Top 11 Worst Heroes

With both 'The Amazing Spider-Man' and 'The Dark Knight Rises' being released this month, I wanted to do a hero theme month, but finances deemed me to prioritise, so I was not able to get 'Iron Hero' or...any other hero film worth mentioning.

Now, when I posted my 'Top 11 Most Disappointing Villains' list, a friend of mine asked me about doing a top 11 disappointing heroes list. I just found it easier to do a worst heroes list and I might as well do that here.

Now, I was one of those people who grew up liking the heroes, always wanting them to win. As I grew older, I started leaning more towards the villains as better characters. Why? Well, heroes were just becoming too boring or too cliched, they all basically had the same back story, or close too it. But when we learn of the back story for a villain, it's pretty much always better; to see what shaped a person to become what they are, to learn of their past actions, to learn of what emotions were running through their heads when they decided to turn to the Darkside.

And, since I've done the villain lists as elevens, I might as well do the same thing here. So here are my top 11 worst heroes.

 11. Prospero - The Tempest


Yes I am starting this off with a character created by William Shakespeare. You see, I'm doing a production of 'The Tempest' with Masque Theatre (So if anyone happens to be in Northampton between the 23rd and 28th of July, you know what to do (Visit the Masque Theatre website for more information http://www.masquetheatre.co.uk/)), and as rehearsals for 'The Tempest' went on, I just couldn't see why the audience should cheer for Propsero.

Why? Well, the main reason why we should support him, was because he was the rightful Duke of Millaine, before his brother, Antonio, conspired with King Alonso, to depose him and place Antonio on the throne.......of dukedom. Prospero has been exiled to an island with his daughter, Miranda, who he proceeds to insult by calling her "wench", where he leanrs magic and summons a tempest on a ship containing King Alonso, Alonso's brother Sebastian, Antonio, and other members of cast. So immediately, he's putting people who have done him no wrong at risk.

With all that being said, the island had settlers before it. The witch Sycorax and her son Caliban. Prospero befriends Caliban, teaching him to speak and in return, gains Caliban's trust and learns all the secrets of the island. Prospero then kills Sycorax and enslaves Caliban, making him an orphan and a slave in one day. Oh sure, Prospero tells us that it was just, Caliban attempted to rape Miranda and Sycorax was so powerful she could control the moon. Caliban attempting to rape, yes that's an evil thing to do, but Sycorax, as far as we're aware, didn't do anything to warrant being killed, apart from being in Propsero's way.

Caliban isn't even the only inhabitant that Prospero manipulates, there's also Ariel. Ariel's a spirit who was trapped in a tree, and Prospero frees him. Upon being freed, Ariel pledges servitude until Prospero releases him. So what happens? Prospero holds on to him for years and years, forcing Ariel to perform loads of tasks, something which Ariel keeps reminding Prospero. But Prospero holds onto Ariel, manipulating him by reminding Ariel that it was he who saved him. Then he also enslaves Prince Ferdinand, saying he wants Ferdinand to prove his love to Miranda.

Prospero is so consumed by revenge he can't see clearly, and yet he changes his tune, for no real reason. Maybe it was because he saw how much Ferdinand and Miranda love each other (They've known each other for five minutes, therefore they were meant to be together), but there was no clear reason why Prospero no longer wants revenge.

So Prospero turns out to be a manipulative, murdering slave owner. Our hero ladies and gentlemen!


10. Shane Walsh and Andrea - The Walking Dead (Television series)

Spoiler warning for UK people, I have seen the finale for season two and have read beyond Hershel's camp in the graphic novels, so there will be spoilers. Anyway, wow, where to start. Firstly, I do want to go into great detail on 'The Walking Dead', going over the graphic novels, the television series and maybe the video game at some point, but unfortunately I will go into spoilers here so go onto the next one now if you prefer.


