What character struggles with their morality the most?

Title

Spider-Man.

Batman.

Bat

Daredevil

Pretty sure superman. Lois Lane seems to be his meal ticket. World domination occurs after she dies.

Spider-Man or Daredevil

Since when do Spider-Man and Daredevil have consistent struggles with their morality? Maybe if your only exposure to Daredevil is the Netflix show which bares very little resemblance to any comic book continuity... but in canon, Matt Murdock is one of the most morally upstanding, optimistic, lawful guys around. Peter has bouts of epic rage once in awhile but it isn't a consistent struggle. The reason it's epic when it happens is because it's so out of character.

My vote goes to the CW version of Oliver Queen. There was a period of time where he was literally a genuine villain, justifying his wanton actions under some delusional code of justice, but now we know that deep down, he just enjoyed the feeling of murder. He was basically an assassin for the Russian mafia, then he spent some time as a serial killer with a hit list.

His first major rival was much older than him and intended to be a peek into what he would eventually become if he continued down his current path -- a completely delusional madman who will commit genocide and thinks he's a hero for doing it. Experiencing Merlyn's delusions, along with Tommy's encouragement, really whipped Oliver into shape, but the struggle with his morality has still been present in every season. Both Slade and Adrian claim that deep down at his core, he is nothing but a murderer, while John and Felicity simultaneously claim that he is a good man. Oliver is constantly swinging on a pendulum trying to determine who he really is. In season 3, he became desperate enough to willingly kill his best friend if it meant a chance at defeating the villain, and he justified this by saying he was willing to kill himself as well, but this total disregard for human life isn't heroic. It's scary, and sad. So that's why Felicity had to talk him into fighting for life and not for death... but then he backslid right into his old ways at the end of season 4.

Is Oliver fundamentally a good man, or is he fundamentally a self centered animal? Imagine Oliver without John and Felicity. What would he become? Would he remain a hero? The sad answer is... probably not. He'd become the next Malcolm Merlyn and I guess it would be up to Team Flash to try and take him down.

Superman.

Jason Todd for a bit

Superman sometimes too

CW Oliver Queen as well

any good characters

Bruce

I think it depends on how you define it.

Some have much higher standards of morality than others.

Classic Superman was a big blue boycott who had the power to rule the world but lives with kid gloves so he does not hurt people.

Daredevil is a deeply religious man who is hardcore catholic, but has the moral obligation to fight crime and to keep his faith. His religion is his foundation but also the source of his frustration.

Wolverine used to be a monster, an animal, living in the body of a man, and sometimes the animal took over. He tries to be a man but is he really?

There are plenty more, it depends on how you define the struggle, do the high standards define it, how hard they have to struggle with it, or how close they are to losing it?

There are a lot of people to bring up here. Some of the more obvious ones like Batman, Wolverine, Jason Todd, etc are good answers but I'd say Harley Quinn. She is really one torn character she tries to be good but she is easily manipulated and is fighting her past.

This is an open ended question with like, 50 answers

@the_hajduk: Saying Matt never struggles with any moral impliciation and is the most morally upstanding, optimistic and lawful guy around isn't very accurate. There's numerous stories with him battling interal conflicts over his superhero persona, dark desires and depression.

Clearly, one has to be Wolverine; while he's trying to be on the good side, he's killed or severely injured a lot of people. Not sure how Batman could be showing up unless his character has undergone some drastic alterations since the 1992 animated series.

Batman or Red Hood

I'm gonna say Invincible. He went through drastic alterations since issue one and he's been changing since then. One arc from Invincible which shows this struggle with morality is the one with Dinosaurus, where you no longer know if what he's doing is good or bad. In other arcs, he criticizes one for working with "villains", only then for him to work with other "villains" in future arcs.

@keenko: Nope.

@blacksmith_99: this.

Wolverine

Dude...Matt tortures people when he gets pushed over the edge. He kills and spends months agonizing over it. He's cheated on his wife when she was in a mental institution. Matt tries to be a morally upstanding guy all the time, and he doesn't fall often, but when he does he falls hard, and it haunts him.

What you said about the Netflix Daredevil being nothing like his comic counterpart is flat out wrong. And of course you vote for CW Oliver. Ollie doesn't agonize over his kills, he doesn't struggle with deciding to kill or not. He kills when he believed it was necessary, then stopped because of a promise to someone he cared about.

I see a lot of suggestions I don't personally see struggling with the subject of their own morality or whatever they are doing is right or not. Some ofc do it occasionally when something has happened that challenges the notion, like Superman is doing right now post-Oz. Batman and Wolverine are more over in the Clint Eastwood department of: 'It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it.'

I would say the winner of this dubious honour has to be found amongst the characters who occasionally jumps over the fence from hero to villain and back to hero. I am not talking about characters who live in the grey-zone between good and evil (like Deathstroke or Jason Todd), they are there on purpose.

