Recent events in the X-Comics have led me to think about Frederick J. Dukes, the villainous mutant known as The Blob. Created during the era where anyone not conventionally attractive was evil (witness his teammates, the skinny, hook-nosed Vanisher, the disheveled creep Mastermind and the vaguely Russian Unus The Untouchable), his power is “being fat.” More than that, his entire personality and history are about being gluttonous and socially unacceptable, and the character has gotten more and more grotesque with each passing decade, until the Age of X-Men event showed that he has actual human characteristics. During that crossover, Fred was shown to be friendly, kind, protective of his teammates, and a surprisingly talented baker, all of which has gone away as the prime reality reasserted itself, but leads us to today’s corpulent query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”)knows that he’s currently working as a bartender on Krakoa, but knows that he’ll go evil again as soon as a new writer needs a Brotherhood of Evil Mutants or a walking fat joke once more asking: Is there any character that you believe NEEDS a redemption arc, but will never get one?
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Tony Stark needs a redemption arc for Civil War, and because there’s no editorial desire to focus on the reprehensible nature of his actions, and the longer we go the more moot it becomes, such a redemption will likely never come. But that may not be what you’re asking.
I sincerely don’t think that there are any villains that, given enough time, some writer won’t try to give some kind of redemption arc. Sympathy for the devil, and all. And, yes, many will go ‘bad’ again, because these things are unending serials that need antagonists.
As for a originally conceived of as villain that I’d like to see given a redemption, it’s really hard to think of one that hasn’t gotten a redemption arc story at some point already. Massive floaty-eye Sauron, maybe? That could at least be good for a few laughs.
Barbara Gordon, but not in the conventional way you’d think of redemption, in which a character does something bad and must do something good enough to restore the balance and “gain redemption.”
In The Killing Joke, Alan Moore essentially fridged her (before there was such a term) as the catalyst/device for his Batman/Gordon story. Only years later were writers able to reinvent and salvage her as Oracle, a character who reclaimed her agency and sense of purpose in the Bat-mythos, but only as a band-aid response to what had happened in Killing Joke.
Unfortunately no matter how many times they retcon Babs’ history, the cat was already out of the bag with Killing Joke, and readers can’t really forget that. How do you redeem a character whose downfall wasn’t their own fault? Did hee shooting need to hapoen just so Joker had one more thing to torture the boys about? Maybe it’s Alan Moore who needs the redemption? I dunno. It’s noon on monday, just let me boil my ramen and think my thoughts.
Pretty much everyone that were at the top of “pro register” team in Civil War.