History Main / StrawCharacter

* Almost every evangelist tract by [[ComicBook/ChickTracts Jack Chick]] features strawmen liberals as villains. Often he proves his arguments by having a character argue down a Strawman Political.

* Goldilocks, from the Vertigo comic ''ComicBook/{{Fables}}'', seems to be this at first, with every negative stereotype about liberal feminists you can think of, spouting Communist rhetoric, exclaiming "Oh my Goddess!" at every turn; however, it turns out it's all an act to cynically manipulate her followers. Also, she's insane.
* In an issue of ''ComicBook/{{Preacher}}'', Jesse was listening to a late-night debate between a Straw Feminist and a Straw Conservative which was so stupid he got pissed off, called the radio station, and used his CompellingVoice to make them confess what each really wanted. They ''both'' said they want cock.
* The CorruptCorporateExecutive version of [[Characters/SupermanLexLuthor Lex Luthor]] occasionally edged into Strawman Conservative territory, though when the character actually ran for president the writers were careful not to describe his political leanings at all. Though it's worth noting that at one point, ComicBook/GreenArrow decries something President Luthor has done with "This would never happen with a Democrat in the White House!" (Green Arrow's own leftist strawman status is debatable; make your own decision on whether his statement there was meant as a strawman's or dead serious). ''WesternAnimation/SupermanBatmanPublicEnemies'' avoids this by making Luthor a third-party independent. Luthor was a third party candidate in the comic books as well. [[DependingOnTheWriter If some writers forgot that in order to turn him into a Strawman,]] that can't be helped, but the main writers of the story showed him as competing with the "two major party candidates."
* Franchise/TheDCU super-duo, ComicBook/HawkAndDove, were ''created'' to exemplify this trope. In the original stories, penned by Objectivist Creator/SteveDitko, Dove, the pacifist, is portrayed as weak-willed, vacillating, and ineffectual, while his aggressive brother Hawk is the only one who manages to accomplish anything. Almost every writer ''since'' Ditko has portrayed Hawk as a thoughtlessly belligerent borderline berserker, with the rational, thoughtful Dove providing the only rational check on his action. Only rarely do we see a story where both viewpoints are treated with anything approaching equal regard, or a writer who admits the possibility that the different approaches might be appropriate in different situations. Ironically, this mainly came to the fore when Ditko was working with Steve Skeates, the more liberal co-creator of the duo. Characterization veered from side to side depending on who was doing the main plotting, until Skeates finally left the book over how Dove was being made into a wimp. When Hawk and Dove were later revived, the whole "conservative vs. liberal" thing was quietly dropped in the dustbin, and the two were recast as agents of Order (Dove) and Chaos (Hawk) meant to find a balance in tumultuous situations. Bonus Points: their father was a judge and always told them that they needed to see and understand each other's side. Later taken to extremes when Hawk [[{{Flanderization}} murdered Dove and became a brutal militaristic dictator.]] And then taken to an even greater extreme during ''ComicBook/BlackestNight'', where Dove I is apparently the only dead person in the entire universe who is at peace. This all becomes rather strange when you consider that the peaceful, pacifist, Dove constantly telling Hawk that not all problems are solved by running around in spandex and punching people in the face is portrayed as unfailingly right by most writers, when the setting revolves around people running around in spandex and punching people in the face. It's also important to remember that [[ValuesDissonance throughout most of the 1960s, before the antiwar mindset, truly entered the liberal mainstream]], it was possible to be a liberal ''and'' a hawk (as long as war advanced a liberal agenda). In fact, at many times in the past the ''conservatives'' were the ones who were antiwar. In the [[WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague JLU]] episode "Hawk and Dove", they were portrayed once again as Straw Conservative and Liberal respectively, and while Hawk was once again portrayed as an over-aggressive brute vs Dove's pacifist outlook, his behavior was tempered by his stated need to protect his brother, whom he saw as "weak".
* The Daily Planet columnist Dirk Armstrong in ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' comics was created as a strawman conservative, though some later writers gave him more depth and sympathetic qualities, such as having to raise a blind teenage daughter on his own. His [=strawman=] status should have been obvious, given his physical resemblance to Creator/RushLimbaugh. While he is portrayed initially as a Superman fan (for being tough on crime), he is the first to turn on Superman after he loses control of his powers and becomes an energy being... though [[AudienceAlienatingEra in hindsight]], he might have been the OnlySaneMan on this subject! Thankfully, soon after that storyline ended, he was PutOnABus and has not been seen since. Some writers that handled the character seemed to think that any conservative-leaning, ''at all'', constituted being a wacko extremist. Meaning that when Armstrong vowed to devote his column to making sure a mayor with a poor gun rights record wasn't elected (at least until the election), it slammed straight into StrawmanHasAPoint territory so hard that if you weren't aware of the character's status as a [=strawman=] whipping-boy, you'd have thought they ''meant'' him to be right. For extra points, he said this while at a costume party and dressed as Lincoln... the mayor was dressed as ''Caesar.''
