We all love ourselves a good redemption arc. I wrote an entire article on them! But sometimes the opposite happens. Sometimes we see a hero sell themselves to the dark side. It’s always a very emotional affair- we see the other heroes get betrayed in the cruelest ways and join them in their desperation to get their friend back. Sometimes, we also find ourselves sympathizing a little with the hero-turned-villain. After all, who hasn’t reached a point where they were fed up with everything and didn’t care anymore?
There’s a myriad amount of reasons that heroes can turn evil, but severe trauma or feeling betrayed themselves is the usual explanation. I should note that I chose to leave out heroes who were brainwashed into evil (or lost their soul or something similar). Those don’t really count as it’s not really the hero doing the evil. I’m also not counting double agents because they were never actually heroes.
Let’s take a look at some of the most exciting, emotional and moving times heroes turned to villainy. Do you have a favorite on the list? Do you have a favorite who didn’t make the list? Talk about it in the comments!
Two-Face (Batman)
“You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain” is Harvey Dent’s famous line in The Dark Knight and well, he didn’t die a hero.
Harvey Dent started out as a dedicated and upright district attorney and ally to Batman and Bruce Wayne. Whichever version of Two-Face you’re going with, his turn to evil is pretty tragic. In The Dark Knight, it was the death of his love Rachel Dawes that motivated him.
In Batman: The Animated Series, he created an alternate personality by suppressing the anger he struggled with and when a criminal pushed him to the brink and disfigured him, that personality took over. Bruce Wayne never gives up on Harvey, always hoping that his friend will return one day. Harvey himself attempts to reform several times, but the attempts go tragically wrong.
The same is true for the Harvey Dent of the comics. He’s gotten several origins there, but the most widely used one is deeply tied to his abusive father, who would flip a coin when deciding whether or not to beat him. Harvey started developing mental illnesses early in his childhood due to this, and when he is disfigured, the issues he repressed come bursting forth. (According to the novelization of The Dark Knight, movie Harvey shares this backstory but it’s never mentioned in the film).
I think the Animated Series version is my favorite version, but in all continuities, Harvey is a tragic and fascinating character.
Darth Vader (Star Wars)
You can’t have a heroes-turned-villain list without mentioning Darth Vader. The audience was aware from the beginning that Darth Vader had once been a loyal Jedi and Obi-wan’s student, but it wasn’t until it was revealed he was Luke’s father that we felt how deep that betrayal ran.
The prequel trilogy for Star Wars shows us how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. He was thought to be “the Chosen One” and many pinned their hopes on him. He’s slowly drawn towards the Dark side by Emporer Palpatine as incidents like the death of his mother and visions of his lover Padme’s death have him looking to cheat death by any means possible. And so the chosen champion turns into one of the greatest villains of the galaxy.
Darth Vader’s turn to evil wouldn’t have the impact it did if it weren’t for his eventual turn back to good- he sacrifices himself to save his son and through that act of redemption, he even becomes Anakin again when he becomes a Force ghost.
Magneto (X-Men)
Magneto has always stood out as being an incredibly sympathetic character even as a villain. His violent hatred of and crimes towards humans does come from a desire to protect mutantkind from being wiped out by them. Considering how intense the anti-mutant prejudice is depicted as being in the Marvel Universe, you can see why he thinks this is a real possibility. It’s doubly easy to see where Magneto is coming from since he’s a Holocaust survivor.
In the comics, he started out wanting to live a peaceful life, but when his daughter was killed by an anti-mutant mob, he killed the mob in his rage and his wife left him out of fear. In the early days, he befriended Professor X and fought Hydra alongside him, but left when he realized how different they were ideologically. From there, he adopted a view of mutant supremacy and became the villain Magneto.
His turn to darkness in the movies is depicted similarly, he’s a Holocaust survivor who becomes one of the X-Men. When humans attempt to launch a nuclear attack on the X-Men, Magneto decides to use his powers to turn the mutants back, despite Charles pleas “they were just following orders” (I guess Charles Xavier’s genius doesn’t extend to knowing it’s a bad idea to Nazi apologist rhetoric on a Holocaust survivor). Magneto accidentally injures Charles badly enough to paralyze him during this confrontation and they part ways after that.
