I've just recently reread Masks, a 2012 Dynamite sight-issue series where the Shadow, the Green Hornet & Kato, the Spider-Master of Men, the Green Lama, Miss Fury, the Black Terror, the Black Bat and a "new" Zorro must team up to stop an authoritarian dictactor who has taken over New York State legally.
It turn out (again SPOILERS) to be led by Brian O'Brien, who was THE CLOCK, one of comics' first masked heroes who decided the only way to stop evil was to completely eradicate it.
To the surprise of no one, he is eventually shot dead by the Shadow. "The seeds of crime" and all that.
That reminded me of the fall of Hal Jordan, GREEN LANTERN in "Emerald Twilight" in 1994 which would lead to him becoming Parallax, a cosmic threat. It upset me so much that I quit comics...cold turkey! And made me resent his replacement, Kyle Raynor for years.
Later books like JLA and Kingdom Come would bring me back but still...
But it got me thinking about other heroes of various degrees of importance and magnitude who would stop fighting evil and become evil.
I'm not talking about mind control, losing one's temper (see any Marvel Hero Fight) or any temporary plot twist. They have to have turned heel for a significant amount of time. They could go back to being a hero but not a villain who becomes a hero!
So, off the top of my head, here are the ones I remember!
Feel free to add, comment or correct!
ALIAS THE SPIDER---The Shade #3 (Ju'97). Quality's Ace Archer was revealed to be a criminal and even joined and betrayed the Seven Soldiers of Victory.
ATOM-SMASHER--the former Nuklon would leave the Justice Society and join Black Adam in JSA #54 (Ma'04)
BATTLE AXIS---five public domain Golden Age heroes turned into Nazi sympathizers in Invaders #1 (My'93). They included Doctor Death (formerly Doctor Nemesis), the Human Meteor, the Spider Queen, Strongman and Volton.
BRAINWAVE JR.--the son of one of the Justice Society's greatest foes who part of Infinity Inc would also join Black Adam in JSA #54 (Ma'04)
CAPTAIN MARBLES--grew tired of taking all the risks and getting no rewards, confronted by Superduperman in MAD #4 (My'53)
DYNAMIC MAN---former Golden Age hero, now insane android as seen in The Twelve #11 (My'12)
ENCHANTRESS--former the Switch-eroo Witch-eroo, wanted more power, became part of the Forgotten Villains and the Suicide Squad, started by battling Supergirl in Superman Family #204 (D'80)
GUY GARDNER--a bitter and arrogant Green Lantern who thought only he deserved the title and power as seen in Green Lantern #195 (D'85)
HANGMAN---returned in the Silver Age as a villain with a magic rope in Fly-Man #33 (S'65)
HAWK--the aggressive partner of the Dove who would inexplicably become the time traveling Monarch in Armageddon 2001 #2 (O'91)
JANU--the former Jungle Boy who betray Congo Bill for money and power in Congorilla #1 (N'92)
MOONDRAGON---the "Goddess of the Mind" would complete her fall into evil by conquering a world and killing her father, Drax the Destroyer in Avengers #220 (Ju'82)
NORTHWIND ---the gentle winged member of Infinity Inc would mutate into a hawk creature and join Black Adam in JSA #54 (Ma'04)
OBSIDIAN--the troubled son of the Alan Scott Green Lantern would completely descend into madness in JSA #7 (F'00)
PHOENIX--'Nuff Said'---X-Men #134 (Ju'80)
QUICKSILVER ---the fastest mutant alive would turn on his family, friends and teammates in West Coast Avengers Annual #1 (1986)
SARGON THE SORCERER--this Golde Age hero would return on the side of evil in The Flash #186 (Ma'69)
SILVER SCARAB--the son of the Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl would fulfill an ancient curse in Infinity Inc. # 42 (S'87)
TIGER--the partner of Judomaster grew up wrong as Avatar in The L.A.W. (1999)
WIZARD--MLJ's Man with the Super-Brain would reappear in the Silver Age looking completely different in Fly-Man #33 (S'65)
YELLOWJACKET--Henry Pym would let his insecurity and jealousy overwhelm him in Avengers #213 (N'81)
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I HAAAAATED "Emerald Twilight." Hated. It.
ALIAS THE SPIDER---The Shade #3 (Ju'97). Quality's Ace Archer was revealed to be a criminal and even joined and betrayed the Seven Soldiers of Victory.
Wasn’t this one an attempt to replace Green Arrow in the 7 Soldiers? They've given up on that now and say the Golden Age GA was the present one, who was time-traveling. Or something.
ATOM-SMASHER--the former Nuklon would leave the Justice Society and join Black Adam in JSA #54 (Ma'04)
I think he’s back to being a good guy again. He was a good guy in the Black Adam movie too, I think. I don't care what he is as long as he never wears a mohawk again.
