Father Goddard is a cruel and intolerant man who blatantly favors certain students while treating others (especially Dyson) with abusive contempt and insults. However, he shows genuine concern when he (falsely) believes that Stanfield is planning to murder Dyson, and nothing he did was bad enough to have his life and probably his sanity destroyed after being driven to kill Stanfield under false premises.
Benjamin Stanfield decides to pull a series of spiteful pranks on Father Goddard, and he mercilessly bullies Dyson. On the other hand he ended up being murdered by Goddard as retribution for a crime that he didn't even commit.
Arthur Dyson, who became Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. He's a timid, physically disabled boy who's either ignored or bullied by his classmates. Desperate for acceptance and attention, he tries to befriend Stanfield who just bullies him further, and when he seeks acceptance from Goddard he's rejected with equal cruelty. Of course, he becomes much less sympathetic when we discover that he's murdered Blakey just for the sake of a ruse to frame Stanfield, and set up the now unhinged Father Goddard to murder Stanfield.
Moral Event Horizon: Dyson murdering Blakey in order to frame Stanfield. While Stanfield and Father Goddard's cruelty make Dyson's actions towards them understandable if not defensible, Blakey never harmed Dyson in any way (in fact, the two never even interacted).
Complete Monster: Even in this dark world of supervillains and criminals, a select few stand out:
Rubicon:
The Polymath, real name Arthur Blankenship, is a creatively psychopathic supervillain with a love for mass slaughter. After being locked up for going on a rampage through a city, the Polymath is given a deal to kill John Dusk in exchange for his freedom, but immediately breaks the deal after being released, proceeding instead to go on another killing spree. During this spree, the Polymath rips people in half, strings them up by their insides, uses buses and cars as swinging or throwing objects, and brutalizes before attempting to rape a heroine who shows up to stop him. Claiming well above 800 lives in this massacre, the Polymath later brutally murders a small family, before viciously butchering an entire apartment building, with more bisections, decapitations, and skinnings being just some of the kills he gets up to. When confronted by Dusk, the Polymath boasts about all the men, women, children, and pets he's killed, and, even when seemingly beaten, the Polymath decides to take the entire city of millions down with him. Serving as the prime example of villainy that Dusk has decided to show no mercy to any longer, the Polymath made his mark as the most depraved murderer in the comic.
The Mayor of New York City, annoyed by Enhancile John Dusk going rogue and disobeying orders, seeks to kill Dusk and suppress potential Enhancile individuality through the most ruthless means possible. The Mayor unleashes the monstrous Polymath onto New York, promising to serve up whatever populated city or country the supervillain wishes to slaughter his way through in exchange for Dusk's death. When the Polymath instead reneges on the deal and begins massacring New York civilians, the Mayor smugly shrugs the mass of deaths off, immediately blackmailing and assassinating his own allies to cover up his hand in Polymath's release. The Mayor plans to frame his loyal right-hand Gordon for everything, utterly remorseless about the thousands the Polymath killed thanks to the Mayor's own blind, arrogant desire for control.
Happy Kitty: Mr. Tanaka stands out as a particularly wicked crime lord. Running drug and human trafficking as common practice, keeping his own band of prostitutes who are forced to make money for him lest they be killed, Tanaka is introduced butchering a young couple for stealing drugs from him then ordering their little daughter be trained as a Sex Slave. When the girl showcases amazing abilities, Tanaka takes her under his wing, turning her into a homicidal assassin while using dozens of his own men as training targets for her, leading to their brutal deaths. Once fully training the girl, dubbed Happy Kitty, Tanaka orders her to slaughter an entire mansion of people, notably a man who crossed him and said man's entire family. When Happy Kitty lets the man and his family go, Tanaka brings out Happy Kitty's beloved pet tiger, ordering the girl to cut off one of its paws to make it hate her forever lest Tanaka kill both of them on the spot. Though only a regular human, Tanaka displays a dark rap sheet of human suffering and mass murder.
Magnificent Bastard: John Dusk is an Enhancile and superhero who has grown disillusioned with the supposed lenient justice system, and sets out to dispense his own brand of lethal justice on the vile criminals of the world. Pulling off several assassinations of pedophiles, rapists, and mass murderers across New York City, using his powers to switch things up when the police begin to catch on to a vigilante, John continues to associate with various Enhancile friends, even saving his partner Alpha's children at the cost of exposing himself as the vigilante killer. Recruiting former professional killer Happy Kitty as a sidekick, John goes on the run and becomes a local legend and icon, earning the adoration of a massive chunk of New York's civilians for cleaning up the streets. Even when the vicious Polymath lays waste to New York and defeats John, John returns and brilliantly outsmarts and kills his old foe, after which he murders the crooked mayor of New York himself to eliminate the last major opponent between himself and absolute power to eliminate crime in his city.
Moral Event Horizon: Arguably John letting White Power bleed to death in issue one. Though his reveal as the culprit behind a string of murders before White Power shows he crossed this point long ago.
