What an Idiot!/Comic Books

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Comic book storylines can get outlandish at times, but there's usually a sensible explanation for characters' behavior, based on the universe they're in. Not so with these entries, though.

Marvel

X-Factor: The problem is evident from the outset. Jean Grey comes back from the dead without her telepathy and finds that not only are her old teammates at loose ends and Charles Xavier missing; but Big Bad Magneto was running the latter's school, the X-Men were wanted outlaws, and Mutants had a worse rep than ever. When she gets the old gang together they decide to gather young mutants themselves to train them in safety and away from dangerous influences, but they do not have a Cerebro unit or a telepath to use it.
You'd expect: Beast and Angel (who, incidentally, have been outed for years in comic book time) would use the former's Avengers contacts and the latter's massive fortune to start up a massive public relations blitz of PSAs along the lines of "Are you Different? Are your children? Call us, we can help." while opening up a nice day-camp/compound well away from New York if security is an issue.
Instead: They go undercover as a commercial mutant hunting crew that could be summoned to capture and 'cure' dangerous mutants with menacing powers, complete with an HQ in the Big Applesauce. Sure you might beat the real lynch mobs to them, but how many will go underground rather than come to you? Please note that Worthington was backing this with his own money, and the world knows he is a Mutie, so this is a P.R. disaster waiting to happen, considering how many will be digging from every angle.
- And, in the same book: Cyclops, having retired from superheroing, is having difficulties with his marriage. Then he gets a phone call telling him the girl he used to be in love with has just come back from the dead.
  You'd expect: That he'd sit down with his wife and explain what's just happened, reassure her that he's determined to make the marriage work, then ask her to come with him to meet the woman he used to date who is also one of his oldest friends. Sure, it would be tense and awkward and might fuel further arguments, but it would still be better than...
  Instead: He makes vague excuses about how he has to go, then runs out in the middle of an argument and doesn't call for two weeks. By which time his wife and baby son have been kidnapped by supervillains. Whoops. And by the time she reappears, she's turned evil and is trying to destroy Manhattan by using their son as a human sacrifice. Double whoops.
Ultimate Fantastic Four: It's the dramatic conclusion of the arc, and Reed Richards is squaring off against Nihil on the Vegas Strip! The tyrant opens his mouth to devour the hero, who stops him by picking up a nearby plasma rifle and wedging it in between his jaws!
You'd expect: Nihil to do literally anything except what he actually does. Literally anything else.
Instead: He tries to pull the gun out...by the trigger. It's... not pretty.
Spider-Man tends to be framed for various stories. Sometimes it's an average story, others it's for a storyline, but it's occured quite a bit in his career.
You'd expect: The citizens of the city would recall "Hey, Spider-Man's been framed before. For all we know, those crimes could have been committed by Mysterio or The Chameleon".
Instead: Civilians alike go straight to the accusation.
- The much-maligned One More Day arc of Spider-Man involved Aunt May in a coma, after being shot by a gunman following Peter Parker revealing himself to be Spider-Man. Spidey has asked practically every magical/technological superhero he can find to save his aunt's life, many claiming that they either can't or it would be wrong to do so. In a seance, Aunt May revealed that she accepts her death.
