There's a strong streak of good in you, Superman...
you'll come for me...
you'll come for me...
"I'm a respectable businessman — I don't make deals with criminal madmen... but the way I see it, after tonight — you owe me! Oh, and Joker — I always collect my debts."
— Lex Luthor, World's Finest (Vol 2) #2 "Worlds Collide"
DC Universe is a vast, expansive series encompassing many Magnificent Bastards.
- Examples in their animated adaptations can be found here.
- Examples in their video game adaptations can be found here.
- Examples within the Arrowverse can be found here.
- Examples from other Live-Action TV can be found here.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
The following have their own pages:
Other examples
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Pre-Crisis Only
Examples
- Action Comics (Issues #505 & 506): Orn-Zu is a Kryptonian scientist who predicted the planet's destruction and was mocked for his ideas. He invented an invincible robot with hypnotic powers, the Jorlan, to befriend Krypton's children, kindap them from their families, and spirit them to safety before Krypton's destruction. The plan failed, and a Secretly Dying Orn-Zu was sent to the Phantom Zone. Decades later, he learns that the Jorlan has reached Earth and, due to its programming, is trying to abduct Earth's children in a manner that will inadvertently kill them. Orn-Zu convinces Superman to release him to stop the Jorlan, but then reveals that the only way to do so is to frame Superman for killing him as his illness overcomes him. This causes the Jorlan to abandon its original mission to avenge its creator, with a dying Orn-Zu apologizing to a sympathetic Superman for potentially condeming him to being chased across the universe for the rest of his life to distract the Jorlan from its mission.
- Tomahawk: Lord Gerald Shilling is the archnemesis of Revolutionary war hero and frontiersman Tomahawk. A Master of Disguise and Consummate Professional, Shilling is the chief British spy who will kidnap his mark, and perfectly assume their identity so well that it is nigh impossible to tell there has been a replacement. Shilling proceeds to gather information before making his escape, always leaving behind a perforated shilling piece as a Calling Card. Shilling is also fully capable of daring escapes when his cover is blown, never hesitating to engage Tomahawk in a duel if the situation calls for it and always manages to escape even when captured.
Post-Crisis (May Also Include Pre-Crisis)
Examples
- Batgirl: Lady Shiva, mother of Cassandra Cain, is the best assassin and best martial artist in the world. Once she lost her beloved sister at the hands of David Cain, Shiva was forced to bear Cain's child, who she intended to use to one day surpass her. Shiva regularly guides other heroes and villains alike to become stronger, with a cult around her that worships her as a goddess. Shiva only uses them as pawns in her own schemes, and when she meets her daughter Cassandra she slowly guides her to become Shiva's own ultimate opponent, admitting that she had Cassandra to one day surpass and kill her. Shiva remains one of DC's boldest and most complex villains, always charismatic and dangerous no matter where she appears.
- Black Orchid: Martin Relf is a dapper but ruthless magical assassin in the employ of the Lord of Death, a being from the Dreaming, to balance the scales of Karma by executing unpunished sinners. Once a normal man, he made contact with the Lord in his sleep and was trained in combat and forgotten magic, including the ability to switch off one of his five senses at a time, in order to ply his trade. Meeting the Orchid as she searches for a magical grove of trees in England, Martin manipulates her into eliminating his next target, the cannibal witch Black Annis, for him. Later called upon to eliminate the Orchid herself after she decides to slaughter humanity, Martin breaks into her compound, slits the throat of her enemy-turned-brainwashed-servant Elliot Weems, and ultimately corners her with a truck full of liquid nitrogen. Calmly revealing that her pheromone powers can't do anything to him as he's been shutting off his sense of smell in all their interactions, Martin ends up the unlikely savior of humanity by freezing the Orchid solid and shattering her to pieces.
- The Books of Magic:
- Spinning Jemmy of the Laughing Brigade, after a brief introduction in The Sandman, is shown as a young Lord of Chaos with a hankering for delicious ice cream. Bound by her duty as a Chaos Lord to increase disorder in the universe and knowing that Tim Hunter loves ice cream too, Jemmy contrives a false-flag war between angels and demons over Tim that wrecks a good portion of London, giving Tim no choice but to intervene and stop it. Captured by an exasperated Tim, Jemmy is let go with her beloved ice cream in exchange for calling off the war, and she merrily drifts off on a giant bunch of balloons after honoring her word.
