Jerkass/Comic Books

"Spider-Man: Hey...uh...guys? Little help here?...I hate you."
 * Desire from The Sandman. Whoo boy.
 * Hell, Dream himself. Disproportionate Retribution is just one of the things he gets called out on.
 * Guy Gardner of the Green Lantern Corps and Justice League International. Exactly how much of a jerk he is varies (partly due to complicated mental issues), but at his worst he's tolerated mainly because he's useful in a fight (although getting him to stop can be more of an issue). Thankfully, he received some Character Development over the course of a decade and a half, cleaned up his act, and became a Boisterous Bruiser instead.
 * Namor consistently treats pretty much everyone he knows as inferior to him, often engages in hypocritical rebukes of others, and won't stop trying to get into Sue Storm's pants, marriage be damned. And those are the days he isn't hobnobbing with despots like Osborn or Doom or sending giant tidal waves to drown New York City. Even when he is actually doing something for someone other than himself, you can guarantee he'll be a self-entitled dick about it.
 * Both title characters of Calvin and Hobbes occasionally delve into this, though Calvin is more of a Jerkass Woobie.
 * Toyota from Y: The Last Man makes a point of being as unpleasant as possible to everyone she comes into contact with, as if sticking swords through them (not to mention cutting Ampersand's tail) wasn't enough.
 * Deadpool can be a huge jerkass at times. Especially when it comes to blind Al, Weasel and Bob.
 * The Comedian from Watchmen.
 * Spider-Man is practically the only non-Jerkass in Ultimate Marvel. And even he gets his moments. But for more specific examples:
 * Flash Thompson.
 * Jean Grey casually abusing her power by switching Peter and Logan's minds (having threatened to do so to Logan, but Peter, being nowhere near the X-Men, had no clue) just because Logan hit on her one time too many for her taste. Peter flatly calls her and the rest of the X-Men out on this, accusing them of being hated not because they were mutants, but because they were complete assholes.
 * It should be noted that Jean didn't purposefully do this to Peter. She made it so Logan would switch with the last person he wanted to be and that turned out to be Peter. This arguably makes it worse - she decided some random person deserved to be possessed by Wolverine, and didn't care enough to bother checking who that was.
 * And speaking of Logan, the implications of just what he tried to do with Mary Jane while in Peter's body, just for starters.
 * Also, let's not forget that Logan deliberately left Scott to die in the Savage Land, just so he could try and get Jean in bed.
 * Hank Pym's wife-beater status may be mostly undeserved in the 616-verse, but boy howdy, does he earn it here. And on top of being a Jerkass, he's batshit insane on his bad days.
 * Ultimate Daredevil is a complete tool. He's still a good guy, but his methods are a little more extreme and when a disheartened and down on his luck (for a change of pace) Spiderman asks him for advice, he thoroughly chews him out in the rudest, most dickish way imaginable--something to the effect of "You're a stupid little kid who's in over his head. Get out of this business before you get someone, or more importantly me, killed." Afterwards, several times when Peter came to his aid Daredevil gave him a mild beating and threw him out of the fight.
 * Ultimates 3 turns Hawkeye into a melodramatic, gun-crazy Death Seeker. When he goes to Spider-Man for information after "Venom" attacks the mansion, he gets Spidey's attention by shooting at him, paralyses him with a tranq dart, and then leaves him lying in the snow after getting called back by Cap. Man, Spidey gets this from both teams.


 * Even Captain America is an asshole. While the original writer merely made him a jingoistic "1940s-average-Joe" type, with all the fish-out-of-water attitude that came with it, later writers added in racism and sexism, just to make him match the rest of the universe's assholery.
 * While anything Mark Millar says in interviews can be taken with an entire bucket of salt, he's gone on record saying that this Cap's personality (which he charitably just calls "social conservative") is specifically what makes him cool, in a Die Hard kind of way. Then again, this is the same interview where he compares Cap to Batman in a "He goes in, 3000 people die', and the situation gets resolved" comment, and that no one's ever taken a superhero in the direction he's taken Ultimate Cap, so once more, take it with a lot of salt.
 * Gladstone Gander. He can get anything he wants just by wanting it, and yet keeps on tormenting his poor cousin Donald Duck with his insufferable jackassery and Smug Snake behavior.