So I'd say the most likely winner is:

• Raven, has frequently turned over to the dark side, is very conscious of the possibility of her doing so and have occasionally felt like she's lost hope that she can remain good.
• Damian Hellstrom, same problems and tendencies as Raven, but on a lesser scale as far as I can tell, and I mean he seems less bothered by it.
• The Runaways, also have the inbuilt issues of having been born of villains and 'distined' to become evil themselves.
• X-23, very much until recently, most of the writing with Laura at the center would revolve around her issues about if she was even human or a weapon and someone would always show up to tell her one way or the other. Kimura with a big stick would say she was a weapon, and Logan would show up and tell her she's more than that.
• Captain Atom, New 52, pretty much all of that series revolved around him making heads and tails of himself, whenever he was doing too little or too much.
• And ofc Bruce Banner... who constantly has to wake up halfnaked in another country and immediately go 'what have I destroyed this time?!'

When has Batman ever shown struggling with his morality? Show me a scan of him considering killing plz.

Your thinking of Injustice style stories and probably Justice League. Those versions don't act like Superman or have his unquestionable morality. He's already been tested with the idea of Lois being tortured and killed and although he admitted he pictured killing the guy he still said he would do everything in his power to keep him locked up.

Canon Supermans morals are as indestructible as a tree in Grand Theft Auto.

@monsterstomp: The killing joke.

Anyways, imo, hulk.

@dextersinister1: I'm stealing that analogy.

@the_hajduk: Just dont pretend you know so much about a character you've obviously never read.

Hardcore Catholic who's struggle is deciding whether to dress up like Satan and fight crime blind or to listen to the Bible on Audible?

I think Batman Vol. 1 #650 is a good example of what you are asking for.

Gallery

Pretty self explanatory. Besides, I don't think I have to explain the context as I'm sure you know what story this is.

But he never feels good about it. The Netflix version confessed that he enjoys hurting people. The 616 version does not derive pleasure from the horrible acts he is occasionally pushed to commit. That's exactly what I said, Matt Murdock is a good man in a bad environment which causes him to make bad decisions. In his roots he is perfectly morally upstanding. The Netflix version reversed the very foundation of his character by giving him a darkness in his heart and making him struggle with a sadistic desire to kill and hurt people, more like a Batman or Wolverine type.

I have read some Daredevil. @guardiandevil is the biggest DD fan on this site and he and I have spoken at length about Matt in the past.

Wolverine is up there especially OML version

Doctor Manhattan /thread

Daredevil or captain atom

Elixir - Josh Foley's power is literally wired for him to have internal conflicts about whether he's good or evil, he has the power over life and death. It's hard for any unstable mutant teenager to really fathom the ethical obligations that they hold by sheer virtue of possessing a power, of that caliber particularly, that they didn't ask for. Knowing that you can either save or kill at any given moment and be seen as a savior of mutant-kind or it's destroyer, yeah that's a lot to process for anyone. I guess you could make the same argument for Genesis (Apocalypse's genetic clone) the kid was literally told that he would either be the one to save all mutant kind or be the one to trod upon their graves, on like his first day of school. I mean, the characters that you've all mentioned have far more substantial showings of their battles with morality, but when you take in account the affect that being a teen with near god-like powers and being capable of saving everyone or watching them wither away at your feet, every breath you take becomes a constant battle with your own morality. More so for someone like Genesis, who's literally programmed/wired to become like Apocalypse, yet he must convince himself that heroics is the right thing and what he's meant to do. No one talks about the internal struggles that a person has to go through for something like that. Something about grown men still having difficulty making choices about their heroics just pales in comparison, especially considering the time that these guys have had to make the necessary adjustments. Honorable mentions: Galactus (dude is the sole survivor of his universe and must consume planets to remain alive, well pre-lifebringer) Magneto, Cyclops, Jean-Grey, Scarlet Witch, Namor, Spawn, Punisher, etc. I mean I respect a lot of the names mentioned, but there are plenty of non-mainstream heroes/villains that battle the ethical line between good-evil as well as their own sanity.

Probably Batman.

Raven

Wolverine

Moon Knight

Venom

Green Arrow

@dvak: Now that you've mentioned Kid Genesis, another name comes to mind: Quentin Quire. Dude's pretty undecisive about his place in the order of things and went back and forth between the Hellfire club and X-Men, iirc.

Dr Manhattan

Umm... no. Not at all. The Netflix characterization is literally a beat for beat carbon copy of Frank Miller's run on Daredevil. Also, struggling with whether to kill or not isn't the only moral conflict a comic-book character can have, although it is the most overplayed. Even Superman, seen as the most upstanding classically morally righteous superhero in the comic-book universe can have profound moral conflicts if written well. Such as the moral conflict between his responsibility to others and his responsibility to himself. Or the moral conflict between holding power and allowing free will. As for Daredevil, there's something intrinsically ironic about a vigilante who's always a lawyer. Daredevil's prime moral conflict is how he balances the responsibility and failings of the law. He clearly believes in the system, he is a defense lawyer after all. But only to an extent. Which is why The Punisher is such a good character foil for him.

As for the question- in regards to mainstream comic characters my vote goes to the Punisher. Does he actually even believe in justice? Or is it just a meager justification to satisfy his inner violence? But the thing is Frank rarely "struggles" with this distinction. He's rather absolute in hs black-and-white view of the world. Innocent or dead. It's his lot in life to do this job, and he does it because that's the way it goes. It is rather through the characters around him that we explore this conflict within Frank.