- Thomas Currie is a gentlemanly wizard who is the sole survivor of a pocket dimension destroyed by the Other, an evil alternate version of Tim, and trains the real Tim in advanced sorceries to combat his Evil Counterpart. When the Other arrives in the main universe earlier than Currie expected, Currie creates another copy of Tim for the Other to kill, hoping to later catch him off guard when the real one returns with enough power to defeat him. When Tim declines out of fear for the safety of his suicidal father Bill, Currie solves the dilemma by pushing Bill out a window himself and telling Tim he killed himself; Tim then agrees to the plan. Killed by the Other shortly after, Currie nevertheless successfully sowed the seeds of his downfall, and whether Currie intended it or not, Bill survives the fall as well.
- Doom Patrol: Mr. Nobody is perhaps one of the most surreal foes faced by an already bizarre team, but his absolute insanity belies a cunning mind. Mr. Nobody is dedicated to spreading his nihilistic outlook in order to end oppressive conformity, and proves especially adept at recruiting like-minded acolytes able to routinely defeat the Doom Patrol. Regularly indulging in Refuge in Audacity, Mr. Nobody's schemes range from having a painting eat Paris, then helping defeat the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse; using the bicycle of Albert Hofmann to create a wave of madness and kickstart a popular presidential campaign; and selling delicious "$#!+" to destroy and restart existence. Even his Darker and Edgier stint embracing capitalism as "Mr. Somebody" sees him retain his devious edge, as he effortlessly manipulates the heroes into bad publicity and nearly annihilates them—only to casually abandon the fight once he learns their comic is being canceled, before returning to his usual absurd self in the Rebirth continuity. Running the full gamut of villainy, from Anti-Villain to cruel corporate shark to Laughably Evil loon, Mr. Nobody is, at his core, a nigh-unstoppable meta menace and a defining staple of the Doom Patrol's signature weirdness.
- Etrigan: The titular demon Etrigan himself, reinvented as a ruthless and brilliant prince of Hell, is the son of Belial, father of lies. Learning his lessons well, even as bonded to human Jason Blood, Etrigan frequently outwits enemies with aplomb, even conniving his way into taking over Hell itself twice. Having defeated both the spirit of Gotham itself when summoned by his cousin Asteroth and a resurgence of Nazis by rallying the Haunted Tank and its regimen, Etrigan even connives a war between Heaven, Hell and Purgatory for the enjoyment of seeing demonic rivals fall, later stealing the trident of Lucifer for another attempt to take over hell and enjoy the resulting chaos.
- Green Lantern: Thaal Sinestro is Hal Jordan's personal nemesis, and both a former Green Lantern and planetary dictator. Convinced that the Green Lanterns have failed in their mission of bringing order and security to the universe, Sinestro formed his own Sinestro Corps, and led them into a war against the Green Lanterns, who were only able to defeat Sinestro by resorting to lethal force—the very result the renegade Lantern had been aiming for. Since then Sinestro has changed allegiances multiple times, always with the intention of bringing his vision of stability to the DCU, whether it wants it or not.
- Hellblazer: John Constantine himself is a selfish Con Man with equal flashes of conscience and kindness mixed with his more unpleasant aspects. John is a master manipulator, frequently playing gods, demons, angels and humans alike. In one occasion, John manages to outwit the First of the Fallen to save his friend's soul, drawing the horrific devil's ire. John later gets around this by committing suicide, but sold his soul to the First's brother devils, tricking them into healing him lest they be forced to war over his soul. John manages to plan his way into freeing the souls of all the children in hell on one occasion, and on another when he loses his memory completely fools a sorcerer and the First to escape a horrible fate. While he is a dangerous man to know, frequently catching friends and loved ones in his schemes-sometimes very fatally, John is frequently one of the most intelligent and brilliant men around who is able to completely cow a room of supernatural creatures with a reputation consisting of things he made up on the spot.
- Jonah Hex:
- Jonah Hex himself is a man who walks a solitary path with violence and death alongside his companions. Throughout the decades, Hex has proven a Bounty Hunter who rarely fails to get his mark and constantly traps those after him. In several such instances, Hex lures a man into helping him while planning to kill him, kills an opponent with a thrown sheriff star when he is out of bullets, helps a widow to find peace when she blames him for her misery by letting her sell him to bounty hunters thinking he will be hanged because it is revealed Hex hired them himself. Not above displays of compassion and humanity, Hex will occasionally refuse payment should his sense of justice demand it, and at his destined time to die, lets a two-bit impersonator perish in his stead. Fixing his face, Hex goes into the sunset with his rival and lover Tallulah Black to find peace at last.
