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[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/250px-purple_man_821.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:250:Dance monkeys, dance]]
The Purple Man (Zebediah Killgrave) is a fictional character, a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Creator/StanLee and artist Joe Orlando, he first appeared in ''ComicBOok/{{Daredevil}}'' #4 (October 1964). His body produces pheromones which allow him to verbally control the actions of others. Initially a recurring enemy of Daredevil, he later emerged as the archenemy of ComicBook/JessicaJones.
Originally a spy, Zebediah Killgrave got into an accident with chemicals which... well... turned his skin purple. As a side effect though, the chemicals gave him the power of mind manipulation, able to have people believe him or follow his commands without much effort on his part. Now able to take whatever he wanted, Killgrave gave up being a spy, instead taking up a full life of crime.
A master manipulator with purple skin and the power to force others to do his bidding, Zebediah Killgrave is a professional criminal with a long list of nasty habits. He's clashed with Daredevil repeatedly and has always been frustrated by the fact that his commands do not effect the vigilante to the same degree that they do the general populace.
[[Characters/MCUKilgrave A version of the character]] appears in the Creator/{{Netflix}} series ''Series/JessicaJones2015'', set within the greater ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'' continuity. This version is portrayed by Creator/DavidTennant.
----
!!Purple Man provides examples of:
* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: Go on, just guess how he got his name.
* ArchEnemy: To ComicBook/JessicaJones and her husband, ComicBook/{{Luke Cage|HeroForHire}}.
* BackFromTheDead: He died in ''Emperor Doom''. They had a funeral in the pages of ''ComicBook/AlphaFlight'' and everything. Ten years later, he came back.
* CardCarryingVillain: [[http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/7/79709/2230176-zebediah_killgrave__earth_616_.jpg This should say it all.]]
* ColorCharacter: Purple.
* CompellingVoice[=/=]MindControl: His power. It was more his presence that bent people to his will, but he still had to order them around verbally. Which he did.
* CutLexLuthorACheck: Invoked. He retired for a while in TheSeventies, when he realized he didn't need to be a villain for the money when he could just make people give him what he wanted.
* DeaderThanDead: This seemed to be the case for a while, as he let himself die and then had his corpse hurled into the sun by [[ComicBook/CarolDanvers Captain Marvel]]. But then the "Purple Daughter" storyline revealed that his body (which eventually resuscitated itself) was whisked away by the Purple Children, who only made Danvers think that she had cremated Killgrave.
* DependingOnTheArtist: His coloration varies from a very pale thistle to a dark eggplant-like shade. It also varies whether his hair is purple or black.
* DrivenToSuicide: By the ''Series/{{Jessica Jones|2015}}'' series he's become so burnt out that he seeks Jessica out because as the only one who "understands" him he believes that she can help him find some kind of purpose in life or remove his abilities or assist him with relearning how to be good and normal. After repeatedly pestering her to aid him or at least tell him what to do, Killgrave apologizes for everything and then kills himself after Jessica just keeps telling him to "go."
--> '''Purple Man:''' I see your point. [[DeathSeeker I'm sure it's why I came here.]] I just needed... I don't know.
--> '''Jessica:''' You--you said--you said [[HealingFactor your powers]], [[ResurrectiveImmortality you couldn't be--]]
--> '''Purple Man:''' No. I said I think you couldn't do me in. I didn't say what I could do. I know what to do.
--> '''Jessica:''' N--
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: His ex-wife and their daughter Kara, known as [[Characters/AlphaFlight Persuasion]], though both hate him [[MindRape for]] [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe good]] [[DisappearedDad reason]]. While Killgrave would like to reconcile with them, he's made no real effort to and it's been made clear (via [[ComicBook/XMan Nate Grey]] reading his mind) that he prioritizes taking over the world and continuing to do things ForTheEvulz over them. And while he was initially fond of the Purple Children, that got thrown out the window when they turned on him, leading him to abandon his EvilIsOneBigHappyFamily plans for them in favor of just weaponizing or outright killing them.
* EvilIsPetty: Perhaps the grand champ of the Marvel Universe. He could do unbelievable things with his powers, but always uses them for petty reasons.
* ForTheEvulz: That didn't stop him from doing really, really nasty things to people just because he could.
* GlorifiedSpermDonor: Thanks to the fact that he frequently abuses his powers to turn women into {{Sex Slave}}s, he's actually got a fair number of kids knocking around, most of them with at least some of his powers. None of them are quite as monstrous as him.
* HealingFactor: {{Retcon}}ned to have one, Norman Osborn-style, when they decided to bring him back 10 years after his "death" in ''Emperor Doom''.
* TheHedonist: Since coming back from retirement, he is rarely seen without a mind-controlled woman (or a harem of them) on his arm.
* IJustWantToBeLoved: Deep, deep, ''deep'' down he's secretly obsessed with being loved unconditionally, and this longing for genuine affection occasionally surfaces, albeit in ways twisted by his sociopathy. He released a woman who he had taken as his wife from his control because the genuine fondness that he had developed for her led him to believe that she could reciprocate his feelings in spite of what he had done to her. Obviously, her immediate response to being freed was to take off as quickly as possible (Killgrave doing nothing to stop her). He eventually also started rounding up his children, wanting to form a family with them... and also have them help him TakeOverTheWorld.
* InTheBlood: His daughter [[Comicbook/AlphaFlight Kara/Persuasion]] inherited his powers but, fortunately, she went the opposite way in terms of morality.
* KickTheDog: He once stopped an entire restaurant from breathing so he could eat his eggs in peace.
* ManipulativeBastard
* MediumAwareness: A dark example of this in ''ComicBook/{{Alias}}'' where he is fully aware that he's in a comic book. He made Jessica Jones believe her life was a comic book, with an audience of loyal readers, and that every time he made her strip for him, she was taking her clothes off for them.
* MindRape: Lots of people, but what he did to his wife and Jessica Jones stands out.
* MoralityPet: Subverted. Learning he has a daughter seems to have made him worse, since he thinks she'll love him if he can conquer the world.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Zebediah ''Killgrave''?
* NormalFishInATinyPond: Any A-list or B-list hero with psionic abilities could crush him effortlessly (he's no threat to the likes of ComicBook/JeanGrey or ComicBook/{{Psylocke}}, and he'd be an amoeba next to [[ComicBook/ProfessorX Charles Xavier]]). However, he's a significant threat because he's pitted against "street level" heroes like Daredevil and Jessica Jones, being smart enough to avoid drawing the attention of the larger fish in the sea.
* NoSell: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, the Kingpin, and Dr. Doom have all proven able to resist his powers. Daredevil's non-conventional senses allow him to concentrate on resisting his commands, Jessica Jones received psionic shielding from Jean Grey, and the Kingpin was able to resist through sheer force of will (albeit with some obvious struggle). Dr. Doom however takes the cake, as he was able to easily ignore his power without any visible effort, all while he was connected to a device that amplified his ability to planet-influencing levels.
