Hero With Bad Publicity / Live-Action TV

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• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:
  • S.H.I.E.L.D. as an organization has to deal with this from midway through Season 1 all the way to the beginning of Season 4. Following the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, no one trusts them anymore. Of course, the fact that they were infiltrated by HYDRA from their very inception is a very good reason not to trust them, but the fact remains that Coulson's S.H.I.E.L.D. really was trustworthy.
  • At the beginning of Season 4, Daisy, AKA Quake, is this. Due to her vigilante actions against the Watchdogs and their allies, the public only knows her as a dangerous bank robber and terrorist. It doesn't help that her powers are overly destructive; she took out a bridge while capturing some fleeing Watchdogs. No one else was hurt, but that's still the kind of thing that freaks people out.
  • In the same season, Robbie Reyes, AKA Ghost Rider. Since he supernaturally knows who deserves to die, he never bothers producing any proof that any of them have done anything wrong. While this is fine for common criminals, Daisy mentions a cop and a teacher — a Dirty Cop and pedophile, respectively — who did nothing wrong as far as the public knows. Even when told why they were killed, Daisy still takes issue with just outright murdering them.
• Ash vs. Evil Dead: Ash gets hit with this from the first season episode "Bait" onwards, becoming wanted by the police for the chaos caused by the Deadites. As revealed in the Season 2 premiere of the show, he's also one to his entire hometown of Elk Grove, who believe him to be a deranged lunatic who killed his friends during their weekend at the cabin.
• In Black Lightning (2018), the titular superhero is frequently called a vigilante by the media and the police, who claim that he's only making the gang violence in Freeland worse. However, most of the African-American community sees Black Lightning as a symbol. Then Tobias sends his people to kill his boss Lady Eve and frame Black Lightning. The result? Even the regular folks are now against him. Jefferson rightly refuses to go out as Black Lightning until his name is cleared, as he figures that the cops will probably shoot him on sight.
• In the Season 4 finale of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Jake and Rosa, two heroic (if occasionally irresponsible) cops, get framed for bank robbery.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • The main character is feared and/or disliked by much of the teaching staff at Sunnydale High School. Initially, it was because they'd heard rumors about how she burned down the gym at her old high school, but later she's the focus of a smear campaign directed by her principal. However, in the prom episode, the entire student body reveals that they knew that she had been protecting them all along and gave her a "Class Protector Award" in gratitude.
    • Even Joyce assumes Buffy is a juvenile delinquent, when she's actually trying to do the right thing.
    • Even more pronounced in the Season 8 comics, where the Slayers are, suffice it to say, controversially heroic, in large part due to there being Vampires With Good Publicity. They've even been labeled a terrorist group by the U.S. government, due in part to the fact that Sunnydale was wiped off the map prior to this. Yeah, the whole purpose of the place was to serve as a buffet for demons and vampires, but few non-residents know that. It's not even entirely unjustified; Buffy's brilliant idea for funding her worldwide Slayer operation was to rob a Swiss bank with the aid of magic and Slayer powers; her justification was that it was insured. Meanwhile, the vampires are all a Villain with Good Publicity.
      Willow: "Sweet girl. Not that bright."
    • As of the Season 9 comics, Buffy is pretty much universally despised by the magical community, including the Slayers who used to respect her, for destroying the source of Earth's magic. As for Angel, it's been stated that his image and reputation among them is even worse than Buffy's, due in part to the various atrocities he committed as Twilight.
  • The Scooby Gang as a whole is this as of Season 8. Many people believe them to be a speciesist group preying on vampires.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Daredevil:
    • In Season 1, Wilson Fisk uses his control over the media to pin several bombings (his doing to eliminate the Russians) and the shooting of Detective Blake and several other cops (also his doing with snipers and crooked cops on his payroll) on Matt Murdock's masked vigilante persona.
    • In Season 2, Frank Castle is a case of this, without an opponent trying to smear him in the public eye.
    • In Season 3, Fisk hires Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter to dress up in a Daredevil costume and commit murders to discredit Matt's reputation.
  • Luke Cage (2016): Played with.
