Big Bad Wannabes in comic books.
The following have their own pages:
Other Comics
- The Bone Tie-In Novel trilogy Quest for the Spark features King Agak the new king of the rats. He thinks that he is in a equal partnership with the possessed Constable who views him and his rats as nothing but muscle and is really working for the the Nacht, a dragon who went rogue.
- In Empowered, Irresistimmovable. That Byzanium-powered force-field generator that he won't shut up about? It's a rental.
- G.I. Joe:
- The original SAW Viper from G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel) killed (for real) four named Joes and with his battalion killed off some more (including some pretty prominent ones like Quick Kick) in the space of a single issue, whereas the Cobra organization had repeatedly failed to kill even one named Joe for years prior to that event. He then had the gall to point this out to Cobra Commander (a guy well known for being extremely dangerous and unpredictable) himself. Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow eventually hunt down and kill him offscreen for his heinous deed.
- The Baroness is depicted as this in IDW's G.I. Joe comic continuity. She views herself as a brilliant manipulator and assassin who could overthrow Cobra Commander and run Cobra herself. In reality, she's an egotistical, petty, immature, and overly-theatrical Mood-Swinger who throws childish tantrums whenever she doesn't get her way and is desperate to be taken seriously. It also becomes clear that despite her delusions of deadly combat skill she's actually pretty crappy in straight-up fights; she never wins any battles where she doesn't either cheat, sneak up on her opponent, or have back-up.
- Komodo Dragon from Invincible singlehandedly killed Shrinking Ray and Dupli-Kate and tore out one of Rex Splode's arms, but Rex still kills him shortly thereafter. And Dupli-Kate turns out to have kept her real body safely far away from the battle, cutting his actual accomplishment as a villain in half. And he was only even a relevant threat at all because he attacked while the title character was off-planet dealing with a greater crisis.
- Red Mist in Kick-Ass, to the point that Dave initially scoffs at the idea of Red Mist being out for vengeance against him. While he does commit a whole bunch of horrible crimes in volume 2, such as raping Katie, arranging the murder of Dave's father, and planning to bomb the entire city of New York, he's only able to pull them off because he's paid off a bunch of other supervillains to protect him. When Dave finally confronts him it turns out that Mist hasn't bothered training to fight at all, at which point he is promptly beaten within an inch of his life.
- Les Légendaires:
- Skroa the Cunning is a skillful Chessmaster, a demonic Evil Sorcerer and he effortlessly plays the Main Characters and their Arch-Enemy into accomplishing his goal for him. However, when he tried to take over the world in the past, he was eventually defeated by his Rival Darkhell, who ended up being the Big Bad; in the present day, he did got his own story arc, but was Brought Down to Normal at the end of it and later captured while Darkhell and Anathos were taking over as major villains. And when he comes back later attempting to get his powers back, he ends up slaughtered by a vengeful Amydala before he could even succeed.
- Captain Ceyderom is introduced in his story arc as the apparent Big Bad. In the next book, he is quickly overshadowed by his "ally" past Darkhell and ends up quickly defeated when he finally tries to act.
- Count Kasino appears to be the Big Bad of the story arc when he is introduced; not only does he not even survive more than one book, but the next book reveals he was part of Abyss' (the true Big Bad) machination to begin with.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
- Snively, Dr. Robotnik's nephew, always had the ambition to be The Starscream to take over the empire and even managed to kill off his uncle in the "Endgame" arc via tampering with the Ultimate Annihilator with plans to do just that in the Evil Power Vacuum, but unfortunately for him he's also a Dirty Coward and a Smug Snake who gets beaten up and abused by the heroes and other villains even when he manages to get a few victories under his belt, leading him to come crawling back to Robotnik time and time again. And even his biggest win in killing Robotnik was rendered null when his Alternate Self Robo-Robotnik/Dr. Eggman showed up to take charge and put Snively back in his place.
- Anti-Sonic, Sonic's Evil Twin from Moebius, was this for a long time, as he liked to talk tough, only to be pushed around by the other villains and get beat up easily by the heroes (a pre-Character Development Antoine once knocked him out cold. By accident.). Then, a dose of Chaos energy directly from the Master Emerald transformed him into Scourge, granting him several dozen levels of badass and making him one of the series' most powerful villains. He's still not on the level of Dr. Eggman or Finitevus, but he's definitely a credible solo threat these days; he's even managed to conquer all of Moebius by himself.
- Even then, however, it's pointed out by Sonic, Jules and even Fiona, Scourge's current girlfriend, that Scourge's conquest of Moebius wasn't really impressive since, unlike Mobius, his world isn't full of powerful villains and monsters. All he did was beat up various warlords across the planet and believed that made him king. When he came to Mobius with plans to conquer it as well, nobody but the Freedom Fighters considered him a threat and he was nearly defeated by Metal Sonic and Metal Scourge, the latter of whom was literally put together by Eggman at the last minute.
