Cut Lex Luthor A Check / The DCU

The DCU

Cut Lex Luthor a Check in this franchise.

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Comic Books

Comic Books

Gaining more money legitimately

• Superman:
  • Lex Luthor is the Trope Namer. Pre-Crisis, this was pretty much played straight. In fact, the specific scene that named the trope featured a Mad Scientist Lex Luthor being brought in to consult with some government officials who wanted to wipe out the Swamp Thing. Luthor was introduced as an expert, "charging one million dollars for a ten-minute consultancy". After Crisis on Infinite Earths, Lex Luthor was retooled into an amoral billionaire industrialist, subverting this trope by showing that he was still a brilliant scientist and engineer, but had used his inventions to become fabulously wealthy.
  • In The Girl with the X-Ray Mind, Luthor builds a machine which turns coal into diamonds and intends to use it to fund his criminal career... instead of selling his legally-acquired diamonds and becoming rich outright without being hassled by super-heroes. Meanwhile, Lesla-Lar comes up with a way to undo the effects of Brainiac's shrinking ray. Rather than informing the Kandorians about her discovery and becoming rich and famous, she hounds Supergirl and tries to take over the world.
  • Subverted by Elliot S! Maggin in his Pre-Crisis novels Last Son of Krypton and Miracle Monday, which assert that Lex regularly maintains multiple false identities as prominent scientists, businessmen, and even artists; and that they are how he is always able to raise the money necessary for the equipment and hired minions his world-conquering and Superman-busting schemes require. In other words, Lex is perfectly capable of playing the legitimate marketplace like a fiddle and regularly does so as a matter of course, but because he views himself as an Übermensch, he considers the idea of just playing by society's rules and getting rich and famous to be beneath him. He only views the money thus earned as a means to an end — that end being conquest of the world and the destruction of Superman, two things polite society frowns upon. Also, although no one remembers it (a fact Maggin has lamented), the name "LexCorp" actually originated in Maggin's story "The Ghost Of Superman Future," a Flash Forward that depicted Luthor going straight in his old age and marketing his inventions, as well as becoming friends with Superman again as they had been in their youth before How Luthor Met Superboy.
  • A year or so before the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Marv Wolfman wanted to write a story where Luthor "goes legit" and becomes a respected businessman, in the process gaining the public's trust and therefore becoming a much harder opponent for Superman to fight. Editorial considered this too big a departure for Luthor and nixed the idea, so Wolfman rewrote the script with Vandal Savage as the villain in question. The resultant story feels a little forced, as Superman seems to take the whole thing very personally, despite the fact that he and Savage didn't have anywhere near the history that he and Lex did. By Wolfman's own account, this is where the idea for Lex's Post-Crisis Corrupt Corporate Executive persona originated.
  • In Post-Crisis continuity, it is established that Lex Luthor became a corporate tycoon through his invention of the Lex Wing, a military airplane that Lex claimed made him an aeronautical revolutionary on the scale of John Glenn, or Neil Armstrong.
  • In Lex Luthor: Man of Steel, a Perspective Flip into Lex Luthor's day-to-day life, we see more of Lex outside of plotting to kill Superman. In the series, he has both built the Science Spire, a giant skyscraper-research lab-tribute to human ingenuity and bankrolled Hope, a new superhero who is actually an elaborate artificial human. It's ultimately deconstructed, as he ends up destroying both as part of a plan where the main outcome seems to be "make Superman look bad to people". For all his humanist talk, Lex's obsessions with Superman are blinding him to reality and the good he could be doing for others.
  • In several stories, this is shown to part of why Superman cares so much about Luthor, and at times, pities him. Superman may be powerful, but it's been shown many times that his brute force abilities can't change the world easily. Luthor, on the other hand, is a scientist, and therefore capable of helping people on a completely different level. If he put his mind to it, he could probably cure every disease, eliminate hunger and poverty, and bring humanity to the stars. Instead, he takes time off from extortion and corporate skulduggery to stuff space rocks into robots and hold orphanages hostage.
  • In All-Star Superman, Superman goes to Lex, reveals that he's dying, and challenges him to make the world a better place in the way that he always said he would as one final attempt to really show up Superman. Lex... spits at him. Because, as Lex himself notes at another point, by this point he's just so filled with hatred and bitterness towards Superman that he really doesn't care about doing anything other than destroying Superman.
• Played straight with Batman enemy and off-and-on Luthor ally Prometheus, a Shadow Archetype of ol' Batsy who also happens to be a Gadgeteer Genius of such talent that Lex actually offers to cut him a check in exchange for the advanced technology he's come up with. Prometheus turns him down, though, because he also happens to be a Blood Knight who only sees his technology as a means to an end (destroying institutions of justice) and, like Bronze Age Lex detailed above, sees the idea of making money legitimately as beneath him.
  • The Riddler is almost the patron-saint of this trope. It's been shown countless times over multiple media that, if Edward Nigma actually used his amazing intellect for honest endeavors, he'd be rolling in cash. It's also been shown that he also could be a MUCH more formidable criminal mastermind than he is if he merely focused on the task at hand instead of following his obsession with riddles and trying to prove he's smarter than everyone else. One time he tried to commit robberies without leaving riddles, but couldn't resist the compulsion to send them Batman's way without even consciously realizing it. When Batman told Riddler, Eddie realized that he really is insane and needed treatment. There was also a period where a Tap on the Head cured Nigma of his riddle obsession, leading him to go straight and became a very successful private detective, but ultimately this didn’t last.
  • In Heart Of Hush Victor Fries aka Mr. Freeze invents a machine that allows Hush to remove Catwoman's heart and keep her alive, and preserve the heart while it's out of her body. Hush says in a throwaway line that Fries is ahead of his time, and the work he'd done could merit a Nobel Prize if he'd done it legitimately. Just think about the money he could make adapting the machine to help organ transplant patients!
