Small Name Big Ego / Comic Books

aka: Comics

• Asterix: Cacofonix, the dreadful bard. His bravado makes him the perfect unwitting weapon against the Romans, but usually he's just made to shut up with varying degrees of force. His moment to shine came when Vitalstatistix's nephew Justforkix was being held by Normans who wanted to learn the meaning of fear. Cacofonix's singing was so bad they became scared for the first times in their lives. In one story, a newcomer to the village has called an election as he has a (tenuous) claim on being chief, so the current chief sends Cacofonix, as the person he most trusted to vote for him, to spy on the others to find out who they'd vote for. Cacofonix returns with the data, and a black eye given to him by Fulliautomatix, who thought he was going to sing. The chief attempts to comfort him by saying that he appreciates his music, so Cacofonix, obviously very excited to have someone to play to, starts playing him a new song he wrote. The chief starts screaming in agony and begging him to leave, so Cacofonix storms out, announcing he's changing his vote.^note This was an untranslatable pun in the original version, since the words for vote and voice are the same in French
• Jack from Jack of Fables is a rare example of a main character being a Small Name Big Ego. He frequently embellishes himself while narrating; for example, in the beginning, when he recapped the events of Fables, he made it look as though he was the Big Damn Hero of the Battle of Fabletown when he really just played a minor role, and failed at it, to boot.
  • Turned on its side, the more popular one is with the Mundanes, the easier it is to survive. (That's the current theory, anyway.) Jack scams his way into making movies about his past adventures and literally makes his own ego come true. He loses all his cash and friends eventually, of course, but now is nearly (nearly) immortal. Although a later issue in his own series briefly showed a newspaper title indicating the popularity of Jack's films were starting to plummet.
• Crackerjack from Astro City is a variation. He is both highly skilled and truly heroic, but there is no amount of skill that can back up all that talk...
• Guy Gardner from Green Lantern is constantly lamenting the fact that he is not the primary Lantern of Earth's sector, and bad-mouths Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner and John Stewart any chance he gets. There is a tradition beginning with Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire's first issue of Justice League International of Guy demanding to be instated leader of any new incarnation of the League, for reasons obvious to no-one but himself.
• The Sandman (1989): The 24 Hours story introduces a waitress named Bette who, unbeknownst to everyone else, has written numerous stories, most of them about her customers at the diner. Bette figures that someday, she'll send the stories out to be published, become famous, and all the famous talk show hosts and critics will marvel at her depiction of small-town life. Since some of her tales involve her ex-husband and her convict son coming back to her, it's obvious that Bette's stories are self-indulgent garbage, and by the issue's end, it's obvious that she knows next to nothing about her customers.
• Spider-Man: Mysterio's a firmly B-list villain at best, but his ego is the size of a planet. He's had a respectable career as a villain, but he's not anywhere near the level of the Green Goblin or Doctor Octopus. He doesn't take it well when he realizes his true place on the villain ladder.
• Superman:
  • Cat Grant thinks that she is the center of the universe (she isn't), and in Supergirl (Rebirth) she believes that several train hijackers were after her (they weren't).
  • In Supergirl storyline "The Super-Steed of Steel", Vostar considers himself to be the world's biggest genius and greatest criminal mind despite being a lowly criminal who was easily captured and was never seen again after being put in prison. And his so-called rival, Lex Luthor? Never heard of him.
  • In Superboy (1994) #65, a postscript to the Hyper-Tension storyline in which various characters apply to replace the missing Superboy, including some really obscure ones, Flamebird comments disparagingly on this, and identifies the supposed new Hawk & Dove as imposters because they don't know who she is. The story makes very clear that nobody knows who she is except Robin, who calls her "a superhero groupie who used to bother Nightwing".
    Flamebird: Can you believe how many second-stringers showed for this?
    Steel: Well, I don't really think you can rank heroism, Miss ... um, what was your name again?
• The Batman Adventures:
  • At the very first issue, the Penguin asks his henchmen to share a new word they have learned ("because being a criminal doesn't mean being dumb"). This patronizing attitude is worsened because the Penguin doesn't know what a word means, so he lies to them and makes it up. One of the henchmen dared to complain...
  • At Batman Adventures Vol 2, a subplot for issues 1 to 13 is the Penguin winning Gotham's election for Mayor... but Batman discovers that it is another revenge scheme by the Clock King to ruin (ex) Mayor Hill's life... the point is that the Penguin really believed that the people liked him and truly voted for him (he was sixth)... then we have this resign speech:
    Penguin: So I resign. You don't get Oswald Cobblepot to kick around anymore!... At least not until the fall election, you've seen what I can do as Mayor, Gotham City. When the time comes, I'm sure to come back in a landslide!!... Now, NO further questions you vultures! I'm done with you!
  • Temple Fugate (the future Clock King) cannot understand why Counselor Hill has not learned his name yet, even when they have shared the same train each day for one year, seven months and thirteen days. This is one of the signals of Fugate's arrogance: he believes he can do everything in the most efficient way.
• A short Massive Multiplayer Crossover in the 2001 Oni Press Color Special featured a parody of Ego the Living Planet whose huge ego drove him to Retcon Madman to death. He was based on Retcon-artist extraordinaire John Byrne, "but not enough for him to sue us!"
• Brainy Smurf of The Smurfs, more so in the cartoon show where he usually elevates his importance to levels beyond his ability to deliver upon his claims.
• Brainstorm in The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye. He is genuinely brilliant, but he doesn't seem to quite have the fame he thinks he does, and continually talking about how clever he is doesn't quite manage to make up the difference. It mostly seems to be a way to deal with Perceptor being better-known than he is.
  • Deconstructed through Anode; during her apprenticeship at the Lighthouse, she would frequently make boasts well beyond her actual skill level. This ends up biting her in the ass when she's given an assignment she wasn't fully prepared for and killed a protoform as a result.
• Phoney Bone of Bone, especially in the early issues of the series. He complains about "the most beloved Bone in Boneville" being run out of town, and while lost in the wilderness, laments about God abandoning "His most beloved son." But according to Smiley Bone, the mayor of Boneville once declared a school holiday so kids could throw rocks at Phoney, and with Phoney's Jerkass tendencies and greed, it's easy to see why.
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1992): Roam is arrogant, snide, condescending and thinks he should be the prophesied hero destined to save Hyrule. When Roam challenges Link for the Master Sword, the latter wins with a single Sword Beam.
• Captain America: Albert Malik, the second Red Skull, likes to boast about how he's more dangerous than Johann Schmidt could ever be. Schmidt's life is a laundry list of pure skin-crawling evil, both large and petty, while Malik's greatest (and, frankly, only) claim to fame is killing Spider-Man's parents.
• In Batman (Grant Morrison), Wingman, the former Batman of Sweden, will tell anyone who'll listen that he definitely wasn't trained by Batman; they just worked together once because Batman recognized his skill. And he's not ripping off Batman with his near-identical outfit and name, because he came up with the concept a year before Batman debuted. As it turns out, he's abundantly aware that he's far less impressive than Batman career-wise, but he's convinced himself that all he needed was one push.

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