There have been many leaders in comic books. Who do you think are the best leader?
There are many people that think Captain America is a the best leader, but I want to know why.
Posted by Set on :
I'd go with Captain America as well. He's generally been shown tactically competent, if not exactly a social powerhouse during downtimes (he's never been particularly good at keeping a team together, for instance, or helping teammates deal with personal stuff, although that's never been a problem, since the Avengers has always had forty or fifty people waiting in the wings to join anyway, and never seemed in danger of falling apart, despite the revolving door...).
Cyclops has been *said* to be an awesome leader, but almost never *shown* to be a good leader (often inspiring contempt from his teammates, shown terrible judgement, etc, etc.). That's hardly unique to Cyke, as Chris Claremont is a master of saying that characters are X (usually all wise or super cool or awesome people), and then portraying them as Y (usually psychos with poor impulse control and incredibly jerkish and judgemental attitudes to their so-called friends).
Nightwing/Robin, in the Teen Titans days, was said to be a good leader as well, but, honestly, his leadership style seemed pretty hit and miss, with him doing what he was gonna do anyway, and his fairly competent team doing what they where gonna do anyway. Not a lot of 'leadership' was shown, and he didn't have the job of herding headstrong cats that Tim Drake had with the Young Justice crew.
The Legion, with it's rotating leadership, is in the unusual position of it seeming like nobody takes the current leader terribly seriously, since half the team have been leader at some point or another, and there's a constant undercurrent of 'not how I would have done it' to their regular undermining of the current leader. Wildfire, Dawnstar, Sun Boy, Dream Girl, Brainiac 5, Shadow Lass, Timber Wolf, Violet, Quislet, Sensor, etc. are more or less always questioning orders or outright ignoring them (or passively-aggressively sniping at the current leader), in favor of what they think is the best thing to do in a given situation. That seems to have come in right at the ground floor, as Garth has never been one to take orders well, and, particularly with the recent developments, it looks like Imra has always trusted her own judgement on matters than anyone elses.
It's been quite awhile since I've seen a good portrayal of teamwork in comic books. For a few decades now, 'big scenes' have been of a single character doing something impressive, and, it's not uncommon for these showy scenes to have become necessary because the team didn't work together and got in over their heads...
It's probably not considered to be as 'dramatic' to show characters actually working together competently as a team to handle a situation, and not getting into trouble and having to be pulled out of it by some impressive straining risky display from a single character 'exceeding their limits.'
(Like the recent Adventure bit, where the kids get overwhelmed, and a deus ex magica from off-screen saves them. It's pretty much formula.)
Posted by Emily Sivana on :
Avengers and JLA, while friendly to each other don't have that familial relationship that the Teen Titans or X-Men seem to have. That makes me wonder about the JLA, does it have a leader most of the time?
Marvel's X-books have produced a small group of leaders. Cyclops is actually pretty competent to me when his family isn't around. The thing about Cyclops is he is very human, while Captain America is more of a symbol. I've known many men like Cyclops in my life, I've known few if any Captain Marvels.
Posted by He Who LSHes on :
Good question, Emily.
Captain America was always portrayed as the living embodiment of all things American, so, naturally, he's a good leader. I recall scenes of Avengers feeling motivated or inspired around him. There was a sense that if Cap was around, everything was going to be all right, or at least the fighting odds had increased in favor of the team. Cap was often portrayed as a brilliant tactician who knew his teammates' strengths and how to best utilize them in battle.
As for the JLA, IIRC, they had a rotating chairmanship, but without a clearly defined term, per the Legion. It didn't seem to make any difference most of the time. The chairperson led meetings, but no one seemed to be in charge during missions. The JLA got the job done without anyone feeling the need to call the shots.
In fact, the times when the JLA had a leader seemed to be the worst eras for the team. Aquaman assumed control of the team during the "New JLA" period (a.k.a. "JLA Detroit") of the mid-80s, but he left and was replaced by Batman, who is too much of a loner to be an effective leader. Both Aquaman and Batman seemed too autocratic, but they led the team when it was composed of second-stringers and hardly resembled the independent-minded heroes we'd come to expect.
Batman also led the JLA during the Giffen/DeMatteis run, but that version of the team was played for laughs, so it too does nothing for Batman's reputation as leader.
As for effective leaders, I always liked Dr. Strange as leader of the Defenders. Of course, this was an atypical team -- a non-team -- composed of strong-willed and independent personalities who worked together when they chose to. Stephen Strange seemed to recognize this: He played host, letting the team congregate at his mansion, and was not too strict in his dealings with them.
On the other hand, he could get what he wanted out of them, if necessary, such as forcing Namor into service in Defenders # 13-14. Namor quit immediately after the crisis was over, but Doc seemed to have known this would happen and took a calculated risk, as good leaders do.
