I just vaguely remember it, outside the basic premise. The premise is that it’s dumb for heroes to tell exactly what they do/are in their names. “The Human Torch” lets people prepare for him* by buying fire extinguishers for example. IIRC, the first generation of super-heroes are wiped out (by mob-types?) because the baddies know exactly how to prepare for them. The next tier of heroes all change their names to generic stuff like “Super-Power Man” or “Omni-Power Lass”. Once they’ve gone on a mission or two, they ditch the costumes, and grab new generic names. I’ve only read this once, when it was new and other than the name/costume stuff, all other details could be wrong.
Here’s the other clues I have:
It was in the format of an old fashioned Marvel Graphic Novel from the '80s, so it was bigger physically than a normal comic book sized graphic novel.
The publishers never did much else. They published one or two graphic novels, and maybe a few comics and that’s it. I vaguely recall that one of their other GNs showed a modern dojo (lots of wood, but looking '60s modern) and a guy with a tiger head and a karate outfit on it. At least I think that was them.
It was roughly 1986-1994, give or take.
I’d love to find it so if anyone has a clue, I’d appreciate it.
*This is pre-internet so the news would get out a load slower.
Valentino’s excellent normalman (mid-80s) includes a bunch of characters with names similar to those described in the OP (Captain Everything, Sophisticated Lady, Ultra Conservative, Ganja Man, etc.), but that’s where any resemblance ends.
Really though this might be a Tekken related comic based on that, but no luck with searches. The Czar is on the right track - just be prepared that you are misremembering almost all of the story.
As for tiger head, that sounds exactly like Bronze Tiger, but he is a DC Villain. The only other tiger headed hero I can think of is not a martial artist and part of the Shazam family, also DC.
DESTROY!! only had two superheroes, and they had approximately the same power set (One was Superman-ish, one was Hulk-ish). I don’t think this was the one.
The change costumes and names after every few missions gimmick (it’s what the whole thing is about). I may have the details wrong (they changed after every mission, they changed monthly, etc) but they changed names/costumes.
That it was a full color graphic novel
The approximate date range.
…that’s it. Anything else is subject to 30+ years of memory fog.
Dial H for Hero had the same people appearing as different heroes in each issue, but the main idea was that the watch used by the heroes randomly changed you into different (fan suggested) heroes.
I am obliged by an oath I took under a full moon at age 14 to tell anyone who mentions “Dial H for Hero” how much I absolutely hated that comic, if for no other reason than the fact that one of the reader-submitted characters that got used had been generated via the Mighty Men and Monster Maker toy.
Fenris, it’s time to face the obvious explanation for why nobody else remembers this comic book: You clearly slipped into this world from an alternative universe at some point since 1995.