Karma Houdini/Comic Books

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Karma Houdinis in Comic Books include:

  • Watchmen, in which the Well-Intentioned Extremist literally commits a massive act of unadulterated mass murder and not only gets away with it scot-free, but is actually aided in covering it up by the heroes if only because to expose the scheme would endanger the world even more. Although it's left open to interpretation whether or not his plan will ultimately succeed: before chasing Adrian, and with strong suspicions about his plan, Rorscharch left his personal notes at the local newspaper. In the last page, after the Happy Ending, a guy in the newspaper took the notes, and is about to read them. the end?.
    • In the film adaptation he at least gets given a damn good beating from Dan and a lecture on why his actions were wrong.
    • It is left ambiguous whether he will ultimately be able to live with his actions: He reveals to Dr. Manhattan that he has been having nightmares in which he becomes a monster despite his intentions (Yes, that's what the Black Freighter story is), and essentially asks whether what he did was right, since it ended well; since he's talking to Dr. Manhattan, the response is, naturally, "Nothing ever ends, Adrian". The look on his face after that, which is the last time we ever see him, indicates that he is extremely unsure of himself by that point. It should also be noted that he mentioned feeling the weight of the dead on his shoulders.
  • Superman-Prime Superboy-Prime, who helped trigger the Infinite Crisis, killed Superboy, killed Superman-2, joined forces with the Sinestro Corps, and is currently running around the Multiverse committing genocide for no good reason, is a perfect example of this.
    • In fact, all indications are that Superboy-Prime will be redeemed by Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes in the current Legion of Three Worlds event.
      • Doesn't happen. However, one can be divided on if his fate is appropriate karmic justice.
    • He does get a happy ending in his Blackest Night tie in, his parents and his revived girlfriend forgave him.
      • Although said girlfriend is wearing a Black Power Ring, hinting that she's giving him hope just so she can rip out his heart immediately afterward.
    • Whatever happened there, it didn't stick. Superboy-Prime returned for another go-round with Superboy and the Teen Titans, and ended up trapped in the Source Wall just before the company-wide reboot.
  • In Mark Waid's grisly mini-series Empire, supervillain Golgoth rules all humanity with an iron fist (yet finds it's not everything he thought it'd be). Even as his problems mount, though, the Resistance finds itself abandoned by its allies and betrayed from within (their fancy new weapons don't work). Oops. Golgoth manages to snap out of his funk long enough to personally crush the last embers of freedom. He is forced to snap his daughter's neck after seeing how his lifestyle has turned her into a monster, but this probably counts as the token loss.
  • Recently in Daredevil, Lawrence Cranston aka Mr. Fear turns the hero's life upside-down once again, using special drugs to turn Murdock's wife, a reformed friend, and most of the criminals in Hell's Kitchen into fearless, psychopathic killers. With Cranston having already killed the associate who helped him make the antidote for his drugs, Murdock is unable to cure his wife of her madness, and because he needs Cranston's confession to clear her name, he is denied the satisfaction of doing anything worse to him. And to top it all off, Cranston just uses his powers within Ryker's Island to make himself into a veritable superstar amongst both inmates and guards alike (with females COs literally throwing themselves at him), promising to eventually walk out of prison just as easily as he went in so that he can once again make life hell for Murdock.
  • In Will Eisner's graphic novel, A Contract With God, one of the stories focuses on the super of the tenant where the stories take place/centered around. While the super is a middle-aged, balding man with a somewhat bad attitude and a possibly unfriendly dog, he is played in a horrible con. While in his room (the walls of which are covered with pornographic pinups), the niece of one of his tenants enters his room, and offers to show him her panties for a nickel (the setting is in the 1950's) and asks if she can give the dog a treat. While the super's back is turned, the girl (who is twelve years old!) grabs his cashbox and poisons his dog to death. When the super catches up with the girl, she screams rape and everyone sees and the tenants call the police. When the police come for the super, he kills himself and everyone calls him a creep. The last scene we see is the girl counting the money she just stole, not a look of remorse on her face. It's a great story and everything and was probably written to spite the Comics Code, but still.
  • Tortuous Convolvulus from the fifteenth volume of Asterix is a master of these. The only reason why he didn't succeed with his mission of wiping out the Gauls once and for all by sowing the seeds of dissent and having them turn on each-other was that he had been put in charge of the most intellectually relieved Roman legion north of Rome (to put that into perspective, it was thanks to them he had his Villainous Breakdown). His only punishment for everything he did was to be shipped back to Rome accused of high-treason, and that would've been all good and well if it wasn't for the fact that he had already been thrown to the lions in the arena once before (resulting in the lions turning on each-other) and a statement from the narrator that there's no reason to fear for his well-being since he, as long as he has his ability to sow dissent (cue picture of his boat back nearly capsizing because no-one takes orders from the captain any longer), would always come out in one piece.
  • The Tintin comics had two: thief Max Bird and corrupt oil executive Trickler. Max Bird threatened to torture Tintin for information and attempted to murder somebody. However, even though he was arrested, he manages to escape jail and, other than a brief mention, is never heard from again. After manipulating two Banana Republics to go to war over oil, working with an arms dealer selling weapons to both sides, framing Tintin for treason, and arranging him to be executed without trial, Trickler gets no serious comeuppance other than the embarrassment that the region he started a war over didn't have any oil at all. It was possible that karma would have caught up with Trickler in a later chapter, but Hergé died before it could be completed.
    • Now look up the history of the war fought over the Gran Chaco region.
  • Justified with the title character of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, who cannot die or get captured because he plays an integral role in the universe.

