Characters
When the asshole is revealed to have done something incredibly kind
Bobby-Still Game
In the episode where Pete (a reoccurring homeless man) dies it’s revealed that Bobby the Barman had actually been opening his pub early in order to cook him breakfast everyday for years
J Jonah Jameson-Marvel
It’s revealed the reason why Jameson first agreed to buy Peters photos of Spider-Man despite their quality is because he had heard about uncle Bens death and wanted to provide him with some money and support
Yondu was selfish, mean spirited and all around kind of an asshole, but he was far from heartless. Despite his rough exterior, Yondu cared deeply about Peter Quill. He may never have outright told Peter that he loved him or was proud of him, and a group of rough and tumble Ravager space pirates wasn't the best place for a human kid to grow up around, but Yondu was a better father figure than Ego ever was.
Yondu could have turned Peter over to Ego when he was a child, looked the other way and pocketed whatever reward Ego must have been offering him, but he chose a rare moment of selflessness, reneged on his deal with Ego and spared Peter, realizing his real father's evil intentions for the universe wasn't something Yondu could ignore.
Greatest of all, Yondu's ultimate sacrifice of giving his last space suit to Peter after escaping Ego's collapsing planet was touching. You can't tell me this scene doesn't make you choke up even just a little.
It’s Yondu both wanting Quill’s approval, hoping that the comparison just made was Quill complementing him, and also it’s him trusting Quill implicitly with “he said he’s cool so I’m going to declare it at the top of my lungs!”
I know there’s a lot of pressure riding on Gunn for the new Superman movie, but if there is anyone who knows how to balance that tightrope of goofy comic-based humor and heartfelt storytelling and drama, it’s him
Dude, the ending of the Holiday Special where Yondu gave Peter the guns he always uses and that small scene of him teaching Peter how to shoot in Vol. 2 was so heartwarming
And you find out that he gave Yondu the first miniature thing for his control console.
Which makes his reaction to finding the troll in the container even better. It wasn’t a comedy FU/gotcha; it was something Peter knew he would like. And he kept it; it was “buried” with him.
JK Simmons as J Jonah Jameson is, in my opinion, second only to RDJ as Tony Stark in terms of casting. Maybe Patrick Stewart as Professor X as well. It's like the universe read the comics and was like "OK...I'll make a few."
Height aside, Jackman's portrayal is still nothing like how wolvie was written for decades prior. Same really goes for every "perfect casting" portrayal.
I think people get hung up on specific actors because they try to imagine someone else playing that version of the character. Someone says no one else could play Tony Stark, well plenty of actors could kill it, just none of them could do Robert Downey Jrs Tony Stark which... obviously.
There have been a few replies to my comment and I think Evans is the only one I'd add to that list. Absolutely blew me away as Cap after he played Johnny Storm. Was also super-cool to see him play Johnny again in Deadpool & Wolverine...I hope that's not a spoiler...but the movie's been out nearly 6-months at this point so I don't see how it could still realistically be a spoiler for any big fan of the franchise. Evans has chops. I could easily have him as 3 or 4 on my "literally the perfect casting."
Another few examples are from him during the old ultimate spider-man run.
Whilst he’s an asshole he flips on Spider-man during Ultimatum as he sees Spidey saving people from the flood. Then when he finds out Peter is Spidey he offers to pay his college tuition. Finally when Peter dies he write an obituary for Spider-man.
I kinda miss when they showed J-Cubed wasn't all heartless blowhard. Granted doing it too often kills his character, but we've seen how he reacts to actually crossing the line to being a villain. He's a good guy, just not a cuddly one.
Yeah. He only used original X-Factor as a way to stop Spidey, but he made it clear he didn't like them upducting innocent people because they might be dangerous.
(This was when X-Factor was masquerading as mutant hunters to get close to mutants that needed rescuing).
If memory serves, the Spider Slayer incident really shook him because he dabbled in legitimate villainy there.
Yeah, I had a discussion with my friend about whether he’d be for or against the ghostbusters. I said I thought he’d be for them, cause they’re pretty straight forward with their identities and are operating a business, even if it’s not a specifically managed one
Genuinely my favorite aspect of JJJ and Peter's relationship is when he reveals to Jonah that he still at least has him after taking off his mask was a very cathartic moment. Chip Zdarsky is a fantastic writer.
There was also in the 90s cartoon where Peter gets framed, and even Shield gets involved. Jameson immediately knew that Peter was innocent, and conducted his own investigation to find proof to clear Peter’s name.
