Heroes are defined by their Villains
Before I get into the meat and potatoes of today's comic book epiphany, I want to preempt my main message by saying that this observation comes from no greater qualification than being a consumer of content. I have no writing credits to my name. I have no comic book experience beyond being an avid reader for many years. For the five people who might read this, keep my lack of qualification in mind and know that this opinion of mine is balanced by the fact that I do not have, as an example, Rob Liefeld's track record for successfully writing and drawing comic books.
The big two, Marvel and DC, are committing the same mistake repeatedly. All of the compelling villains are being humanized and turned into heroes or antiheroes. This mistake is costly because rather than improving a comic book by showing another side of an already compelling character it instead takes depth away from the primary reason most people read comics - the heroes. Allow me to try and demonstrate through a few examples. I believe this poisonous tendency began in the 1990s as so many terrible fads did.
Venom
Eddie Brock has always been a brilliantly flawed character. He was a second rate journalist who seemed to always get shown up by his peers, particularly Peter Parker. Instead of Brock having a growth arc, he descended into jealousy and anger. This left him the perfect host for the Venom symbiote.
Eddie was bigger, meaner, and more savage than any villain that Spider-man had faced up to this point in his history. Any comic featuring Venom was destined to sell. When Todd Macfarlane and David Michelinie introduced Venom in 1988 he was the perfect dark reflection of Spider-man and Peter Parker. I believe fans begging for more and more Venom lead to the character being written through a growth arc turning him slowly from a cannibalistic, psychotic alien symbiote in a bitter, angry host to a more Punisher-esque anti-hero by 1993's Venom Lethal Protector.
Eddie Brock became more sympathetic even if he remained conflicted as a character. Venom, the symbiote, came to be more under human control and became an almost loving partner to Brock. They even struck up a grudging alliance with Spider-man removing a key motivation for Venom to remain angry and evil.
I think this was justified by the writers with the presence of Carnage. Cletus Kasady/ Carnage is evil. He is a racist and sexist serial killer. I am certain that the writers at Marvel were correct that Spider-man and Venom teaming up to take on a villain that would take full advantage of the symbiote's abilities would sell. They were right. It did. I also know that Carnage didn't have the same endurance as a villain that Venom did.
I liken Eddie Brock to Flash Thompson as the bully that you enjoy seeing get what is coming to him. Readers enjoy seeing both Eddie and Flash pick on poor Peter Parker because you know deep in your heart that within a few issues you are going to see the tables turned. When Carnage is killing and eating people there is not as much of a balancing act. He is just evil and there isn't a redemption arc available to that character. Eddie/ Venom can go away and lick their wounds having momentarily seen the error of their ways only to come back later just as wrong thinking as before. Carnage never reconsiders or reflects. You either stop him or he continues to do profane things.
One of those journeys is satisfying to read for most people. It can be revisited. The other one is the plot of an action movie which ends with a dead villain. There is a reason Die Hard and Lethal Weapon did not have recurring villains. Some plot lines just end with the hero punching the ticket of the villain in order to be satisfying. One of the most compelling dichotomies in all of comic books is the fact that no matter what Joker does Batman will never kill him.
Turning Venom into a hero that knows Captain America well enough to have casual chats was a mistake. Venom should have remained hated, hunted, and unstable. Give him tons of moments where he sees how stupid he has been, but never quite let him cross the line fully into being a good guy. The Symbiote needs to remain alien enough to want to eat people from time to time even if Eddie Brock is disgusted by it.
Magneto
Magneto is an example of a character who was a perfect foil for the idealism of his enemies- the X-men. The X-men fought for equality even as the human world hated and feared them. Magneto provided the fuel for said hatred and fear and fought back against a system of racist oppression. So, where it the real villain here?
Both the X-men and Magneto want to live in a world where mutants have rights and are not persecuted and oppressed. The difference comes at the desired outcome. Up until House of X / Powers of X, Xavier's vision of equality and a desire to protect humanity from evil mutants were the biggest differences. Through the life experiences of the mutant Moria MacTaggert Xavier realizes that his original dream will never come to pass. Magneto is also shown that his mutant superiority never leads to a sustainable future. Moria does the unthinkable and unites the majority of mutants as a single race under the combined leadership of Charles Xavier, Magneto, Mr. Sinister, Sebastian Shaw, Emma Frost, Exodus, and other members of the Quiet council.
