10 Fictional Heroes Who Committed Horrible Crimes and Escaped Justice

If you commit a crime, then you must pay for it. That’s the way the law should work in every situation, so many storytellers hammer it home in their work. Books, movies, TV shows, and video games often craft a suitable comeuppance for each character’s mistakes. Not only does this choice provide satisfying closure for audiences, but it delivers a healthy moral lesson about accepting responsibility. Then again, life is rarely so fair.

Many heroes commit heinous crimes and face no legal consequences. These offenses include murder, torture, property damage, sabotage, and other misdeeds that could result in criminal charges or prison time in real life. While the characters sometimes have understandable motives, those motives don’t necessarily make their actions lawful. The protagonists become the very villains they should be fighting, and they escape justice because the writers say so. At a certain point, can you still call them heroes?

Related: Top 10 Damaged Detectives in TV

10 Mr. Incredible

The Incredibles strives to hold superheroes accountable, but it’s ironically lax with its biggest player. Mr. Incredible uses his super strength to safeguard the public. He catches robbers, stops terrorists, and even saves cats from trees. These feats earn people’s love, but that acclaim soon turns to resentment. His habit of causing collateral damage results in civil lawsuits, prompting the government to grant superheroes amnesty for their past actions in exchange for abandoning hero work and living under their secret identities. Even this leniency isn’t enough for Mr. Incredible.

As civilian Bob Parr, he can’t let go of the glory days. The film cuts to him working at an insurance agency, where his boss, Gilbert Huph, is constantly jumping down his throat. The tension hits a fever pitch when Bob throws Huph through several walls. This incident should land Bob in jail. Instead, government agent Rick Dicker discusses paying damages, erasing memories, and relocating Bob’s family—although Bob declines the final offer. He gets fired, but he apparently avoids criminal charges for nearly killing his boss. What’s worse is that Dicker’s dialogue suggests this isn’t the first mess he has cleaned up for Bob. Granted, these favors repay the superhero’s past service, but that goodwill has to run out sometime.^[1]

9 Tarzan

The jungle law is mainly about survival, but Tarzan is the son of English aristocrats. Orphaned as a baby on the west coast of equatorial Africa, he grows up among apes. He must take every opportunity to secure food, water, and shelter. This eternal struggle often means killing creatures and eating them. Eventually, that wild world intersects with human civilization when Tarzan encounters Kulonga, an African hunter who has killed his adoptive mother, Kala.

Tarzan stalks Kulonga, kills him in retaliation, and takes his weapons. He even considers eating the body before an instinct he does not understand stops him. He then begins terrorizing Kulonga’s village and killing more of its men. Burroughs frames these actions as part revenge, part jungle warfare, and part Tarzan’s attempt to understand the mysterious creatures who look like him.

Even after assimilating into human society, Tarzan thinks little of killing to survive or defend his African home. He eventually befriends the Waziri and becomes their chief, earning tremendous respect as a protector and warrior. It’s just a relief that no authorities ever investigate the bodies he left behind while learning how to be human. If they did, the animals would be the least of his problems.^[2]

8 Harry Potter

Harry Potter spends his adolescence fighting some of the darkest witches and wizards alive. Along the way, he learns about the three Unforgivable Curses: the Killing Curse, which causes instant death; the Cruciatus Curse, which inflicts unbearable pain; and the Imperius Curse, which strips victims of their free will. Using any one of them on another human can earn a wizard a life sentence in Azkaban. That threat doesn’t stop the Boy Who Lived.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry uses the Imperius Curse during the trio’s break-in at Gringotts. He takes control of the goblin Bogrod and the Death Eater Travers, forcing them to help the disguised intruders reach Bellatrix Lestrange’s vault. The mission may be necessary to destroy one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes, but Harry still turns two living beings into magical puppets.