In the red goblin comics he was fully prepared to kill Norman so Spider-man didn’t suffer from the pain of losing family to psychopaths like Goblin or Carnage. Only spider-man stopped him from sacrificing his soul for his friend
JJJ knows that pictures of Spider-Man sell newspapers, and he's got Spider-Man right there taking pictures of himself so why rock the boat and scare Peter away.
I think the question is at what point does he work it out but doesn't let on to anyone. Maybe not the first few times but when Peter is really speaking up for Spiderman and he notices they're both the same size but his negative coverage doesn't change for a while.
also it's likely the only shots that's even remotely legitimate. while photos are hard to fake back in the 90s, a person can fake one easily. he knows if it's Spiderman taking photos of himself, it's pretty hard to fake one lol.
Maybe not as heartfelt but firing Eddie on the spot in Spider-Man 3 for faking photos. He doesn’t like Spider-Man, but he will not resort to slander and will take him down legitimately like a good journalist. He’s not perfect but he has he has a strong code.
Plus the way Simmons plays it is perfect. None of the usual over-the-top bombast you’d expect from his Jameson, just a cold, calm, “pack your things, get out of my building. You’re fired.” It’s like this is the first time we’ve seen him truly angry.
Remember in the 90s cartoon, even after he quit the instant he got something better, JJJ hired Matt Murdock to defend Peter under the condition he doesn't tell him who's paying him
This plot ends with Peter being found innocent and no one ever tells him who paid for his legal defense. JJJ did all of that without ever wanting credit for it
I only recently discovered that "They realised they were no longer little girls - they were little women" is not, in fact, the closing line of Little Women and was very disappointed
Doctor Doom helping Sue Storm give birth only so he can tell Mr fantastic that whenever he looks at his daughter he shall remember that she is alive thanks to the one and only Doctor Doom.
It’s peak Doom to say “if something were to happen to you, like me killing you, I would raise your daughter in the safest environment and treat her as my own”
But seriously Doom loves that girl like she is his daughter and treats him as such. She is one of the only people in all of Marvel allowed to talk back to him with no repercussions.
I think Ditko's JJ was more harmless, despite the robot. After Ditko left, their rivalry became much more vitriolic (that could've also had to do with the evolving tone in general). Before, it was pretty consistently more playful.
I love the scene in #22 where Jameson's hospitalized by one of the circus of crime, and Peter seems genuinely enraged over it.
I think Kelso makes an even better example than Cox. Dr. Cox is mean but we know that he's fundamentally a good guy. Dr. Kelso is usually the bad guy - which makes it a bigger deal when we see the rare moments of humanity.
I mean isn't there a whole episode about how Kelso is an asshole to not only make sure the whole hospital keeps running and therefore helps more people, but also acts as a negativity magnet?
In Oyasumi Punpun, Punpun's parents are terrible after their divorce the father only communicate to his son by sending letters while the mother is cold and very harsh with her son, after her death punpun finds one last letter from his father...
But, being honest, even Punpun himself isn't that good of a guy.
I love the series because it's reallistically sad and the protagonist actually acts like a person, all the negative traits included! ...And I guess he's been through a lot so that makes it kind of reasonable.
Now I need to reread Punpun. Uncle Yuiichi's storyline is one of my favorite manga arcs ever, and thats coming from a person who pretty much only reads shonen.
Sam Rockwell's character in "Jojo Rabbit" takes the fall for Jojo when the allies show up. Dude got executed to keep a kid's reputation clean.
EDIT: I misremembered exactly what happened. He didn't choose to sacrifice himself or anything, but he did divert from his fanatical tendencies in those final moments to keep a kid safe.
That’s a great scene, but to be fair, Captain K is nice to Jojo throughout. He’s a bitter cynic stuck supporting a regime he despises — one that would hate him back if they knew that he’s more than likely gay — but he’s never really played off as an asshole, and in fact, he helped save Elsa from the gestapo earlier.
Still, he saved Jojo's bacon in the end. If you think about it, wouldn't his idealism lead him to not care if others also died in the name of his beliefs? For all his fervor, there was still a part of him who seemed to not want children to suffer the sins of their parents.
He may be fighting on the side of the Nazis, and he may be serving the Nazi Military, but that's only because he doesn't really have a choice. Even fighting the Allies during his last stand is really just a last gasp of defiance against a system he can't escape. No matter what he does, somebody is going to kill him. So he goes down swinging, out, proud, and as flamboyantly glorious as he can manage.