  You'd expect: Peter to realize that maybe the entire elite cadre of the Marvel universe (including, by the way, a character who was quite obviously intended to be a representation of the Judeo-Christian God) is right, and let his elderly aunt pass on, surrounded by friends and loved ones. Peter would be hurt, but he has faced personal tragedy in the past and survived.
  Instead: He keeps grasping at straws in attempts to save his aunt's life. Eventually, the demonic villain Mephisto shows up and offers Pete a deal; he'll save Aunt May's life, if Peter and MJ agree to let reality be warped so that they would never be married.
  You'd expect: that after being told by a guy who's pretty much a Comics Code-friendly stand-in for Satan that destroying Peter and MJ's marriage would make him very, very happy and potentially lead to him being able to take Peter's soul in a future deal, Peter would realize the danger of making a Deal with the Devil, and refuse.
  Instead: Spidey accepts.
  What's Worse: The deal involves sacrificing Peter and MJ's unborn child. Aunt May would never have sacrificed a baby to save herself.
The recent SHIELD/HAMMER kerfuffle in the Marvel Universe.
You'd Think: That when it comes to the head of an organization like SHIELD, you'd not appoint someone who is openly psychotic even when on his medication, and that if for any reason this became necessary, you would at least ensure that there were reliable, sane people under him to keep things under control. Even if you want some hardcore hero-hating person in charge, its hardly like Henry Peter Gyrich or "Thunderbolt" Ross or similar aren't available. They might not deliver brilliant successes, but at least you can give them control of an army in confidence that they won't aim it at their own government.
Instead: SHIELD has been disbanded, and the staff for its replacement, HAMMER, have been chosen by Norman Osborn, the Green Fucking Goblin. Who bombed his own arraignment hearing on live TV, for Thor's sake. It's not even as if they don't know he's a psychopath!
More on the Goblin front is Phil Ulrich's discovery of a cache of Green Goblin gear.
You'd Think: That on finding a bunch of superweapons belonging to a dead insane criminal, he would have left it alone, handed it in to the appropriate body, or sold it.
Instead: He decided to become a superhero, despite having zero experience.
Also: Instead of altering it in any way, even by just painting it a different color, he dressed up as the Green Goblin, and went around calling himself the Green Goblin. Now you might think that's a good way to get mistaken for a villain, making his work massively more difficult as superheroes attacked him and civilians fled him. And you'd be right. Even after hanging up the costume and gear, the chemicals in his system have recently driven him insane.
In the early days of the Claremont/Byrne run on X-Men, our heroes find themselves stranded in Antarctica. They decide to cross the Drake Passage to South America and work their way home.
You'd Think: They would send Storm, who can fly, control the weather, and is a superb thief, on ahead to negotiate for or steal transportation for them.
Instead: They try to cross the Drake Passage... ON A RAFT.
Also: They end up in Japan. Yeah.
World War Hulk: Doctor Strange brags at length about how easily he could beat Hulk.
You'd expect: He'd do so. It's obvious that Hulk is never going to stop, and Strange has every right to defend himself with lethal force. Strange has routinely taken out enemies that make Hulk look like a ten year old girl.
Instead: He makes a series of increasingly bad decisions that result in him getting his hands crushed and ultimately defeated by Hulk. Chief among them being deliberately choosing to fight the Hulk at punching range when the Hulk is the only one of the two combatants that needs to fight at punching range.
In New Avengers #2, a breakout at the supervillain prison known as The Raft has occurred. Spider-Man and Captain America arrive on the scene. The Captain notes that a large platoon of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents is on their way.
