We’re talking heroes who have either retired, lost hope, or decided to stop their vigilante
careers because of circumstances that conflicted with their beliefs, personal lives, you name
it.
These heroes all found reasons to give up fighting for the greater good, or found other
ways to fight for it that had them leaving their heroic positions and taking on new kinds
of roles.
So with that in mind, let’s get to our list.
10 Iron Man Tony Stark isn’t the kind of person to give
up easily.
But he’s also suffered the pangs of addiction; in the Bronze Age, we were introduced to Stark’s
drinking problem in 1979’s Demon in a Bottle, a story line that many see as the quintessential
Iron Man story.
It would be later riffed on again a handful of years later in 1985 in Iron Man issue 200
when Tony started drinking once more, except this time, writer Denny O’Neil made it a
harder habit to kick, with James Rhodes taking over the Iron Man persona while Tony stepped
away briefly to fight his addiction and reclaim his company.
Eventually Tony resumed his role as Iron Man, and Rhodey would go on to be War Machine in
stories that followed.
9 Sandman Wesley Dodds Sandman Wesley Dodds is a Golden Age hero
from DC, not to be confused with the more prominent and popular DC Sandman character.
Dodds, who debuted in 1939’s New York World’s Fair Comics issue 1, was created by Gardner
Fox and Bert Christman, who initially went around in a suit, fedora and gas mask and
sedated criminals with a sleeping gas gun.
His outfit would later evolve into proper superhero threads, and would be one of the
founding members of the Justice Society of America in All Star Comics issue 3.
In All Star Comics issue 11, the character would enlist in the US Army, serving as an
anti-aircraft gunner in 1942, and would receive a story later on in the silver age when it
was revealed that his soulmate had terminal cancer, with Dodds retiring to spend his life
in peace with her.
He would later be killed off in JSA issue 1.
Since falling into obscurity, Dodds has made a number of appearances in the DC universe,
from 1986’s The Last Days of the Justice Society of America, in the New 52, and even
in Blackest Night.
8 Superman Once upon a time, Superman gave up.
Just to give it a try, ya know?
Well, really, this went down in issue 297 of Superman (which features a fantastic cover
of Superman chilling against a wall while taunting Clark Kent who is getting beaten
up by thugs).
This story depicted the man of steel deciding that he had had enough of juggling his double
life.
So he gave up the Superman persona entirely.
That is, until an extraterrestrial antagonist showed up and Clark had to step up again,
otherwise everything in Metropolis would go to hell.
He also felt guilty AF for not helping people.
Just too darn honourable.
7 Shogun Warriors In the late 1970s, Mattel hopped on the trend
of creating toys with comic book counterparts.
The Shogun Warriors were imported from a Japan toy line.
Essentially, they were giant robots that could be put together to form one giant robot.
Sounds vaguely familiar, eh?
Shade aside, Marvel licensed the characters to create a comic book version, publishing
20 issue between 1979 and 1980 in which the Shogun Warriors had been created by a mysterious
group called the Followers of Light, and human pilots were chosen from across the globe to
operate these robots and fight against evil.
The toys would fail, leaving Marvel with the awkward situation of having to end the comic
series, which they cancelled.
In the narrative itself, Marvel invented a fourth mecha robot who destroyed the three
other Shoguns off panel, but didn’t kill their human pilots.
Those human pilots would work with the Fantastic Four to destroy the fourth robot, and then
they returned to their normal lives, never to return to marvel panels again.
6 Martian Manhunter Here we have a case of a superhero who technically
retired on Earth and moved on to a different way to help people.
Martian Manhunter aka J’Onn J’Onzz had long been stranded on Earth, ever since his
debut in Detective Comics 225 in 1955 in the story ‘the manhunter from mars.’
He’s even one of the seven original members of the Justice League of America, and for
one of the most powerful beings kicking around in the DC universe, he’s pretty darn selfless.
So it makes sense that when, in Justice League of America issue 71, J’Onn decides to leave
Earth to help his race start over.
Back track for a sec here – that issue would expand upon J’Onn’s known origins, and
introduce the white martians, who were at war with the green martians, which caused
Mars to be essentially ravaged.
J’Onn would learn that the leader of the white martians was planning planetary genocide,
and the conflict would eventually end with mars being uninhabitable, so J’Onn took
his fellow green martians elsewhere into the galaxy to start anew.
He would eventually return though, 15 years afterwards despite a handful of cameos, in
JLA issue 228.
5 The Comedian We’ve got a bit of a reversal here at this
number with the Comedian, Eddie Blake.
Eddie was part of he minutemen, a crime fighting team established in the late 30s that operated
throughout the 40s.
After the team disbanded, the Comedian, who was cynical, cruel and deliberately amoral,
continued to operate, even working for the government before and after the Crimebusters,
the second superhero team in Watchmen came to fruition.
Blake saw the world as a sadistic joke; an insight he largely felt only he could understand
and see, hence his practised cynicism.