His use of the Cruciatus Curse is even harder to excuse. When Amycus Carrow spits in Professor McGonagall’s face, Harry tortures him with Crucio and remarks that Bellatrix Lestrange was right: You have to mean it. He receives no punishment for either offense. Instead, Harry survives the war, becomes a celebrated hero, and eventually joins the Aurors. Apparently, committing crimes punishable by life imprisonment is no obstacle to becoming a magical law-enforcement officer.^[3]

7 Batman

Superman isn’t the only hero perverted by the DC Extended Universe. This Caped Crusader usually has strict rules against firearms and killing, but Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice throws that code out the window. Here, he dispatches criminals with machine guns, explosive gadgets, reckless driving, and brutal beatings. He doesn’t execute everyone, though. Certain offenders receive a scalding, bat-shaped brand that Gotham’s newspapers describe as a virtual death sentence in prison.

One branded criminal, Cesar Santos, is later murdered behind bars. The Ultimate Edition reveals that Lex Luthor arranged the killing to convince Clark Kent that Batman was acting as judge, jury, and executioner. That means Batman doesn’t directly order Santos’s death, but his branding gives Luthor the perfect weapon.

Plenty of people recognize that this Batman has gone too far. Alfred condemns Bruce’s growing cruelty, Clark investigates him, and the press questions his methods. None of that produces legal consequences. True, Batman eventually mellows into a more hopeful hero, but that shift doesn’t excuse the people he killed during his angry phase. Someone should put this guy in Arkham Asylum.^[4]

6 Benjamin Sisko

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine challenges the sci-fi franchise’s utopian themes, and the shift is especially hard on Benjamin Sisko. Commanding the eponymous space station, he’s on the front lines of the Dominion War—a brutal conflict pitting the Federation and its allies against the Dominion and Cardassia. It’s a losing battle without the Romulans’ aid, so Sisko enlists the shifty Garak to trick them into joining the alliance. Little does he know how far Garak will take the scheme.

Sisko obtains restricted biomimetic gel, bribes Quark, frees a convicted forger, and helps create false evidence of a Dominion plan to invade Romulus. When Romulan senator Vreenak discovers the forgery, Garak bombs his shuttle and kills the forger, Grathon Tolar, to preserve the illusion. Sisko does not authorize either murder, but he conceals them after learning the truth.

The deception works. The Romulans enter the war, shifting the balance in the Federation’s favor. Sisko remains tormented by his participation, yet he decides he can live with it—and would do it again. He then deletes the personal log containing his confession. A safer Alpha Quadrant is apparently worth bribery, fraud, trafficking in restricted materials, and covering up two murders.^[5]

5 Bryan Mills

A good father would do anything to protect his child. Taken is a supreme showcase of that dedication. The action flick follows former CIA agent Bryan Mills. His daughter embarks on a trip to Europe with her friend, but she sadly falls victim to human traffickers. Luckily, Bryan has a “particular set of skills.”

Using his decades of training, Mills carves a bloody path through Paris. He kills numerous criminals without batting an eye. His methods include guns, knives, and anything else in the room. He even tortures a trafficker named Marko with electric shocks and leaves him connected to the power supply to die.

His former colleague Jean-Claude, now a corrupt French official, tries to rein in the killing, but Bryan refuses to stop. After discovering Jean-Claude’s involvement, he shoots the man’s wife in the arm and threatens to kill her unless Jean-Claude provides information. Thankfully, these extreme measures pay off. The worried father rescues his daughter from a gruesome fate and returns home without facing charges. All it takes is risking an international incident and leaving half the Parisian underworld in the morgue.^[6]

4 Hawkeye

Hawkeye is one of the founding Avengers, but losing his family to Thanos brings out his less heroic side. After the Snap erases his wife and children, Clint Barton abandons his bow, adopts the identity of Ronin, and spends the next five years traveling around the world to slaughter criminals. In his mind, these people don’t deserve to live when innocent people like his family disappeared.

