TOP 10 CONTROVERSIAL SUPERHEROES PART 2
Hey guys!
Welcome back to top 10 nerd.
I’m your host kelly paoli and today we’re back at it with another part to our controversial
superheroes list.
While we covered a lot of the main stream controversial heroes last time around, this
time we’re going to be dabbling a bit deeper into the obscure with some of the numbers
on this list.
So let’s get into these scandalous heroes and all their glory.
And let’s remember - sometimes it’s not the character’s fault - it’s the creative
team writing them.
Just a little thing to keep in mind.
10 All Star Batman Remember that time Batman called Robin retarded
and was just generally the biggest asshole ever?
Why yes, thanks Frank Miller.
All Star Batman and Robin’s Bruce Wayne is likely one of the more gruesomely gritty
versions of the dark knight in the history of the character.
And makes sense - this is the Bruce Wayne that would later become the old man vigilante
in Miller’s classic Dark Knight Returns.
But while age made him more complex, his younger self in All Star was criticized for how brash
it was, and was even censored after the fact.
9 Madame Fatal A superhero that existed during the golden
age, Madame Fatal was a male hero who dressed up as an old woman.
Aka the first cross dressing hero, prior to the red tornado.
While at the time it was perfectly fine to have a character that nowadays would be seen
as quite politically incorrect, the character was later critiqued for being thinly disguised
as homosexual.
And you can see why DC would decide to ditch the character, with only a handful of small
appearances between 1956 and 2012, most of those being slight references in other character’s
dialogue.
8 Marcus Immortus Alright, so if you’re unfamiliar with this
character, here’s the simple breakdown for you.
While trapped in limbo, Marcus Immortus reaches out to Carol Danvers, rapes her via his emotion
altering, impregnants her with what would be the reincarnation OF HIMSELF so he can
get back to earth.
And we’re not talking a normal pregnancy here either - no she gave birth days later.
And after he was born he almost immediately grew into his adult form.
Also weird.
And then the two were still kind of lovers?
So yes, hella weird.
Now there’s been some serious debate over whether or not this is actually rape.
But like, if you’ve gotta ask, I mean, that should kind of answer that question for you.
Regardless, that debate has made him one of the more controversial and questionable characters
over the years.
7 Wolverine It’s easy to see why Wolverine is a fan
favourite.
But there’s been times were some critiques have felt he was a tad too controversial - from
his excessive use of violence against his foes, to pulling issues of his solo line because
of ethnic slurs.
So back in 1998, Brian K Vaughn wrote the script for Wolverine 131, a villain named
Viper calls Sabretooth a racial slur that starts with a k.
While it wasn’t coming from Wolverine, because it appeared in his series, the character was
associated with racial slurs and got backlash because of it.
Aside from that unfortunate circumstance, Logan has generally been associated with a
ton of violence as I mentioned earlier, which still gets flack today - the recent Logan
film, while being critically acclaimed, got some heat for being perceived as too violent.
6 Bueno Excelente A superhero sex offender?
Yep, that’s Bueno Excellente.
He’s a hero who fights crime with the powers of perversion.
If that sounds backwards to you, well yes, you’re right, thats not how you fight crime.
But to be fair the character was satire, part of the tongue and cheek team Section 8.
But let’s be honest - when Bueno starts getting pervy and there’s some implied sodomy
going on, I can see why readers would feel like he’s a little too extra.
5 Superior Spiderman Now we’ve talked a bit about the Superior
Spider-man story arc in a few of our other lists, but if you didn’t know about it,
this is when Otto Octavius aka Doc Oct switched bodies with Peter Parker when he was dying
of a terminal disease.
So yeah.
People were pissed.
Cause he became spiderman.
And although he made some arguably cool adjustments to the spidey suit, people were NOT cool with
the idea that Peter was going to die and one of his biggest foes was taking over his mantle.
4 Dick Grayson (as the Joker in Dark Knight Strikes Again)
In Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Strikes Again, we get to see what our number 8 all
star Batman turned his Robin into.
So Grayson had been fired by Bruce years and years prior to his appearance in the dark
knight strikes again.
And when he does reappear, he’s taken up the mantle of the Joker.
Which was something that didn’t really body well with a lot of fans.
Also, disproportionate forearms.
Just saying.
3 Rorschach Rorschach has been criticized for being excessively
violent in his approach to defeating criminals.
In the fictional world of Watchmen and in the real world too.
While he was dialled down a bit for the 2009 Watchmen film, his moral absolutism helped
make him a major fan favourite, and has won the character many a title, ranking pretty
high on multiple greatest comic book character lists.
But the controversy that comes with Rorschach isn’t a fault of his own.
It’s been with how some fans perpetuate him as a hero, rather than understanding Alan
Moore’s deconstruction and commentary of the superhero genre, and how his character’s
merciless follow-his-own-law perspective is very much a part of that commentary.
What do you guys think?
Do you see Rorschach as more of a hero than vigilante?
Let us know in those comments below.
2 Tarantula Speaking of Dick Grayson, remember that time
he got raped by his mentee who was in love with him but it was totally inrequited?
Right, yeah.
That’s a storyline we probably won’t see pop up anytime in the future.
Anyway, if you were familiar with it, this Tarantula was the second to take up the mantle,
Catalina Flores, who first appeared in Nightwing 71 back in 2002.
Grayson, as nightwing, mentored her, and after suffering a defeat from a foe along with a
whole lot of other trauma we won’t get into, she decides to take advantage of his weakened
state, even though he tells her to stop.
Yeah.
Not cool.
1 Hooded Justice From Watchmen, Hooded Justice is one of the
Minutemen, the first team of vigilantes to appear in the Watchmen universe.
And Hooded Justice is the very first masked vigilante.
While it’s implied in the original text that Hooded Justice is circus strongman Rolf
Muller, infamous for sexually abusing and killing children, Before Watchmen: Minutemen
retconned that, implying that he was Muller’s son or ward, potentially being a victim of
Muller’s abuse.
Aside from being a controversial character in the watchmen narrative, his representation
in before watchmen has been controversial too, mainly due to the retcons the character
has received.
While he disappeared in the original text, it was retconned in before watchmen that the
character was killed by Hollis Mason when the Comedian made him believe that Hooded
Justice was Muller, causing Mason to snap his neck.
There we have it friends!
What characters do you think are controversial that haven’t made our lists?
Let us know in those comments below.
And if you’d like us to do any other lists - maybe something on hooded justice or the
minutemen?
I mean, I know I’d love to - let us know in those comments below!
But for now, I’m Kelly Paoli for top 10 nerd, and I’ll catch you all in the next
one!