Its All About Me / Comic Books

---

• Asterios Polyp: The titular character is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who hogs the spotlight and flashbacks to the days when he was married showed that his wife certainly felt that he smothered her at times by having to be the center of attention and make everything about his issues, but he's not quite this. He does have the heart of gold after all, and throughout the course of the story he learns to be better. Obnoxious and unlikable Jerkass theater director Willy, on the other hand, who is sometimes presented as being not that different, and who shamelessly attempts to seduce Asterios' wife really is this, and will use, abuse, and then discard people and projects according to his whims.
• Astro City: Infidel thinks more of the names hurled at him than of the objections that he kidnaps people for experiments.
• Batman:
  • The story The Attack of the Annihilator has the titular villain, Dr. Kenneth Anderson. As watching the news, Anderson gets mad because journalists are talking about the prison reform pushed by Barbara Gordon instead of discussing further about him and his amazing discovery.
  • In the Elseworlds series Dark Knight Dynasty, Vandal Savage has spent at least thirteen centuries trying to capture the meteor that made him immortal in the hopes of learning the "reason" for his immortality. Not only does this ignore the possibility that his change may have been nothing but pure luck, but his plans escalate to the point where he is willing to destroy all of New Gotham in the twenty-fifth century to retrieve the meteor, to say nothing of a long-standing 'vendetta' against the Wayne family where each generation becomes a new Bat-person to oppose Savage's efforts.
• The Books of Magic: Timothy Hunter's stepbrother Cyril Ransome is a selfish brat who only cares about what he wants and doesn't give a toss at all about other people's needs and wants, least of all Timothy's.
• Cerebus the Aardvark: Cerebus is a low-key version. He isn't portrayed as openly arrogant or egotistical, but he's described at one point as having "a self-absorption that borders on the pathological." Every decision he makes and every action he takes is done to satisfy his desires and whims and to fulfill what he thinks will be better for himself, with consequences to others coming second, if they occur to him at all. Even when he seems to be in normal interactions with others, this "me first" tendency is bubbling under the surface. This gets him into trouble in many, many ways over the course of the comic, upsetting plans and fracturing friendships and deeper relationships, and leads to his eventual downfall when his inability to learn from his mistakes ends up costing him everything.
• Doctor Strange: The original tales show how Stephen Strange was an incredibly self-centered and arrogant man boasting of his greatness. He was brought low by a car accident ruining his career and later becoming Sorcerer Supreme. Yet there are still times when Strange can fall into the thinking that almost any major magic threat in the multiverse has to somehow involve him rather than just be a coincidence.
  • Strange and Doctor Druid (no stranger to arrogance himself) are doing battle against demons. Strange is worried that Druid will take advantage of this to backstab him over years being angry that Strange was chosen to be Sorcerer Supreme rather than Druid. When he realizes this, Druid openly calls Strange "an arrogant prat" and "will you get it through your skull, not everyone wants to be Stephen Strange!"
• Fantastic Four: Doctor Doom, the man even goes as far as to rename the capital of Latveria after himself. Heck, when he was in control of Counter-Earth, he renamed the planet after himself. He also thinks everyone is inferior to him.
  • And refers to himself in the third person. And thinks that every single thing wrong with his life is Reed Richards' fault, because the great DOOM is infallible, and that accursed Richards is obviously jealous of his intellect and wants to destroy him.
  • As of the moment of this writing, every member of the Illuminati (including Reed Richards) is definitely like this. As the "Time Runs Out" arcs leading to Secret Wars (2015) show, if any member of the Illuminati had spared so much as one minute talking to any other scientist in the world, there might have been a chance to prevent (or at least reduce the damage of) the Incursions. But not, they thought that they and they alone had the final call of everything and are actively annoyed to have to even spare the time to listen to the "The Reason You Suck" Speech-fest that comes from the other heroes, after a long while of being pretty much virtual Villain Protagonists. And the only reason there is still enough people living for there to be a comic book arc at all is because of Doctor Doom's efforts.
