Heel Realizations in Comic Books:
The DCU:
- Superman:
- The Superman nemesis Manchester Black thought of himself as a "realist", operating as an anti-hero (i.e. killing without remorse). He perceived Superman's boy-scout morality to be a facade bordering on stupidity. In an attempt to give Superman one bad day, he created a telepathic illusion of Lois Lane being murdered to provoke a homicidal response out of Superman. When it failed, and he saw the depth of Superman's dedication, Black realized that he had become a villain who had been lying to himself all along, and there was such a thing as a Good Guy. He then promptly killed himself. Sort of. Poor little Vera
. - The Eradicator gets two of these during the "Reign of the Supermen" portion of The Death of Superman. The first time, it was when Guy Gardner started endorsing him as a genuine Superman, shaking up his thoughts over if that was what Superman stands for. He gets a second when Lois Lane chews out both him and Steel for fighting across Metropolis, causing a ton of destruction.
- In Krypton No More, Superman is so frightened of losing another home-world and getting so obsessed with protecting Earth from anything—including people—that he decides to destroy super-tankers so they can't pollute the oceans further. However, Supergirl stops him and reminds him that they have no right to make decisions for humanity or interfere with human evolution. After arguing with his cousin, Superman agrees that he has been acting pretty crazy of late.
- In War World, Superman realizes that his behavior has been less than ideal when The Spectre forces him to confront his dark side:Superman: I've been thinking with my heart instead of my head! Forgive me, Spectre — I've been acting like a fool!
- Of all people, Superboy-Prime seems uh, primed, for one of these in Blackest Night. Then again, he has been looking at his monstrous actions from a different perspective aka ours over and over again for months on end.
- In Supergirl: Identity, Kara Zor-El had been acting like a jerkass for a while (partially because of Kryptonite poisoning and because of a villain named Dark Angel who was attempting to break her). After getting rid of Dark Angel, Kara reflected on her past behavior and realized she needed to change for the better.
- In All-Star Superman, when Lex Luthor gains Superman's powers, he starts seeing the world from Superman's perspective, and realises just how cruel and petty his former goals were.
- The same thing almost happens in The Black Ring. An enlightened Luthor creates a perfect world, and all he has to do to maintain it is let go of his hatred of Superman. But he can't.
- The Superman nemesis Manchester Black thought of himself as a "realist", operating as an anti-hero (i.e. killing without remorse). He perceived Superman's boy-scout morality to be a facade bordering on stupidity. In an attempt to give Superman one bad day, he created a telepathic illusion of Lois Lane being murdered to provoke a homicidal response out of Superman. When it failed, and he saw the depth of Superman's dedication, Black realized that he had become a villain who had been lying to himself all along, and there was such a thing as a Good Guy. He then promptly killed himself. Sort of. Poor little Vera
- Paradoxically inverted in The Flash, after one of his friends accuses Flash of not using the full extent of his abilities to help people. The friend then realizes the best way to make the Flash a better hero is to become a villain who'd push him to be one.
- In The Killing Joke, The Joker's expression changes during his speech about human morality in tragedy, when he comes to the realization that he's not just taunting Batman, he's only describing himself.
- Ironically, The Riddler had one after he had intentionally decided to become a "normal" criminal. Up until this point, he more or less did what he did either because he could or to prove he was better than the world's greatest detective. Finally, one day, he has enough, decides to drop the super-villainy and the gimmicks, and pulls a couple of last jobs like a "normal" crook to get the funding to get back on his feet. Batman stops him... Because he was subconsciously leaving clues behind. Riddler then realizes he wasn't the brilliant mastermind he thought he was, he had an actual compulsion he could not control; "I might ACTUALLY be crazy". He surrenders and asks Batman to take him to Arkham Asylum, and after being treated and eventually released, was one of the few rogues to pull a semi-successful Heel–Face Turn by becoming a private detective specializing in bizarre and unexplainable crimes.
- Strictly speaking, this is a rehash of a Silver Age story where he has a nervous breakdown when he breaks into a jeweler's without leaving any clues and can't grab the loot because he can't bring himself to do it, and he tries to hypnotize himself into getting rid of his compulsion, which is when the subconscious clues ensue...
- As put by Grant Morrison in one article regarding Mastermen #1, Overman spent years working for Adolf Hitler, then one day he realized "Oh crap, it's Hitler!"