* NotSoHarmlessVillain: Writers have turned him from a camp, one note bad guy to a full-fledged ''monster''.
* OhCrap: In the first ''New Avengers'' arc, he intends to use his powers to make Luke Cage attack the other assembled heroes. He also makes obvious threats toward Jessica Jones and her and Cage's unborn child. Cage then informs the unaware villain that his food contained special drugs designed to negate his powers. He has a look of sheer terror before Cage moved in on him and proceeded to deliver a brutal NoHoldsBarredBeatdown, and from the looks of it, possibly might have killed him if ComicBook/CaptainAmerica did not interfere.
* ParentalFavoritism: It's highly implied from the statements made by one of Killgrave's sons that, out of all of the children that he has sired, Zebediah views Kara as the favorite despite the fact she is (morally) nothing like him.
* {{Pheromones}}: The Purple Man secretes pheromones that can be absorbed through the skin or inhaled. They allow him to control affected creatures with verbal commands. And for [[PowerPerversionPotential extra-special-squick]], he used it to father at least one daughter with a mind-controlled lady friend. That daughter, known as the Purple Girl, inherited the power, and used it to mind control ComicBook/{{Northstar}} in her first appearance (though unlike her father, she didn't take it past going swimming together).
* PsychicAssistedSuicide: Many times, most horrifically when he ordered thirty-odd innocent bystanders at a Denny's to stop breathing so he could enjoy his eggs in peace.
* RapeByProxy: Killgrave never actually raped Jessica Jones. What he ''did'' do was bring many women back to bed with him and rape them, while making her watch and using his powers to force her to feel upset that it wasn't her being raped.
* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: One of the reasons why he is regarded as such a vile villain.
* RedeemingReplacement: His daughter Kara, better known as [[Comicbook/AlphaFlight Persuasion]], is very much his DistaffCounterpart, having inherited his purple skin and powers. But she's nothing like him and uses her power to help people, not to have them cater to her every whim or to corrupt them into evildoing.
* ResignationsNotAccepted:
** When he tried to retire from villainy, {{Big Bad}}s like the Kingpin and Doctor Doom kept pulling him back in. Well, ''overt'' villainy anyway. He has ''never'' stopped committing crimes or being evil; he just stopped picking fights with superheroes or trying to TakeOverTheWorld. Temporarily. He still conned, brainwashed, robbed, and murdered his merry way through life.
** He was perfectly willing to let himself die after an aborted HeelFaceTurn, but the Purple Children stole his body at the behest of their older brother Benjamin, who let their father's healing factor revive him before imprisoning him, and experimenting on him in order to develop serums and gasses that granted him his own form of MindControl. Killgrave, [[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil more or less back to his old self]], is reduced to forming an extremely shaky EnemyMine with Jessica Jones to try and deal with the "Purple Son."
* RoguesGalleryTransplant: He's faced off against ComicBook/{{SHIELD}}, The Avengers, and other Marvel folks several times. And to say nothing for Jessica Jones and Luke Cage.
* SerialRapist: Why he is so reviled.
* SmellsSexy: The Purple Man smells like whatever he wants to smell like, so that you do whatever he wants you to do.
* TheSociopath: He uses his mind control pheromones to rape and kill women ForTheEvulz, he made an entire restaurant stop breathing [[EvilIsPetty because he wanted to eat in peace]], and tortured Jessica Jones by raping captured women in front of her and making her watch it all.
* TakeOverTheWorld: His motivation since coming out of retirement.
* TookALevelInBadass: The year-long Daredevil storyline where he manipulated the father of Daredevil's girlfriend (who was the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation) into letting him take over the company and bankrolling his anti-Daredevil efforts. The story ended with the father being DrivenToSuicide, the girlfriend breaking up with Daredevil, and the Horned One being whaled on by four of his toughest foes ''at the same time''.
* TurnOutLikeHisFather: One of several very good reasons why his ex-wife kept his daughter far away from him. And (for the most part) Persuasion averts this trope.
----
[[caption-width-right:250:Dance monkeys, dance]]
The Purple Man (Zebediah Killgrave) is a fictional character, a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Creator/StanLee and artist Joe Orlando, he first appeared in ''ComicBOok/{{Daredevil}}'' #4 (October 1964). His body produces pheromones which allow him to verbally control the actions of others. Initially a recurring enemy of Daredevil, he later emerged as the archenemy of ComicBook/JessicaJones.
Originally a spy, Zebediah Killgrave got into an accident with chemicals which... well... turned his skin purple. As a side effect though, the chemicals gave him the power of mind manipulation, able to have people believe him or follow his commands without much effort on his part. Now able to take whatever he wanted, Killgrave gave up being a spy, instead taking up a full life of crime.
A master manipulator with purple skin and the power to force others to do his bidding, Zebediah Killgrave is a professional criminal with a long list of nasty habits. He's clashed with Daredevil repeatedly and has always been frustrated by the fact that his commands do not effect the vigilante to the same degree that they do the general populace.
[[Characters/MCUKilgrave A version of the character]] appears in the Creator/{{Netflix}} series ''Series/JessicaJones2015'', set within the greater ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'' continuity. This version is portrayed by Creator/DavidTennant.
----
!!Purple Man provides examples of:
* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: Go on, just guess how he got his name.
* ArchEnemy: To ComicBook/JessicaJones and her husband, ComicBook/{{Luke Cage|HeroForHire}}.
* BackFromTheDead: He died in ''Emperor Doom''. They had a funeral in the pages of ''ComicBook/AlphaFlight'' and everything. Ten years later, he came back.
* CardCarryingVillain: [[http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/7/79709/2230176-zebediah_killgrave__earth_616_.jpg This should say it all.]]
* ColorCharacter: Purple.
* CompellingVoice[=/=]MindControl: His power. It was more his presence that bent people to his will, but he still had to order them around verbally. Which he did.
* CutLexLuthorACheck: Invoked. He retired for a while in TheSeventies, when he realized he didn't need to be a villain for the money when he could just make people give him what he wanted.
* DeaderThanDead: This seemed to be the case for a while, as he let himself die and then had his corpse hurled into the sun by [[ComicBook/CarolDanvers Captain Marvel]]. But then the "Purple Daughter" storyline revealed that his body (which eventually resuscitated itself) was whisked away by the Purple Children, who only made Danvers think that she had cremated Killgrave.
* DependingOnTheArtist: His coloration varies from a very pale thistle to a dark eggplant-like shade. It also varies whether his hair is purple or black.
* DrivenToSuicide: By the ''Series/{{Jessica Jones|2015}}'' series he's become so burnt out that he seeks Jessica out because as the only one who "understands" him he believes that she can help him find some kind of purpose in life or remove his abilities or assist him with relearning how to be good and normal. After repeatedly pestering her to aid him or at least tell him what to do, Killgrave apologizes for everything and then kills himself after Jessica just keeps telling him to "go."