DYNAMIC MAN---former Golden Age hero, now insane android as seen in The Twelve #11 (My'12)
I didn’t know Dynamic Man from a hole in the ground, so his heel turn didn’t bother me. It was actually telegraphed in advance, and it was well handled.
HANGMAN---returned in the Silver Age as a villain with a magic rope in Fly-Man #33 (S'65)
I vaguely remember this. I was very young, and kept getting Hangman and Black Hood mixed up. Still do, a little bit.
HAWK--the aggressive partner of the Dove who would inexplicably become the time traveling Monarch in Armageddon 2001 #2 (O'91)
I think we all know the story, that Monarch was supposed to be Captain Atom, but when the fans all guessed it was going to be Captain Atom, they decided to make him Hawk instead. So all the clues to that point (which pointed to someone with the powers of Captain Atom) no longer made sense, and an arch-villain with the powers of Hawk (as opposed to Captain Atom) just wasn’t very scary.
JANU--the former Jungle Boy who betray Congo Bill for money and power in Congorilla #1 (N'92)
I didn’t know about this. Sad.
MOONDRAGON---the "Goddess of the Mind" would complete her fall into evil by conquering a world and killing her father, Drax the Destroyer in Avengers #220 (Ju'82)
She was always a borderline bad guy to me ("Madame MacEvil"), so when she started dating Phyla-Vell and became less awful, I considered it a hero turn.
NORTHWIND ---the gentle winged member of Infinity Inc would mutate into a hawk creature and join Black Adam in JSA #54 (Ma'04)
I found this character utterly pointless and disinteresting from the get-go. Turning into a villain is about the only thing that could make me interested in him. But it didn't.
OBSIDIAN--the troubled son of the Alan Scott Green Lantern would completely descend into madness in JSA #7 (F'00)
Him, too.
PHOENIX--'Nuff Said'---X-Men #134 (Ju'80)
Sooooo tired of Phoenix.
QUICKSILVER ---the fastest mutant alive would turn on his family, friends and teammates in West Coast Avengers Annual #1 (1986)
As Commander Benson observed, no professional team would have EVER had Quicksilver on it, because of his damage to unit cohesion. When someone's that toxic you don't make him an Avenger, you take his number out of your phone.
SARGON THE SORCERER--this Golden Age hero would return on the side of evil in The Flash #186 (Ma'69)
It was very short-lived. He was a hero in his next appearance (I think) in Justice League of America.
SILVER SCARAB--the son of the Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl would fulfill an ancient curse in Infinity Inc. # 42 (S'87)
This whiner is 90% of my dislike for Infinity Inc. (Northwind and Obsidian might be the other 10%.) He got to be a superhero through no effort of his own, he was rich with (again) no effort, his girlfriend was freakin' Fury (whom he treated terribly), he got to be a nepo baby of both Hawkman AND Doctor Fate, and still he whined.
TIGER--the partner of Judomaster grew up wrong as Avatar in The L.A.W. (1999)
L.A.W. never happened. Nope. Those comics may be in the Comics Cave, they may in the Overstreet Guide, but They. Did. Not. Happen. They are with Mopee, in the place where bad comics go to be forgot.
YELLOWJACKET--Henry Pym would let his insecurity and jealousy overwhelm him in Avengers #213 (N'81)
Wait, didn't he go completely off his nut to become Yellowjacket in the first place? That was back in Avengers #59 or so. And then he was hypnotized into making Ultron. His heel turn was years in the making.
They can always be redeemed but they had to be villains for an extended period.
Some notes on:
ALIAS THE SPIDER: Post-Crisis, the Seven Soldiers of Victory first included Wing and the Vigilante's first sidekick, Billy Gunn. Then they dropped Wing and added the Spider (who was actually a crimeboss unbeknownst to them) and the Vigilante's second partner, Stuff the Chinatown Kid. Then then they dropped the Spider and Stuff and added TNT and Dan the Dynamite. How that affected Young All-Stars, I have no idea!
JANU THE JUNGLE BOY: I wrote a LOC for Congorilla and said how devastating it would have been if instead of Congo Bill and Janu, it was Batman and Robin! That's the relationship they had. I wonder if they saw his appearance in Swamp Thing Annual #3 and just assumed that civilzation corrupted Janu!
MOONDRAGON: yes, she was always arrogant and self-centered but she was part of two important books of my childhood: Avengers #137 (Jl'75) and Marvel Team-Up #44 (Ap'76) so her decline saddened me.
