This is "Walkin' Backwards," a new feature where I look into how superheroes who turned to villainy were walked back from their heel turn and turned into superheroes once more.

Today, we look at how Moondragon was brought back from a pretty messed up period in her life.

Amusingly enough, Moondragon debuted as a bad guy, and how do we know that she is a bad guy? Her name was freakin' MADAME MacEVIL when she debuted in Iron Man #54 (by Mike Friedrich and George Tuska from a Bill Everett plot idea)...

She really wanted to experiment on Namor the Submariner...

She manipulated Iron Man into defeating Namor so that she could study Namor. It did not work out...

However, we soon learned that she wasn't ACTUALLY evil, that was just a name. In fact, she had gotten the impression that Thanos had taken all of Earth under his control and thus she assumed that everyone on the planet was essentially a bad guy. So she wanted to experiment on Namor to find out a way to help create some people who she could use to help her take Thanos down.

In Daredevil #105 (by Steve Gerber, Don Heck, Don Perlin and Jim Starlin and presumably Gerber and Starlin were discussing future plots together), she reveals her truth and tells Daredevil her origin (and takes on her new name, Moondragon)...

So yeah, it was all a misunderstanding and she is actually a good guy, even though she accidentally creates a few other villains as part of her experiments (Angar the Screamer is one of the more notable results of her experiments). After a few issues in Daredevil, she meets up with Captain Marvel and she joins Mar-Vell and the Avengers in taking on Thanos over in the pages of Starlin's run on Captain Marvel...

Firmly established as a hero now, she is even offered a spot on the Avengers but turn them down, as she feels she is too much of a goddess to be an Avenger...

She surprises the Avengers, though, by also preventing Hellcat from officially joining the team as she feels like she needs to train Hellcat first...

That really didn't go anywhere (that might be a column right there, seeing how that went) and eventually, Moondragon began to wander the universe and found a planet where she sort of decided to use her mental powers to force the planet to be peaceful. Drax the Destroyer (who was a reincarnation of Moondragon's dead father) sought out the Avengers to stop his daughter...

Things did not go well (I will write about that very controversial storyline in another column some time in the future) and the Avengers ultimately defeated her and Thor brought her to Odin for the AllFather's judgement.

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In Defenders #126 (by J.M. DeMatteis, Don Perlin and Kim DeMulder), we learn that Odin decided that she was ultimately misguided and not purely evil. And instead, he created a headband that could limit her powers...

She was forced to accompany the Valkyrie when the Norse hero decided to rejoin the Defenders...

Moondragon kept trying to manipulate people into getting her headband off, but along the way, she also couldn't help but want to show how much better she was than everyone else and sure enough, in the process, she started to grow into a hero again.

In Defenders #139 (by Peter B. Gillis, Perlin and DeMulder), Moondragon is given the chance to have her headband removed by a bad guy and she shockingly decides NOT to let them do it...

At the end of the issue, we then see that Odin has removed the headband...

She has proven herself a hero again.

Sadly, things then went totally sideways with her at the end of the Defenders series and she ended up being essentially possessed and she died in the final issue, but don't worry, she later came back (a story I will ALSO tell in a future column) and she has been a hero (sometimes a reluctant one) ever since.

Okay, folks, feel free to suggest more examples of this sort of thing! Obscure ones, famous ones, whatever! Send your suggestions to brianc@cbr.com!