These 5 Iconic Comic Characters Have Faced Every Kind Of Villain Except The One Within

Superheroes and supervillains have a lot more in common than it can appear on the surface. Sure, their morals are completely different, but all of them are people who decided to use their skills and abilities, be they mundane or preternatural, to take completely new directions in life. Marvel Comics and DC Comics have spent decades digging into the personalities of these superpowered beings, giving readers some of the coolest stories in fiction as they revealed who and what they are, showing how similar they are. One of their most interesting commonalities, though, is self-esteem. While it can seem like they have high self-esteem, many of them suffer from having little to no self-worth.

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Low self-esteem affects heroes and villains in different ways and is often the one enemy they can’t defeat. Their lives are plagued by crippling self-doubt and anxiety, with many of them using their superpowered escapades as cover for the foe who eats them from within. Their low self-esteem has led to numerous other problems in their life, but in many ways it has also defined who they are. These five characters can beat anyone except their inner saboteur, making their battles even more difficult.

5) Thanos

Thanos is one of Marvel’s greatest villains and his low self-esteem is the thing that made it all possible. Thanos is an Eternal of Titan, so when he was born looking the way he did, the Eternals hated him immediately. He reminded them of their ancient foes the Deviants and this sealed his fate. Even his own mother tried to kill him and he learned to hate all the people of Titan as much as they hated him. He internalized their hatred and began to hate himself as well, which led to the nihilism that is his most defining characteristic. He was told almost from birth that he was a monster who meant nothing to the people of Titan and he started to believe that not only did he mean nothing, but nothing else did either. MCU fans made fun of his love of Mistress Death, but it’s honestly just the ultimate extension of his nihilism; who else would someone who thought nothing mattered fall in love with? If you want to get it from the horse’s mouth, go and read Infinity Gauntlet #5, where Thanos creator Jim Starlin has Adam Warlock reveal that Thanos’s low self-esteem is both why he does what he does and why he constantly self-sabotages; he doesn’t feel worthy of anything.

4) Doctor Doom

Doctor Doom is one of the most arrogant characters in comics, so I won’t blame you if you don’t think he should be on this list. We’ve all been wrong before. Let’s face facts though – the only people as arrogant as Doom are people who think that they are worthless on the inside. Doom grew up on the run from Latveria’s Baron, constantly feeling powerless to make a difference in his own life. His mother was taken from him by Mephisto and his father died keeping him safe from the Baron’s forces. These feelings of worthlessness and powerlessness drove him on, trying to prove that he had worth and power, but this only opened him up to more failures. Every failure became a lodestone around his neck, dragging him down, forcing him to constantly cover for it with his arrogance. It’s often been said that Doom would be the greatest hero if it wasn’t for his arrogance and his low self-esteem plays into that. The losses of his early years set him on the path he’s on now, cursing him to walk a lonely, hateful road. It’s made even worse when you realize that he chose this path himself.

3) Lex Luthor

Lex Luthor is Marvel’s most unhinged genius, something that is compounded by his low self-esteem. All of this started with his father, Lionel Luthor. Lionel was an abusive alcoholic scientist who was always tormenting his children, with young Lex taking the brunt of it to save his sister Lena from Lionel’s not-so tender ministrations. Lex’s father made him feel worthless and he’s spent the years since trying to prove to himself and the world that he’s not. This pathological need to prove himself is the entire reason he’s a villain in the first place. He’s obsessed with the approval of the world, to the extent that he hates anyone who the people love more than him. His arrogance and rage hides the true person he is underneath it all – a scared, abused child trying to show his father that he was worth loving. The more you know about the Lex, the more it become apparent that he’s one of the saddest villains out there.

2) Cyclops

Cyclops is the X-Men’s greatest leader and I would go so far to say that he’s the best in the Marvel Universe. He’s everything you’d want a hero to be – smart, strong, skilled, trustworthy, indefatigable. However, the reason that he’s grown to that level is more tragic than you can imagine. Scott Summers lost his parents, jumping out of a plane to save himself and his brother Alex from an alien attack. He was injured in the fall and when his mutant powers manifested, they were completely uncontrollable. Alex was adopted before him, leaving him in the orphanage to be experimented on by Mister Sinister. This is the teen that Charles Xavier recruited and he did it for a tragic reason – after reading Scott’s mind, he realized that the boy would probably kill himself if he left him in the orphanage. Xavier decided to build Scott up into the leader of his X-Men, all to give him a reason to want to continue living (in case you’re wondering, this is canon; it was revealed in Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men run but I don’t remember the exact issue off the top of my head and think it’s in the story “Torn”). Knowing this makes the story of Cyclops even sadder than it already was.

1) Spider-Man

Spider-Man is Marvel’s most relatable hero, especially to those of us with low self-esteem. Peter Parker lost his parents before he was old enough to remember them. While his aunt and uncle did an amazing job with him, he always had that hole inside of him. Peter was a nerdy, bookish boy raised by two old people and his classmates were brutal to him. He was constantly being mocked, leading him to believe that he didn’t matter to anything or anyone. It was only after he was bit by a radioactive spider that he found a way to weaponize his low self-esteem. Spider-Man was everything he couldn’t be in his daily life, a hero who always knew the right thing to say and was constantly putting his life in danger to help the people around him. Spidey is what he would be like if he didn’t have his crippling self-esteem, showing how much the tribulations of his life have changed him and his destiny.

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