Day 53: The Worst Leaders in Fictional History
It takes quite a bit to lead. There’s a lot to be said about being brilliant, but there’s also some intangibles required to be the head that wears the crown. Here are some of the various people who just didn’t have what it takes.
Gaius Baltar: Battlestar Galactica - Got elected President of the Twelve Colonies, and after spearheading his single campaign promise of settling the planet known as New Caprica just kind of hung out. New Caprica is somehow simultaneously swampy and freezing, and everyone is pretty pissed to be there after a month, and while the rest of the survivors have to live in tents, Gaius lives in the President’s Ship Colonial One, where he gets to stay warm and bang interns, as well as, having kinky imaginary sex with his pretend girlfriend, Six, the Amazon-esque genocidal blonde robot. The second the Cylons find what’s left of humanity, Baltar’s administration begins to collude with the robots. He gets people thrown in prison without trial and signs death orders. Baltar’s greatest achievements include helping wipe out humanity and finding a baby.
Mayor Diamond Joe Quimby: The Simpsons - He’s an illiterate pot-smoking spend-o-crat.* When faced with the prospect of Springfield going bankrupt is to take what’s left of the money, become mayor of a better town, and then send for the rest of them. Last, but not least, he has trusted Homer Simpson with his life all because Homer could beat up attendees at a sci-fi convention.
*Vote Quimby.
The Galactic Senate: Star Wars - Are you serious? A million fucking aliens from a million fucking galaxies with a million fucking ways of philosophies/ways of looking at things/super senses and no one, not a single one of you think that Senator Palpatine, the guy walking around in a hood, who aged sixty years since the last time you saw him, whispers to himself incoherently, and laughs maniacally after every statement is a man to be suspicious of? Let’s not forget the fact that he wants to dissolve your entire base of power because your government is losing a war against Asian stereotype aliens and their legions of robots that, in one battle, were destroyed by a child in a jet and retarded Jamaican frog aliens?
I hope all you dumbasses were the first ones up against the wall.
The Mayor of Gotham City: Batman Comics, TV shows, and Movies - I don’t know if you have a name, or how many of you there are, but Jesus Christ, your city is routinely held hostage by a clown and its only hope is a psycho who dresses in head to leather fetish gear and throws razor-sharp boomerangs at people. I’d be shocked if every mayor never finished a term and was instead dosed with laughing gas, dipped in acid, eaten by birds of prey, bitten in half by alligators in the sewer, or were so traumatized psychologically that they jumped out of their office window.
Magistrate Higgins: Firefly - How shitty of a job do you have to be doing that Jayne Cobb, whose only response to a mentally disturbed stowaway is that while she’s not all “there,” she’s cute enough that she doesn’t have to be, is a folk hero worthy of creating a statue for him by your people? These people toil as slaves for you in terrible conditions will still construct a statue at end of the workday to spite you. Every child on your planet knows the words to a song that talks about how the guy screwed you over and took all of your cash.
Lt. Gorman: Aliens - You idiot; you got Apone killed.
Every sci-fi movie or video game that has come out since 1986 has aped the Aliens formula and given us a group of hard-assed, wise-crackin,’ multi-ethnic squad of grunts, despite the fact that most of the squad died in the first ten seconds of being in the same room with a Xenomorph. That’s how cool the marines were, and you got them killed because you’ve never actually fired a round in anger and still tried to lead. I’m glad you got blown up, but it’s horseshit that Vasquez had to go with you.
Bonzo Madrid: Ender’s Game - The inept leader of Salamander Army; Bonzo can follow what all the textbooks tell him well enough, and he’s charismatic enough to get his people behind him, but he’s no Ender, and what’s more he knows it. The youngest kid to ever enter the Battle School has been placed into his army, and there’s no doubt that this Ender Wiggin maybe be one of the most brilliant. This realization, coupled with Bonzo’s Spanish pride makes him cruel, but to be fair, how many of us at 11 or 12 would be cool with a six year old telling us how to run things?
Bonzo is sadly outclassed, and even with every advantage in the Battle Room, his army is still utterly obliterated by a plan that involves all the either smallest or, on paper, least exceptional kids holding hands and/or hugging.
Proteus: JLA #1-4 - Proteus is the head of a group of alien superheroes, called the Hyperclan, who fled their universe when the people of their worlds annihilated each other using nuclear and biological weapons. They arrived on Earth with an offer to turn our world into a paradise. They executed super-criminals, turned the Sahara Desert into the Garden of Eden, and became the hottest celebrities on the planet. The Hyperclan is actually the vanguard for a Martian invasion force. Every Martian has Superman’s powers plus shape shifting, invisibility, and telepathy, and there’re seventy more in our atmosphere waiting for the signal from the Hyperclan to invade. The Hyperclan has mentally taken control of all heroes whose powers are fire based, and is getting ready to publicly execute the Justice League. Even Superman is strapped to a chair, slowly going insane from Kryptonite poisoning. The only League member left standing is Batman. Proteus dismisses the threat, and dispatches four of his soldiers to find Batman and receive the beating of their lives.
“Batman? Batman? He’s only a man!”
Note to anyone interested in a future career of super-villainy: never, ever, EVER, underestimate the Batman. He could be tied up, beaten, injected with the Ebola virus, and both arms and legs broken; you could have just blown up Metropolis, Smallville, and cut off Lois Lane’s head, pushing Superman to the point where he will finally take a life, and the most dangerous thing on Earth is still the crippled guy hanging upside down* ten feet from you.
*you didn’t hang him upside down? You idiot, tying him up buys an extra three seconds to escape when he inevitably escapes
Matt