- Victor Sono, the Star Man, was an immigrant boy whose beloved father was murdered for sport by crooked cops. As fate would have it, the bystander whose gun he stole for justice was Jonah Hex, who saved him. Growing into a capable killer, Victor hunts down and murders corrupt and evil lawmen. Managing to give Hex the slip, Victor promises Hex can walk him into jail should Hex save him from other hunters before asking Hex to take him to one town so Victor can murder the corrupt sheriff. Slipping his ropes, he has Hex locked in a cell while hanging the sheriff for murdering innocents and proceeds to arrange Hex's freedom and to pay him Victor's bounty money as to make them even.
- Molokai is a mormon leader who wishes to save his people by any means necessary. Persecuted by the vicious Mr. Dice, Molokai rescues Jonah Hex in the snow and appeals to his human sympathy to have Hex takes a message to Dice. Aware that Dice will force Hex to lead his bounty killers to Molokai's people, Molokai lies in wait with his men to slaughter the hunters, surprising even Hex himself. Revealing he helped perpetrate a massacre on innocent pioneers to aid his people, whereupon he adopted the innocent children, Molokai ends by squaring things with Hex by offering him a deed to Dice's property as soon as Dice is dead.
- Hex, by Michael Fleisher: Batman, here a man named Cohen, survived the nuclear apocalypse only to witness his parents gunned down by a mob. Developing a hatred of all firearms, Cohen utilized his knowledge of Bruce Wayne's tenure as Batman to take up the cowl himself, declaring a one-man war on every gun in New York. Though he targets anyone with a firearm without caring why they have it, Batman singlehandedly restores order to New York, monitoring the Combine and street thugs alike with ruthless efficiency. After being manipulated into attacking Jonah Hex, Batman soon pieces together who sent him and stops the Combine's Terminator invasion, managing to destroy two of them without weapons of his own at the potential cost of his own life.
- Lucifer:
- Lucifer Morningstar is the endlessly proud, brilliant and dangerous Devil. Seeking his freedom from creation, Lucifer deals with endless threats to his new Creation and his safety, constantly outplaying and destroying them. Even in places where he is powerless, such as the Japanese underworld Yomi, Lucifer sees through every trap against him and defeats his supposed hosts. When struck down by another trap, Lucifer returns to life by manipulating his niece Elaine Belloc into sacrificing her life for him and promptly outsmarts and destroys the angel Amenadiel who seeks to destroy him when he is still recovering before returning Elaine to life to repay his debt. Pursuing his freedom from all Creation, Lucifer constantly demonstrates why he is the king of manipulation, second only to God himself.
- Mazikeen is Lucifer's consort and one of the mightiest of the Lilim. Having murdered an angel for insulting her mother after luring him to a trap as a child, Mazikeen later pledged herself to Lucifer and follows him into exile on earth. Showing her abilities by luring one of the mighty Jin-en-Mok into a trap to kill him, Mazikeen routinely acts in her own and Lucifer's interests. Becoming the warleader of the Lilim by facing one of her brothers, Mazikeen allows him to cut her until he is close enough she might spit poison into his eyes and finish him off. Mazikeen repeatedly demonstrates a ruthless show of tactics, concealing her true abilities to catch her mad brother Scoria off guard before he can violate her, siding with Lucifer against her mother Lilith and the invasion of heaven. When she feels abandoned by Lucifer's departure, Mazikeen scars his face, declaring that his only options are to wear the scar and remember her always, or heal it and prove himself a coward.
- Izanami is the queen of Yomi-no-Kuni and Japanese goddess of death, who operates the House of Windowless Rooms, wherein sinful souls are tormented with endless nightmares. Purchasing Lucifer's wings from Remiel, she offers to parley with him on the condition that he come to her realm as a powerless mortal, and she is forced to return the wings after her sons violate Lucifer's right of hospitality. However, Izanami secretly switches four of Lucifer's feathers with dove's feathers, enabling her son Susano to perform a ritual that causes Lucifer's power to double back on him while in combat with another enemy, dealing the Morningstar his sole unambiguous defeat. At the end of the story, Izanami outlasts all the other antagonists, and upon learning of Lucifer's departure from reality, decides to reforge herself into the new Devil of Elaine Belloc's multiverse.
