What comic-book super-hero moments stand out in your mind for their extreme idiocy? I’m not looking for things like Superman’s disguising himself with a pair of glasses, or Kitty Pryde’s being able to talk while phased; in those cases, it’s clearly a matter of different laws of physics (or human psychology) being at work; nor do I mean to solicit yet another link to the spyware ridden Superman Is a Dick site. no I mean moments when a hero does something which, even in the context of his universe, is clearly moronic.
My first nomination:
In the 80s Secret Wars mini-series, Professor X sends three X-Men to spy on a team of Dr. Doom’s villains, giving them explicit orders to observe but not interfere. Leading Wolverine and Rogue there, Cyclops observes from a reasonably safe distance that the villains are Molecule Man, Absorbing Man, Titania, and Dr. Octopus, and thus his group is both outnumbered and outpowered. (Heck, any two of the villains had them outpowered.) Watching the villains, Cyclops observes that the area they are all in is geologically unstable. For some reason he decides to disobey Professor X’s orders and attack. Wolverine, sensibly, goes out the most powerful villain, Molecule Man (who has the raw power but not the intelligence to end the entire war at will anyway) but is stopped by Cyclops, who attacks his OWN TEAMMATE to save a VILLAIN’S life.
But that isn’t the stupid part I refer to. It makes wacky sense by super-hero logic.
No, the stupid part comes when the villains decide to retreat because Molecule Man’s been hurt by Wolverine’s claws, and they dare not risk Doom’s ire by wasting time getting him medical help. Then, looking over the field of battle, Cyclops (correctly) deduces that Doom sent the Molecule Man to rip open the volcanic cones around them; Galactus is preparing to eat the planet they are on, and causing the area to erupt will delay him. Having decided thus, Cyclops proceeds to SET OFF THE ERUPTION HIMSELF. In other words, he finishes his opponents’ mission FOR them, after engaging in a needless battle he’d been told to avoid and incidentally attacking one of his own teammates.
Even as a kid, I read this and thought, “What the HELL have you been smoking, Cyke?”
So why the hell hasn’t he hooked up with Doc Mid-Nite & given the Joker a lobotomy yet? If anybody ever needed it, it was Laughing Boy (great name for a Joker Teen Siderkick! “Laughing Boy”.)
Also, what kind of idiot would break up wiith a girl that looks like Starfire. Nightwing’s nuts!
Continuing the Secret Wars theme, in SW2 the Beyonder comes to Earth and in the course of the series transforms an entire office building into gold. Sensibly the US government disappears the gold so as not to flood the world market and ravage the economy, but as that’s going on Spider-Man takes a gold notebook from a gold trash can. He then spends way too much time feeling insanely guilty over taking it. Hello, Spidey? You’ve saved the world countless times and you’ve been pretty much on the brink of starvation the whole time you’ve been doing it. Take the notebook. Take the trash can. Hell, take all you can carry.
This is a big argument amongst certain segments of Batfans. Back when the character was introduced, he carried a gun. Some claim he killed people with it; others swear he didn’t. Add to that the whole Earth-2/Earth-1 thing and it’s just a big mess.
Arkam Asylum has swinging doors. Why not arrange for one of your Bat-friends, say, Dr. Fate, to seal the place up magically?
Gee, Superman, you mean that knowing so many really bright people, you’ve never managed to find enough evidence to lock Lex away forever, or at least permanently smear his reputation?
And a personal pet peeve moment, YMMV: Hal Jordan killed a LOT of people, and everyone gets annoyed at Batman for not trusting him? I know Batman’s been painted as a paranoid jerk, but c’mon.
AlsoGreen Lantern trying to go hand-to-hand with Deathstroke in Identity Crisis. That was just sloppy writing.
I nominate this icky story. Just stupid from beginning to end.
I’m going to unspoiler just a touch of that so that someone who isn’t reading the spoilers will have some idea what we’re talking about. That whole fight was pretty abominable writing, if you ask me.
[spoiler]“He’s quicker where it counts.” No he’s not, damnit. That’s the whole friggin’ point to the Flash. If it was possible to beat him that way, Wally would die about sixteen times a day running across the city.
Also, you can’t nullify Black Canary’s power by putting a hood over her head. You can make it so that she can’t aim well, but given that many many times previously she has shown the ability to control her scream in a way that it knocks people out without killing them (a feat that is apparently much easier to wrangle in a superhero universe than in real life), you wouldn’t have really helped your cause with that one.
“Ninety percent brain capacity.” Nothing really to note here but it never ceases to amuse me that Deathstroke’s primary power (aside from a lack of fashion sense) is being slightly brain damaged.
It’s also quite the feat to hit the Atom, who you haven’t previously been watching, with the beam of a laser pointer when he has shrunk to microscopic size. And he would have had to shrink exceptionally small to actually be knocked around by photons.[/spoiler]
I truly cannot stand Deathstroke. On the other hand, Deadshot who also appears in Identity Crisis is one of my favorite villains ever. He comes very close to beating a the same character that you posted about without cheating. Deadshot is hardcore.
Oh, right, something about the actual topic of the thread would be good to throw in. I’ve always thought that Superman’s solution of trying to punch Doomsday to death was pretty senseless in the “Death of Superman” event.
