PS238 by Aaron Williams
Ps238: The School for Metaprodigy Children
PS238 by Aaron Williams
Ps238: The School for Metaprodigy Children
PS238 by Aaron Williams
Ps238: The School for Metaprodigy Children
PS238 by Aaron Williams
Ps238: The School for Metaprodigy Children
56 thoughts on “2021-03-31”
Lucario
Hopefully he does a bit better this time
Messenger
Makes me wonder, for all the serious comic book buffs here:
Who are the best, most well-known and well-regarded heel-face-turn superheroes out there?
Sadly, only one I can think of now are Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch.
notovny
To pull a couple more Marvel names…
Rogue, who also initially showed up as a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, when Mystique ran the group.
Songbird, who initially debuted as the supervillain Screaming Mimi. Admittedly, I haven’t read much of her past the first volume of Thunderbolts.
Mike
Also Black Widow (although the Soviet Union would have considered her turn to have gone in the other direction).
Magneto did make the shift from villain to hero, but tended to still be viewed suspiciously in a lot of quarters (and TBH was more of an anti-hero than a hero), so the “well-regarded” requirement probably eliminates him.
Ed Rhodes
Still Marvel; Vision was an evil lackey of Ultron (rather than being Ultron’s intended vessel) but he only took one issue to heel turn.
There was also Nighthawk, one of Marvel’s “Batman” clones. He actually had a power, his strength was doubled at night. He made himself up as a hero, rounding up bad guys and dragging them off to the cheers of the crowds, then he’d let them go around the corner because he really didn’t care. He got tied in with the Defenders, and became a good guy.
Ie Yamof Ool
Vision’s defection it turns out was programmed (at least in the comic). Somebody wondered why BOTH of his creations turned on him, and how he kept being rebuilt after each defeat. It turns out they were both programmed to join his enemies, but when he was defeated they would ‘blackout’ and rebuild him, allowing him to be practically immortal.
Clell65619
I think the ‘Well Regarded’ ship sailed as soon as anyone got a look at his ‘Leader of the Xmen’ costume. Whoever came up with that monstrosity must have hated Magneto.
TxGator
Deadpool… more or less. He started off a clear villian. But is now more of a hero. Most of the time.
Venom also.
mneme
And, still with Marvel, Emma Frost, who was the queen villain for pretty much my entire time as a marvel comics fan (around 87-92) and plenty of time before, but now has “new” powers and has been a solid X-man for decades.
On the DC side of the force, there’s Carol Fenris (AKA Star Sapphire). And apparently the new Killer Frost was introduced as a villain but is a hero now? Of course, DC tends to go more ambiguous, with Harley Quinn, Catwoman, and even Poison Ivy having odd heroic turns.
Prairie Son
Wolverine started out as a Hulk villain.
Black Cat was a villainess before moving into the heroic side.
Can’t think of anybody on the DC side. Maybe Catwoman.
Marie
Catwoman really always was a neutral, she very rarely has a homicidal period and had long periods of staying the classic property thief without much injury, sometimes a strong code against killing too. One time she got violent on Silver St Cloud, Bruce’s next GF when he thought she didn’t know he was Batman. Now when pre-crisis Catwoman married Batman and they became full partners on earth2 that was a heel turn.
For most of the time since her creation in the 60s, carol ferris as villain was a result of concussion/brainwashing/curse because she was a female executive in a high tech field, I never thought she needed alien gems to be strong or put sky jocks in their places. There’s a lot of lesser heroes that had heel turns in DC too but lots were retconned. Firehawk was hero who was shoved into suicide squad. Frost killed for like 30 years before the reboot and becoming goodguy on flash. Both flash and batman have a high percent of ambiguous chars who can be persuaded to do the right thing.
Most heroes have outlaw periods and some villains’ use heel turns as a trope: lex luthor forex.2
Clell65619
Wolverine wasn’t a villain, he was an agent of the Canadian Government (before anyone thought up Weapon X or Alpha Flight) investigating a string of missing persons and rumors of cannibalism. He found the Hulk, who is pretty well known for laying waste to pretty much everywhere he goes tromping around in the area. So of course he tried to fight the big green machine.
Wolvie was never really known for his common sense. That goes for most people who try to fight the Hulk outside of very few individuals. I recall a Spidey/Hulk fight where Pete was telling himself he was a moron while trying to stop the Hulk. Not their first fight, though that one was hilarious too)
It was only when their fight Dropped them into Wendigo’s lair, complete with the bones of his victims that Hulk and Wolvie stopped fighting each other and started fighting the badguy
jimbotherisenclown
There are a few in DC.