 * While Lucy might have been the worst Jerk Ass in the Peanuts cartoons, Violet was the worst Jerk Ass in the comic. She constantly abused Charlie Brown both verbally and physically, and once firmly declared that he had no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
 * Lucy was, however, a bit of a brat. Once she even told everyone Charlie Brown was hitting her when he hadn't, for no reason whatsoever (in a Sunday strip from November '52). She also teases and bullies her little brother Linus without stopping, forces respect out of other kids through sheer intimidation, and uses Charlie Brown's "sessions" at her booth as an excuse to make him feel even worse about himself. And that's not even getting into the annual football gag, which seems meaner every time she does it. Toward the end of the strip, she started taking on a surprisingly nurturing role toward Rerun, softening up some.
 * Marvel's superfast mutant Quicksilver has been a good guy, bad guy, and in-between, but never stops being an arrogant, self-centered dick. This extends to his other incarnations, such as his apperances on X-Men: Evolution and Wolverine and the X-Men.
 * Peter David wrote a great story in X-Factor that gave a reason why Quicksilver's always such a tool. He explains to psychiatrist Doc Samson that everyone gets irritated waiting in a long line because someone else's slowness is holding it up. Imagine if everyone on else the planet is like the person holding up the line. That's the way Quicksilver feels.
 * Nick Fury is this trope.
 * Nick Fury is a huge jerkass so you don't have to be.
 * Garfield is one of the worst examples of this trope. See Here is a big example.
 * Depending on the Writer, J. Jonah Jameson is either this or a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
 * In issue 6, Peter had just been hired and Jameson had decided to treat Spiderman like a criminal. When everybody leaves Peter asks Jameson "How do you know he's a criminal?" and Jameson replies "I don't. I could just as easily send good press his way. Why don't I? This will sell more papers." Twenty years later he has a nervous breakdown, why? He didn't unmask Spidey when he had the chance. Complete. Total. Jerkass.
 * Reed Richards wanders in and out of this trope Depending on the Writer.
 * Batman (otherwise known as "Crazy Steve"), in All Star Batman and Robin is by far the most asshole-ish incarnation of the character ever depicted. He not only seems to get a kind of sadistic joy out of any pain he causes criminals (as well as any cops in his way), but he kidnaps and verbally assaults Dick Grayson, (who just moments before had seen his parents killed before his eyes), leaves him to fend for himself in the Batcave and then when he finds out Alfred fed him a proper meal, picks him up by the scruff of his collar and threatens him (this is guy who in most other versions is the closest thing Bruce currently has to a father). And all the other superheroes ain't much better (Wonder Woman shoving a male bystander out of her way whilst calling him a "sperm bank").
 * In the Millerverse version of DC, superheroes are either brutal psychotic (Black Canary, Crazy Steve) or a witless moron that Batman pretty much controls or treats with utter contempt (Superman and Green Lantern). Kind of like the Ultimate Marvel universe without Spider-Man.
 * This gets to the point where Millerverse Batman/Crazy Steve just randomly insults Superman during a Spawn/Batman crossover penned by Miller. Made particularly bad by the fact that the Big Blue Boy Scout is never so much as mentioned up anywhere else in the comic.
 * Kyle Bell from Hack Slash, whose only real redeeming quality is pulling off a Heroic Sacrifice.
 * Many of the superhomies from Empowered, especially Major Havoc.
 * Part of the reason Lex Luthor is such a good villain is that he's not just a Magnificent Bastard of an obsessed, megalomaniacal Corrupt Corporate Executive-turned-President Evil bordering on Complete Monster — he's also a total asshole to everyone he meets, including total strangers, and goes out of his way to treat the people around him like shit for no reason whatsoever. And he doesn't just do horrible things to people either — he's an asshole even when his actions are incredibly small-scale and pointless (e.g., calling Clark Kent "Mr. Lois Lane" all the time for no reason except to be dickish and irritating.)
 * Lois Lane very often fits the trope as well.
 * Joseph Boulier from Gaston Lagaffe. Longtarin and Gaston himself had their moment as well.
 * Jason Fox from Foxtrot's strips (pre-Sunday Only)
 * Jokey Smurf of The Smurfs with his constant pranks.