I respect Batman for not killing, and I even understand why he can’t (or won’t) kill the Joker. But that guy is responsible for thousands and thousands of ghastly murders, and after a while, some of that blame has to fall on Batman’s head. Hell, the body count Joker has left JUST of Arkham Asylum employees is pretty staggering, and to me it makes Batman lose major credibility to not have done something more about that madman by now.
In a REAL shared universe, where there were hundreds of superheroes operating at once, someone else would have (and should have) killed the Joker by now. Anyone with any sense of utilitarianism would have taken that one life, to save however many countless hundreds or thousands in the future – someone like Barbara Gordon, Captain Atom, Guy Gardner, Hal Jordan, or even J’onn J’onzz. Of course that would make Batman fight that hero and try to bring them to justice, since Batman is obsessed with having things done his way, and having everyone follow his lead (and saving the Joker’s life whenever possible). But if he accepted more help of the super-powered kind in general, rather than remaining the paranoid, brooding, Byronic asshole that he is, Gotham City could be a lot less of a bleak and dangerous place anyway.
I love Deadshot too. He’s been one of my favorite overall characters in the DCU for years, since John Ostrander’s brilliant (and way ahead-of-its-time) Suicide Squad. He’s the very epitome of badass: A talented, troubled guy with no super powers who regularly goes up against gods and monsters both good and evil, and doesn’t even give a shit. I loved Christos N. Gage’s recent Deadshot miniseries and Gail Simone’s Villains United mini, which both made Deadshot out to be more of an antihero with a sense of honor than a cold-blooded villain.
However, fanfic-esque writing or not, I had too much gleeful fun watching Deathstroke PWN the entire JLA in Brad Meltzer’s Identity Crisis #3. I never cared about Deathstroke when he was a Titans villain or a '90s “tweener” with his own series, but I like him now as essentially the evil version of Batman – a guy who can beat anyone with prep time (and will try his best to leave them dead).
I haven’t had the chance to read it myself, but some of the moments from Secret Wars II seem to be pretty idiotic. (As the reviewer notes.)
As for other comic stupidity moments—this one isn’t really about a specific hero, but more about the rest of the people in the universe…
Y’all have mentioned the sheer pragmatic, utilitarian value of killing supervillains instead of turning them in to revolving door prisons—Something that a lot of superheroes would never do. Okay, fine. Great. At least on the theoretical level, I can understand some of their reasons, even if I’d never agree.
So why hasn’t any non-superheroic agency, like the CIA or NSA, decided to take the matter into their own hands? You could have an operator infiltrate the Arkham kitchen, slip neurotoxin the inmates’ breakfast, and have dozens of them dead or hopelessly crippled by lunch. Or maybe some Gotham beat cop or SWAT officer sees a captured villain “escaping” from the paddy wagon, and unloads an MP5 through the barred window? And even without shadowy government conspiracies, how many infamous are there of high-profile people (criminals, or otherwise) being killed just by a random loner with a second-rate gun?
Hell, how long until an old-fashioned “outlawry” system gets reinstated (realistically, how much opposition would you see to such a thing, in the U.S. for example, if you basically had hundreds of Osama bin Ladens and Shoko Asaharas running around the country, who had bizarre costumes and superhuman powers, to boot)? How long would it be until organized “vigilance committees” started popping up again, out of fear of the supervillains? Maybe a whole movement of “Punishers”… :eek:
I would imagine a very long time. It’s one thing to go after someone like the Joker, who is at least supposed to be non-powered aside from his crazy strength. But it would be another thing entirely for like a dozen guys with shotguns or assault rifles to try and jump even a joke villain with powers. If a “vigilance committee” were to try and go after someone like Shrapnel, Killer Frost or even the Weather Wizard it wouldn’t be a pretty sight.
And considering how one of the recurring things that we’re told about Batman is that most people don’t know that he is a “normal” human, I wouldn’t imagine it would be any easier to pick your targets among the super villain community either.
Not the superhero, but the ultimate in stupidit was in a Spider-Man story in the 70s when The Beetle was attacking a bunch of small businesses and ripping out their back wall. The police and Spider-Man were baffled, until they realized he was looking for the back of a bank vault to rob it.
Now, it was pretty stupid for the police and Spider-Man not to pick up on this after about the second robbery (“Gee, he must want something on the other side of the wall.”) But it was established that the Beetle could smash through the wall of a vault. Why not just use a frontal attack? What was the point of trying to be sneeky, especially since everyone knew he was doing it?
I doubt it’d be a pretty sight even if it did work. Mobs of angry, scared, and armed people are bad enough, but with a modicum of organization, and a such a seemingly clear and present threat for a “cause”? A short road to chaos, rioting, general insurrection…
I’m getting off topic, though. :smack: So, uh…the original Sentinels? C’mon, so Trask thought the best color scheme for his giant, killer, mutant-hunting androids was purple and pink? It doesn’t exactly inspire fear and awe. Or act as good camouflage, or “high-vis” paint. Or even look cool. Liberace would have done better. A friggin’ “Canio the Tragic Clown” costume would look better. And scarier, to boot.
Still still off topic, right? sigh I know, I know…