- In Crisis on Infinite Earths, the female Dr. Light suffers this when she watches Supergirl selflessly tackle the Anti-Monitor despite the fact that he could kill her easily. She realizes how wrong her arrogant and haughty attitude was, but it takes just a little bit more time as she suddenly pulls an Achilles in His Tent moment after she thinks she got Supergirl killed.
- Wonder Woman: Diana's lasso and general truthfulness helps her lead her opponents who feel justified in their actions to realize their cruelty and better ways to try and achieve any of their less horrific goals:
- Wonder Woman (1987): Diana is able to talk down a junkie who nearly killed a police officer with high tech weapons he's been given. While the boy was at first unrepentant and just looking for a fix, he becomes horrified when he realizes what his addiction has turned him into and later sacrifices himself to save that same policewoman when he goes to apologise and she's attacked while he's there.
- Wonder Woman: Odyssey: After Diana briefly lassos Jason during a fight, he starts to realize that the goddesses he's serving are evil, and that there's no way he's going to complete his current assignment which includes killing a young child and his mother. The next time he encounters Diana, he hangs himself after giving her information about who he is working for.
- Several examples in Gotham City Garage:
- Harley Quinn helped Lex Luthor perfect his mind-controlling devices. When she realized they were turning people into drones unable to love someone other than Lex, she got horrified and defected.
- Barbara Gordon used to be one of the Luthor's enforcers. Then she was told her boss framed her sister for their father's murder shortly before seeing other enforcers dealing with a riot by setting fire to the rioters and understood she was not on the side of the angels.
- In A Death in the Family, Sheila's dying moments have her realize that Jason, whom she'd already betrayed to the Joker, was desperately trying to save her life, and tries to help Jason escape with her.
Marvel Universe:
- Happens twice in the Iron Man "Armour Wars" saga, once at the beginning when Tony realizes his technology may have been responsible for some of the worst criminals in the Marvel Universe, and again at the end when he questions the extreme measures he has used in trying to solve the problem.
- Magneto has one of these in Uncanny X-Men #150, after he almost kills Kitty Pryde with an electric shock. He's so disturbed by it that he actually reforms (and stays reformed for 125 issues), and eventually becomes the headmaster of Xavier's school.
- This is what ended the Civil War (2006). After the final battle causes lots of destruction and calls in rescue workers and Captain America sees civilians begging him not to kill Iron Man, Cap realizes that he's putting innocent people in danger by his actions — as he puts it, while his team is winning the fight, they're losing the argument. He promptly orders his side to stand down.
- This, in turn, leads to Cap being assassinated - prompting a realization from a devastated Tony Stark in his turn. Tony keeps vigil beside Steve's dead body and spends most of the time apologizing for what happened. He has realised whatever good points the Accords might have had, they weren't worth the deaths. Especially Steve's death.
- In The Siege story arc, Loki looks on in shock when he realizes that his actions were what led to the destruction of Asgard. He only wanted to restore Asgard's ancient glory, and never intended for these events to happen.
- The Sentry's case throughout Dark Reign (and before) might also count, as he was constantly in doubt of his actions - 'course, the Void may be to blame for the most part, but Bob Reynolds himself is an extremely neurotic and superpowered individual. As he said in the first mission of the Dark Avengers, after ripping off Morgan's head: "What did I do? Was it good or bad?"
- Doctor Octopus has one during the finale of Superior Spider Man. Otto, utterly confused by how easily the Goblin King brought down everything he built is left wondering what would Peter do in this situation, especially since the Goblin King kidnapped his Love Interest Anna Maria. When confronted with the child he helped save (and used to convince Peter's spirit that he was the superior one when Peter was willing to leave her to die to save his skin), he's forced to act by Peter's spirit to save Anna, being told that the thing to do is to do what's right, not to plan. Through that, Otto realizes the one true Superior Spider-Man was Peter, mostly because Otto realized he was an arrogant man who overcompensated for everything while Peter was a man who knew he had everything but kept sabotaging himself because he felt he didn't deserve it. He then erases his memories and personality from Peter's mind, restoring the hero once more.
