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Nemesis
The main villain of the story.
- Asshole Victim: Not one person felt bad when Inspector Morrow shot him in the head, splattering his brains all over the sidewalk.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Invoked by Nemesis during his prison break. He elects to take on nearly a hundred riot cops by himself in front of the locked-up convicts just to show what he is capable of. After freeing them all, he becomes their leader.
- Ax-Crazy: If all the things he did because he was "rich and bored" dictate, he is a complete and utterly monstrous maniac.
- Big Bad: Nemesis creates conflict by killing innocents and police officers. When he sets his sights on Blake Morrow, the story begins and ends with the duo trying to outmaneuver each other.
- Charles Atlas Superpower: Officially he has no real superpowers and is just inhumanly proficient with every weapon and martial arts.
- The Chessmaster: The man is always planning in advance and when it appears he has been outsmarted, he has a backup plan.
- Composite Character: Of Batman and The Joker, having the resources, skills, and a similar costume to the former and being a completely insane and dangerous villain who sees his crimes as a game like the latter.
- Cop Killer: Nemesis' main recreational activity. His main target isn't politicians or landmarks, but well-known police commissioners.
- Decoy Backstory: For most of the story he's said to be Matthew Anderson, son of a disgraced billionaire that Blake Morrow busted. When Blake confronts him at the end, Nemesis reveals the real Matthew Anderson died squandering the inheritance. Nemesis has merely been acting the role, and nothing is revealed of his real origins aside from being "rich and bored". Retconned in Nemesis Reloaded, where he really is Matthew Anderson.
- Did You Actually Believe...?: Once his true motives are revealed, he asked Blake if he really thought a man would devote his entire life just to getting even with him?
- Faux Affably Evil: Averted. While most Practically Joker characters put up a polite façade, Nemesis does nothing to hide his spiteful nature.
- For the Evulz: Nemesis' motivation for everything he does. He kills, destroys, and torments people on a whim all for his sick pleasure. Nemesis tells Blake that he is the son of two complete psychos Blake busted and sent to their deaths and that he wants revenge, but it's all lies. The son in question died before the story even began (until the sequel reveals him as alive and possibly his successor). Nemesis is just some rich, bored, bloodthirsty asshole looking for kicks as a supervillain. The heroes exploit this when they manage to arrest him by tricking him into stealing a little girl's heart transplant (it's actually a pig's heart with a tracker) because they knew he couldn't resist doing something so cruel, though it turns out getting arrested was part of his plan.
- Gambit Roulette: When Batman mixes with The Joker this happens.
- The Heavy:
- Nemesis is directly tied to everything that goes wrong in the comic, but the ending reveals he's merely a buyer from a mastermind who allows wealthy clients to become supervillains.
- In Big Game, Nemesis is actively going around killing all of the world's heroes, but is ultimately the henchman of Wesley Gibson, who serves as the true villain of the story.
- Jerkass: In addition to being a murderous sociopath, he is always arrogant, condescending, and smug to everyone he speaks to.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: He finally gets his comeuppance in Big Game, where thanks to Hit-Girl time traveling to halt the Fraternity's plans he fails to kill off The Ambassadors and is instead brutally beaten, complete with a kick to the nuts.
- Kick the Dog: He could give the Joker some competition on how to screw with his enemies and victims in the most sadistic way possible.
- Light Is Not Good: He is a psychopath with a white costume. In addition, everything he owns or uses, (his vehicles, his headquarters) are white.
- Medical Rape and Impregnate: Nemesis artificially inseminates Blake's daughter using her own brother's sperm. Nemesis then made sure that, if they made her have an abortion, Blake's daughter would never be able to bear more children. She is later seen with triplets.
- Not Quite Dead: By the end of Big Game, he's still alive but critically injured and kept under custody. The Ambassadors speculate that he'll inevitably recover and seek revenge.
- One-Man Army: Shortly after breaking out of prison, he takes on 97 riot cops and kills them all with his bare hands.
- Practically Joker: See Composite Character-he answers the question of what the Joker would do with Batman's resources. Like the Joker, his true identity is a mystery, as he lies about his backstory, merely stating that he's "rich and bored", with the sequel implying that the man he impersonated has taken his place (if they really aren't the same person). Hell, the cover of the first issue of Nemesis Reloaded shows him painting a grin on his face with blood.
- Razor-Sharp Hand: As part of his Charles Atlas Superpower, he can cut and pierce through the bodies of 100 riot cops with his bare hands.
- Rule of Cool: How else is he able to stay on the outside of a plane mid-flight?
- The Spook: His supposed identity as Matthew Anderson is all made up - the real one died in an India whorehouse after squandering his fortune following his parents' deaths. All Nemesis ever tells about himself is that he is "rich and bored" and even that might be inaccurate given how much of a Troll he is to Blake. "Reloaded" however retcons this into his backstory being legit...assuming if Nemesis is the same one from the previous series.
- Villainous Breakdown: Nemesis gets flustered when the President is willing to die in order to stop him, and is openly enraged after Blake beats the crap out of him.Nemesis: You lucky old bastard! If I hadn't been messed up by that bomb, I'd have—
- Villain Protagonist: Though Blake is the story's hero, Nemesis receives just as much focus.
- White Shirt of Death: His costume is entirely white, leaving blood highly visible on it whenever he's slaughtering people.
Blake Morrow
The main hero of the story.
- Awesomeness by Analysis: Blake's almost as prescient about what criminals will do as Nemesis is about what Law enforcement will do.
- Establishing Character Moment: Performs a daring rescue during a hostage situation where he slips inside a store and swiftly guns down the criminals.
- Expy: To Commissioner James Gordon. He resembles physically at the end of the comic when he retires and is wearing a pair of glasses as well as a mustache.
- Hero Antagonist: The newest police officer targeted by Nemesis.
- Humiliation Conga: Nemesis is driven to utterly break Morrow by killing thousands of innocents with him being unable to do anything about it, having his kid with his daughter being impregnated by her gay brother and having her uterus rigged to collapse if an abortion is attempted.
- It's Personal: Morrow is seemingly on the receiving end of this trope by Nemesis, as he had previously arrested Anderson's parents for kidnapping and murdering innocents. Turns out this is a lie and Nemesis is just a random rich guy who gets his kicks by playing as a supervillain. After what happens to Morrow as listed in his Humiliation Conga entry, it could be said he flipped the tables towards Nemesis too.
Stuart [CONTAINS UNMARKED SPOILERS]
Blake's fellow officer.
- Asshole Victim: Considering that Stewart willingly helped Nemesis with his atrocities and actively gloated about it, it's hard to feel sorry when Nemesis blows his brains out.
- Boom, Headshot!: Courtesy of Nemesis.
- Dirty Cop: Revealed in the final issue to have been The Mole to Nemesis.
- Greed: Ten million dollars is enough for Stuart to throw his lot with Nemesis and spy on his partner long before the story.
- The Mole: He has been working for Nemesis for the past eight years
- Scary Black Man: He's revealed to be a spy for Nemesis and was working against Blake for eight years.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Stuart get his brains blown out by Nemesis after having delivered Blake right where he wanted.
The President
President of the United States of America.
- Distressed Dude: He is kidnapped in the first issue by Nemesis. Also doubles as Badass in Distress.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Willingly surrenders his life for Peggy's.
- Our Presidents Are Different: When Blake is faced with a Sadistic Choice, the President or his wife, both of whom are rigged with explosives, the President enforced a third option. He gets in Nemesis' face and orders Blake to blow him up.
- Retired Badass: He is a Vietnam War veteran.
