Quote Originally Posted by Captain Haddock View Post
That whole thing with Sandman in SM3 was pretty ridiculous. I mean, the fact that this was a repeated hardened criminal was just shunted aside because his kid was sick. It seemed to be going for a more Robin Hood, he committed crimes but for a sympathetic reason but the moral as it actually appeared was more like 'they weren't even crimes, at all.' How It Should Have Ended did a glorious spoof of the whole thing I seem to remember. They went for anti-hero Sandman (or maybe anti-villain if there is such a thing) but missed, wildly. And from memory, it ended up with the kid basically saying 'I'm going to die, but I am cool with it' anyway...
Anti-villain is a thing, yeah. The contrast with anti-hero is that basically an anti-hero is a character cast as the hero whose methods, motives, or personal traits don't mesh with what we expect a hero to be. They can be out for vengeance, for money, for some other personal gain. They can mean well but trip themselves up by acting overly selfishly, recklessly, or even viciously, some even beyond the point they could still be considered heroic or sympathetic. Their methods and motives can be as purely heroic as possible, but offset by them being aloof, abrasive, or hostile or displaying such a cynical, pessimistic, or even downright nihilistic attitude that it makes people wonder why they're heroes at all.

An anti-villain, on the other hand, is a character cast as the villain whose motives or personality traits may be considerably more sympathetic or heroic than what we normally expect from a villain. Anti-villains can be motivated by love for someone else, to avenge a great wrong done to them or someone they loved, by the belief that their actions are necessary to correct some kind of great injustice, prevent a greater harm from manifesting, or for them to simply survive even if those actions clash with what most people would consider good. Some anti-villains don't necessarily have altruistic motives for their actions, but they compensate by being oddly principled in their own way, in that they won't target innocent people or anyone/anything that isn't directly connected to their goals, or they will honor the terms of whatever bargains they strike with their foes, or they will even deign to aid their heroic foes if said foes are dealing with a villain that they themselves find detestable for whatever reason. Otherwise, they may be more sympathetic than the traditional villain, in terms of being motivated by deep personal angst or trauma that has skewed their moral compasses and left them unable to act morally, but simply lash out in pain toward whomever they view as responsible or by the direction of whomever shows them the slightest human kindness even if that person's motives are far from benevolent.

In regards to how these relate to Spider-Man, Venom/Eddie Brock is sometimes portrayed as an anti-villain because aside from his venomous hatred of Spider-Man, he tries to aim the symbiote's violent urges away from innocent people and sees himself as their protector, even though in relation to Spider-Man he is very clearly the villain. The Lizard is often treated as an anti-villain because his villainy comes from an intermittently uncontrollable mutation that he's been unable to completely cure himself of and when not reptilian, he has been a great friend and ally to Spider-Man. More obscurely, there's Cardiac, who would be an anti-hero if the story was told from his point of view, as his goal is to avenge those who've had their lives unjustly ruined or ended by criminals who can then manipulate the law to escape punishment for their wrongdoings. More currently, the present Venom, Flash Thompson, is the most heroic of the Venoms to date, but struggles with controlling the symbiote's violent urges and has made some bad decisions despite having the best of intentions. Kaine as the Scarlet Spider is another anti-hero, trying his best to atone for his previous villainous actions but holding great guilt for them and more willing to resort to killing than a hero "should." Otto Octavius as the Superior Spider-Man tried to be an anti-hero, but his methods and motives increasingly reverted to villainous type as he lost sight of his original intent (if it was truly there) to atone for his past crimes as opposed to proving he was a better Spider-Man than Peter Parker, and that ultimately led to his downfall.