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Corrupt Corporate Executive / The DCU

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The DCU

  • Batman: 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 Bane, Killer Croc, and The Joker, thinks that White is the worst person he knows. 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.
    • Batman (James Tynion IV): Simon Saint of Saint Industries is revealed to be the creator of the Magistrate, the authoritarian Private Military Contractors who essentially took over Gotham City's law enforcement in DC Future State. 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 sacrificing their own freedom and privacy for the security of a Magistrate led rule.
  • Batwoman: 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.
  • Brother Power the Geek's Arch-Enemy 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.
  • Green Arrow has his Evil Counterpart 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.
  • Justice League International: Maxwell Lord, who helped form the team, tends to zigzag between being merely an amoral con artist and being an outright villain.
  • Prez (2015): One group of adversaries is a cabal of corrupt CEOs led by the CEO of Smiley Industries, the reboot's version of the corrupt political operator Boss Smiley from the original Prez (1973).
  • Red Robin: 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.
  • Robin (1993): Lloyd Waite is the CEO of Strader Pharmaceuticals and oversaw their highly illegal development of a drug designed to give the user super-strength but ended up making the users homicidal and killing them over time.
  • Superman:
    • In his earliest stories, Superman regularly fought against businessmen of this ilk; in the story Revolution in San Monte, Supes takes on Emil Norvell, a greedy and cowardly munitions manufacturer who plans on starting a war just to purchase off of making and selling weapons. Superman makes him see the error of his ways by forcing him to enlist in the San Monte army and make him experience how deadly and dangerous war truly is. Later, in the story The Blakely Mine Disaster, Superman goads uncaring mine owner Thornton Blakely into improving conditions for his workers after several deadly cave-ins by trapping him and his wealthy party guests in one of his mines, making him suffer for his lack of sympathy for his miners.
    • Originally a war profiteer and later a Mad Scientist, Lex Luthor became a corrupt exec in the late 1980s; most TV versions of this character followed suit. Superman: The Animated Series notably hybridized this by implying that Luthor built his company through developing his own inventions.
    • In his appearances on Justice League, wherein he discovers that he is dying from radiation poisoning from prolonged exposure to kryptonite, Luthor returns to his Mad Scientist role as he snaps and acquires a power suit to take the fight directly to Superman, whom he blames for his condition. Later, Luthor is cured of his disease, pardoned for his crimes as a supervillain, and in Justice League Unlimited becomes a corrupt politician as a cover for his true plan.
    • As well as Superman, Luthor has a hate on for Batman and 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 Krypton No More, 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".
    • Superman's Return to Krypton 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 Last Daughter of Krypton is a corrupt, greedy businessman who regards himself as above the law. When 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.
    • Escape from the Phantom Zone has Katarina Bissell, CEO of Tychotech. Although it is unclear how deeply she was involved in her company's dirty dealings, Tychotech did stole experimental technology and take credit for it. And she definitely does not like government agencies poking their noses into her company's inner workings.
    • 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 Starfire's Revenge, a fashion designer pays a crimelord one million dollars to eliminate his main competitor and steal his collection.
    • In Kryptonite Nevermore, 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.
      Mr. Harker: Name's Boysie Harker! I own this bay — and that island yonder!
      Superman: Does that give you the right to shoot unarmed men?
      Mr. Harker: That's exactly what it gives me! Those people are under contract to work my plantation... and I aim to enforce those contracts — even if I have to kill a few of the lazy louts!
    • The Day the Cheering Stopped: Downplayed. Industrialist Oswald Mandias certainly seems to think he can get away with breaking several laws in a public way, what with kidnapping a journalist for two days and stowing himself away in a government shuttle. However, holding Jimmy against his will for one couple of days is the most objectionable thing Oswald does, Jimmy is apparently not hurt during his kidnapping, and he himself claims Oswald fully intended to release him unharmed.
  • Wonder Woman (1987): Veronica Cale is a Mad Scientist 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.

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