Who are the biggest jobbers in comics?

Can't say for sure if he has a history of it, but Blackheart getting taken down by one of Miles Morales' zaps puts him up there with the jobbingest jobs who ever jobbed.

They've been mentioned a few times, but the Wrecking Crew's status just annoys me. There's actually quite a bit of mileage you could get out of small-minded thugs with godlike power - they are easily motivated and can potentially cause truly catastrophic damage - but they now exist solely for various heroes to be able to say that they've beaten up a Thor villain.

Thunderball has had a somewhat ongoing character arc through the Illuminati reboot and the New Avengers appearances.

Basically, he has a couple of conversations with (sadly) white supervillains who asks why a man with a f***ing PHD in physics and engineering as well as Thor level power is working as not even the leader of a group like the Wrecking Crew but one of its minor members.

So he's set out on his own.

edited 23rd May '18 6:17:24 PM by CharlesPhipps

Yeah its basically a common trope for Marvel to have OP as fuck villains who are treated as minor nuisance rather than a major threat. Mostly due to them lacking any imagination or motivation to using their powers to their fullest.

This includes:

• Molecule Man (a guy who can manipulate all matter but just use his powers to get back at people)
• Sandman (a guy who can manipulate and replicate his own silicons is just a bank robber)
• Wrecking Crew (four dudes who each have the quarter powers to basically beat Thor are the One Man Gang of the Marvel Universe)
• Electro (a guy with electrical powers whose inferiority complex prevents him from actually being a bigger villain than he should be)
• Graviton (pretty much Avenger’s Magneto but lack any villainous motivation to be a threat . . . hell the Thunderbolts called him out on that as a way to defeat him)
• Baron Heinrich Zemo (sure he’s leader of the original Masters of Evil, a brilliant scientist, “killed” Bucky and is a Nazi but if you think about it his blind vengence for Captain America hinders his goals for world conquest. Hell this is why his son Helmut Zemo is a bigger threat than him as he can at least put aside his thirst for vengence to make sure his plans go off without a hitch).

Heinrich to be fair, had a very short career. In Silver Age, even Dr. Doom spend all his time trying to kill Fantastic Four about 8 times before stealing Surfer's power. And I believe with Secret Wars, Molecule Man wasting his powers became an important part of the character (Not to mention necessary. I mean, who could possibly stop him?)

Actually, I wouldn't say it's at all unrealistic to have villains with massive powers be essentially jobbers. It's a pretty accurate depiction of human nature, what you get if you combine awesome power with very little intelligence, imagination, or ambition. In his run on Gen 13 Adam Warren introduced a bunch of super-powered slackers on one occasion, one of whom justified his slackitude by saying that he'd much rather use his powers to give himself a 5-hour psychic orgasm than to get his ass beat by a bunch of super-heroes. The Parasite and Doctor Light (classic version, pre Identity Crisis) were like this, too; they possessed awesome powers, but the best they could think to do with them was essentially rob banks.

I'll agree, though, Thunderball never really made much sense. I'd see him doing nothing at all with his powers before I'd see him realistically being on the Wrecking Crew (unless he's got some compelling reason to be with them that I don't know about).

Classic Dr Light once captured the Justice League and almost took over the world. if anything, it's post-Identity Crisis Dr Light that is lacking in imagination.

Yeah for like his debut issue. After that he is at best a competant lackey for the Bigger Bad and at worst basically Cobra Commander . . . cartoon Cobra Commander, the comics one is actually threatening.

But yeah the post Identity Crisis Light does suck. At least jobber villain Light actually does some legitimate villain stuff that made him a legimate menace for the heroes to deal with. All Identity Crisis does is boast about how much he enjoys rape, and that’s it. And I recall in the DC forum topic as to how we talked about Rapist Light being nothing but bark.

April Patterson from For Better Or For Worse. She only exists so that Lynn Johnston the author can show us she is WRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOONG.

...Lol just kidding.

The Closest Light gets to being a threat post Identity Crisis

is when he kidnaps Green Arrow and picks a Fight WITH EVERY Titan still alive at that point

It even ends with a homage to his original dethroning defeat... cept swap Mal out with Cyborg.

• Big Wheel
• Stilts-Man
• Paste Pot Pete/Trapster
• Turner D. Century
  • Die! And take your avocado toast-flavored, duck-faced narcissism with you!
• Walrus (spiderman once knocked him out with one finger)

Silver Age Batman Villains honestly deserve their own category (all are pre-Crisis unless otherwise noted)

• Cluemaster
• Egg Head from Batman '66
• Killer Moth
• The eraser
• Kite-Man
• Polka-Dot Man
• Ten Eyes Man (sounds kinda horrifying until you realize how impractical having eyes on your hands would be.)
• Zebra-Man

Possibly saddest of all, Silver Age Calendar-Man

Edited by megaeliz on Aug 31st 2019 at 7:58:47 AM

"I'll explain later take a dive"

B&B Batman was a treasure

The Wrecking Crew, and the Wrecker solo, were once a huge threat to anyone weaker than them and went toe-to-toe with Thor. Nowadays...not so much.

I think some here are stretching the definition of the term jobber if we are including guys like The Leader. The Leader is usually defeated by the of an arc in the Hulk books and he is Hulk's archnemesis, he wouldn't hold that title if he was just "jobber".

I mean let's remember the hero will ultimately win and just losing doesn't make someone a jobber.

I love the implication that he’s almost on good terms with his lower tier baddies.

Gotta go with Galactus. He's so often used as a way to show off what a big deal the villain of the story is.

Has Wonder Woman been mentioned?

X5

So that's why Thunderball is part of the Wrecking Crew despite being smarter than the other three put together.

You'd be loyal to a dude as well if he shared the power of the gods with you when he didn't need to.

<Checks the Wrecking Crew's biography on this very wiki>

.....

....no wait. He's not that loyal....that's not cool man.

There seems to be a lack of the Spot in this thread.

Probably the biggest jobber Spiderman ever dealt with was Lady Stiltman, who basically only existed to be a joke about Stiltman get a distaff counterpart.

The thing is that the Wrecker is an idiot and I mean this not in a Deconstructive way, I mean that he is literally a barely functioning thug in all of his personas from the very first appearance to later versions of the character. He's basically never been a Killer Croc who went through Villain Decay but always dumbass Killer Croc.

And yet his crew, which even discounting the physicist, includes some very cunning career criminals, all follow his lead.

The Celestials and Marvel's cosmics/abstracts in general

OG Thor under Jason Aaron post God-Butcher arc is THE premium jobber. The brood Thor incident which even had him getting beaten by Cap and Moon Knight's Mjolnir is moon rock stuff are the latest examples. Some say he took the criticisms from Thor fans very personally.