We all have that friend that we put up with but Secretly Hate. For me, it's my good buddy Alphonso. He is a decent dude and all, but sometimes, he just comes off as empty and lacking in substance. And even in fiction, this dynamic can be seen amongst the pretend characters. Everyone hates Pierce in Community, C-3PO is a whiney cockbag, and the name "Friends" was a thinly-veiled cover up for a show that should have been titled "I Secretly Hate Your Guts, Ross". Not even superheroes are safe from the pain, with many comic book companies having those characters that, let's be honest really do suck. Somehow though, they're still around and people seem to like them. So I feel it is my job to break down a few walls and really generate some hate.
Cyborg (Victor Stone)
Cyborg isn't necessarily a bad character. He just suffers from the same problem that Superman suffers from: he is able to do too much, which, when you're writing something that revolves around physical conflict, is like making a baby with a rattle fight Hulk Hogan on cocaine.
Why People Love Him
Ethnic Diversity
Cyborg is just a redundant character that only serves to fill the void that was arbitrarily placed upon the world thanks to the 80's. As you flip through comic books, you realise that there is a distinct lack of ethnic diversity. Most of the characters are caucasian, and those that aren't are often given the name "Black Something", i.e. Black Panther. There are a few exceptions to these rules, for instance the Falcon is of African-American descent, an Black Adam is as white as you can get without going full Klan. Cyborg was DC Comic's 1980's equivalent of Roger Murtaugh; created because they wanted to be 'inclusive', or if you wanted to push the definition of hilarious, 'edgy'.
Powers
Victor Stone was a young African-American boy whose life was turned upside down. No, this isn't the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air; Victor was unwillingly given cybernetic enhancements by his parents to make him stronger, faster and smarter than everyone else. His fictional story line takes a dramatic Turn for the stereotypical when Victor begins to resent his life as a science experiment and starts to slacken off at school, becomes a major athletics champion (which, I would argue is a little unfair, because no one else was part goddamn Terminator) and gets in trouble with the authorities a fair few times. When some shit goes down at the lab his parent's work at, Victor is given a complete Xzibit-style Pimp My Life, and be becomes mostly robotic, with only half his face, his brain and his heart remaining human. He then attains the ability to interface with any electronic device, do everything with computational accuracy and turn his cybernetic Body parts into any conceivable mechanical form. So basically, he is a beefed up version of your blender.
Why He Actually Sucks
He Is Just Too Powerful
Just like good ol' Clark Kent, Cyborg becomes too powerful to be able to make for a decent conflict. When you can turn your body into just about anything manufactured after 1901, you suddenly become a lot more capable of kicking ass than you previously were, but that is exactly where the problem lies. Cyborg will never be left wondering what the threat he is facing is, because he can wirelessly connect to pretty much every database and network in the world. He will hardly ever face a threat that he can't defeat, and, when he is teamed up with his usual buddies, the Justice League or the Teen Titans (depending on the state of Cartoon Network on any given day) he is virtually unstoppable. On the very unusual occasion when he is in trouble, he can just teleport (or 'boom' as is it so onomatopoetically referred to) away from the problem. So writers are then faced with the problem of having to occupy Cyborg whilst the action occurs wherever he isn't. This usually involves making Cyborg hack a computer or trawl through a database to find out information while everybody else goes out and actually does something, Hawkgirl not included.
Redundancy
Cyborg doesn't really fit in to the whole scene. His whole look-how-smart-I-am vibe is just borrowing from Batman, his Super Strength and speed are already covered by pretty much everyone else, and the ability to teleport was made fairly redundant when the Justice League managed to put teleporters into the Watchtower. No not the Jehovah's Witness' book, it's the Justice League's super secret satellite base that you can totally not tell anyone about because it's super secret. Didn't you read the sign on the door? It said "Boys Only". And you can't break the rules of the door sign, mum.
Ant-man/Giant Man/Goliath/Yellowjacket (Dr. Henry Pym)Why He Actually Sucks
He Is Just Too Powerful
Just like good ol' Clark Kent, Cyborg becomes too powerful to be able to make for a decent conflict. When you can turn your body into just about anything manufactured after 1901, you suddenly become a lot more capable of kicking ass than you previously were, but that is exactly where the problem lies. Cyborg will never be left wondering what the threat he is facing is, because he can wirelessly connect to pretty much every database and network in the world. He will hardly ever face a threat that he can't defeat, and, when he is teamed up with his usual buddies, the Justice League or the Teen Titans (depending on the state of Cartoon Network on any given day) he is virtually unstoppable. On the very unusual occasion when he is in trouble, he can just teleport (or 'boom' as is it so onomatopoetically referred to) away from the problem. So writers are then faced with the problem of having to occupy Cyborg whilst the action occurs wherever he isn't. This usually involves making Cyborg hack a computer or trawl through a database to find out information while everybody else goes out and actually does something, Hawkgirl not included.
