Comic Book Characters Who Are Most Likely On Steroids

We’ve got a soft spot in our hearts for Sam Kieth’s The Maxx, and not just because it had a television series during the glory days of MTV animation. We also love that while The Maxx exists as a superhero in The Outback, in the real world he’s a homeless guy in a box. We’ve all seen weirdly cut-up vagrants working out on park benches and pull-up bars, but there’s no way a guy without ready access to lean, whole-food proteins is putting on that kind of mass.

A lot of times, it makes perfect sense when superheroes are humongous. Batman works out, like, all the time, and Wolverine’s lugging around super-heavy adamantian bones all the time. But for a guy like Cable – his powers are telepathy and telekinesis, so why does he need to be so absolutely huge? Additionally, there’s no way a dude old enough to have white hair can get so massive naturally, especially when dealing with the likely limited dietary options of a post-apocalyptic future. Finally, even the guy’s cyborg arm has huge muscles. That shit just ain’t normal.

Nobody wants to admit it, but Captain America is seriously roided up. Yeah, Marvel explains it away as a “super-soldier serum,” but what would you call an injection that gives you super strength, agility and massive muscles? Yeah, thought so. Also, if you buy into that whole “peak of natural human condition” nonsense, you’ve clearly never seen Rob Liefeld’s art on Heroes Reborn: Captain America.

While the Marvel Universe turns a blind eye to blonde, blue-eyed, white Steve Rogers taking shortcuts to be a better superhero, they aren’t so keen to let things slide when it’s a young black kid doing pretty much the exact same thing. The Young Avengers’ Patriot was roundly scolded and demonized for using Mutant Growth Hormone. We’re pretty sure there’s a Public Enemy song about this kind of thing.