* Characters/{{Supergirl|TheCharacter}}'s portrayal in the first dozen of issues of ''ComicBook/Supergirl2005'' drew a lot of criticism as fans cried foul at Kara's characterization and the sheer force of difference between that version of her and her original portrayal. (The Pre-Crisis Kara Zor-El was quick-tempered and snarky but mostly cheerful, enthusiastic, responsible and heroic; the Post-Crisis version was mainly obnoxious, whiny and selfish). Ultimately writer Joe Kelly decided to address these complaints by having a MirrorMatch between Post-Crisis Supergirl and an exaggerated knockoff of Pre-Crisis Supergirl, whose sole purpose in the story appears to have been an excuse for Kelly to espouse why a flawed, angry Supergirl is ''such'' a better alternative to the "Little Miss Perfect" caricature they paraded out to contrast with her. Fans didn't take this well, and the next writers proceeded to give Post-Crisis Kara a likable personality and retcon her early characterization as Kryptonite-induced madness and the "match" as a hallucination.
* ''ComicBook/LiberalityForAll'' [[http://web.archive.org/web/20050731004959/http://accstudios.com/f/synopsis1.htm is summarized as such:]] ''It is 2021, tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of 9/11. America is under oppression by ultra-liberal extremists who have surrendered governing authority to the United Nations. Hate speech legislation called the "Coulter Laws" have forced vocal conservatives underground. A group of bio-mechanically enhanced conservatives led by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy, Oliver North, and a young man born on September 11, 2001, set out to thwart Ambassador Usama bin Laden's plans to nuke New York City.'' [[SarcasmMode As hard it may seem to believe,]] this series does contain one or two [=strawman=] liberal depictions.
* ''ComicBook/{{Normalman}}'' has both a Strawman Liberal ''and'' a Strawman Conservative, and they're technically the same character. That is the malevolent, overzealous reactionary nut-job Ultra-Conservative, and his alternate personality, the radical, chaotic anarchist Liberalator. Ultra-Conservative eventually suppresses the transformation by thinking about "commie agitators", "pinko cupcakes", and the "death penalty" while shouting that he "will not '''''change!'''''"
* The various ''ComicBook/XMen'' and spinoff series semi-regularly feature intolerant, hate-preaching [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purifiers_(Marvel_Comics) fundamentalist groups]] obviously based off televangelists and Westboro Baptists with some Ku Klux Klan thrown in for good measure as villains. Several major arcs featured a Reverend Stryker becoming a major threat to the X-Men. Less common, but still present on rare occasions, are religious folk shown opposing the extremist fringe. (Anti-mutant discrimination is often played to echo historic discrimination against Blacks in America. That the actual emancipation movement first took root in religious circles is not similarly reflected.) They also, especially in the last few years, represent gays, so religious persecution makes perfect sense. That's the X-Men - they stand in for every minority group ever. Any political view can be justified with the right interpretation of a religion. The first arc of the ComicBook/MarvelNOW ''[[ComicBook/XForce2013 Cable and X-Force]]'' relaunch has the team taking on the Franchise/MarvelUniverse's equivalent of Chick-fil-A. The only difference is they swapped out the restaurant chain's alleged homophobic leanings for a hatred of mutants.
* In Creator/WarrenEllis' ''ComicBook/BlackSummer'', WellIntentionedExtremist John Horus assassinates the US President, who's actions bear a striking resemblance to the accusations leveled at UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush. This is treated by many of the others with a reaction generally equivalent to "Sure, man, we all would have loved to have done it, that doesn't mean you ''should have''."
* Most of the early ComicBook/GreenArrow stories depicted Oliver Queen as a hero dedicated to helping the common people - a man of left-wing values who often spoke of rich conservatives as fat cats. Occasionally though, in more recent stories writers will let Queen's negative qualities such as his self-righteousness or his contempt for such "fat cats" get the better of him, and he comes off, intentionally or not, as something of a Straw Liberal. This is taken to extremes (and possibly played for laughs) in ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightStrikesAgain''. Miller went overboard rather strongly in DK 2, but Queen had taken to cynically gaming the system in ''ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns'', which might explain his later histrionics as a means to keep a smokescreen up lest his cohorts turn on him like Superman had when [[spoiler:he burned off Queen's arm with heat vision in the backstory]]. Like Ollie said, "You have to make the bastards work for you."
