Ragtag Bunches of Misfits in Comic Books.
- The original ABC Warriors; Hammerstein is a warhorse famous for his strength and leadership skills but rumored to have murdered a human superior, Joe Pineapples is an ace marksman who once killed a target from orbit but is perhaps the most unsavory being in the universe, Happy Shrapnel is simply dumped onto them because as an older model he's not very user friendly, Mongrol is a monster of metal who is constantly full of only rage and confusion, Mek-Quake is stupid, violent, and crude, Deadlock is an extreme Knight Templar, Blackblood is known for murder at the slightest provocation, Steelhorn is the original veteran of the Volgan War turned into a horrific mess of molten slag, and so on and so forth. They're the most capable combat unit fighting the Volgs, but goddamn.
- Later additions only enhance this image; Mad Ronn the bomb disposal expert (whose skill at his profession is uncertain because he kind of dies the first and only time he actually tries to defuse a bomb), Hitaki the warrior with samurai programming, Morrigun the waitress whose combat skills come from secondary bouncer software, and Ro-Jaws, who is honestly more of a mascot than anything else. Morrigun was the result of a Terrible Interviewees Montage; you should see the guys they turned down.
- The founding members of the Agents of Atlas are Jimmy Woo, a Chinese-American secret agent, Venus, Goddess of Love (and a siren), M-11, the Human Robot, Namora, Namor's cousin, Gorilla Man, a soldier of fortune turned into an immortal gorilla, and the Uranian, formerly Marvel Boy, a human who was modified so he could live among aliens, requiring him to wear a spacesuit on Earth as he can no longer breathe the atmosphere.
- Asterix, Obelix, Hemispheric, Selectivemploymentax, Gastronomix, Neveratalos and Ptenisnet in Asterix the Legionary.
- Most comic books about Super Hero Teams follow this trope; as an example, The Avengers's original incarnation included a rich playboy Mad Scientist in Powered Armor, a God of Thunder, a second Mad Scientist able to shrink size and command ants, his shrinking flying wife, and a giant green monster with a Jekyll & Hyde problem. And a One-Man Army super-soldier from World War II later joined them as the Sixth Ranger. The only real common thread then was that they were all super-heroes (and in the Hulk's case, some would argue on that point).
- This ends up being deconstructed in The Avengers's .1 story, set during the "Cap's Kooky Quartet" era. The public isn't keen on Captain America leading a team of former super villains, Captain America himself isn't keen on leading a team of super villains (especially since Iron Man, Giant Man and the Wasp dumped them on his lap and said "We're quitting!"), the former super villains aren't keen on being with each other and, when they're thrashed by the Frightful Four, the Wasp is horrified and realized they made a terrible mistake.
- This trope is enforced in Avengers: No Surrender. A mysterious blue aura puts numerous heroes and villains in stasis, including many of the Avengers' more tactical and strategic members including Captain America, Black Panther and Spider-Man, leaving random pieces of the three major Avengers teams to work together. Which includes three team leaders.
- British war-oriented comic Battle Action included a British Empire Dirty Dozen clone called The Rat Pack complete with cockney thug/knifeman/marksman, sneaky little pickpocket and gigantic musclebound Turk. For some reason these "Convict Commandos" wore blue battledress rather than Khaki or green.
- Mercilessly parodied in The Rifle Brigade where fearless Captain "Khyber" Darcy leads Ambiguously Gay Lieutenant "Doubtful" Milk, monstrous Yorkshireman Sergeant Crumb ("'ey oop"), Cockney thug Corporal Geezer ("Yer aht of ordah!"), Private Hank the Yank ("Gawd Dammit!") and The Piper (who isn't an actual soldier but is still probably the most brutal of the lot) on missions against.... well you really just have to read these for yourself! But to give you an idea on the type of operations entrusted to the Rifle Brigade, one of their most important assignments involved recovering a powerful arcane artifact before the Axis could get their hands on it. The artifact was Hitler's missing testicle.
- Captain Darcy would eventually lampshade the squad's existence by saying that there's always been a place for a Rifle Brigade in the British forces, and that there was a Rifle Brigade-type collection of misfits before there were rifles, because "when you get down to it there's some things ordinary chaps just can't do!"
- A panel shows their carbon-copy predecessors jumping from a fortress wall to attack Roman soldiers.
- The Rifle Brigade was also likely a parody of Sergeant Fury's Howling Commandos, the Leatherneck Riders, and the Deadly Dozen. Notably, Doubtful takes the place of Percival Pinkerton, while Hank the Yank is the token foreigner (again, Pinkerton), Crumb the gigantic Bruiser (Dum Dum Dugan), etc.