The next thing I want to admit, is that I saw the first season of the television series first, then I read the graphic novels. And after reading twelve of the current sixteen volumes of the graphic novels, I have a much better understanding of the characters, and the differences. Let's take Andrea for example, I've now read up to volume 12, and Andrea is one of my favourite survivors; she has a great relationship with the other characters, she's a great marksman, she looks out for others, and she and Dale (A couple in the comics) adopt twin boys after their parents are both killed. Andrea admits to Rick (Their leader) that she and her sister originally got with Dale because he could look after them, she didn't mean to fall in love with him, she now loves the person she has now become and the family she inadvertently gained. And yet her devotion to Dale was just so strong, so pure, it's hard not to like her. She loses her sister early on, and then she loses the twins and Dale one by one in quick succession, so she becomes a really sympathetic character.

And then we have the television character.

Basically she is the complete opposite of the comic book character. When she first meets Rick she points a gun right in his face. Yes it was because he shot some zombies which alerted a herd of them to their location, but what she didn't know that he just got out of a coma and has no idea what is going on. A couple of days later her sister Amy is bitten, and whereas in the graphic novel Andrea shot Amy so that she doesn't become a zombie, the TV show Andrea let's her become a zombie, letting her die in what was probably a slow and painful death. Well Amy did have her throat ripped out.

That being said, the season one Andrea didn't annoy me that much. Season two Andrea though really angered me. She doesn't give a damn what Dale thinks, and she immediately thinks Shane is right on everything, not taking into account what the others think. Starting each episode I thought "Hmm, I wonder how Andrea will piss me off today". And boy did she. When a walker was trapped in a well, they decided they needed live bait, and Andrea essentially volunteers Glenn, not herself, but one of the useful characters.


At one point when Daryl was looking for Sophia (A child lost in the forest), he is heavily injured. When he returns to camp, he looks like a walker. Andrea wants to shoot him, but Rick, Shane and others run up to him, telling Andrea not to so they don't waste a bullet or attract more walkers. She ignores this and shoots Daryl anyway; yes there was sun on her scope but she could still clearly see it was Daryl, and that the others weren't attacking him. Daryl, luckily, survived (Picture rights to CJack, who actually has some good blog posts on the ABC of zombie killing, check her out http://cjackkittycat.wordpress.com/the-abcs-of-the-zombie-apocalypse/) It also contradicts the point she was yelling at Rick for.

And if it didn't get worse, she supports suicide. When Beth wants to kill herself after half her family died, Andrea tricks (Beth's) sister Maggie into leaving her alone, resulting in Beth almost killing herself. And yet the episode seems to pass this off as a good thing; "Huh, she didn't cut herself deep enough, that means she wants to live!". You know, just because she failed in this suicide bid, it doesn't mean she won't try again. She doesn't but that's not the point.

In her defence she starts to see that Shane's reasons aren't all that pure. I suppose I'm technically cheating since Shane was pretty much the antagonist of season two, but he was still a member of the group. The increase in tension started back in season one, where Shane told Lori (Rick's wife who he's in love with) that Rick was dead. When Rick is revealed to be alive, Lori cannot forgive Shane for lying to her.

Now, the thing is, in the graphic novel, Shane didn't lie. He said that Rick was safe at the hospital since they were planning on moving patients to Atlanta, only to learn no such operation took place. In fact, in volume two Lori says "WE left him", which  implies she was there before they left for Atlanta. So, really, television Shane had a more believable reason why Lori was mad at him. Then again comic Shane attempting to shoot Rick was the big no no.

But I can understand Shane's reasons. He cared for Lori and Carl (Lori and Rick's son), he loved them like his own, then Rick turns up and Lori blanks him. It is literally that line from the Gotye song 'Somebody That I used to Know'; "But you didn't have to cut me out...make it like it never happened and that we were nothing".


This is the foundation to Shane's madness. When Carl is shot, he and a guy called Otis go into town to get medical supplies. The walkers see them and constantly chase after them, and despite Otis constantly sticking up for Shane and saving, Shane escapes by shooting Otis in the leg and leaving him for the zombies. Despite the fact that he and Otis could have easily gotten away if they hadn't stopped to fight each other, Shane leaves Otis to be consumed. Shane was never the same since.