You'd expect: Spidey to wait for the backup to arrive. They're S.H.I.E.L.D. agents trained and equipped to take down superhuman criminals and it's just he and Steve on the scene at the moment.
Instead: Spidey takes this as his cue and rushes into The Raft alone, spouting some half-assed justification that he'd feel guilty about putting other people in harm's way by allowing them to do their jobs. What happens next can be described as Christmas come early for Spidey's rogues gallery as Count Nefaria knocks him for a loop and dumps him into a riled-up mob full of his worst enemies who proceed to unmask him, snap his arm like a twig, and take turns pounding on him until his face is a bloody half-purple mess.
Ultimate X-Men. In the first arc the US government finds the Savage Land (Magneto's mutant hideout) and decided to destroy it. The government has also just admitted that not all mutants are bad and the X-Men in particular are the good guys.
You'd expect:--which means they've got a well-trained group of mutants to send in to battle Magneto.
Instead: They sent Sentinels, Humongous Mechas, MADE OF METAL!!! To combat freakin' Magneto. Not the Sentinels of Earth-616, which were Magneto-proofed ages ago, but regular Sentinels. Magneto even Lampshades their stupidity, noting that any species dumb enough to send chromium machines against the "Master of Magnetism" deserves to be replaced. He reprograms the Sentinel fleet to fly back to D.C. and kill every non-mutant human they can find. This leads to a battle that nearly destroys D.C. If not for the X-Men and Quicksilver's betrayal they would have been toast.
Doctor Strange: The Oath. Strange's manservant Wong is near death and Strange has retrieved an elixir which can cure any disease. That potion is currently in the hands of a Corrupt Corporate Executive who is Withholding the Cure to protect his profits. He has just challenged Strange to a fistfight on the roof of a skyscraper. Neither of them can use magic for the next three minutes, and Doc is suffering from a near-lethal gunshot wound inflicted earlier that night.
You'd expect: Strange, knowing every second counted, would quickly beat the man down, take the elixir, and run to help Wong.
Instead: Strange allows the other man to pummel him for at least a minute before he starts fighting back. He still wins, but in the confusion and pouring rain, the other man misjudges the edge of the roof and plummets to his death. Strange is able to recover only a single drop of the elixir, forcing him to choose between saving Wong or reproducing it to save the world.
In the crossover one shot Spider-Man and Batman: Disordered Minds Dr. Cassandra Briar, a researcher from a government agency (which one, she didn't say) develops a surgical procedure involving a microchip implanted in the brain that would effectively "cure" the criminally insane by rendering a recipient docile and harmless.
You'd expect: Okay, ignoring the comparison this procedure has to a non-consensual lobotomy (a point made by Dr. Kafka, the head doctor at Ravencroft, where Carnage is incarcerated) and the ethical implications of such, the best thing to do here is apply for approval of the FDA, find some volunteers among low-risk cases of mentally ill criminals (possibly offering compensation to relatives of such) hold clinical trials, and if successful, publish the findings and results.
Instead: Instead: Briar chooses Carnage and The Joker as the first recipients of this procedure. As in, with no previous test subjects, she decides to “try it out” on what may be the most violent and feared lunatics in the DC Universe and Marvel Universe at the same time (ignoring a formal protest from both Dr. Arkham and Dr. Kafka no less), and then announce their perceived success in a public press conference. It’s debatable who the bigger idiot is here, Briar or whatever government official gave this project the greenlight, but obvious-spoiler here, something does go wrong, and the reader kind of has to agree with Carnage for calling her an "arrogant idiot" when it does.

