6 Times Comics Made Great Villains Terrible

4. Everything About Doctor Light - Identity Crisis

As far as comics go, they don't get much more divisive than Brad Meltzer's Identity Crisis.

Written in 2004, the then latest Crisis differed much from its predecessors, meddling with continuity curtesy of a retcon rather than a grand cosmic battle of sorts. Unfortunately for Doctor Light and Sue Dibny, the retcon in question proved to be one of the most disturbing the DC Universe had ever seen, with it having been revealed that the former Teen Titans adversary - then often portrayed as a comedic villain of sorts - had raped Dibny back during the Bronze Age of comics.

It then transpired that Green Lantern, Black Canary, Green Arrow, Zatanna and other Leaguers first to arrest Light had altered his personality into the jokey caricature readers were most familiar with, before also erasing the memory of Batman, who protested to what he considered an unethical punishment.

It made for a grim storyline, and it completely tainted the character of Light, who had gone from being perceived as a joke villain by many, into a thoroughly reprehensible antagonist.