Suicide. Cyborg Superman wants to die. He can't kill himself, so he hopes that by committing more and more atrocities, finally someone will be able to grant him his reward: Oblivion! Whether it be Superman or the Anti-Monitor...

I think there have been a couple of others over the years, but he's the only currently active one I can think of at the moment...

I cited Wilson Fisk as an example of a greedy gangster who started out dirt poor and rose to the top of the criminal pecking order in New York City -- and on a lesser scale, I would say that all the rank-and-file thugs who filled niches in his organization, doing criminal deeds on a daily basis in exchange for guaranteed incomes which were probably better than they could make in legal jobs (especially if they hadn't bothered to pursue higher education), were also motivated by greed. They didn't have the same combinations of extreme greed, cleverness, and ruthlessness which served The Kingpin so well, but basically they were ignoring the law of the land whenever it would interfere with making more money, same as he was!

Isn't that just greed?

If these fall into an already established category, I apologize, but they don't seem to me like they do.

But as far back as the 18th century (and likely before it), people were arguing quite convincingly that we make choices regarding what gives us pleasure or pain. Kant called them judgments of taste; De Sade saw no line between the two; and a century later, Sacher-Masoch claimed an inverse relationship between them.

I think the lack of any universal aesthetics -- see the bitter debates within comics fandom, among other examples -- point to some degree or realm of choice even with respect tot he expression and presentation of seemingly basic neurological-biological cues.

Usually when someone says "sorry to break it to you," I figure that means approximately the following: "You probably don't know this yet, and I suspect it's going to make you unhappy to hear it now, but I feel I ought to tell you anyway."

If that was roughly what you meant, then let me take a load off your mind: There was nothing you needed to be "sorry" about in this case, because your basic position on free will was one to which I'd been exposed many times before, and seeing it summarized once again did not cause me any mental anguish!

I do not know just how many science fiction stories I have read in my lifetime, but it's certainly up in the thousands. A fair number of them have dealt with such questions as predestination vs. free will, "shaping the course of history" or "being trapped in the history that can't be altered," calculating mathematically what will happen in the future or perhaps having "precognitive visions" by some other means, failing or succeeding in "changing the future" once you have good reason to know what it's supposedly "destined to be" if things go on as they have been doing, and many other related related questions. Naturally different authors take different positions on the answers to these questions, such as how much "free will" (if any) their characters "really" seem to have . . . and some authors seem to stay officially neutral on the weighty questions they are examining; not clobbering us in a heavy-handed fashion with their personal beliefs on those points, but merely allowing some of their characters to argue such points vigorously without reaching any sort of consensus on the significance of whatever it was that just happened to them, and what it might or might not prove!

So, while I firmly believe that I have free will, I don't scream in terror at the "shocking discovery" that some people firmly believe I don't!

P.S. Incidentally, I have some trouble with your sweeping assertion that no historian has ever asserted Hitler exercised free will in his decision to invade Russia . . . for one thing, how can you make such a firm statement unless you've read every page of every book ever written by any historian, in any nation on Earth, who ever examined the subject and wrote something about it? And if a historian said, for instance, "It appears that Hitler chose to invade Russia because [fill in the blank]," does "chose" indicate an implicit assumption that Adolf had "free will" in the matter, to some degree, even if the historian doesn't bother to use the exact phrase "free will"? Or would you only count it if that exact phrase did get used?

But if all decisions are motivated by a desire to increase pleasure and/or avoid pain, it amounts to the same thing.

Religious martyrs etc, get there pleasure from adhering to their faith/principles etc, but their brain is still basically wired the same way as everybody else's brain.

Look at any history book or problem page or work of fiction and you won't see many examples of free will.

'Why did Hitler invade Russia?' Because of his hatred of Communism, desire for living space, oil, etc, etc, etc. But no historian has ever written it's because he had free will.

On the one hand: When I wrote that side comment about what I believe I would do in Galactus's position, I considered adding a wry acknowledgment that in real life I know perfectly well I will never be in Galactus's position, so it's easy to talk bravely about what I might do in those circumstances! But I didn't bother to add that bit. (I probably decided it was an unnecessarily redundant statement, since all my readers would know that without being told.)

On the other hand: Your sweeping assertion about what I would "probably" do, and why, really surprises me. Throughout history, many human beings have chosen to die because of the principles they believed in, when it might have seemed a lot easier to break those principles for personal convenience. Religious martyrs, for instance. I am a big believer in free will. I don't think DNA automatically overrides the free will of a sentient person when that person is facing death in the near future because of a moral decision he has recently made.

Or the guy in Watchmen who likes tro be beaten up - "Rorshach dropped him down a lift shaft!" Can't remember his name..

Basically it would be someone who does it to get attention. The "Masochism" sub-variant might actually enjoy the negative aspects of the attention, while the straight up "Drama Queen" would just be looking for attention at any cost.

There are also obsessed characters who aren't (generally considered) insane. Any of the "insatiable thirst for knowledge" (like Krona, the scientist whose need to see the origin of the universe set off the first Crisis, or Mr. Sinister for that matter) or "unrequited love" (Namor in the early days when he would periodically kidnap Sue Storm, or Maxima) villains act out of an overriding desire for something other than money, survivial, revenge, etc.

Some guy just wants to gain a rep for being tough, and decides that taking down a superhero is the way to go. In some ways, the original Thunderbolts fell into that category. They turned to crime out of greed, but all they wanted was attention, a rep, respect. While Zemo was devoted to his plan of conquest, the others realized that being heroes gave them the respect they craved.

Have a good day.
John Cage

I don't think "Necessary Evil" means that a guy feels like he has to do something bad in order to get a good result. i think it's more meant to denote one of those guys that are explained as being some core component of "cosmic balance" or whatnot. You know, someone that usually sparks a long soliloquy or lecture about how we need the bad to recognize the good, etc, etc.

It'd be a good addition to the list, I think, even if there are a relatively small number of them out there. Like you said, I think Ozymandias is a pretty clear case of fanatical reformer. You could make that argument for the High Evolutionary, Apocalypse, and the like, too, but you would really have to stretch the category a bit.