Redundancy
Cyborg doesn't really fit in to the whole scene. His whole look-how-smart-I-am vibe is just borrowing from Batman, his Super Strength and speed are already covered by pretty much everyone else, and the ability to teleport was made fairly redundant when the Justice League managed to put teleporters into the Watchtower. No not the Jehovah's Witness' book, it's the Justice League's super secret satellite base that you can totally not tell anyone about because it's super secret. Didn't you read the sign on the door? It said "Boys Only". And you can't break the rules of the door sign, mum.
| Worst of all, you ain't never getting laid, my friend. So you can go turn into whatever you want and teleport anywhere you like, but that isn't going to get you any tang, cause you don't have the necessary tools. |
What about Henry Pym isn’t crappy? This guy has some of the worst kinds of problems in his life, and worst of all, the writers didn’t even give him cool powers to make up for it. At some points in his publication history, some of the stuff he does would even be considered by his super-chums as being pretty damn dickish. He is married to fellow supertard Janet Van Dyne, The Wasp, who he frequently shrinks with the Pym Particles to accompany him on his fun-filled romps, because he hasn’t figured out he could just look in the “Petite” Section of the personal adverts.
Why People Love Him
Pym Particles
Hank discovered a type of subatomic particle early in his science career, that he arrogantly named after himself to make sure he can kick every science student in the guts forever. Pym Particles supposedly have the properties of being able to make any object, or living being, change its size and mass. Instead of using his new found particles to rule the porn industry, Pym decided to turn the particles into a kind of gas that allows him to grow or shrink himself. Pym can grow to theoretically any size, however, he is a huge pussy, and this takes an enormous strain on his body, so he can only maintain huge sizes for a short time. He has at times been able to grow to the size of a New York skyscraper, so he finally sell his telescope and look at all those naked people in their own homes from right up close. He has also been able to shrink to the size of a subatomic particle, God knows why, because, frankly, last time anyone looked, there is shit all to be found down there, except that one odd sock he lost last week.
Super Strength
To support his increase in size, Pym is able to gain super strength, however, the taller he grows, the more of his strength goes to supporting his own body. At 25ft tall, he is able to lift 10 Tonnes, but taller than 100ft, he is mostly restricted to 50 Tonnes, meaning that he becomes incredibly brittle. Clearly, his friends let him skip leg day, and they didn’t want to argue with the guy who can use mega ‘roids to grow to 100ft in an instant, because that amount of rage is just out of control.
| Well, he could be useful in stopping fire ants spreading if we were really scraping the bottom of the barrel... |
Why He Actually Sucks
He Has The Mental Stability of a Psychological Vesuvius
Pym has the biggest mental issues. The kind that when combined with genius level intellect and the power to jack one’s self up, really make a dangerous mix. He often forgets that he is meant to be keeping the world safe and he spends most of his time finding ways to piss off all of his on-again/off-again friends. At one point when he gets fired from the Avengers, Pym designs a robot that only he can stop, to kill all of his ex-team mates so that they will accept him back into the fold. However, he drops the ball, and completely double-books his schedule, so his wife has to destroy the robot for him. Perhaps worse, he can never decide who he wants to be, naming himself Ant-Man, Giant-man, Goliath, Yellowjacket, H. R. Puffenstuff, and Big Steve’s Mechanics and Diesel Fitters Pty Ltm, at any one time.
He Is An Addict To His Powers
Whenever he grew to enormous sizes, Hank’s body was fortified with extra muscle and bone density to cope with the extra mass, however, when he shrunk back to his normal size, his body was too meek to handle it, and at times, he would have the biggest come downs. He would be a total grouch, and offend his family, sometimes he’d suffer from random blackouts and would deny how much he is gambling to those closest too him.
He is the Biggest Hustler
Hank beat his wife on more than one occasion, and he discovered something called Pimp Articles... That is just screaming giant purple feathered hat.
Prepare your arguments, people, because I want to hear your rebuttals.