  • It's even been revealed that Doom's armor records every word he says, and these are transcribed to multiple different storage methods (paper, microfilm, flash drives, hard drive, etc.) so that they will be preserved for posterity.
• The First: In the CrossGen graphic novel series, the gods of House Sinister live by this trope. In fact, part of Ingra's speech is to "place the self before all".
• The Flash: The original Reverse-Flash, Eobard Thawne. He cares for nothing but himself and irrationally blames Barry Allen for everything wrong in his life (although it is suggested that this may be the result of a repressed memory, as his 'first' trip to the past saw him learn about his future death at Barry's hands only for him to lose all conscious memory of it after taking a beating from Barry's successor Wally).
• Giraffes On Horseback Salad: Linda insists on being the center of attention wherever she goes. She becomes visibly angry when the Surrealist Woman appears and draws everyone's interest, and she seethes at Jimmy for simply being inquisitive about her.
• Gotham Central: Invoked, where Renee Montoya's brother believes that she is actively trying to hurt their parents by being more concerned about herself instead of them regarding what her homosexuality would do to them if they found out.
• Green Lantern: This page, everyone mentioned on it and everyone who's contributed to it, belong to Larfleeze, The DCU's embodiment of Greed and sole Orange Lantern.
• Killing and Dying: Harold is utterly convinced that his hortisculpture will be the next big art thing and acts very selfishly to everybody around him in pursuit of the dream. He finally drops it once he realizes he's pushed his wife too far.
• Legion of Super-Heroes: The serial killer Roxxas arrived on planet to kill Legionnaires and spotted another villain, Mekt Ranzz, Lightning Lord. He offered to share the kills. Unbeknownst to him, Mekt had reformed and was there because his brother and sisters were Legionnaires; first he appealed to Roxxas to stop, and then joined the fight against him. When Roxxas downed all his foes, he kicked Mekt and complained that he would have shared.
• The Multiversity: In The Just #1, Earth-16 is a world where the children of superheroes and supervillains are celebrity darlings since there's no more crime to fight (to the point where the contemporary Justice League roster has done nothing but battle reenactments). The solicits and cover refer to this world as "Earth-Me."
• My Little Pony Micro Series: Inverted in issue #2 . In the end, Rainbow realizes that turning her own attitude around isn't enough; she needs to instill happiness and inspiration in everypony else.
• New Gods: Darkseid has a tremendous ego. His entire goal is to make everyone and everything an extension of himself. His vision of the future is to essentially turn all creation into an everlasting monument to himself.
• Spider-Man: Peter Parker had this attitude after he got bitten by a spider, saying that all he cares about is himself and Uncle
  • Ben and Aunt May, and the rest can go to hell. An attitude that has its logical and tragic consequence when it leads directly to the death of his father figure. This attitude of selfishness is also something shared by many of Peter's supporting cast and on some level, all his villains. Jameson in particular, though he also navigates it somewhat.
  • Norman Osborn as well. As this quote illustrates:
    "My father used to say to me, "it's not all about you." I told him I was working on it."
    - Norman Osborn, Dark X-Men #4
• Superman:
  • Villain Reactron in the Post-Crisis comics attempted to rape and murder Supergirl several times, slaughtered her parents, blew up her new homeworld up... because when he attacked her out of nowhere and with no provocation whatsoever, she beat him down.
  • Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade provides several examples:
    • When Linda suggests trying to make some friends, Lena explodes: Linda must not need or want more friends than her!
      Lena: Banished.
      Linda: Well, we could try to make some friends. I mean, we always sit as far away from everyone as possible. Which, you know... kinda means we're the ones banishing ourselves...
      Lena: What?! I thought I was your friend!
      Linda: Uh... You are. I just meant—
      Lena: Then what do you need them for?
      Linda: I just thought that maybe...
      Lena: My friendship isn't enough? Is that it?
    • Belinda seriously believes everything Linda does is in reaction to her and everyone talks about her the whole time.
      Belinda: Oh... Is that what you're talking about? I presumed you must have been discussing how awesome I am. And for the record, it's not a rumor. I truly am that awesome.