  • Batman has a recurring minor "villain" named Jenna Duffy. Originally a pickpocket and con artist, she became a mook working for Tweedledum and Tweedledee and took up the mantle of The Carpenter. Her gimmick was carpentry. ^note The carpentry gimmick wasn't completely out of nowhere - Tweedledum and Tweedledee's gang was based around Alice in Wonderland, and she just happened to get paired with the Walrus. After a few run ins with Batman she decided to actually learn how to build stuff and became a proper carpenter, making a pretty tidy amount of money. Though she mostly does civilian work now, she occasionally does work for supers on both sides of the law due to her skill in building and disarming deathtraps.
  • Robin (1993): Tim is flabbergasted when he fights Trickster during Batman: War Games because "If you own shoes that let you walk on air, why rent yourself as a cheap hood? If you'd just mass produce them, you'd be ten times richer than Bruce Wayne by now."
  • Subverted with B-list Batman villain Firefly. His backstory has him working as a pyrotechnics expert for movies before he was lost his due to a recession in Gotham leading him to become a Psycho for Hire before he decides to forgo the "For Hire" and embraces the fact he is a straight-up Pyromaniac who likes seeing stuff burn.
  • In Batman Becomes Batbaby, the Villain Garth invents a machine that can de-age people into babies, and uses it to turn Batman into a baby. The whole point of this is to stop Batman from foiling his plot to rob jewelry stores. Not only does this not work (as Batman retains his memories and is some how just as strong as his adult form), as this review points out, Garth has basically invented an immortality device. Using the machine, people could be de-aged into babies when they get old, and grow up again, with the process being repeatable indefinitely. As such, he could just patent the device and become the richest person who ever lived, rather than wasting his time robbing places.
• Subverted with Doctor Sivana of Captain Marvel fame. He started in his youth as an idealistic scientist brimming with ideas to change the world for the better with superscience even Luthor would gape at. Then he met the corporate world. Said encounter tremendously embittered him, showing him the world won't change without good reason and enough power to change the status quo. He resolved to change the world, and that's how a brilliant scientist got broken into the very image of the Mad Scientist. Considering Sivana was one of the archetypal Golden Age mad scientists and the story revealing his origin came out within two years of his first appearance this could be considered an Unbuilt Trope.
• Lampshaded in Captain Marvel Adventures #98. Professor Sebastian discovers a way to fuse iron together and tries to fake discovering the 93rd element, tricking Captain Marvel into helping him. After gaining $500,000 from printing his fake theories he tries to skip town but Captain Marvel discovers his fraud and arrests him. He then comments the Professor could have sold the patent rights for his densified iron for a million dollars, making twice as much as he did with the hoax.
• Eventually subverted by the first Icicle, Joar Mahkent. He went into villainy partly for the thrills, but he used his time in jail to work on his inventions and made a legitimate fortune once he reformed, half of which he left to The Flash.
• Averted with WildStorm Universe villain Kaizen Gamorra who sells battle-droids and pleasure robots to finance his country's terrorism.
• Discussed with Manhunter (2004 series, Kate Spencer version) in which the titular character tells her technical support and former supervillain weapons designer, Dylan Battles, to imagine what would happen if he focused his talents on curing cancer. In the Flash Forward at the end of the series, it is revealed that Dylan has become extremely wealthy, because the government is willing to pay big money to keep weapons patents off the market.
• Subverted with the Turtle Man, a Silver Age villain that the Flash (Barry Allen) fought from time to time. After he inherited a fortune, he realized that he didn't need to commit crimes to make money any more. But he still did so - simply because it was fun.
• Inverted in Swamp Thing — While acting as a paid consultant, the Floronic Man discovers Swamp Thing's true nature, only to be promptly fired. His employer treated him as disposable, and drastically underestimated the importance of the reveal. Also literally inverted later in the same series when the same group of villains who hired the Floronic Man hire Lex Luthor as a consultant to help take out Swamp Thing because, as one of them puts it, "He has a certain amount of experience in fighting invincible enemies." The consult takes five minutes, for which Luthor is paid $10 million.
• Dr T.O. Morrow beats Luthor having built multiple fully sapient androids and working tesseracts, and fellow Mad Scientist Professor Ivo is similar, having created Amazo, an android with "adaptive cells" capable of duplicating superpowers. Both collaborating together created an even more advanced model of superpowered android whose AI successfully developed concepts deliberately left out of her programming, while the hardware was advanced enough to fool Superman's enhanced senses. However, neither is overtly interested in actual cash — Ivo's motivation is his severe thanatophobia, since he only developed the machine as a means to develop actual immortality. Morrow is just uncaring about such things, thinking he can always just rob another bank as long as he can keep developing his machines, and in the rare occasion he actually pays for anything, he just hacks the seller's account to pay for his purchase.
• Mister Terrific describes a device's ingenuity as, "...Luthor Level, maybe even Apokolips." For the record that is the canonically third smartest man in the world comparing this device to something made by either the smartest man in the world, or an alien demigod.
• Teen Titans had in one Christmas story a villain who took in shipments of junk, then used a ray to turn it into new, high-quality goods. Huge profit potential, right? Except he was actually removing a disguise field on the items, one put in place at least a full day before. The military and espionage applications for the disguise field and its counter, and thus the potential for vast profits, should be fairly obvious. He and his partners used it as a way of evading tariffs and duties on high-end goods.
• Fraction: when a group of small-time crooks find a set of power armor and divvy up the pieces around them, while one becomes a hero, another kills his abusive stepfather, and a third just goofs around with his, the final guy subverts this trope when he tries to sell the chest plate that he got to a technology firm, only to be rejected due to their correct suspicion that it's stolen property.
• One issue of DC Super Friends (the 2008 comic series, unrelated to the cartoon) sees the Super Friends, after busting a Mad Scientist convention, point out that the various inventions shown off at the convention could actually be used for a good cause (e.g. a growth ray creating giant food and ending world hunger). The scientists then start bawling their eyes out at the very idea that their gadgets could be used for good.