- Doctor Doom, of all people, had one during the AXIS event, albeit artificially induced by the "Inversion" that reversed the moral compasses of everyone within a specific radius of the magic-bomb triggered by Doom and the Scarlet Witch, turning heroes evil and villains good. He's freely admitted to Valeria Richards that many of the tragedies that he blamed on her father Reed were, in fact, his own fault, and has set about attempting to undo his villainous legacy, including making plans to establish a democratic government in Latveria and even resurrect Cassie Lang, aka Stature, whose death was the result of Doom's actions during the "Children's Crusade" arc. Hilariously, while this WAS undone at the end of the event, Doom would end up having another one in Secret Wars (2015) when after realizing that Reed could have done a better job healing the multiverse, Reed heals his face even after everything Doom did.
- The Hood has a heart-to-heart talk with Titania where he mentions having one. Initially, his motivation was that he didn't want his kid to live a crappy life as he himself did. But when he was offered a way out of crime, he didn't take it. The Hood realized that he liked being a bad guy, and resolved to be the very best bad guy he could be.
- Cyclops has one about his actions between Avengers vs. X-Men and his death of M-Pox after he's resurrected by the young Cable; looking back on his actions, he realises that his focus on mutants over humans made him as bad as his enemies, and vows to do better by reforming the X-Men and redeeming their legacy.
Other Comics:
- Played for laughs in Adventure Time as Finn and Jake rescue Desert Princess from the Ice King:Finn: The Ice King is about to apologize to you, Princess!
Ice King: I am?
Finn: Yeah man! It's what you're supposed to do after being a big patoot!
Ice King: But I am NEVER a big patoot!! ... Oh, wait! I guess sometimes I am. I'm sorry I kidnapped you, Princess. - Anya's Ghost: Anya slowly comes to realize she's been a Jerkass to Emily when, after knowing Emily for two days and having her help with school and her crush, she doesn't even know her name yet. Much later, after Sean, and then Emily, shows their true colors, Anya realizes what a jerk she's been to everyone else too because of her poor attitude. This finishes out in the climax, where she at first denies being anything like Emily before admitting that, while she's not murderous, she's at least enough like Emily to understand her.
- In ElfQuest, Knight Templar Rayek suffers a massive and acute Heel Realization just as he's about to kill all of the Wolfriders (for the greater good, he thinks). It's triggered when he meets his daughter Venka for the first time, who was trained her whole life to stop him. She refuses to, telling him that it has to be his own choice.
- Enemy Ace, a series about an honorable German pilot flying in World War One, had a more recent series where the same pilot, now a gray-haired veteran, flew in World War Two. He was much unhappier about this war. At some point he got shot down and parachuted to safety near Dachau, saw one of the death camps, and underwent a textbook Heel Realization, even telling those under his command that they were fighting for the devil himself. He told them that he would no longer protect the Third Reich and that he planned to fly to the nearest Allied airbase and surrender, giving them his undamaged fighter, then help them in any way he could.
- In Kick-Ass: Volume Three, Chris Genovese aka Red Mist realizes that his mother, whom he genuinely loved, tried to kill him in his hospital bed because his horrible spree ruined her life. He felt so guilty for causing her so much anguish that he has a Heel–Face Turn, does his best to help his former enemies Hit-Girl and Kick-Ass and dies for his efforts.
- This is played with in an issue of Nemesis the Warlock. The villain calls himself Torquemada, and in many ways models himself on the Spanish inquisitor of the same name. They meet through time travel, and the villain explains to the inquisitor what his philosophy has led to. It's the inquisitor who's horrified.
- In Scott Pilgrim, the point of Negascott is not to be defeated as Scott initially thinks, but to get Scott to recognize his own faults as a person and to understand that he's played a part in the failures of his past relationships rather than just blaming others. When he accepts this, he absorbs Nega-Scott into himself and remembers all of his mistakes, which readies him to take down the last obstacle in his personal quest... Gideon.Scott: I don't deserve to get her back.
Kim Pine: So earn her back. - Star Wars: Kanan: After speaking with Caleb, Grey realizes how seriously wrong all the clones obeying Order 66 without a second thought was and that something had messed with their brains. He subsequently becomes the only known clone to fight off the impusle of the order without having his control chip removed.
- Transformers:
- The titular character in issue 1 of the mini-series Megatron: Origin. However, he concluded that it was the only path he had to walk, turning him into the universe-conquering Decepticon we know and love.