From Batman, we have Harley Quinn, Riddler, Damian Wayne (Robin IV), Jason Todd (Robin II & Red Hood), and Basil Carlo (Clayface). Other than Riddler, most of them have been reasonably successful as heroes.
Flash has Pied Piper, Trickster, and Shade, though none of them have been hugely successful. Trickster probably had some of the best post-reform stories of the three. There’s also Killer Frost, who is technically a Firestorm villain, but I’d wager that her heel-face turn in The Flash TV show is better known than in the recent DC Rebirth storyline.
Green Lantern has a lot of hazy feel turns, where it’s not really clear if the characters are trying to change their ways or just are doing heroic things to further the same goals they’ve always had. Sinestro and the Red Lantern Corp do that a lot, since they’re more of well-intentioned extremists than out-and-out villains in recent years. The Indigo Corp are mostly heroic and comprised entirely of former villains, but they’re mind-wiped into doing so, so I don’t know if they really count. There’s also Star Sapphire, who is usually more heroic when the Predator entity isn’t exerting too much influence.
Outside of Flash and Batman’s rogues galleries, though, we don’t really have a lot of villains that have redeemed themselves. Plastic Man is probably the best known one. There’s also Ravager from Teen Titans, who honestly has a pretty similar backstory to Damian Wayne. Apparently Black Adam is currently being considered for the Justice League, but I’m not really familiar with the story, so I don’t know if that’s a Heel-Face turn, or just some other shenanigans at play. There’s also Solomon Grundy, who often gets portrayed as more of a force of destruction like the Hulk instead of a villain. There are probably plenty of other ones, but that’s all I can think of at the moment.
Then there are the officially non-canon stories. Joker usually goes straight or dabbles in heroism in stories where Batman is killed off, unless the Joker dies first.
Bantaro
Your post reminded me – another Heel-Face Turn:
Flash Thompson.
Foomf
Wolverine started out as a Hulk FOE. He was a member of what Claremont and/or Byrne eventually turned into Alpha Flight, and at that point the claws weren’t necessarily part of his body. His mutant regeneration was, and he was a lot more Canadian-Nice.
David Nuttall
Sandman did a face turn one time when the Thing was immobilized in hospital back in the 1980’s.
Nightmask
Which started earlier than that, after he and Hydroman merged into a mindless mud-monster (even though that’s not what you’d get mixing sand and water) they eventually separated and Sandman underwent character development and ended up sitting drinking with Thing in their favorite bar and he started changing. Eventually became a hero only for some petty-@$$ writer who didn’t like him becoming a hero to ignore all his character development and write him as a villain again.
Nightmask
The original Thunderbolts brought about several heel-face turns that seem to have mostly stuck. The original criminal Power Man, later Goliath eventually became the heroic Atlas. Beetle became MACH I (and II, III, IV,…) and as someone else noted Screaming Mimi became Songbird. Even Baron Zemo II started to actually try being a hero due to his exposure to the other side of the table.
Weatherheight
I believe Sandman gave up the “straight up robber/superviilian” gig for working for Silver Sable as a security specialist (combination bodyguard / troubleshooter).
For a while, he was actively recruiting powers from “the life”
Weatherheight
Well, darn, scrolled right past everyone else pointing out Sandman. The Marvel Two-In-One when he and Ben Grimm sit in a bar and have a beer or three and just talk – for the WHOLE comic – was pretty awesome.
All righty then… 😀
Wonder Man / Simon Williams was originally a “bad guy”, a lab rat for Baron Zemo. He got turned around after a *very* long nap (okay, coma) and having to face his own mortality (hilarious, considering his power set has evolved over writers).
skullthetroll
If you haven’t read Worm by Wildbow, you should. Its the most complex look at heroes and villains in all of media IMO.
xero
Wolverine and Deadpool both started as Villians So did Rogue for that matter but the oldest is Plastic man as he was originally a petty thief working for kiteman when he fell in a vat at Ace Chemical
skullthetroll
Wolverine is sort of a stretch, yeah he was the antagonist to the Hulk, but he (and everyone else on the planet) always thought of himself an hero on Alpha Force. Thats just the nature of the Hulk comics. Banner is a hero and the Hulk is a “villain.”
skullthetroll
Magneto and the Emma Frost turn so many times they wear holes in the floor.
Anne
Loki sometimes, honestly almost every villain gets a sometimes-hero complex depending on who’s writing them. Rogue, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, Songbird are the main ones I can think of, but Venom, Doc Oct/Superior Spiderman, Red Hood, Basil Clayface, Killer Frost all should be mentioned
Pietro
When ya gotta go, ya gotta go.