Possibility of gaining more money legitimately

In theory, any supervillain who uses expensive, fantastic technology for theft could subvert this: provided the technology is a one-time expense, they would eventually make back the money and start profiting if they manage to steal enough, meaning they can do it for the money and For the Evulz. The problem is, in a world where superheroes are everywhere thwarting your every move, this isn't likely to happen.

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• In All-Star Superman Lex is so bitter and twisted towards Superman that he can't really be bothered doing anything that isn't related in some way to his vendetta. At the end, when he tries to accuse Superman of encouraging Holding Out for a Hero, Superman points out this trope to him: If Lex had truly ever wanted to save the world, he could have done it years ago.
• The Flash: The general inability/unwillingness of the classic Flash supervillains to think bigger has been noted quite a few times in that title.
  • Doctor Alchemy somehow got his hands on the Philosopher's Stone — giving him the power to create infinite amounts of riches, transmute any substance to anything else, psychokinesis, and makes him immortal. He uses it to commit petty crimes which repeatedly get him sent to jail. This is lampshaded extensively and hilariously in the opening narration of Manhunter #7.
  • Mirror Master is arguably the greatest inventor in the history of the world. He has created such devices as a matter duplicator, teleportation, and interdimensional portals. The first Mirror Master used these things to rob banks, the third uses them for mercenary work. If they just sold them they could become obscenely rich and not have to get the crap beaten out of them by a pajama-clad speedster. The third Mirror Master actually ruminated on this once, that he and most of the people he ran with could become filthy rich beyond anything they could earn in petty crimes if they sold even half their individual tech, and that people had outright pointed this out to him before. He, however, concluded he LIKED running around being a supervillain far too much to really consider going legit.
  • In another story, a police detective who is forced to team up with Captain Cold calls him out for his criminal tendencies, pointing out how a man who invented a device that could manipulate matter on a molecular level (his "Cold Gun") would have had no problem getting rich legitimately. The Captain responds by pointing out the detective's preference for expensive suits despite their impracticality in his line of work. "We all have our vices." He's also admitted that many of the Rogue's villainous tendencies boil down to bad habits.
  • In a Silver Age story, the Flash encounters the villain Mr. Element, whose gimmick is, well... the atomic elements. In the climax of the story, Mr. Element says he discovered a new element (the creatively dubbed "elemento") that is a sort of magnetic light, which he uses to send the Flash to the Moon. Ignoring everything wrong with that idea, if it were true, Mr. Element would've completely changed the way we look at the elements, magnetism, Einstein's theory of relativity, and space travel, easily becoming the most important scientific figure in recent history. Instead... he tries to steal stores of "elements" like gold, platinum, and diamonds (carbon).
    • At least he stays consistent, as in the very next issue he finds the philosopher's stone and becomes Dr. Alchemy (see above)
  • Averted by villain the Chunk, who gave up supervillainy and used his suction powers (being able to siphon off material to another universe inside his own body) to start a personal removal business.
    • With many of the "science villains" who make up the Rogues Gallery for The Flash, it's noted that the reason they don't turn their talents towards legitimate profit is because they often genuinely are too unstable to either think of it or even to want to. For example, Dr. Alchemy has two personalities; one of them is an incredible douche who thinks of all other humans as insignificant, so he thinks that sharing his Philosopher's Stone is beneath him, while the other is more benevolent but can't actually make the Stone.
• Averted with Astro City's Mock Turtle, who put his skills to creating Powered Armor for a company, only for them to forbid him from piloting it, so he snapped and stole it.
  • In the Tarnished Angel arc, Steeljack interviews the loved ones of supervillains who had recently turned up dead. The boyfriend of the Chain said that he always thought the Chain's technology to transfer one's consciousness into a metal body had a lot of potential in deep sea or space exploration, but whenever he brought that up the Chain would look at him like he was an idiot and say he didn't understand.
  • Steeljack himself acknowledges this many times in the arc; whenever Astro City's low-level villains did manage to pull off a successful scheme, they would inevitably try to blow all their cash on their next scheme because "this is the next big heist, this is the one I'll retire with." By their actual retirement years, most of these local terrors and master criminals are living in slums, unable to find gainful employment because nobody trusts them. Steeljack muses at one point that he could have put his Chrome Champion body to work in a legal manner as a soldier or an explorer, but he was a low-level thug who lucked out, so of course the only thing that occurred to him at the time was using it to smash through bank walls.
  • Deconstructed in Volume 2, Issue 10, "The Old Villain With the Money." Hiram Potterstone became the Junkman precisely because he wasn't allowed to work legitimately anymore, having been forced into retirement by the company he founded and not being able to find work elsewhere due to his age. And when he manages to pull off a bank heist and retire to Rio, he finds he's ill at ease because nobody ever found out who did it. He didn't want the money, he just wanted people to recognize that he was still brilliant. He ends up going so far as to recommit the crime, just so he can get caught and have his crimes on the public record.
• The Authority tends to do this in varied ways. "Tank Man" is simply talked into giving up his murderous ways and settling down (it doesn't turn out well, but they tried). Jacob Krigstien is given an outlet for his world-changing habits by being allowed to do it in a non-killing-people way. An animal-abusing psychopath is put on retainer for when the Authority needs to get information out of human-abusing psychopaths.
• Batman:
  • Averted when The Riddler performs a variant of this based on his compulsive disorder and rampant ego: he becomes a detective, to keep his ego inflated and potentially beat Batman at his own game, without having to worry about the inevitable Bat-Fist to the face and subsequent jail time should he fail.
    • In The Batman Adventures the DCAU's version of the Riddler ultimately defies this trope by marketing some communications equipment he made for a criminal scheme as an advanced cell phone. He ends up earning a legitimate fortune, and even finds an outlet for his riddle compulsion by sending Batman riddles without actually committing the associated crimes.