Shane adopts a "the end justifies the means" attitude, which includes no longer looking for Sophia because she's most likely dead, killing a barn load of walkers which Hershel was keeping locked up in a secure barn, threatening nearly everyone, wanting to kill Randall because his (Randall) group might start a war with theirs, and ultimately plotting to kill Rick to gain his wife.

Now, in the comics, Shane never made it to Hershel's farm, because he planned to kill Rick before they even left the original campsite. Carl saves Rick by shooting him. But sparing him brought forth a lot of conflict in the group. And while some of Shane's actions may have actually been the right one, it was the way he did it. And then planning to take control over the group by killing Rick and Hershel, that lead to his downfall. Then again I suppose Lori is also to blame for this, since in one episode she tells Rick that her unborn baby is his and that Shane is dangerous, but then the next episode (Where it looks like Shane was going to regain some nobility) she tells HIM that she doesn't know who the father is (She and Shane had a thing) and essentially puts him at odds with Rick again.

Shane and Andrea, thinking they're doing the right thing yet screwing over everyone else.

9. Sam Witwicky - The Transformers films

Okay, let's face it, what exactly does Sam Witwicky (Shia La Beouf) do? He's best known for running around and screaming "Optimus!"...and, what else? Seriously, what else is there? In the first film he buys a car. That's about it, since that car was Bumblebee, and he and the other Autobots were after Sam's great great grandfather's glasses, which said the location of the Allspark, which is effectively the God of the Transformers. Apart from that, he does nothing. He gets chased around a lot, but he doesn't fight any Decepticons since they're about a hundred times bigger than him, in fact the only Decepticons that are smaller than Sam, Megan Fox deals with or Bumblebee blasts. You got upstaged by Megan Fox!

Well, okay, he does kill Megatron. A fluke, I assure you. Sam kills Megatron by putting the Allspark into Megatron's chest, which was what Optimus Prime was planning to do if they couldn't stop Megatron; putting the Allspark into his chest would have killed him. The problem? Sam wasn't there when the Autobots said that! Therefore he didn't know what putting the Allspark into his chest would have done! Maybe he worked it out in the few seconds since Optimus asked him to put it into his (Optimus) chest, but he didn't know what would happen! Heck! For all he knew, it would've made Megatron immortal!

The second film, Sam goes to college. Again, that's about it. But apparently he absorbed some information from the Allspark that gave him the location to the Matrix of Leadership, the only thing (With the exception of Allspark fragments) capable of resurrecting Transformers. Okay, to be honest, he did a fair bit here, yet he still comes off as a douche. And somehow he comes back to life after being blasted to Robot Heaven. Robot Magic is the true hero here.

Oh actually, I know what he did in 'Revenge of the Fallen', he lead the Pretender (Isabel Lucas) throughout the college, putting innocent people in harms way, and there were probably a few deaths as well anyway.

And in 'Dark of the Moon', again he virtually does nothing, for half the film anyway, then the other half it was either because the villains were morons or the human military did it. Seriously, what do you do?! It even seems you're trying to stay out of the franchise, but it brings you back in. Heck, the only reason why you went into Chicago was because of the Underwear Model, if she wasn't there, would you have gone?

I thought not.


8. Ariel - The Little Mermaid (1989)


That's right! I put Ariel on this list! Don't get me wrong, I did like watching this when I was younger and I do like the character. But she is on this list for one reason, and one reason only. If for some reason you don't know what happens in this, Ariel is a mermaid, she's a princess and has pretty much everything she wants. She does suffer from Disney Princess Syndrome, in which she wants more.

She falls in love with Prince Eric, a human, and wants to be with him. She meets up with Ursula, a sea witch who says she will give her three days to try and win Eric's heart.

Okay, the main problem, is that Ursula sings 'Poor Unfortunate Souls'. Don't get me wrong, it's a great song, it's just that Ursula basically says "I'm the villain". And Ariel STILL sells Ursula her soul. *Bangs head on table. What?!

Like the Nostalgia Chick says, Ariel sells her soul for a man she has never met. But seriously, Ursula shows you the other mermaids she has captured, she tells you that she plans on taking your voice as a deposit, leaving you at a disadvantage, and it looks like she's possessed by the Devil as the song reaches its climax. And you TRUSTED her? You're an idiot! You single handedly helped bring down your father's kingdom! You almost destroyed the world!