- Christopher Rudd was a sword teacher in human life and a just man who discovered his wife's adultery with his employer. In a moment of rage, Rudd killed the man's young son and was executed and damned. Selected as a plaything by the hedonistic demon noble Lady Lys, Rudd later realizes the injustice of hell and poisons Lys with human regret. Rudd is challenged by her brother Brosag to a duel, but wins when he uses the demons' own rules to have their father force Brosag to fight him sword to sword. Later betraying a conspiracy to Lys's father Arux to climb higher in the ranks of the house, Rudd betrays Arux himself in favor of Lucifer to win further favor and uses it to become a prophet in hell, preaching forgiveness. Ascending to rule Hell out of sheer worthiness, Rudd launches an assault on angels and Lilim alike before giving his life to hold the god Fenrir at bay. At the end, Rudd is judged innocent by King Solomon, granted the peace he has long earned.
- King Solomon is the great judge of earth and trusted by God to see and judge all sins. A ruthless man who goes and punishes the worst sinners, Solomon happens upon a mobster, corrupt cop and a former Neo-Nazi named Karl who maimed his best friend Jayesh out of fear he was attracted to him. Using this knowledge to force Karl in to murder the corrupt cop, Solomon intends for Karl to die while also arranging for a corrupt politician to be there at the same time, destroying four sinners in the bargain. Only foiled by the intervention of an angel, Solomon is taken to heaven to declare Christopher Rudd's soul redeemed before calmly asking to be returned to earth, deciding he has not yet earned paradise.
- New Gods: Kanto is Darkseid's personal assassin and one of his trusted inner circle. Born Iluthin, Kanto was subjected in training to a brutal gauntlet which he survived in an unprecedented feat. Fleeing Apokolips to Reinaissance Italy, his beloved was murdered by his predecessor Kanto-13. Iluthin challenged his enemy, poisoning him with a clever trick to disable him first before taking his name and place. The chief nemesis to Mr. Miracle, Kanto is ever able to challenge and trick the infamous escape artist while sharing a mutual respect. Kanto is frequently able to outwit and disable a multitude of heroes while still being so loyal to Darkseid that he refuses to ever take the throne himself even when Darkseid is indisposed.
- The New Guardians: Snowflame, in his original appearance, is a bombastic, hammy Colombian Drug Lord that gains superpowers from snorting Cocaine. Encountering the New Guardians, he warns them to leave his jungle before Ram attacks him. Easily defeating Ram while relishing the fight, Snowflame declares that he has other matters to attend to, revealing that he "never travels" the jungle alone and having his men ambush and apparently gun down the New Guardians. Snowflame orders his men to bury the heroes with their full affects because in "his jungle" he respects the dead. When the New Guardians ambush him at his compound Snowflame turns the tables by snorting a whole heap of cocaine and siccing his drugged out posse that worships him and cocaine as divine on them. An absurd concept played so straight it circles back to awe-inspiring, Snowflame is the most fondly remembered aspect of an otherwise forgotten book.
- The Sandman (1989): Lady Johanna Constantine, ancestor of John, grew up on the streets after her parents were hanged for treason. Bearing a child she nicknamed "Mouse" and raised as a boy and her "brother" to keep her safe, Johanna regains her family titles after tricking her way into possessing Pandora's Box, even if Mouse is lost in its recovery. Johanna later attempts to trap Dream of the Endless for her own purposes, spared when Dream requires a favor of her. Johanna is able to steal into Revolutionary-Era France, tricking Maximilien Robespierre and his entire Committee to recover the head of Dream's son, Orpheus, leaving a legacy of adventure and manipulation behind her as she goes.
- Starman: Richard Swift, The Shade, became immortal and an avatar of the Darklands in the 1800s. Becoming a genius thief and assassin to enrich and excite himself, Swift would also wipe out the Ludlow assassin family out, having many adventures before settling in Opal City. Acting as enemy and eventually friend to the new Starman Jack Knight, Swift fights to save Opal City, outwitting his opponents with signature flair before finally managing to defeat his nemesis Simon Culp as Culp seeks to utterly annihilate Opal City to spite Swift.