The X books are without mutant villains and it leaves them feeling flat and uneventful. Their major villains now include gardening enthusiast octogenarians (listing the coolest one first), Nimrod (arguably he is pretty cool) and all other AIs, several groups of mutant hating humans with various degrees of cybernetics, the Fantastic Four (briefly), Doctor Doom (very briefly), their own emotions, a need to establish religion among a group now functionally immortal (terrible reading), a group of racist preteens who want to be the Hellfire Club, mutants from outworld (a sure sign that Hickman realized that mutants need mutants to fight with), Merlin, Saturyne, Druids, Stryfe (indirectly) and Arcade (who I believe is a mutant).
The X-men need Apocalypse, Magneto, Sabretooth, Mystique, Toad, High Evolutionary, and occasionally the Avengers as enemies. Otherwise, no one really cares what is going on with them. The problem is so bad that they are dusting off Onslaught at least as a concept. Readers can get behind a heroic team of mutants who protect humanity from their evil brothers and sisters. It is hard to care about a failing utopian mutant island and how they are capitalizing miracle drugs. Thank God Mystique is about to unleash a very pissed off Sabretooth and burn down Krakoa for Xavier and Magneto manipulating her and refusing to resurrect her wife Destiny. Gotta say, I never expected to see Mystique as the hero of the X-books.
I have mad respect for Jonathan Hickman. He is one of my favorites. I do wonder if he hasn't written himself into a corner with the big concept he has. Then again, I also believe he is smarter as I writer than I am as a reader so I keep reading and waiting for fulfillment. I certainly think there is a villain problem.
Sabretooth
Nothing feels more pointless than Wolverine without a good villain to foil him. At least once a year on his birthday, Sabretooth needs to show up and just ruin Logan's day for no reason other than Sabretooth being a complete bastard. All the best Wolverine related characters are echos of Wolverine or Sabretooth. Let's name a few just for fun: Daken, Wild Child, X-23, Scout/ Honeybadger/ Gabby, and Hulk.... ok maybe not the last one.
Sabretooth got put in exile deep in the guts of Krakoa during House of X. 
As a result Wolverine has battled plants, vampires, and threatened Omega Red a lot. Not much else has happened beyond him ceasing to be the most popular Wolverine. There is a reason Laura is able to be more popular besides the fact most characters are more appealing in comics with an attractive female form (Power Girl vs Supergirl as an example.) X-23 is just a more interesting character. She isn't in a weird thruple with Cyclops and Jean Grey. I don't even feel the need to explain beyond that. For Wolverine to be great again he needs Sabretooth.
Joker
Why does Bruce let him live? Because Joker is the best reason for there to be a Batman in the mind's of the writers. They are 100% correct. Batman is never going to snap and kill the Joker at least not in any canonical story. He is chaos to the order of Batman. Also, what Batman does is not good. Vigilantism is a crime. So is beating people up, breaking into places, and running around on roof tops with young boys in tights (maybe not that last thing.) You need Joker to do the really awful things to make Batman interesting. You could kill off Mr. Freeze, Penguin, Killer Croc, Clayface, and all the rest of the rogues gallery and be just fine so long as Joker was working a scheme.
By the same token, Harley Quinn going good guy only works because the Joker is still out there. She is classically conflicted but is still interesting because a part of her will always belong to Joker. It is built into the clown makeup based identity that still fits Joker's scheme.
Proof of concept.
I am not sure why taking the greatest villains (and there are tons of other examples like Lex Luthor, Catwoman, Punisher, Shredder, Rocksteady, BeBop, etc. ) and turning them into allies has become such a trend. I know that it hurts the ability to tell fantastic stories in comic books. I think a creative team who was willing to do the work to drawn the lines between the good guys and the bad guys, even if the bad guys have sympathetic traits, could do a lot of good in the industry.
This is part of what drives me to indy comics. Not to say that the lines between good and evil are never blurred or there isn't a character based plot twist. I could not tell you who the villain is in Fire Power by Kirkman and Samnee is to save my life, but I read every issue voraciously. For the record, I suspect it may be the dog. Still books like Radiant Black, Nocterra, and Shadecraft present good story without so much character ambivalence. I think it can be done in the big two. First, they have to admit they have a problem.
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