Karen: Comics have lots of teams, and those teams all have leaders. But who, in your opinion, was the best team leader?Karen: I'll go ahead and throw out my choice, which is a pretty safe one: Captain America. The guy not only has the strategic and tactical know-how to command a team, he also has the moral authority to command respect, and the people skills to get along with everyone, from a Norse God to an android!
Karen: My second choice would be Cyclops -but only up to when I stopped regularly reading X-Men, which was right around the time Paul Smith took over the art. That Cyclops was a strong leader -heck, he kept Wolverine in line!
Karen: There area lot of options out there. People other than Cap have lead the Avengers -how about Iron Man, Thor, the Wasp? What about big-brained Reed Richards? Or the leadership skills of Dick Grayson? How does Superman size up as a leader?
Karen: So let's hear it, at both Marvel and DC -who is your choice for best team leader?
Cyclops
ReplyDeleteBatman. Intelligent, tough, shamelessly manipulative. Wouldn't want to work for the guy, but I would look terrible in Spandex anyway.
ReplyDeleteClose second is Storm with the X-men, back in latter Bronze age. (I have no idea how horribly she was characterized since then.)
I second the Cap nomination.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to throw Reed Richards in there, but the FF seemed to splinter too much.
Merryman from the Inferior 5. Anyone can lead the Justice League or the Avengers to victory. Anyone who can lead the I5 to victory is a great, great leader.
ReplyDeleteI'd have to give my vote to Hawkeye when at the very end of the Bronze Age he took on the West Coast Avengers gig. His dedication to getting that team to work was a core notion to the book through most of its run.
ReplyDeleteHis leadership run was very much a result of his tenure under Cap and others and he really wanted to show he could do it. He did.
Rip Off
Hawkeye is a great example of how a character can change and grow in an organic fashion over time. From cocky kid to respected team member to leader -wow!His relationship with Cap has always been one of my favorites in comics.
ReplyDeleteKaren
I’m striving hard to disagree with the all too obvious choice of Cap, but he is the obvious choice, taking over a team of Avengers that had a fraction of the power of the originals and moulding them into an actual team, who, although they fought like cats & dogs between themselves, were probably the most close-knit team of Avengers as a fighting machine.
ReplyDeleteI guess, just to play Devil’s advocate, I could mention the Vision’s stint when he was trying to take over the world. He managed to manipulate all of them into what, where and when he wanted, including dispatching Captain Marvel to the other side of the galaxy and actually founding a whole second team o f Avengers. In terms of taking over the team, he really went for it.
But there is a fatal flaw in your thread........you’re focussing on super-goodies. If you want corking team leaders, you need to look to the baddies: Magneto, Mystique, Zemo, Sebastian Shaw, Egghead, The Ringmaster. Count Nefaria must have whipped up a team of super baddies at some point....although the guys he sent against the X men were just pawns, weren’t they? The Lethal Legion were his too, I think, but then they were just pawns as well, so maybe Nefaria’s out. Did anyone actually lead the Squadron Sinister / Supreme ? And, of course, if we’re talking Zodiac, we’re talking Cornelius Van Lunt.
Richard
Are we limiting ourselves to the Bronze Age here? 'Cause if we aren't, I want to through my support to the Martian Manhunter in Justice League International, with an honorable mention to Justice League Europe's Captain Atom
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