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The DCU

  • Lucifer. Willing to sacrifice billions of souls to achieve his ends, and slaughter his formal allies because they might in the future become a hindrance.
  • As the quotes page demonstrates, Rorschach isn't the only Unfettered character in Watchmen.
  • The Joker. Have to admire a comedian who will do anything for the joke. This was further expanded on in the Alternate Continuity Joker graphic novel (which was told through the viewpoint of one of his new henchmen after his latest escape from Arkham): The Joker hates apologies. He hates the entire concept of apologizing. He is thus able to commit to things (and commit things) with far more intensity and far more honesty than most of Gotham's inhabitants.
  • Batman's second Robin, Jason Todd considers himself this, since he shed Batman's Thou Shalt Not Kill rule after returning from the dead and finding that his murderer, The Joker, is still alive.
  • Lobo. "Once the Main Man puts his mind to it, he can destroy anything."
  • Lady Shiva is an assassin with an extreme laissez faire view of life. She thinks everyone should be free to do what they want in life. Of course sometimes she wants to kill someone, and they want to live. "This gives life interest."
  • The main plot of Transmetropolitan can be roughly described as two unfettereds butting heads. Both Spider and The Smiler have very specific ideas about what the world should be like, and no compunctions about doing what is necessary to get it there.
  • Herr Starr in Preacher. It is lampshaded in his Start of Darkness when the leader of the Ancient Conspiracy explains that he wants Starr to be The Dragon because he adheres to this trope, alluding to an event when Starr, over a period of five years, systematically hunted down and covertly killed five people who had bullied him and put his eye out. Starr was only five years old when his eye was put out, and all the bullies were dead before he hit his teens. When he is told to kill a defector currently committed to a mental hospital, Starr blows up the building and kills every single inmate to maximize the number of potential motives for the police to investigate.
  • Wonder Woman villain Circe is an immortal powerful sorceress whose goals are subject to change but who has not problem slaughtering, transforming and otherwise torturing any who might get in her way. Or irritate her. Her Memory Gambit in Wonder Woman (1987) backfiring and gaining loved ones annoys her greatly as she now has things she won't do and people besides herself she doesn't want dead which she sees as a weakness.

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