History BadBoss / ComicBooks

* ''ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}'': In the 2003 series, Black Manta is one of these to the henchmen serving as crew on his submarine as they monitor Sub Diego. Admittedly, for such a cruel guy he's oddly calm and forgiving here; the worst he doles out is a severe verbal thrashing at his underlings for talking too loud on a stealth mission.

** [[KillerRobot Ultron]] typically doesn't bother with henchmen in favor of doing all his villainy personally. On the rare occasions that he ''does'' have someone working for him, he is — perhaps unsurprisingly — a completely unreasonable and utterly rude taskmaster who does nothing to hide [[MisanthropeSupreme his complete and utter contempt for his underlings]]. He also generally just [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness kills them the very nanosecond they cease to be of use]], if they're lucky enough to live that long considering his [[YouHaveFailedMe typical response to failure or betrayal]].
** [[AntiVillain Baron Helmut Zemo]] is a pretty awful boss towards those under his command, with very rare exceptions and even those exceptions aren't totally safe from his verbal and emotional abuse. Zemo very much has ControlFreak issues and is prone to seeing the goons and supervillains who serve him — even the ones he genuinely loves and considers his friends — as pieces on the board to used for [[WellIntentionedExtremist the greater good he believes himself to be fighting for]]. It says a lot that him being incredibly snide and manipulative towards his workers and teammates is considered ''[[TookALevelInKindness taking a level in kindness]]''; prior to his CharacterDevelopment, he was very much a "shut up and do what I say or get a bullet to the head" kind of boss.

*** In ''ComicBook/DoomsdayClock'', Mister Freeze's henchmen really ''don't'' want to join the Joker's crew for that reason (though it's An Offer You Can't Refuse), and The Joker blows the brains out of one of his henchman that Mime was killing.

** Another subversion is ComicBook/ThePenguin/Oswald Cobblepot. While certainly a hard master, he generally keeps his promises to his employees, pays them well, and doesn't kill them without reason.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Chew}}'', Mike Applebee makes it no secret that he hates Tony Chu's guts, and thus sees to volunteering Chu to the most disgusting cases available. [[spoiler:After a one night stand with Chu's friend and partner in the force, John Colby, Applebee lets up on the torture in order to get on Colby's good side... until he realizes that Colby has absolutely no interest in continuing any sort of relationship, at which point he stops assigning Chu and Colby to gross jobs and starts sending them straight-up ''deadly'' ones]].
* In ''ComicBook/{{Daredevil}}'', the Owl is an abusive MoodSwinger who will torturously murder henchmen who betray or fail him once too often. The most disturbing part is that his bursts of viciousness come completely out of nowhere; most of the time he comes off as affable and reasonable enough, but if a mook slips up suddenly he'll be screaming at the top of his lungs and having the guy's skull bashed in. This is also one of the reasons why Owl is a BigBadWannabe rather than real BigBad material like Kingpin; he's so unstable and vicious that he doesn't have nearly as many good henchmen as Fisk. Not to mention, whereas Kingpin is usually able to at least restrain himself from brutalizing mooks for ''every'' minor screw-up, Owl is too impatient and short-tempered to do so and thus runs through henchmen faster than most.
* ComicBook/{{Darkseid}} is very nasty to his world full of servants. Question his decisions? [[DisintegratorRay Omega Beams]]. Compliment him for an apparent act of mercy? [[YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame Omega Beams]]. Accomplish your mission with (almost) flying colors? [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness Omega Beams]]. [[YouHaveFailedMe Fail him]]? [[FateWorseThanDeath You wish you'll get Omega Beams]]. Darkseid does have the ability to resurrect the dead, when the people he kills become useful again. Given what life with Darkseid as a boss is like, death might be preferable. Despite all of this, the people of Apokolips are fanatically loyal to Darkseid and are utterly dependent on having a tyrant rule them.
* ''Franchise/MarvelUniverse'': Dario Agger, head of Marvel's [[MegaCorp Roxxon corporation]], is a CorruptCorporateExecutive who makes it perfectly clear that he values Roxxon's stock price more than the lives of his employees. The ''ComicBook/ImmortalHulk'' series shows him repeatedly murdering his own underlings for trivial offenses or even just because, and he's even less hesitant about feeding them (sometimes literally) to whatever supervillain he's working with for the day.
* ComicBook/DoctorOctopus is an InsufferableGenius, given the way he treats his henchmen. In the ''ComicBook/MarvelComics2'' universe, his [[LegacyCharacter successor]] Lady Octopus acts much the same way when she appears in the ''ComicBook/SpiderGirl'' series.