    • After Luke survives Cottonmouth blowing up his building with a bazooka, Cottonmouth needs to recuperate his losses, as he's lost 80% of his cash reserves due to Luke attacking his stash houses. He decides to double down, recuperating his money while also trying to drive Luke out of Harlem by having his gang shake down and extort local businesses in the name of a "Luke Cage stupidity tax". The move backfires as the business owners go to Luke, who willingly recovers their money and possessions. Shades is savvy enough to realize that this move will backfire even before Cottonmouth implements.
    • Mariah, Shades, and Diamondback all work to smear Luke in the public eye, first by framing him for Cottonmouth's murder, and then by exploiting Fantastic Racism and basic otherism, as he's not a Harlem native. For several episodes, it seems like it's working, as the police are doing everything in their power to find him (including militarizing to a disturbing extent), and hundreds of people show up for an anti-Luke Cage rally. However, later episodes show that the majority of the people in Harlem, especially those who know Luke personally, don't believe a word of it. One cop lets Luke escape when he's cornered, and when Luke inadvertently rescues Method Man from an armed robbery while he's running from the police, the owner of the store starts selling hoodies that look like Luke's bullet-ridden one. Many people in Harlem start wearing them to show solidarity with Luke, which makes it impossible for the police to find him.
  • Iron Fist (2017): In the last episode, Danny gets framed for drug smuggling and embezzling by Harold Meachum and becomes public enemy number one. It really doesn't help that Danny attacked a DEA SWAT team sent to arrest him (in his defense, he thought they were Hand soldiers). Thankfully, once Danny, Ward, and Colleen recover the laptop full of evidence used to frame him, they are able to turn it over to the police, who quickly realize it was doctored. It's noted that even with the main charges dropped, Danny should be in trouble for assaulting the DEA agents and resisting arrest... but Jeri arranges for a big donation to be made to their widows and orphans fund, so they dropped those charges as well.
  • WandaVision: Tyler Hayward uses Wanda's pre-Age of Ultron days as a HYDRA radicalist and her post-Civil War days as a fugitive to paint her as an unambiguous villain so he can justify killing her and cover up his revival of Vision in violation of the law. Wanda digs things deeper for herself when she suffers a breakdown and accidentally creates a pocket reality encompassing the town of Westview where everyone is forced to act out roles in her sitcom fantasies.
• Doctor Who:
  • Unfortunately, that Omega business was covered up, so in "The Deadly Assassin", the Doctor is known only as a disgraced exile apparently linked to a despised 'dirty tricks' agency.
  • After Martha's departure to travel with the Doctor, her mother is warned that the Doctor is dangerous by the mysterious "Mr. Saxon" (later revealed to be the Doctor's fellow Time Lord and old nemesis, the Master). In the season finale, the Master has the Doctor, Martha and Jack Harkness declared public enemies with the intent of flushing them out of hiding.
  • A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies, and what is it? The Doctor. Who, at the time of discovering this, is about to save the entire universe for at least the fourth time.
  • In "The Witchfinders", the Doctor's efforts to expose the evil in Bilehurst Cragg get her accused of witchcraft herself and sentenced to the ducking stool.
• In one episode of The Flash (2014), Barry ends up being affected by the week's meta-human and ends up attacking his romantic rival Eddie as the Flash. After he's "cured", he tries to explain himself to Iris (again, as the Flash, since she doesn't know that he's Barry yet), but she wants to hear none of that. She quickly forgives him in subsequent episodes, however.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Quite a number of people consider themselves to be this, notably Jaime, Tyrion, and Stannis.
    • This is shown to be at least partially true with Jaime in Season 3, when he reveals that he assassinated Aerys Targaryen to prevent him burning King's Landing to the ground.
    • Tyrion is dismayed when he discovers that the people blame him for Joffrey and Cersei's actions, which he actually tried to stop, mostly because he is a dwarf. Not only that, he is also framed for Joffrey's death, and submitted to a Kangaroo Court where all his achievements are discredited and his personal lifestyle mocked at which points he publicly expresses contempt for his unjust reputation, deciding that he no longer cares about his reputation or trying to be a "hero" to gain the acceptance of a pack of ingrates. When he's eventually released by his brother, he decides to murder his father out of vengeance, righteous anger and hatred, permanently tarnishing his reputation in the eyes of Westeros.
