hate from Green Lantern fans when he replaced Hal Jordan and the whole GL Corps after the controversial Emerald Twilight arc. However, over time, Rayner was presented as a likable character, thanks to JLA (1997). Once Rayner's creator, Ron Marz, got through his period of making him as unlike his predecessors as possible, he also helped temper his previously brash character quite a bit.
- Aquaman: Peter David, Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns showed that, in the right hands, Aquaman can be cool.
- Superboy-Prime had, by Legion of 3 Worlds, become a
Villain Sue, a Straw Fan, and a colossal Jerkass. Then, there came Blackest Night, where he featured in a crazily metatextual story, became the butt of several massive Take That, Scrappy! scenes, started receiving major repercussions, and was shown being almost heroic for once - trying to save the heroes from getting killed off in the latest event, something you'd expect from a genuine fan. Dark Nights: Death Metal has him drop his more volatile traits, with Prime coming off as a mixture of his DC Comics Presents/Crisis on Infinite Earths and early Infinite Crisis, and Blackest Night incarnations. He's still hung up on how things have gotten so much worse and wants to create a "perfect" world, but he's more of a seriously-jaded fan than a whiny strawman or hypocritical monster like previous appearances. He even sides with the Justice League after Wonder Woman convinces him that it's worth taking a chance on trying to save all the worlds rather than only protect his desired one, proving that he's finally changed for the better. This ultimately leads to the tie-in The Secret Origin, where Prime battles the Batman Who Laughs and sacrifices his life to give everyone a fighting chance to defeat the monster, being rewarded by being sent back to his Earth-Prime no longer the reviled monster. What makes this poignant is that Prime is doing this on his own volition, knowing hero and villain alike hate his guts and that he could easily just take the villain's power or even side with him. And no one knows he did this except for Krypto. - Vixen, a charter member of the widely reviled Detroit-era Justice League, experienced a comeback, after many years of being regulated to Comic-Book Limbo and infrequent (and often non-speaking) guest spots. Many fans chalk this up to appearances on the popular Justice League Unlimited animated series, as well as Batman: The Brave and the Bold, or even earlier with a notable guest appearance in Animal Man. This is even mentioned in-story at one point, with the narration pointing out that Vixen was experiencing a second wind of sorts after years of obscurity.
- Flamebird (formerly Bat-Girl) of the Teen Titans was one of the common characters to find on fans' "most hated Titan" lists due to her ditziness, her gaudy costume, and her one-sided obsession with Nightwing. Geoff Johns and Ben Raab attempted to make her a somewhat more serious fighter when she refused to accept Nightwing's demand for her to quit, and gave her a heavily revamped look. But this wasn't convincing for enough fans, as the character wound up back in limbo and was often just trotted out for crowd scenes. After her history with the Titans was erased in the New 52 reboot, JH Williams' Batwoman series went back to portraying her as ditzy and clueless to the point where she was brutally stabbed and left in a coma for several issues. Since her healing, she's now taken on the name "Hawkfire" and sports a Darker and Edgier costume and attitude about crime-fighting. Time will tell if it sticks. (Spoiler alert: It didn't.)
- As of the New 52; it would appear Vibe of all people is getting this; getting a re-vamped backstory, a serious power-boost, membership in the new JLA and his own ongoing series. Not too bad for one of the long time contenders of "Worst Member of the Justice League EVER". Of course, being a main character in the TV series probably did him some favors...
- One of Will Eisner's few mistakes with The Spirit was Ebony White, a highly stereotyped black kid who drove the Spirit's cab. Darwyn Cooke's 2007 series turned Ebony into a more realistic and thought-out character (albeit still a thirteen-year-old who drives a cab, but this is a comic).
- Similarly, Blackhawk's Chop-Chop started out as a rather horrendous "Chinaman" comic-relief stereotype (even, arguably, by the standards of its time.) Subsequent eras gradually improved the character. By the '60s, Chop-Chop was recognizably human, and by the '80s, he was a competent equal member of the team in the Evanier/Spiegle run, and a worldly, sophisticated, and articulate character going by the name Weng Chan in Howard Chaykin's re-tooling of the series.
- The Flash:
- Jess Chambers is possibly the first example of a character being pre-emptively rescued. They were intended to be the new Flash in a Continuity Reboot termed "5G" that was the brainchild of divisive Editor in Chief Dan DiDio, and would have seen the fan-beloved and DiDio-hated Wally West being possessed by a demon and slaughtering the entire Flash Family to clear the way for Jess. If that had happened, Jess would been despised forever, regardless of their merits as a character. Then DiDio was fired and 5G was cancelled; the speedster genocide and Jess as the Flash did appear in the DC Future State event, but with Future State confirmed to not be the canon future of the DCU, and Jess kept safely away from the incredibly bleak Flash storyline, people were free to get to know and like them, and many fans are excited for them to make the jump to the main line of comics.
- Wallace "Ace" West II was introduced as a new take on fan-favourite Flash Wally West, once again a teenager being mentored by Barry Allen. However, Robert Venditti and Van Jansen wanted to "update" Wally, and as such changed Wally from a Flash fanboy from a broken home who saw superheroes as an escape and loved his time with Barry Allen and Iris West... to a delinquent who looked up to his criminal uncle and hated the Flash for arresting him for murder, and who doesn't care about Iris and hates Barry. The fact that this was accompanied by an Franchise/Arrowverse-synergy Race Lift into a black character meant it also carried loads of unfortunate implications, and his Age Lift also meant he was no longer in the same generation as his old friends. This new Wally was so disliked that DC Rebirth kicked off by bringing back the original Wally West, and retconned this one into his cousin. This brought down the hate somewhat, but Wallace was still not particularly liked since his characterisation flipped on a dime between a naïve kid defined by his daddy issues to a cocky jackass, and the name issue was a bit confusing. It took until DC Infinite Frontier for Wallace to be Rescued from the Scrappy Heap. He was paired up with his cousin Wally, started going by "Ace" to help differentiate them, and Jeremy Adams took him being defined by his daddy issues and refined it into Ace wanting to be acknowledged at all, which was done by having Wally act as a hands-off trolling mentor to force Ace to step up when Wally thrust responsibility on him. He became liked enough that he got a spinoff miniseries alongside Avery Ho.