DC

One Superman/Batman team-up featured Doctor Light trying to take down Superman with a magic wand, explaining that apparently Zatanna's magic has... something to do with light, nobody's really sure what.
You'd expect: he'd place the wand in his hand, point it at Superman, and kill him with it, since Superman is weak against magic. Having done this, he'd nuke Batman, thereby removing two of the most dangerous Justice League of America members.
Instead: he somehow gives Superman a secondary personality who believes that Superman is trying to kill him. This second personality duly hires a group of backstreet assassins to take out Superman with the Satanstaff, which has somehow found itself at the North Pole. When it looks like it's going to work, Light comments that he used this kind of tactic because he personally is incredibly inept and if he tried the "sensible" way of doing it, he'd lose. For additional idiocy, he expected the crooks' Split-Personality hired to hand over the Satanstaff to him, despite having used it to take down both Superman and Batman.
Mongul has just defeated Arkillo in a fistfight and now has a good portion of the Sinestro Corps under his command.
You'd expect: that he would take those members under his control, plus the Manhunters present, and stage a coup via numbers.
Instead: He goes at Sinestro solo and tries to kill him. Sinestro states that he has always been prepared for potential coups and has devised failsafes, namely emergency ring control overrides, and takes control of Mongul's ring. After impaling him from virtually every angle, Sinestro imprisons him within the central power battery.
During Infinite Crisis, a superhero named Risk was one of the many fighting Superboy-Prime. In the process, he got his right arm torn off.
You'd expect: Risk to stay far, far away from the guy.
Instead: The next time Prime is on Earth, he jumps out at him again with the apparent intent of punching. He promptly has his other arm torn off.
In a later appearance by Superboy-Prime, he's fighting the Legion of Super-Heroes in the distant future, only to find that the Legion's greatest enemy, Time Trapper, is himself, aged centuries and now sporting a cool beard. Upon meeting, the Time Trapper insists that they need to team up to win the fight against the heroes.
You'd Expect: Superboy-Prime to listen and obey, knowing that he had to work alongside his future self and he'd be a good source of advice and knowledge with his enhanced powers and time-altering abilities.
Instead: Superboy-Prime angrily insists that Time Trapper isn't him and that he "looks stupid." Filled with rage, Prime punches his future self which tears a hole in time-space and sends him flying back to Earth-Prime, powerless and trapped. Brainiac 5 even quips "What an idiot" after seeing it happen.
Also: Superboy-Prime's older self should probably have remembered that his younger self was unstable, easily antagonized, and prone to destructive rages. So, barging in there and barking orders makes the older Prime just as much of an idiot.
At Least: Superboy-Prime's consistent.
In the "Absolute Power" arc of Superman/Batman, time-travelling villains manage to replace the origins of Batman and Superman with new ones that turn them into tyrants. Eventually their memories are restored and they set out to correct the timeline. However, this involves traveling to the point where Batman's parents were murdered, and letting it happen.
You'd expect: Superman to do this in secret, as quick as possible without Batman's knowledge.
Instead: He goes with Batman, and fully expects him to just stand there and watch as the worst trauma of his life replays in front of him. Naturally, Batman snaps, kills Joe Chill, and saves his parents. This erases Batman from existence entirely and screws up the timeline even worse. Good judgment call there, Clark.
Justice Society of America: Axis of Evil: Kid Karnevil keeps bragging about how he's going to break out in mere minutes. The only thing keeping him locked up is a jail cell powered by Alan Scott's green magic, which only works as long as Alan is alive. Alan finds a strange wooden crate in a hallway of the temporary JSA headquarters.
You'd expect: Alan to heed Karnevil's warnings, since the kid has already proven to be a resourceful and methodical sociopath with friends on the outside. Alan should find Mr. Terrific or someone else who could analyze the crate (just to be safe), since Alan's green magic doesn't work on wood. Alan could later be of enormous help when/if Karnevil's associates attack the JSA.
Instead: Alan assumes Karnevil is delusional and ignores his warnings. A bomb inside the crate senses Alan's power ring. Alan gets blown up when he steps too close. He succumbs to his injuries, and surprise! Karnevil escapes.
- Later, Shadow of War starts up the Darkness Engine, powered by Obsidian (who is trapped in egg form). The machine de-powers all meta-humans within its broadcasting radius, but doesn't affect technology. Shadow of War threatens to amp up the power to lethal levels if Mr. Terrific doesn't call off his T-spheres.
  You'd expect: Mr. Terrific to break his lethal force rule (due to extraordinary circumstances) and accelerate one of his T-spheres into Shadow--or at the very least, the engine's computer--at 14 miles per second, before she can react. He had bragged about doing so in the previous story, when he battled one of Mordru's illusions. Either way, it would solve the problem, and they might even have a chance to hatch Obsidian from the egg.
  Instead: Mr. Terrific does nothing. The JSA surrenders. The Darkness Engine de-powers ALL the supers on Earth. The Fourth Reich takes over the planet. Nearly everyone dies.