[ April 19, 2011, 06:30 PM: Message edited by: He Who LSHes ]
Posted by Emily Sivana on :
And what is your opinion of the X-Team leaders? We have a nice handful: Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Havok, and Cannonball being the most obvious.
Posted by Quislet, Esq on :
I believe that the JLA doesn't have a formal leader most of the time. They will have one member take the lead in various adventures. This is not to say that they never had a leader. In the Detroit era, Aquaman was the de facto leader with J'onn as deputy. Most recently the writers had Black Canary be the offical leader.
In regards to what you said Set, I don't think having members who are head strong and who might think they know how to do it better means that the group doesn't have a good or strong leader.
I would have to say in the Teen Titans, the group did take its cues from Dick. It always was his plans for the most part that they would follow. At the same time, you have a group of highly competent individuals who don't need to be micromanaged.
I think it is hard to say who was the best leader as each character has a different style of leadership and each group has different leadership needs. For me the good leaders have been Dick Grayson for the Teen Titans, Captain America for the Avengers, Saturn Girl and Dream Girl for the Legion, Cyclops for the X-men and Mr. Fantastic for the Fantastic Four.
Posted by He Who LSHes on :
I always liked Cyclops as leader, though he was very tortured: tormented by the limitations of his power, his feelings for Jean, etc. Somehow, he was able to work through all that and call the shots when necessary. As you said, he was very human.
I think it helped that he was always the recognized leader of the team and, by the time of the New X-Men, the only remaining original member. No one else wanted his job or was jockeying for it, and that gave him natural authority, whatever his faults.
I don't have clear memories of Storm as leader, and I completely missed the tenure of the others. (I stopped reading the X-Men regularly around 1984 and have been back only a few times since.)
Posted by He Who LSHes on :
Robin/Nightwing always struck me as the DC equivalent of Cyclops. He was just sort of recognized as the natural leader, perhaps because he was Batman's sidekick, and Batman's reputation as a badass rubbed off on him. It's ironic that Dick was the least powerful Titan, but he was the one who called the shots. Like Cap, he was portrayed as a good tactician.
As for the Legion, my favorite leader remains Invisible Kid I, because, like Dr. Strange, he made a difficult choice and held one of his teammates accountable to his decisions as leader.
In Adv. 350-351, Ultra Boy starts to defy Lyle's order not to use his penetra-vision to discover the true identity of Sir Prize. Lyle asserts his authority in the only way he can: by slugging Jo in the jaw!
It took chutzpah to go up against one of the most powerful Legionnaires. It also showed Lyle's moral conviction as leader. He made a promise for the team, and the team was going to keep it.
Posted by He Who LSHes on :
Mr. Fantastic: The classic workaholic. The guy who is so devoted to his research that he ignores his personal needs and relationships. It's only because Sue, Ben, and Johnny love him so dearly that they put up with him, and, yes, he is the smartest of the bunch. I don't think he would make an effective leader on other teams, though.
Posted by rickshaw1 on :
Cyke was always a good leader in the sense that he knew what the job was, worked out a solution to it (often a hodgepodge with the "all new" team since they were almost always the underdogs, underpowered, under appreciated, under valued) and was best at getting it done with the available manpower. The change, as far as I was concerned, was when they killed Jean the first time and he went on that dang sabbatical. After that, he became a bit of a joke.
You never saw the real level of strength from him that he held, he was an excellent strategist, easily on par with Cap (though that would be downplayed when they bumped into other popular marvel characters). Its like when Legion, which was a powerhouse team, guested with JLA/JSA and suddenly were stupidly inept teens that needed rescueing.
Cyke was the guy doing the job no one else wanted, with what was available, in a thankless job, while having to set aside personal concerns. He was, for all intents and purposes, Blackbolt from the Inhumans, only without the respect of the other members of the Marvel U.
Posted by rickshaw1 on :
Oh, and Cyke was doing it without training, learning as he went along, much different from Cap who had military training and the resources to back it up.
Posted by Power Boy on :
There was an article about this on newsrama (i think) but i cant find it now. (About underated leaders versus the commonly thought better leader) two of it's assertion i agreed with were.
a) the Wasp as leader of the Avengers. She led the Avengers through the Masters of Evil takeover, and had to form a whole new team to defeat them. <don't mess with the Wasp> One great moment was when the Wasp and Ant-Man defeated Titania and Absorbing Man. Also, during her leadership she won the respect of Hercules.
b) Storm as leader of the X-Men. The article said because she related to each X-Man personally. I think cause she fought the Marauders with no powers, with two uninjured X-Men, while protecting a horde of Morlocks.
Posted by He Who LSHes on :
I had forgotten about the Wasp. Yes, she turned out to be a surprisingly effective leader. Her earlier personality suggested a more superficial and passive personality (she often deferred to Hank), but her break up with Hank seemed to have brought out a different side of her. She was quite an effective leader during the Masters of Evil arc.
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