  • Averted when, at one point, the Riddler is seen chatting with The Penguin, who has discovered he can make more money as a legitimate businessman selling cheaply made merchandise at extortionate, but legal, markups. Penguin averts this trope again with the Iceberg Lounge. Criminal empires are fun, but Batman tends to kick your ass. Solution? Open a prestigious nightclub that doubles as a Bad Guy Bar for Batman's huge Rogues Gallery. It tends to get blown up a lot, but it provides a steady source of legal income, as well as making Batman just a bit more lenient on him, as Batman knows he can lean on Penguin for underworld info in exchange for looking the other way on minor lawbreaking.
  • Sort of occurred with the Mad Hatter. He used to use his mind controlling hats to commit crimes, feeling that the riches he made this way would make him happy. So did he realize that he could cut out the middleman and sell the technology for all the riches he wanted? No! He realized that he could use the hats on himself to become blissfully happy whenever he wants, thus cutting out two middlemen. He still commits crimes, but now it's just for fun.
  • In one comic, where Batman was relating to one of the Robins all of the death traps that he has foiled, Batman mentions a Haunted House of Death that The Scarecrow created to try and kill Batman. Robin states that Scarecrow would have made a fortune in the entertainment industry, making haunted houses for theme parks. Batman actually states that he recommended that to the Scarecrow after capturing him, but, Scarecrow being Scarecrow, he didn't listen. More generally, the Scarecrow could probably have named his own price for selling his fear toxins to spy agencies like the CIA or MI6, or to political dictators. Instead, he prefers to pursue his own research using the people of Gotham as his unwilling guinea pigs.
  • In one Golden Age Batman story, Catwoman establishes up a fashion magazine as part of plan to steal a fur coat. Think about what the investment versus return on that particular caper must have been. Somewhat justifiable; the Catwoman — no matter her incarnation — isn't in the game for the profit; she's in it for the rush.
  • Another Golden Age Batman story has a character named Carlos who had a phony mind-reading show; Bruce figured right away he was using code words to get the answers, gaining real mind-reading powers following a car accident and emergency brain surgery that "Fate slyly played its hand in". He does use his power to make money somewhat legally at first, in card games and radio shows, but decides to turn to crime so he can make even more money. He hits this trope head on when he learns Batman and Robin's real names, but can't think of anything better than to blackmail them into keeping away from him. It bites him on the ass when his last robbery victim fatally shoots him in the back while he's distracted fighting Batman.
  • There was another Golden Age Batman story featuring a person with a photographic memory. Despite graduating from college with every degree possible, this guy couldn't get any work better than stage acts. He was recruited by mobsters so that he could memorize secret information without taking the relevant documents themselves and later sell said info, under the condition that the mobsters don't kill anyone during their jobs. The man's skills are proven when he forces Batman to fight dirty, renders him and Robin unconscious via nerve pinching, and perfectly copies the Batplane. Ultimately, since this story takes place during WWII, the story is subverted when Batman saves the man's life and recommends him to the Army so his talents can be used against the Axis to atone for what he's done.
  • Victor Fries, or Mr. Freeze, was originally an inexplicable cold-based villain, already falling under this trope. The guy has a gun that turns thermodynamics upside down and rather than patent that and claim his Nobel, he robs banks. Batman: The Animated Series established he was trying to save his frozen wife and committed crimes to get the necessary funds. He was a downright sympathetic Anti-Villain. He's also essentially ageless with a technology that could be invaluable to the rest of the world. Given he's not just in it For the Evulz, one's got to wonder why he doesn't just go legit, prove what he's done, and wait for university and corporate backers to line up just for a chance to throw resources at him. One comic suggested that, while he is not in it For the Evulz, he's also not willing to part with any of his inventions (with the occasional case-by-case exception) until Nora is all fixed. In Batman: Arkham City, Hugo Strange pokes at this idea when he speaks with Freeze, claiming that Victor could have cured Nora a long time ago if he'd gone to others for help and not spent his time working alone and blaming others. Considering that it's Hugo Strange, however, it's debatable how much of that he actually believes - Especially since Freeze's chronologically first appearance in the Arkhamverse shows that Fries did try asking others for help at first, only for Boyle to never honor his side of the agreement, which is what drove Victor to attempt the experiment that Boyle interrupted, which turned Victor Fries into Mr Freeze.
    • Considering the commonality of his origins and his backstory, Victor was always a bit troubled until he met Nora and the incident that turned him into Freeze also appeared to give him severe trust issues.
    • It still doesn't explain why Batman never contacted his 'good friend' and public sponsor Bruce Wayne to employ Fries to work on his own terms. Avoiding this trope is part of the reason that the New 52 retconned Victor into a lunatic. Nora was never his wife. She had been frozen for over fifty years, and he fell in love while doing his doctoral thesis on her. The fandom was not pleased with this retcon and it was gotten rid of not long afterwards restoring his original motivation.
  • Linkara points out in The Agony Booth review of Batman #147, that the scientist Garth could have patented an age-reversing ray instead of working with jewel thieves.
  • In Shadow of the Bat, there was this one Batman villain named the Human Flea who invented a device allowing him to jump extraordinarily high. The Human Flea went around robbing diners to save his father from going bankrupt. After capturing the Human Flea, Batman tells the supervillain that he could make himself rich off patenting his invention. The Human Flea responds that he never thought of that.
  • Poison Ivy falls into a variant of this that actually exists in real life: ecoterrorism, wherein an attempt at enacting social/environmental change is done in such a way that discourages people from doing as desired. Making things far worse than real cases, she really is an absolute genius with plants, able to create miraculous strains that could solve all sorts of environmental problems that harm the plant ecosystem, the sort of thing she fights for... if only she would market her creations on the legitimate market, rather than turning them into weapons to try and wipe out all humanity, if not all animal life. For instance, she could bring about an instant end to logging by selling seeds for a tree that produces wood that can be harvested in large quantities without killing the tree (and does so much more frequently than letting trees grow the old way), instead of making trees that have digestive systems and eat loggers.
    • Batman even tried to reason with her in a one-shot issue where she planned to murder a Corrupt Corporate Executive who had napalmed an island (killing plant life and the poverty-stricken humans who lived there) telling her how much good she could do with her powers if she tried. His speech convinced her to spare the man's life (brainwashing him with her pheromones into confessing to the police) but nothing more.
