What the Hell, Hero?/Comic Books: Difference between revisions

{{quote|"Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Pregnant woman. Gunned her down. Bang. And y'know what? You watched me. You coulda changed the gun into steam or the bullets into mercury or the bottle into snowflakes! You coulda teleported either of us to Goddamn Australia... but you didn't lift a finger! You're drifting out of touch, Doc. God help us all."}}

* Recently in his self-titled comic book, ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' has defeated {{spoiler|Dr. Robotnik. Suddenly, Robotnik flipped out, tearing off most of his mustache-Sonic winced in pain seeing that-and collapsed, babbling incoherently.}} When Sally showed up and asked what happened, Sonic didn't know, saying he beat him like normal. Snively then walks up to them and says that Sonic didn't just beat {{spoiler|Robotnik, he broke him. Snivley gives a [[Hannibal Lecture|speech]] where he acknowledges, "eccentrics aside", Robotnik is a genius and master planner, having conquered the planet in a few years. He says that Robotnik was losing his mind as a result of Sonic being the one thing he couldn't figure during his decade long reign, and Sonic winning again just now finally pushed Robotnik over the edge. Snively then asked to be left alone to take care of his uncle. As a result, ''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Snively denied Sonic the thrill of victory, and instead made him feel bad about what he did.]]'' }}

*** This ended up turning into a [[My God, What Have I Done?]] for Mina when she realizes her doing that allowed the wizard Ixis Naugus to take over Mobotropolis.

* [[Spider-Man]] ends up being so disturbed by [[Iron Man]]'s morally dubious actions (such as imprisoning non-registered superhumans indefinitely without trial) during Marvel's [[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]] crossover that he defects from the pro-Registration side to the anti-Registration side.

** Cyclops, despite being very harsh on Professor X, has done a lot of morally dubious things himself for the sake of maintaining the ever-dwindling mutant population. He's been called out on it by Wolverine of all people; Beast quit the team in protest over his actions and Nightcrawler was prepared to chew him out thoroughly {{spoiler|before he died}}.

*** Though in at least one case, Wolverine's issue wasn't ''what'' Cyclops did, so much as the fact that he did it and still acted like he was morally superior. Logan just didn't like the hypocrisy, although recruiting the emotionally damaged 16 year old for the wetwork squad probably did not help.

* Parodied in ''[[Knights of the Dinner Table]]''. While [[Game Master]] BA usually lets the [[Designated Hero]] [[Villain Protagonist]] [[Player Character|PCs]] run roughshod over the [[NPC|NPCs]], occasionally when they go too far he'll break character to deliver an in-universe [[Author Filibuster]] [[You Bastard|about what bastards his players are being]]. The players just [[Comedic Sociopathy|ignore him and continue being bastards]].

* At the tail end of the ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures]]'' story "Dreamland", Future Raphael (the story is set in the year 2094, a hundred years after the series' present) and antagonist Verminator X are in the middle of a [[Mexican Standoff]]. Verminator taunts Raph, saying that the turtles are too heroic to pull the trigger (this is one of the continuities where the turtles don't kill). Raph shoots him. Mikey and Leo try to call him on it, but he refuses to feel guilty about it, saying that Splinter's teachings about not killing don't apply in the now harsher world, and that Verminator would have probably killed them all in the future if he hadn't shot him.

* Happens regularly to ''[[Batman]]'', either because his [[Beware the Superman|distrust of his teammates]] gets to levels the others don't consider [[Properly Paranoid|proper]] anymore, with mixed results; either because one of the [[True Companions|Batfamily]] [[Calling the Old Man Out|Calls The Old Man Out]] after he's been [[I Work Alone|pushing them away too much]], with much drama involved.

** Also sometimes happens to Batman's protégés Nightwing and Robin when ''their'' teammates judge they're starting [[Not So Different|to behave too much like their mentor]].

** Oracle also got a rather epic calling out after Huntress realized her "missions" were really a covert therapy session. Offended that Barbara was trying to "fix" her, she left the team, but not without giving one last parting shot:

{{quote|'''Huntress:''' You left Gotham because you wanted to get away from Batman's influence. But you turned out just like him.