- Four million years later, he had a second one when he realized how utterly ineffective his campaign of violence had been, causing him to quit the Decepticons and become The Atoner, working with Rodimus and Ultra Magnus to try to undo some of the damage he'd inflicted.
- In issue 54 of The Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Soundwave is coaxed by Optimus Prime into using his mind-reading ability on some attacking humans. When he succeeds, he is struck by the realization that their brain impulses are electrical, just like a Cybertronian's — meaning their thoughts and emotions are just as real and valid as any Transformer's. Realizing the folly of his anti-organic Fantastic Racism and overwhelmed by guilt for his atrocities against humanity, he immediately surrenders, and proceeds to make a full Heel–Face Turn.
- Nite Owl II in Watchmen finally begins to understand the potentially harmful social effects of superheroes during the Keene Riot.
- According to at least some interpretations, the Comedian went through this when he discovered Veidt's master plan. The Comedian was a nihilist who justified his callous amorality on the grounds that with nuclear war being inevitable, the whole concept of right and wrong was irrelevant; why not kill people? They're all going to die soon anyway. Hence his title; he was making a joke at the expense of the people who thought the world wasn't doomed - or at least he saw himself that way. In these interpretations, if Veidt's plan worked, nuclear war would no longer be a problem, so actions had consequences, and the things he'd done could only be seen as monstrous. Of course, there are other interpretations where he's still okay with individual deaths, just not so many, so quickly, on a grand scale, or how HIS actions were directly responsible for simultaneously convincing Veidt to save the world AND turning it into a hellhole for centuries to come.
- Jason Stryker in the comic adaptation of X2: X-Men United, where Xavier helps him to realize his manipulation is the wrong way to gain his father's love.
- In Y: The Last Man, one of the characters mentioned that she had been working for a long time to try and make the post-Gendercide world a little easier to deal with. It turned out she had been flooding the entire Pacific community with heroin but figured that it really was not a bad thing since the entire world is circling the drain, and this is just letting people have a bit of happiness before humanity goes extinct. However, the fact of Yorick's existence, which means that extinction is not a guarantee, changed her perception of her role - she's not The Hero, he is, and she's just one of the baddies. Things do not go so well for her after that.
- Ghostbusters: Past, Present and Future, Peter Venkman has one of these near the end, after forcing Janine and Winston to work on Christmas Eve and the latter quitting after finding out he was being paid 10,000 dollars for a 4-million job. As their client goads Venkman into trapping the Ghost of Christmas Future and winning the 4 million for himself at the cost of his friends, Peter makes his decision...Fraser: The ghosts - all three of the ghosts - wish to find and test those with the greatest... ambition.
Venkman: That's another way of saying "the biggest jerk", right?
Fraser: The biggest winner of your group, Dr. Venkman.
(Snow begins falling)
Venkman: Hey... it's Christmas. (fires proton stream at Fraser himself) I nearly forgot. - Judge Dredd:
- Dredd always believed that the Judges and the totalitarian Police State they ran were necessary to maintain order. After he's ordered to crush a peaceful democratic protest, he starts to have doubts about the "Big Lie", namely that the Judges know what's best for the people. He eventually turns in his badge and journeys out into the Cursed Earth, which leads to further tragedy when undead enemies return in his absence.
- The founder of the Judges, Chief Justice Fargo, ultimately realized that the system he created was wrong. He feared that his attempt to restore a measure of order had instead destroyed the American Dream forever. He spends his dying moments begging Dredd to undo the system and restore democracy.
- A nasty example with the villain of "Ascension" in the 2000 AD Sci Fi Special 2022: Judge Fray had an epiphany in which he realised the Judges were evil ... and his reaction was "if you're gonna be the bad guy, you ought to commit to that".
- In Serenity: Those Left Behind, Shepherd Book decides to leave the crew of Serenity after he punches out Mal. Mal had it coming, but Book takes Technical Pacifism very seriously.Mal: Look, Shepherd, I'll make this plain... It don't matter to me that you hit me.
Book: Which is exactly why I need to be away from you. Because sooner or later, it won't matter to me, either. - Ultimate X Men: By the end of Millar's run, Wolverine realizes that he's a terrible person and is surprised when Cyclops apologizes to him.
