Villainy's Victors 89- John Jaspers

89) John Jaspers a.k.a Faust from Faust: Love of the Damned

WARNING: I am talking about the comic book. Not the movie!!!. Under no circumstances, should you attempt to watch the movie. Should you watch the movie, this blog takes no responsibility for any side effects up to and including depression, loss of appetite, and obsessive desire to listen to the music of William Shatner.




You have been warned.

Now that that bit of unpleasantness is over, I should probably qualify that technically John Jaspers is technically the  "hero" of Faust: Love of the Damned. It should be further qualified that this is completely accidental. Jaspers is a schizophrenic artist who agrees to serve as an assassin for Satanist cult leader and crime lord, M, who may actually be Satan, in exchange for power and Wolverine claws. He grow an ego about the whole thing, which leads to falling out with M who has Jaspers killed. This doesn't take and Jaspers returns wearing a truly awesome superhero costume declaring war on M and his henchman.

This results in Jaspers being the hero of the story completely by accident. His motivation for opposing is a mixture of personal revenge and paranoid schizophrenia. He is constantly followed around by a Greek chorus of delusions who alternately egg him on and try to convince him that what he's doing is, in fact, insane. His brutal methods raise the question if he isn't actually worse then the evil he finds himself opposing.

The answer to that question, by the way, is no.  M and his cohorts are much worse. (It's not a very cheerful comic). But this character still gets on the list, if simply because in any other story, he would be the villain. It's a fine line between the god guys and bad guys and sometimes that line is completely arbitrary.