Ed Rhodes
I don’t think so. I think his “sixth sense” is telling him that the kids came IN from the bathroom, there’s something there he needs to work with.
Pietro
Which means he has to go to the bathroom.
Ed Rhodes
Oh yes. But not to… “go.”
vonBoomslang
Get. He has to GET to the bathroom
Anonymous
Worst Schwarzenegger accent:
“Get to the crapper!”
Mike
So, do they need to get to the bathroom to do something about the pathway that Ron brought the others through to get in there in the first place? Or because his initial trip for more mundane reasons got interrupted?
TxGator
I’m hoping for the former. Otherwise that last panel is very anti-climatic.
TBeholder
There’s probably no point to do anything about the pathway, at least now. All the trouble is already here.
Some Ed
All the trouble that we know about, because we’re not looking in the bathroom.
It’s important to realize, when you’re looking to second guess a hero with an additional sense (that he foolishly thinks is merely his sixth), your information is also limited.
I’ll make the guess that something followed Cecil, or more specifically, his cloak, and needs to be dealt with. Also, he actually needs to use the facilities. Also, he needs to *not* be in the room he was just in.
I realize that’s a lot to deal with, but this situation’s already a bit of a cluster, so why not add a new cluster or two?
Nightmask
Nice that this seems to have been a redemption arc for the guy, realizing his mistakes and coming to realize he can be better than he was and going real hero. Hopefully he won’t have much trouble with the ‘heroes’ like Tyler’s parents when the reveal comes he’s powered up again.
Faust
The rehabilitation efforts from Tylers parents worked very well. They will be so proud of their acheivment.
Nightmask
Tyler’s parents are quite worthless and couldn’t rehabilitate a rock, at least one super-powered version of Tyler ended up a super-villain thanks to their ‘help.’ ‘Our’ Tyler would have ended up a super-villain eventually if he wasn’t so inherently decent and the teachers didn’t help him out.
Ed Rhodes
That doesn’t mean they won’t take credit for the reformation.
Cerulean Lion
Tyler’s parents strike me as less than perceptive on the whole.
Nealithi
What ever cosmic filters keep the people from realizing who is under a mask seems to be going overboard with them.
Faust
The more active the super power the more active the perception filter?
Tyler has inactive power (powers pending?+AU powers confirmed) so inverse funtion of the filter is plausible AKA the super power of perception and common sense.
TemperaryObsessor
Sadly I just realized what the manicle is saying in this page. Lester’s hand has been hidden ever since he’s risked his own life to save the kids. I guess that act has convinced the manicle that he deserves a second chance.
Nodrog
I think it’s saying he was technically worthy the first time he wore the manacle, he just didn’t realize he could be a hero (if he worked at it) and so chose to be a villain instead.
Nightmask
Yes, it chose him but he got drunk on power and fell into villainy, it took being separated and dealing with the loss to realize his mistakes and grow from those lessons to be able to get it right this time.
Sean Duggan
Brings to mind the Charles Phipps “Supervillainy” series, which involves Gary, who inherits the powerful magical cape of a prominent hero, and decides to use it to commit acts of villainy. Which, given how bad the city he’s in is, basically involves him stealing from banks and big businesses while fighting greater evils, and being annoyed that no one treats him as being properly villainous.
JoeMerl
Wasn’t it called the Manacle of Nyrathos?
http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2016-08-2016/
James
I also was very confused by this point, also that no-one else brought it up. Different chain? Different name based on the alignment of the person?
Nos482
Retcon, I guess… same as with the cape who got it off Lester’s wrist.
LookieLouE1707
maybe he made up his own, more villainous name for it as part of his omnius persona? “manacle of prometheus” sounds less villainous than “manacle of nyrathos”.
Mike
Given that he had no idea the manacle could talk until now, he may not have known its actual name. Possibly Nyrathos was the name of the previous possessor.
dornbeast
If I’m following this correctly, Lester was guided to P&G by a message in a fortune cookie, and they were surprised by that method.
Is it possible that the Manacle created the message because he was at a good point to recognize he’d screwed up, and become better?
Rewtyq
Im waiting on the management afterwards sending the staff a message that they are happy everything went to plan and appologies for not informing them of what was going to happen.
evileeyore
I like this idea so much, that unless it’s decanonized by events in comic, it’s my head canon.
Jenora+Feuer
So, I notice this page says 2020 by mistake… I know the year felt longer than it was, but not quite THIS long.
Miry
Going back and rereading the start of this comic, I feel like there’s a strong parallel between Principal Cranston and this guy.
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