* Hal Jordan was portrayed as a straw conservative in the famed ''Franchise/GreenLantern[=/=]ComicBook/GreenArrow'' series from the '70s. Most stories involved Hal acting like a JerkAss and spouting off conservative talking points, [[AnAesop only to be taught a lesson about racism, sexism or classism by the end of the issue]]. Perhaps most notable would be John Stewart's debut issue. Hal is basically called a racist by one of the Guardians of the Universe after he bashes Stewart for standing up to a bigoted police officer.

* This was averted with the similar ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica and [[Characters/CaptainAmericaHeroes The Falcon]]'' series. The Falcon was usually used to explore issues like classism and racism, but Captain America rarely came off as badly as Hal Jordan did. At worst, he just came across as a naive white guy who didn't ''grasp'' racial issues in modern America. Any [[NobleBigot accidental racism, sexism, etc.]] on Cap's part could be forgiven to an extent because of the time period that Cap grew up in and was [[FishOutOfTemporalWater thrown out of in - to him - an instant]].
* An early Creator/GarthEnnis issue of ''ComicBook/ThePunisher'' had the titular vigilante (of all people) threatening President Bush, claiming the US brought 9/11 on itself and ranting about the military industrial complex a mere few weeks after the attacks happened in RealLife.
** His first ''Punisher'' maxi-series featured a trio of copycat vigilantes with similar methods to the titular antihero. Elite was a wealthy conservative who believed all of society's ills were caused by minorities and poor people, Mr. Payback was a working-class liberal who believed all of society's ills were caused by corporate fat cats, and the Holy was a Latino priest who simply believed that sinners deserved to die regardless of their background. Before killing them, Punisher delivered the trio a [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech Reason You Suck Speech]] where he dismissed Elite as ANaziByAnyOtherName, the Holy as a complete lunatic, and Mr. Payback as an idiot who was inadvertently killing innocent people (such as a Latina cleaning woman he'd accidentally shot) due to his poor planning and general stupidity.
* Any politician who appears in ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'' will be depicted as corrupt, greedy and too dumb to live. They also will be all [=Strawman=] Conservatives - and the more vocally they are opposed to the titular group of superpowered sociopaths, the more Straw they get.
* [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] comics had a form of this in the Strawman Communist: for instance, ComicBook/IronMan fought enemies like Titanium Man and the Crimson Dynamo several times. The focus wasn't on their ideology, which was hardly even mentioned: the focus was on providing an acceptable target for the hero to beat up--in those days, Communists were used much like [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazis]] are used in World War II shooters today. In truth, it's not much of a stretch to conceive of an aggressive Soviet enemy responding to Tony Stark's escalation of the arms race, considering the Cold War nearly went hot multiple times in real life for similar reasons.
* Flag-Smasher, a BadassNormal AntiHero created by Marvel in 1985: the name represents his hatred of flags and nationalism, which he sees as a source of evil in the world, especially the aggressive, jingoistic foreign policies of superpowers like the USA. Right after he's been introduced and his motivations explained, we see him [[KickTheDog raid and burn a factory producing American flags]], chuckling to himself that the workers will surely be [[{{Anvilicious}} "glad to be freed from the hypocrisy of their jobs."]]
* ''ComicBook/PS238'' plays the trope for comedy in the form of America Eagle and USA Patriot Act, a pair of superheroes-in-training who were sponsored by the two major political parties. (Technically we [[NoPartyGiven don't know which is which]], but evidence suggests Eagle is the Democrat and Patriot Act is the Republican.) They spend most of their time arguing by throwing different liberal and conservative talking points that they obviously aren't old enough to fully comprehend at each other, and the other students all find this annoying. They're each relatively less annoying if the other isn't around, though.
* Gates from ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' is an interesting example. He was one of the very few free thinkers among [[BeePeople his race]], who all shared the same opinions. He's basically a socialist, openly suspicious of authority figures, with most of his dialogue being him complaining about the "capitalist police state" and "teenage death squad" he's been forcibly drafted into. While most of his appearances involve making fun of extreme beliefs in one way or another, writers have consistently treated him as a sympathetic three-dimensional character.