    • In general, Poison Ivy's inability to market herself productively is generally given a simple explanation: she's absolutely batshit insane. Whilst whether or not she was an eco-extremist before her transformation varies Depending on the Writer, after her transformation, she completely lost her mind. At best, she's become a Tautological Templar who can't understand that non-violence would actually make her message more convincing. Furthermore, there's also that despite Ivy's supposed ideological motivation, her crimes also have a selfish motivation driven by her past as a mousy wallflower with strict parents and being used by the college professor she liked for the experiments that turned her into Ivy. Presumably, her crimes (such as subjugating and seducing men) are done out of her spite.
    • In the Convergence comics, when Poison Ivy loses her powers and Gotham is hurting for food and supplies, several different versions of Ivy become the city's best assets. Her knowledge of plants helps keep the population from starving, and her fighting experience with Batman means that no one is going to steal from her.
  • Inverted with Roman Sionis, aka. "Black Mask". Before he took on his alias he was, like Bruce, a wealthy entrepreneur from an established Gotham family... and he failed miserably at it. It was only after he elected to go around with a blackened wooden mask and feed bits of people to other people that he really found himself in his element.
• One scene from the Patton Oswalt-penned Justice League of America story "Welcome to the Working Week" sees Batman convince Flash's enemy the Weather Wizard to sell his latest weather control device to Wayne Industries (who will use the device to help irrigate deserts) for $50 million plus royalties rather than use it to rob a bank, which would likely only net the criminal $30,000 to $40,000 at most. Batman also hints that the royalties might be enough to allow the Weather Wizard to retire from his life of crime. The Wizard actually seems to be thinking about it.
• Doctor Lovecraft in the Justice League initially did legitimate work for his company, but when they pursued financial wrongdoing, they allowed him to pursue more dangerous experiments to create mutates to steal for the company. As these mutates later devolved out of sentience, this explains why he could not have gone public with his results.
• Averted with The Atom's foe the Bug-Eyed Bandit, who became a criminal because no one would buy his technology — no one would fund his research without a working model of it, but he couldn't build a working model of it without funding. Eventually, he got so ticked off that he just stole the money he needed, built his tech at last and used it to become a career criminal.
• The Trickster:
  • Lampshaded in one Robin issue where he's beating up the Trickster. He points out to him that he has shoes that can walk on air, and by mass producing them, he'd be ten times richer than Bruce Wayne. Instead, he rents himself out as a mercenary.
  • In an earlier issue of Blue Devil, the first Trickster is also asked why he didn't market his shoes. He points out they've just finished a storyline in which he tried to do that and the buyers tried to A) kill him and B) forcibly secede California, though he does consider trying to resell to a "reputable" organization like SKULL. Also, Depending on the Writer, he may have been more interested in the attention than the money.
• The Prankster, one of Superman's less dangerous enemies, uses elaborate pranks and gags for his crimes, often using them to delay or distract Superman rather than outright battle him. At one point, he became a professional hero-distracter, doing things like putting people's lives at risk so Superman would let crooks get away to save them. This worked so well for The Prankster than he even had a full staff of well-paid assistants to help him plan all the distraction's details, including which current events would be more distracting when disrupting them with his pranks, and how much time he needed to keep Superman distracted while the villains and crooks hiring Prankster could commit their crime and escape.
• Superman fought a guy called Funny Face during the Golden Age; an unsuccessful comic strip writer, he was much better at science, inventing a device that could bring comic strip characters to life and enlarge them to titanic size. Superman couldn't even touch these guys, much less fight them, and the only way he even found the villain is when Lois, who had been kidnapped, got the idea to write the address of his hideout on one character's shirt before the device was used. Still, Funny Face used it to rob banks and museums. In fact, the next time he appeared - much later, in an issue of All-Star Squadron - the heroes were dumbfounded as why he'd be stupid enough to use his miraculous invention for something as petty as pulling robberies.
• In the 2017 holiday issue of DC Rebirth, Superman encounters a desperate bank robber who built a Jet Pack in his garage after losing his job at a lab, and convinces him to use his intelligence for good and patent it after he gets out of jail.
  Superman: I'm sorry, you built this in your garage?
  Robber: I mean, yeah I, the guys at the lab all said I was crazy, they-
  Superman: You built a jet pack in your garage and your first thought was, "I should use this to commit a crime"?
  Robber: ...Well, when you put it that way...
• Justice (DC Comics) demonstrates and deconstructs this trope. As part of their latest scheme, the Legion of Doom pretend to go straight and use their technology and powers to help people instead of committing crimes. Brainiac uses his city-shrinking tech to build cheap paradise cities where nobody has to work, Scarecrow uses his chemistry knowledge to make miracle cures and elixirs, Toyman uses his robotics skills to build artificial limbs for the disabled, Captain Cold uses his cold gun to provide desert communities with abundant water, and more. The results are incredibly profitable and make people love them, but it's all a trick led by Lex Luthor and Brainiac. Why didn't they just take the money and popularity? Because they're egotistical, self-centered jerks who either refuse to acknowledge that altruism can help them or are using their enemies to try and excuse away their shitty personalities.
• D-list DC villain Sonar is an interesting case of this, as he was never after money in the first place. He became a supervillain in pursuit of his main goal to make his tiny native country of Modora famous, and invented and built several sound-based devices to commit crimes in order to accomplish this, capable of mental manipulation, ranged sonic attacks, lifting massive objects, and even independent flight. However, he never gets the idea that he could make his country famous and himself massively rich simply selling the technology, or better yet, giving it to the government of his homeland to turn it into a high-tech paradise, never realizing how fleeting his own exploits are and how it makes his own country look bad, if anything, compared to the country having actual value to the world. One has to imagine "home of that guy Green Lantern beats up once a month" isn't going to bring in many tourists. For that matter, using his technology to become a superhero (especially if he adopted a Captain Patriotic theme) would've also done far more to bring fame to his nation.