--> '''Purple Man:''' I see your point. [[DeathSeeker I'm sure it's why I came here.]] I just needed... I don't know.
--> '''Jessica:''' You--you said--you said [[HealingFactor your powers]], [[ResurrectiveImmortality you couldn't be--]]
--> '''Purple Man:''' No. I said I think you couldn't do me in. I didn't say what I could do. I know what to do.
--> '''Jessica:''' N--
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: His ex-wife and their daughter Kara, known as [[Characters/AlphaFlight Persuasion]], though both hate him [[MindRape for]] [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe good]] [[DisappearedDad reason]]. While Killgrave would like to reconcile with them, he's made no real effort to and it's been made clear (via [[ComicBook/XMan Nate Grey]] reading his mind) that he prioritizes taking over the world and continuing to do things ForTheEvulz over them. And while he was initially fond of the Purple Children, that got thrown out the window when they turned on him, leading him to abandon his EvilIsOneBigHappyFamily plans for them in favor of just weaponizing or outright killing them.
* EvilIsPetty: Perhaps the grand champ of the Marvel Universe. He could do unbelievable things with his powers, but always uses them for petty reasons.
* ForTheEvulz: That didn't stop him from doing really, really nasty things to people just because he could.
* GlorifiedSpermDonor: Thanks to the fact that he frequently abuses his powers to turn women into {{Sex Slave}}s, he's actually got a fair number of kids knocking around, most of them with at least some of his powers. None of them are quite as monstrous as him.
* HealingFactor: {{Retcon}}ned to have one, Norman Osborn-style, when they decided to bring him back 10 years after his "death" in ''Emperor Doom''.
* TheHedonist: Since coming back from retirement, he is rarely seen without a mind-controlled woman (or a harem of them) on his arm.
* IJustWantToBeLoved: Deep, deep, ''deep'' down he's secretly obsessed with being loved unconditionally, and this longing for genuine affection occasionally surfaces, albeit in ways twisted by his sociopathy. He released a woman who he had taken as his wife from his control because the genuine fondness that he had developed for her led him to believe that she could reciprocate his feelings in spite of what he had done to her. Obviously, her immediate response to being freed was to take off as quickly as possible (Killgrave doing nothing to stop her). He eventually also started rounding up his children, wanting to form a family with them... and also have them help him TakeOverTheWorld.
* InTheBlood: His daughter [[Comicbook/AlphaFlight Kara/Persuasion]] inherited his powers but, fortunately, she went the opposite way in terms of morality.
* KickTheDog: He once stopped an entire restaurant from breathing so he could eat his eggs in peace.
* ManipulativeBastard
* MediumAwareness: A dark example of this in ''ComicBook/{{Alias}}'' where he is fully aware that he's in a comic book. He made Jessica Jones believe her life was a comic book, with an audience of loyal readers, and that every time he made her strip for him, she was taking her clothes off for them.
* MindRape: Lots of people, but what he did to his wife and Jessica Jones stands out.
* MoralityPet: Subverted. Learning he has a daughter seems to have made him worse, since he thinks she'll love him if he can conquer the world.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Zebediah ''Killgrave''?
* NormalFishInATinyPond: Any A-list or B-list hero with psionic abilities could crush him effortlessly (he's no threat to the likes of ComicBook/JeanGrey or ComicBook/{{Psylocke}}, and he'd be an amoeba next to [[ComicBook/ProfessorX Charles Xavier]]). However, he's a significant threat because he's pitted against "street level" heroes like Daredevil and Jessica Jones, being smart enough to avoid drawing the attention of the larger fish in the sea.
* NoSell: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, the Kingpin, and Dr. Doom have all proven able to resist his powers. Daredevil's non-conventional senses allow him to concentrate on resisting his commands, Jessica Jones received psionic shielding from Jean Grey, and the Kingpin was able to resist through sheer force of will (albeit with some obvious struggle). Dr. Doom however takes the cake, as he was able to easily ignore his power without any visible effort, all while he was connected to a device that amplified his ability to planet-influencing levels.
* NotSoHarmlessVillain: Writers have turned him from a camp, one note bad guy to a full-fledged ''monster''.
* OhCrap: In the first ''New Avengers'' arc, he intends to use his powers to make Luke Cage attack the other assembled heroes. He also makes obvious threats toward Jessica Jones and her and Cage's unborn child. Cage then informs the unaware villain that his food contained special drugs designed to negate his powers. He has a look of sheer terror before Cage moved in on him and proceeded to deliver a brutal NoHoldsBarredBeatdown, and from the looks of it, possibly might have killed him if ComicBook/CaptainAmerica did not interfere.
* ParentalFavoritism: It's highly implied from the statements made by one of Killgrave's sons that, out of all of the children that he has sired, Zebediah views Kara as the favorite despite the fact she is (morally) nothing like him.
* {{Pheromones}}: The Purple Man secretes pheromones that can be absorbed through the skin or inhaled. They allow him to control affected creatures with verbal commands. And for [[PowerPerversionPotential extra-special-squick]], he used it to father at least one daughter with a mind-controlled lady friend. That daughter, known as the Purple Girl, inherited the power, and used it to mind control ComicBook/{{Northstar}} in her first appearance (though unlike her father, she didn't take it past going swimming together).
* PsychicAssistedSuicide: Many times, most horrifically when he ordered thirty-odd innocent bystanders at a Denny's to stop breathing so he could enjoy his eggs in peace.
* RapeByProxy: Killgrave never actually raped Jessica Jones. What he ''did'' do was bring many women back to bed with him and rape them, while making her watch and using his powers to force her to feel upset that it wasn't her being raped.
* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: One of the reasons why he is regarded as such a vile villain.
* RedeemingReplacement: His daughter Kara, better known as [[Comicbook/AlphaFlight Persuasion]], is very much his DistaffCounterpart, having inherited his purple skin and powers. But she's nothing like him and uses her power to help people, not to have them cater to her every whim or to corrupt them into evildoing.
* ResignationsNotAccepted:
** When he tried to retire from villainy, {{Big Bad}}s like the Kingpin and Doctor Doom kept pulling him back in. Well, ''overt'' villainy anyway. He has ''never'' stopped committing crimes or being evil; he just stopped picking fights with superheroes or trying to TakeOverTheWorld. Temporarily. He still conned, brainwashed, robbed, and murdered his merry way through life.
** He was perfectly willing to let himself die after an aborted HeelFaceTurn, but the Purple Children stole his body at the behest of their older brother Benjamin, who let their father's healing factor revive him before imprisoning him, and experimenting on him in order to develop serums and gasses that granted him his own form of MindControl. Killgrave, [[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil more or less back to his old self]], is reduced to forming an extremely shaky EnemyMine with Jessica Jones to try and deal with the "Purple Son."
* RoguesGalleryTransplant: He's faced off against ComicBook/{{SHIELD}}, The Avengers, and other Marvel folks several times. And to say nothing for Jessica Jones and Luke Cage.
