Idiot Ball/Comic Books: Difference between revisions

* The "[[One More Day]]" storyline in ''[[Spider-Man]]'' sees Peter Parker doing the [[Atlas Pose|Atlas gig]] with an Idiot Ball of truly gargantuan proportions. Making a [[Deal With the Devil|deal with the closest analogue to a devil Marvel possesses]] to save the life of his already elderly aunt, at the expense of not only his current marriage, but the entire history ''of'' that marriage? Quite possibly the first example of [[Stuffed in The Fridge|stuffing someone in the fridge]] but leaving them alive to taunt the audience. This is even worse when you consider the number of readily available contacts the man had with spells, technology, and/or mutant powers that would put her together as good as or even '''better''' than new with minimal effort.

** Parker supposedly went to those contacts, but it was shown that all of those people couldn't help him. That means guys who could take a left arm, brain, and half a heart and ''[[From a Single Cell|rebuild a person from those pieces]]'' couldn't heal a gunshot wound. [[Iron Man|Tony Stark]], a man without any real medical knowledge, managed to build a super pacemaker [[Memetic Mutation|IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!]], but there was no one who could take care of a simple gunshot wound. This wasn't an idiot ball, this was a galactic-scale [[Idiot Plot]].

*** Especially when you consider that Reed Richards of the [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]] once ''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|built a portal to heaven and accosted God-Mode Jack Kirby]]'' to get Benjamin Grimm back from the dead.

** Most of them, especially [[Doctor Strange]], spouted some vague [[Obstructive Code of Conduct]] stuff to refuse helping (never mind how each is perfectly willing to spank reality whenever convenient). At least they offered the good advice that Peter should let his worries go and just enjoy his last day with his aunt. Sadly, despite the entire universe telling him this is a bad idea, [[Joe Quesada|Joe -- I mean Peter]] couldn't stand to see his mother figure die because of his enemies.

* ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]]'': Raven makes constant dives for the Idiot Ball. The first time, chronologically, was when she saved [[The Flash|Kid Flash]] from committing suicide via freezing to death in the Himalayas (points for creativity, Wally). She thought the best way to save his life was to make him fall in love with her using magic and then using the same magic to make him forget she did it. He went on with his life thinking she made him fall in love with her to get him on the team, ''not'' to save his life. Smooth move, Raven.

** Not only that, after realizing what a mistake it was to hide Trigon's existence from the Titans, what did Raven do when she sensed Trigon would attack a second time? Confided the information with no one, not even her ''best friend''. Needless to say, that didn't work out.

* All-Star [[Justice Society of America|JSA]] Cyclone. Little Maxine Hunkel seems to have no idea that she should use her powers in combat these days. All she ever does in a fight is freeze up and scream for help. And this is not against extradimensional horrors or powerful supervillains but against petty mooks the rest of the JSA are clobbering without breaking a sweat. She should be standing in the middle of a screaming tornado with mooks being flung through the air, but instead hunches up and whimpers as they move in for the kill.

* [[The Mighty Thor|Thor]], ever since Odin died, has made some very stupid decisions. He became king and every decision he has made has led Asgard from bad to worse. First, there was the Regining and trusting Loki, but this can be excused by having part of him split off. Since his return he placed the Asgardians on Earth without giving them guidance on how to interact with it, flew off to have adventures avoiding his kingly duties, did not point out his killing of his grand-father Bor was self-defense and he had no way to recognize him since Bor had been thought dead for thousands of years, using up the last of the omnipotent Odinpower to revive Sif instead of restoring said power leaving Asgard vulnerable, acting surprised when Osborn attacked during SIEGE, and now somehow moving the city of Asgard to Earth is the equivalent to moving the dimension so the entire cosmos is out of whack letting in interdimensional invaders. Balder has had his fair share too by not getting informed about what Doom was all about, not expecting retaliation for SIEGE, and exiling Thor in the first place. Oh, both also decided it was a good idea to once again trust Loki despite suspecting him being up to something and with the whole trying to kill them both and rule Asgard for the past thousand years. To be fair Balder has realized he has been an idiot and called himself out on it.

** Lampshaded during ''[[Fear Itself (Comic Book)|Fear Itself]]'': {{spoiler|Odin himself chides Thor's heroic optimism in thinking he could save Earth and Asgard by simply charging at the Serpent and punching him really hard, but admires his selflessness and bravery, deciding to keep putting Asgard first anyways, but letting Thor know how proud he is}}.

* One [[Super Mario Bros]] story in the [[Nintendo Comics System]] involved an actual Idiot Ball, the Stupid Bomb. Anyone caught in its blast radius would be temporarily rendered mind-blowingly stupid (Save King Toadstool, who's already at the bottom of the IQ ladder as it is). By the end of the story, almost everyone (Good, bad) is made an idiot. The antidote for the Stupid Bomb was the Smart Bomb, but they were all used up making one lone Snifit smart enough to dethrone Bowser and take over- luckily, with the rest of Koopa's army dumbed down, he couldn't do anything.