There are leaders and followers, but in both Marvel and DC there have been times that the most unlikely of heroes ended up leading a team.
There are several superhero and supervillain teams in comics, with Marvel and DC both throwing anyone and everyone onto a team to increase the visibility of popular characters. However, one thing that comic fans know is that some characters are leaders and others will always be followers.
What really throws a reader off is when a follower suddenly tries to lead his own team. Sometimes, it is a person who has never shown any leadership skills or any desire to be more than a lackey. In other cases, it might be a villain that is usually best when left alone, but suddenly creates a team for one purpose or another. In these cases, it creates something new and unusual, but it almost never lasts.
Taskmaster is a mercenary and that is what he has been since he first appeared in Marvel Comics. He has always worked for other people, including stints as an agent in S.H.I.E.L.D. Eventually, he found his calling when he set up his own training academy, teaching people how to fight.
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During the Initiative, he was captured and held, and detained as a member of the Thunderbolts. He ended up serving as their drill instructor and years later returned when Wilson Fisk started his own version of the team. It was at this time that Taskmaster, as the best fighter on the team, took over as the leader until Fisk's downfall.
Riddler is not someone that anyone would look at and consider leadership material. In DC Comics, he mostly operates on his own, although he has no problem teaming with another villain, or at times, antagonizing Joker when he sees a little success. However, there was one moment when Riddler led his own team.
This was the League of Villainy, which appeared in the Doomsday Clock series. During the event, the villains were all concerned about their safety and Riddler started his team to come up with a plan. However, it ended as soon as it started when Comedian showed up and started shooting at everyone, driving them apart.
Sabretooth is not a born leader. Much like Wolverine, Sabretooth is a loner who prefers to be left alone. He is also terrible at following orders. When he joined Krakoa with her former Brotherhood of Evil Mutant teammates, he refused to follow orders and ended up banished.
However, at one time, he was a leader and it was of the most powerful organization of ninjas in the world. Sabretooth went to Japan and started working as a mercenary for The Hand. However, it didn't take long for him to betray the leader and he took over the rule of The Hand, becoming the Invisible King of Asia.
For most of his existence in comics, Black Manta was just an Aquaman villain, and when he worked on a team, it was just short-term and was used to help him try to beat Aquaman. However, there was one moment in his career when he became the leader of one of the most feared groups in the oceans - N.E.M.O.
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N.E.M.O. was a cabal that formed in 1872 and finally accumulated unlimited resources in 1983. They worked to gain control of the world's economy behind the scenes. Wanting to disrupt peace between Atlantis and the world, they orchestrated attacks and eventually brought in Black Manta to serve as the leader to ensure they always stayed one step ahead of Aquaman.
When the Sinister Six forms, there is usually a recognized leader. At the start, it was Norman Osborn's Green Goblin, but he soon ended up not working with them and Doctor Octopus took over the leadership position. He was, more often than not, the catalyst for their diabolical plans.
However, there was a time when Mysterio took over the leadership role, a rare instance of the trickster leading a team of villains. He was one of the original members and he took over the leadership role when Hobgoblin came to him for help against the clone Kaine.
Black Mask has always been a leader, but what he led was a criminal organization. He was the mafia king of his group and tried to carve out a piece of Gotham City for himself. That seemed enough for the mobster, but there was also a time when he led a very different group. He led the Suicide Squad.
Black Mask, however, infiltrated the Suicide Squad to gain the leadership role. He was, in fact, took over the role of billionaire Ted Kord and impersonated him to gain access to lead the Suicide Squad to do his bidding.
There have been some very powerful members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, but the leadership has almost always been someone great, like a Magneto or Mystique. The other members are more often than not followers like Blob and Toad. The latter of those two always seemed like the weakest member of the entire team.
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However, there was a time that Toad stood tall and took over the leadership of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Tired of always seeing people use him and walk on him, he wanted to create his own team, so he set out with Blob, Pyro, Sauron, and Phantazia with him as the leader.
Gorilla Grodd has always been a leader. However, his only care was ruling his own kingdom in Gorilla City. When he came out to the real world, he just wanted to conquer and destroy, and he was often either on his own or working with other villains as partners.
However, he recently formed a group called Black Hole after he developed an illness that required the Speed Force for his survival. He hired a former S.T.A.R. Labs employee obsessed with the Speed Force to form the team and brought in names like Raijin, Negative Flash, and more, as they took the fight to Flash and his friends.
Ulysses Klaw, who was renamed Klau in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was more often than not a lackey or a mercenary for hire. He was part of the original Masters of Evil under Baron Zemo and often worked as a villain who antagonized Black Panther. Unlike his MCU version, Klaw in the comics was made almost completely of living sound.
There was one point where Klaw took control and formed his own team to try to beat the Fantastic Four. This was the Fearsome Foursome and he recruited Devos, Paibok, and Huntara to work for him, but they were beaten soundly by the Fantastic Four.
Two-Face has always been a manipulative person. Ever since he was disfigured and stopped his role as a lawman and district attorney, he set out to build his own criminal organization. He was the mafia boss that led this group and that seemed good enough for him most of the time.
However, he also had one moment where he led his own super team. This was Task Force Z, which was similar to Suicide Squad in that it was sanctioned by the U.S. as a paramilitary group sent out to find the bodies of dead supervillains to zombify them and have them work for the government. Two-Face was who they chose to lead this team.
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Shawn S. Lealos is a senior writer on ScreenRant who fell in love with movies in 1989 after going to the theater to see Tim Burton's Batman as his first big screen experience. Shawn received his Bachelor's degree in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma with a minor in Film Studies. He has worked as a journalist for over 25 years, first in the world of print journalism before moving to online media as the world changed. Shawn is a former member of the Society of Professional Journalists and current member of the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle. He has work published in newspapers such as Daily Oklahoman and Oklahoma Gazette and magazines such as Vox Magazine, Loud Magazine, and Inside Sports Magazine. His work on the Internet has been featured on websites like The Huffington Post, Yahoo Movies, Chud, Renegade Cinema, 411mania, and Sporting News. Shawn is also a published author, with a non-fiction book about the Stephen King Dollar Baby Filmmakers and has begun work on a new fiction series as well. Visit Shawn Lealos' website to learn more about his novel writing and follow him on Twitter @sslealos.