Instances of people attempting to take Revenge by Proxy in Comic Books.
- Batman:
- Batman's parents were killed by a criminal so he chose to go to war with criminals. Though this is a lighter example, since he seeks to prevent any other children from potentially suffering the same fate, and he's well aware of how slippery the revenge slope can get and so restrains himself from ever killing criminals.
- In Batman (Volume 1) #246 "How Many Ways Can a Robin Die?", a villain who's mad at Batman kidnaps Robin and torments his mentor by "killing" dummies of him all over the city. Ultimately, he tries to guillotine Robin in front of Batman, dismissing the hero's pleading to punish him instead. Unfortunately for said crook's scheme, Batman is faster than he anticipated.
- Batman/Superman: World's Finest: When Batman uses defoliant to counter Poison Ivy's murderous vines, the villainess roars "You kill something dear to me— I'll do the same!" before attempting to throw Robin off a rooftop.
- Captain America: Winter Soldier: This was General Karpov's motivation for Project Winter Soldier. His Teeth-Clenched Teamwork with Captain America during World War II ended with a Russian village burning down and a lifelong grudge against the Americans, so when his team found Bucky floating seriously injured in the English Channel a few years later, well...Karpov: (to Captain America) You do not understand. You cannot... You and the Germans, you have your super-soldiers, your secret weapons. But we Russians, we have nothing but our winter.
- Diabolik:
- It crops out quite often, either due to Diabolik causing great damage to a mob boss or Ginko arresting a particularly powerful criminal or causing him great economic damage.
- Averted by Diabolik himself: he may be a ruthless Villain Protagonist, but he always targets the guy against which he has the grudge.
- The one time he did try this, it was because he believed Ginko had unknowingly ordered Eva's death while trying to arrest the woman Eva was disguised as, so he started making mock attempts at killing Altea (Ginko's fiancé) until he got the chance to kill her before Ginko's eyes, at which point Eva (who had actually been captured and replaced by a henchwoman of a mob boss rival of the father of the replaced woman) arrived and stopped him.
- Doctor Doom's entire supervillain career (and all the death and suffering it causes) is one giant overblown attempt to make Reed Richards' life as hellish as possible in revenge for daring to be smarter than Doom. He's developed a lot of other, smaller motivations partly due to his being a villain, but even all of those can be eventually tied back to his grudge against Reed.
- In X-23: Innocence Lost, Zander Rice forcibly activates X-23's Healing Factor at age seven with lethal doses of radiation, extracts her claws one by one for coating with adamantium at the same age without anesthesia, deliberately leaves her behind to be killed on a mission, and subjects her to 13 years of physical and emotional abuse. Why? Because Wolverine killed his father during his escape from the Weapon X program. He's doing all of this to a child, whose only involvement was being created by Rice's team with Logan as her genetic parent. Rice even takes the time to tell her why he's doing these things to her.
- Spider-Man: Norman Osborn is the master of this and prefers this tactic to make Spider-Man suffer.
- In the first volume of Resident Alien, it's revealed that Ben Maxwell was the one behind the three recent murders. He had committed the murders to take revenge on behalf of his friend Lance Whitehead, as all three of the men he murdered had negatively impacted his friend's life in some way.
- Superman:
- He's prone to being targeted by this, as it's difficult to take direct revenge on the guy who's Nigh-Invulnerable, but he does have friends and loved ones who aren't bulletproof.
- In one story, the villainess Anguish knows that she's not powerful enough to kill Superman, so she'll get revenge on him (for accidentally breaking the locket that was the only memento of her dead mother during their first fight) by attacking his family. Unfortunately, since a sleazy tabloid reporter wrote an article claiming an ordinary salary man named Spence Becker is Superman's secret identity due to their slight resemblance, she targets his family.
- In The Death of Clark Kent, Conduit systematically stalks everybody connected to Clark Kent to punish him for being preferred by Conduit's own father.
- Supergirl's villain Reactron wanted to get revenge on Kara Zor-El, so he killed her father at the beginning of New Krypton, and in Who is Superwoman? he confirms he murdered Zor-El to punish her for beating him down and wrecking his radiation-containment suit.
- In The Untold Story of Argo City, a space monster called Zygor attacks Argo City, but is driven back by Zor-El. The monster swears revenge, and when it detects Zor-El's presence on Earth, it mind-controls Zor-El's daughter Kara into leading Zor-El and his nephew into a death trap; Then it forces Kara to choose which of them he will spare.
- In The Strange Revenge of Lena Luthor, Lena is harassed by a criminal named Sam who was arrested by her late husband Jeff Colby. Since Sam can not take revenge on a dead man, he hires crooks to torture Jeff's wife psychologically.Lex Luthor: My cell-mate, Sam, was put in jail by the F.B.I.! It was your husband who arrested him, Lena. I didn't know he wanted revenge so badly— which he couldn't have, because Jeff was dead!
Lena Luthor: So he did the "next best thing"— and hired those crooks... to gain revenge through me?! - In The Girl with the X-Ray Mind, villainess Lesla-Lar gaslights, kidnaps and brainwashes Lena Thorul to take revenge on Lena's friend Supergirl.
- In Escape from the Phantom Zone, Xa-Du does not need to kill Supergirl to carry his goals out, but he intends to do it anyway to spite her dead uncle, the one who discovered the pocket dimension where Xa-Du was exiled to.Xa-Du: You woke the Aethyr Switch. And I didn't even need to boil you. Note I said "need." I'll still do it as a Thank-you to your dead uncle.
- The Phantom Zone: Rather than conquering Earth, Zod wants to dump the planet into the Phantom Zone after wiping out its inhabitants, only because they are Superman and Supergirl's adoptive people.
- Adventures of Supergirl: Villain Rampage wants to kill Supergirl because Kara's sister is responsible for the death of Moyer, Rampage's own sister.Rampage: "I heard [your sister] Agent Danvers in the tunnels, "Supergirl". She said my sister was dead. Which means so are you!"
- Brainiac's Blitz: Subverted. In the beginning, Brainiac intends to take revenge against Superman, and he regards Supergirl as nothing but a nuisance. Since she insists on taking him on, and he cannot shake her off, though, Brainiac decides that killing Superman's cousin is another way to exact revenge.
- Ultimate: Nick Fury, in a rare "heroic" example, melted down Dr. Octopus' tentacles, to which Octavius shared a mental link, while forcing him to watch as both a punishment for his murderous rampages and a way to neutralize him as a threat. This may sound bad, but the series made it very clear that Doc Ock's monstrous actions and his unrepentant cruelty warranted extreme methods of punishment. A small subset of the things he had done up to this point: Murdering countless civilians, helping to facilitate the escape of the Sinister Six (destroying SHIELD's headquarters and countless lives), and torturing Peter Parker in cold blood by performing actions including, but not limited to, ripping out one of his teeth while he was still conscious.
- Wonder Woman:
- Wonder Woman (1942): One of Paula's victims tries to get revenge by kidnapping Paula's toddler-aged daughter to hand over to the Nazis to torture to death for Paula's "betrayal" (she was only working for them in the first place because they were holding her daughter captive).
- Wonder Woman (1987): Medusa seeks revenge on Athena and her ancient champion Perseus for her beheading centuries ago by attempting to kill Athena's current champion Diana.
- Wonder Woman (2006): Pele comes after Diana for her father's murder at Zeus' hand, considering it to be Diana's fault because she renounced the Olympians and became Kāne-Milohai's champion, a condition which Zeus arrogantly thought she'd immediately transfer to him. In the end, Diana transfers her loyalty to Pele after being nearly killed by the grieving goddess.