      Lena: Yeah, well, we happen to NOT be discussing you at all.
      Belinda: How strange. It must be very sad being you and not adoring me. I simply can't imagine.
    • After the final battle, typically Lex blames Superman for Lena Heel–Face Turn rather than the fact that he lied to her to make himself look good.
  • The series 52 deals with the "missing year" of DC comics between the Infinite Crisis and the One Year Later storylines. In this timeframe Superman has lost his powers and is living life as Clark Kent while a new superhero, christened Supernova, has stepped in as the new protector of Metropolis. Lex Luthor, however, is convinced that Superman is Supernova, simply in a new disguise. Why would Superman do this? Why would he create a new identity, give himself new powers and sever all ties with friends and allies? Why go to all this trouble? To toy with Luthor.
  • Superman: Up, Up and Away!: Once he got his powers back, Superman proceeded to call Luthor out about his claims of Superman "holding humans back". Pointing out that while he was gone, Luthor had spent the entire year obsessing over him rather than doing anything useful.
    Superman: Where's your cancer cure, Lex?
  • The Super-Revenge of Lex Luthor proves that Luthor thinks everybody should are aware of and abide by his "Nobody is allowed to kill Superman but me!" wishes, as indicated by him shouting "They can't do that to me!" when a gang of smugglers nearly succeed in kill his archenemy off.
  • Luthor has always been like this. He smashed a chair over Doomsday's inert body in The Death of Superman because he wanted to be the one to kill Superman, assumed leadership of the new Injustice Gang when Superman became leader of the Justice League as he felt that was Superman 'throwing down the gauntlet', gave away his baby daughter to gain control over Brainiac 13's future technology, and hired someone to frame Bruce Wayne because he cancelled contracts in protest of Luthor's presidency.
  • Lex is so incredibly self-obsessed that he has formed this view that any and all actions taken to destroy Superman, whom he can only perceive as a threat to him, is justified so that he can be Earth's saviour, even though he couldn't care less about anyone who gets hurt in the process and it's clear it's all only for his own sense of pride; he also feels that everything Superman does is about undermining him, incapable of accepting that Superman would do all that just because he's a good man. During one recent storyline, Luthor was actually offended when telepath Manchester Black revealed that, where Luthor is constantly obsessing over Superman, Superman never thinks about Luthor except when he has to, focusing on helping others rather than obsessing over Luthor's possible next scheme.
  • This tendency of Lex's has actually helped Superman a few times. In spite of meeting and interacting with Clark Kent or Superboy several times, at points like How Luthor Met Superboy being his childhood friend, the supposedly genius Luthor has never been able to pick up on his Paper-Thin Disguise. This is partly because Luthor refuses to believe Superman could possibly have a life totally independent of opposing him or do anything else with his time. He also projects his own arrogance onto Superman, believing him to be so full of himself that he would never pretend to be a normal human when he can spend all day lording over mankind as a God-like alien. He's so bad about this that he fired a private investigator who found proof that Superman is Clark Kent.
  • It goes beyond his hatred for Superman, also happening in a smaller scale: once he had a personal trainer killed because she defeated him in a martial arts training. She was just doing her job, but Lex's ego coudn't handle the fact that he was defeated.
  • In the Elseworlds tale Superman: Red Son, Luthor is hired by President Eisenhower to find a way to destroy Superman, who is the Soviet Union's new superweapon. After a few false starts, Lex finally finds his motivation — not from his ideological differences with the Soviets, Patriotic Fervor, or even the Fantastic Racism he's often depicted with — but from being beaten at chess by the flawed Bizarro clone he makes of Superman. The idea that someone on Earth might be smarter than him is so personally offensive to Luthor that he destroys all his notes on the Bizarro clone's creation (and murders his colleagues on the project) and dedicates the rest of his life to Superman's annihilation.
  • The beginning of the story arc Superman: Grounded features Superman being slapped by a woman upset for her husband's death after the events of New Krypton. Thing is, her husband died of a brain aneurysm, not in the Earth-New Krypton war. She claims Superman could have saved him but Superman was away on New Krypton, attempting to prevent war from breaking out in the first place. If anything, she comes across as selfish and entitled in the middle of an international tragedy.