* SerialRapist: Why he is so reviled.
* SmellsSexy: The Purple Man smells like whatever he wants to smell like, so that you do whatever he wants you to do.
* TheSociopath: He uses his mind control pheromones to rape and kill women ForTheEvulz, he made an entire restaurant stop breathing [[EvilIsPetty because he wanted to eat in peace]], and tortured Jessica Jones by raping captured women in front of her and making her watch it all.
* TakeOverTheWorld: His motivation since coming out of retirement.
* TookALevelInBadass: The year-long Daredevil storyline where he manipulated the father of Daredevil's girlfriend (who was the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation) into letting him take over the company and bankrolling his anti-Daredevil efforts. The story ended with the father being DrivenToSuicide, the girlfriend breaking up with Daredevil, and the Horned One being whaled on by four of his toughest foes ''at the same time''.
* TurnOutLikeHisFather: One of several very good reasons why his ex-wife kept his daughter far away from him. And (for the most part) Persuasion averts this trope.
----
to:
[[caption-width-right:250:Dance monkeys, dance]]
The Purple Man (Zebediah Killgrave) is a fictional character, a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Creator/StanLee and artist Joe Orlando, he first appeared in ''ComicBOok/{{Daredevil}}'' #4 (October 1964). His body produces pheromones which allow him to verbally control the actions of others. Initially a recurring enemy of Daredevil, he later emerged as the archenemy of ComicBook/JessicaJones.
Originally a spy, Zebediah Killgrave got into an accident with chemicals which... well... turned his skin purple. As a side effect though, the chemicals gave him the power of mind manipulation, able to have people believe him or follow his commands without much effort on his part. Now able to take whatever he wanted, Killgrave gave up being a spy, instead taking up a full life of crime.
A master manipulator with purple skin and the power to force others to do his bidding, Zebediah Killgrave is a professional criminal with a long list of nasty habits. He's clashed with Daredevil repeatedly and has always been frustrated by the fact that his commands do not effect the vigilante to the same degree that they do the general populace.
[[Characters/MCUKilgrave A version of the character]] appears in the Creator/{{Netflix}} series ''Series/JessicaJones2015'', set within the greater ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'' continuity. This version is portrayed by Creator/DavidTennant.
----
!!Purple Man provides examples of:
* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: Go on, just guess how he got his name.
* ArchEnemy: To ComicBook/JessicaJones and her husband, ComicBook/{{Luke Cage|HeroForHire}}.
* BackFromTheDead: He died in ''Emperor Doom''. They had a funeral in the pages of ''ComicBook/AlphaFlight'' and everything. Ten years later, he came back.
* CardCarryingVillain: [[http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/7/79709/2230176-zebediah_killgrave__earth_616_.jpg This should say it all.]]
* ColorCharacter: Purple.
* CompellingVoice[=/=]MindControl: His power. It was more his presence that bent people to his will, but he still had to order them around verbally. Which he did.
* CutLexLuthorACheck: Invoked. He retired for a while in TheSeventies, when he realized he didn't need to be a villain for the money when he could just make people give him what he wanted.
* DeaderThanDead: This seemed to be the case for a while, as he let himself die and then had his corpse hurled into the sun by [[ComicBook/CarolDanvers Captain Marvel]]. But then the "Purple Daughter" storyline revealed that his body (which eventually resuscitated itself) was whisked away by the Purple Children, who only made Danvers think that she had cremated Killgrave.
* DependingOnTheArtist: His coloration varies from a very pale thistle to a dark eggplant-like shade. It also varies whether his hair is purple or black.
* DrivenToSuicide: By the ''Series/{{Jessica Jones|2015}}'' series he's become so burnt out that he seeks Jessica out because as the only one who "understands" him he believes that she can help him find some kind of purpose in life or remove his abilities or assist him with relearning how to be good and normal. After repeatedly pestering her to aid him or at least tell him what to do, Killgrave apologizes for everything and then kills himself after Jessica just keeps telling him to "go."
--> '''Purple Man:''' I see your point. [[DeathSeeker I'm sure it's why I came here.]] I just needed... I don't know.
--> '''Jessica:''' You--you said--you said [[HealingFactor your powers]], [[ResurrectiveImmortality you couldn't be--]]
--> '''Purple Man:''' No. I said I think you couldn't do me in. I didn't say what I could do. I know what to do.
--> '''Jessica:''' N--
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: His ex-wife and their daughter Kara, known as [[Characters/AlphaFlight Persuasion]], though both hate him [[MindRape for]] [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe good]] [[DisappearedDad reason]]. While Killgrave would like to reconcile with them, he's made no real effort to and it's been made clear (via [[ComicBook/XMan Nate Grey]] reading his mind) that he prioritizes taking over the world and continuing to do things ForTheEvulz over them. And while he was initially fond of the Purple Children, that got thrown out the window when they turned on him, leading him to abandon his EvilIsOneBigHappyFamily plans for them in favor of just weaponizing or outright killing them.
* EvilIsPetty: Perhaps the grand champ of the Marvel Universe. He could do unbelievable things with his powers, but always uses them for petty reasons.
* ForTheEvulz: That didn't stop him from doing really, really nasty things to people just because he could.
* GlorifiedSpermDonor: Thanks to the fact that he frequently abuses his powers to turn women into {{Sex Slave}}s, he's actually got a fair number of kids knocking around, most of them with at least some of his powers. None of them are quite as monstrous as him.
* HealingFactor: {{Retcon}}ned to have one, Norman Osborn-style, when they decided to bring him back 10 years after his "death" in ''Emperor Doom''.
* TheHedonist: Since coming back from retirement, he is rarely seen without a mind-controlled woman (or a harem of them) on his arm.
* IJustWantToBeLoved: Deep, deep, ''deep'' down he's secretly obsessed with being loved unconditionally, and this longing for genuine affection occasionally surfaces, albeit in ways twisted by his sociopathy. He released a woman who he had taken as his wife from his control because the genuine fondness that he had developed for her led him to believe that she could reciprocate his feelings in spite of what he had done to her. Obviously, her immediate response to being freed was to take off as quickly as possible (Killgrave doing nothing to stop her). He eventually also started rounding up his children, wanting to form a family with them... and also have them help him TakeOverTheWorld.
* InTheBlood: His daughter [[Comicbook/AlphaFlight Kara/Persuasion]] inherited his powers but, fortunately, she went the opposite way in terms of morality.
* KickTheDog: He once stopped an entire restaurant from breathing so he could eat his eggs in peace.
* ManipulativeBastard
* MediumAwareness: A dark example of this in ''ComicBook/{{Alias}}'' where he is fully aware that he's in a comic book. He made Jessica Jones believe her life was a comic book, with an audience of loyal readers, and that every time he made her strip for him, she was taking her clothes off for them.
* MindRape: Lots of people, but what he did to his wife and Jessica Jones stands out.
