What the Hell, Hero?/Comic Books: Difference between revisions
m
Adding example
m (Mass update links) |
m (Adding example) |
||
(10 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) | |||
Line 5:
* ''[[Watchmen]]'': The Comedian and Rorschach both live across the line, and the other heroes feel appropriately uneasy about them. And no one's exactly thrilled with what {{spoiler|Ozymandias}} does either.
** Interestingly (and to some degree, ironically) enough, the Comedian actually '''gives''' one to Dr. Manhattan after he protests his murdering a Vietnamese woman; he notes that Manhattan could have stopped him, but chose not to.
{{quote|
* Recently in his self-titled comic book, ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (
** More recently, Mina Mongoose called out the Freedom Fighters for keeping NICOLE around, even after she was [[Brainwashed and Crazy|brainwashed]] by the Iron Dominion, during which time it was shown just how [[
*** 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.
Line 15:
** 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.
** A notorious example not regarding Xavier: in one storyline, Dr. Moira MacTaggert (an unofficial member of the team and a close ally) altered Magneto’s genetic code via biochemistry to [[Brainwashing for the Greater Good|prevent him from using his powers for evil]]. Of course, he was ''furious'' when he found this out, going so far as to compare her actions to those of [[w:Josef Mengele|Josef Mengele]]; keep in mind that Magneto is a Holocaust survivor who witnessed Mengele's atrocities ''first hand''.
* 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 ''[[
* Happens regularly to ''[[
** [[Blue Beetle|Jaime Reyes]] does it ''accidentally'' when he asks Batman "what psycho-nutjob supervillain built" Brother Eye. After a moment's silence, Batman asks him not to repeat it to Green Arrow.
** 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|
'''Oracle:''' Huntress...I...
'''Huntress:''' ''[[Punctuated!
** 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
* Speaking of the JSA, the entire damn team (except Alan Scott, and he's not exactly happy about what's going on either) gives Atom Smasher this when he helps Black Adam wipe out the army of a dictatorial regime. Then they give Hawkman one because ''his'' methods of dealing with ''Black Adam's'' allies was too brutal. Basically, if you kill anyone ever, whether they were good, bad, or neutral, you can expect to get this from the JSA, especially Jay Garrick.
* A nonverbal one occurs in the recent mini ''Beta Ray Bill: Godhunter''. Bill has decided to take fatal revenge on Galactus for destroying the remnants of his people by destroying planets marked for his consumption with weapons confiscated from an intergalactic arms dealer. {{spoiler|One race insists that they will fight Galactus rather than evacuate, but Bill (rather than let them go through a suicidal last stand) is convinced by said arms dealer to infect them with a bio-war agent and use the cure to blackmail them into leaving. They do so, but when next he tries to pick up his [[Drop the Hammer|enchanted hammer Stormbreaker]]...he cannot.}}
Line 31 ⟶ 32:
* ''[[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.]
* In the 2003 series, ''Trinity'', which details the first meeting between [[Superman]], [[Batman]], and [[Wonder Woman]], Wonder Woman gives one to Batman when they first meet and Batman uses the [[Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique]] on a mook for info.
* ''[[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.
* Done rather humourously in an arc of ''[[Ultimate Spider
{{quote|
** He also chews out Colossus, much to Colossus' confusion.
{{quote|
* In ''[[Courtney Crumrin and
** Courtney gives a few herself. Namely:
*** 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.}}
*** When Courtney rescues one of her classmates from the fairy realm, he instantly starts complaining about how dangerous it is and how the warlocks in the human world should go in and destroy it. Courtney points out to him that ''they'' are the intruders and that if he had listened to her instead of barging in and assuming that it was "Disney land meets [[The Lord of the Rings]]", they wouldn't be in the mess they're in.
* [[The Punisher]] gets called out by almost every hero (and even a few villains) he comes across.
* Hercules did this to [[Wonder Woman]] during ''One Year Later'' after he found out that she had run away from being a superhero.
