A Lighter Shade Of Black / Comic Books

• In Wanted, Wesley and his allies are ever so slightly better than their opponents, which makes it possible to root for them. Invoked by the author, as the story's structure (a corruption of The Hero's Journey) is specifically modelled to make you root for the Villain Protagonist even though he murders, rapes and tortures his way through the issues and is a petty, smug sadist who obviously gets off on the evil acts he commits. In the end the only thing differentiating Wesley from Mr. Rictus is that Wesley is evil 6 days a week, whereas Rictus strives to fill all 7 of them with bonafide supervillainy. By the end Wesley has to Break the Fourth Wall to remind the reader that, yes, he's still a villain and proud of it.
• Spider-Man: During Venom's transformation into an an Anti-Hero in the nineties, readers were introduced to Carnage, Venom's eviler counterpart. When push came to shove, Spider-Man would even team up with Venom against Carnage, who couldn't have Carnage deny him the "honor" of killing Spidey himself. The most famous example would be the Maximum Carnage event where Ideal Hero Spidey needs the help of more morally grey anti-heroes like Venom to take Carnage, Doppelganger and Shriek down.
• In X-Men while Magneto is often portrayed as a ruthless villain, he wants to create a better world for mutantkind free from human discrimination and persecution. This is a stark contrast to many other X-Men villains such as Sebastian Shaw, William Stryker, and Apocalypse; who have more selfish purposes (and in the case of Stryker, genocide against mutants). And of course there is Magneto's disgust towards the Red Skull ^note The fact that the Red Skull is a Nazi who participated in the Holocaust while Magneto is a Jewish Holocaust survivor makes Magneto even more sympathetic.
• Doctor Doom has some very similar traits. Certainly, he is an A God Am I massive egomaniac and rules the nation of Latveria as a despot with armed Doombots on each corner and an enforced Cult of Personality. At the same time, he keeps his word, provides an excellent quality of life for his citizens (Latveria's health and education infrastructure makes the United States look like a podunk backwater), and seeks to Take Over the World in order to make life better for everyone (admittedly at the cost of armed Doombots on each corner and an enforced Cult of Personality). At least once, he's been replaced as Latveria's ruler by someone who turned out to be lacking those positive traits. The Fantastic Four have to deal semi-regularly with people who want to destroy the world for reasons that range from understandable but still kind of harsh (Galactus) to plain dickish and weird (Annihilus). And Doom also usually refuses to have anything to do with the Red Skull^note mostly because Doom's mother was Romani. In the Cyberpunk Marvel 2099 universe, a re-awoken Doom was actually one of the heroes — his takeover of the United States was actually a positive development, with the corporations brought back under control, and he even made a Heroic Sacrifice to deal with the Phalanx.
• In Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, the titular Villain Protagonist has next to no redeeming qualities, but he does have a Morality Pet (that he seldom actually pets, try as he might) and seems to recognize that he's gone horrifically wrong... and when he's up against a universe-consuming Eldritch Abomination, it's relatively easy to root for him.
  • It helps, too, that Johnny is somewhat goofy and likable, mostly due to his Crosses the Line Twice mannerisms and general childish tendencies, while the Monster Behind the Wall is never fun or wacky at all. Even though Johnny is clearly not forgivable, most of the readers would much rather have him running around.
• The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: Mentioned in-universe. Sentinel Prime was, during his life, a violent, murderous, arrogant fascist who killed the guy before him to get the job. But, as Brainstorm notes, the last thing he did in life was fight the newly emergent Megatron, so he gets to be remembered as a hero. Not so much with the readers, who're more likely to side with Megs, who at the time was trying to overthrow an oppressive regime with a fondness for kicking every dog they could find.
• Lampshaded in the MAD parody of Trading Places, after the main characters ruin the Duke brothers.
  "I know those two old guys were ruthless... but compared to these two sharks, they were damn-near lovable!!"
• Raptors: Drago and Camilla are remorseless predators, but their love for each other and reason for wanting revenge against the other vampires for killing their parents makes them just slightly more sympathetic. Unlike their arch-enemy Don Miguel, they also don't make a habit out of hunting children or orchestrating the wholesale purge of humanity.
• After Jason's Sanity Slippage during Batman: Battle for the Cowl, anytime he's targeting an actual villain instead of trying to off members of his family, he counts as A Lighter Shade of Grey, unless the villain in question wasn't much of a monster, since someone who hacks off people's heads and tries to murder his little brothers is a fairly dark shade to begin with.
• Batman villain Poison Ivy is often this to the Joker, to whom she is often presented as a Foil. Specifically, she really does love Harley, whereas the Joker just sees her as a convenient pawn/punching bag, and while she's still a bad person, she has an actual reason for her villainy, whereas the Joker is basically just "I love being evil! HAHAHA!".
• Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Collide: Dr. Wily turns out to be this to Dr. Eggman. Both team up to conquer their respective worlds together and initially share a Villainous Friendship, but Dr. Eggman is revealed to be highly unstable and violent, at one point jettisoning Dr. Light from their floating fortress. When Wily found out, he was appalled: he wanted his intellectual rival defeated and humbled, not killed. In the end, when Sonic and Mega Man defeat them, Wily accepts his defeat and allows their universe to revert to normal. Eggman, however, directly attacks Sonic in the midst of his attempt to restore their own universe out of spite, ranting that if he can't have the universe remade in his image, then he'd rather doom all of reality than let Sonic restore it; this results in Sonic's world being irrevocably altered.
• The Punisher: Some continuities show Frank to be a Serial-Killer Killer little better than the criminals he hunts down. In some cases Frank actively agrees, but holds that Thou Shalt Not Kill gets in the way of reducing crime (despite there being just as much crime as when he started) and tells the heroes that until they kill him, he'll just go right back to killing criminals (putting him in jail only puts him closer to his targets, and Frank actually gets himself arrested several times in order to do just that).
• This has often been used to define the relationship between Viper/Ophelia Sarkissian and various villains that have served as her enemies, like the Constrictor, the Serpent Society, or the Red Skull. The other villains have a mercenary mentality, they seek profit for their actions, and may go out of their way to avoid collateral damage for their missions. Viper has at times tried to annihilate or cripple the population of entire cities or countries, and is often only motivated by her sadism. Nearly everyone else counts as a lighter shade of black.
• Tales of the Jedi: When Exar Kun joins forces with the fallen Ulic Qel-Droma, Exar is clearly the more evil of the pair. Even before Exar's fall, he was a bigoted Jerk Jock who denigrated his fellow students and disdained his master, and he becomes a Bad Boss who treats his subordinates like cannon fodder—even his old "friend" Crado, who was utterly loyal to him. Ulic, on the other hand, had been attempting a Fake Detector gambit in hopes of avoiding an even bloodier war and got twisted up by grief over his master and being manipulated. He treats worthy subordinates with respect and retains enough feeling for his brother and his Love Interest that he tries to warn them away instead of physically harming them in their repeated attempts to bring him back. Their reactions to murdering someone close to them also contrast. Exar Kun kills his old master without hesitation or remorse. Ulic kills his brother and is so horrified that he turns back and helps the Jedi defeat Exar.

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