- Basically, pick a war comic. Even the stark realism of Sgt. Rock's Easy Company leans this way, featuring the mild-mannered Wildman (whose name comes from his secretly having a Hair-Trigger Temper), one armed bazooka expert Zack, nebbish bespectacled sniper Four-Eyes, clinically anxious Worrywart, etc.
- In both B.P.R.D. 1946 and 1947, the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense finds itself working with one of these. In the first, it's a squadron of problem soldiers who've been together since D-Day — and have been causing trouble since the end of the war out of frustration for not being allowed to go home. In the second, it's shell-shocked paratrooper Jacob Stegner; Simon Anders, a merchant marine who survived 24 days lost at sea in a lifeboat; Gabriel Ruiz, a Latino jungle warfare specialist who tried to sue the USMC for discrimination; and Frank Russel, a bomb and mine disposal expert who served with distinction in Africa — and chose the BPRD when offered an officer position in an intelligence org of his choice. The first group was assigned to aid Professor Bruttenholm during his time in Berlin — because all the army had to spare was soldiers. The second was a collection of agents available for immediate deployment.
- The Champions were a team consisting of Iceman, Angel, Black Widow, The Incredible Hercules, Ghost Rider, and Venus. They originally worked together because they all happened to be on the Berkley campus at the same time. The second team was similar, comprised of Kamala Khan, Miles Morales, Sam Alexander, the Totally Awesome Hulk, and Viv Vision, who were brought together because Kamala got fed up with the Let's You and Him Fight mentality, and grabbed her old teammates Miles and Sam, who grabbed Amadeus, who grabbed Viv. The time-displaced Cyclops would join in after wandering into their campout.
- Crossed: A common theme.
- The first cast is led by a gun-toting waitress and included her young son, a blind woman, a couple of working stiffs, a drunk paramedic and a former Serial Killer.
- ‘’Crossed 3D’’ features a SWAT team leader, a science teacher, a mentally ill shut-in, and a prison inmate, among others, working to save people.
- The first Badlands arc included a group that includes a Cold Sniper who may be a royal, an oil rig employee, a paramedic, a bookstore owner and a pregnant woman.
- The Cavaites include a former comic book writer, a University lecturer, a crusty fisherman (and part-time gun runner according to the first annual) an Australian parasailing tour guide and his wife and son, a London petty criminal and his daughter, a Cold Sniper with several facial piercings who'd formerly been a caregiver, a deaf Spanish woman, a pair of old ladies form the countryside, a gay Goth, a paratrooper, a hippie art teacher, an American tourist, a Pakistani family and eventually a rugby player, a cheesemaker, and a Kenyan scholarship student.
- The group in ‘’Homo Tortor’’ is led by a college student and includes two soldiers, a competitive archer and a Crazy Survivalist.
- The Death Squad late of Battle Action, five members of a punishment battalion in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. For instance, one is a big dumb Swede who loves his hatchets, another is a card-carrying Nazi party member the others all despise for his bootlicking (resulting in the nickname "Licker").
- The Defenders, comprised of heroes who don't work well with others, and who often get into fights in the middle of their missions, still manage to be successful because they are comprised of some of the most powerful heroes in the Marvel Universe. They're even famously known as a "non-team", because the concept of teamwork is completely alien to them. This is all in spite of the fact that the founding Defenders (Doctor Strange, the Silver Surfer, the Hulk, and Namor the Sub-Mariner) are among the most powerful Marvel heroes of all.
- You don't get much more "ragtag" or "misfit" than the Doom Patrol. They're the superheroes that even other superheroes consider too weird. When Beast Boy is considered one of the most mentally healthy and scary-competent members of the team, you know it's bad. Turned out to be an Invoked Trope by their Magnificent Bastard of their financial backer/leadership/Mission Control Niles "The Chief" Calder.
- Generation X (2017): The mutant students of the Xavier Institute are split into three streams: those training to be future X-Men, those training to be future ambassadors for mutantkind... and the main characters, who are suited to neither role and are training to master their powers simply so they can lead normal lives. Of course, they end up getting caught up in all sorts of adventures anyway.
- The Great Lakes Avengers is a team comprised of some of the weirdest superheroes in Marvel's catalog, including Flatman, Big Bertha, and most popularly, Squirrel Girl (whose superpower is... squirrels). It doesn't hurt that Deadpool is considered one of their reserve members.
- The second version of the Guardians of the Galaxy, in the beginning, consist of:
- A Half-Human Hybrid and fallen hero, with a major guilt complex (Star-Lord).
- A golden-skinned super-human with some split-personality issues, and a genocidal church that worships him (Adam Warlock).