- Suicide Squad: Amanda Waller, also known as "The Wall", is a genius specialist who is ruthlessly dedicated to protecting her country by any means necessary. Forming the Suicide Squad, Waller sends them on mission after mission, making endless plans to eliminate their targets and to complete their missions, while not hesitating to sacrifice them. Known for a ruthless, intimidating nature, Waller is one of the few who can even intimidate Batman and when she finds herself being taken over by the Thinker cap, she shatters it as not to let anything else control her. Waller is even one of the few mortals capable of staring down Darkseid himself, and whenever she falls from power, she knows all she has to do is wait for when they give her authority again out of the inevitable need for someone like Waller to do the work nobody else will.
- Superman:
- The original incarnation of Alexander Joseph "Lex" Luthor himself has been frustrating Superman with his scientific acumen and brilliant intellect since the 1940s, and has run the gamut from Diabolical Mastermind to Mad Scientist to Corrupt Corporate Executive to President Evil and back, surviving every setback and always running the Man of Steel close. Firmly established as the leader of Earth's supervillain community, Luthor has led numerous incarnations of the Injustice Gang, Legion of Doom, and Secret Society of Supervillains, and has taken all-comers, emerging victorious over the likes of Brainiac, General Zod, Grodd and Vandal Savage to claim the title of Superman and one of DC Earth's most deadly villains, even briefly becoming a godlike being. Every bit as unstoppable as his archenemy, Luthor has proven time and again that his incredible mind is more than a match for Superman's physical might.
- General Dru-Zod II is one of Krypton's greatest criminals, and one of Superman's deadliest enemies. Confined to the Phantom Zone after his failed coup d'etat, Zod used his own son as a pawn in his plan to escape into the material realm during the events of Last Son, and forced Superman and Lex Luthor to ally in order to stop his takeover of Metropolis. Released again during New Krypton, Zod effortlessly incorporating the plans of others into his own, using civil unrest in Kandor, Sam Lane's various plots against the city, and Brainiac's invasion to reestablish himself as a populist military hero, and take control of Kandor from Alura Zor-El. Surviving Lane and Luthor's last-ditch effort to annihilate New Krypton, Zod and his surviving soldiers nearly conquer the world in the War of the Supermen, before the efforts of Superman, the JLA, and his own son saw him banished once more to the Phantom Zone. Always a brilliant strategist, and possessed of the raw strength to rival Superman, the Post-Crisis Zod can stand with Luthor as one of the Man of Steel's most capable and versatile foes.
Examples
- All-Star Western:
- Tallulah Black is Jonah Hex's partner and is just as skilled and intelligent as he is. Having learned how to shoot from him, the two have been working together ever since, whether it's catching bounties in the Wild West or hunting down her family's killer in Gotham. Always tracking down her prey with or without assistance, Tallulah not only singlehandedly takes on the Court of Owls' army and comes out alive due to her tactics, but also helps the gang solve murders before going her own way. Continuing as a bounty hunter on her own, Tallulah eventually reunites with Jonah, consistently serving as a key part of his plans even he attempts to keep her out of them. After secretly aiding Jonah in killing his imposter by holding the police station hostage, Tallulah then sails away with him, ready to start their lives from scratch after everything they've endured.
- "The Barbary Ghost": Yanmei Tsen, the titular Barbary Ghost, is a ruthless vigilante seeking revenge against Bo Long. After having seen most of her family murdered by Bo's forces, Yanmei decides to burn down his entire organization, starting by faking her death and going into hiding. After various attacks against his men that cultivate her reputation as a ghost, Yanmei manages to track down Bo's hideout, shooting his Dragon with dynamite before freeing Bo's slaves. After tracking him down, getting the information she needs from him, then killing him right then and there, Yanmei tracks down her missing mother to Gotham city, not letting anyone in her way stop her search for her.
- Batgirl: Charise Carnes is Batgirl's Arch-Enemy and a dark reflection of what she could become. Losing her family to her psychopathic boyfriend, Charise allowed herself to take the fall so that she could go to prison and gain insight into the criminal mind. After gaining the necessary data Charise arranged to be acquitted before enacting a brutal revenge on her family's killer. While using her vast wealth to revitalize the Cherry Hill District, Charise also took up the moniker of "Knightfall" and enacted brutal vigilante justice on the criminal underworld with the aid of her followers the Disgraced. Arrested after her first clash with Batgirl, Charise uses her connections to beat the charges before continuing her war with Batgirl. Attempting to use an army of mercenaries to wipe out every criminal in Gotham, Charise's plan was only thwarted when Batgirl put herself in debt to the spy Obscura and uploaded her information to the internet. Realizing what she had become, Charise gracefully accepts defeat and even reveals to Batgirl that she did not in fact kill her brother.