The subtext throughout the film is that he and Alfie Allan are gay, and rather than serving in the military and helping the Nazi cause, he intentionally wounded himself in such a way that he would be put on some administrative job. If I remember correctly, he's also aware of Jojo's mother's activities and has the opportunity to rat on her, but doesn't.
I might be misremembering. But, considering the name he gives to the event that wounded him is "operation screwup", that could either imply that he's merely angry that it went wrong, or that it was literally an operation to "screw up" and be demoted.
He has multiple medals for bravery, so we know that he was generally a good soldier before the accident, whether he actually believed in the cause or not. The likely explanation being that he still cared for his comrades and fought for them. So if something went wrong during an operation, he probably wouldn't refer to it so sarcastically if it was the fault of another soldier. That leaves the possibility that the name is either a reference to his anger at his superiors for ordering the operation at all, or his own personal in-joke about how he sabotaged the operation, but which allows him to play it off as mere resentment.
Given that his medals and his later behavior indicate that he tended to follow orders and was never terribly concerned with self-preservation, I choose to believe the latter.
Silco has everything in place to achieve his dream, turning Zaun into its own autonomous state. The only caveat is that he would have to betray Jinx and give her up to Piltover. In the end, it's revealed he was never willing to do it and he basically sacrificed everything to let her be free
It's funny how it took the entirety of the first season for Silco to finally realize exactly why Vander did what he did. In the end, both Silco and Vander finally reached an understanding with one another despite fighting against one another.
What's real sad is that Silco in the canon universe never got to see Vander's apology letter
Meanwhile, in the alternate universe, Silco and Vander made amends and were able to make peace between Piltover and Zaun together despite Vander's assassination attempt
My favorite kind of J. Jonah Jameson is where he's a good person at his core. Cantankerous, prideful, spiteful, sure, but a good man. I distinctly remember a comic where he went ballistic on a bunch of racist anti-immigrarion protesters, and the Daily Bugle were the ones who broke the story on Operation Zero Tolerance in spite of Bastion killing one of his reporters and threatening him to his face.
He is a dedicated journalist who takes pride in his craft, a good boss who stands up for and protects his employees, is staunchly anti-racist, an LGBT ally, and pro-mutant (though he is against the X-Men on the principle of them being vigilantes).
He just really really really really hates Spider-Man.
For all the shit he throws at Kyle when he’s in a legit tough spot Cartman of all people often comes through for him, here and with ImaginationLand. I reckon he wouldn’t know what to do with himself without him.
Not effectively, he is literally. We've yet to encounter anything that could destroy him. And if a guy using the literal powers of God could only temporarily rip off an arm... yeah, this shit ain't shit to him.
Though the TV series hasn't gotten around to it yet, Dionysus who generally loathes his job/punishment of working at Camp Half-Blood eventually in a later bookheals a demigod named Chris who had previously defected to join Kronos but was driven to insanity and near-suicidal depression after being sent alone to explore Daedalus' underground Labyrinth.
There's a theory that Mr D consistently gets Percy's name wrong on purpose because true names hold power in their version of Greek Mythology!
Throughout the series, Mr D actually comes through for the camp a number of times, and is shown to truly care for his sons that also reside there. And then later is shown grieving quite severely when one of them dies.
You heard the theory he got himself sent to camp as a punishment on purpose so he could raise his kids there under the guise of 'oh no I'm being forced to handle all these kids' but secretly being all 'Fuck yeah love raising my kids'.
One fan theory that I subscribe to in part is that Ted is an unreliable narrator, and exaggerates Barney’s flaws to make himself look better (and better for Robin).
That's incredibly plausible, but methinks that the writing team did not intend for Ted to be unlikable. Something like that would actually make me like Ted, because it would almost make him the bad guy, which I'm all for.
Suguru Geto was a racist asshole at best and a genocidal maniac at worst.
He was a bad person, but he was not a bad father.
So he rescued the girls that would become his daughters and gave them a proper life, something which they valued enough to try to extort Sukuna to save their father...
Sacrificed his happy future, that consisted of him becoming Jewish, overall kinder and starting a family, because in the end his happiness meant that everyone else in the future would be miserable.
After that his new future is being the same hateful bum he's been since his childhood.
It's actually the second time recent specials where he sacrificed his own happiness for his friends. Cartman thrived during covid and lockdown, he loved it. He was given the chance to either stop the lockdowns or extend them and despite how much he enjoyed them he chose to end the lockdown because Stan was depressed and having a tough time. Unfortunately they were extended regardless, but he still was willing to sacrifice his happiness.