'''Oracle:''' Huntress...I...

** During the Red Robin/Batgirl Collision crossover, Stephanie Brown delivers a rant to Tim Drake, after hearing he led the League of Assassins, about his hypocrisy and moral ambiguity. Then he admits that she is entirely correct, and he'll try to be better in the future. This is this trope when it actually works - Superboy did several subtle hints around this theme an issue (of Red Robin, not the preceding Batgirl) earlier.

* A recent issue of ''[[The Brave and the Bold]]'' gave [[Justice Society of America|JSA]] member Magog this treatment when he [[Kick the Son of a Bitch|ripped a terrorist's arm off]] to stop him from blowing up a bunch of kids, prompting an incredulous "Are you some kind of a maniac?!" from [[Booster Gold]].

* ''[[War of Kings]]'': Many, many characters has this reaction towards {{spoiler|[[The Inhumans|Black Bolt's]] [[Assimilation Plot]].}} Then it got worse - {{spoiler|he gets one [[What the Hell, Hero?]] from VULCAN!}}

* Carol Danvers a.k.a. Ms. Marvel eventually gives the Avengers an epic verbal beating regarding the events of the infamous Avengers # 200.<ref>The story in question involved Carol being unknowingly impregnated in order for Immortus's son to escape from Limbo. As a result of this, reality starts coming undone and Carol ends up returning to Limbo with the guy who [[Mind Rape|brainwashed]] and raped her. The other Avengers see absolutely nothing wrong with this.</ref> [http://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/819915.html Witness it here in all its glory.]

* ''[[Kingdom Come]]'' Superman gets stuff sprayed in his eyes by criminals, blinding him. He takes a wild swing, hitting our Superman. He apologizes, saying he was aiming for the crooks, but Supes points out that if that punch had hit anyone else, they would be dead.

* Happens several times in the ''[[Squadron Supreme]]'' limited series, as the Squadron continue their efforts to take over the world. Most of the callouts are given by Blackhawk, but Amphibian gets in a few licks too.

*** While the [[Fair Folk]] have pretty ambiguous morals, Courtney still chews out one for not caring that her "son" (a human changeling she raised as her own) is trapped in the human world and possibly going to be killed.

*** When Courtney discovers that {{spoiler|Hermia had it within her power to find a loophole in the spell and clear said changeling's name (which would have saved the changeling from its death sentence), yet chose to remain silent because "I just wanted to be left alone", she calls her out on it.}}

** Wonder Woman gets a huge one when she {{spoiler|kills Max Lord}}.

* ''[[Superman]]'' was given by one of these in the wake of the New Krypton event, in which a woman chewed out Superman for being offworld when her husband died of a brain tumour, claiming that he could have saved him. This apparently led Superman to attempt to reconnect with humanity by [[Walking the Earth]]. There has been some issue taken with the woman's rant. Firstly, readers are skeptical that Superman's heat vision is superior to all medical technology for the purposes of removing inoperable brain tumours. Superman helps humanity purely for selfless reasons, making chewing him out for not saving a specific person seem just slightly ungrateful. And Superman was occupied at the time trying to prevent a war between New Krypton and Earth, meaning that he was in fact still dealing with humanity's problems. And finally, the New Krypton event ended with humans blowing up the planet, killing most of the Kryptonians. Meaning that the woman is yelling at him for being distracted by humanity ''committing genocide against Superman's species''. In short, it's odd that Superman's reaction was to decide he needed to reconnect with humanity, instead of having to restrain himself from demonstrating the effect of Kryptonian heat vision on the human brain.

'''Wonder Woman:''' What, hand them a smile and a box of flags? Their families, their mates... their ''children'' were murdered before their eyes. This is ''civil war''. I've given them freedom and a chance for justice. The ''American Way.'' Take a good look around. There are no rules here. Just suffering and madness. I want you to go tell your undersecretary that. ''There's the door, spaceman.'' }}

* Parodied in X-Men, when mutants has to team up with [[Fantastic Four|Future Foundation]] and this exchange occures:

'''Wolverine:''' [[Hypocritical Humor|Okay, well, if you want to get technical...]]

}}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:What the Hell, Hero?]]