    • As far as the War of the Five Kings goes, Stannis is the one in the right, since Joffrey being a bastard makes him Robert's rightful heir as his eldest brother. He's also the only one to come to the aid of the Night's Watch when they put a call out to all of Westeros. Despite this, his cold and stern personality, combined with the concern over his worship of the Lord of Light, means very few respect him and fewer love him.
  • Daenerys is the Breaker of Chains and liberator of Slaver's Bay, but helping the oppressed is no mark on the resume to winning over the feudal nobility who after all were restrained and pacified by her ancestors with the help of dragonfire, and who likely fear her precisely for that reason alone. Incidentally, Dany is impressed by Jon Snow, who also had this reputation, precisely because he's also extending an olive branch to a despised minority and helping to integrate them into society.
  • The Starks' reputation has suffered over the years but this is mostly averted by Season 6. "The Door" reveals that Ned Stark is remembered (or at least lampooned) as a boorish yokel who was executed for greedily trying to steal the throne rather than a noble martyr. King Robb and Talisa's love affair is blamed for the loss of the war. Jon is seen as a Night's Watch deserter who betrayed his oath as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch by letting Wildlings into the realm, who Northerners believe will rampage their lands. This causes House Umber to pledge their allegiance to the Boltons, whom they despise very openly, to defend themselves. The Umbers are the ones who give Jon's little brother Rickon to Ramsay as hostage. Sansa is seen as a glorified Southerner owing to her time in King's Landing and marriage to Tyrion and few powerful northern families support Jon or Sansa because neither of them are legally Starks.
  • Talisa to an extent. She is a kind and intelligent woman, a skilled medic and a loving wife to Robb, but she's generally seen and remembered by people as a "foreign whore" who seduced their king and lost them the war. Although Robb and Talisa's marriage was a pretty terrible idea in hindsight and definitely contributed to Robb's downfall, Talisa is viewed with a lot more vitriol than she deserves.
  • Thanks to the actions of his brother and mother, Tommen is forced to deal with hatred and insults despite having done nothing wrong personally.
  • In the eyes of Grand Maester Pycelle, Egg was another madman who got himself killed while trying to hatch dragon eggs, ignorant or indifferent to any deeper intentions he might have had.
  • While in his own words he isn't even close to a hero, Varys is one of the least malevolent members of the Small Council, and yet not a soul seems to trust or appreciate his job because of the widespread eunuch prejudice and the fact he's The Spymaster (considered "dishonorable" in the honor-obsessed society of Westeros).
• In Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, a crossover Super Sentai season, the Gokaigers don't exactly get along with some of their predecessors right off the bat. Their demeanor doesn't help much.
• Kamen Rider:
  • Kamen Rider Decade has Narutaki, who calls himself a "prophet" and ally of all Kamen Riders, who travels around spreads rumors across The Multiverse that Decade is the Destroyer of Worlds and will wipe them all out unless one of the heroic Riders can stop him. To be fair, he's not exactly wrong — he just omits the part that Decade destroying the multiverse is ultimately a good thing, since it'll come back stronger than before. But then, half the time Narutaki seems to be a past Kamen Rider villain in disguise who just wants his strongest enemy out of the way.
  • Kamen Rider Build: For the early episodes, the government of Touto has labeled Build a dangerous criminal who helped a convicted murderer escape from custody. The truth is far more complex^note The "murderer" Ryuga Banjo insists he was framed and then handed over to a shady group for human experimentation. Because Sento is an Amnesiac Hero who has vague memories of being experimented on himself, he believes Banjo and helps him escape so they can shut down the bad guys and Clear His Name. On top of that, the shady group in question is actually part of the Touto government., but Sento Kiryu (Build) doesn't really care since he believes in doing the right thing regardless, and his actions of saving people from Monsters of the Week speak louder than the government's words. In the second story arc, the neighboring nation Hokuto declares war on Touto, and the government convinces Sento (and Banjo, now a Kamen Rider himself) to fight for the country, reversing their earlier propaganda and telling the people that the Riders are heroes. This carries all the way through to the end of the series, where the protagonists get a Heroic Second Wind from hearing the people of Touto cheering for them.
