Jmarshmallow

Notable absentee from this list: Namor.

Where's Namor?

gotta go with stark.

Yep, Tony.

Where's Namor? He's the biggest jerk of all

Rulk. Rulk Rulk Rulk Rulk RULK!

I voted Xavier. Stay dead you jerk!

Mr Fantastic isn't a jerk.

@outside_85 said:

100% this. The only one who can even come close to Namor is Quicksilver. Nobody on this list even compares to either of them

My little Tony and Emma Frosted flakes.

Snarky Stark

Iron Man, no question.

Whenever someone asks me who's the biggest jerk in Marvel, I will always say Namor. But since he's suspiciously absent here, I say Emma Frost, I have yet to read anything with her that hasn't made me roll my eyes.

Namor.

Honorable mention: Cable.

Namor and Hawkeye.

Hal Jordan

Seriously, though - why on earth is Reed Richards on there?

- TAS

I didn't know Reed Richards was a jerk.. Hmm... Maybe you've read something I haven't

i would say namor but he is not nearly heroic enough to be deemed just that.................................probs ironman.....no matter how big a tony stark fan you are you have to admit he is a world class d-bag

So far it's Tony Snark.

Namor would get my vote. Namor or Magneto.

After that, pretty much anyone who's:

• a telepath,
• a speedster,
• or a genius

would be be a jerk, by the rationale of this poll. That's the idea, right? -the biggest jerks are the characters who are the most arrogant.

and the rest are jerks for either being insensitive, too sensitive, stubborn, or some combination of any of those traits. So it's probably easier to name the characters who aren't jerks, really:

so.. Cap', Nightcrawler, Invisible Woman, Scarlet Witch, Psylocke, the original New Mutants (minus Sunspot and Magik..), the Mighty Avengers (minus Spider-man..), Meggan, Chamber, Kate Bishop, and maybe about half of the New X-Men (at most).*

yeah, out of the hundreds of Marvel characters I can think of off the top of my head, there's maybe 20-30 who aren't jerks at least some of the time. But hey, character drama just wouldn't be as fun without the jerks.

To the jerks!

*(if anyone thinks I've either miscounted or misjudged, go ahead and call me on it :P)

Where the hell is Namor in the poll hahaha. I voted Iron Man he probably comes second.

@oldnightcrawler: you think Spidey's a jerk?

I think of Spidey as one of the characters most likely to do what he thinks is right, to have the strictest sense of morality, but it's kind of intrinsic to his character that he is a jerk.

I mean, what's the first thing that he does when he realizes he has powers? he acts completely selfishly to get revenge. He went from being bullied to being the bully; that's the idea behind him getting replaced by Dr.Octopus, right? it's only the impact that Uncle Ben had on him that made him a hero; not just that he died, for which Spidey also wanted revenge, but that his death illustrated the message that became central to Spidey's sense of duty and altruism.

I mean, even as a hero he's still an intellectual bully, constantly taunting everyone around him about their own faults and lording his own wit over them from behind his mask. Sure, as a perennial underdog, that may be part of his tactic to keep his foes distracted, but it's also just part of his personality.

@oldnightcrawler:

I think that that one mistake he made as a teenager shouldn't define him as a character. Regardless of how or why Uncle Ben's death changed him, it did in fact change him. And since when has Pete "lorded over everyone"? Yeah he makes fun of his villains and but around other heroes he's one of the humblest heroes out there.

1. If Spider-man's origin story isn't what defines him, I don't know what is. Sure, he's been through a lot of stuff, but the only lasting change in his character was the change that happens in that first story. It really is that change that defines him; everything that his character is still stems from that one solid little story. I'm not saying that makes his perspective or what he represents any less interesting or meaningful, but if you want to know who and what Spider-man is, Amazing Fantasy #15 is the only story you need to read to understand that.

2. okay, that was definitely not the best way to explain what I meant. I more meant that, with the combination of his wit and commitment to doing the right thing, there's a sort of smug sense of intellectual and moral superiority. Sure, he's humble around his heroes, Cap' or Thor, or other scientists he sees as being an inspiration to him, like Stark or Mr.Fantastic, but the cocky smugness still comes out around characters.

Obviously he's constantly belittling the intelligence of his enemies because, like any bullied nerd, that's his defense: sure, Juggernaut can beat the crap out of me, but he's an idiot anyway. Angry loner gets the power to take revenge, the bullied becomes the bully, etc. And he uses that to fight other bullies, so, okay, that's why we like him and that's why we get him.

But, like lots of unpopular kids who find themselves becoming accepted by those they look up to (in his case, the FF, the Avengers, and society in general), he becomes an agent of that social hierarchy by perpetuating the underdog status of other heroes. Spider-man knows what it's like to not be accepted by society (from being an unpopular teenager to being defamed by the media), but he's still not above treating other heroes, like say, the X-men, with mistrust and prejudice as though he's somehow morally or intellectually superior.