Ursula couldn't have made it more obvious that she was the villain if she had a neon sign saying 'VILLAIN!'.


7. Maya Herrera - Heroes (2006-2010)


I hate you Maya. I hate you with a passion. Despite the fact that she had one of the most interesting dilemmas, the character herself is just soooooo bland and annoying.

We're first introduced to Maya (Dania Ramirez) in season two of 'Heroes', where she and her brother Alejandro (Shalim Ortiz) are trying to cross the border from Mexico into America, to look for Chandra Suresh (Erick Avari), who has since been killed by Sylar (Zachary Quinto). On their travels they come across a powerless Sylar, who manipulates them.

Yes, Maya is probably the most easily persuaded person on the planet. She easily believes Derek is calling the police when in fact Sylar killed him, actually, she believe Sylar over her own brother, who doesn't like Sylar. Alejandro did think it was too convenient that someone they came across dying in some random dirt road was going to the same place and knows the person they wanted to see, although Sylar was in fact going to New York and does actually know Chandra Suresh (He did kill him after all).

Heck, when Alejandro shows her a news article about Sylar's connection with his mother's death, Maya doesn't believe him. It wasn't until Sylar admitted that he did kill her, albeit in self-defence, that she believed it, and yet she was still willing to go with him rather than Gabriel. The fact that she was so willing to believe that Alejandro gave up on her with ease was just bizarre. Heck, Sylar managed to manipulate her into killing a bunch of people, and then not saving them.

And that's just Sylar. In season three she is manipulated once again by both Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) and Arthur Petrelli (Robert Forster). At the start of the season we see how selfish Maya is when she almost kills Mohinder, just because he says he can't cure her. And then she willingly gives one of the most powerful villains in the show the power to poison people with a mere thought! And all because she selfishly wanted to get rid of her power at all costs.

I could have put others on this slot with Maya, but I've already written a lot. I would have put Claire Bennet who quickly became a frustrating brat who thinks she knows better than everyone else, as well as Micah and Niki Sanders and Monica Dawson for being so bland, annoying and corny as Hell. But I decided to go with the one who was so selfish and so desperate, she effectively screwed everyone else over.

6. Terry O'Hara and Dr. Nikki Riley - Mega Python vs. Gatoroid (2011)


Ah these two hypocrites. Let's start off with Nikki Riley (Debbie Gibson), shall we? Nikki and several other eco-activists break into someplace and steal a bunch of CGI snakes, before releasing them into the Florida Everglades. These snakes kill everything in their paths, including alligators, growing in size. And yet Nikki berates Terry for interfering with nature, despite the fact that Nikki's actions have disrupted the ecosystem she claims to protect, when she has actually destroyed it.

Terry's response to the crisis is to, of course, feed steroids/some kind of serum which causes the alligators to also grow in size. I can't see anything wrong happening here, not unless those alligators lay hundreds of giant eggs which hatch, and then those mega pythons and giant alligators form a sort of alliance, ignore each other, and start attacking the humans.


And yet nearly everyone else warns them about the dangers of what they're doing, Diego (A Martinez) alone warns Terry three times that she's putting people in danger; she doesn't listen and numerous people are killed because of it. In fact, thanks to both of them, Miami and all of it's inhabitants are eaten.

Yes they help fix the problem, but it was a problem they created. A problem created simply because both of them are complete and utter morons.


5. Bloodrayne - Bloodrayne (2005), Bloodrayne: Deliverance (2007), Bloodrayne: The Third Reich (2010)


How many times does she (Kristanna Loken) get captured and saved in these films? Well, four times in the first film, and the first time she gets captured it was done by a carnival. The last time she's saved it all relied on luck; it relied on Michael Madsan and Mathew Davis not only deciding to attack Kagan's (Ben Kingsley, for some reason) castle head on, it also relied on Kagan's forces capturing them instead of killing them, and for them to breakout of the dungeon. If they didn't, she'd be dead.