* In ''ComicBook/GIJoeIDW'', Zartan proves to be one, leaving the Dreadnoks to the Joes as soon as the going gets tough.

* In one arc of ''ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica Classified'', Icicle and Wizard put together a new version of the Injustice Society in order to free Johnny Sorrow from an extra-dimensional prison. Sorrow, as it turns out, is a terrible boss, being a megalomaniacal HumanoidAbomination who can kill people merely by exposing his face, and who shamelessly uses this threat to force people to serve him, and the only reason that the Injustice Society agrees to bust him out is because he's holding Wizard's psychic self hostage.
* ''ComicBook/KidColt2009'': CrookedCop Sheriff [=McGreeley=] responds to news of the Kid's escape from an ambush by backhanding one of his men, who had nothing to do with the incident. The final issue also mentions that he shot the man who told him that Kid Colt had killed his brother.
* ComicBook/TheKingpin:
** A tendency to execute henchmen who have [[YouHaveFailedMe screwed up]] or slighted him in some way, or are even just forced to die so that he looks more fearful to the survivors. Why a supposed GeniusBruiser has not realized over the years that this makes the jobs of ComicBook/SpiderMan, ComicBook/{{Daredevil}}, ComicBook/LukeCage, and a few thousand other street-level heroes easier is a total mystery.
** Another example: He trains himself by [[KingpinInHisGym fighting a group of martial artists]], and very often, he kills the last one standing just so the rest of them are inspired to do better next time. Even worse, if they fight hard enough to make him look bad, he might kill ''all'' of them.
** ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan'' offered a plausible explanation. In the first storyline with Kingpin as the BigBad, Spider-Man manages to get a video of him crushing a henchman's skull. The Kingpin's SlasherSmile shows that Kingpin ''enjoys killing people with his bare hands''. Executing henchmen that have failed him gives Kingpin an opportunity to sate his bloodlust since he isn't a street level thug anymore.
* The title character of ''ComicBook/LeonardLeGenie'' is a sadistic, abusive boss to his assistant Basile, though it is occasionally shown that, if given the chance, Basile would be even worse.

* ComicBook/NormanOsborn used his employees as lab rats against their will ''before'' he went crazy. After that he killed some of them for [[ForTheEvulz absolutely no reason]]. When put in charge of the ''ComicBook/{{Thunderbolts}}'', he mistreats, abuses and outright kills some of the members. However, he managed to be successful and effective leader. Same situation repeats with ''ComicBook/DarkAvengers''.
* Malcom [=LeStrange=] of ''ComicBook/PowerAndGlory,'' leader of the National Intelligence Agency who created the superhero A-Pex. [=LeStrange=] pals with drug dealers, carelessly kills nuns, and bamboozles money from the United Nations' Childrens' Milk Fund.
* The ComicBook/RedSkull is a tyrannical boss who always bullies his employees and frequently murders them both for failures and ForTheEvulz, often in very gruesome ways. %%It's to the point that [[CruelMercy Norman's enemies have spared him twice]] on the basis that merely ''being'' Norman Osborn is punishment enough for him.
** Red Skull's favorite method is the Dust of Death, a chemical weapon of his own design that kills quickly and painfully, leaving their corpses with red skin and a red skull of their own. Back in the day, he would play Chopins Funeral March before using it to execute subordinates who had displeased him (or if he just felt like it), so that from then on he could terrify them just by playing the music as they knew it meant he was about to kill somebody.
** There is also Mother Night, one of his most loyal and devoted underlings and the woman who raised his daughter Syn for him, and for a time basically his girlfriend. Which is to say, he beat her savagely and frequently ForTheEvulz, bullying her publicly and privately, at one point starting a relationship with the terrorist Viper / Madame Hydra partly just to piss her off. He would constantly ridicule, berate and make fun of her even if other people were around, make messes and order her to clean them up, and when she begged for death ("for failing him") he refused simply because that is what she wanted. And he enjoyed every minute of it.
** Not that he treated Syn that much better either. After toying with killing her for not being a boy (getting as far as raising her above a cliff on a dark and stormy night to throw her off it), he made use of her by performing numerous experiment to make her the ideal assassin, at turns aging and de-aging her so he didn't have to put up with her childhood. And then he made sure Mother Night gave her a TrainingFromHell so that she could murder for him efficiently.
** He isn't above gassing or slaughtering half or all of his organization to cover his tracks or whenever they have [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlived their usefulness]] either.
** He once [[DisproportionateRetribution executed his entire kitchen staff for ''screwing up his meal'']].
** The scary thing? Almost everyone who works for him has UndyingLoyalty for him despite his abuse. Probably because, all of them, from the rank and file to his closest subordinates, are almost as evil as him.
* Mr. Crabbe, the supervisor of the milk men in ''ComicBook/ReidFlemingWorldsToughestMilkman'' hates Reid with a deep, abiding passion. Which is not unreasonable -- Reid does plenty to earn his hatred. But when he starts trying to ''shoot'' Reid simply because Reid has talked the company president into not giving him a well-deserved punishment for wrecking yet another milk-truck, you begin to sense that Crabbe may not be entirely rational about the matter.

