Have you ever thought what it would be like if some of your favourite superheroes really
existed? Sure they may be fun to root for on the page or entertaining to watch on the
big screen, but if you saw them on the street would you introduce yourself or cross to the
other side? It’s been said that heroes demonstrate many
of the same qualities as sociopaths. For many masked vigilantes, these traits go far beyond
antisocial behaviour and acting without fear. Here are Screen Rant’s 10 Super Heroes Who
Would Be Real-Life Psychopaths 1. Deadpool
What makes some of the best crime fighters so appealing is how they walk that line between
hero and antihero. It’s on an extreme side of that line that we find Deadpool, the ultimate
antihero. Wade Wilson would probably be the first to admit that he has psychotic tendencies
and it’s his gleeful embrace of them that makes Deadpool a different kind of superhero.
Quick to fillet a henchman or even dismember himself, Deadpool is one superhero who truly
does not give a - 2. HULK
How do you reason with an indestructible rage monster? Well, you can’t. Anytime Bruce
Banner loses himself as the Hulk everyone just has to get out of his way and hope he
doesn’t do too much damage before calming down. Hulk is the Hyde to Bruce Banner’s
Dr. Jekyll, and is only a hero when circumstances allow him to be. It’s really a miracle that
he doesn’t leave more innocent people in his wake, or perhaps the comics and movies
just kinda gloss over that aspect of the green goliath.
3. Batman Superheroes are often divided into two camps:
those who kill their enemies and those who don’t. While Batman may fall in the latter,
he still demonstrates some psychopathic qualities. Traumatized by witnessing the death of his
parents, there’s an anger in Bruce Wayne that it seems can only be released by beating
up baddies. The more broken bones, the better. He might not go all Deadpool on them, but
they need to believe he could. 4. Wolverine
As the only superhero with a body count rivalling Deadpool’s and rage rivalling the Hulk’s,
Wolverine fits firmly within the ‘kill ‘em’ camp. If you grew up watching the animated
X Men series, Wolverine was usually limited to using his claws to rip up robots and other
objects to keep it appropriate for the Saturday morning cartoon audience, so it was both refreshing
and shocking to see him kill so many members of Stryker’s team in X2. With mutants like
Wovlerine, it’s no wonder the government would prefer to keep them in check.
5. Judge Dredd Most legal systems are set up on a series
of checks and balances, so that the people arresting criminals aren’t the same people
prosecuting them. The prospect of someone like Judge Dredd actually existing is terrifying.
With the authority to be judge, jury and executioner, Dredd was biologically bred without empathy
so he could carry out his duties in a cold, calculated manner. Not exactly your friendly
neighborhood cop. 6. Neo
Once Neo truly grasps the nature of The Matrix, everyone living in it becomes expendable.
Since they’re all just slaves and the world is an elaborate virtual reality constructed
to keep their brains occupied, killing innocent people becomes a non issue. It might as well
be a video game to Neo. After a mind trip like that, anyone’s concept of what’s
real or fake, or right or wrong, would be seriously warped.
7. The Punisher The Punisher exists for one reason: revenge.
A trained marine whose family was killed by the mob, The Punisher does not care about
morality, just what he sees as poetic justice when he straight-up murders thugs. The only
reason The Punisher isn’t a villain is the fact that he happened to be crossed by criminals
and not The Avengers. 8. Hit Girl
The mafia also should really be more careful about whose family they kill. They created
a Kick Ass assassin when they killed the mother of the kid who would become Hit Girl. Trained
into a deadly weapon by her father, Hit Girl does not discriminate between blades and bullets
when slaying bad guys. Perhaps it’s her young age, but of all the entries on our list,
Hit Girl seems to take the most pleasure from her masked vigilante duties, but for some
reason when the film came out audiences were much more offended by her naughty language.
9. The Mask People familiar with Jim Carrey’s 1994 version
of the The Mask probably don’t realize that the comic its based on is an ultra violent
blood fest. When the ancient Mask gives Stanley Ipkiss limitless power, what begins as killing
his tormentors in amusing ways, ends in a shootout killing 11 cops. The film kept the
character’s mischievous Tex Avery aspects, but opted to leave out the Terminator tendencies
Ipkiss adopts once The Mask throws all his inhibitions out the window.
10. ALL the Watchmen If you want an epic explanation of why anyone
who puts on a costume to fight crime is likely a psychopath, look no further than The Watchmen.
These characters occupy a world much closer to our own than we’re used to seeing in
comic book panels, there are no Clark Kents or Peter Parkers here, just dark characters
like Rorschach and The Comedian. Adrian Veidt takes ultimate action by killing millions
of people to save the world from itself. So is he a hero, or a psychopath?
As it turns out, most superheroes really aren’t boy scouts who always take the moral high
ground. We hope you enjoyed our list of superheroes with unnerving dark sides. Did we miss any?
Which heroes do you think could use some professional therapy?