Comic Book Superhero cliches

Cafe Society
1

There have been enough threads about movie & t.v. cliches in the Cafe Society. It’s time to poke fun at some other mediums. Comic book superheroes seems to be an obvious choice to amass a long list of cliches:

-All superheroes are buff and muscular if men, or curvaceous & busty if women. heroes wear form-fitting body suits with no pockets, zippers, buttons, etc. while heroines wear skimpy bikinis with plunging cleavage.

-Despite being exemplary specimens of physical perfection, they are easily mistaken for spineless shnooks when not in their superhero costumes.

-Succesful male superheroes will eventually be accompanied by a female partner with similar (but slightly less powerful) abillities and a ripoff costume & name (e.g. Supergirl, Batgirl, Mary Marvel). Successful female superheroes have as allies a non-superpowered man who, through grit & resourcefulness, proves himself the equal of the superpowered heroine. (e.g. Steve Trevor)

-Male heroes are “Men” (Superman, Batman, Spider-Man) and female superheroes are (with rare exception) “Girls” (Invisible Girl, Marvel Girl, Power Girl).

-(pre 1970s) All superhero teams consist of three to four men and one girl, all of them caucasian. (post 1970s) Teams consist of three to five men and one to three girls. But invariably there will be more men than girls. There will be one (and only one) black person on the team.

-Supervillains brazenly define themselves as despicable rats (The Brotherhood of EVIL Mutants, the Legion of DOOM, the Masters of EVIL).

-Supervillains employ legions of hopeless thugs who couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn, and have at their disposal an endless variety of Rube Goldberg-style deathtrap devices (which the heroes will craftily outmaneuvre.)

2

All rearchers in cybernetics will create at least one robot that will try to exterminate mankind/conquer the world/carry off the scientist’s girlfriend.

( *Important note to self: What does Bill Gates keep chained up in his basement? Check this ASAP.) *

All scientists can work in any and all fields with equal facility, at the drop of a hat, and get immediate results in fields others have labored in for years without results.

3

Oops, I even forgot one:

All supersecret high tech agencies, either good or bad, will have unweildly long official names that can easily render cool acronym names: S.H.I.E.L.D., A.I.M., S.T.A.R. Labs, the H.I.V.E., etc.

4

Not true. There was a point in the 80’s where there were more female X-Men than male. Also, Warren Ellis’s Stormwatch (1996-1999) was comprised of four men and five women.

Also, the gender naming one obviously doesn’t apply to the huge majority of masks whose aliases aren’t gender-specific.

Here’s a big cliche for you: all independent heroes can acquire costumes without giving away their identity, and they seem to have a limitless supply of them.

5

The group of evil villains can only execute an evil plan once. If their plan fails, they cannot tweak it or fix it, they must scrap it entirely and try again with a completely new plan.

6

This can be generalized to the Pauli Comic-Book Principle: No two superpersons can share the same state, consisting of Set of Powers, Gender, and Alignment, but it is allowed and highly probable for superpersons to exist sharing two of these three properties.

For example: Wolverine has rapid healing and claws, is good, and is male. No other superperson can have all three of those properties. However, Sabretooth has rapid healing and claws, is evil, and is male, and Yuriko has rapid healing and claws, is evil, and is female. Superman has (whole list of powers), is good, and is male; Supergirl has (list of powers), is good, and is female; and Zod has (list of powers), is evil, and male.

There are rumors that there exists yet another quantum property, Publisher, such that two superpersons can share Set of Powers, Gender, and Alignment, so long as they have different values of Publisher, but these claims are hotly disputed.

7

[QUOTE]
Here’s a big cliche for you: all independent heroes can acquire costumes without giving away their identity, and they seem to have a limitless supply of them.[/QUTOE] What’s more, superheroes are by and large able to design and afford cool, professional looking, skintight costumes and masks without any apperant tailoring skills.

Also, male genetalia almost completely dissapears when putting on these costumes.

Despite the fact that you operate in a single city and are well known by the criminal populace, you never need to worry about someone just picking you off with a sniper rifle while you hop accross the same rooftops you do every night.

Along those lines, a hero must not, with few exceptions, make use of any technology or weaponry that he’s aquired from a defeated foe no matter how much it would come in handy in his daily crime fighting.

8

Invisible Girl changed her name to Invisible Woman back in the eighties, by the way.
Well-established heroes or groups always have annoying magical pests which are mostly harmless but still annoying: Mr. Mxyzptlk, Bat-Mite, Mr. Impossible, etc.

9

The “Motive Doesn’t Count, Apparently” Rule
Best exemplified by the line “I won’t kill you…that would only make me become like you,” usually spoken by a moralistic hero totally dedicated to the protection of innocents, to a depraved, sadistic, and insane supervillain, right after said villain has escaped prison and murdered scores of civilians. Again.

