10 Justice Leaguers Who Turned Into Villains, Ranked

The Justice League is the top team in the DC Multiverse. The Justice League has taken superhero teams to a places where no other team has gone. The Justice League has defended the entirety of the multiverse for its entire existence, and this has meant that the team has had to recruit the best heroes out there. Being a member of the Justice League is a very big deal, and the heroes who join the team are some of the most trusted around. Justice Leaguers don’t usually have massive swings of morality, and that makes sense. These people are trusted with all of the most important technology on the planet. However, that doesn’t mean this doesn’t happen.

Over the years, readers have gotten multiple stories that saw members of the Justice League go bad. Sometimes, it’s in alternate universe, where circumstances changed their lives and they turned against their friends. Other times, it’s been members in the mainline League falling into evil. These ten Justice League members all went bad, their actons having a detrimental effect on their Justice Leagues.

10) Batman

So, Batman has been a “villain” in multiple Justice League stories over the years. Batman break his own rules a lot, and his dealings with other heroes are fraught with peril. The most well-known story where Batman is basically a villain to the Justice League is “Tower of Babel”, where he was basically a secondary villain because of his lies to the Justice League. However, looking at Batman’s history with the Justice League across the multiverse, there are multiple times that Batman has gone rogue against the League. That’s just how Batman rolls at times. He doesn’t always follow the rules, and this has led to him being a villain to his fellows numerous times.

9) Hawkman

Hawkman is DC’s premiere berserker, as well as one of the most complicated characters in comics. It’s this complication that brings us to the time when Hawkman became a villain. So, Hawkman’s life works in that he reincarnates across time and space to make up for all the people he killed in his first life. So, multiple Hawkmen incarnations could exist at any time, including Sky Tyrant, the current Hawkman of Earth-3. When Batman Who Laughs escaped the Justice League’s imprisonment post-Dark Knights Metal, he was able to make Hawkman into the Sky Tyrant of the main universe with one of this evil Joker toxins. Hawkman flew around as Sky Tyrant for a while before being transformed back into his regular form.

8) Lex Luthor

So, this one might seem like a reach for people, but it counts. Lex Luthor joined the Justice League in the New 52 universe after the story Forever Evil. Lex helped battle Darkseid in “The Darkseid War” and after the New 52 Superman died he stepped away from the team, but didn’t quit, to take Superman’s place in Metropolis. He then ended up teaming with the returned post-Crisis Superman to battle evil, and they eventually ended up working together on Apokolips. Lex basically became the next Darkseid for a while and then went back to villainy.

7) Green Arrow

Green Arrow is something of a firebrand, his leftist beliefs and combative attitude making him a problem for anyone who doesn’t follow his ethos. Green Arrow has gotten into fights with multiple members of the League — especially Hawkman — but he hasn’t been an villain often, even in alternate universes. However, recently, Ollie returned as Green Arrow and tried to put the Arrow Family back together. So, he decided to use Amanda Waller and her resources to find them, joining with her in her latest scheme against the heroes. Green Arrow did her bidding, but also secretly helped the League, and turned against her at the end of Absolute Power.

6) Orion

So, this one is iffy, since Orion wasn’t technically the villain of Tom King and Mitch Gerads’s Mister Miracle. However, he did become a major antagonist of the story (also, he was a member of the Justice League back in the Morrison JLA run, so once a Justice League member, always one). After Darkseid’s forces killed Highfather, Orion took over as lord of New Genesis and ran the war against Apokolips. He kept pushing Mister Miracle and Big Barda into more deadly battles because the only way for him to stay in power was for the other heir to Highfather — Mister Miracle — to die. Eventually, Mister Miracle was charged with treason for not following Orion’s orders, which would have made him look guilty to the other New Gods, and he and Barda ended up killing Orion, taking control of the war away from him.

5) Aquaman

DC continuity has always been complicated, with multiple major reboots over the years. Flashpoint took readers to another universe, one where Barry Allen never became the Flash. Now, technically, there was no Justice League in this universe, however, members of the Justice League as we know it did become villains, including Aquaman. Aquaman and Wonder Woman had an affair, and their falling out led to a war between Atlantis and the Amazons. Their war ate the planet, and it would have eventually destroyed the entire planet. Aquaman and his forces slaughtered everyone they could get their hands on, Amazons or not. In Flashpoint Beyond, he held Wonder Woman hostage, and eventually died at her hands when Batman freed her.

4) Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman, much like Batman, has also been a villain battling other members of the Justice League numerous times over the years. There’s Flashpoint, where Wonder Woman’s war against the Atlanteans transformed into her taking over Europe and pushing the planet towards destruction. In the run-up to Infinite Crisis, Wonder Woman’s actions against Maxwell Lord were considered villainous by members of the League. In Dark Knights of Steel, Wonder Woman’s forces were arrayed against Superman’s, making her one of the villains of the story and later a wildcard in the war among the kingdoms. Wonder Woman’s more hardcore way of doing things as a hero means that she is often chosen to be a villain of many pieces.

3) Maxwell Lord

Maxwell Lord is one of the best-known traitors to the Justice League. Maxwell Lord helped bankroll the Justice League after Crisis on Infinite Earths, but was more sinister than all of that. Lord was working for Checkmate, keeping an eye on the Justice League and making files about the metahumans. Eventually, Lord would reveal himself as the Black King of Checkmate, working with Brother Eye to bring the metahuman community to heel. Lord killed Blue Beetle II, and tried to make Superman murder Batman. Wonder Woman killed him beforehand, and he’s been resurrected since then, working against the heroes both on his own and with Amanda Waller.

2) Superman

Evil Superman stories have gotten tired, but there are lots of them out there nowadays. Superman is the guiding light in the metahuman community, but he’s also went evil many times. The most well known times are the Injustice comics and video games, where Lois Lane’s death at the hands at the Joker transformed Superman into a fascist dictator, leading to a war in the metahuman community. There have also been numerous alternate universe stories where Superman is a villain, his powers turned against the people who work with him in other universes. There have also been many mind-controlled Superman stories, including “Sacrifice”, which is the story where Lord controlled him and Wonder Woman had to kill Lord.

1) Hal Jordan

Hal Jordan’s transformation into Parallax changed him forever. The destruction of Coast City drove Jordan to get as much power as he could in order to resurrect his fallen home. He killed every member of the Green Lantern Corps, leading to a battle with new Green Lantern Kyle Rayner. Jordan disappeared and teamed with Extant to create a multiverse out of different alternate timelines so his friends could be happy. Eventually, he sacrificed himself to remake the sun and resurrected Green Arrow before becoming the Spectre, which in turn led to his own resurrection and that of the Green Lantern Corps.

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