10 Superheroes Who Started Out As Villains
5. Plastic Man
Before he was Plastic Man, Patrick "Eel" O'Brian was a small-time crook. He spent most of his time as a burglar who specialized as a safe-cracker, and Eel didn't have any allusions of being a good guy, but that all changed one fateful night!
While working a job at the Crawford Chemical Works, Eel was shot in the shoulder and doused in a strange chemical liquid. He escaped capture, but his crew abandoned him. He went on the lam, but the wound and chemicals messed him up pretty good, so he passed out in the woods outside the city.
When he woke up, he was being cared for by a monk, who turned the police away when they came looking for him. The monk did this after sensing goodness in him. Witnessing this act of kindness fundamentally changed Eel to try and become a good guy (his buddies abandoning him didn't hurt the process either).
His recovery at the monastery also showed Eel that he had strange new powers, as his body had taken on the properties of rubber! Determined to make good on his promise to change, he abandoned his Eel O'Brian identity and became the superhero known to the world as Plastic Man!