How Bad Was She? Once a mercurial mean girl, Maxie cast herself in a JV production of Dangerous Liaisons by offering to sleep with Logan Hayes if he’d schtup and break up with her nemesis, Lulu Spencer. (How times change, huh?) Worse, Maxie became so hooked on Lucky Spencer during his battle with drug addiction that she swiped pills for the married man to keep him high on her. And Now? To say that Maxie has matured might be the understatement of the millennium. She still makes mistakes, sure, but strives every day to be as wonderful as the woman late husband Nathan West saw in her.
Sonny Corinthos
Image Credit: ABC screenshot
How Bad Was He? When first we met the future godfather of Port Charles (and actual father of half the town!), he was a second-string mobster running a strip club at which he seduced an underage Karen Wexler, got her hooked on drugs and lured her on stage to shake her moneymaker as Carrie the Schoolgirl. And Now? Why, Sonny’s not just a well-respected “coffee importer,” he and henchman personal assistant Jason Morgan are the only people in Port Charles who can solve a crime or bring down an actual villain. And if you ever want to know if you’re in the wrong, just ask his wife…
Carly Corinthos
Image Credit: ABC screenshot
How Bad Was She? When the former Caroline Benson hit Port Charles, she had just one thing on her mind: revenge against the mother who’d abandoned her. So she seduced away Bobbie Spencer’s husband. In her free time, the vixen passed off A.J. Quartermaine’s baby as loverboy Jason Morgan’s. Why? Because ew, nobody wanted to raise a kid with A.J. And now? Carly considers herself the moral compass of Port Charles. Do something, anything, and she’ll eagerly judge it — and you. Never mind that her lavish life is one of crime. Husband Sonny Corinthos is a “good” mobster, don’t ya know?
Leisl Obrecht
Image Credit: Howard Wise/JPI
How Bad Was She? Originally, unrequited feelings for the nefarious Cesar Faison drove Obrecht to behave like the kind of doctor ordinarily referred to as “mad.” If she gave a shot, it was as likely to be from a pistol as a needle (and even in the latter instance, odds were 50/50 that she was administering poison!). And Now? We’ve seen Leisl’s heart and the countless places it’s been broken, by Faison, by the loss of son Nathan West, by her at-times-tenuous relationship with daughter Britt Westbourne. More than anything, now we want to see her love and be loved. That’s your cue, Scotty Baldwin!
Valentin Cassadine
Image Credit: ABC
How Bad Was He? Even before the erstwhile Theo Hart was introduced, we’d been trained to shudder at the mere mention of his name. And no sooner had he made his entrance than he’d revealed why: In short order, he took enough hostages to form a soccer team, “fatally” shot nephew Nikolas and, just for good measure, put a bullet in Kevin Collins. And Now? Somehow, passing off Sasha Gilmore as lady love Nina Reeves’ long-lost daughter softened us toward Valentin — to the point that we’ve come to view him less as a Big Bad than a big softy.
Sam McCall
Image Credit: Howard Wise/JPI
How Bad Was She? Let’s just say that if you were a man with money, you wouldn’t have wanted to cross paths with Sam prior to her arrival in Port Charles. The consummate con artist picked up aliases and rich ex-husbands the way you or we might cat hair when visiting that one friend’s apartment. (You know the one.) And now? Though Sam spent years drinking the Kool-Aid that convinced her that true love Jason Morgan’s career as a Mafia enforcer should spark no crisis of conscience, she eventually left him as well as Port Charles’ criminal underworld to play detective and raise her kids in an environment in which they were less likely to be used as leverage against Stone Cold.
Scotty Baldwin
Image Credit: Chris D/JPI
How Bad Was He? Well, he’s always had… let’s say “issues,” many of them involving seeing how far he could bend the long arm of the law before it broke. (Oh, if only he were a mobster!) At his worst, he plotted to rob the patrons of the Haunted Star on its opening night, then used a blaze at the Port Charles Hotel to convince Internal Affairs that he’d gone up in smoke. And Now? Scotty’s more of a rascal than an actual bad guy. He’ll always have that mischievous streak in him, but if he stirs up trouble, it’s likelier to result in a good time than jail time. For viewers, anyway!
Ava Jerome
Image Credit: Howard Wise/JPI
How Bad Was She? The femme fatale was initially a martini-cold Mafia princess capable of snuffing out a life without breaking a sweat (RIP, Connie Falconeri), then picking the perfect patsy to frame for the crime (sucked to be you, A.J. Quartermaine). And Now? Ava has suffered — to the nth. Through cancer. Through being burned almost beyond recognition. Through the loss of daughter Kiki. Through a whole “latte” threats from Avery’s babydaddy, Sonny Corinthos. So at this point, we figure she’s pretty much earned… if not a clean slate, one with enough blank space on it to make a few new mistakes.
Franco Baldwin
Image Credit: Howard Wise/JPI
How Bad Was He? Pretty much as bad as a psycho could be, what with the homicidal tendencies and the kidnappings and the letting Sam McCall think that he’d raped her and all. Basically, if a character declared, “Muahaha, nobody could be eviler than me!” Franco was the person who’d swoop in and say, “Hold my beer.” And now? Against all odds, when Franco was murdered by Peter August in 2021, we wept. Not from relief but actual sadness. Because once Franco was free of the tumor that gave him the worst kind of killer instincts, he became a devoted husband to Liz Webber and father figure to her boys.
Nina Reeves
Image Credit: Howard Wise/JPI
How Bad Was She? Upon emerging from a years-long coma, Silas Clay’s wife was a little “off.” By which we mean that she was so very off that she sought vengeance on Ava Jerome by inducing labor in in the onetime “other woman” in order to claim her baby in place of the one that she herself could no longer have. And Now? A bit of therapy, as well as a sweet romance with Franco Baldwin, transformed Nina into a card-carrying protagonist. Though she never did quite shake that vindictive streak; just ask Carly Corinthos, from whom she kept “late” husband Sonny as payback for daughter Nelle Benson’s demise.