* MoralityPet: Subverted. Learning he has a daughter seems to have made him worse, since he thinks she'll love him if he can conquer the world.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Zebediah ''Killgrave''?
* NormalFishInATinyPond: Any A-list or B-list hero with psionic abilities could crush him effortlessly (he's no threat to the likes of ComicBook/JeanGrey or ComicBook/{{Psylocke}}, and he'd be an amoeba next to [[ComicBook/ProfessorX Charles Xavier]]). However, he's a significant threat because he's pitted against "street level" heroes like Daredevil and Jessica Jones, being smart enough to avoid drawing the attention of the larger fish in the sea.
* NoSell: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, the Kingpin, and Dr. Doom have all proven able to resist his powers. Daredevil's non-conventional senses allow him to concentrate on resisting his commands, Jessica Jones received psionic shielding from Jean Grey, and the Kingpin was able to resist through sheer force of will (albeit with some obvious struggle). Dr. Doom however takes the cake, as he was able to easily ignore his power without any visible effort, all while he was connected to a device that amplified his ability to planet-influencing levels.
* NotSoHarmlessVillain: Writers have turned him from a camp, one note bad guy to a full-fledged ''monster''.
* OhCrap: In the first ''New Avengers'' arc, he intends to use his powers to make Luke Cage attack the other assembled heroes. He also makes obvious threats toward Jessica Jones and her and Cage's unborn child. Cage then informs the unaware villain that his food contained special drugs designed to negate his powers. He has a look of sheer terror before Cage moved in on him and proceeded to deliver a brutal NoHoldsBarredBeatdown, and from the looks of it, possibly might have killed him if ComicBook/CaptainAmerica did not interfere.
* ParentalFavoritism: It's highly implied from the statements made by one of Killgrave's sons that, out of all of the children that he has sired, Zebediah views Kara as the favorite despite the fact she is (morally) nothing like him.
* {{Pheromones}}: The Purple Man secretes pheromones that can be absorbed through the skin or inhaled. They allow him to control affected creatures with verbal commands. And for [[PowerPerversionPotential extra-special-squick]], he used it to father at least one daughter with a mind-controlled lady friend. That daughter, known as the Purple Girl, inherited the power, and used it to mind control ComicBook/{{Northstar}} in her first appearance (though unlike her father, she didn't take it past going swimming together).
* PsychicAssistedSuicide: Many times, most horrifically when he ordered thirty-odd innocent bystanders at a Denny's to stop breathing so he could enjoy his eggs in peace.
* RapeByProxy: Killgrave never actually raped Jessica Jones. What he ''did'' do was bring many women back to bed with him and rape them, while making her watch and using his powers to force her to feel upset that it wasn't her being raped.
* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: One of the reasons why he is regarded as such a vile villain.
* RedeemingReplacement: His daughter Kara, better known as [[Comicbook/AlphaFlight Persuasion]], is very much his DistaffCounterpart, having inherited his purple skin and powers. But she's nothing like him and uses her power to help people, not to have them cater to her every whim or to corrupt them into evildoing.
* ResignationsNotAccepted:
** When he tried to retire from villainy, {{Big Bad}}s like the Kingpin and Doctor Doom kept pulling him back in. Well, ''overt'' villainy anyway. He has ''never'' stopped committing crimes or being evil; he just stopped picking fights with superheroes or trying to TakeOverTheWorld. Temporarily. He still conned, brainwashed, robbed, and murdered his merry way through life.
** He was perfectly willing to let himself die after an aborted HeelFaceTurn, but the Purple Children stole his body at the behest of their older brother Benjamin, who let their father's healing factor revive him before imprisoning him, and experimenting on him in order to develop serums and gasses that granted him his own form of MindControl. Killgrave, [[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil more or less back to his old self]], is reduced to forming an extremely shaky EnemyMine with Jessica Jones to try and deal with the "Purple Son."
* RoguesGalleryTransplant: He's faced off against ComicBook/{{SHIELD}}, The Avengers, and other Marvel folks several times. And to say nothing for Jessica Jones and Luke Cage.
* SerialRapist: Why he is so reviled.
* SmellsSexy: The Purple Man smells like whatever he wants to smell like, so that you do whatever he wants you to do.
* TheSociopath: He uses his mind control pheromones to rape and kill women ForTheEvulz, he made an entire restaurant stop breathing [[EvilIsPetty because he wanted to eat in peace]], and tortured Jessica Jones by raping captured women in front of her and making her watch it all.
* TakeOverTheWorld: His motivation since coming out of retirement.
* TookALevelInBadass: The year-long Daredevil storyline where he manipulated the father of Daredevil's girlfriend (who was the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation) into letting him take over the company and bankrolling his anti-Daredevil efforts. The story ended with the father being DrivenToSuicide, the girlfriend breaking up with Daredevil, and the Horned One being whaled on by four of his toughest foes ''at the same time''.
* TurnOutLikeHisFather: One of several very good reasons why his ex-wife kept his daughter far away from him. And (for the most part) Persuasion averts this trope.
----
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A version of the character appears in the Creator/{{Netflix}} series ''Series/JessicaJones2015'', set within the greater ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'' continuity. This version is portrayed by Creator/DavidTennant.
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[[Characters/MCUKilgrave A version of the character character]] appears in the Creator/{{Netflix}} series ''Series/JessicaJones2015'', set within the greater ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'' continuity. This version is portrayed by Creator/DavidTennant.
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The Purple Man (Zebediah Killgrave) is a fictional character, a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Creator/StanLee and artist Joe Orlando, he first appeared in ''ComicBOok/{{Daredevil}}'' #4 (October 1964). His body produces pheromones which allow him to verbally control the actions of others. Initially a recurring enemy of Daredevil, he later emerged as the archenemy of Jessica Jones.
to:
The Purple Man (Zebediah Killgrave) is a fictional character, a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Creator/StanLee and artist Joe Orlando, he first appeared in ''ComicBOok/{{Daredevil}}'' #4 (October 1964). His body produces pheromones which allow him to verbally control the actions of others. Initially a recurring enemy of Daredevil, he later emerged as the archenemy of Jessica Jones.
ComicBook/JessicaJones.
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A version of the character appears in the Creator/{{Netflix}} series ''Series/JessicaJones2015'', set within the greater ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'' continuity. This version is portrayed by Creator/DavidTennant.
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Added DiffLines:
[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/250px-purple_man_821.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:250:Dance monkeys, dance]]
The Purple Man (Zebediah Killgrave) is a fictional character, a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Creator/StanLee and artist Joe Orlando, he first appeared in ''ComicBOok/{{Daredevil}}'' #4 (October 1964). His body produces pheromones which allow him to verbally control the actions of others. Initially a recurring enemy of Daredevil, he later emerged as the archenemy of Jessica Jones.