- A slightly space-y cosmic messiah, who's the team's mission control (Mantis).
- A sociopathic former assassin who was previously employed by the Big Bads of Marvel (Gamora).
- A formerly human brute who killed his arch-nemesis and had to find something else to do with his life afterward (Drax the Destroyer).
- A cosmic defender with self-esteem issues, and a dead girlfriend (Phyla-Vell).
- A slightly egotistical tree-person whose language is only understood by most non-tree-people as "I am Groot"
- and said tree-person's best friend, a trigger-happy raccoon. He's The Lancer.
- They get a lot of flack for this, and their most major enemy makes fun of them for it, noting that they don't really have any A-list level people on-board. It also makes trying to get people to listen to them when they say there's trouble all but outright impossible.
- Justice League of America (2013): The JLA is a government-owned Super Team created to protect America and fight the Justice League if necessary. The team is comprised of Steve Trevor, Martian Manhunter, Green Arrow, Green Lantern Simon Baz, Catwoman, Vibe, Stargirl, and Katana. Not long after the JLA is formed and the members meet each other, they are sent on their first mission without any training.
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, naturally. Mina's initially insulted that she should be put in charge of such a motley crew but she's just as weird as the others.
- Justified in Les Légendaires, since the titular Protagonist's Five-Man Band wasn't exactly assembled by the government or anything; the two founding members merely decided to create a group of independent heroes of their own by recruiting anyone who would be interested. This results in the group including a former Elite Knight from the King's personal army, a Warrior Princess Magical Girl, a formerly enslaved Beast Man, a Barbarian Hero who used to work for the series' Big Bad and an Elf granted Elemental Powers.
- Yet another DCU one, The Losers, several military men who for one reason or another are off official duty and now serve covertly; they're called the Losers because they have nothing left to lose (try understanding the idea behind that), and include Captain Storm, a one-eyed, one-legged salty sea dog if'n thar ever were one, and Johnny Cloud, who was genuinely heroic and uber-competent but insisted on being a Loser because, well, he felt like a loser. He usually flew alone, but one day took a brash new pilot with him. They were attacked and forced to crash. The new pilot lost his life; Cloud joined the Losers after that.
- The New Avengers are a team more or less thrown together by circumstance (they were on the "losing" side of Civil War). Even now that they can work openly, they remain a group without a great deal in common except that the team is a sort of refuge where they can get themselves back together and get on with their lives.
- Jack Pumpkinhead, the Sawhorse, Amber Ombi (Ombi Ambi's nephew), General Jinjur, Hektor Hammerhead and the Wogglebug: the Freedom Fighters of Oz (Caliber).
- Red Hood and the Outlaws: So far, 3 former Titans, 2 of whom are failed ex-sidekicks. The resurrected, violent, mildly crazy Red Hood, who managed to get kicked out of the Batfamily after coming back from the dead, is The Leader. Former alcoholic and Arrow family dropout Arsenal (even with the most traumatic bits retconned out) and Princess Koriand'r... who as a young child was sold into slavery by her sister, to save her home world, spent much of her life in death camps, and doesn't really remember a lot of things concerning Earth clearly. Which is good, because Red Hood tried to kill someone she deeply cares for. Several times. And nearly killed their mutual brother, whom she was a teammate of.
- The title's relaunch as part of DC Rebirth takes this one step further by replacing Arsenal and Starfire with Bizarro and Artemis, turning the group into a fusion of this trope and the Evil Knockoff (specifically of the Trinity of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.)
- Also from The DCU, Gail Simone's Secret Six, a team of mercenaries who are spectacularly messed up, and know it. Their enemies are even worse.
- Section Eight is a team of mentally-unbalanced weirdos put together by an alcoholic superhero-wannabe named Sixpack, whose members include a Terminator Impersonator who throws people through a window he carries around, the human embodiment of French Jerk, and a guy who welds dead dogs to people.
- Subverted in Kyle Baker's Iraq war satire Special Forces, where an army recruiter desperate to make quota so he doesn't get sent back to Iraq recruits a ragtag bunch of misfits, falsifying records to recruit criminals, drug addicts, those mentally or physically unfit for service, and others who by all rights shouldn't be in the army, but ends up having to serve alongside them when one of them goes off his meds and gets himself killed before boot camp. By the end of the first issue, he and all but two of his recruits have been slaughtered.
- For the record, the surviving members are Zone, a severely autistic young man who doesn't talk and follows orders with machine precision, and Felony, a nineteen year old girl with an extremely colorful criminal record. Yes, they were both in a front line infantry unit.
