History CorruptCorporateExecutive / TheDCU

* ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueInternational'': Maxwell Lord, who helped form the team, tends to zigzag between being merely an amoral con artist and being an outright villain.
* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' tangles with these from time to time, usually to counterpoint his comparative honesty as corporate exec Bruce Wayne. Let's see... there was Black Mask, Roland Daggett and Ferris Boyle from the DCAU, sometimes Simon Stagg (more commonly known as Metamorpho's archenemy)... the list goes on.
** Batman's very first villain, Alfred Stryker from "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate", was a businessman willing to murder his partners to take full control of the company.
** Perhaps the most extreme example in Batman's rogues' gallery is Warren White, AKA the Great White Shark. A brilliant financial mind, he perpetrated schemes that cost citizens of Gotham billions in lost investments. How bad is he? Jeremiah Arkham, administrator of an insane asylum that houses people like ComicBook/{{Bane}}, Killer Croc, and ''ComicBook/TheJoker'', thinks that White is the worst person he knows. [[EvenEvilHasstandards Joker himself]] says that while he may kill people, he doesn't steal their kids' college funds. He's quite possibly the most hated man at Arkham Asylum.
** ''ComicBook/BatmanJamesTynionIV'': Simon Saint of Saint Industries is revealed to be the creator of the Magistrate, the authoritarian PrivateMilitaryContractors who essentially took over Gotham City's law enforcement in ComicBook/DCFutureState. Originally a Gotham native, Saint markets his 'Magistrate Program' to Mayor Christopher Nakano as an overdue solution to the supervillain problem plaguing the city. In reality, Saint is working with Scarecrow to instill enough dread in the people of Gotham that they'll be more susceptible to the idea of [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans sacrificing their own freedom and privacy for the security of a Magistrate led rule]].
* ''ComicBook/GreenArrow'' has his EvilCounterpart Komodo. As Simon Lacroix, he was a business rival of Oliver Queen and used illegal and underhanded tactics to discredit him and buy up his company for a fraction of its value.
* ComicBook/{{Batwoman}} has faced the Kali Corporation, headed by half-twins Elder and Younger, which is the legitimate business front of The Many Arms of Death, a global terrorist network.
* ''ComicBook/RedRobin'': Mikalek is a Russian industrialist and hobbyist super-villain who tries to take control of the Uternet in order to control the emotions of everyone who enters it while preparing to make it accessible to the general public.
* ''ComicBook/Robin1993'': Lloyd Waite is the CEO of Strader Pharmaceuticals and oversaw their highly illegal development of a [[PsychoSerum drug]] designed to give the user super-strength but ended up making the users homicidal and killing them over time.
* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': Veronica Cale is a MadScientist and CEO who uses her position and wealth to manipulate public opinion, bring in and hire/attempt to control supervillains, and sleeps with politicians while manipulating them from the background so that she won't be implicated when they help her carry out her plans.
* ''ComicBook/BrotherPowerTheGeek'''s ArchEnemy is Lord Sliderule, the wicked owner of the J.P. Acme Corporation. He took over just as Brother Power was hired, and decided to use the cloth man help him run the company more efficiently.

** Originally a war profiteer and later a MadScientist, ComicBook/LexLuthor became a corrupt exec in the late 1980s; most TV versions of this character followed suit. ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' notably hybridized this by implying that Luthor built his company through [[OmnidisciplinaryScientist developing his]] [[GadgeteerGenius own inventions]].

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':

** In ''ComicBook/KryptoniteNevermore'' Superman meets Boysie Harker, a tycoon that owns an island where a volcano is about to erupt and who shoots at his employees when they try to run away.

* Maxwell Lord, who helped form the ComicBook/JusticeLeagueInternational, tends to zigzag between being merely an amoral con artist and being an outright villain.

* Maxwell Lord, who helped form the Justice League International, tends to zigzag between being merely an amoral con artist and being an outright villain.

* ''[[ComicBook/RobinSeries Robin]]'': Lloyd Waite is the CEO of Strader Pharmaceuticals and oversaw their highly illegal development of a [[PsychoSerum drug]] designed to give the user super-strength but ended up making the users homicidal and killing them over time.

* Originally a war profiteer and later a MadScientist, ComicBook/LexLuthor became a corrupt exec in the late 1980s; most TV versions of this character followed suit. ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' notably hybridized this by implying that Luthor built his company through [[OmnidisciplinaryScientist developing his]] [[GadgeteerGenius own inventions]].

** As well as Franchise/{{Superman}}, Luthor has a hate on for Franchise/{{Batman}} and [[SecretIdentity Bruce Wayne]] ''independently'' due to being a corrupt exec. [=LexCorp=]'s main rival for several years of continuity has been stated to be [=WayneTech=], Bruce Wayne's company, and Batman has taken some glee in foiling Luthor's schemes as a superhero and as a business competitor. In fact, not only did he and Superman engineer Luthor's end as president of the United States, Bruce Wayne bought his company headquarters out from under him.
* In ''ComicBook/KryptonNoMore'', Superman meets Morton Kalmbach, seedy president of Metro Chemical (a factory that makes vinyl chloride, a known carcinogen). He admits that his factory is unsafe to work in and several workers have gotten sick from cancer, but he considers that it is a "socially acceptable risk".
* ''ComicBook/SupermansReturnToKrypton'' features a banker who hid stolen bonds inside a statue, hoping to make off with the money at the first available opportunity.
* Simon Tycho from ''ComicBook/LastDaughterOfKrypton'' is a corrupt, greedy businessman who regards himself as above the law. When ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} lands on Earth, he gets her kidnapped with the intent of cutting her up and profitting from her alien biology and technology. When one of his own mooks considers his boss has crossed one line and sets Kara free, Tycho gets him killed off.

* Subverted with Pre-Crisis Morgan Edge, who owned a rival news corporation to the Daily Planet and turned out to be an Intergang pawn... except it was not really him, but a clone impersonating him. The real Morgan Edge was a jerkass, but he was a honest man.
* In ''ComicBook/StarfiresRevenge'', a fashion designer pays a crimelord one million dollars to eliminate his main competitor and steal his collection.
* In ''ComicBook/KryptoniteNevermore'' Superman meets Boysie Harker, a tycoon that owns an island where a volcano is about to erupt and who shoots at his employees when they try to run away.