Originally a spy, Zebediah Killgrave got into an accident with chemicals which... well... turned his skin purple. As a side effect though, the chemicals gave him the power of mind manipulation, able to have people believe him or follow his commands without much effort on his part. Now able to take whatever he wanted, Killgrave gave up being a spy, instead taking up a full life of crime.
A master manipulator with purple skin and the power to force others to do his bidding, Zebediah Killgrave is a professional criminal with a long list of nasty habits. He's clashed with Daredevil repeatedly and has always been frustrated by the fact that his commands do not effect the vigilante to the same degree that they do the general populace.
----
!!Purple Man provides examples of:
* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: Go on, just guess how he got his name.
* ArchEnemy: To ComicBook/JessicaJones and her husband, ComicBook/{{Luke Cage|HeroForHire}}.
* BackFromTheDead: He died in ''Emperor Doom''. They had a funeral in the pages of ''ComicBook/AlphaFlight'' and everything. Ten years later, he came back.
* CardCarryingVillain: [[http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/7/79709/2230176-zebediah_killgrave__earth_616_.jpg This should say it all.]]
* ColorCharacter: Purple.
* CompellingVoice[=/=]MindControl: His power. It was more his presence that bent people to his will, but he still had to order them around verbally. Which he did.
* CutLexLuthorACheck: Invoked. He retired for a while in TheSeventies, when he realized he didn't need to be a villain for the money when he could just make people give him what he wanted.
* DeaderThanDead: This seemed to be the case for a while, as he let himself die and then had his corpse hurled into the sun by [[ComicBook/CarolDanvers Captain Marvel]]. But then the "Purple Daughter" storyline revealed that his body (which eventually resuscitated itself) was whisked away by the Purple Children, who only made Danvers think that she had cremated Killgrave.
* DependingOnTheArtist: His coloration varies from a very pale thistle to a dark eggplant-like shade. It also varies whether his hair is purple or black.
* DrivenToSuicide: By the ''Series/{{Jessica Jones|2015}}'' series he's become so burnt out that he seeks Jessica out because as the only one who "understands" him he believes that she can help him find some kind of purpose in life or remove his abilities or assist him with relearning how to be good and normal. After repeatedly pestering her to aid him or at least tell him what to do, Killgrave apologizes for everything and then kills himself after Jessica just keeps telling him to "go."
--> '''Purple Man:''' I see your point. [[DeathSeeker I'm sure it's why I came here.]] I just needed... I don't know.
--> '''Jessica:''' You--you said--you said [[HealingFactor your powers]], [[ResurrectiveImmortality you couldn't be--]]
--> '''Purple Man:''' No. I said I think you couldn't do me in. I didn't say what I could do. I know what to do.
--> '''Jessica:''' N--
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: His ex-wife and their daughter Kara, known as [[Characters/AlphaFlight Persuasion]], though both hate him [[MindRape for]] [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe good]] [[DisappearedDad reason]]. While Killgrave would like to reconcile with them, he's made no real effort to and it's been made clear (via [[ComicBook/XMan Nate Grey]] reading his mind) that he prioritizes taking over the world and continuing to do things ForTheEvulz over them. And while he was initially fond of the Purple Children, that got thrown out the window when they turned on him, leading him to abandon his EvilIsOneBigHappyFamily plans for them in favor of just weaponizing or outright killing them.
* EvilIsPetty: Perhaps the grand champ of the Marvel Universe. He could do unbelievable things with his powers, but always uses them for petty reasons.
* ForTheEvulz: That didn't stop him from doing really, really nasty things to people just because he could.
* GlorifiedSpermDonor: Thanks to the fact that he frequently abuses his powers to turn women into {{Sex Slave}}s, he's actually got a fair number of kids knocking around, most of them with at least some of his powers. None of them are quite as monstrous as him.
* HealingFactor: {{Retcon}}ned to have one, Norman Osborn-style, when they decided to bring him back 10 years after his "death" in ''Emperor Doom''.
* TheHedonist: Since coming back from retirement, he is rarely seen without a mind-controlled woman (or a harem of them) on his arm.
* IJustWantToBeLoved: Deep, deep, ''deep'' down he's secretly obsessed with being loved unconditionally, and this longing for genuine affection occasionally surfaces, albeit in ways twisted by his sociopathy. He released a woman who he had taken as his wife from his control because the genuine fondness that he had developed for her led him to believe that she could reciprocate his feelings in spite of what he had done to her. Obviously, her immediate response to being freed was to take off as quickly as possible (Killgrave doing nothing to stop her). He eventually also started rounding up his children, wanting to form a family with them... and also have them help him TakeOverTheWorld.
* InTheBlood: His daughter [[Comicbook/AlphaFlight Kara/Persuasion]] inherited his powers but, fortunately, she went the opposite way in terms of morality.
* KickTheDog: He once stopped an entire restaurant from breathing so he could eat his eggs in peace.
* ManipulativeBastard
* MediumAwareness: A dark example of this in ''ComicBook/{{Alias}}'' where he is fully aware that he's in a comic book. He made Jessica Jones believe her life was a comic book, with an audience of loyal readers, and that every time he made her strip for him, she was taking her clothes off for them.
* MindRape: Lots of people, but what he did to his wife and Jessica Jones stands out.
* MoralityPet: Subverted. Learning he has a daughter seems to have made him worse, since he thinks she'll love him if he can conquer the world.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Zebediah ''Killgrave''?
* NormalFishInATinyPond: Any A-list or B-list hero with psionic abilities could crush him effortlessly (he's no threat to the likes of ComicBook/JeanGrey or ComicBook/{{Psylocke}}, and he'd be an amoeba next to [[ComicBook/ProfessorX Charles Xavier]]). However, he's a significant threat because he's pitted against "street level" heroes like Daredevil and Jessica Jones, being smart enough to avoid drawing the attention of the larger fish in the sea.
* NoSell: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, the Kingpin, and Dr. Doom have all proven able to resist his powers. Daredevil's non-conventional senses allow him to concentrate on resisting his commands, Jessica Jones received psionic shielding from Jean Grey, and the Kingpin was able to resist through sheer force of will (albeit with some obvious struggle). Dr. Doom however takes the cake, as he was able to easily ignore his power without any visible effort, all while he was connected to a device that amplified his ability to planet-influencing levels.
* NotSoHarmlessVillain: Writers have turned him from a camp, one note bad guy to a full-fledged ''monster''.
* OhCrap: In the first ''New Avengers'' arc, he intends to use his powers to make Luke Cage attack the other assembled heroes. He also makes obvious threats toward Jessica Jones and her and Cage's unborn child. Cage then informs the unaware villain that his food contained special drugs designed to negate his powers. He has a look of sheer terror before Cage moved in on him and proceeded to deliver a brutal NoHoldsBarredBeatdown, and from the looks of it, possibly might have killed him if ComicBook/CaptainAmerica did not interfere.
* ParentalFavoritism: It's highly implied from the statements made by one of Killgrave's sons that, out of all of the children that he has sired, Zebediah views Kara as the favorite despite the fact she is (morally) nothing like him.
