Follow TV Tropes

Following

Token Evil Teammate / Comic Books

Go To


  • Blackblood of ABC Warriors was a robot literally designed to be evil, and as such has turned on his teammates on several occasions. He's quite openly said that he'd like to kill Hammerstein, the leader.
  • Azula fills this role in the Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Search. She has lost none of her penchant for cruelty or manipulation, but has gone a bit insane as well. Deconstructed in that nobody views her as a friend or an equal member of the team, but more as a prisoner who needs to be constantly monitored and is only being brought along on sufferance.
  • The Avengers have Doctor Druid, an overly ambitious magic user who schemed his way into the leadership position in The '80s. And then underwent brainwashing by a female supervillain. While he has helped the team on several occassions since, he has no actual loyalty to his teammates. His personality and motivations have shifted several times over the years, but he is never kind. He is The Starscream and a Sociopathic Hero when wanting to act as the hero, and either a "murderous psychopath" or a tyrant when wanting to act as the villain. He has been called "the worst Avenger" both out-of-universe and in-universe.
  • Avengers A.I. features a Doombot as part of that particular team, who is kept in line by a miniature black hole in his chest.
  • Damian Wayne and Jason Todd tend to be this to the Bat-Family. On several occasions they have not only killed enemies, but they've also attacked and/or attempted to murder members of the Bat-Family, most notably (and frequently), Tim Drake. Damian has also served this role on the Teen Titans.
  • In The Boys, CIA Director Susan Rayner was this to the rest of the team. While the others were Well Intentioned Extremists, Rayner was a narcissist who just thought other people were props in her quest for power. Her Establishing Character Moment was Butcher seeing her being ecstatic at the United States killing civilians in the Middle East, and the two had constant hate sex despite her being married with children. In the epilogue series Dear Becky it's revealed that she was the one who mailed Hughie Butcher's diary to mess with his head after he had her Convicted by Public Opinion, and she goes on a Never My Fault tirade while expressing a desire to become a President Evil... only for Hughie to blackmail her with a recording of her ordering an airstrike on civilians, prompting another Villainous Breakdown.
  • Caballistics, Inc.: Two of them. Solomon Ravne is an immortal sorcerer who is also a former Nazi, while Jenny is possessed by a demon who initially keeps herself hidden from the others.
  • Doctor Doom becoming a member of the Future Foundation is the very epitome of this trope.
  • Due to events in Great Lakes Avengers and AXIS respectively, Deadpool and Hobgoblin are considered reserve members of The Avengers. While Deadpool has more or less redeemed himself some time ago, Hobgoblin has only become a good guy because he's realized that he could make even more money as a "hero for hire" and is thus still willing to resort to all his old villain tricks to get the job done.
  • Green Lantern once featured the New Guardians, a team comprised of one member from each of the Corps, and Arkillo of the Sinestro Corps was this trope for the team.
  • When the six Infinity Gems were split after The Infinity Gauntlet, they were split among five known members of Adam Warlock's Infinity Watch, with the Reality Gem given to an unknown sixth member, eventually revealed to be an extremely potent version of this trope: Thanos — not only an enemy of Adam Warlock, but the one who Adam had taken the Gauntlet from.
  • Magog served as this for the Justice Society of America, though he eventually got kicked off the team.
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Both Hyde and Nemo are Sociopathic Heroes, but it's the Invisible Man that really takes the cake.
  • L.E.G.I.O.N. had the Comedic Sociopath Lobo working as a core member of the team because he lost a bet to team leader Vril Dox... and Lobo never goes back on a promise.
  • Darkhell from Les Légendaires briefly filled this role when he agreed to become The Champion for the Guardian with his Good Twin Elysio during their crusade against Anathos; the only reason he agreed to do this was because he was given more power, brought back to life with a new body and had to kill his Arch-Enemies the Legendaries as the main mission due to them being candidates to become the hosts for Anathos' reincarnation. Ironically, he and Elysio both end up doing an Heroic Sacrifice to save the Legendaries.
  • In The Movement, Katharsis is this to the titular group. She is the most violent and is willing to kill or at least maim her enemies. The others have to keep her from going over the edge.
  • Justice League (2011): Lex Luthor is this to the rest of the League, having discovered Batman's secret identity and used the knowledge to blackmail his way on to the team. Captain Cold, who Luthor insisted on bringing along, serves as a downplayed example in comparison.
  • Justice Riders: Guy Gardner is an Only in It for the Money Pinkerton Detective who only helps the heroes because he is tracking wanted party member Wally West, and it would hurt his cherished reputation to stand by and let someone else kill his quarry.
