Never claims he's a good guy or doing good things.

He might, some of the time, be trying to advance a good _cause_ -- civilization -- but he's entirely aware he's not himself civilized and that the things he does are horrible.

In a lot of ways Space Viking is proto-Drake; obviously flawed human in a (sequence of) horrible situation(s) who keeps doing horrible things out of a mixture of social norms and not seeing what else to do, all presented with completely flat moral affect from the narrative.

-- Graydon