QUICKSILVER: I grew up reading Marvel Triple Action more than Avengers so my first impression of the Mercurial Mutant was a positive one. The same for Hank Pym as Goliath. It was Hawkeye that was the pain inthe @$$!
SARGON THE SORCERER: he fought the Scarlet Speedster in The Flash #186 and #207 (Ju'71) where he endangered his niece! Then he reformed in Justice League of America #98 (My'72) that resulted in him becoming an honorary JLA member! But then he battled Wonder Woman in Adventure Comics #462 (Ap'79) where he was frred from the Ruby of Life's evil influence. Wha?
SILVER SCARAB: (and the rest of Infinity Inc.), I liked the book and the concept when it came out but as I grew older, the characters became more and more annoying and grating. The worse was Hector Hall, forever the spoiled brat who wanted more! Even in Infinity Inc #1 (Ma'84), when he talked about his Nth metal armor! How did he build it? How did he design it? And where did he get all that Nth metal? The obvious answer is that either his mother gave it to him or he stole it from his father!
ALIAS THE SPIDER: Post-Crisis, the Seven Soldiers of Victory first included Wing and the Vigilante's first sidekick, Billy Gunn. Then they dropped Wing and added the Spider (who was actually a crimeboss unbeknownst to them) and the Vigilante's second partner, Stuff the Chinatown Kid. Then then they dropped the Spider and Stuff and added TNT and Dan the Dynamite. How that affected Young All-Stars, I have no idea!
When and where did all this happen? I'm sure I read it, but whenever I hear the words "Seven Soldiers of Victory" my eyes glaze over. I'm sure a re-read of Young All-Stars is somewhere in my future, and I could compare and contrast, as they say.
MOONDRAGON: yes, she was always arrogant and self-centered but she was part of two important books of my childhood: Avengers #137 (Jl'75) and Marvel Team-Up #44 (Ap'76) so her decline saddened me.
Understood.
But then he battled Wonder Woman in Adventure Comics #462 (Ap'79) where he was frred from the Ruby of Life's evil influence. Wha?
Wait, weren't the Ruby of Life and the Ring of Life connected? (And should the Ibistick be jealous?) Anyway, I vagurely remember the Wonder Woman story as part of a pattern. There's practically a throughline with DC resurrecting Golden Age charcters and not having the faintest idea what to do with them. Usually they become villains, or lose their powers. And it wasn't just DC, as Archie revived Wizard and Hangman as villains (as you already noted). I guess it's thematically similar to when DC bought other characters, and then had to radically alter them to fit into the already overpopulated DCU, making them not the same characters at all.
SILVER SCARAB: (and the rest of Infinity Inc.), I liked the book and the concept when it came out but as I grew older, the characters became more and more annoying and grating.
I was pretty excited by the concept in 1984, although in my heart of hearts what I wanted was a JSA book. But the All-Star Comics revival had failed, finishing in Adventure Comics #466 in 1979, and All-Star Squadron was going big guns, so I knew a modern JSA book wasn't in the cards. And unbeknownst to me, but probably known at DC, the JSA was about to be taken off the board in Crisis. So Barring Jay, Alan and the gang, a book starring their legacies could be really cool. I was in my late twenties, though, and these kids struck me right away as needing a spanking, especially ungrateful nepo baby Hector Hall. And why did he look more like the son of Blue Beetle than Hawkman? Was that on purpose? DC probably had the Charlton rights at that point, and Ted Kord would make his DCU debut the next year in Crisis.
Anyway, I keep thread-jacking. Here's my heel turn offering: Wonder Man. For some reason, he decided all the world's problem were the Avengers' fault, and organized a "Revengers" team and fought them. This was around 2010 or so.
The first Post-Crisis Seven Soldiers roster was shown in Young All-Stars #27 (Jl'89) with the Squire (the future Knight aka the British Batman) acting like the Shining Knight's sidekick.
The Spider's involvement was revealed in Stars & S.T.R.I.P.E. #9 (Ap'00) where the Evil Archer was thought to be the only SSV "survivor".
TNT & Dan the Dynamite were added in DCU: Legacies #2 (Au'10) with the Spider as well as Stuff dropped.
All the REVENGERS should be on this list as they were all heroes, more or less. Besides Wonder Man, there was:
ANTI-VENOM
ATLAS (the former evil Power Man/Smuggler) who was mad the Avengers didn't appreciate his hero turn.
CAPTAIN ULTRA (doing anything for credibility)
CENTURY (from Force Works--no idea why)
DEMOLITION MAN (hopefully cured of his brain damage)
DEVIL-SLAYER
ETHAN EDWARDS (a Skrull Superman pastiche, also known as Moral Man and Virtue)
GOLIATH V (the nephew of Black Goliath--still upset over Civil War as most of us are!)