- I, Vampire: Mary the Queen of Blood was born Mary Seward before being turned by her lover Andrew Bennett. Happily embracing her vampiric urges, Mary spends years plotting and building her forces until she initiates a ruthlessly brilliant gambit that nearly sees the vampires take over the entire world in a single day, before manipulating and playing Andrew as well. When her plans are thwarted, Mary ends up depowered and returned to human form before getting her drive back to stop the corrupted Andrew before he destroys the world, even using her death to become a powerful supernatural being that ends up saving the world and achieving redemption in the afterlife. As Mary herself says "being a vampire gave me powers. Being me made me awesome."
- Superman: The Men of Tomorrow arc: Ulysses—born as Neil Quinn—is sent to the Great World by his parents to save him from a deadly experiment. Happily Adopted by the people of the Great World, Ulysses develops powers and helps to ensure their survival. To do this, Ulysses travels to many worlds and poses as a messianic hero to trick millions of people to travel to the Great World to be sacrificed to stabilize the planet. Eventually doing his routine on Earth, Ulysses works alongside Superman while also meeting his own biological parents and enjoying his time on Earth. Continuing his mission, Ulysses gathers millions and captures Superman, stopping the sacrifice because his parents were among the masses and deciding to evacuate his people to Earth instead. When the Great World explodes because of a tragic miscalculation, Ulysses attempts to murder Superman, pushing Clark to his limits. Defeated and incarcerated, Ulysses continues to love his parents and despite rejecting reconciliation with Superman, Ulysses is seen mourning him after he dies.
- Doomsday Clock: In the sequel to Watchmen, Adrian "Ozymandias" Veidt is as deadly as ever. When the exposure of his crimes brings the world to the edge of war, he immediately sets about trying to find Dr. Manhattan to persuade him to come home and fix everything. Manipulating the second Rorschach into aiding him by pretending to have cancer and playing up his guilt, he has Rorschach II rescue the criminal duo Mime and Marionette before traveling to the DC Universe. Overcoming numerous obstacles he successfully summons Dr. Manhattan to try and persuade him to return. When Dr. Manhattan refuses to come home Ozymandias brings the world to the edge of war and engineers the defeat of the entire superhero community at the hands of Dr. Manhattan, all to ensure that Superman will be able to meet Dr. Manhattan and persuade him to do the right thing. While he is ultimately jailed for his crimes, Ozymandias's plan does ultimately ensure the survival of two worlds.
- Superman: Red Son: Lex Luthor is a brilliant scientist at S.T.A.R labs seeking to defeat Superman, the "alien", to prove himself and humanity superior to all others. Having the satellite Sputnik plummet to Metropolis to trick Superman into saving the city, Luthor harvests his genetic material to create a clone he then unleashes for his plans, later assisting the Russian Batman against Superman from the shadows. Later becoming President and saving America from ruin and continuing to plot against Superman, Luthor eventually breaks the would-be benevolent dictator with the phrase "Why don't you just put the whole WORLD in a BOTTLE, Superman?" This triggers Superman into giving his life to stop Brainiac, allowing Luthor to craft a "Global United States" with an unparalleled era of peace and prosperity.
Other Continuities
Examples
- DCeased:
- Lex Luthor is the self-proclaimed "smartest man on Earth." Joining Superman and his fellow survivors, Lex quickly makes a plan to defeat the Anti-Living horde besieging the heroes' sanctuary by obliterating them via vicious bombing, despite the potential for a cure. When dissuaded from this course, Lex instead creates a plan involving multiple metahumans to lure in the Anti-Living, coordinating a massive battle that ends with him using a metahuman to trap countless Anti-Living in another dimension to save his fellow survivors, albeit entirely willing to sacrifice a few of his comrades in the process. Despite Lex's own ego, he concludes that mankind needs to evacuate Earth and quickly begins work. Though he dies, Lex's work is instrumental in saving the human race.
- The Unkillables: Slade "Deathstroke" Wilson is a callous Professional Killer with an incredibly cunning mind. After recovering from the Anti-Life infection, having contracted it during an assassination, Slade sets off and saves his daughter. Surviving everything the apocalypse throws at him, he allies with a group of other supervillains before joining Jason Todd's team in Gotham, personally convincing James Gordon to ally with him and to let him train the children into Child Soldiers to defend themselves. When forced to move to a new sanctuary, Slade uses a ploy to switch buses and take on the enemy horde. When cornered, Slade proceeds to give his daughter a hug, depart, and battle the Anti-Living to the death in order to buy time for his companions and the children.
