Times where the villain creates their own hero in Comic Books.
- The Avengers: Ultron is a prime example of A.I. Is a Crapshoot and Create Your Own Villain... so it's poetic justice that he's had this happen to him several times over. Over the years, he's created the Vision, Jocasta and Victor Mancha as part of various schemes, and they've all turned on him and joined the good guys.
- Batman: In Batman #47, way back in 1948, Batman finally finds and confronts Joe Chill, the man who killed Thomas and Martha Wayne, who is now a significant figure in Gotham organized crime. To drive the point home, Bruce takes off the cowl and promises that even if he can't prove the murders, he will never stop pursuing Chill until the latter makes a fatal mistake. Hysterical with fear, the murderer runs to his fellow criminals for help. And, in his panic, Chill tells them he personally created the Batman. Enraged, the thugs — all of whom have, in the past, been busted by the Caped Crusader — put enough lead into him to sink a battleship. Then they realize that they just shot the man who knows Bat's Secret Identity. Cue one of the biggest Oh, Crap! moments in the Dark Knight mythos.
- The first Robin, Dick Grayson, turned to crimefighting in order to track down the man who killed his parents.
- Boy Comics: A Nazi villain named Iron Jaw kills a war correspondent and his wife, prompting their son Chuck Chandler to become the Golden Age hero Crimebuster.
- Captain Atom: Wade Eiling led the experiment that transformed Nathaniel Adam into Captain Atom and also led the conspiracy that manipulated Nate into volunteering for the experiment.
- In The Cheetahmen, Dr. Morbis kills a mother cheetah and abducts her cubs with the intention of mutating them and turning them into his loyal subordinates to use them in his plans. When they start to question his motives, however, he angrily sends them away, which ultimately leads them to remember that he killed their mother, causing them to turn on him completely and dedicate themselves to protecting the world from his future plans.
- Huntress: Helena Bertinelli was the supposed daughter of mob boss Franco Bertinelli, the actual daughter of mob boss Santo Cassamento, and the niece of mob boss Tomasso Panessa, making her pretty much the ultimate Mafia Princess. Cassamento and mob boss Stephen Mandragora conspired to kill all the Bertinellis, leaving only Helena alive. She then went to live with her cousins, who were mob assassins; they taught her to fight and to kill. She eventually became a vigilante, murdered Mandragora and Cassamento, and became the scourge of the mob in general. Of course, this was really more a case of the mob creating its own antihero.
- Legends of the Dead Earth: In Superman: The Man of Steel Annual #5, the people of Hydros are wiped out by the Empire on the orders of Luthor the 60th. This inspires the planet's last survivor Kaleb to join the rebellion and fight the Empire as the new Superman.
- Les Légendaires: Played with when Darkhell actually gets wise about this trope, and, after slaughtering a village, framed a local army of heroes by leaving their banner behind. As a result, the only kid who survived ends up directing his hate toward said heroes, grows into a villain and becomes Darkhell's Dragon. However, he eventually does learn the truth, causing him to pull a Heel–Face Turn and join the protagonists.
- Moon Knight: When soldier of fortune Marc Spector defied his commander Raoul Bushman in order to protect archeologist Dr. Peter Alruane and his daughter Marlene, Bushman killed the elder Alruane and beat Spector to the point of death. Whether Spector actually died is unknown, but he would definitely face Bushman again as Moon Knight.
- Captain America: The Red Skull proved to be such a terrifyingly potent propaganda mascot for Nazi Germany that the US decided to counter it by making Steve Rogers Captain America.
- Diluted with the previous establishment of Union Jack and the Phantom Eagle during World War I; presumably these mascot adventurers served as previous examples.
- Spider-Man: Uncle Ben's killer is just as responsible for creating Spider-Man as the radioactive spider. While Peter was already Spider-Man by the time Uncle Ben was murdered, he was only interested in using his powers for personal gain, looking to achieve fame and fortune as an entertainer. It was only after realizing the criminal he let go was the same man who killed Uncle Ben that he decided to use his powers for something greater than himself, and started living by the creed of "great responsibility". In summation, Spider-Man probably wouldn't be the hero we know today if not for the cruelty of a petty crook. Not to mention the reason he lived with his Uncle Ben is because the Russian Red Skull Albert Malik ordered Karl Fiers/Finisher to eliminate Richard and Mary Parker who were assigned to infiltrate and spy on his organization.
- Superman storyline The Super-Duel in Space: Brainiac had not even heard of Superman until he attacked the latter's adoptive homeworld and shrank and stole his city Metropolis, earning himself an exceptionally dogged nemesis.
- Supreme: Due to a Stable Time Loop, the villain becomes the source of the hero's powers.
- The Transformers (IDW):
- In The Transformers: Autocracy, it's shown that while Orion Pax was always badass, he would never have become Optimus Prime or united half of Cybertron against the ascendant Megatron if Megs hadn't betrayed him and dropped him into a deep hole — Orion survived the impact, and the structure at the bottom of the hole happened to be the hiding place for the Matrix of Leadership.
- Even before that, Megatron and a friendly senator had a lot of influence on forming Pax's strong principles that make him The Paragon he is as Optimus. Transformers: More than Meets the Eye also reveals that in the tragic turn of fate that senator was Shockwave, before the Institute turned him into a monster. Meaning two people who helped Optimus Prime gain his famous moral code, without which he wouldn't be half a hero he is, were two of his deadliest enemies.
- Ultimate Marvel:
- The Ultimates: The Red Skull gave Petra a Sadistic Choice: kill her husband with a pair of scissors, or he would kill her newborn son. After she killed him, he killed the baby anyway, and had his thugs rape her. Years later, she was the one who killed him.
- Ultimate Spider-Man: At the very start of the series, Norman Osbourne is dealing with big and ugly experimental spiders, while wearing protective gloves. Then his lawyer calls and he starts discussing with him at the phone, and casually hands the spider to the employee next to him (who was not wearing any protection). Terrified, this guy throws the spider into her box. But he forgets to close it. The spider climbs and gets out, and the rest, as they say, is history.
- V for Vendetta: The is a part of V's origin, albeit indirectly and more caused by The Conspiracy as a whole than by the villain himself.
- Wanted: Invoked by Mr. Rictus, a Card-Carrying Villain who routinely murders a kid's parents in front of him to see if this will happen (in this world, the supervillains won decisively by banding together and rewriting reality so heroes forgot who they were). So far, nothing.