  • Rat-Man (1989): In the final story arc, Janus Valker is brought back to life because by now he remembers that Rat-Man is his real son, thus he has a reason to stand with the heroes, and he not only knows very well the strengths and weaknesses of The Shadow, he's also the deadliest human in living memory, with an enormous body count in superheroes and other dangerous individuals who crossed him.
  • In Red Robin Tim manages to recruit Pru from the League of Assassins to his information network, though she abstains from using lethal force for Tim's sake. She's not perhaps not entirely detached from the League as she's willing to report on Tim to Ra's even after she's betrayed them, though she really messes up Ra's' plot to take out Bruce's family. It's possible her continued communication with Ra's was part of a plot of Tim's that was never played out for the reader due to Flashpoint ending that continuity.
  • Spider-Man: Norman Osborn becomes this for Spider-Man's team later on The Amazing Spider-Man (2018) while fighting the Sin-Eater. Norman even begrudgingly frees his nemesis from some rubble at one point. Though it doesn't last long mainly thanks to Osborn deciding to creep on Spider-Gwen and even making a breaking neck joke pushing Spidey's Berserk Button and prompting him to toss the Goblin out of the escape craft.
  • Teen Titans:
    • Raven is a downplayed example. She isn't normally evil but is always in danger of being possessed by her father Trigon. Even then, she was originally a bit less scrupulous than the rest of her teammates, as seen by when she used her powers to make Wally West fall for her.
    • Introduced during the Team Titans era, Mirage is a metahuman illusionist from a timeline where Donna Troy's son ruled the world as an evil despot. At first, Mirage just seems like an antagonistic trouble stirrer but she really shows how low she is when she uses her powers to impersonate Starfire and rape Nightwing.
    • Rose Wilson (Ravager) served this role during the 2000s run, being the Titan most comfortable with torturing and killing villains.
    • Damian served this role during the sixth volume where he crossed moral lines that most Titans tended to avoid, such as holding criminals against their will and erasing their memories. This all comes to a header when he kills Brother Blood and quits the team after Batman is informed of his actions.
  • Karla Soften AKA Moonstone was this after the Thunderbolts turned good, having turned on Zemo out of her own self-interest and never quite making the jump to being a good person.
  • The Monsterbot Repugnus is this to the rest of the Autobots in The Transformers, a violent, antisocial, bitter, insubordinate, foulmouthed loner who actively enjoys committing the sort of acts required of unpleasant, morally questionable missions. He's singularly worse than about half of the Decepticons and regularly gets kicked out of the Autobots for his meanness, but they keep taking him back because they need someone who's willing to get their hands incredibly dirty without question.
  • Transformers (2019): During the War of the Threefold-Spark, there were 4 Great Generals: Dia Atlas, Strika, Pyra Magna, and Ultra Magnus. Strika was definitely the most fanatical of the group (across the franchise, she's been the one most consistently characterized as a villain) and the only one to pull a Face–Heel Turn for the next major war. The others end up gravitating towards the Autobots whilst Strika helped found the Decepticons.
  • The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye has attracted more than a few characters like this.
    • First and foremost among the Lost Light is Whirl, the mentally unstable, ex-Wrecker with a Dark and Troubled Past. He's said to hate everybody, suffers from considerable self-loathing, and enjoys ticking people off. He's had a number of Pet the Dog moments though, and hasn't really crossed the Moral Event Horizon yet. He also has regular sessions with the ship psychiatrist.
    • Prowl ends up as this for the post-war Autobots. While some of his crimes were committed while he was being mind controlled by Bombshell, he'd switched from By-the-Book Cop to Well-Intentioned Extremist before then, and unlike Whirl has crossed the Moral Event Horizon on many occasions. After circumstances forced Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Mirage, and Sunstreaker to merge with him to form Optimus Maximus, Prime threw him in prison as soon as they'd separated.
    • During the War, Brainstorm would come up with absurdly over-the-top weapons just to troll the ethics committee, and has a certain lack of regard for Cybertronian life (when one of the Duobots is killed in an accident, he snarks that it'd be easier to tell them apart now). He's also technically a Decepticon double agent, in that he's trading Autobot secrets for the resources to build the time machine he hopes to use to prevent the War and save his unrequited love Quark. So he ends up being more like a Token Anti-Villain Teammate.
    • Later on, Ravage fulfills this role as well. He's still acting under orders from Soundwave and only joins the Lost Light for Megatron's sake, something he makes clear with his never-ending jabs at the rest of the crew. In issue #53 he even uses Ten as a distraction against the preposterously bloodthirsty Decepticon Justice Division.
