Making a Villain Protagonist

I'm working on a comic about the son of a mafia boss who makes it his goal to terrorize his university for fun and profit (well, his father wanted him to network and make connections to help hold up the rampant corruption that allows their criminal organization to function).

Niccolo is pretty much completely evil. But I dunno if he's likable, sympathetic, interesting, or in any way worth reading about. Though I guess part of it is execution also. x_x

Well, I don't think he's supposed to be too sympathetic. He's kind of running around being a bit of a Jerk Jock, except instead of being popular despite being a jerkass, he's infamous for mafia ties. So everyone avoids him, wants to take him down, joins him for fun and profit, or wants his blessing so they can run around screaming "I'm friends with the Mafia! DO WHAT I SAY!" (though people who overdo it irritate the pudding out of him because threats need to be used in moderation since he can't be expected to beat half to death anyone even mildly annoying)

Niccolo's character arc is mainly going from being a bit spoiled and whiny and depending on people's fear of his father to dealing with stuff himself.

I guess that's going from unpleasant and incompetent to unpleasant and competent?

Niccolo is driven by his father Cosimo. Cosimo never acts pleased with Niccolo, but it's more he knows Niccolo wants a "well done, son" really bad and refuses to say it too often. Cosimo usually feels compelled to knock Niccolo down a peg since he knows Niccolo is a bit bratty due to the fact Cosimo's infamy in town means most people do whatever Niccolo wants for fear of news getting to Cosimo that someone isn't properly respecting the Moretti Family. Cosimo is mean because he cares. In his view, the reason he is less critical of everyone else's kids is that he doesn't care if they crash and burn. Niccolo would probably be less evil if Cosimo would prod him in a different direction or say "I do these terrible things so you have the means to live whatever life you want," but Cosimo scrapped his plans to dismantle his criminal empire after becoming rich enough to quit because he doesn't feel safe without the ability to scare people and is a hundred times more greedy than he claims to be. It rubs off on Niccolo who has always admired his father.

The only 100% legit thing Niccolo does is competitive rowing. Cosimo doesn't care about school athletics so Niccolo feels that any failures in sports don't affect his perceived standing with his father (but it doesn't stop him from being utterly mad about winning competitions). Niccolo sometimes feels like he needs to do stuff to prove he has some competence outside of just rigging the system. But he's a coxswain, so he's not really doing a lot of the athletic work aside from making sure he is not too heavy. He might have only gotten into it because he absolutely loves yelling at people. The team usually gets their revenge on him by tossing him as far as possible into the lake where regattas are help after wins. Niccolo is mildly hydrophobic, or more, the lake they compete at has a history of cement-shoed people being thrown into it and all the duck poop isn't much help.

Niccolo's main sources of irritation in his desire to control people (or at least have no intervention on his activities), is anyone who can't be persuaded to go with it. I'm not sure if anyone in charge of the university specifically wants to take him down. Among the students, he dislikes a student named Sheridan who is too rich to be bribed and his posse is of jocks in a sport that results in giant meatwalls thicker than the rowing team (I haven't decided which) and too straight-edge to have dirty secrets to blackmail him over. Sheridan also can't stand everything Niccolo stands for and would probably have Niccolo beaten half to death if he had less scruples.

Though since Niccolo's university's students are 95% rich upper-class boys and 5% upper-class girls, he has a lot of instances of wishing he could kill more of them, but killing rich people is more trouble than killing random poor schmucks. But the fact a lot of them are so rich they've never worked a day in their lives, he ends up terrifying some of them with blackmail about something that could cause their parents to cut them off financially.

Niccolo gets in the habit of offering free bootlegged liquor to anyone who comes to his parties in hopes someone is going to do something particularly stupid so that they will owe him something for getting them out of a bind or he'll save evidence of them doing something too embarrassing to let anyone know or totally illegal for later. Niccolo generally doesn't shove his findings in people's faces immediately, so it takes a while for it to occur to people it's an elaborate trap. Niccolo probably quits holding large parties once he notices no one new is coming and too many people have stopped accepting invitations out of suspicion. Niccolo himself prefers quiet small parties where everyone knows everyone else.

Niccolo is fairly nice to his friends, but he generally doesn't become friends unless he thinks he can get something out of it (warm fuzzies of companionship don't count). Because the Moretti Crime Family makes a big deal out of loyalty, Niccolo is fairly loyal, but if he feels wronged, he will set bridges on fire and ruin people (the reason he practically has a filing cabinet of ways to ruin people). He usually becomes a significantly colder friend if he feels someone's friendship has more cons than pros. He is grudgy, but he is also grateful and tends to keep a mental note of how people treat him.

Niccolo is a socially manipulative control freak. He is decently intelligent, but sometimes his bad temper gets the best of him. He prefers not to fight. He can be a bit emotionally distant, but he sometimes gets close to people. The most obvious sign of trust between Niccolo and others is whether he'll get offended over being criticized, though even then he prefers to be criticized only in private.

The only person at school he is very nice to is his best friend Az, though he initially befriended Az for more selfish reasons, and in the back of his mind, he plans to out Az to his homophobic parents if Az ever turns against him. Though Az is definitely not a morality pet because Az supports and helps hold up Niccolo's control over people.

I guess overall he is supposed to be evil, but somewhat reasonable or at least logical. Does he seem that way?

Truth be told, that wall of text character profile bored me. I'm of the opinion that character profiles are best read after the story proper.

In direct response to your question: yes. But only because that's pretty much how you described him. It doesn't matter what we think of him now, to be honest; the actual writing itself has to be able to convey whatever it is you want conveyed.

tl;dr (and I'm sure you will see this a lot) "Execution is everything"