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Control Freak / Comic Books

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Control Freaks in Comic Books.


  • Batman:
    • Batman might be the poster boy for this trope. After witnessing his parents being murdered in a random mugging, he became obsessed with bringing order to himself and the world around him to prevent such things from happening to anyone. He meticulously plans out everything and is unable to deal if any little thing goes not according to plan. In the JLA: Tower of Babel storyline, Ra's al Ghul is able to use his plans to take down the Justice League of America (you know, his friends). He unconditionally trusts probably three people: Alfred, Dick Grayson, and Leslie Thompkins. If anything, he's more controlling of those close to him than he ever is to his enemies: he micromanages his kids' every move, inside and outside the context of being superheroes, and regularly attempts to threaten or manipulate allied superheroes to follow his demands. More than once has the Justice League voted to expel Batman after one of his many contingencies or manipulations went too far.
    • Deathstroke has a warped sense of familial responsibility but also enjoys using drugs to keep control over younger heroes he's "taken" on as proteges. This includes his daughter Rose Wilson, even after her drug-induced psychosis made her gouge out an eye, Cassandra Cain in an effort to take revenge on the Bat Family taking Rose from him, one of the explanations as to why the first Terra had a manic breakdown, and later with Roy Harper after his daughter died via getting Roy unknowingly addicted to Bliss.
  • In The Boys, The Leader Billy Butcher shows shades of this throughout the story. When he first gave Hughie the Super Serum, he says that it's for his own good and makes his lack of permission seem like a minor oversight. Near the end it's revealed that he's been paying Hughie's landlord to masturbate onto his front door ever since Hughie ignored his recommendation to find a nicer apartment. When he acts like a Papa Wolf to Janine, one would assume it's because he's a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Then he murders her mother in front of her with the implication that she'll be next if she keeps distracting M.M. from their crusade. And then there's the incident with Da Chief Rayner, where he threatens to murder her and her entire family if she ever contacts a Supe behind his back again. When she tries to run away by putting Monkey in charge, he doesn't take it well to say the least.
  • The leaders of the Pro-Registration side during Civil War (mainly Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic) come off as this, insisting that their calculations show that instituting the Superhuman Registration Act is the only way to go and having no qualms resorting to controlling supervillains, imprisoning people in a hellish other dimension and cloning the thought-dead Thor in order to get their way.
    • In one notable What If?, the Watcher shows Tony alternative ways the event could have gone: in one universe Iron Man is killed early on and Henry Gyrich, who is even more of a control freak, takes over, ending with just about all the superhumans dead. When Tony claims that this proves that he was right, the Watcher shows him another universe where instead of trying to control Captain America and the Anti-Registration Side, he genuinely reaches out to them to explain his thoughts, leading to a unified front that leads to a more utopian outcome (superhumans still need to register, but clauses like forcing them to work for the government when called upon are removed).
  • Leetah in ElfQuest considers herself one of these: she wants to have complete control over her healing powers, going so far as to stab herself in the stomach to force her powers to surge. Granted, she was reacting to severe emotional trauma at the time, but she's admitted that the attitude extends to her daily life and her family. Often, her first reaction to panic is to take charge, heal everything in sight, fix what can be immediately fixed (even if it's a terrible idea to do so) and have a proper emotional breakdown later.
  • New Gods: Darkseid is a highly extreme example. He wishes to impose not just his rule, but his will, upon every single sentient being in the universe. He considers free will a threat to him, so he seeks the Anti-Life Equation to eliminate free will and impose only his own will upon the universe. He actually gets to use the Anti-Life Equation in Final Crisis, taking over The Multiverse in doing so.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
    • Sally Acorn had shades of this in the earlier, more comical issues, usually butting heads with the reckless and free-spirited Sonic as a result. This was diluted as the stories matured, the rare occasions she delves back in this trope are more Played for Drama.
    • This trope is the entire reason Dr. Eggman comes into conflict with Sonic and the Freedom Fighters during the Shattered World Crisis. In a nutshell, he wants to be the one in charge of when and how the world is put back together.
  • Superman:
    • Brainiac is another extreme example. He travels world to world, stealing technology and culture and then destroying the worlds, keeping one city bottled up for him to remember it by. He hates any situation in which he is not in control, despises developments that are not supervised by him, and would sooner see the universe remain in stasis or be reduced to nothingness than let it change.
    • Lex Luthor is definitely one. A Corrupt Corporate Executive, Mad Scientist, and Diabolical Mastermind all in one, he slowly built his control over Metropolis to the point he controls the media, politics, and even the criminal element of the city. One of the main reasons he hates Supes so much is that he can't exert his control over him in any way, thus he pours billions of dollars into giving himself comparable power to either match or destroy Superman just to prove to himself that he's superior.
  • Getaway from The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye proves to be this. On the surface, he's a friendly guy willing to do anything for the crew, but scratch that surface and you'll find a possessive and controlling narcissist who's deluded himself into thinking he's destined to be Prime. He basically expects everyone to unhesitatingly do what he says, believing that everything would be perfect if people would just shut up and listen to him. Getting contradicted, disrespected, or disobeyed in any way sends him on childish temper tantrums; at one point he goes into a psychotic fit of rage because somebody refused to answer his phone call. Eventually, everybody catches on to the fact that he's a lying nutcase and refuse to follow his orders anymore. Getaway responds by using his nudge gun to brainwash them before they can leave the ship so that they have to do what he says.
  • X-Men:
    • Deconstructed with Cyclops; while being a control freak makes him an effective leader and strategist, it's also the main reason he doesn't get along with his teammates outside of a combat setting (especially Wolverine). It's been made clear that because his powers are uncontrollable, Cyclops compensates by attempting to have total control over every other aspect of his life.
    • Cyclops' son, Nate Grey a.k.a. X-Man, is prone to this as well, for similar reasons — his powers are vast and for a long time, next to impossible to completely control, and he had legitimate reason to be afraid that he would rewrite reality in his sleep. Plus, he grew up as part of a band of wandering guerrilla fighters in the dystopian Age of Apocalypse reality (and just plain homeless when he ended up in the main Marvel Universe, until he eventually wound up living on Utopia, then in San Francisco with the New Mutants). Like his father, this makes him an excellent strategist, but not very good with people, and this, combined with his obsession with preventing Earth-616 from becoming like his homeworld, ultimately led to him creating the terrifyingly upbeat alternative in the form of Age of X-Man, enforced with memory wipes, mind-control, and secret police. His entire Character Development in the latter was about letting go.

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