In the second film (Which, personally, is my favourite...no, no, no, my least hated of the three) where Rayne is now played by Natassia Malthe (Loken declined to reprise her role due to 'Painkiller Jane' and 'The L Word'. Not because it's another Uwe Boll film). But here she has to be saved again, twice, once when she's heavily injured. At least she actually does more in this film, the second when Billy the Kid has her held at gunpoint. Yes, Billy the Kid is the villain in the second film.

But she still needs to assemble a team to help her out, and again I feel like this other team effectively does most the work. We do meet the Preacher (Michael Eklund) though, he was awesome. Hell, I do feel the plan they had still would have failed if the townsfolk didn't rise up against Billy the Kid; If they hadn't distracted him, he would have killed Rayne. Hell, it's Pat Garrett (Michael Pare) who effectively kills Billy the Kid, Rayne effectively sneaks in and delivers one final blow.

The third film I could barely remember, but she must have done something wrong that gave the villains the chance to obtain immortality. At least in the third film she's doing what she does best; killing Nazis. She wouldn't have stood a chance against the Space Nazis though.

Anyway after quickly watching the third film and I see the big no no she did. She bit a high ranking Nazi officer, who has just swallowed her blood, and DIDN'T KILL HIM. You idiot! You just gave someone who loves killing innocent people the powers of a vampire! And not just any vampire, YOURS! Which means he is also immune to sunlight. He still needs to go round dressed as Emperor Palpatine, but still.

AND SHE'S CAPTURED AGAIN. She has nearly two thousand years of combat experience, and she's still being captured?


4. Phillip Jackson - Feed (2006)


Oh God this guy! If you remember my review for 'Feed', you'll remember how I didn't like the hero Phillip Jackson (Patrick Thompson) at all. Firstly, he hardly does anything to prove to his superiors or anyone else that Michael Carter (Alex O'Loughlin) has done any crime; he doesn't show them the website or anything.

He then proceeds to go from Australia to America, without permission from his superiors so he doesn't have any jurisdiction or powers to help him and breaks into Carter's house, all of which would mean that if Carter was arrested, he would be released on a technicality.


But that's not all, Jackson proceeds to kidnap and, I suppose, accidentally kill Carter's wife (Sherly Sulaiman). I say 'accidentally', she's asthmatic. And despite knowing this, Jackson ties her up and gags her, which causes an asthma attack, and since she can't do anything, she dies. So yeah, manslaughter at least. Then again, Carter's wife isn't the only person he kills. He shoots Deirdre (Gabby Millgate), the person he's supposed to save, because she can't give Carter up. You know Jackson, Deidre's mental and physical state was entirely dependent on Carter, I'm sure if you actually put some effort into helping her, she might come around.

Then he holds Carter hostage, letting starve to death in a slow and painful manner. Then again he must be feeding him at times since Jackson now has a girlfriend/possible spouse, a house and apparently a new lifestyle already set in America. So he's making Carter suffer, yet the hero is supposed to be pure, he's not supposed to stoop down to the villain's level.

Then again this guy also swore in a church.


3. Roy Turner - Octopus (2000)


You know there's a problem with your hero when a fat guy is doing a better job at chasing the bad guy. Seriously! I wanted Henry Campbell (Jeff Nuttall, on the right in the picture) as our hero, but no, we get Roy Turner (Jay Harrington). I mean, Henry did everything better, he kept up with Casper (Ravil Isyanov), didn't let the public hold him up, Hell he momentarily survived an explosion. Hell, while Roy got held up by the public, got hit by a car and LET Casper get away, Henry (After the explosion fatally wounded him) shot the car, causing it to flip and incapacitating Casper. Henry was bloody awesome!

But no, we get Roy who saves Casper from the car exploding. Casper has killed...I have no idea how many people at the US Embassy which he bombed at the start of the film, which killed the little girl Roy befriended, he is the "world's leading terrorist", and yet Casper makes him his top priority in getting out. This is despite the fact that Casper has done so many evil acts, and yet Roy cannot bring himself to kill the guy.