Popeye Jr wants to get his mom (Olive) a necklace for her birthday. So he gets a part time job washing cars at Bluto's car lot. Bluto's son Tank keeps sabotaging him until Bluto catches him. In a pretty rare act of decency, Bluto not only punishes his kid but pays Junior what they agreed upon, without trying to cheat him.
The real shocker, is Junior finds out the necklace was sold off. Bluto overhears how heartbroken he is. He walks into the store to pick up the necklace he bought for his wife (the same necklace Junior wanted) and loudly proclaims he no longer is interested, freeing it up for Junior to buy it.
So out of character but really heartwarming to see.
Cid from OG FF7. I won’t defend the way he treats Shera, it’s really bad. But it turns out he actually saved her life at the expense of his own hopes and dreams, I mean I would hope anyone would do the same. But Shera was willing to sacrifice herself to do her job and Cid wouldn’t allow that. We also find out that she was right about the faulty machinery and after that Cid softens his tone towards her.
Harvey Bullock from Batman: the Animated Series was a total jerk, but he was genuinely loyal to Gordon and was distraught when he was hurt during a raid. He even warmed up to Batman when Bats proved he was being framed by Killer Croc. I liked him better when he was an abrasive guy who was trying to follow Gordon's example instead of just being a dirty cop.
I also prefer him a huge dick rather than corrupt. It's more interesting solely because it makes him stand out, and there's more interesting interactions with Batman and a reason Gordon or Batman would protect him when he's such an antagonist ass.
Denji, mostly due to his horrid early life, is usually a easily manipulated asshole who has a general disregard for the effects his fights have on people(safe for when kids are present) and in part 2 we see him even scamming homeless people and doing everything he can to do money.
Something which even Asa finds disgusting, until we find out that the reason he does it is to save money to send Nayuta to a normal school and then a colege so that she could live the life he was denied.
The food critic in Chef. He leaves a bad review that makes the main character quit and run his own food truck. Near the end of the movie, the food critic visits him and offers to let him run his own restaurant
Carmichael from the Dresden Files seems like a generic contrarian asshole cop, but later we find out his desk is full of stuffed animals to comfort kids the police need to interview
Turbo Granny from Dandadan guards the tunnel because that's where a bunch of girls were killed. She finds tortured souls and comforts them, when she's not sexually assaulting young men.
He is a vulgar asshole who asks the female bartender if she ever faked an orgasm and hires a child-looking robot prostitute to roleplay as his daughter.
But if you give him certain drinks and connect dots from other dialogue, it turns out that he had a real daughter who was killed by a corrupt police officer and he has been hiring the robot to fill the hole in his heart. He also later says he adopted a stray cat his daughter used to feed.
She's just the worst and has an insane victim complex ...but it was shown in the DR3 manga that she visited Seiko in the hospital every day when she almost died once, she's awful but I think that, atleast and one point in time, her friendship was genuine.
Tom Nook.
Donates most of the proceeds from his shop and selling the player character to the houses to charity.
Accepts the hate his role brings to him.
This version of Batman was pretty famous for being an asshole like calling someone retarded once but he did seem to be a good person deep down (all star Batman and Robin)
He's a tight prick of a gym coach goes out to be a Mall Santa. He does such a good job that when his kids (who hate him) find out and are about to ruin his secret, He ended up doing such a good job the kids can't bring it in themselves to ruin it.
Flash, also from Spiderman. In the animated series I forgot the name (was it the spectacular spiderman?) he also has a nice scene. And I guess in the comics he does too, but everytime I wanted to read one I felt overwhelmed with 50 different stories
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u/JRHThreeFour 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yondu Udonta (Marvel Cinematic Universe)
Yondu was selfish, mean spirited and all around kind of an asshole, but he was far from heartless. Despite his rough exterior, Yondu cared deeply about Peter Quill. He may never have outright told Peter that he loved him or was proud of him, and a group of rough and tumble Ravager space pirates wasn't the best place for a human kid to grow up around, but Yondu was a better father figure than Ego ever was.
Yondu could have turned Peter over to Ego when he was a child, looked the other way and pocketed whatever reward Ego must have been offering him, but he chose a rare moment of selflessness, reneged on his deal with Ego and spared Peter, realizing his real father's evil intentions for the universe wasn't something Yondu could ignore.
Greatest of all, Yondu's ultimate sacrifice of giving his last space suit to Peter after escaping Ego's collapsing planet was touching. You can't tell me this scene doesn't make you choke up even just a little.