- Dead Planet: John Constantine is initially an innocuous survivor of an Anti-Living massacre. Upon taking initiative, Constantine quickly joins the heroes in forming a cure and concocting a plan to help humanity survive the impending oblivion brought about by Trigon. Through clever planning and quick thinking, Constantine steals multiple magical artifacts including Xanadu's crystal ball and Ragman's cloak, which he uses to impale the generous Rama Kushna and ruthlessly imprison Deadman to steal his powers. Manipulating the surviving heroes to cover his tracks, he then talks the Phantom Stranger and Etrigan into helping him take the Helm of Fate, even using the staff of Shazam to get past its magical protections. When Trigon arrives, Constantine absorbs dozens of villains' souls and combines all the magic together to hold him at bay, before then using Deadman's powers to possess Trigon and perform a Psychic-Assisted Suicide on the demon, saving the human race from his attempted obliteration.
- DC vs. Vampires: Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern, is depicted here as a charismatic and darkly humorous servant to the new lord of vampires. Hal mixes a cool, suave demeanour with a level of pathos that allows him to utterly dominate his enemies. Sent by his master to clear away any obstacles, Hal eliminates various threats both from Justice League members and other supervillains through stealth and deception. Hal helps secretly sire various members of the Justice League into his new vampire warriors. Even though he meets his demise, Hal still helps usher in the work's darkest hour by helping his master to allow his fellow vampires to reign over the Earth.
- Hellblazer: Rise and Fall, by Tom Taylor: John Constantine is once again depicted as a charming, manipulative Unscrupulous Hero. John rises from humble origins to become a master manipulator who can even outplay Lucifer Morningstar and sets up various gambits to succeed in his goal. Over the series, Constantine tricks James, the father of the child host of the demon Despondeo into threatening the host to release Despondeo and then killing James to release Despondeo when he attempts to bodyjack James in turn. Having Lucifer Morningstar help him resolve his Parental Issues with a "talk", Constantine tricks Despondeo into possessing him and is able to torture him into submission with the pure joy of his soul. Using Despondeo to give him the codes to all of his rich clientele, Constantine transfers their money back to the residents of the UK to give hope once more to the region.
- Justice: Lex Luthor is the only supervillain who avoided Brainiac's mind control worms, by using a forcefield of his own creation. Deciding to work alongside Brainiac, Lex serves as the figurehead of their plan to have the villains perform humanitarian actions and use the popular goodwill to slander the Justice League and create utopian artificial cities to lure millions of humans. Managing to hack the Justice League's satellite, Lex uses the information to perform coordinated attacks that put many heroes out of commission, with some fatally injured. When the League discovers Brainiac's plan to destroy the Earth using the Worldwide Nuclear Stockpile and forcibly roboticize the people in the cities, Lex is seemingly defeated, but later reveals that he has created a AI copy that hacks Brainiac's systems to force Brainiac to escape, confessing that his goal was to become the hero that saved Earth.
- Nightwing: The New Order: Lex Luthor is depicted here as a charming and affable member of the resistance to the anti-Superhuman enforcers, the Crusaders. Lex has matured and become a genuine friend to Superman and has been supplying him with methods to combat the Crusaders. When he discovers that the blood of Jake Grayson can be used to return superpowers to the world, Lex helps to convince the boy to join their cause while fending off any resistance. Lex secretly plans to use Jake to not just cure a depowered Superman but also give powers to the entire world, despite the possible cost to the city. Lex genuinely believes that he can create a better world and intends to help hasten the evolution of mankind and create a better world for all.
Crossovers
- Superman vs. Predator, by David Michelinie & Alex Maleev: The Yautja of this setting, a cunning Predator only referred to as the "sky devil", staked out its territory in La Jungla de Las Sombras after crash-landing there. For years the sky devil has meticulously outwitted and killed every soldier who comes to investigate the island, and when its technology is misappropriated by a genocidal scientist and his mercenaries, the Predator begins killing them all. The sky devil is even good enough to take on a depowered Superman, and honorable enough to realize that Superman is not his foe in the end, taking out both the scientist and his Dragon before sacrificing himself to destroy their superweapon.
