Guile Hero / Comic Books

Guile Heroes in Comic Books.

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• Adam Strange: In his early stories, Adam Strange mostly defeated the menaces he encountered with science and trickery.
• Afterlife Inc: As a (mostly) reformed con artist, Jack Fortune is more than capable of talking his way out of any situation. Just as well, really, as he lacks any and all combat skills.
• Asterix: While most characters in the books tend to default to violence (hey, when all you have is a magic potion that gives you super strength…), Asterix himself switches to Guile Hero mode when punching stuff isn't the best answer — such as when there's no magic potion available (Asterix the Gaul springs to mind), or using subtlety gets the villain of the book a far more appropriate fate than mere pulverisation, such as in "Asterix La Zizanie", also known as "Asterix and the Roman Agent" or "Asterix and the Green-Eyed Monster".
• Batman:
  • Bruce Wayne, especially in group settings where his companions and adversaries have superpowers that render his gadgets and martial arts prowess less relevant. He's not called the World's Greatest Detective for nothing, and his habit of spinning victory from available resources have spawned the popular belief that he can take down any opponent with nothing more than "ample time to prepare."
  • Batman passed it down to the first Robin, Dick Grayson. During "The Batman Goes Broke", he got captured by a crook while waiting for Bruce in his civilian identity and needed to send a message so that Bruce wouldn't get ambushed. Casually admitting defeat, he asked his captor if he could buy a comic book to keep himself occupied. The very fact that Dick looked like he was considering purchasing anything caught Bruce's attention. Then he saw that the way Dick was holding the "options" made a message: "Look - Out - Life - In - Peril". Recognizing his ward's captor, he got the drop on him as they came out of the store.
  • Following in Batman's footsteps, Tim Drake (Robin III, Red Robin) adopts this facet for crime-fighting, managing on one occasion to convince a superpowered life-draining baddie he had no chance against in a fight that he was immune to his powers while horrifying him, causing him to surrender.
• Black Panther: The Black Panther is sometimes this, depending on the writer. The epitome was Christopher Priest's run where he was running schemes against multiple opponents simultaneously. While he was more than capable of fighting in person, more often than not regardless of who beat who in the physical fight, T'Challa had already won in strategic terms. Being an idealistic and responsible King might have something to do with him preferring this approach over straight violent confrontation.
• Black Widow: The Black Widow is often depicted as this in her solo adventures. As a trained espionage agent, Natasha's craftiness is her greatest weapon and she often has to outsmart her enemies as well as outfight them.
• Doctor Strange: Doctor Strange, crossing over with Action Hero. He routinely deals with unimaginably powerful entities who could snap him like a twig in a straight fight, meaning he must look for and exploit their weaknesses, use his wits, and creatively play the situation as it develops.
• Fantastic Four: Invisible Woman shamed Ben Grimm into piloting the ship during the first issue. She was also told to distract many of the Silver Age male supervillains. After Psycho Man temporarily turned her into Malice she used her knowledge of Reed and Psycho Man's personalities to track him down and take revenge on him. When Dr. Doom stole the power cosmic from the Silver Surfer, she tricked him into flying into outer space when he couldn't. During the Civil War, she spied on Reed. As any real chessmaster/manipulative bastard/guile hero would tell you, the greatest achievement in these tropes is to make certain that your opponents don't realize you are a social expert.
• Erstwhile: The title character of "The Farmer's Clever Daughter", who earns her happy ending by predicting what the king will do and solving a riddle he sets before her.
• Hellblazer: John Constantine is a talented sorcerer, his power is of the mile-wide but inch-deep bent, and he can't dish out anywhere near the force that his magical peers like Zatanna and Dr. Fate can, but he doesn't need to. Between his silver tongue and his ability to manipulate and improvise, he'll make you beat yourself faster than the other two could beat you into the ground.
• Horizon Zero Dawn: Ersa manages to survive her time in the Sun Ring against a Ravager unarmed by tricking it into attacking a Carja archer using nothing but a rock. She then uses it as a stepladder, shoves the archer off of the podium he was standing on, stealing his bow and killing the machine with it.
