10 Superheroes Who Broke Bad
7. Hawk
The DC event 'Armageddon 2001' introduced a brand new villain from the future called Monarch. The event revolved around the mystery of which hero would become Monarch and, thanks to a last-minute rewrite, it was revealed to be Hawk (the only character to have earlier been confirmed absolutely not to be Monarch).
Hank Hall formed one half of the superhero team Hawk and Dove along with his girlfriend Dawn Granger. When Monarch killed Dawn in front of him, Hank flew into a rage and beat Monarch to death, only to find an older version of himself under the helmet. Going mad from the revelation, he took the armour for himself and completed the cycle, becoming Monarch.
Well he would be Monarch for a little bit. Then Hank stole the powers of the time-traveller Waverider and changed his name to Extant. As extant, he tried to destroy the DC Universe by unravelling time and murdered several members of the Justice Society of America when they tried to stop him, including the original Atom.
Extant was eventually stopped by Atom Smasher, the grandson of the Atom. He used another time travel device (people really need to stop just leaving them about the place, it creates such a mess) to cause Extant to swap places with Atom Smasher's mother, leaving him to die in a plane crash.