Johnny: On a crowded street, I could drain a flower vendor of all his blood and not get caught!! People would scream and vomit, and yet, somehow, I would walk away unscathed. I could do that!! Oh. Wait... I DID do that!!

    • I would say the karma in that case is more due to the fact that he's incapable of any true lasting happiness, and he does it to himself.
  • Norman Osborn AKA The Green Goblin likes to shove blonde women off bridges and throw exploding pumpkins into crowds. Due to massive political manipulation, he was in the right place at the right time to kill a Skrull Queen on camera, so now the President has given him complete control over superhuman activity. Don't worry though, he's too evil and crazy to hold onto it.
    • A second, lesser example from Spider-Man is Spidey's employer; J. Jonah Jameson. Somehow, he never seems to ever lost the slightest credibility with the people of New York, who continue to eat up every article on Spiderman he prints... despite the fact that he is constantly having to retract his libel after his accusations that, say, Spiderman is really Mysterio or working with Electro, turn out to be false. To say nothing of the fact that Jameson commissioned the first Spider-Slayer, then funded the creation of The Scorpion, and when that failed comissioned the exact same Mad Scientist who turned Mac Gargan into his villainous alter-ego to create The Human Fly, who killed his creator.
      • Add to all this the ludicrous abuses of power he's perpetrated as mayor of NYC in order to pursue is anti-Spidey vendetta (An entire police task force to catch one person, who hasn't been formally charged with a single crime?)
  • Dark Beast, the evil alternate version of Beast from the X-Men story "Age of Apocalypse". After years of performing Dr. Mengle-esque experiments on his fellow mutants, he ends up escaping at the end into the main Marvel universe. Since then, he hasn't received a proper comeuppance.
  • PJ Maybe in Judge Dredd is a gleeful serial killer and one of the worst criminals the Big Meg has ever seen. How does his story end? He uses his impersonation skills to get himself elected mayor. Interestingly, since then, he's used his position to do quite a lot of genuinely good work, such as increasing employment, supporting mutant rights, and most recently working to eliminate Chief Judge Sinfield. All while keeping up his passion for murder.
  • Shock SuspenStories ran a one-off strip in which a Karma Houdini uses his influence as a newspaper reporter to blackmail people all over town. The story hints throughout at Laser-Guided Karma for the protagonist (this being a staple of the comic and similar titles published by EC) and then ends abruptly with him quite literally getting away with murder.
  • Mr. Gone from The Maxx is pointedly given a happy ending.
  • At the end of Dark Reign, everyone got what they had coming, everyone except Daken, who got away scott free.
  • Gepetto in Fables runs an evil empire killing thousands of beings, and enslaving millions. After his empire comes crashing down, the good guys offer him amnesty and move him into an apartment in New York City with all amenities paid.
    • Which was basically what all the Fables got. Bigby Wolf, the loveable rogue sheriff? Used to eat entire villages for the giggles. Not a nice man...wolf.
  • No matter what appalling feats of megalomaniacal super-villainy he engages in, Lex Luthor always, always, always finds some loophole through which he is able to eventually restore his image and regain trust (or at least Plausible Deniability), which is the one thing that makes it impossible for either Superman or the law to touch him and gives him access to the immense power accessible through LexCorp. The fact that Luthor can pull this trope right out of his ass no matter how incriminating the circumstances never fails to drive Clark Kent bonkers every time it happens.
    • The one notable exception being All Star Superman, where Lex has his only real Heel Realization in any continuity, to the point he willingly submits to his own execution rather than escape from prison again.
  • Bomb Queen.
  • Moose Mason from Archie Comics. He beats up any guy who so much as looks at his girlfriend Midge, sometimes even sending guys to the hospital, and never gets any punishment at all for his violence.
  • Dr. Finitevus in Sonic the Hedgehog is a Complete Monster Mad Scientist who constantly plans to bring about The End of the World as We Know It. And he has never been caught -- every time he fights the heroes, he escapes to plot again. The last time he and Knuckles met, Knuckles kicked his ass, but he still escaped.
  • pretty much any female villain that falls under the Classy Cat Burglar trope. Think about, Catwoman and Blackcat rarely are caught or arrested and the usually get away with what they were trying to steal. It seems they get a pass since the heroes have the hots for them.
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