* ''ComicBook/{{Concrete}}'' almost always portrays conservatives in a bad light, often as ignorant, old, bald men or raving racists who only care about money. It doesn't stop there. Characters who should be neutral or have a variety of opinions almost always agree with the author/protagonists on controversial or highly varied issues, even when Concrete is visiting an area of the world where such an opinion is virtually non-existent or would be nonsensical to hold.
* ''ComicBook/{{Viz}}'' has a number of one-joke characters based around parodying certain political viewpoints. Ones which still appear regularly are Millie Tant (StrawFeminist), Major Misunderstanding (conservative GrumpyOldMan who hates the modern world in general and anybody who isn't a white male heterosexual Tory in particular), Meddlesome Ratbag (right-wing {{Moral Guardian|s}}), and the Male Online (AnthropomorphicPersonification of the very right-wing ''Daily Mail'' newspaper). The comic also used to feature The Modern Parents (a parody of media depictions of trendy middle-class BourgeoisBohemian leftist/environmentalist) but they haven't appeared for some time. Actual politician Baxter Basics is ''[[AvertedTrope not]]'' [[AvertedTrope an example]], as his strips tend to revolve around his sexual depravity, financial corruption, and general self-centredness rather than partisan ideological humour.
* Played with in ''ComicBook/AstroCity''; while the characters are not straw political caricatures, they are sometimes seen as such in-universe by others.
** Some citizens of Astro City view Winged Victory in a distinctively negative light because of her strong advocacy for women's rights and independence.
** Similarly, the Crossbreed are typically dismissed as religious fanatics because they believe their powers are a gift from God and proselytize when not fighting super-villains.

* Goldilocks, from the Vertigo comic ''Comicbook/{{Fables}}'', seems to be this at first, with every negative stereotype about liberal feminists you can think of, spouting Communist rhetoric, exclaiming "Oh my Goddess!" at every turn; however, it turns out it's all an act to cynically manipulate her followers. Also, she's insane.
* In an issue of ''Comicbook/{{Preacher}}'', Jesse was listening to a late-night debate between a Straw Feminist and a Straw Conservative which was so stupid he got pissed off, called the radio station, and used his CompellingVoice to make them confess what each really wanted. They ''both'' said they want cock.
* The CorruptCorporateExecutive version of [[Characters/SupermanLexLuthor Lex Luthor]] occasionally edged into Strawman Conservative territory, though when the character actually ran for president the writers were careful not to describe his political leanings at all. Though it's worth noting that at one point, Comicbook/GreenArrow decries something President Luthor has done with "This would never happen with a Democrat in the White House!" (Green Arrow's own leftist strawman status is debatable; make your own decision on whether his statement there was meant as a strawman's or dead serious). ''WesternAnimation/SupermanBatmanPublicEnemies'' avoids this by making Luthor a third-party independent. Luthor was a third party candidate in the comic books as well. [[DependingOnTheWriter If some writers forgot that in order to turn him into a Strawman,]] that can't be helped, but the main writers of the story showed him as competing with the "two major party candidates."
* Franchise/TheDCU super-duo, ComicBook/HawkAndDove, were ''created'' to exemplify this trope. In the original stories, penned by Objectivist Creator/SteveDitko, Dove, the pacifist, is portrayed as weak-willed, vacillating, and ineffectual, while his aggressive brother Hawk is the only one who manages to accomplish anything. Almost every writer ''since'' Ditko has portrayed Hawk as a thoughtlessly belligerent borderline berserker, with the rational, thoughtful Dove providing the only rational check on his action. Only rarely do we see a story where both viewpoints are treated with anything approaching equal regard, or a writer who admits the possibility that the different approaches might be appropriate in different situations. Ironically, this mainly came to the fore when Ditko was working with Steve Skeates, the more liberal co-creator of the duo. Characterization veered from side to side depending on who was doing the main plotting, until Skeates finally left the book over how Dove was being made into a wimp. When Hawk and Dove were later revived, the whole "conservative vs. liberal" thing was quietly dropped in the dustbin, and the two were recast as agents of Order (Dove) and Chaos (Hawk) meant to find a balance in tumultuous situations. Bonus Points: their father was a judge and always told them that they needed to see and understand each other's side. Later taken to extremes when Hawk [[{{Flanderization}} murdered Dove and became a brutal militaristic dictator.]] And then taken to an even greater extreme during ''Comicbook/BlackestNight'', where Dove I is apparently the only dead person in the entire universe who is at peace. This all becomes rather strange when you consider that the peaceful, pacifist, Dove constantly telling Hawk that not all problems are solved by running around in spandex and punching people in the face is portrayed as unfailingly right by most writers, when the setting revolves around people running around in spandex and punching people in the face. It's also important to remember that [[ValuesDissonance throughout most of the 1960s, before the antiwar mindset, truly entered the liberal mainstream]], it was possible to be a liberal ''and'' a hawk (as long as war advanced a liberal agenda). In fact, at many times in the past the ''conservatives'' were the ones who were antiwar. In the [[WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague JLU]] episode "Hawk and Dove", they were portrayed once again as Straw Conservative and Liberal respectively, and while Hawk was once again portrayed as an over-aggressive brute vs Dove's pacifist outlook, his behavior was tempered by his stated need to protect his brother, whom he saw as "weak".

