For hypothetical example; Father/son duo are criminals, harming, killing, and stealing innocent civilians. Superhero fights them, resulting in the father dying. Son is now portrayed as a sympathetic villain because all he wants is to avenge his father… despite all the fathers of children they murdered whilst comitting crimes.
Side question; do you feel sympathy for the villains portrayed like this?
I’m really struggling to remember any instance of this, although admittedly I’m not that much up on superhero comics.
But that said, I’d look at:
Is the hero responding with an appropriate amount of force, given the capabilities and crimes of the antagonist?
Is the villain also affected by some larger system or circumstance which makes their actions, when examined on a larger scale, sympathetic?
Does the surviving villain understand that what they are doing is wrong?
I think this was Black Manta, his dad and Aquaman in the Aquaman movie.
that’s also the same movie where the hero unleashed an army of piranha zombies on both sides of a civil war he was trying to stop and made out with his girlfriend for like 30 seconds while his pet kraken massacred his soon-to-be subjects… it was an enjoyable action film, but nuanced writing wasn’t it’s strong point imo, haha