- Lien-Da of the Dark Brotherhood has aspirations of world conquest, but unfortunately for her (and fortunately for everyone else), she's much too confident for her own good and is often outwitted by much smarter opponents. Eggman kept her around, despite her treacherous nature, precisely because she's this: he finds foiling her futile attempts to overthrow him to be an amusing diversion!
- Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): Doctor Starline is Eggman's Hypercompetent Sidekick, who eventually gets tired of his master's incompetence when he realizes that Eggman has zero means of handling the now out of control Zombot horde, and tries to show him up by recruiting the Deadly Six to help. Anticipating their betrayal, he has the Cacaphonic Conch ready to deal with them...only to find out at the critical moment that it only provides temporary control of the Zeti, who proceed to overpower him and take control of Eggman and Starline's resources, forcing them to flee and team up with Sonic to survive. Following the Bad Guys miniseries, however, he abandons his fanboy ways and is determined to outdo Eggman, becoming more dangerous in the process.... until issue 50 when all of Starline's plans fall apart, having been thoroughly outmaneuvered by Eggman while his creations Kit and Surge are soundly beaten by Tails and Sonic, leading to his final, ignoble death. Even more damningly, Surge and Kit actually managed to overpower him before that fateful issue and considered killing him before hypnotizing him into forgetting this little rebellion with his own tech just so they could use and discard him once Sonic, Tails, and Eggman were dealt with, and despite his death and their own failure they go on to continue menacing hero and villain alike in their own ways.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
- Carnor Jax from Star Wars: Crimson Empire, a Force Sensitive Sovereign Protector (Imperial Royal Guards, but even more elite) who served Emperor Palpatine until his deaths in Return of the Jedi and Dark Empire. It was revealed he was responsible for tainting Palpatine's clones to give them a shorter lifespan each time Palpatine used them. After Palpatine was Killed Off for Real, Jax sought to rebuild The Empire with himself as Emperor but first had to kill all those still loyal to Palpatine, such as his fellow Royal Guards. He succeeds in killing off most of them save one, Kir Kanos. He spends the comic hunting Kanos down with everything he has at his disposal. It's not enough.
- Grand Moff Morlish Veed from Star Wars: Legacy. Arrogant, ambitious, and ruthless to a fault, he has his eye on the Imperial throne and plainly considers himself an Evil Genius when in fact he's just average- and in a galaxy also inhabited by Darth Krayt, Darth Wyyrlok, Emperor Roan Fel and Veed's own girlfriend Nyna Calixte, average just isn't good enough. He spends most of the comic trying to gain leverage while in fact being the pawn to one faction or another.
- Transformers:
- The Transformers (IDW)
- The IDW comics examine this a fair bit with the textbook example, Starscream. He wants to be leader of the Decepticons, but he just doesn't have the skills needed to be a proper leader; the average Decepticon troops don't trust or like him, he's not as powerful as Megatron, and his battle strategies leave a lot to be desired. When he takes command of the Decepticons while Megatron is in a coma, he's unable to get the army regrouped and the battalion he's personally leading is left cut off from supplies, descending into violence and desperation. Megatron's first order of business upon waking is beating the ever-living shit out of Starscream and giving him a "Reason You Suck" Speech to put him back in his place... but not so much of a beating that it keeps Starscream from betraying him again, as he considers Starscream's scheming an important activity that keeps him from growing complacent.
- Ramjet's Spotlight issue shows the conehead secretly working on a plan to overthrow Megatron, enslave humanity, and eventually conquer the entire universe. But despite his boasting, it's pretty clear that Ramjet is just deluding himself, and has neither the competence nor the resources to actually pull off his scheme. The issue ends with Ramjet being unceremoniously beaten to death by Megatron.
- Transformers: Generation One comics also had Megatron thinking that Starscream's scheming keeps him on his toes. However, it adds how, deep down, Megatron understands Starscream a bit. "Were our positions reversed, wouldn't I do everything to become leader?"
- Marvel's The Transformers comics meanwhile depicted Shockwave as this. He was certainly a dangerous guy on his own and he even led the Decepticons on Earth for a bit. However his overly cold and logic-based leadership just couldn't keep up with guys like Scorponok and Ratbat, and he eventually ends up spending an extended time trapped under the ocean because none of his troops bothered to rescue him. When he escapes later on, he attempts to form a coup against Scorponok and take back over as Big Bad, but by then, he's become little more than a nuisance to be dealt with before Unicron arrives.
- The Transformers (IDW)
- Y: The Last Man has the Daughters of the Amazon and their leader Victoria who wields a ton of influence in the crazy time following the gendercide. Victoria gets an axe to the head by the end of the second arc and the rest of them are soon rehabilitated.