But when he stumbles upon Adrian Veidt aka Ozymandias’ scheme to kill millions of people
as a ruse to rally nations together and prevent nuclear war, he sees it as a sick practical
joke, shattering the perspectives he so openly boasted for years and years.
Veidt finds out after the Comedian drunkenly breaks into the apartment of an old foe, and
Veidt kills him in Blake’s home; the Comedian was waiting for him.
It’s a different kind of giving up; giving up on your values, except Blake’s values
were arguably pretty terrible to begin with, if not painfully truthful in some ways.
Speaking of Watchmen characters though-
4 Sally Jupiter Sally Jupiter was the first Silk Spectre,
active in the late 30s and 40s in the Watchmen universe as a member of the super hero team,
the Minutemen.
None of them had powers, but rather, they were all skilled fighters who had chosen the
life of vigilantes, some out of the desire to do good for innocent people, others out
of the desire for fame.
Sally was one of those people who fell into the latter category.
She would eventually give up on fighting crime though after she married her agent in 1947
and her daughter, Laurie, was a child.
According to the original Nite Owl, Sally’s departure from the Minutemen sucked a lot
of the life out of the team, and when the team began to disband, many of them followed
in her footsteps, seeking out regular civilian lives with regular civilian jobs, yet all
still consumed by the nostalgia of the past.
2 Batgirl Briefly, that is.
Barbara Gordon has had a fascinating history.
First appearing in 1967 (despite there being a previous batgirl who debuted in 1961) Barbara
Gordon debuted in Detective Comics issue 359 after the character had been tested out successfully
in the Adam West 60s Batman television series.
Now flash forward to Detective Comics issue 422 – Barbara decides that she can help
people better by working in the government and politics.
After encountering an ex-boyfriend who had turned to crime, she decided that she wanted
to run for Congress, with prison reform being a big part of her platform.
Two issues later, she had done it, and traded in her Batgirl persona for a seat in Washington
DC.
This congressional gig of hers lasted 3 years, although she would occasionally don the Batgirl
suit every now and then to lend a helping hand.
She started dabbling more in crime fighting in between her work, and when it came for
re-election, she lost the campaign because of it, returning to her Batgirl persona to
take a more ‘hands on’ approaching at changing Gotham for the better.
3Blackhawks One could argue that rather than the Blackhawks
giving up, DC gave up on them.
So the Blackhawks are a group that first came to be in the Golden Age, published by Quality
Comics in 1941 (and owned by the company until 1956).
They were a team of World War 2 ace pilots, generally led by a character named Blackhawk.
Created by Will Eisner, Chuck Cuidera and Bob Powell, the group first appeared in Quality’s
Military Comics anthology series, and in 1957, when Quality was bought out by DC, the series
remained intact (one of the only few DC chose to continue to run).
But by 1968, the team had lost some major steam, and would be cancelled after 243 issues.
That wasn’t the end though; the comic was resurrected, except the group had been entirely
gutted, with multiple characters no longer a part of the team.
The explanation?
DC published a letter column that stated the whereabouts of each of the former members;
one was dead, another had a heart attack, another crippling injuries.
Sure, some of the villains were revamped, but many of the original beloved characters
were flat out gone.
The column explicitly stated that these characters would not recover and had been disbanded from
the team by leader Blackhawk.
Yikes.
Brutal, DC.
The team wouldn’t fare much better in later iterations, with the new Blackhawks title
during the New 52 getting canned fairly early.
1 Captain America Steve Rogers has given up a bunch of different
times throughout his career.
And if anything, it says a lot about his character; he’s a hero whose resolution in his beliefs
is so strong that it occasionally is his downfall.
He’s like a Stark from Game of Thrones – honourable till the end, but sometimes naieve because
of it.
The particular instance we’re focusing on though for this number is that time he left
the Captain America mantle because he disagreed with what that identity stood for, and what
it was being used for by the US government.
Steve believed he was defending the American Dream, but in Captain America issue 180 in
1974, he was disillusioned with the US government after he discovers that the President (or,
rather, it’s largely implied to be President Nixon) is the leader of a terrorist organization
called Secret Empire.
He ditched the Captain America persona, but eventually, would get that itch to fight crime
and help others, so returned to the profession under a new name – Nomad, a man without
a country.
Being a patriotic symbol is something that Cap has always been exceedingly aware of,
understanding of the kinds of responsibility that title carries and what it means to the
greater good overall.
And if something threatens what that symbol stands for, you know Steve Rogers is gonna
have something to say or do about it.
Ah self awareness.
There we have it friends!
What other instances when superheroes gave up have you been intrigued by?
Surprised by?
Pissed of by?
Give us a shout in those comments below and let us know!
If you dug this video, do us a favour and spread the love, hit that thumbs up button,
and be sure to subscribe to top 10 nerd for more videos just like this!
And hey, why not stick around some more and click the playlist currently floating around
on your screen?
In the meantime though, thanks for watching friends!
I’ll catch you all in the next video.