• Iron Man: Tony Stark is a Science Hero, but usually has to think on his feet and use his intellect for more than just designing weaponry.
• L.E.G.I.O.N.: Vril Dox II, son of the first Brainiac.
• Loki:
  • Kid Loki from Journey into Mystery (Gillen), because it's all he has left. He can't fight physically. He has no magic. All he has to go on is his wits and he's got a reputation as a scheming, deceitful bastard who can't be trusted, which makes his job even more difficult. He's usually trying to trick ancient and powerful beings, some of whom are no slouches themselves when it comes to deceit. Even the soul of his evil adult self gets played by Kid Loki. Yes, he's so good he can trick himself, the God of Lies.
  • Later on, in Loki: Agent of Asgard, Loki (who is currently undergoing a case of Heel–Face Turn. It's a long story) frequently resorts to this. For example, in issue 1 their method of getting past the Avengers is to turn them on each other, then casually stroll off while they're brawling.
• Micronauts: Commander Arcturus Rann of the Micronauts shifted back and forth between this and Action Hero, during the original series. His main weapon was his mystical connection to the Enigma Force. He spent an entire story arc removed from the main events where he retreated to a spiritual plane (via meditation) and spent all his time philosophically debating with Baron Karza (who had similarly removed himself from the main affairs), the Time Travellers serving as mediators. Both eventually came away with what they wanted, sort of.
• Shadowpact: The Enchantress. In their first battle, Strega easily defeats her thanks to superior power and experience. However, Enchantress knew that she was outmatched and wasn't even trying to win the fight at all. Rather, she was studying Strega's attacks to analyze her spells and figure out how to undo the barrier Strega had placed on the town.
  Enchantress: When I can't be the toughest witch in town, I settle for being the sneakiest.
• Sin City:
  • Dwight McCarthy from the story "A Dame To Kill For". While healing from severe gunshot wounds and on the run from the cops, he had to convince the girls of Old Town to help him out. In a later story called "Family Values", he politely manipulates a crime family into ruin.
  • Wallace also manages to gain the cooperation of Sin City cops in Hell and Back while getting his friends to supply him with enough guns to take out the Big Bad.
• Superman:
  • The Man of Steel is no slouch with guile. He will often resort to outsmarting his opponent when his brawn doesn't do him any good. This is most apparent against Mr. Mxyzptlk, as Supes has to trick him into saying his last name backwards because he is a nigh-omnipotent Reality Warper. Many Silver Age stories were less about Superman fighting bad guys, but either using his powers in creative ways to resolve a problem or coming up with bizarre plans. So, Superman will let an enemy believe he's been successfully gaslighted, or he'll fly off to make them believe he's afraid, or he'll turn himself into bait to overload a weapons system.
  • At the start of her career, Supergirl had to act as Superman's secret weapon. In order to do good deeds, help people and punish criminals and bullies without being seen, Kara constantly came up with new and creative ways to use her powers and became very good at tricking and outthinking opponents she couldn't simply overpower. She's capable of pretending she's killed herself to get rid of a parasitic lifeform and building a shrinking ray to defeat a monster so massive it doesn't even notice her attempts to fight it physically.
• Wonder Woman: The Holliday Girls in the Golden Age tended to show a lot of guile and used their feminine wiles to take opponents by surprise. On one occasion they pretended to be part of a nonexistent parade to simply march their way in to a secret Nazi spy base which confused the guards and let them beat all the Axis agents senseless once they were in.
• X-Men:
  • Charles Xavier. Aside from being a telepath, he keeps secrets even from his own team, has faked his own death as a ruse, and has employed secret operatives for when dogs need to be shot.
  • Cyclops, completing the (most likely unintentional) trio of major team leaders with Captain America as the Action Hero and Reed Richards as Science Hero.
  • In the second volume of X-Men: Legacy, Charles Xavier's son, Legion, becomes this — he has won the Superpower Lottery, but even when he cannot access his greater powers, he can work with what he has, bluff and cunning. The series, however, deconstructs this — David is unable to trust anybody and so quickly gets manipulative. He rarely thinks of the consequences of his actions, and the people he uses as pawns are not happy about it, which often gets him in trouble.

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