The Catch of Living With Ego

What a Marvel antagonist can teach us about our own personalities.

*Before I start loading up all of the new content, I wanted to re-release a few older articles into my substack for all of you to have in the same space.*

Ego The Living Planet (Character owned by Marvel, Art by Aaron Dowen)

While reflecting on the numerous stories that have thrilled audiences and captivated comic book fans for decades, my mind settled on the story of Ego from Marvel. Specifically, I was thinking about the way that he was portrayed by Kurt Russel in Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. The deepest element of the character was held for almost the entire movie, playing instead on the father/son albeit offputting story arc. Once Ego’s history and diabolical plan are revealed, we all nod together as yes, there he is… that is the Ego I have been waiting for. Innately, his actual ego is derived from the depths of a greater than mentality. He feels that the universe would only be better off with more of his spawn in it. So, he travels from planet to planet, creating multiple children who tend to always disappoint him. 

Because disappointment happens even when you are not egotistical.

The largest catch of living with such a big ego is that you will always be disappointed. Why? Because disappointment happens even when you are not egotistical. Inflating yourself to a level of privileged respect only will lead to others never meeting the bar that you have set in your own mind. Trusting anyone is already hard enough on a normal day-to-day basis, but expecting others to meet some level that you concocted in your mind will drive you further away from being able to build effective teams. In comic creation, teams are detrimental to success. On occasion some do it all themselves and do it well; however, one of the biggest draws to small press and indie comics is its community. Not even in just the creation process, but even within audience engagement, signings, cons, and merchandising. Negating the usefulness of a team will drive many to struggle with their own mental state, especially when it will only translate to you personally being the reason for failures. 

I can not say that anyone who has a big ego is not successful, as many are. I can say that building real friendships, and creative teams have only made the creative process easier. 

The reality is when you try and do it all yourself, the reputation is yours alone.

Another fault of living with such a large ego is always pinning failures on others while grabbing successes with the “look what I did” persona. The reality is when you try and do it all yourself, the reputation is yours alone. It has been witnessed many times over creators getting into a hustle mode and pushing themselves higher in their own minds, and then when it comes to how people feel about their content things often fall apart. We can then watch as they blame a variety of other factors, but never themselves. Whether you have an ego or not, be willing to own up to mistakes, it will only help you grow. We started a whole podcast on the premise of sharing our failures to help others not make the same mistakes. Again, if you are too prideful to take anything we say to heart, the failure is your own.

The takeaway from this article? You can live with a large ego, leaving destruction in your wake, and heck you probably won't even notice it enough to care. However, that path ultimately leads to a quicker burnout and a much lonelier existence. Instead, link up with people who make force you to elevate your craft. As always, do better, be better.