ITT, mooks, grunts and cannon fodder

ITT, mooks, grunts and cannon fodder

Let's show some appreciation to the nameless rank and file, without whom a supervillain would just be a lone nutcase acting like a dick, rather than a leader in a world dominating army.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=PDQPIJSO0XA
youtube.com/watch?v=hD3w_VdTG30
youtube.com/watch?v=Ag_AFraxj-4
youtube.com/watch?v=qYQ-u9mnUGw
youtube.com/watch?v=D2S1HcctItM
twitter.com/AnonBabble

If the 80's did anything right, it was quality army builders

No one?

shameless bump

Super Sentai will always have top notch mooks

...

...

Do clone troopers count?

yes.

that's literally their reason for being. that and the whole order 66.

I'm very tired of mooks being portrayed as incompetent buffoons. Especially when they're supposed to be hardened mercenaries or the like. The heroes don't look that tough for knocking around a bunch of useless goons.

Of course, they can't be portrayed as badasses or even reasonably clever, cause that requires the barest of effort.

less incompetency, more of being a war criminal (executed rather than being able to fight)

Yeah, but if they did THAT, and the mooks became an actual threat in and of themselves, either
1) The hero spends ALL his time just struggling against the army when he should be dealing with the mastermind and his evil scheme or
2) the hero requires an extensive back-up army of his own to handle things, in which case the point becomes moot because the hero never has to fight the foot soldiers himself anyway, as his support crew does it for him.

Besides, people who are genuinely clever badasses probably aren't going to settle for being rank and file anyway, and they'll graduate to "named lieutenants"

how do groups like SHIELD fall into this? stated to recruit the best but still are glorified mooks compared to costumed heroes.

Well why not give the hero their own army? Being the commander of an armed forced never stopped a protagonist from fighting on the front lines. Big Boss, for example.

Besides, due to the law of villainous ability rating, if the looks are that tough, imagine how much of a juicy challenge the villain themselves must be.

That's just good old vanilla bad writing.

Were Red Shadows the worst treated henchmen?

SHIELD hogging the best guys might explain why the rest of the law (army, police, coast guard) is very ineffective in general.

can't recall what character/series at the moment but there's a boss that has a penchant for killing his henchmen for the slightest of offenses/whim.

basically they only serve him out of fear and survivability (live longer in minutes rather than die on the spot).

Not like SHIELD is any better.

I fucking despise that SHIELD has become little more than anti-authoritarian strawmen who exist only to make the superheroes look good. Say what you will about Pleasant Hill, at least Maria was actively trying to create a solution to the super villain problem. Don't see any of the display brigade doing anything long term productive.

... Goddamn, I miss Maria Hill. Why does Marvel have to hate on best girl so much?

like i said, they still come out as glorified mooks when almost every costumed freak can do a better job even if they're supposed to be trained better/have better skills than the ordinary cop/soldier.

Why are mooks so appealing? Is it what you don't see?

They provide the illusion of infrastructure, AKA true power. You can have your magic bullshit superpowers, but nothing beats good ol' fashion hierarchy, resources, and connections.

And frankly, the imagery of a highly organized armed force is just cool. Again, makes it look like everyone knows what they're doing, and thus intimidating.

>when the henchmen have unique body types rather than being a single copy/pasted design

That doesn't get done enough

Dude, it's rare for ANY characters in a comic or cartoon to have different body types. The mooks are lucky when they get to have a face.

Looking at the people beneath the masks gives the villains a breath of humanity that keeps them from being too cartoonishly evil
A lot of times mooks are just average dudes trying to make an honest buck, and that kind of surprisingly relatable position keeps things just ambiguous enough to be interesting

Only non-colored Clone Troopers the ones with markings have atleast an 50% increase in survival

The Foot Soldier's design is really neat and deserves some appreciation.
The weird bug eyes you see in almost every adaptation of the TMNT give them a really distinct look compared to your average ninja mook. Like you see those eyes and you know you're not dealing with any ninja, you're dealing with the Foot.

I also like the Konami games where they have multiple different colors. Wish the cartoon picked that up but they look good in purple too.

...

What series? I want to watch it for these guys alone.

Do the turtles actually kill or destroy foot ninjas in the original cartoon? I know they do in the new one since they're robots, but I don't remember much from the old series.

Honestly, which cartoons actually having mooks serving as actual cannon fodder and getting BTFO by the heroes? I know some Transformers G1 episodes have generics getting wrekd.

They were robots in the old cartoon too.

How come in comics and cartoon female henchwomen are so rare. I don't mean like "evil Baroness-style second in command" or "Bad guy Moll", but just girl cannon-fodder?

Someone needs to make the ultimate faceless mook.

>sign up for some stargate rip-off mission
>have to wear sweaty masks the whole time
>get blown up, shot at and harrassed by natives
>but hopefully the pay will be enough for your family back home
>half your team suddenly turns against you, sides with the natives and kills you

whoop

“They may be called the Palace Guard, the City Guard, or the Patrol. Whatever the name, their purpose in any work of heroic fantasy is identical: it is, round about Chapter Three (or ten minutes into the film) to rush into the room, attack the hero one at a time, and be slaughtered. No one ever asks them if they want to.
This book is dedicated to those fine men.”
― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

They should have been able to see the writing on the wall or have marketable skills other than "happy to follow orders" and "trained in hazmat suit usage".

what writing? who would betray such an honorable charismatic figure?

The "Hey guys, let's fuck over this ancient, highly advanced civilization before we have a way out of oceantown. I'm sure NOTHING WILL GO WRONG." writing.

...

...

...

...

...

...

But then seeing mooks get slaughtered en masse is no fun, bruh

So Sup Forums as a supervillain what kinda designs would you give your henchmen?