* ''Comicbook/{{Normalman}}'' has both a Strawman Liberal ''and'' a Strawman Conservative, and they're technically the same character. That is the malevolent, overzealous reactionary nut-job Ultra-Conservative, and his alternate personality, the radical, chaotic anarchist Liberalator. Ultra-Conservative eventually suppresses the transformation by thinking about "commie agitators", "pinko cupcakes", and the "death penalty" while shouting that he "will not '''''change!'''''"
* The various ''ComicBook/XMen'' and spinoff series semi-regularly feature intolerant, hate-preaching [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purifiers_(Marvel_Comics) fundamentalist groups]] obviously based off televangelists and Westboro Baptists with some Ku Klux Klan thrown in for good measure as villains. Several major arcs featured a Reverend Stryker becoming a major threat to the X-Men. Less common, but still present on rare occasions, are religious folk shown opposing the extremist fringe. (Anti-mutant discrimination is often played to echo historic discrimination against Blacks in America. That the actual emancipation movement first took root in religious circles is not similarly reflected.) They also, especially in the last few years, represent gays, so religious persecution makes perfect sense. That's the X-Men - they stand in for every minority group ever. Any political view can be justified with the right interpretation of a religion. The first arc of the Comicbook/MarvelNOW ''Comicbook/{{Cable}} and Comicbook/XForce'' relaunch has the team taking on the Franchise/MarvelUniverse's equivalent of Chick-fil-A. The only difference is they swapped out the restaurant chain's alleged homophobic leanings for a hatred of mutants.

* Most of the early ComicBook/GreenArrow stories depicted Oliver Queen as a hero dedicated to helping the common people - a man of left-wing values who often spoke of rich conservatives as fat cats. Occasionally though, in more recent stories writers will let Queen's negative qualities such as his self-righteousness or his contempt for such "fat cats" get the better of him, and he comes off, intentionally or not, as something of a Straw Liberal. This is taken to extremes (and possibly played for laughs) in ''Comicbook/TheDarkKnightStrikesAgain''. Miller went overboard rather strongly in DK 2, but Queen had taken to cynically gaming the system in ''Comicbook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns'', which might explain his later histrionics as a means to keep a smokescreen up lest his cohorts turn on him like Superman had when [[spoiler:he burned off Queen's arm with heat vision in the backstory]]. Like Ollie said, "You have to make the bastards work for you."
* Hal Jordan was portrayed as a straw conservative in the famed ''Franchise/GreenLantern[=/=]Comicbook/GreenArrow'' series from the '70s. Most stories involved Hal acting like a JerkAss and spouting off conservative talking points, [[AnAesop only to be taught a lesson about racism, sexism or classism by the end of the issue]]. Perhaps most notable would be John Stewart's debut issue. Hal is basically called a racist by one of the Guardians of the Universe after he bashes Stewart for standing up to a bigoted police officer.

* This was averted with the similar ''Comicbook/CaptainAmerica and [[Characters/CaptainAmericaHeroes The Falcon]]'' series. The Falcon was usually used to explore issues like classism and racism, but Captain America rarely came off as badly as Hal Jordan did. At worst, he just came across as a naive white guy who didn't ''grasp'' racial issues in modern America. Any [[NobleBigot accidental racism, sexism, etc.]] on Cap's part could be forgiven to an extent because of the time period that Cap grew up in and was [[FishOutOfTemporalWater thrown out of in - to him - an instant]].

* ''Comicbook/{{Concrete}}'' almost always portrays conservatives in a bad light, often as ignorant, old, bald men or raving racists who only care about money. It doesn't stop there. Characters who should be neutral or have a variety of opinions almost always agree with the author/protagonists on controversial or highly varied issues, even when Concrete is visiting an area of the world where such an opinion is virtually non-existent or would be nonsensical to hold.