Something That Has Always Bothered Me

[Castiel]

I've always been bothered that we've never seen a side kick go bad and stay bad and I'm not talking about a situation like Jason Todd who was from a bad up bringing and already was prone to violence. I'm talking about someone who actually starts out idealistic and the perfect side kick but slowly becomes very damaged from the super hero life style. I got a thinking about this after playing Batman Arkham something Knight says caught my attention "I was just a kid! You turned me into a soldier sent me to war!" I'm amazed there has never been a villain like this I mean aside Jason (who let's face it has all sorts of red flags in his back ground) who just snaps from all the things side kicks (especially the young ones) are exposed to.

I think it would be interesting to see a young character(like on the Teen Titans team or whatever) slowly start to become unhinged developing symptoms of PTSD and some psychopathic/sociopathic tendencies like clearly show signs of enjoying violence maybe becoming like the Punisher and starting to view the other heroes as part of the problem(since clearly a lot of super villains treat the system as a revolving door and characters like Amanda Waller get to do all sorts of horrible things with organizations like Cadmus without consequence) I mean the heroes of DC might see such a character as having a psychotic breakdown but an argument could be made that the person is just realizing how crazy everything is I mean the JL fight crime lock up criminals the criminals break out kill a bunch of people get locked up again rinse repeat. I think it would be interesting to see one of the JL face a enemy they themselves mentored and ultimately went bad because they weren't paying attention and or noticing clear signs of that person's psyche crumbling especially if some hypocritical and morally questionable activitiy by the Justice League (I think they've done some morally grey things in the past) was the root of said fallen side kick's psychotic break down resulting in something like this.

[Immortal Weapon]

Marvel did something like that with Midnight in Charlie Huston run on Moon Knight. He turned on Moon Knight and turn himself into a cyborg because Mark forgot about him.

Frank Miller's Dick Grayson if you take in ASSBAR and Dark Knight Strikes Again into amount. I like to forget the latter ever happened.

[Lamashtar]

Why would companies that make money from showing superheroes fight evil in intellectual properties that have lasted for nearly a hundred years destroy their moneymakers like that? Any immorality a hero--even a sidekick--does can utterly destroy that character's appeal. Just look at Antman. An artist mistakenly shows him slap his wife and decades later we get protesters against the character even showing up as a mentor figure in the Antman movie.

The closest you can see is near misses. Like the movie Return of the Joker. The Jason Todd Red Hood character. The Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes character. All of whom turn out to not be really bad.

Frankly, any such character would look pretty poor versus real life child soldiers, like the Liberian warlord General Buck Naked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Butt_Naked . He was told by his people and his religion that murdering and cannibalizing were for the best. Those kids were as screwed up as it is possible to be. Yet this kid has an epiphany and realizes its wrong. He became a preacher, trying to apologize to his victims and trying to convince people to leave behind the atrocities of the civil war.

If the superhero wish fulfillment fantasy isn't as moral as real people then whats the point?

[Vision]

Why does it have to be a sidekick or a young character?