That grief-fueled crusade leaves bodies from Mexico to Japan. Unlike his sanctioned missions for S.H.I.E.L.D. or his battles with the Avengers, Clint’s Ronin campaign consists of deliberate vigilante executions. War Machine tracks the carnage, and Black Widow eventually finds Clint standing over another collection of corpses. She doesn’t arrest him; instead, she offers him a chance to recover his family.

The plan works, and Clint promptly resumes his old place among the heroes. His actions eventually catch up with him in Hawkeye, where Maya Lopez seeks revenge for her father’s death and Yelena Belova hunts him over Natasha’s sacrifice. Those personal confrontations still don’t lead to a trial or prison sentence. After five years of international vigilantism, Clint goes home to celebrate Christmas with his family. His victims’ families receive considerably less closure.^[7]

3 Jean Grey

Warning: Spoilers ahead. In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the Marvel Cinematic Universe introduces its own version of Jean Grey. A mutant armed with telepathy and telekinesis, she’s searching for her sister, Sara, who was abducted and held at a secret Department of Damage Control facility. Help could come from Spidey or the Avengers, but Jean prefers to take matters into her own hands.

The young mutant turns New York City into her personal puppet show. She possesses people, manipulates their minds, and threatens MJ to force Spider-Man to cooperate. The people caught in her psychic rampage become tools rather than individuals, regardless of what happens to their bodies or lives in the process.

Jean eventually discovers that Damage Control killed Sara while experimenting on her telepathic powers. The revelation nearly pushes her to murder director Bill Metzger, but Spider-Man persuades her to stop. Jean later saves Peter’s life, demonstrating that he was right to believe she could choose something better. Nevertheless, she escapes without answering for the people she controlled, endangered, and assaulted along the way. Maybe Damage Control was onto something—just not the kidnapping-and-human-experimentation part.^[8]

2 Will Graham

When you’re so close to Hannibal Lecter, it’s hard to stay sane. Will Graham experiences that downward spiral in the Hannibal TV series. His ability to empathize with serial killers makes him invaluable as an FBI consultant, but it also means he could lose himself in their minds. Lecter stokes that fire, believing Will should embrace the darkness. To speed up the process, he sends fellow murderer Randall Tier to Graham’s house.

Tier attacks Will in his home, making the subsequent killing an act of self-defense. What happens afterward is another matter. Will takes the body to Hannibal, and the pair transform the corpse into a grotesque tribute. Tier’s mutilated remains appear over a saber-toothed-cat exhibition at the local museum, forcing the FBI to investigate a display created by two of its own consultants.

These measures are part of Will’s attempt to gain Hannibal’s trust, with Jack Crawford aware of the broader scheme to catch Lecter. The ruse works for a while, but Hannibal eventually discovers Will’s betrayal. Meanwhile, no one prosecutes Will for mutilating and concealing Tier’s corpse. He avoids another stay in a secure psychiatric hospital and continues investigating the very crime he helped commit. That’s one way to control the evidence.^[9]

1 Edward Cullen

Edward Cullen is an odd vampire. As one half of the twisted Twilight love story, he strives to be better than his predatory nature. He and his adoptive family reject human blood, instead gaining sustenance from animals. They don’t want to become the monsters everyone fears, but that’s not to say they’ve never indulged.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn—Part 1 reveals that Edward was once a vigilante killer. During a rebellious period away from Carlisle, his mind-reading powers helped him identify murderers and other predators. Edward hunted these men, drank their blood, and convinced himself that killing them saved future victims.

Putting aside the moral and ethical problems of executing people without arrest, evidence, or trial, this revelation recontextualizes Edward’s whole character. He has buckets of blood on his hands, yet no human authority even knows that the killings were connected, much less that a telepathic vampire committed them. He reveals all this to his lady love, Bella. Rather than recoil, she reassures him that his victims were murderers and that he probably saved more lives than he took. What a great lesson to teach teen viewers.^[10]