This is the reason why Mira was so focused on Evilyn keeping her powers. I was going to have some of this in the flashback chapter with the Silver Dragon, but it got cut. He would notice villains among the heroes and question Connor about it. It kind of feels like something I should have made a bigger deal about before, or I might want to still do something later.
Actually this ain't bad here. Plus thematically it wouldnt make sense to have it in his main flashback that would mean that villain's got stuck. People would just break the villain statues. Plus if you had it when annie first met him it would have taken away the punch factor that the heroes were placed in stones. The other flashback where dragon went after his student would make it feel like it was less important info even though we know it wouldn't be. Villain's taking the time to help the world after a crap ton of capes got turned into stone is important news. Plus it's also something that would take more then a few months to get that system up and running so by waiting to explain that some villains stopped being villains you can the explain or allude to that the stakes got dire enough for the state or world to make that decision. To offer that position. Or if a villain was the one to make that decision.