* In ''ComicBook/SinCity'', after it is revealed that Manute is working for [[spoiler: Ava Lord]], Dwight asks why he would work for such a manipulative person. Manute admits that she is evil, uncaring, and likely to turn on him [[spoiler: (which she does)]], but is simply seduced by her power.

* In ''ComicBook/TransformersWingsOfHonor'', Clench thinks nothing of using his subordinates as guinea pigs.

* ''ComicBook/Venom2003'': Bob has a veritable army of Vic and Frankie clones at his disposal, gaslighting all of them into believing they are unique individuals and indispensible to his plans. After deeming the Venom symbiote clone to be completed, he has the scientist Vic and Frankie destroy their research on it before shipping it off to the Arctic, compiling a heavily-redacted dossier chock full of misinformation; and when the scientists he assigned to "study" it ask to examine it up-close he sadistically unleashes it to devour them.
* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'':

* ''Franchise/XMen'':
** Emma Frost. In ''ComicBook/TheDarkPhoenixSaga'', her introductory issue has her blowing up some goons for failing to beat the X-Men. Hey, the Hellfire Club pays good money on their goons, they expect ''results''.

* ''ComicBook/Zatanna2010'': The demon Mammon is prone to disciplining or even killing his minions when they [[YouHaveFailedMe disappoint or fail him]], and will punish them even when he never expected them to succeed in the first place.

** In the 80s, at least one story also shows him bullying a female employee into "having dinner" with him whether she likes it or not -- ''physically'' bullying by crushing her hand. Another showed that he had rigged Metropolis with bombs so that if he was ever exposed, he was ready to take his company and the entire city he built to Hell with him.
** One example in ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'', when Comicbook/{{Brainiac}} kidnapped him and was threatening everyone present he abandons his right hand woman Mercy to her death, leaving Superman to save her. To her credit, she eventually rebels and uses Lexcorp (which he legally gave her when sent to prison, so she'd return it) for herself.
** In the [[Film/SupermanTheMovie first movie]], it's implied that Lex is so mean nobody but the dimwitted Otis and Miss Teschmacher would work for him. He does, after all, show no concern that one of the missiles he hijacked is directed towards where Ms. Teschmacher's mother lives. Out-of-story, this is to give her a reason to remove the Kryptonite Lex was using against Supers. In-story... no reason but pure meanness, and she'd served him well thus far.
** Showcased in the first ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode starring him as the villain, "Injustice for All". His "leadership" of the Injustice Gang consists mostly of him yelling at his subordinates for their failures and name-calling. The Gang only puts up with his crap because he keeps offering more and more money. Somewhat justified since he did recently discover he had contracted terminal Kryptonite-induced cancer and wasn't in a particularly patient or forgiving mindset as a result.
** During ''ComicBook/NewKrypton'', Alura In-Ze becomes Kandor's harsh, cold and unforgiving leader who threatens with punishments or dismissals at the slightest screw-up. In ''ComicBook/WhoIsSuperwoman'', Alura frequently puts her security chief Thara Ak-Var down until Thara gets fed up with Alura and quits, and abuses [[ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} her daughter Kara]] emotionally for not being "good enough of a soldier".

** In ''ComicBook/LastDaughterOfKrypton'', [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Simon Tycho]] gets his henchman Jacobs killed off because Jacobs released an innocent girl whom Tycho planned to dissect. Later, when his men are trying to flee because his space station is about to blow up, Tycho threatens to cut the pay of whoever dares to run away.
** In ''ComicBook/TheKillersOfKrypton'', Harry Hokum treats his subordinates as garbage: he makes unreasonable demands, dismisses their warnings and advice, and when everything goes pear-shaped because of his stupid orders, he blames his minions for his own mistakes and abuses them physically.
** ''ComicBook/StarfiresRevenge'': The titular crime lady Starfire is willing to kill her subordinates -- even those like Derek Ames who carry out their tasks successfully -- if she perceives they have outlived their usefulness or ''might'' become a liability.