* {{Pheromones}}: The Purple Man secretes pheromones that can be absorbed through the skin or inhaled. They allow him to control affected creatures with verbal commands. And for [[PowerPerversionPotential extra-special-squick]], he used it to father at least one daughter with a mind-controlled lady friend. That daughter, known as the Purple Girl, inherited the power, and used it to mind control ComicBook/{{Northstar}} in her first appearance (though unlike her father, she didn't take it past going swimming together).
* PsychicAssistedSuicide: Many times, most horrifically when he ordered thirty-odd innocent bystanders at a Denny's to stop breathing so he could enjoy his eggs in peace.
* RapeByProxy: Killgrave never actually raped Jessica Jones. What he ''did'' do was bring many women back to bed with him and rape them, while making her watch and using his powers to force her to feel upset that it wasn't her being raped.
* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: One of the reasons why he is regarded as such a vile villain.
* RedeemingReplacement: His daughter Kara, better known as [[Comicbook/AlphaFlight Persuasion]], is very much his DistaffCounterpart, having inherited his purple skin and powers. But she's nothing like him and uses her power to help people, not to have them cater to her every whim or to corrupt them into evildoing.
* ResignationsNotAccepted:
** When he tried to retire from villainy, {{Big Bad}}s like the Kingpin and Doctor Doom kept pulling him back in. Well, ''overt'' villainy anyway. He has ''never'' stopped committing crimes or being evil; he just stopped picking fights with superheroes or trying to TakeOverTheWorld. Temporarily. He still conned, brainwashed, robbed, and murdered his merry way through life.
** He was perfectly willing to let himself die after an aborted HeelFaceTurn, but the Purple Children stole his body at the behest of their older brother Benjamin, who let their father's healing factor revive him before imprisoning him, and experimenting on him in order to develop serums and gasses that granted him his own form of MindControl. Killgrave, [[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil more or less back to his old self]], is reduced to forming an extremely shaky EnemyMine with Jessica Jones to try and deal with the "Purple Son."
* RoguesGalleryTransplant: He's faced off against ComicBook/{{SHIELD}}, The Avengers, and other Marvel folks several times. And to say nothing for Jessica Jones and Luke Cage.
* SerialRapist: Why he is so reviled.
* SmellsSexy: The Purple Man smells like whatever he wants to smell like, so that you do whatever he wants you to do.
* TheSociopath: He uses his mind control pheromones to rape and kill women ForTheEvulz, he made an entire restaurant stop breathing [[EvilIsPetty because he wanted to eat in peace]], and tortured Jessica Jones by raping captured women in front of her and making her watch it all.
* TakeOverTheWorld: His motivation since coming out of retirement.
* TookALevelInBadass: The year-long Daredevil storyline where he manipulated the father of Daredevil's girlfriend (who was the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation) into letting him take over the company and bankrolling his anti-Daredevil efforts. The story ended with the father being DrivenToSuicide, the girlfriend breaking up with Daredevil, and the Horned One being whaled on by four of his toughest foes ''at the same time''.
* TurnOutLikeHisFather: One of several very good reasons why his ex-wife kept his daughter far away from him. And (for the most part) Persuasion averts this trope.
----
[[caption-width-right:250:Dance monkeys, dance]]
The Purple Man (Zebediah Killgrave) is a fictional character, a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Creator/StanLee and artist Joe Orlando, he first appeared in ''ComicBOok/{{Daredevil}}'' #4 (October 1964). His body produces pheromones which allow him to verbally control the actions of others. Initially a recurring enemy of Daredevil, he later emerged as the archenemy of Jessica Jones.
Originally a spy, Zebediah Killgrave got into an accident with chemicals which... well... turned his skin purple. As a side effect though, the chemicals gave him the power of mind manipulation, able to have people believe him or follow his commands without much effort on his part. Now able to take whatever he wanted, Killgrave gave up being a spy, instead taking up a full life of crime.
A master manipulator with purple skin and the power to force others to do his bidding, Zebediah Killgrave is a professional criminal with a long list of nasty habits. He's clashed with Daredevil repeatedly and has always been frustrated by the fact that his commands do not effect the vigilante to the same degree that they do the general populace.
----
!!Purple Man provides examples of:
* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: Go on, just guess how he got his name.
* ArchEnemy: To ComicBook/JessicaJones and her husband, ComicBook/{{Luke Cage|HeroForHire}}.
* BackFromTheDead: He died in ''Emperor Doom''. They had a funeral in the pages of ''ComicBook/AlphaFlight'' and everything. Ten years later, he came back.
* CardCarryingVillain: [[http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/7/79709/2230176-zebediah_killgrave__earth_616_.jpg This should say it all.]]
* ColorCharacter: Purple.
* CompellingVoice[=/=]MindControl: His power. It was more his presence that bent people to his will, but he still had to order them around verbally. Which he did.
* CutLexLuthorACheck: Invoked. He retired for a while in TheSeventies, when he realized he didn't need to be a villain for the money when he could just make people give him what he wanted.
* DeaderThanDead: This seemed to be the case for a while, as he let himself die and then had his corpse hurled into the sun by [[ComicBook/CarolDanvers Captain Marvel]]. But then the "Purple Daughter" storyline revealed that his body (which eventually resuscitated itself) was whisked away by the Purple Children, who only made Danvers think that she had cremated Killgrave.
* DependingOnTheArtist: His coloration varies from a very pale thistle to a dark eggplant-like shade. It also varies whether his hair is purple or black.
* DrivenToSuicide: By the ''Series/{{Jessica Jones|2015}}'' series he's become so burnt out that he seeks Jessica out because as the only one who "understands" him he believes that she can help him find some kind of purpose in life or remove his abilities or assist him with relearning how to be good and normal. After repeatedly pestering her to aid him or at least tell him what to do, Killgrave apologizes for everything and then kills himself after Jessica just keeps telling him to "go."
--> '''Purple Man:''' I see your point. [[DeathSeeker I'm sure it's why I came here.]] I just needed... I don't know.
--> '''Jessica:''' You--you said--you said [[HealingFactor your powers]], [[ResurrectiveImmortality you couldn't be--]]
--> '''Purple Man:''' No. I said I think you couldn't do me in. I didn't say what I could do. I know what to do.
--> '''Jessica:''' N--
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: His ex-wife and their daughter Kara, known as [[Characters/AlphaFlight Persuasion]], though both hate him [[MindRape for]] [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe good]] [[DisappearedDad reason]]. While Killgrave would like to reconcile with them, he's made no real effort to and it's been made clear (via [[ComicBook/XMan Nate Grey]] reading his mind) that he prioritizes taking over the world and continuing to do things ForTheEvulz over them. And while he was initially fond of the Purple Children, that got thrown out the window when they turned on him, leading him to abandon his EvilIsOneBigHappyFamily plans for them in favor of just weaponizing or outright killing them.