    • For a non-Lost Light example, Nickel. She used to be the aforementioned DJD's medical officer but eventually got roped into the Scavengers, a collection of the most ineffectual 'cons around. Even after joining, she shows no remorse for aiding and abetting a group of Torture Technicians, much to the other Scavengers' ire.
  • Loki "Trust me! I'm the God of Lies!" Laufeysson in the Danish comic Valhalla, based on Norse Mythology. Mostly saved from being hateful by being comically inept.
  • The Comedian of Watchmen, who even went as far as to try to rape one of the other members of the team. Whether or not the other members are any better than the criminals they go after is debatable (excepting both Nite Owls, whose biggest flaw in both cases is being largely ineffective), but The Comedian is definitely the worst of them and seems to thrive on torturing and killing people. He even kills a pregnant woman (carrying his own child!) back in Vietnam. He's also more or less the exact opposite of Captain America (consider his stars-and-stripes patriotic outfit), inverted on the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism.
  • Ladytron in various incarnations of Wild CATS Wild Storm. An extremely powerful and volatile cyborg, she was mostly recruited onto the team because the alternative is not having her on your side. It took weeks of holographic simulations to break her down into a somewhat manageable, not-so-murderous state, but she's still only "good" in name and because her teammates force her to be.
  • The X-Men like this.
    • Sabretooth has been on the team at least twice, although one of those times was a situation where they didn't want to kill him, but didn't trust anyone else to deal with him — he was an involuntary teammate, and more or less their prisoner. Special mention to Sabretooth serving as this even on a team of Villain Protagonists in Weapon X (2002).
    • Magik from New Mutants spent her whole time on the team battling her demonic side, but that didn't stop her from being the first to suggest killing some bad guys. When the other kids would tell her they don't kill, she would compromise by sending the villain to Hell. For example, following the team's capture of the Enchantress:
    • An adult version of Magik from an alternate universe filled this role for a while in Exiles.
    • Feral from X-Force (1991) fit the bill perfectly. She was a Face–Heel Turn waiting to happen (and it eventually did).
    • Emma Frost is certainly this in the 2000s comics and onwards. While she does leave the Hellfire Club for the X-Men she remains as cruel and aloof as ever, antagonising and bullying her allies whenever she can. Even Kitty Pryde snaps and beats the shit out of her. Emma does mellow out eventually but is still far from the nicest or most ethical of the X-Men.
    • Juggernaut, Magneto, Mystique... at least Juggernaut and Magneto went to genuine Heel Face Turns.
    • Wolverine at first in Ultimate X Men, being as he was a former hitman.
    • X-Men (2019):
      • Apocalypse fully supports Krakoa but hasn't dropped any of his power-hungry and Social Darwinist behaviour, as seen in Excalibur (2019), in which he seems to be on Pyslocke, Rogue, Gambit and Jubilee's side but then reveals his true motives of wanting to harness mutant magic from Otherworld and uses Rogue's power to weaken the Gate between worlds, putting her in a coma. Apocalypse is punished dearly for it and his actions have massive consequences in X of Swords, although his behaviour is less villainous there.
      • Minister Sinister likewise is this for Quiet Council and Hellions. Though technically he is helping out mutantkind, he’s still a colossal asshole and greedy geneticist who hasn’t improved his dickery one iota. Tellingly there’s a lot of Teeth-Clenched Teamwork and constant babysitting to make sure he doesn’t slip back into evil habits, though he still does anyway.
  • In X-Statix, there is a bizarre inversion-subversion mix with Arnie Lundberg, the Mysterious Fan Boy, as a token good teammate in a team made up of people who don't care about morality at all. Arnie is an idealistic kid who believes being a hero is its own reward, and as such is easily the most moral member of the team ever. He's also easily the one who has inspired the most fear, having terrorized his hometown with his Reality Warper powers with a total lack of remorse. Eventually friend of the team Lacuna takes it upon herself to kill him before he can cause any more harm.
  • Young Avengers:
    • The 'Team Sociopath,' Tommy Shepard AKA Speed. He is the kinda-sorta brother of Wiccan, the team wizard.
    • There was also a downplayed variety with Kid Loki. Or rather, considering it was a personality copy of old Loki, one of the biggest bad guys in the Marvel Universe, in the body of his younger self, straight token evil teammate. To make things more complicated Loki definitely thought himself evil and was the source of around 80% of the team's problems (but only half of that was deliberate, he had issues)... but he also failed at evil miserably saving their asses more than once.
  • Youngblood (Image Comics) has Psi-Fire, easily the most amoral member of either team. In the first issue, he makes dictator Hassan Kussein's head explode and his teammates react with "Oh no, not again." Very soon into the Team Youngblood comic he makes an outright Face–Heel Turn.


Top