** ''ComicBook/SupermanVsTheAmazingSpiderMan'' has two examples for the price of one: Superman's boss Morgan Edge is a demanding, unpleasant grump. Franchise/SpiderMan's boss J Jonah Jameson is the hilariously abusive version.

* In the 2003 ''ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}'' series, Black Manta is one of these to the henchmen serving as crew on his submarine as they monitor Sub Diego. Admittedly, for such a cruel guy he's oddly calm and forgiving here; the worst he doles out is a severe verbal thrashing at his underlings for talking too loud on a stealth mission.

* Most of Franchise/{{Batman}}'s adversaries.

* Dario Agger, head of Marvel's [[MegaCorp Roxxon corporation]], is a CorruptCorporateExecutive who makes it perfectly clear that he values Roxxon's stock price more than the lives of his employees. (Worryingly, many of them are fine with this, having had "God bless Roxxon" drilled into them.) The ''ComicBook/ImmortalHulk'' series shows him repeatedly murdering his own underlings for trivial offenses or even just because, and he's even less hesitant about feeding them (sometimes literally) to whatever supervillain he's working with for the day.
* ComicBook/DoctorOctopus could easily have been the TropeNamer for InsufferableGenius, given the way he treats his henchmen. In the ''ComicBook/MarvelComics2'' universe, his [[LegacyCharacter successor]] Lady Octopus acts much the same way when she appears in the ''Spider-Girl'' series.

* There's a weirdly surreal example of this in ''ComicBook/{{Hellboy}}'': The Black Flame. After getting involved in a bunch of Lovecraftian cult stuff, the [=CEO=] of a MegaCorp calls a board meeting. The board members file in to find the [=CEO=] standing there, wearing a [[StupidJetpackHitler steampunk-nazi battlesuit]] that glows with black flames of pure dark energy and surrounded by demonic frog minions. They stare at him, and he informs them that he now owns 51% of the company and they are all fired. Cue fiery death, right? Nope. No puns, no nothing, he just fires them and they leave.

* During the "Scourging of Shu-Torun" arc in ''ComicBook/StarWarsMarvel2015'', Leia and the gang have jumped a Shu-Torun nobleman and stunned him, then warn off his pilot from trying to stop them. The pilot notes that her employer was such a jerk, she actually ''enjoyed'' seeing them shoot him.
* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':
** In ''ComicBook/TheBlakelyMineDisaster'', Coal mine owner Thornton Blakely regularly dismisses his worker's concerns over the hazardous conditions of the mines, even threatening to fire them of they keep pressing it further. When one of his workers is crippled by a cave-in, he expresses no sympathy and blames his supposed carelessness for his accident. Of course, [[LaserGuidedKarma once Superman makes him experience the terrible work environment first-hand]], he changes his tune and vows to fix the safety precautions in his mine.

** In ''ComicBook/LexLuthorManOfSteel'', the story that codified his pseudo-humanist credentials, a daycare centre bombing kills a [=LexCorp=] scientist and his entire family, and though Toyman is blamed it is strongly implied that Lex was the actual culprit. Said scientist had worked to help build for Lex the RidiculouslyHumanRobot superhero Hope, who is so ridiculously human she doesn't even know she ''is'' a robot -- she finds out when Lex activates her self-destruct purely to frame Superman for her murder.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Daredevil}}'', the Owl is an abusive MoodSwinger who will torturously murder henchmen who betray or fail him once too often. The most disturbing part is that his bursts of viciousness come completely out of nowhere; most of the time he comes off as affable and reasonable enough, but if a mook slips up suddenly he'll be screaming at the top of his lungs and having the guy's skull bashed in.
** This trope is one of the reasons why Owl is a BigBadWannabe rather than real BigBad material like Kingpin; he's so unstable and vicious that he doesn't have nearly as many good henchmen as Fisk. Not to mention, whereas Kingpin is usually able to at least restrain himself from brutalizing mooks for ''every'' minor screw-up, Owl is too impatient and short-tempered to do so and thus runs through henchmen faster than most.

* Dario Agger, head of Marvel's [[MegaCorp Roxxon corporation]], is a CorruptCorporateExecutive who makes it perfectly clear that he values Roxxon's stock price more than the lives of his employees. (Worryingly, many of them are fine with this, having had "God bless Roxxon" drilled into them.) The ''ComicBook/ImmortalHulk'' series shows him repeatedly murdering his own underlings for trivial offences.

