"He's just misunderstood!"

Above is a phrase that I've been teased with since 2010 when the first "Thor" movie came out and I fell head over heels for one of the main characters. And no, it wasn't Thor. Rather, it was his darker, Shakespearean brother Loki that caught my attention. I've been one of "those fangirls" for about eight years now.

Marvel, in particular, has done a fantastic job doing something that is a bit out of the norm—portraying their villains as heroic and their heroes as flawed. They're giving the villains a backstory, offering a glimpse into their lives to show how they've gotten to the point of doing what classifies them as the "bad guy."

Take Loki. He was lied to his whole life, taken from his rightful home, forced to watch his "father" favor his brother, and was taught to hate who he essentially was—a frost giant. He had to struggle with thinking he was an abomination, deal with the events of the Avengers, and handle being locked up for two years in The Dark World.

Another example is Bucky Barnes, Captain America's best friend who was captured by Hydra and brainwashed to be the Winter Soldier. Granted, in "Civil War" Bucky was ready to take responsibility for what he had done, regardless of whether or not he remembered any of it. While he may be a bit more easy to forgive, but he still was the main antagonist of the second Captain America movie...and some of the comics as well.

Natalia Romanova, the Black Widow. She honestly has one of the most tragic backstories in Marvel history, making it pretty easy to root for her in the cinematic universe. Taken by the Red Room and trained to be an assassin, she made a name for herself killing for the highest bidder. After Clint Barton is recruited to kill her and makes a second call, she actively works to wipe the red out of her ledger and prove that she's more than her past. I personally say she's done more than enough and deserves to be happy for a while.

Last but not least, Miss Wanda Maximoff. While she and her twin volunteered to become enhanced in a rebellion, after seeing what Tony's murder bot Ultron planned to do to the world, she changed her course of action and became an Avenger, eventually being the one to kill the hunk of metal. Wanda quickly won the hearts of the audience, and her chaos magic makes her one of the strongest on the team.

Now that we've gotten through the long explanation about heroic villains, let's move onto the flawed heroes. Now, some flaws are bigger than others, but regardless, they’re all worth mentioning.

Tony Stark, the Iron Man. Not only did he create an AI that tried to blow up the entire world, but he was one of the main reasons that the Avengers split. By forcing the team to choose what to do about the Sokovia Accords, he pitted the members against each other. In the end, they all were split based on their decision about whether or not they were going to comply with the document. For the latter, it wasn't retirement, like Tony said. It was a prison.

Onto Mr. Vision. While he genuinely wanted the best for Wanda because he did love her, illegally detaining her in the compound was not okay. Considering how Wanda was treated during her time becoming an enhanced and being held by Baron von Strucker, he should've known how much it would hurt her to do so.

Overall, we see a changing narrative in the stories we are being told. The bad guys may not always be that bad, and the heroes may not always be all good. There's a grey area that Marvel has begun to toy with, and it's created a whole new way of interacting with their audience.