For me, it's pic related or something similar. I fucking love bulky, scary looking biohazard suits.

Practical, utilitarian gear and weapons. Think the Replicas from F.E.A.R.
They're meant to kill people, not look scary.

I always like mooks that look like lesser versions of the main villain

shows the ego and vanity real well, wants people to look like him but not better than him

>I always like mooks that look like lesser versions of the main villain

this

that's why cobra troopers are so classy
stormtroopers were classy but prequels ruined it

...

I like the storm kings soldiors

...

Crimson guards are classy motherfuckers
love they armor designs at any form

women are to fuck not to kill

What about punching?

I always dug that bit in the movie intro with the crimson guard smashing the shit out of that one guy's camera

the fuck was his problem?

They didn't seriously make up a bunch of female cobra troops so they'd be allowed to punch lady Jaye in the face, did they?

men can't beat women in cartoons

Baroness found a magic seashell that put all men into a trance. So all that was left were the female cobra troopers.

>Villain kills own henchman

I'm sure it slips past the censors every now and then, can't think of any examples though
>all that was left were the female cobra troopers

WHEN WAS THAT EVEN A THING?!

pffft

you know killing someone is a pretty negative solution, cobra commander

Ressha Sentai ToQger
The train themed Super Sentai. It's definitely a fun ride if the sillyness of the first episode doesn't slay you

it reminds me those guys

youtube.com/watch?v=PDQPIJSO0XA

>Action Force
My brother.

I've always been fascinated by the idea of heroic mooks, or red shirts, if you will. Because frankly, I'm sick of the whole 'lone hero' thing. Yeah, it's a romantic idea, but the way things actually get done, how things are actually accomplished in any meaningful way is infrastructure, organization, a chain of command.

There's a reason that's how things are done in life, assuming everyone involved is doing their job, it's because it works.

But of course, red shirts gotta get shat on too, because goodness forbid anyone besides the main character do anything useful, especially if they're logically more qualified for certain tasks.

Pretty much all the Joes except for the super popular ones were "red shirts" but with punches and being tied up and maybe experimented on instead of killed

On an unrelated note, I'd like to say that my favorite GI Joe episode was the one where Cobra Commander lost everything and he and Storm Shadow go rob the mafia. At least, I think that's what happened, all I really remember is Storm Shadow being really loyal and Cobra getting choked up about it.

...

youtube.com/watch?v=hD3w_VdTG30

youtube.com/watch?v=Ag_AFraxj-4

Was something like this depicted in comics or cartoons?

youtube.com/watch?v=qYQ-u9mnUGw

post mooks that actually enabled their leader win to conquer the world

Damn she's cute.

Spell of the Siren was the episode. Though every once in a while there's a female trooper that shows up.

Mooks truly are the greatest heroes of all. They generally don't have special gear. They generally don't have special powers. Yet they still fight the hero, villain or monster, and many of them die unceremoniously.

a moment of silence for these brave bucket of bolts who went offline to make sgt. slaughter awesome.

This was a small detail that I really liked about Justice League Unlimited. The Watchtower actually had a full civilian staff who actually did things that were important like repairs and engineering, maintaining the teleporter and the other facilities, ran a full cafeteria and recreation and gym areas for the heroes, and actually helped Jonn on monitor duty. There were even a few episodes like the Task Force X one or when Luthor takes over the Flash's body where they were useful in fighting off threats. It was a cool little detail that really filled out the world that I would love to see more.

>mfw the mooks have a better more AESTHETIC look than the heroes and villians
WASTED
FUCKING
WASTED

Aside from the giant obvious weakspot, these guys were pretty cool

Huh. Mooks actually taking advantage of superior numbers. You don't see that too often.

...

I love this image nearly as much as the Crimson Guardsmen eating donuts.

>Terrorist organization has a union and the troopers were able to file for unemployment.
>They also get a good healthcare plan

The mook life is the best life in Cobra.

>just now realized that Watchtower staff uniforms look like the Wonder Twins' costumes
Heh. Cute.

But yeah, this just makes sense. I wish more media would acknowledge and explore logistics. Maybe that's why everything in the world has gone to shit, cause nobody knows how infrastructure works anymore. Gotta ingrain that shit into people's heads, that it takes organization in order to get things done.

Nobody can do everything by themselves. It's just not feasible.

youtube.com/watch?v=D2S1HcctItM

Damn, where do I know them from?

Did they work for Two-Face?

killing own mooks causes troubles like finding new recruits

Shin Chan english version season 2 episode 2.
Action Bastard subplot.
Takes out the henchmen with his dick.

...

Fire nation soldiers look awesome.

Question: Who has the crappiest mooks?

(Pic not necessarily related, only posted it because they look like Crash Test Dummies)

>T-rex smashes through wall
>wall spontaneously regenerates
>triceratops phases through wall
Look, every production has to cut corners somewhere, but come the fuck on.

bad guys aren't the only one who need grunts, BPRD and plenty of other good guys need their own share of cannon fodder

>wall regenerates
>triceratops walks through solid wall
>T-Rex goes straight for the salads
This will always make me laugh. It is such a fuckup that I wonder if it isn't intentional.

>A group of mooks with no boss or mastermind

The Tick was an awesome show
literally Sup Forums of capeshit

...

>random mook/jobber that got wrecked comes back for vengeance
>Hero completely forgot about their existence
Are there any series besides Hokuto no Ken that do this?

Yes, they were in BTAS.

There was that one guy who claimed to be Spider-Man's arch-nemesis. I can't remember his name, I think he had a black costume with yellow eyes.

Slyde

The best example of this was from Gargoyles
>Prepare to get CREAMED

The BPRD life is a rough one.

>gun makes a fart sound