Vertigo

Y: The Last Man is another tale that starts out with a screwup. Two months after everything on the planet with a Y chromosome drops dead out of the blue, the son of one of the surviving congress critters shows up at the White House.
You'd expect: The U.S. government would promptly haul Mr. Brown to the most secure place they can reach and gather whatever security/military/police people to track down the following in this order of priority: A) a competent and functioning shrink; B) whatever salvageable sperm-bank equipment that can be found, along with a reliable power source; C) any medical/biotech experts that are remotely qualified to figure out why this boy is still alive and how to duplicate it/him; and D) the guy's girlfriend, last seen in the Australian Outback.
Instead: The send the guy, escorted by one secret agent sort, to a cloning expert that was last seen in Boston before everything went to heck. Supposedly they were convinced by his arguments concerning being too easy to locate if he were in one spot, even the mother who was probably aware he was pretty hung up on this Beth person.

Everybody else

A two-part Darkwing Duck comic story in Disney Adventures: Gizmoduck is about to go pay a visit to fellow Super Power Union member Mr. Wonderful, but just as he's opening the door, he discovers that Mr. Wonderful is in fact working for F.O.W.L. when he sees him speaking with Steelbeak via videophone.
You'd expect: Gizmoduck to get out of there without being noticed and go alert Darkwing to tell him he was right.
Instead: Gizmoduck rushes into the room, preparing to pulverize Mr. Wonderful, who responds to his threat by calling the other members of the Union to come take care of Gizmoduck.
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter 5 "The Laird of Castle McDuck:" Scrooge is called home to help his family protect their ancestral castle from their rivals, the Whiskervilles. He arrives just as his Fiery Redhead sister Hortense is singlehandedly sending the would-be intruders running for their lives.
You'd Expect: ...well, anything except what happens.
Which is: Scrooge's father instructing his uncle to take "the women" -- including Hortense! -- home while he and Scrooge handle things. The Whiskervilles even make sure upon their return (when they nearly kill Scrooge) that the coast is clear because she's gone! Stupid stupid chivalry!
In the "Iron Dominion" arc of Sonic the Hedgehog, Eggman has gone insane, growing increasingly distant and regressing farther back in his mental history each second, to the point where he completely forgets the events of the past couple of years, and believes things to be how they were, before the Great War happened.
You'd expect: Both the Freedom Fighters and the Iron Dominion to keep this delusion going; it would do neither of them any good to snap him out of it (as it means having to fight him again, and the Iron Dominion having to give up their claim to his empire), and the Freedom Fighters could use this mental regression to "re-educate" him into a possible good guy and ally.
Instead: They continue to refer to him by his current persona and even mock him with the events that drove him to madness, in the first place, which invariably breaks him out of his insanity and returns him to his old self.
- Similarly, the Freedom Fighters have had their asses handed to them twice by the Iron Dominion, both a result of one of their cyborg allies getting controlled by the Iron Queen's Magitek. Both times, they only survive by using a Power Ring to break the spell. They also know the Iron Dominion is hell-bent on besieging New Mobotropolis - a nanite city in control of NICOLE, a sentient computer program.
  You'd expect: The Freedom Fighters to realize a pattern to this, and equip not just their cybernetic allies but NICOLE as well with Power Rings, as a safety precaution against the Iron Queen's powers.
  Instead: They do nothing, assuming everything will be fine with NICOLE. Predictably, she gets Magiteked, and the only solution they can think of to avoid the same thing happen to the people they've already encountered this with is to evacuate them at the last moment. Even more idiotic, when you consider that NICOLE's been hinted in-comic to be able to control the rate at which Power Rings emerge, leaving no excuse for them not to have any Rings available for such a contingency.
  Also: The Iron Queen should've clearly been able to tell she could manipulate NICOLE and the nanites in New Mobotropolis during her first successful breach into the city, as her Magitek was clearly shown affecting both in an adverse way -- even if she was too busy to see the effect her powers had, she surely should've sensed it through those same powers.
  Instead: She completely ignored this and acted blithely ignorant about the mere prospect, requiring Snively to come up and tell her that.