Films

Films

Gaining more money legitimately

• Deconstructed in Superman: Doomsday — Lex Luthor finds a cure for muscular dystrophy and orders his assistant to turn it into an expensive, lifelong treatment.

Possibility of gaining more money legitimately

• Mr. Freeze's appearance in Batman & Robin has him stealing giant diamonds and using them to both fuel his suit and build a giant freeze ray he plans to use to hold Gotham hostage in exchange for funds to further the research he needs to save his wife. Why he doesn't just sell the giant diamonds is never explained. If not that, he could have just patented the smaller ray immediately, waited for the Nobel, and wondered how many new laws in physics will be named after him. The applications are endless and he's just disproved everything known about thermodynamics. He would never again want for funds no matter what he's researching. At the end of the film Batman talks him into doing just that. Oh, and giving him the cure to the early stage of the horrible disease his wife had. The stage, coincidentally, Alfred happens to have. Freeze trades the cure for a cell with Poison Ivy, since he learned she tried to kill his wife.^note This explanation does not take into account the actual difficulty in selling diamonds. Mr. Freeze would not be able to find anyone to take them off his hands because of their size making them too distinctive. By the same token, he can't have them cut down into smaller diamonds: diamond-cutting is a specialised and highly-skilled job within the already-exclusive diamond industry, and even if there was an unscrupulous cutter willing to do the job and keep silent about the diamonds, the difficulty in selling becomes one of unclear provenance - the people who buy and sell diamonds wouldn't be willing to risk their professional reputation on some dubious stones.

Live-Action TV

Live-Action TV

Possibility of gaining more money legitimately

• Batman (1966):
  • In "The Joker's Flying Saucer", the Joker creates a flying saucer that can (based on the Joker's comments) travel through outer space to other planets. He decides on the standard "conquer the world" strategy when he could have just sold the design to NASA for billions of dollars. Then again, this is the Joker.
  • In "The Penguin's Nest", Penguin opens a hugely popular restaurant, which by all indications positively rakes in the cash. However, Penguin chooses to use it as the front for a forgery scheme instead of simply living off the restaurant's proceeds.
  • Also applies to Catwoman, who if she used her intelligence productively (or, let's be honest, became a model or movie star with her looks) — or even simply give up crime and married Bruce Wayne — could easily become as rich as she desires.
  • Batman and Robin even comment during the Minstrel's appearance that he could make a good living just by selling records.
  • In "The Ring of Wax", after getting caught in one of the Riddler's wax traps, Batman notes that if the Riddler were oriented towards good, the world could be so wonderful.
• An unusual example is Oliver Queen in Smallville. Being a billionaire, he develops tons of ridiculously advanced technology... to rob the rich to give to the poor. He seems to have given up on that after a while and concentrated on blowing up Lex Luthor's evil facilities.

