Pop-culture heroes who have turned into villains

Cafe Society
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You can define pop culture pretty much any way you like.

It’s a staple of daytime soaps almost as old and ubiquitous as the magically aging children and the popular characters who rise from the dead when the actor gets a big new contract to come back: the bad guy- and not in the Fonzie ‘bad boy’ way but drug dealers/thugs/rapists- who prove super popular with the audience have a way of becoming good guys (usually after it’s revealed he had a bad child and is really the long lost grandson of the 45 year old matriarch on the program).

There’s also a revisionist trend in books, particularly those of Gregory Maguire (Wicked and others) where he re-writes a story from the viewpoint of the villain. This has been done by other authors with Fagin from Oliver Twist, Judas by several novelists (Frank Yerby and Taylor Caldwell among others) and in Jesus Christ Superstar, and there are other examples. Even I Claudius could be argued to do this somewhat (since the historical Claudius seems a lot bloodier and less naive than his fictional counterpart).

What are some examples of the reverse in literature/film/comics/TV/etc.: a character who is genuinely likeable and a good person transforming into a bad person? (I don’t count super villains who are nice in the first 4 minutes of a movie until a lab accident turns them into a levitating psychopath or whatever, but those who were characters before turning bad.)

A few I can think of:

On the current season of Ugly Betty her most recent boyfriend, Matt, seen as a nice guy at first, is gradually revealed to be a spoiled self consumed brat who’s being groomed to be next year’s villain.

On an episode of The New WKRP Tim Reid reprised the role of Gordon Sims/Venus Flytrap, who’s now a wealthy executive and pompous ass who doesn’t want anything to do with his former colleagues.

In the rumored but never filmed prequel trilogy to STAR WARS it was said that Lucas planned to turn Annakin from a hero into Darth Vader.

Roscoe Coltrane, while never actually the good guy on Dukes of Hazzard, was originally (in the first season, which was more comedy drama and more serious) a more sympathetic character who really didn’t like working for Boss but had lost his job and pension after many years as a straight arrow sheriff. By the time the show settled into its rut (second season or before) he was a cartoon stupid villain.

If the Bible counts as literature, King David goes from the giant slaying musician and hero to a middle aged lecher that in spite of having a harem has an adulterous fling that ultimately leads to having the husband killed to cover up an unplanned pregnancy with a quick marriage.

In mythology Theseus goes from minotaur slayer to insanely jealous of his son and his much younger second wife, while Jason goes from the hero of the Argos/Golden Fleece quest to a middle aged climber determined to better deal his wife Medea for Creon’s daughter.

What are some other examples?

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Tom Cruise, O.J. Simpson, and Michael Jackson.

In The Princess Diaries (the book series, that is), the Guy Who Hates it When They Put Corn in the Chile


gets a name–JD I think it was–and becomes Mia’s boyfriend near the end of the series. Supposedly he’s a nice guy, oh so supportive and all that. In the very last book, he’s revealed to be pretty much an all-around sleaze who had sex with Mia’s former best friend and lied about it to Mia, and was using Mia for publicity too.

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Hulk Hogan

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Tony Stark aka Iron Man going all fascist ?

There was a character in one of the Heechee novels who went from a protagonist kid in one novel to a jerk and a rapist in the next as I recall.

In the Sten series, the Eternal Emperor goes from a ruthless but well meaning ( in the enlightened self interest meaning of the term ) ruler to a psychotic admirer of Caligula by the end.

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In comics, Hal Jordan (Green Lantern) became a villain. I don’t know if they rehabilitated him.

Alfred Pennyworth for a time became Batman’s arch enemy, the Outsider, but he reformed.

For a time, Londo Molari in Babylon 5 became a pretty nasty and vindictive villain, but he changed back.

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And for a time, G’Kar on Babylon 5 was a pretty nasty and vindictive villain (indeed, he even was in on the sale of heavy weaponry to the Raiders, a pirate group which prayed on Earth Alliance shipping), and eventually was reformed.