* EvilIsPetty: Perhaps the grand champ of the Marvel Universe. He could do unbelievable things with his powers, but always uses them for petty reasons.
* ForTheEvulz: That didn't stop him from doing really, really nasty things to people just because he could.
* GlorifiedSpermDonor: Thanks to the fact that he frequently abuses his powers to turn women into {{Sex Slave}}s, he's actually got a fair number of kids knocking around, most of them with at least some of his powers. None of them are quite as monstrous as him.
* HealingFactor: {{Retcon}}ned to have one, Norman Osborn-style, when they decided to bring him back 10 years after his "death" in ''Emperor Doom''.
* TheHedonist: Since coming back from retirement, he is rarely seen without a mind-controlled woman (or a harem of them) on his arm.
* IJustWantToBeLoved: Deep, deep, ''deep'' down he's secretly obsessed with being loved unconditionally, and this longing for genuine affection occasionally surfaces, albeit in ways twisted by his sociopathy. He released a woman who he had taken as his wife from his control because the genuine fondness that he had developed for her led him to believe that she could reciprocate his feelings in spite of what he had done to her. Obviously, her immediate response to being freed was to take off as quickly as possible (Killgrave doing nothing to stop her). He eventually also started rounding up his children, wanting to form a family with them... and also have them help him TakeOverTheWorld.
* InTheBlood: His daughter [[Comicbook/AlphaFlight Kara/Persuasion]] inherited his powers but, fortunately, she went the opposite way in terms of morality.
* KickTheDog: He once stopped an entire restaurant from breathing so he could eat his eggs in peace.
* ManipulativeBastard
* MediumAwareness: A dark example of this in ''ComicBook/{{Alias}}'' where he is fully aware that he's in a comic book. He made Jessica Jones believe her life was a comic book, with an audience of loyal readers, and that every time he made her strip for him, she was taking her clothes off for them.
* MindRape: Lots of people, but what he did to his wife and Jessica Jones stands out.
* MoralityPet: Subverted. Learning he has a daughter seems to have made him worse, since he thinks she'll love him if he can conquer the world.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Zebediah ''Killgrave''?
* NormalFishInATinyPond: Any A-list or B-list hero with psionic abilities could crush him effortlessly (he's no threat to the likes of ComicBook/JeanGrey or ComicBook/{{Psylocke}}, and he'd be an amoeba next to [[ComicBook/ProfessorX Charles Xavier]]). However, he's a significant threat because he's pitted against "street level" heroes like Daredevil and Jessica Jones, being smart enough to avoid drawing the attention of the larger fish in the sea.
* NoSell: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, the Kingpin, and Dr. Doom have all proven able to resist his powers. Daredevil's non-conventional senses allow him to concentrate on resisting his commands, Jessica Jones received psionic shielding from Jean Grey, and the Kingpin was able to resist through sheer force of will (albeit with some obvious struggle). Dr. Doom however takes the cake, as he was able to easily ignore his power without any visible effort, all while he was connected to a device that amplified his ability to planet-influencing levels.
* NotSoHarmlessVillain: Writers have turned him from a camp, one note bad guy to a full-fledged ''monster''.
* OhCrap: In the first ''New Avengers'' arc, he intends to use his powers to make Luke Cage attack the other assembled heroes. He also makes obvious threats toward Jessica Jones and her and Cage's unborn child. Cage then informs the unaware villain that his food contained special drugs designed to negate his powers. He has a look of sheer terror before Cage moved in on him and proceeded to deliver a brutal NoHoldsBarredBeatdown, and from the looks of it, possibly might have killed him if ComicBook/CaptainAmerica did not interfere.
* ParentalFavoritism: It's highly implied from the statements made by one of Killgrave's sons that, out of all of the children that he has sired, Zebediah views Kara as the favorite despite the fact she is (morally) nothing like him.
* {{Pheromones}}: The Purple Man secretes pheromones that can be absorbed through the skin or inhaled. They allow him to control affected creatures with verbal commands. And for [[PowerPerversionPotential extra-special-squick]], he used it to father at least one daughter with a mind-controlled lady friend. That daughter, known as the Purple Girl, inherited the power, and used it to mind control ComicBook/{{Northstar}} in her first appearance (though unlike her father, she didn't take it past going swimming together).
* PsychicAssistedSuicide: Many times, most horrifically when he ordered thirty-odd innocent bystanders at a Denny's to stop breathing so he could enjoy his eggs in peace.
* RapeByProxy: Killgrave never actually raped Jessica Jones. What he ''did'' do was bring many women back to bed with him and rape them, while making her watch and using his powers to force her to feel upset that it wasn't her being raped.
* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: One of the reasons why he is regarded as such a vile villain.
* RedeemingReplacement: His daughter Kara, better known as [[Comicbook/AlphaFlight Persuasion]], is very much his DistaffCounterpart, having inherited his purple skin and powers. But she's nothing like him and uses her power to help people, not to have them cater to her every whim or to corrupt them into evildoing.
* ResignationsNotAccepted:
** When he tried to retire from villainy, {{Big Bad}}s like the Kingpin and Doctor Doom kept pulling him back in. Well, ''overt'' villainy anyway. He has ''never'' stopped committing crimes or being evil; he just stopped picking fights with superheroes or trying to TakeOverTheWorld. Temporarily. He still conned, brainwashed, robbed, and murdered his merry way through life.
** He was perfectly willing to let himself die after an aborted HeelFaceTurn, but the Purple Children stole his body at the behest of their older brother Benjamin, who let their father's healing factor revive him before imprisoning him, and experimenting on him in order to develop serums and gasses that granted him his own form of MindControl. Killgrave, [[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil more or less back to his old self]], is reduced to forming an extremely shaky EnemyMine with Jessica Jones to try and deal with the "Purple Son."
* RoguesGalleryTransplant: He's faced off against ComicBook/{{SHIELD}}, The Avengers, and other Marvel folks several times. And to say nothing for Jessica Jones and Luke Cage.
* SerialRapist: Why he is so reviled.
* SmellsSexy: The Purple Man smells like whatever he wants to smell like, so that you do whatever he wants you to do.
* TheSociopath: He uses his mind control pheromones to rape and kill women ForTheEvulz, he made an entire restaurant stop breathing [[EvilIsPetty because he wanted to eat in peace]], and tortured Jessica Jones by raping captured women in front of her and making her watch it all.
* TakeOverTheWorld: His motivation since coming out of retirement.
* TookALevelInBadass: The year-long Daredevil storyline where he manipulated the father of Daredevil's girlfriend (who was the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation) into letting him take over the company and bankrolling his anti-Daredevil efforts. The story ended with the father being DrivenToSuicide, the girlfriend breaking up with Daredevil, and the Horned One being whaled on by four of his toughest foes ''at the same time''.
* TurnOutLikeHisFather: One of several very good reasons why his ex-wife kept his daughter far away from him. And (for the most part) Persuasion averts this trope.
----