All of which is part of what makes him relatable. It's not a part of him that makes him likable, like when he's especially selfless, or when is genuinely humble, but it's part of him. All marvel heroes are flawed -it's what makes them relatable- and he's the marvel hero; he may be among the most morally upright and even the most humble, but what makes him interesting is that he's those things despite being kind of a common jerk.

@oldnightcrawler:

I guess I can sort of see where you're coming from. Jerk still seems a bit harsh IMO.

yeah, different people take the term different ways depending on the context. Obviously any behavior that's intentionally malicious would be a jerk move, and even with the most noble intentions arrogance can make one seem like a jerk.

Spidey can be arrogant at times, but that leads to jerk moves of forgetfulness: from forgetting how dehumanized and unappreciated he felt to be a social outcast himself, to forgetting to keep a promise like picking up eggs for Aunt May, Spider-man makes the kind of jerk moves than any of us could make.

I would even go so far as to say that it's because he realizes he's kind of a jerk, while holding himself to such a high moral standard, that keeps him as humble as he is. It's kind of like the duality between his self-righteousness and his self depreciation is what makes him so honest-feeling and relatable..

@testament said:

He doesn't seem like a jerk to me (well, his Ultimate Version maybe).

@oldnightcrawler: Well said. I can agree with that.

Captain America

He's pretty inconsiderate of other people's feelings, which has been pretty much a constant theme as long as I've been reading Fantastic 4. And he's pretty arrogant.

There's lots of examples of both his arrogance and his inconsideration to the feelings of others throughout his history, but I think his key role in Civil War serves as a decent example of both:

• However noble his intentions, he did think it was totally fine to clone a god to use as a weapon (arrogant),
• a god who was, at the very least, a friend of a friend (inconsiderate),
• to help him force every other superhero to register their secret identities with the government (inconsiderate),
• in a program that he himself, of course, would be partially in charge of, despite not being an agent of any government authority, based solely on his own belief that he and his chosen peers should be in charge of such a program (arrogant).

And that's not even counting all the negative things that happened because of all that, that's just what he was actually trying to do. Like I say, he may have had the best of intentions, but he still came off as an arrogant, inconsiderate jerk at the time. I like the character, but that is just part of who he is.

Off late I think Cyclops seemed like the perfect answer to me. Though, they have now sort of turned him into an anti-hero.

That's true but he only did it because he thought it was right, and afterwords he admitted he was wrong and made amends for his actions, and even took a bullet for his wife.

Thinking he was right doesn't make him not a jerk, neither does apologizing.

I'm not saying he's always a jerk, or that he's not also a great, heroic character, but when you behave like a jerk, you're being a jerk.

And with Mr.Fantastic, both arrogance and being inconsiderate of others are two major parts of his character. As well as whatever else he is: loving family man, scientific genius, selfless hero, he is also at times a jerk.

@oldnightcrawler: Yeah but compared to some of these other guys he's really not much of a jerk.

he's closer to the kind of jerk Xavier or Dr.Strange are: arrogant and self-important to the detriment of those around him.

he's not obnoxiously wearing his arrogance on his sleeve like Stark, Emma, or Namor, probably because it's not in his personality to notice the reactions of others like those characters do, but that doesn't make him less of a jerk, it just makes him a less obvious one.

His social skills suffer more from not paying attention to others than from confrontational bombast, so he's more well mannered than most of the characters we generally think of as jerks; but that's just as likely because civility is a more efficient way to deal with people.

@oldnightcrawler: I don't really think either of them are jerks either. Don't get me wrong, they have done some questionable things, but over all like Mr. Fantastic they have always been key guiding figures in the Marvel universe.

After the events of Civil War... definitely Tony.

so what is it that makes the other heroes on this list bigger jerks than them?

I mean, my whole point is that all of these characters are jerks in some ways, just not all in the same way. That's part of what makes most marvel characters interesting, maybe not that they're all jerks (although I think you could make a case for most of them being jerks in some way), but that they all have flaws and faults that define their characters.

But then, "jerk" is a bit of a subjective judgment anyway. So if you don't consider Xavier, Strange, or Mr.Fantastic to be jerks, what is it the others have done to incur the verdict of jerk?

@oldnightcrawler: IDK, I don't think that makes them interesting I think making them jerks brings down the characters themselves, because you have a harder time as the reading liking a jerk. Quite frankly I'd like it better if the characters were treated better then that.

Honestly I think characters like Tony Start or a majority of the X-Men could be considered jerks, since the X-Men comics are very soap opera like. Also Scott Lobdell's Teen Titans was a run full of jerks.

1. But the reason I like characters like Namor, Emma, Stark, Quicksilver, or, too many to mention, really, is because they're jerks; that's their function to the story, that's what makes them so entertaining. So, to me that logic just doesn't hold water.

2. okay, but why them and not the other characters that we were talking about? you didn't really answer my question.

@oldnightcrawler: The only time I like a jerk is if they know how to own it, like John Constantine, Guy Gardner, Namor, and sometimes Emma/Quicksilver, but what I don't like is when a publisher takes a well established or liked character and has them act like a jerk.

Not quite sure what you mean.

Were is Hope?

Tony Balony Stark

Im surprised Namor isn't on this list