I nominate Graviton.He f***ing controls gravity and can lift islands and office buildings! He could turn his opponents into a compressed puddle of bone and meat, and yet still manages to get beat time and again even by some fairly lame supers.
Ultron, another Avengers villain. Occasionally shown to be a badass villain, he nevertheless has been used in wildly inconsistent ways. Although he’s supposed to be the archetypal “ultimate robotic killing machine,” he has a pretty embarrassing record of defeats vs. villainous acts accomplished. His most pathetic moment has to be in “the Secret Wars” #12, when he was reduced to being a lackey of Dr. Doom’s lackey Klaw, he got his ass whupped by a single sting by the Wasp! I mean, the WASP took out Ultron in one blow! Gah!
Molecule Man. He controls freaking MOLECULES.
And has never won a fight.
Black Manta–he wear a frogman suit, with a laser in it. He fights Aquaman. And loses.
Bad enought to be stuck with a nemisis as lame as Aquaman, much less lose to him.
Actually he has. The thing is, when he DOES win it’s pretty much a one sided, two second contest. Like disintegrating all the Avengers toys; Surfer’s surfboard, Thor’s hammer, Captain America’s shield, Iron Man’s armor. He looks, everything goes poof, fight’s over. Tigra actually talked him down that time as I recall; being pretty and not dumb enough to make threats to the near-omnipotent guy helped. And then there was the time he dropped a mountain range on the heroes in Secret Wars; WHAM and he isn’t even in range for them to fight. And one of the Wrecking Crew made fun of him and Molecule Man casually turned the guy’s outfit into solid metal that took multiple superhumans to peel off so he could breathe; another two second contest.
Actually it does make sense for him to lose a lot because he’s just not supervillain material. He’s…goofy.
My nomination would be Galactus. He just shouldn’t lose to mere mortals. Yes, I know that the explanation is that he’s weak from hunger but if he was that weakened no planet capable of making nukes would ever get eaten.
So a guy in a wetsuit with a laser is supposed to be insanely potent and beat someone who, according to wikipidea, has telepathy; a healing factor; enhanced senses; super strength, durability, and stamina; a hand with supernatural abilities; and extra resistance to heat and energy based attacks?
I’m not seeing it, especially since that last bit sounds a lot like lasers don’t do shit to him
Ooh, ooh can we include superheroes in this as well. Not to hijack the thread but it’s a logical extension.
Then if i may can i introduce exhibit A,** ‘The Sentry’**.
More powerful than a 1000 exploding suns but with a psychological achilles heel.
The problem is he’s in the wrong universe, a superman in a spiderman world.
Realistically, and yes i know i’m using that phrase in a comic book context, he should win for his side any conflict he’s in, pretty much instantly.
So now in any Marvel event of the past few years they have to waste a couple of pages explaining how he’s been distracted/psyched out or otherwise neutralised before they get on with the action.
It’s gotten so bad in the next event they do they should simply have a single panel which just says
And this is where they use psychology to make The Sentry fly off into space or something, now let’s get on with the story.
Another vote for Galactus. He’s one of the most powerful entities in the cosmos; yet he’s suffered absolutely humiliating defeats at the hands of beings that should never have stood a chance against him.
The Silver Surfer also falls under this. There should be a very narrow number of people who can fight him in a stand up fight. Yet he gets the stuffing kicked out of him regularly. He should be on an “Oh shit” level close to his boss, but no.
I find Molecule Man’s defeats believable. Before the accident that gave him his powers, Owen Reese was a neurotic, withdrawn, nerdy wimp. After the accident, he still is. He may have godlike powers, but in his mind he’s still the kid who always got picked last for dodgeball. Note that after he decides to quit supervillaining and live a normal life, he does much better. Also note that when Volcana, the woman he loves, is threatened his actions are quick and effective. At those times, he doesn’t have time to think and mess himself up.
Thanos. He’s supposed to be Marvel’s Darkseid, but he got pantsed by Ka-Zar! Sorry, the “He was a defective clone” retcon did not excuse the ill-considered suckitude of this storyline. Darkseid got pantsed by Ka-Zar!
And he once basically got outsmarted by Dazzler.
Well, as MTV’s The State portrayed things at the Hall of Justice:
Superman: “Right! Batman, Robin, you find some way to block future transmissions. Wonder Woman, you find Doctor Spiker and find out what he knows. Flash, run to the Andes mountains and get those plans! I’ll go stop the missiles that have already been launched. And Aquaman, you go…talk to some fish.” (everyone collapses, laughing)
Anyway, my addition: Mr. Mxyzptlk. From Wikipedia: “Mr. Mxyzptlk has access to fifth-dimensional technology that to third-dimensional beings may as well be magic. His abilities are only limited by his willpower; for example, if he wanted to turn Superman into dust by snapping his fingers, it would happen…Though the exact limits of Mr. Mxyzptlk’s powers are unknown, his power apparently dwarfs that of even third-dimension cosmic beings.” And yet, he’s a total dipstick failure.
Megatron / Galvatron is an amoral power-seeking leader of amoral power-seeking troops, he turns into a freaking gun, and he keeps getting beaten by a stupid fleshie and his pet VW Bug!
In addition to the other Marvel characters here - Count Nefaria. Another person with Superman level power, who constantly gets his arse kicked by the Avengers.
Also, sadly, Dr Doom, why does he never win? Even his ego must take a battering after the thousandth defeat by the FF and Reed Richards in particular.
Doom has won, once. He took over the entire world. Not a hoax, not a dream, not an imaginary story. He gave it up, though, no challenge.
Emperor Doom graphic novel.
Doom’s got the stuff going on that most great villains do: on paper he should win nine times out of ten but he’s got major personality problems that get in the way. Add a great sense of style and a flare for the melodramatic and you’ve got a villain that people can cheer for.
For my addition to the thread I’ve got to go with Sinestro. He’s got all the powers of his archenemy and his power is his enemy’s weakness? Sinestro should be just about unbeatable. It wasn’t until the recent relaunch of Green Lantern that it actually started looking balanced; his ring wouldn’t eat through a Green Lantern’s without effort and he seems to be doing well in his long term scheming even if the short term stuff doesn’t pan out.
In that category also goes the time that Spiderman punched out Firelord and Black Cat beat Sabretooth.
I can’t remember the writers, but they should both be on food stamps, along with the editors who allowed it to go to print.
Doom also successfully conquered the world in Super-Villain Team-Up back in the 70s, using a hypnotic gas that made everyone obey Doom’s commands. But after he’d achieved this conquest, he was accidentally exposed to his own gas, and the conundrum of being compelled to follow Doom’s commands when he himself was Doom left him unable to issue any commands, and the spell broke over everyone else.
Wasn’t this before Sabretooth became uber-good at EVERYTHING Wolverine-as-Villain character?
Sabretooth got his ass handed to him by Cage and Iron Fist back in the day.