  • In Reign of Doomsday, Cyborg Superman feels thrilled when he thinks he can beat Doomsday and prove he is better than Superman. When Doomsday eventually beats him up, Cyborg Superman is saved by Supergirl's arrival... whereupon he tries to kill her because she is actually winning, and he cannot stand the idea of being inferior to her.
• The Transformers (IDW):
  • This is the defining trait of Starscream. It's a particular factor in The Transformers: Windblade, where Starscream has weaselled his way to rulership of Cybertron; Windblade is at first appalled to find out that Starscream is incapable of caring about anything but his own ambitions, before figuring out how to use it to manipulate him.
  Windblade: Starscream cares for nothing and no-one but himself.
  • Getaway in The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye starts out seeming quirky and likeable, and then after seizing control of the Lost Light, proves to be totally obsessed with his assumed "destiny" to become a Prime and is willing to go to any lengths to seize it, from manipulating Tailgate to his presumed death to selling the lives of his crew to a Serial Killer to trapping one of the Autobots' greatest heroes in a "memory loop" - essentially a Mind Control-induced coma. His combination of self-obsession and insecurity is so overwhelming that the resident Psycho Psychologist sometimes winds him up just to watch it go.
• Transformers (2019): Megatron's attempts to portray himself as a reformer swiftly turn out to be a thin veneer plastered over a hunger for power, to the point where the founder of the movement he's hijacked ends up calling him out on it.
  Termagax: How stupid of me not to have seen it long ago. It's not about the cause. It's about you. Self-elevation. Self-glorification. You mislearned every lesson I tried to teach.
• Ultimate Marvel:
  • ''Ultimate Fantastic Four': Victor Van Damme/Doctor Doom, albeit with even less justification than for his 'prime' self. After his initial transformation into his organic metal state, he initially attacks the rest of the Baxter Institute staff with microbots, assuming that he was the only person to be mutated, and later assumes that Reed wasn't mutated because he wasn't 'special' enough. Later, when a set of cyclop monsters dissapear, Van Damme congratulates himself for saving everyone yet again, but the problem with that statement is that it wasn't him. As well as the others, he was stalling the monsters while Sue's baby generate energy that drove them away.
  • Ultimate Vision: Do not mix Tarleton in a middle of a "we" phrase, specially not if you are talking about a success. It's always something that he, and he alone, did.
  • Played subtly in Ultimate Spider-Man. Norman Osborn is convinced he's the most important thing in the lives of everyone he knows. He believes he's the single greatest threat Nick Fury has ever come across when he's really just a particularly annoying blip on Fury's radar. He also thinks that Peter Parker looks up to him like a father and needs his guidance, then when Peter attacks him is sure that Fury twisted him against him. Twisting it even further, he believes he owns Peter, having made the spider that bit him (even if the incident that created Spider-Man was a total accident). This means that he has the right to force him to do whatever he wants and kill him if he refuses.
  • The Ultimates: Tyrone Cash has perfected the Hulk serum, allowing him to keep his rational mind instead of turning into a savage beast. And he kept it all to himself. Not because The World Is Not Ready: just because he simply does not want to have others like him running around. He wants to be one of a kind.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Wonder Woman (1942): Priscilla Rich became the first Cheetah because she couldn't get over it when Diana got more attention than her at a party, and survived the ensuing murder attempt.
  • Wonder Woman (1987): Veronica Cale is willing to try killing one of the world's greatest superheroes, endangering thousands in the process, just to make sure that the media talk about her when they think of powerful women.
• X-Men: Cassandra Nova from Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men. A psychic parasite who accidentally became Professor Xavier's stillborn-but-not-really twin sister, Cassandra believes that the universe is still the womb she shared with Xavier, in which she has to completely destroy him in order to be "born." Therefore every living being she encounters is either not real or a mindless drone Xavier conjured up. This lets her commit psychological torture, wreck an interplanetary civilization, and initiate a genocide with pure sociopathic impunity.

---