Magneto’s story is so thoroughly tragic and his character is so interesting that writers tend to have him reform and rejoin the X-Men quite a bit. He did so recently in the comics and helped out the heroes in the most recent movie as well.
Shego (Kim Possible)
Compared to all the other complicated and tragic stories on this list, Shego’s is delightfully simple. She was part of a superhero team, but her family was obnoxious and she got bored. Thus, villainy. Hey, sometimes you just got to follow your strengths.
The Red Hood (Batman)
Former Robin Jason Todd will tell you that being murdered if pretty tough, especially when you’re only fifteen. It’s not surprising that Jason returned from the grave more than a little bitter. He was especially angry to learn his murderer, the Joker, was still alive. Jason decided he’d rebel against Batman’s teachings and clean up crime in Gotham city through load of killing criminals.
It was hard not to sympathize with Jason’s distress over the fact Bruce hadn’t killed the Joker and in fact goes out of his way to save him…many fans find themselves feeling the same way when we look at the Joker’s ridiculous body count. It was also pretty obvious that under all the murderousness Jason still loved Bruce like a father and desperately wants validation. Killing people is one way to get Dad’s attention, I guess.
These days Jason operates as a sort of anti-hero and tends to work with the Batfamily and hang out with them sometimes. There’s still a lot of baggage there, but family is family.
Faith Lehane (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Faith’s turn to evil is painful to watch. She was always a bit of a “bad girl” as a Slayer, but she had a lot going against her. She came from an abusive background with an alcoholic, neglectful mother. She developed a bond with her first Watcher when she became a Slayer, but that Watcher was killed by a vampire. The next Watcher that was assigned to her betrayed her, which hurt her deeply. She bonded with Buffy, but often felt inadequate and insecure next to her. She felt everyone compared her to Buffy and she could never live up to her goodness.
When she accidentally killed a man, she withdrew into denial and became angry and violent. She probably could have been helped by her friends if her new new Watcher hadn’t chosen then to arrest her. After this, she turned to the villainous Mayor, who gave her acceptance and the father she never had. Thus, she joined the bad guys.
Her relationship with the Mayor was a very sweet one despite their villainy and she was very clearly intentionally sympathetic. It’s not surprising Faith eventually turned back to the side of good.
Saruman (Lord of the Rings)
Saruman is one of the most memorable villains of Lord of the Rings and as Frodo says in The Return of the King he “was great once, of a noble kind that we should dare not lay our hand against.” He started out as righteous a wizard as any other, but his lust for the power of the Ring eventually overwhelmed him.
Ozymandias (Watchmen)
It’s unknown exactly when Ozymandias crossed from heroism to villainy, but somewhere along the line he decided the only way to stop nuclear war was to murder a bunch of people in cold blood. He orchestrated an entire elaborate scheme,that involved betraying his friends, murdering his allies and killing millions in New York. Impressively, the plan succeeded and he got off with no consequences as of the end of the comic.
Willow Rosenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Though I wasn’t really fond of the events leading up to the resident adorkable witch Willow going “Dark Willow” (the “magic as drugs” metaphor was painfully bad, as was Tara’s death), it was pretty exciting to see her as villain. Warren was so despicable that you couldn’t help but feel pleased when Willow killed him and the full extent of her power was terrifying to behold. Of course, she eventually got better and returned to the fold of the heroes.
Aya (Green Lantern: The Animated Series)
Poor Aya. She was just trying to save the universe when she willingly shut down her emotions so as not to let the pain of her love Razer dismissing her as just a machine distract her from her mission, but this action led to her becoming a terrifyingly powerful being who decided to wipe out all organic life. But she couldn’t truly seal off her emotions, so when she fatally injured Razer, she felt distress and came back to herself.