Name and Exemplify Superhero Syndromes

The **No Matter How Evil/Destructive You May Be, It Is Not Our Place To Pass Judgment On You ** syndrome. The trial of Galactus is a perfect example of this. Spiderman never kills Carnage no matter how much better the world would be without him. Superman never killed Mordru despite the utter destruction of 7,000,000 people in Coast City.

A recent Daredevil made mention of a multi-billion-dollar insurance policy held by the city of New York expressly for damage caused by super-powered persons. Their premiums must be astronomical.

This also happened right at the beginning of Byrne’s run on Superman (was that just post-Crisis?). One of Luthor’s employees figured out that Kent was Superman, but Luthor was so bent out of shape at the idea that someone with Superman’s power would pretend to be human that he about flipped his lid, and fired the employee. Probably threatened to kill her on top of it. (I think I remember all that correctly.)

I’m pretty sure it was John I was thinking of. In fact, I remembe the story, now.

I thought I’d read all of Astro City, but I don’t remember a Bravo at all.

This came up the last time we had a long super-duper thread, but there was a terrific Wally-era Flash story that talked almost directly on this point. It’s a “reunion” of the Rogue’s Gallery and Wally attends. He has a conversation with IIRC Weather Wizard who comments on the individual and collective power of the RG, how they could have set themselves up as gods among men (and although he doesn’t say so, gotten rich at the same time) but they allowed themselves to get fixated on Barry Allen.

In another story Golden Glider was shown to have gone straight and become a bounty hunter, along with the latest in a series of dim-witted Captain Cold knock-off partners (Chilblaine I think she called that one).

Although if anyone can figure out a way for, say, Rainbow Raider to make a living…

I remember a little twist on that cliche on Daredevil (around issue #228 - 1980s), when Kingpin found out that DD’s Secret ID was Matt Murdock. Kingpin believed it, but thought Murdock was only pretending to be blind.

Which is interesting since he FOUNDED the New Warriors.

Let’s not forget the Adult Child syndrome rampant among the X-titles. To avoid having to have the superhero parent raise their children, the writer instead either kills off the kid, or through an implausible series of strange happenings manages to age the child to an adult level. Par example:

Genis-Vell, son of the original Captain Marvel, artificially conceived and grown to adulthood.

Marcus, the “son” of Carol Danvers.

Cable, the son of Cyclops and Jean Grey’s clone, infected with a techno-organic virus and sent into the future to be raised by his alt-timeline sister.

Stryfe, