History CardCarryingVillain / ComicBooks

* ''ComicBook/{{Oxymoron}}'': Oxymoron announces his presence to the people of Swanstown through a live news broadcast by calling himself "a very bad man" and "a plain-dealing villain".

* In Rick Veitch's early-2000s run on ''ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}'', the titular hero confronts his archnemesis (and murderer of his son), Black Manta, and, after defeating him, uses his new magic powers to re-wire his brain and cure him of his autism; the painful and incompetent treatment he received as a child was part of why he'd become such an insane monster. He appears to turn himself around, but the apparent FreudianExcuse and HeelFaceTurn are subverted when, at a critical moment, Manta stabs Aquaman in the back and explains: "Y'see, deep down, in my most secret heart of hearts, I'm still a totally depraved sonuvabitch whose main goal in life is to watch you die. Slowly and painfully. Just like your kid."
* The [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks very first]] appearance of ComicBook/CaptainAmerica's archenemy, the ComicBook/RedSkull, had him exit stage left saying "I'll be back - with ''more murder!''" Subverted, however, in that as early as the Silver Age, he became increasingly more of an ideologically sincere [[NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist Nazi true believer]], as opposed to a merely power-hungry or randomly evil villain. His modern characterization fluctuates between card-carrying villainy and outright self-righteous KnightTemplar behavior, DependingOnTheWriter.
* [[ComicBook/{{Daredevil}} Bullseye's]] childhood ambition was "to be the bad guy". In contrast, [[AntiHero Deadpool's]] was to [[CloudCuckooLander make a suit out of meat and fight somebody in it.]]
* During ''ComicBook/DarkReign'', Creator/MarvelComics introduced Zodiac, a guy who killed every single member of an old supervillain team with the same name so he wouldn't be confused with them. Zodiac plots about the fall of Norman Osborn. Why? Because he finds [[VillainWithGoodPublicity Osborn's new position]] an insult to all who just wants to commit evil for its own sake, like himself.
* ComicBook/{{Darkseid}} openly admits to being an evil god and that he desires to crush all happiness and free will in the Universe.
* Set, apparent leader of [[TheSyndicate The Order]] in ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'' spinoff ''Guarding The Globe''. In an issue released the same week as the issue in which Contagion makes the speech in his entry, Set begins a meeting of The Order with this:
-->I've heard it said, everyone is the hero of their own story. The thought is that even the most vile villain believes his actions to be right and thinks of himself as "good". I am here to tell you, right now, that I am evil. I am greedy, selfish, I do not care for the plight of others.
* ComicBook/TheJoker once identified himself to Black Canary as "genuine, card-carrying, lock-me-up-throw-away-the-key lunatic!" It sparked a letter column debate (remember those?) about whether or not insane people could recognize themselves as being insane.
** The Joker has been shown several times to be fully aware of being crazy. The plot of Alan Moore's classic ''Comicbook/TheKillingJoke'' hangs on that very fact.
** Joker is often seen carrying Joker playing cards, very much playing this trope literally.
* ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' enemy the Legion of Super-Villains.
* Justified with ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} enemy Satan Girl (self-named, mind you). Being Kara Zor-El's evil duplicate, she's basically dark desires and impulses made flesh with no conscience to hold them back, so she delights in evil for the sake of evil.
* ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'':
** In ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'':
*** Pa Angel is openly trying to raise his sons to be the "meanest, orneriest, baddiest bunch a' men that ever lived." The boys are only too happy to learn from him.
*** Chief Judge Cal, an examplar TyrantTakesTheHelm [[TheCaligula Caligula]], proudly calls himself "a tyrant's tyrant".
*** Subverted by the Dark Judges. Their name and appearance might be a dead give-away, but they are even more of a KnightTemplar than Judge Dredd.
** ''ComicBook/{{Zombo}}'': Shadow President [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Jason van Satan]], who makes no light of the fact that he's the most evil man on Earth.
* ''ComicBook/JurassicStrikeForceFive'' has [[BigBad Master Zalex]], a large, threatening villain who wears all black, has red eyes, and spends all of his time trying to cause as much destruction as possible in his conquest to rule the universe.
* The ''Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica'' villain Prometheus. As a ShadowArchetype of Franchise/{{Batman}} (his parents were criminals killed by the police), his stated goal is to "annihilate the forces of justice."
* PlayedForLaughs in one ComicBook/New52 ''Comicbook/JusticeLeague'' [[https://comicnewbies.com/2015/01/09/the-justice-league-arrests-the-secret-society/ issue]]:
-->'''Captain Marvel:''' One of you actually carved "Secret Society of Super-Villains" into your table?\\

* Dirk Anger, Director of H.A.T.E in ''Comicbook/{{Nextwave}}''.
--> I'm older'n you. I'm ninety years old. You want to know how I look so pretty? I take drugs. Special H.A.T.E. drugs. Life-extending drugs. H.A.T.E. has the best drugs because H.A.T.E. loves me. And I love H.A.T.E. Every day of my horrible drug-extended terrorist-fighting life. Every day I smoke two hundred cigarettes and one hundred cigars and drink a bottle of whiskey and three bottles of wine with dinner. And dinner is meat. '''Raw''' meat. The cook serves me an entire animal and I fight it bare-handed and tear off what I want and eat it and have the rest buried. In New Jersey! For H.A.T.E.!

* In UsagiYojimbo, Noriko calls herself "the Blood Princess."

--> '''Ava:''' [[YoureInsane Insane?]] Ha! That's so easy, so convenient -- and so wrong. Crazy people push shopping carts down the streets and talk nonsense. Crazy people sit in padded cells and soil their pants. A madwoman couldn't have pulled this off. No. There's a word for what I am, but nobody uses it anymore. Nobody wants to see the simple truth. If they did, they'd kill people like me as soon as we revealed ourselves. But they don't. They close their eyes and blather about psychology and say that nobody is truly evil. That's why I've won. That's why I always win.

* Contagion, the villain of the first arc of ''ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}: The Best There Is''.
-->I am not the hero in my own story. I am the bad guy. I have no [[WellIntentionedExtremist end in mind that justifies my means]]. There are no skeletons in my closet, no [[FreudianExcuse abusive childhood]] or inciting misery that might expiate my vile behavior. Nor am I insane. I know the difference between good and evil. And I am fully capable of empathizing with the pain, emotional or physical, of others. No [[LackOfEmpathy sociopath]], I. Rather, I simply prefer bad over good. Wrong over right. Dirty over clean. Sick over healthy. Untrue over true.
* In ''ComicBook/XMen'', ComicBook/{{Sabretooth}} thinks himself a violent, animalistic savage who lives only to hunt and kill, and is ''very'' proud of this fact. He does [[AxCrazy a very good]] [[PsychoForHire job at living]] [[ImAHumanitarian up to this]].
* Most supervillain teams have names which identify them as evil; [[Comicbook/TheAvengers The Masters of Evil]], the [[Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica Injustice League]], the Secret Society of Super-Villains, etc. Occasionally, as with the [[Comicbook/XMen Brotherhood of Evil Mutants]], it's explained later that the characters [[WhatIsEvil don't see themselves as evil]], but are aware others do and feel they can use this to their advantage.
** The ''Film/XMenFilmSeries'' avoids this by having Magneto simply call his group "The Brotherhood of Mutants".
** Similarly, recent issues of ComicBook/SavageDragon have subverted this a bit with the new Overlord referring to his team (the Vicious Circle) simply as The Circle. Since there are a number of similarities between Magneto's Brotherhood and Overlord's Circle, it's arguable that one is in response to the other.
** In the comics, one version of the Brotherhood working for the US Government and led by Mystique takes a smart idea and calls itself by the innocuous moniker "Freedom Force".
** In TheNineties, when X-Men writer Creator/StanLee was asked why Magneto called his group "Evil Mutants", had this to respond:
-->He didn't - I did! It was just one of the many typically boneheaded decisions I've been known to make! If I had to do it all over again, I'd probably call them "The Brotherhood of Exceedingly Nice and Well-Mannered Mutants".
* [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/515feeeb927be83e64cd1e4375f8ecfb.jpg Purple Man]], arch-enemy of Comicbook/{{Daredevil}} and Comicbook/JessicaJones.
* In ''{{ComicBook/Violine}}'', Muller boasts about how much of a bad guy he is, even claiming this is what [[spoiler: makes him survive his apparent death]]. The corrupt board executives of the company exploiting Africans in Zongo also know they do bad things, but don't care and delight in it.
* [[ComicBook/{{Magneto}} Magneto's]] early characterization made him a prime example of this. Most (in)famously in his guest appearance in the [[WesternAnimation/TheFantasticFour1978 1978]] Fantastic Four animated series, but really, that is only slightly more over-the-top than he was in the comics. When the [[TheIgor Toad]] or the [[TheHeart Scarlet Witch]] would profess their loyalty to him, he would usually sneer something to the effect that he did not want followers motivated by fickle love and devotion, but rather fear and blind obedience. He unironically called his team the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants as well. This is a major source of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness; there's ''no'' trace of the WellIntentionedExtremist who sees himself as a protector of mutants who regrets the necessity of fighting his poor misguided old friend [[FirstNameBasis Charles]] (and needless to say, the sight of Mags working ''with'' the X-Men would make a sixties fan think this must be a MirrorUniverse storyline.) Later stories either just call them "The Brotherhood" or "The Brotherhood of Mutants," or keep the name but make it a ThenLetMeBeEvil thing; "no matter what we try, you've decided all mutants are evil for being different? So be it, we'll ''give'' you evil mutants!" But in TheSixties, they were straight-up capital-E Evil and proud of it.
-->'''Magneto:''' Loyalty! '''Bah!''' I rule by '''fear''' alone!
** The same goes for the Alliance of Evil, though they're from the 80s. The Silver Age well over, there were still bad guys who weren't shy about letting the world know they were bad guys. They worked for Apocalypse, ''himself'' someone who fit on this list at the time (day-one Apocalypse was basically day-one Magneto with BoldInflation, filling the "mutant supremacist card-carrying BigBad" void Magsy left once [[CharacterizationMarchesOn characterization marched on]].) He ''definitely'' didn't call himself ''helping'' the world (modern Apocalypse considers removing the weak and forcing the strong to adapt and get stronger to be beneficial.) Why does ''he'' keep an evil-for-evil's-sake sounding name? If he deemed you worthy of giving an answer to, he'd remind you that the word originally meant "revelation."
* Subverted by ComicBook/DoctorDoom. [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The name he uses]] and [[TinTyrant manner in which he dresses]] at first glance gives the impression that he's making no bones about the fact that he's a supervillain, but he's so egotistical that he actually thinks of himself as a fair and wise ruler. And DependingOnTheAuthor, he actually ''is'', at least when it comes to his [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes home country of Latveria]].
* PlayedForLaughs in G. Willow Wilson's run of ''ComicBook/MsMarvel'', where villainous henchman Doyle wears (in addition to his "1985 hair and a laser gun") a sleeveless shirt with "IMA BAD GUY" on it.

* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: Eviless has no tragic backstory or other sympathy garnering details, she just likes control, murder and corrupting people.

* ''ComicBook/{{Legion Of Super-Heroes}}'' enemy the Legion of Super-Villains.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': Eviless has no tragic backstory or other sympathy garnering details, she just likes control, murder and corrupting people.