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As with all things, The Simpsons Did It : Homer started off as a goofy and clumsy but well-meaning simpleton who loved his family, and turned into a total jerkass, mean for meanness’ sake. I hear he got better in later seasons.

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I wouldn’t exactly call her a pop culture hero, but Mary Anne Singleton started of as a sympathetic girl next door character in Tales of the City, but by the last couple of books, she had pretty much morphed into heinous, self-absorbed bitch.

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In the most recent season of 24, the character of Tony Almeida - who had been not just a good guy but a downright hero in previous seasons - turned out to be a vindictive madman bent on revenge. I’d explain more, but there just isn’t time!

On Law & Order, there was supporting-detective Tony Profaci, played by John Fiore, who had been semi-regular for several seasons. In the made-for-TV movie “Exiled” it turned out he was on the take for years, and helped some mob punk cover up a murder.

When the TV series “Mission Impossible” was transformed into the first of a Tom Cruise trilogy, the old series good-guy character of Jim Phelps turned out to be the bad guy. Which is an outrage, and I’m sure Peter Graves was spinning in his grave … what? Really? Still? Wow.

I think for all three of those, the neat thing is that I’m pretty sure that when the character was initially conceived, there was no intention to turn them into a bad guy down the road (as opposed to say, Boromir in Lord Of The Rings, who started off good and then tried to kill Frodo - but I’m sure that’s what Tolkein had in mind all along).

thwartme

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In that vein, Sgt. Slaughter. The pro wrestler, not the G.I. Joe version.

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On Days of Our Lives, there’s John Black. Also, Victor Kiriakis has vacillated between good and bad a few times.

Walt on Breaking Bad fits the bill.

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RealityChuck:

They did. In the mini-series “Green Lantern: Rebirth”, they retconned the story so that Parallax is actually the name of a yellow entity of pure fear that was imprisoned inside the central power battery of Oa (and its presence was the cause of the yellow weakness of GL rings), and that Sinestro, who was imprisoned inside the central battery, freed Parallax and inserted it into Jordan. So all the evil of Parallax was actually that entity in control of Hal Jordan’s body, not the man Hal Jordan himself.

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Christian Slater’s Character JD in Heathers. It’s not so much that he changed as Veronica got more perceptive, though.

Angel and Spike from BTVS skipped back and forth almost arbitrarily. So did Willow and Jonathan, I suppose.

Triumph, the forgotten founding member of the Justice League, was always kind of a dick which is why the team never really embraced him. His defection to Luthor’s Injustice Gang was pretty believable.

Lots of DC heroes have been Eclipso’d or Darkseided, but it’s always temporary (think Mary Marvel, Plastic Man and the Creeper). “Anti-heroes” like Black Adam, Namor and the Punisher… It really depends on who writes them (Chuck Dixon, Frank Miller and Garth Ennis have vastly different ideas about how heroic the Punisher is). Marvel’s Sandman appears to have a toggle switch labeled “good” and “evil.” Kind of a crapshoot.

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Richard III

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But they’re the same guy!?!?!?

And if you’re going to use wrestlers, well, just name them all and be done with it. Nearly every beloved face winds up a dastardly heel at some point. Or vice versa.

I wonder, would Saruman from Lord of the Rings fit into this category?

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Well, on the first season of “Melrose Place,” everybody was nice, but when the ratings were lackluster, characters were changed drastically, and some turned evil… including the formerly idealistic doctor played by Thomas Calabro.

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Tony Soprano - at least according to thisbrilliant *New York Magazine *article.

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I thought of him, but it occurred to me that he was always a sociopathic bad sort–we just didn’t want to think of him that way.

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Yeah, they loved making the audience identify with Tony, and then have Tony do something incredibly heinous just to remind you that Tony is, in fact, incredibly heinous.

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In Colleen McCollough’s “Masters of Rome” series, Marius is at first presented very sympathetically as a hard-assed but decent guy. Later during the civil wars he becomes a semi-senile monster.