Pop culture villains who turned good (at least for a little while)

The new Loki show on Disney+ was the catalyst for this idea. Granted, it isn’t clear how much of a hero he will be in “Loki,” but he’s definitely played the hero before. In fact, the villain of the first “Avengers” movie ends up sacrificing himself to try and save the Asgardians against Thanos in “Infinity War.”

OK, Darth Vader is primarily just a villain, and he does some pretty awful things as the hatchet man of the Empire. But then, he kills Darth Sidious in order to save his son Luke Skywalker, thereby ending the Empire while dying himself. In a later sequel, Vader’s grandson Ben Solo, aka Kylo Ren, would pull the same move.

The late Alan Rickman knew his way around playing a villain (hello, Hans Gruber), which made him perfect casting as Snape in the Harry Potter films. At first, he seems like a clear villain, and he’s quite harsh on our protagonist Harry. By the end, though, his back story has been revealed and it turns out ol’ Snape isn’t such a bad guy, dying at the hands of the evil Lord Voldemort in the process.

Joker would never make a face turn, but Catwoman is a different story. Basically every iteration of Catwoman straddles the line between good and evil. That’s true in the classic ‘60s TV show, and it’s also true of Anne Hathaway in “The Dark Knight Rises.”

When “Stranger Things” begins, Steve is an obnoxious high school big shot doing Nancy wrong and going after Jonathan Byers. He did have great hair, though. By the end of the first season, Harrington has chilled out and actually helps Nancy and Jonathan fight the Demogorgon. In the second and third seasons he’s straight-up on the side of the good guys, often palling around with Dustin. And his hair is still perfect.

Banks isn’t that bad of a bad guy. However, he’s the best player on the “evil” Hawks in “The Mighty Ducks.” That makes him an ostensible villain. Then, it turns out the lake is not the boundary anymore and Adam is supposed to be on the Ducks, not the Hawks. Reluctant at first, having the best player in the league helps the Ducks, until another, eviler Hawks player injures him. Banks returns as a full-on good guy in “D2” as well.

Slimer never makes a face turn in “Ghostbusters.” He just slimes Venkman and eats some hot dogs. His turn, instead, happens in the “Ghostbusters” cartoon. There, Slimer is a buddy of the ‘Busters, helping them on their cases. Oh, also he can talk now. That’s cartoons for you.

Magneto is always a complicated villain in all the versions of “X-Men.” Whether he’s played by Ian McKellen or Michael Fassbender, the mutant is as much a friend to Professor X as he is a nemesis, kind of an “opposite side of the same coin” situation. On occasion, though, the two join forces, such as in “Days of Future Past” when they have to stave off the extinction of mutants at the hands of the Sentinels.

At the beginning of “30 Rock,” Jack basically exists to make life harder for Liz Lemon our protagonist. As the new head of NBC he revamps “The Girlie Show” and hired Tracy Jordan against Liz’s wishes. He’s basically the antagonist in many ways. Then, over time, his relationship with Liz thaws and changes. Jack becomes her mentor and friend, and the big emotional beat of the series finale is the two telling each other that they love each other.

The “Fast & Furious” franchise asks you to forgive a lot. After all, in the first movie most of the main characters are criminals. Of course, none of them hold a candle to Deckard Shaw, played by Jason Statham. Shaw is the primary baddie in “Furious 7,” and he even is responsible for killing the character of Han. Then, suddenly, he was palling around with the crew and even got a spinoff movie “Hobbs and Shaw” with Dwayne Johnson.

Marvel likes to do the whole “turn a villain good” thing. We could have mentioned The Winter Soldier, but he went from good to bad back to good again, and he wasn’t so much bad as brainwashed. We also could have gone with Wanda, who fights the Avengers before joining them. In the end, though, Nebula made perhaps the biggest turn from evil to good. She was clearly all bad for a couple films before reconciling with her sister Gamora and fighting against her father Thanos.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is menacing as the hulking villain in “The Terminator.” The ‘80s original is a violent but impressive horror movie. Then, in 1991, they decided to take “The Terminator” and turn it into an action epic. It worked out massively, but it also involved a twist. Schwarzenegger’s T-800 is not the villain, but on the side of Sarah and John Connor. Instead, the villain is the T-1000, a new liquid metal robot played by Robert Patrick.

Hey, if you can’t beat them, join them. In “Ocean’s 11,” Danny Ocean and his crew pull a heist off against the smarmy, rich Terry Benedict. Benedict, played by Andy Garcia, is also fairly villainous in “Ocean’s 12.” Then, in “Ocean’s 13,” he joins the crew to try and take down Willy Bank, played by Al Pacino. Now, Benedict isn’t exactly a nice guy, but he does join the protagonists so that’s definitely a face turn.

How do you turn an alien whose primary hobby is hunting and skinning his victims into the hero? Have them face off with an even worse alien species. The Predator is from a planet of similar Predator aliens, but at least they have an ethos when it comes to hunting their prey. They face off with the Xenomorphs from the “Alien” franchise in the inexplicably real “Alien vs. Predator” movies. In those films, by dint of having some ethics the Predators are the “good” guys.

You may know the story of Godzilla. In the first film he’s something of a metaphor for nuclear weaponry and is full on a destructive monster. They even kill Godzilla at the end of the first film. However, they decided to revive the giant fire-breathing lizard for future movies. Now, though, he was the hero of the movie, fighting other monsters to save humanity. That has held true in the recent “Godzilla” films, though maybe not that terrible one with Matthew Broderick from the ‘90s.

In terms of making a face turn in a single movie perhaps nobody is more famous than Scrooge. At the start of “A Christmas Carol” he’s miserly and mean. His name has become synonymous with that. Then, a few ghosts stop by. Scrooge sees the error of his ways and vows to be good. For Christmas, he gets a big ol’ goose and lets his employees have a day off. Scrooge goes from a Grinch to a mensch in one night. Oh, the Grinch is a similar story as well.

Buffy comes across a lot of vampires in the show about her adventures as a vampire slayer. Most of them don’t stick around, and they are often purely evil. William “Spike” Pratt is a different story. At first he’s purely a villain, but as the show goes on that begins to change. Eventually, he’s a straight-up love interest. Angel, of course, also went from bad to good, but that was more a thing that happened before he showed up in “Buffy.”

“Rocky” is an underdog story, and the Goliath to his David is Apollo Creed. Famously, in the Best-Picture-winning first movie Apollo wins the fight. The two face off again in “Rocky II,” and this time Balboa gets the win. When the third movie rolls around, Rocky is calling in Apollo to train him to help him beat Clubber Lang. Creed turned around so much that when Ivan Drago kills him in “Rocky IV” it becomes a truly tragic moment.

When we first meet Ben on “Lost,” he’s going by the name Henry Gale and leading the island group known as the “Others.” Linus becomes the main antagonist for a couple seasons, but also quickly became a favorite character among “Lost” fans. After a while, though, life on the mysterious island leads Ben to join forces with the main characters sometimes, though it’s always uncertain just what his motivations truly are.

Dwayne Johnson is now perhaps the biggest movie star in the world, but it all had to start somewhere. One of his first appearances was in “The Mummy Returns,” where he shows up as the Scorpion King. His turn was notable enough to give Johnson his first lead role in a movie with 2002’s “The Scorpion King.” It’s not a great movie, and the early Scorpion King CGI doesn’t hold up, but it gave Johnson his first chance at acting, though he was still known as “The Rock” at the time. Hey, we’re talking face turns. We should end with a former pro wrestler.