Yes I made the exact opposite argument in the last bit, but there has to be a line at some point. Heck, I felt that, no matter what, you cannot stoop to the villain's level, and then I came across Thomas Richards in 'The Walking Dead' graphic novels, but that's another story. Okay, Roy did ask Casper why he shouldn't kill him, at which point Casper struggled to answer, and Captain Shaw (David Beecroft) says "You've got a job to do", preventing him from shooting Casper.

Anyway, Casper escapes from custody numerous times (Despite the fact that he's on a sub full of American personnel, there's really nowhere to go), he threatens numerous members of the crew, he kills some of them, he threatens the only woman (Who is conveniently the love interest for Roy) on the sub, he tries to kill and leaves to be killed Roy, love interest (Carolyn Lowery) and Shaw on more than one occasion, and Roy STILL spares him!

Even the octopus, the title character, the title threat sees that Casper is the villain. When Casper is about to finally escape with help from his henchmen, the octopus impales him and brings down the helicopter, killing the henchmen. The only effective thing Roy does in literally in the last thirty seconds.

Roy Turner, ladies and gentlemen; a fat guy and an octopus did a better job than him. Even the love interest says, and I quote, "Oh come on, shoot him!".


2. Dr. Christmas Jones - The World is Not Enough (1999)


What do you do?! Seriously, what the Hell did you do in this film? Apart from pointing out the fact that her name is Christmas (I guess her parents also hated her) what else does she do? Oh right, she blows James Bond's (Pierce Brosnan) cover, which allows the actual villain Renard (Robert Carlyle) to get away.

Apart from that, Christmas (Denise Richards, already a bad sign) does NOTHING. True, she attempts to do stuff, she...um...she defuses a bomb that's on Elektra's (Sophie Marceau) pipeline...oh, no, that actually exploded. Ah! She helps Bond fight Renard...oh, no she uh, she gets captured. Well, at least she helps Bond from stopping the sub from going nuclear...oh, Bond does that effectively by himself. Hmm.

What the Hell did you do? NOTHING! Nothing I say! Never has there been a waste of space on screen, never has there been a waste of words that have been used on a single page of script. She brings nothing to this film, I can't stress that enough. The character is just so unbelievable in every aspect; we can't believe that she's a nuclear physicist, we can't believe any line of dialogue from her mouth, we can't believe that she was ever useful to begin with.

Although, it was pretty funny to think of Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist. Next you'll tell me someone put her in charge of flying a spaceship or that she makes out with Neve Campbell.


1. Jason - Open Graves (2009)

And my worst hero of all time is Jason from 'Open Graves', a film where they skinned alive a witch, then used her organs to build a board game, which people can play in order to get a wish, but the game will kill the other players (Unless the wish counteracts that). Why would they do that? Why would the Spanish Inquisition of 1485 decide to build a board game that will go on to kill countless more people in the years to come? Isn't that kind of against what they were trying to do?

Anyway in the film we come across Jason (Mike Vogel), Erica (Eliza Dushku) and people who I don't care about. They, of course, play the game and the game comes to kill them.

Jason, the winner, fails to save every single person involved, but that's not the reason why he's the worst hero. When Mamba (Also played by Eliza Dushku, I think because Mamba wanted to use the body of someone Jason fancied) comes to grant Jason his witch, Jason asks for it to be a week ago and that he and his friends had never played the game. Ensue obvious ending. Yes, Jason has now basically put himself and his friends in an endless loop, which means he is now responsible for them all being killed again and again and again and again and etc etc.


The thing is, Mamba initially tells him that the wish he made was stupid, and that he should rethink the wish. Does he? God no! Jason says, and I quote, "I made my wish, I wish it was a week ago, and I never played this game, I want to do everything". I'll repeat five words from that quote, "I want to do everything". That implies that he KNOWS what he's saying, that he wants to do everything again. Why else would he say it? Why else would the words "I want to do everything" come out of his mouth, if he didn't actually want to do all the events caused by the game again?

Jason is a complete idiot, and that is why he is the worst "hero" on this list.



And there we have it, will I do a top 11 best heroes list? Maybe, it's been refreshing not doing villains for a change. But coming up next, it's an hour of Lego Batman!