Superheroes Behaving Badly XV: Superheroes Who Should Misbehave

In previous installments of "Superheroes Behaving Badly," we explored the misdeeds of heroes whose actions stood in glaring contrast to their core concepts. In general, these figures should have behaved better. No good storytelling reason explained why they acted as they did; writer exhaustion or misunderstanding of the nature of the heroes brought about episodes where these characters demeaned themselves by their misdeeds.

These heroes (or antiheroes) belong in a different category, because their misbehavior fulfills, rather than defies, their core concepts.

The Hulk

In his classical incarnation - stunted speech and even more stunted wardrobe - the Hulk played out the role of accidental villain, attempting to do right in an invincible body tied to a childish mind. Though originally conceived as a kind of superheroic version of the Jeckyll/Hyde concept from literature, the Hulk didn't really act badly out of evil, but instead out of ill-luck, anger, and stupidity.

Therefore he could play the role of hero or villain, as the occasion might demand.

Limitations of the character forced a number of redefinitions of the character, changes that began in that green-skinned behemoth's earliest days. Though a consistent version endured from the end of the sixties into the dawn of the eighties, writers who actually wanted to do something with the character (such as Peter David) would, of necessity, tamper with the concept.

The Thing

If the Hulk represents the heroic version of a human child in tantrum, the Thing, for his part, plays the role of the superheroic curmudgeon, scowling, complaining, and stinking up the room with bad cigars.

However, the Thing's misbehavior, with the occasional exception, seldom got beyond some imprudent roughhouse directed at a deserving Human Torch. Those cases where the Thing actually did go mental or behave beneath his heroism involved either outside mental control or derangement derived from serving as Reed Richards' guinea pig. Still, in the early sixties, the Thing's antics went beyond the bounds of acceptable heroic behavior.

Hawkeye

Hawkeye moved up the comics career ladder from disposable Iron Man villain to reformed character in a very early incarnation of the Avengers. By the time Roy Thomas became the defining voice of that team, Hawkeye had also become the primary source of unnecessary back-sass, childish objections, and cheesy snits at real and imagined snubs.

Though tame by the standards of today's heroes (who, when they behave badly, become something very difficult to distinguish from supervillains), the character did provide some much-needed comic relief and a welcome change from the excessively gallant heroes of the iconic DC mold.

Hawkeye remains remarkably consistent at the end of his fourth decade, frequently calling Captain America on executive decisions within the Avengers, running afoul of authority figures in general, and doing the necessary double-takes that make the reader understand the absurdity of situations in titles like Avengers and Thunderbolts.

The Sub-Mariner

Of the events that made the early Marvel Silver Age fun, the chronic rampages of the Sub-Mariner, as he attempted to stand up to or even conquer the surface world still remain special. Subsequent writers who handle the character know that he shines his best when tossing heavy machinery around Manhattan and generally engaging in a hyper-hormonal snit against air-breathers in general.

Nonetheless, owing to his origins as a fighter against Nazis in his original incarnation, and the essential gallantry that Lee and Kirby left attached to the character when they resuscitated him in the pages of Fantastic Four, Namor still plays the role of hero, even if he does double duty as an antihero or villain in the occasional miniseries and crossover event.

Marvel would do well to keep his status dubious, so that Namor can provide a character that heroes must fight but can't really hate. This brings in themes of the Gallant Enemy that date at least back to Homeric epics.

Guy Gardner

Though Gardner, the first-runner up for Green Lantern of earth (and its corresponding space sector), had a history that began some twenty years and more previously, Keith Giffen and Jean-Marc De Matteis defined the canonical version of this character.

Through conspicuous performance over many years, involving one-on-one physical confrontations with too many level-headed heroes to count, Guy Gardner has become something of a cult hero and a patron saint of chronically contrary superheroes. The worse he behaves, one might observe, the more many of his hard-core fans like it.

Although the victim of a series of unfortunate character redefinitions and retcons (including the original retcon that made him a bit deranged in the first place, around the time of Crisis), this fundamental contrariness remains consistent throughout revisions of the character and makes him DC Comics' foremost aginner.

USAgent

Subtract the petulance and temper of Guy Gardner, replace it with the attitude of Special Agent Gyrich (of onetime Avengers fame), and add to this the caricaturish version of a super-patriot typical of post-Englehart depictions of Captain America, and you have USAgent, a surly, arrogant, and generally insufferable hero with little respect for his peers and an attitude that suggests he believes himself gypped of the title 'Captain America.'

USAgent has a long laundry list of minor and major misdeeds to his credit. Provoking, though not necessarily completing, almost as many confrontations as Guy Gardner, established much of his reputation; an unfair physical confrontation between his superpowered self and Hawkeye's theoretically normal person established him as a grade-A bully; his perpetual ordering around of the Avengers during his tenure as leader of the West Coast branch of that body confirmed his nature as a control freak; and his short-lived career as the official Captain America established that his arrogance inclined him to attempt to rise above the station delineated by his talent and character.

Where Marvel needs a brave but abrasive hero, USAgent stands ready to confront good and evil with equal vehemence.

Wolverine

Wolverine, in a number of interpretations, serves as a chronic gadfly for other superheroes. Professor X frequently serves as a target for his sardonic contrariness, though in the beginning Cyclops provided a human bullseye for this antiheroic figure's dislike of his fellow man and mutants.

Different writers at different periods cast Wolverine differently; he spends stretches as a far more civilized character than (say) DC's Batman. However, time generally returns him to a number of behaviors that some readers might deem unheroic or even antiheroic. The use of lethal violence, the inability to play well with others, the booze, the cigars, the fashion mistakes, the bad haircut, the excess of body hair, and the quiet glee at making other superheroes unhappy all contribute to the complete vision of Wolverine.

The Punisher

The Punisher, properly understood, particularly before his trip and return from the domains of the dead, played the role of the avenger without compassion, the figure who would escalate indefinitely (or until his resources ran out) against his targets. By intention, the Punisher stood in contrast to the traditional superhero, a figure not normally given to leaving trails of cooling bodies behind him.

For some fans, this willingness to send his enemies to the cemetery made the Punisher special. For others, including some writers, these traits made him either villainous or ludicrous. At one point, for instance, the Punisher appeared in a story where he gunned down jaywalkers for their lawbreaking activity.

The Punisher, to my eye, seems notoriously incomplete without a few more conventional superheroes to provide him some contrast. The relentlessness and mercilessness of the character mean more in the context of a superhero culture that condemns and forbids the casual taking of life.

As with the previous heroes, though, the Punisher's core concept requires his misbehaviors. The concept would remain incomplete should the character ever reform his ethics and means.

The Role of the Wayward Hero

The antihero may serve a necessary role in stories, particularly when writers wish to explore the ethical limits of superheroism. Years of publication may establish the things a superhero can do, but a more subtle touch must reveal what the hero can't do.

The superhero's environment and supporting cast do much to define his nature, but when surrounded by like-natured figures, all of which share an essential moral consensus, the overall effect washes out for lack of contrast. Here we definitely need the antihero, for his ability to define other characters by parallax.

As well, the antihero also serves to get the thankless dirty work done.