…or other commanding officers? Non-Naval commanders count, too, but only commissioned officers.
My picks?
Note: Possible SPOILERS to follow.
•Capt. Zaff Brannigan from Futurama.
Built an amazing military record mostly by attacking completely defenseless planets. Obviously a body-proud narcissist (and unjustifiably so). Egomaniac. Abusive towards his yeoman.
•Lt. Cmdr. Queeg from The Caine Mutiny
Incompetant, paranoid. Known to play with his balls in public. ( )
•Lt. Gorman from Aliens
If not an outright bad leader, he was still as green as a sapling…and a lot of Marines got killed because of it.
Capt. Kathryn Janeway - The worst Starfleet Captain ever to survive the episode that indroduced her. I suppose the fact that she couldn’t even spell her own name right should have been a clue. (No, it isn’t. Shut up.)
All the Star Trek captains that ran their ships by committee.
“Full speed ahead!”
“Captain, are you sure that’s wise?”
“Captain, I’m sensing conflicting emotions about our direction!”
“Captain, I have to go to the bathroom first!”
From the same show youcan nominate Bender. When made Captin of the Planet Express ship it went right to his head, right Squishy? He alienated his first mate, refused to drink and undrunkenly crashed the the tanker he was towing onto the penguin preserve on Pluto. Those poor, poor penguins.
The Captain in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who was commanding the ship that carried all the hairdressers and telephone sanitizers. You know, the guy in the bathtub. (Don’t have a copy handy but I don’t think he was even given a name. What planet were they from, though?).
Janeway. I wasn’t really digging on voyager anyway but then I watched a show where they stole some guys lungs (Neelix?) they chase down the bad guys only to find the lungs are implanted in an alien and they can’t take them out without killing the alien. Her reply? Some b.s. about not dropping to their level. WTF! It was done in a really sappy morality play but it couldn’t be clearer. They stole a guys lungs and left him to die. Take them back. Heh and Neelix was in this huge thing that if he moved an inch either way he would die. And here’s Janeway dooming him to a life of that. Good thing the ship never gets tossed around.
The first Captain on B5 (yes I know he has supporters) seemed like a hound dog not the man of action he was supposed to be. I totally didn’t buy him in the action scenes.
The Captain of the Titanic. Ok I never saw the movie but I think it’s pretty obvious why he sucked.
Any Non-Cherek captain of any book in that David Eddings series. I know race XXX or YYY wasn’t supposed to be as good but they seem to lack even basic sea going knowledge. One would think they would have sunk early in their careers if they were that stupid.
Captain Morton from Mister Roberts by Thomas Heggen. From the introduction:
“Captain Morton is a tall bulging middle-aged man with a weak chin and a ragged moustache. He is bow-legged and broad-beamed (for which the crew would substitute ‘lard-assed’), and he walks with the absurd roll of an animated Popeye. If you ask, any crew member will give you the bill of particulars against the Captain, but he will be surprised that you find it necessary to ask. He will tell you that the man is stupid, incompetent, petty, vicious, treacherous. The signalmen or yeomen will insist that he is unable to understand the simplest message or letter. Anyone in the deck divisions will tell you he is far more concerned with keeping the decks clear of cigarette butts than with discharging cargo, his nominal mission. All of the crew will tell you of the petty persecution he directs against them: the preposterous insistence (for an auxiliary operating in the rear areas) that men topside wear hats and shirts at all times; the shouting and grumbling and name-calling; the stubborn refusal to permit recreation parties ashore; the absurd and constantly increasing prohibitions against leaning on the rail, sleeping on deck, gum-chewing, heavy-soled shoes, that and this and that. And you will be told with damning finality that the man is vulgar, foul-mouthed. In an indelicate community this charge may appear surprising, but of all it is clearly the most strongly laid.”
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