Attention Whore / Comic Books

• In Astro City, Crackerjack is the pre-eminent example of this trope. He shamelessly boasts about his crimefighting skills, hogs the spotlight without regard to the feelings of his comrades, and never met a camera he didn't like. While he is a fantastic physical specimen and Badass Normal, his grandiosity is too much for any amount of skill to back up.
• Sandorst in The Autumnlands: Tooth & Claw, who sinks so low as to blow up a bridge carrying the soldier protecting him to steal the glory for himself.
• Batman:
  • This is why the Riddler does what he does.
  • A lot of Batman villains fit this trope. Even the Joker is about half this, with the other half being an Ax-Crazy Omnicidal Maniac.
    Joker: Do you really think I would stir up so much trouble and not make sure you knew it was me?
  • In Batman: Digital Justice, this is Gata's explicit motivation, even before she becomes Catwoman.
  • At one point in Batman (Grant Morrison), the Caped Crusader has to contend with Wingman, an attention-seeking Swedish superhero who's blatantly mimicking Batman to try and steal the limelight. He's so obsessed with being the center of attention that when the world fails to validate his ego, he backstabs his former teammates and Batman to a supervillain, blaming and resenting them for "holding him back" from Justice League-level fame.
• Booster Gold: Booster often ruins covert hero operations by alerting his publicist to where he and the rest of the Justice league will be just so he can draw a crowd. Later subverted when Booster gets recruited by Rip Hunter as a guardian of the time stream. By this point, Booster has become a competent, serious hero, but he has to maintain his public image as a screw-up attention whore to avoid getting killed in the crib.
• Spider-Man:
  • Mysterio, by his own admission, no less! His main goal in life is to become famous, and pretty much everything he does is an attempt to achieve his goal. He was originally a special effects artist in a movie studio, but he didn't think his job was making him famous enough. He tried to get into acting for the extra recognition, but his career never went anywhere. He became a supervillain after a friend sarcastically told him that becoming a criminal seemed like a good way to get famous.
  • C-list villain Screwball is a social media influencer who livestreams her crimes for the sake of entertaining her 18 million followers.
• Supergirl:
  • Subverted in Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade. Linda Lee accidentally breaks her own desk, and her school's principal accuses her from destroying it intentionally because she demands everyone's attention. He also ignores her when she tries to explain it was an accident.
    Principal Pickelmeyer: In the future, perhaps you could choose a less destructive manner to beg for attention from your classmates?
  • Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot: Deadman is having trouble coping with his existence as an invisible guardian angel because in life he was a performer. He loved being in the spotlight and being showered with the people's praise, admiration and adulation, and he cannot deal with it being gone forever.
• Superman:
  • Subverted in the story Kryptonite Nevermore. After saving a person's life at a concert, Superman waves at Lois Lane. Clark Kent's boss Morgan Edge and other characters misunderstand his actions and claim that Superman loves to show off and grandstand.
  • The villainess Livewire has this as the core of her personality. Even before she got her powers, she was a Shock Jock who demanded to be the center of attention.
• Fred Christ of Transmetropolitan will do absolutely anything to keep from being ignored. He continuously champions various social causes not out of belief, but because if he's their leader, it gets him media notice. Ultimately, however, he dies fighting for a cause he actually believes in, even though nobody can see it.
• The Wasp: The reason why Janet has the most Unlimited Wardrobe among heroines is not only to flaunt her looks, but her wealth.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Wonder Woman (1942): Even before she becomes the first Cheetah, Priscilla Rich cannot stand for other people to get more attention than her, and she even attempts to murder Wonder Woman over being the center of attention during a fundraising performance they're both part of because Diana is top billed. She ruins her own disguise and infiltration of Paradise Island at one point because she can't stand that someone else is going to win a footrace if she doesn't.
  • Wonder Woman (1987): Veronica Cale is disgusted that Wonder Woman gets so much good press when she herself does not, and this jealousy is core to why the ambitious scientist and CEO turns outright villain.
• X-Men:
  • This is about 90% of the Mimic's motivation for screwing around with the X-Men in his early appearances; he's showing off.
  • Emma Frost wears those Stripperific suits on purpose (although it's also partially for psychological warfare against men, as she has claimed).
  • Elixir from New X-Men: Academy X subconsciously used his powers to change his skin into a reflective golden color so that he'd stand out more. Before he discovered he was a mutant, he joined an anti-mutant terrorist group because he thought it would make him more popular.

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