Video Games

Video Games

Possibility of gaining more money legitimately

• Batman: Arkham Series: The Riddler. The man could do a lot of good legally, if not for his ego compelling him to prove he's smarter than everyone else.
  • Asylum: He's able to hide multiple Riddler trophies around the joint, and demonstrates a fairly comprehensive knowledge of Gotham's criminal element and the environs of Arkham.
  • City: He has a formidable and widespread intelligence network among the gangs of the city, plus manages to build and maintain various puzzles and hide his trophies despite Arkham City's isolation. He even manages to get a few puzzles and trophies inside of a secret hideout used by the League of Assassins.
  • Origins: He's actually working as the head of GCPD Cyber Crimes so he can use his access to release damning information on the city's leading lights (collected by an army of informants) in order to make Gotham collapse and be reformed as a better place. He also has the logistical know-how to secretly set up dozens of relays and data packs across the city.
    • Ironically, in Cold, Cold, Heart, he's suspected of releasing information about the mayor and the incoming police commissioner about their mob ties, which made the former resign in disgrace.
  • Knight: Not only does he have Riddler Trophies and puzzles around the place, like usual, but he's also got a fair amount of robots, which he's capable of modifying on the fly. Plus, y'know, the massive race/puzzle tracks he's secretly built somehow. Oh, and his plotline ends with him deploying a Mini-Mecha with an energy shield to fight Batman.
    • Also in Knight, Corrupt Corporate Executive Simon Stagg marvels at Scarecrow's idiocy, as his fear toxin could be modified for any number of pharmaceutical and/or military uses that would rake in serious amounts of cash, but he just uses it to scare people. It's why Stagg tries to betray Scarecrow and ends up getting fear gassed for it.
• Batman: The Telltale Series: The Children of Arkham invent a truth serum and use it to expose the mayoral candidates of their sleaziness. The thing is that in real life, truth serum does not exist; billions have been wasted trying to come up with something that could expose the truth out of professional liars, and the best thing they could achieve was a serum that suppressed the ability to come up with an unprepared lie on the spot; the serum in the game is capable of forcing a person's suppressed unconscious to blab. If the Children of Arkham took the time to refine the formula and remove that pesky eventually turns you into an insane supervillain side-effect, they could easily sell the patents for trillions and achieve their goal of acquiring vengeance by simply suing whoever wronged them, as the world's broken justice system would get a major software patch with the truth serum.

Western Animation

Western Animation

Gaining more money legitimately

• Batman: The Animated Series: A very clever subversion occurs in "Fear of Victory", in which the Scarecrow combines both legal and illegal methods to make money. He bets against famous professional and college athletes, and then secretly dopes them with his fear toxin. When the athletes lose their competitions, the Scarecrow makes a huge amount of money for betting against the odds. The Scarecrow uses the money to pay for the chemicals and other paraphernalia he uses in his more dangerous schemes, making "Fear of Victory" one of the rare times when we actually see where Offscreen Villain Dark Matter might come from. Notably, Batman and Robin only discover the Scarecrow's plans when Robin is accidentally doped with fear toxin along with his college football playing-friend. Still somewhat played straight in that his toxin would be absolutely invaluable for numerous government and military applications and he'd likely make an order of magnitude more money in licensing it out for legitimate research than ripping off bookmakers with it.
• In the Justice League episode "Injustice for All", the League's battles with Luthor's Injustice Gang all revolve around money. Lex has brought them together with cash, he almost breaks them up when they ask for more money, and in the end, Batman brings the chaos to an end. How? He gets the Ultra-Humanite to ambush Lex by doubling Lex's offer. This allows the Humanite to achieve his main goal — funding opera on a PBS expy. Not all Viewers are Like You!
• Superman: The Animated Series starts out with a very interesting subversion in "The Last Son of Krypton". Lex Luthor is going to use a giant mech, something which was stated to cost millions of dollars to make, to make money illegally. However, Lex isn't going to use it to rob the banks or other such schemes, he's secretly selling it to terrorists (who are paying him a billion dollars), knowing that the US government will later hire Luthor to design a better mech to fight the one the terrorists "stole". Superman ruins that scheme. The whole premise seems like a sly riff on the Fleischer cartoon mentioned further down the page.