The " It’s defective - it’s always breaking in half" Rule
Romances will never work out. If the relationship doesn’t just “break up,” it will end in the heartbreaking death (or, occasionally, the brain erasure) of one or more of the lovers. “Will they or won’t they” and “unrequited love” situations, on the other hand, will drag on forever.

The No one stays dead except for “Bucky” Rule
Self explanitory.

10

Whoops, the Fantastic Four magical nuisance was “Impossible Man”, not “Mr. Impossible.”

11

It is customary for those on the side of good, upon meeting for the first time, before they unite to defeat their common enemies, to beat the living snot out of each other

12

My list of Comic Book Superhero Sterotypes:
If you’re German you have to be either a baron who fought on the side of the Nazi’s during WWII (despite the fact that this would make you 90 years old) or the son of a baron who fought in WWII.
If you’re Japanese you have to be a Samurai, a Yakuza, a member of a Triad or a Ninja, perferably a mixture of at least two of the above.
If you’re Chinese you have to be a Mandarin Noble.
If you’re Mexican you have to be a fat bandit with a thin mustache.
Gays and lesbians apparently don’t exist.
No one recognizes you no mattter how ridiculiously revealing your mask is.
If you’re a teenager you have to have angst.

13

The cover of the comic book generally bears little to no relation to what happens inside the comic book. Although this has gotten better in the last decade.

14

I’d say it’s gotten way worse, unless you count the fact that covers are so vague now that they must have some relation to what’s going on in the issue (“oh, it promises Spider-Man within, and there he is!”).

Another: You better learn to at least get along with your arch nemesis pretty quick, because odds are you’ll have to join forces on a number of occasions. Additionally, if he gets too popular, he’ll become an anti-hero with his own book, and you’ll have to maintain a tense relationship in order to work together. You’ll know this is happening if you find yourself saying lines like “look, I don’t like you, but we have to work together!”

15

Apparently, this doesn’t apply to the Fawcett characters. Think: Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr. and the Lieutenant Marvels.

16

Radiation is a good thing!
Instant superpowers. But remember kids, with that wacky radiation you never get the same result twice.

17

Not so much cliches as idiocies, things that are utterly illogical, such as:

The galaxy is teeming with civilizations possessing FTL travel, but none of Earth’s governments have diplomatic or trade relations with them.

The FBI or CIA hasn’t unmasked all the costumed heros in the US.

None of the world-shattering events that take place in comics such as alien invasions, supernatural manifestations or the use of ultra-advanced technology cause any changes in day-to-day life.

The best way to use supernormal abilities is to create a public alias while keeping one’s “secret identity” hidden (The Fantastic Four are among the few exceptions to this.)

18

Good guy and bad guy were once best friends.

19

Supergirl (and, by obvious extension, Laurel Gand) is every bit an equal of Superman/boy (Lar Gand/Mon-el/Valor/M’onel)'s equal (in most incarnations). Ditto the unmentioned Lightning Lad/Lightning Lass pairing - and the third of their triad, Lightning Lord.

Sure, Mary Marvel’s a wimp compared to Captain Marvel, but so are the rest of the Marvel Family (who are male).

The Flash’s sidekick/spin-off (Kid Flash/Impulse) is invariably (er…usually…I’m getting a she-flash image in my head and can’t be sure if that’s Elseworld/Kingdom/My Dementia, or current canon) male.

Green Lantern has had any number of knockoff/spinoffs of both sexes.

Wonder Woman has not just Steve Trevor, but Wonder Girl.

And this applies only to DC, in any case - the closest I can think of to that happening in Marvel is Spider-Man/Spider-Woman, and Marvel Girl/Marvel Boy - neither of which really fits the concept, AFAIK (I don’t know from Spider-Woman) - Marvel Girl/Marvel Boy it’s actually exactly the opposite - she came first, and is by far the stronger of the two - or was, last time I bothered with any main-continuity Marvel books.

Hmm…it occurs I’ve also provided some counter-evidence to the naming one, too.

20

There’s Jesse Quick, daughter of the golden ager Johnny Quick. She’s recently lost her speed powers, last I knew. Also, her costumes have all been utter abominations. Another point in the male heroes who have female versions of them column, though. There’s also a female Kid Flash from Kingdom Come, Wally West’s daughter. And XS from the Legion was in the present for a while, I think.

There’s also an honorary Wonder Boy, but he doesn’t have any powers or do anything. Also, he sucks.

Not necessarily. All three of them are able to draw on the exact same source of power, and last I knew their strength depended on how many of htem were using the power at a given time. In the latest Formerly Known as the Justice League, Mary Marvel quite easily handed Captain Atom his ass on a platter, so I’m guessing there’s not a huge, if any, difference in power among them.

This didn’t really seem to be true post-Crisis though, did it? The Matrix Supergirl wasn’t as powerful as Superman, and neither was the one that came after that. Superboy’s equal, sure.