- The Star Wars miniseries "D-Squad" features an adrift R2-D2 coming across a Pit Droid he knew back in the Clone Wars when the two of them went on a mission with a group of other Astromech droids. This inspires Artoo to form another ad-hoc droid unit to help him rescue C-3PO. This group will, judging by the cover, include CH-0P "Chopper", BT-1 and 0-0-0note , the Bounty Hunter 4-LOM and an IG Assassin Droid(likely -88 or -11).
- The Suicide Squad in The DCU. A covert program of the U.S. government that keeps sending villains (and a few heroes) on suicide missions until they've earned release from prison... or they die. Think The Dirty Dozen with superpowers (some of them, anyway). While literally every incarnation fits, the Injustice League version is the most apt, with Major Disaster, Big Sir, Clock King, Cluemaster, and Multi-Man. The subversion happens when all of them die in the first issue except for Major Disaster.
- The original Suicide Squad was a WWII unit simply composed of notable or exceptional soldiers. However, apparently the top brass and the recruiting officers didn't collaborate very closely on this one, because the resultant team was composed entirely of antisocial hotheads who hate each other more than they do the enemy, hence the name.
- Superlópez: The Supergroup, most of the time.
- The crew of the prototype starship Switchblade Honey is a bunch of screw-ups facing execution (for disobeying immoral, criminal, or just stupid orders from their former superiors) - or, if you prefer, the Only Sane People in a Crapsack Future. And they're humanity's last hope.
- In Tomahawk, Tomahawk's Rangers could be viewed as a Revolutionary War version of Sgt. Rock's Easy Company. The members included the immensely strong Big Anvil; the dandy Brass Buttons; Cannonball, who was Tomahawk's 2IC; acrobatic French sailor Frenchie; black Combat Medic Healer Randolph; sniper Long Rifle; Stovepipe who was the son of a general and carried a small arsenal in his stovepipe hat; and Wildcat, a Quaker pacifist who turned into a berserker in combat.
- In The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, the Scavengers are a group consisting of the worst Decepticons alive, according to the Decepticon Justice Division. That said, they have just enough savant-like talent, pragmatism, and dumb luck to survive. The Scavengers also reveal Hidden Depths when they prove willing to fight the Decepticon Justice Division on their newest member Fulcrum's behalf. They even get away from that encounter with only one casualty, which is a lot better than the fate of everyone else who ever faced the Decepticon Justice Division. Fulcrum declares to Tarn that the Scavengers made him proud to be a Decepticon again and that each of them is worth ten of the Decepticon Justice Division, whom he considers to be nothing more than a bunch of sadistic psychopaths who used the Decepticon cause as an excuse to inflict pain.
- The crew of the Lost Light count as well. As someone they meet notes, there's not a sane 'bot among them. Except for Rewind and Rung. Everyone else has at least one thing wrong with them, or a Dark and Troubled Past ready to come back to bite everyone in the ass, or goodness knows what else.
- And they get even worse in the second "season", when MEGATRON takes over as captain.
- The group in The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers. In general, most Wrecker groups will be this since their roster changes frequently. This is because the Wreckers are a group specifically selected because of their psychological issues with the express purpose of throwing them at the worst problems that can be found.
- In most versions of The Transformers, the Autobots as a whole tend to be this because they're primarily workers, medics, and scientists with no combat experience who had to team up to oppose the Decepticons attempt to subjugate them. Sometimes they've got the benefit of an Old Soldier like Kup or Ironhide who can teach them military techniques from the get go, but sometimes they don't.
- The survivors of Wild's End are made up of an ex-Navy man, a reporter, a reclusive writer, a trapper, and a Tagalong Kid.
- Wonder Woman (1987): The core group of revolutionaries Diana puts together to fight the Sangtee Empire have only their gender and the fact they'd been enslaved by the kreel in common. Many of them want to quit the revolution as soon as they have the cash and ships to make it elsewhere. The group includes defectors from the Alien Alliance, at least one Khund who definitely did not defect from the aforementioned alliance, a clever eccentric little old woman, and most notably Wonder Woman herself who has them adopt a (flexible) no kill policy they all chafe against while fighting a war. note
- The second team of X-Men, especially in comparison to the original team. The first group were five white, American teenagers, recruited by Professor X as students for his school, given matching uniforms, and trained to work as a group before their first mission. The second team note each came from a different country, including no members who were both white and American (and one that was blue); varied from their teens to middle age; came from backgrounds ranging from law-enforcement to former supervillain (including one that was both); ranged in education level from college graduate to "raised on the streets"; were all given unique uniforms (or just wore what they showed up in); and barely had time to learn each others' names before being sent off to risk their lives.