Possibility of gaining more money legitimately

• In The Batman, the Riddler subverts this trope by starting out as a legitimate scientist who wants to help the world with his intellect-enhancing inventions. Unfortunately, his co-worker and the girl he liked would end up sabotaging it in front of their first potential investors and him taking the fall (according to her, she found him unstable due to him losing his temper at a condescending investor who reminded him of his abusive dad.) Riddler does not take it well when Batman spells it out for him (Riddler assuming it was the businessman who did it.) This leads Eddie to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge in becoming Riddler. Batman even lampshades the whole thing when he tells Robin to not untie her, with the implications being she is going to be arrested:
  Batman: One last riddle, Robin. When is a villain not the villain?
• Batman Beyond:
  • Played with in "The Winning Edge". Unlike Bane, who only used Venom for himself to commit crimes, Chappell manages to convert Venom into an easily usable dermal patch that he begins marketing as a performance-enhancing drug to teenagers. However, he still does this illegally through black market means, presumably because it's unlikely a Venom-based compound would ever be made legal.
  • Mr. Freeze's appearance in "Meltdown" averts this. It's mentioned that he is wealthy and puts his fortune towards making amends to the families who were hurt by his villainous actions in the past. Unfortunately, it all Goes Horribly Wrong...
  • Zig-zagged with this version of Spellbinder, a psychologist who uses sophisticated mind-control devices to hypnotize people into stealing for him. Aside from the fact that he's invented all this hypnotic equipment but can't think of anything better to do with it than trick people into stealing for him, he probably doesn't even make a profit on his crimes. However, in his introductory episode "Spellbound", Spellbinder goes on a rant which indicates that this may be more about revenge than greed. It takes another turn in "Hooked Up" when Spellbinder gets wiser and begins marketing his equipment as virtual reality generators that allow people to live out their fantasies. He "markets" it like a drug pusher and is taken down by Batman for it. It's unlikely that there would be any actual law against using the tech on willing people itself, but there would be for coercing other people (especially minors) into committing crimes for him.
  • Inverted with Shriek, who starts out in his introductory episode as a brilliant yet impractical engineer who specializes in sonics. For his market debut, he develops a suit that can generate and direct sound waves for demolition purposes. However, his boss, Corrupt Corporate Executive Derek Powers, has the reaction upon seeing the suit in action of "dynamite's cheaper" — his invention isn't practical and couldn't turn a profit if put on the market (the validity of Powers' claim is unknown, as the actual costs of creating and using the suit aren't shown to the viewers). He promises Shriek to continue funding his experiments if he takes care of Batman instead. Shriek is later seen to have invented some astonishing devices that would rake in millions, such as a gadget that selectively blocks loud noises (imagine the applications if you live near a construction site), but his boss still forces him to act as a personal killing machine. Afterward, Shriek becomes deaf and thus somehow invents a device that appears similar to headphones that can reverse deafness for as long as it's worn by the person, but by this point, he's too obsessed with getting revenge on Batman to care about making money.
  • In another episode, a talented weapons designer loses his high-paying job at a defense contractor. It's heavily implied that although he could easily find another job, it wouldn't bring in as much money as he and his family had grown accustomed to having. Instead, he goes into business as a corporate mercenary/saboteur, which apparently pays pretty well in Gotham.
• Batman: The Animated Series explores the concept with some of its reoccurring villains.
  • Temple Fugate loses everything in appeal for twenty million dollars against his company at the end of the Distant Prologue of "The Clock King". Seven years later, he has enough money to buy bombs, cool Gadget Watches, an Abandoned Warehouse Supervillain Lair to his real name, and can throw off a clock valued at $6,000. As Batman has never heard of Fugate before their first meeting, it's implied that Fugate didn't need to resort to crime to get all that Offscreen Villain Dark Matter, as his skills could make his fortune by legal means again. In addition, he never suffers Motive Decay; all he wants is to humiliate Mayor Hill, and then kill him. Money no longer matters to him, only revenge — he organizes a Bank Robbery but leaves all the money in the vault. After he is arrested, he uses his talents for the government as a Boxed Crook.
  • Notably, Nygma had a similar motivation as Fugate starting out — in his introductory episode, he's initially a software engineer who develops a smash hit title, but his boss takes credit for making it and unceremoniously fires Edward, asking "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" and prompting Nygma's Start of Darkness.
  • Averted in the spinoff comic The Batman Adventures. The Riddler signs a deal with some out-of-town businessmen who find that the device he's used to hijack broadcasts can be the basis for a super-advanced cell phone which makes him millions. He finds an outlet for his ongoing urges by sending Batman riddles without actual crimes attached.
  • In "Riddler's Reform", the Riddler signs a contract with a toy company, using his genius for riddles and puzzles to design puzzle toys and the notoriety he earned as a criminal to pitch them in TV commercials. It almost works for him... but the compulsion to outwit Batman is too great, and he decides that the only way he could enjoy his new life is to lure Batman into a death trap and get rid of him altogether. Unfortunately, this doesn't work, and Riddler goes back to prison.
  • The Penguin is sane enough to admit associating with criminal riffraff is pretty distasteful anyway and he'd make much more profit with a skimming-off-the-top grey market nightclub. Subverted in that he still doesn't turn his act around in the end.
• Challenge of the Superfriends:
  • The show is notorious for this. Lex Luthor invents a time machine? He and the Legion of Doom use it to steal a few treasures from the past, and never use it again. A teleportation device? They use it to avoid being captured at the end of the episode. But never any other way. Invisibility cloak? Used for a few petty crimes, and never heard from again.
  • Seanbaby's page mentions one of Brainiac's inane schemes:
    ...This was so the Legion of Doom could force the world to give them money. I'm no electronically enhanced genius, but if the Legion of Doom is really hurting for money, maybe they shouldn't have built a fucking planet out of toys millions of light-years away in the center of a black hole. Put some in the bank.
• Justice League:
  • Shown in "Tabula Rasa". After Lex Luthor goes to prison, he leaves his business in the hands of his loyal minion Mercy Graves, who puts LexCorp back in the black by cancelling his Mad Science projects and concentrating on making a profit. Lex is not grateful in the least, being still obsessed with taking on the Justice League. When Mercy goes to walk out on him, Lex points out that's she's hardly immune to the thrill of transgression.
  • That said, it is completely and utterly defied by Lex, who apparently did this during his presidential candidacy. When confronted by the Question about it in "Question Authority", amid giving the poor faceless hero a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, Lex points out he had no interest whatsoever in any of the legitimate power, authority, or money being president would bring him, and in fact merely did it to annoy Superman.
    Lex: "President"?! Foolish, faceless man; my campaign is a farce! A small part of a much grander scheme. [chuckles] "President"...? do you know how much power I'd have to give up to be President? That's right, conspiracy buff. I spent 75 million dollars on a fake Presidential campaign, all just to tick Superman off!
• Superman: The Animated Series: Lampshaded when Lex Luthor discovers kryptonite and plans to use it against Superman — one of his researchers insists that possessing such a rare and unusual substance must have a more practical application.
• Superman Theatrical Cartoons: "The Mechanical Monsters" has a villain who invented remote-controlled mechanical robots that he was using to rob banks and jewelry stores. Too bad there wasn't any other way to get wealthy with such advanced labor-saving technology, eh?
• The Zeta Project: Zigzagged with the Zeta Project scientists. In the first place, they were building a weapon for the government rather than any supervillain. But played straight in that once the project was complete several of them (Arroyo, Boyle, and Myrell) left government service in order to use the kind of technological innovations they’d built Zeta with for more widely accessible and beneficial science (Industrial robotics, a space probe, and technology to cure disabled children, respectively). That being said, Boyle and Myrell both have trouble funding that peaceful research and commit some criminal act to rectify that.

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