* Mr. Crabbe, the supervisor of the milk men in ''ComicBook/ReidFlemingWorldsToughestMilkman'' hates Reid with a deep, abiding passion. Which is not unreasonable--Reid does plenty to earn his hatred. But when he starts trying to ''shoot'' Reid simply because Reid has talked the company president into not giving him a well-deserved punishment for wrecking yet another milk-truck, you begin to sense that Crabbe may not be entirely rational about the matter.
* ''ComicBook/{{Shakara}}'': The Overlord, who murders his followers willy nilly if they do anything to piss him off, and ultimately ends up betraying and murdering all of his allies when they turn on him.

** In ''ComicBook/LexLuthorManOfSteel'', the story that codified his pseudo-humanist credentials, a daycare centre bombing kills a [=LexCorp=] scientist and his entire family, and though Toyman is blamed it is strongly implied that Lex was the actual culprit. Said scientist had worked to help build for Lex the RidiculouslyHumanRobot superhero Hope, who is so ridiculously human she doesn't even know she ''is'' a robot--she finds out when Lex activates her self-destruct purely to frame Superman for her murder.
** In ''ComicBook/TheComingOfAtlas'' it is revealed that a clause in [=LexCorp=] contracts results in any employee who uses company resources to help Superman in any way being fired on the spot--and if you happen to be on company property, this counts as trespassing and if you don't leave immediately you will be ''killed''.
** In the 80s, at least one story also shows him bullying a female employee into "having dinner" with him whether she likes it or not--''physically'' bullying by crushing her hand. Another showed that he had rigged Metropolis with bombs so that if he was ever exposed, he was ready to take his company and the entire city he built to Hell with him.

** ''ComicBook/StarfiresRevenge'': The titular crime lady Starfire is willing to kill her subordinates -even those like Derek Ames who carry out their tasks successfully- if she perceives they have outlived their usefulness or ''might'' become a liability.

** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': Queen Atomia treats her slaves like complete garbage, killing them when they fail to follow her orders or when they mindlessly embellish them. She even casually tells two of them to go immolate themselves and they do it without any hesitation. The fact that she has slaves who'll blindly follow her every whim--whom she created by [[ReforgedIntoAMinion forcibly transforming people]]--and it only makes her bored shows what a horrible person she is.

** ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderman'' offered a plausible explanation. In the first storyline with Kingpin as the BigBad, Spiderman manages to get a video of him crushing a henchman's skull. The Kingpin's SlasherSmile shows that Kingpin ''enjoys killing people with his bare hands''. Executing henchmen that have failed him gives Kingpin an opportunity to sate his bloodlust since he isn't a street level thug anymore.

** In the [[Film/{{Superman}} first movie]], it's implied that Lex is so mean nobody but the dimwitted Otis and Miss Teschmacher would work for him. He does, after all, show no concern that one of the missiles he hijacked is directed towards where Ms. Teschmacher's mother lives. Out-of-story, this is to give her a reason to remove the Kryptonite Lex was using against Supers. In-story... no reason but pure meanness, and she'd served him well thus far.

--->'''Bullock''': ''(after Penguin is betrayed for the umpteenth time)'' [[LampshadeHanging You may want to re-think your management style.]]

* ''ComicBook/ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog'':
** While character Dr. Eggman's status as one would have been debatable since, while sentient, his machines are also easily reassembled and evil by nature, lately this has become more apparent.
** In particular is when both times the Dark Egg Legion were the only forces he had available to him. The first time he told Dimitri that since Echidnas were in such short supply, he intended to "use" them to the last man, and hoped they proved durable enough that he didn't run out of them too quickly. The second time, when Lien-Da asked him why he would brutally attack them one minute, then rehabilitate and upgrade them the next while praising Lien-Da's ruthless and traitorous practices, he says, with a psychotic grin, "Because it's all part of the '''game!'''"
** In one issue, Espio is infiltrating a base belonging to Eggman. When he confronts the head robot running the place, it begs for mercy and expresses fear despite the fact that only a small few of Eggman's lieutenant robots are sentient in any way. Espio grimly notes that this means Eggman explicitly programs his robots to simulate fear ''just so he can have fun tormenting them''.

** A tendency to execute henchmen who have [[YouHaveFailedMe screwed up]] or slighted him in some way, or are even just forced to die so that he looks more fearful to the survivors. Why a supposed GeniusBruiser has not realized over the years that this makes the jobs of Comicbook/SpiderMan, Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}, Comicbook/LukeCage, and a few thousand other street-level heroes easier is a total mystery.