• Not superheroes, but Kenan & Kel becomes this in "Foul Bull", due to Ron Harper's injury being blamed on them.
• The 2008 Knight Rider features this in a few of its latter episodes, as Knight Industries and FLAG have been deemed a failure by most officials over the KARR incident, and are understandably unwilling to trust the four remaining members and their car.
• Merlin: Merlin would probably out a lot more villains if he didn't spend so much time convincing everyone he's a moron. And on a lesser note, it's mentioned several times that while he's saved the kingdom, Arthur, and everyone on the show at least once, the fact that he's magical would probably get him executed anyway due to all the magicians that attack Camelot.
• Skylar Storm from Mighty Med is hit with this for siding with the Annihilator, which only happened because he corrupted her powers prior to claiming them. Aside Kaz and Oliver in which they're easily forgiving towards her when she's back to fight for the side of good after her powers were removed again, none of the superheroes in the titular hospital were welcoming towards her. If that wasn't enough, Alan is fine with it and tries to keep it that way, considering his reputation. At least it doesn't last long, thanks to the superheroes having witnessed him destroying the gifts that Skylar is planning to give them to make up for the things she did while under the Annihilator's influence.
• The Night Agent: Peter not only gets suspected of the bombing he stopped by a conspiracy theorist but later also gets falsely accused in Maddie's kidnapping to discredit him. This is while he's trying to protect Rose from assassins and expose a criminal plot by very powerful people.
• Surprisingly averted in Power Rangers. The population still trust and love the Rangers, despite the regular rampage of hijacked Zords and the general levels of property damage involved when you're engaging in Humongous Mecha battles every week. Impersonators and other such smear campaign plots by villains don't ever get the public turned against the heroes for more than that one episode.
• In the BBC Sherlock second-series-ender "The Reichenbach Fall", this is one of Moriarty's objectives for the titular sleuth. For as-yet-unknown reasons, Sherlock himself seems to go along with it right at the very end, after having resisted throughout the episode. (It doesn't help that he's known for a brusque and cold demeanor.)
• In the first two seasons of Star Trek: Voyager, our heroes have this problem because the Kazon have been badmouthing Voyager to prevent them gaining allies as they trek through the Delta Quadrant. In later seasons however, their reputation has improved enough for some con artists to make a profitable business out of pretending to be the Voyager crew. Which, of course, gives them lots more bad publicity.
  • Taken up to eleven when they receive an Historical Villain Upgrade in a faulty recreation of a battle in which they're a group of homicidal psychopaths contracted as mercenaries.
• In Supergirl, Kara ends up turning into a bitch under the influence of red kryptonite, turning the city against her. She laments a single bad act turning many good acts moot. In the crossover episode with The Flash, Barry tells her of the above-mentioned situation and explains that the only cure is time. Luckily, the real "cure" turns out to be Supergirl willing to publicly perform a Heroic Sacrifice to save the people (in a twist, it's the regular folks who end up saving the day, if one can call firefighters "regular"). It's also pointed out in the episode that Kara's boss Cat hasn't written off Supergirl like the rest of the city.
  • She ended up having this again in Season 4, thanks to Red Daughter, who has her appearance.
• Sam and Dean Winchester on Supernatural they've repeatedly made the FBI's most wanted list and when that was fixed by a heroic sacrifice on the part of Agent Hendrickson it's undone by Dick Roman and now they're wanted as serial killers. Again. Some more.
• In Teen Wolf, Derek Hale is known as a criminal, but he's actually a decent, if somewhat dark, guy.
• Young Sheldon: In this show, we see George Sr. as a decent guy, an average father who occasionally makes mistakes but clearly loves his children, and his relationship with Mary is not that much worse than any other average married couple. He's far from being the violent, idiotic monster Sheldon and Mary describe in The Big Bang Theory.

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