** 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.
Line 50 ⟶ 51:
*** Considering her comments kicked off the massive [[Dork Age]] that is "Superman: Grounded", this is less [[Lampshade Hanging]] and more [[Straw Man Has a Point]].
* The [[Transformers]] comic has this:
{{quote|
** In one of the the IDW ''[[All Hail Megatron]]'' universe, the Autobot Sideswipe calls out the other Autobots {{spoiler|after Sunstreaker "sacrifices" himself to stop the insecticon swarm}}, for abandoning Earth to the Decepticons. However, it mainly falls flat when {{spoiler|Optimus Prime has been rescued from death yet again, and retakes command.}}
* This has happened with Wonder Woman a lot after {{spoiler|she killed Max Lord}}. It seems like every character is attacking her for this even though it was the reasonable option at the time. This reached amazing levels of [[Informed Wrongness]] - with almost no one willing to give Diana (who was universally beloved hours before her actions) the benefit of the doubt... especially Superman and Batman, who saw the whole thing and knew what little choice Diana had.
Line 56 ⟶ 57:
* In ''[[X-Force]]'', ''[[Deadpool]]'' openly states that {{spoiler|Fantomex killing Kid!Apocalypse}} was wrong. While {{spoiler|Fantomex was the one who pulled the trigger}} Deadpool is upset that the team he joined supposedly to help make the world a better place crossed one of the few lines he never crossed as an amoral mercenary.
* In one of the ''[[Black Widow]]'' graphic novels, Natalia encounters two thugs, and she warns them that if they don't stand down neither will ever walk again. She kills one and renders the second unconscious. The What the Hell, Hero moment occurs after she proceeds to fulfil her promise by breaking the back of the unconscious survivor, causing a male companion to have a Squick moment which she shrugs off.
* In the last year of ''[[Batman and
* Cyclops has given one to Magik in [[New Mutants]], on the account of the fact that in her personal vendetta against [[Eldritch Abomination|Elder Gods]] she manipulated her friends and teammates, almost got them killed and risked the destruction of reality itself without second thought and probably would do that again if she had to, which is the reason why they cannot trust her anymore and she must be restrained, until she'll prove herself not to be danger to the team and all mutants on island. Later, through it happens off-panel, Colossus clearly has told Scott what he thinks about not only the whole idea of restraining his sister but also the fact that he has took most dangerous members of the team to take her down in case she wouldn't accept his terms and send everybody who are emotionally attached to her, one way or another, on a mission, so they wouldn't interfere.
{{quote|
** In X-Men's main series this is followed by Kitty tearing Peter a new one for trying to justify Illyana's behavior and not accepting that she is not as innocent as she used to be. Then Peter gives Scott another one again, for {{spoiler|planning to make Illyana new avatar of Cyttorak, a.k.a. [[The Juggernaut]]}} but Scott lists several arguments at his defense. And then Kitty gives one to Peter again, for {{spoiler|becoming new Juggernaut}}. Also, Cyclops gives one to majoyr Sadie for {{spoiler|planning to destroy Utopia in the case X-Men won't stop Juggernaut}}.
* [[The Mighty Thor|Thor's]] ''hammer'', Mjolnir, manages to give Thor one during the storyline The Reigning: [[Only the Pure of Heart]] can lift the hammer, and Thor lost this ability after going into a [[Knight Templar]] spiral.
* Superman is horrified at Wonder Woman's behavior in ''[[Justice League New Frontier]]'' when he learns that Wonder Woman didn't stop a group of Indochinese women from killing the the men that murdered their families, held them captive, and repeatedly raped them... Only to have Wonder Woman throw it right back at him.
{{quote|
'''Superman:''' You're supposed to set an example! But to allow cold-blooded murder, and then to ''celebrate''...
'''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:
{{quote|
'''The Thing:'''' Oh yeah? Was that [[Magneto]] I saw sitting at the conference table?
'''Wolverine:''' [[Hypocritical Humor|Okay, well, if you want to get technical...]]
}}
{{reflist}}
[[Category:What the Hell, Hero?]]
|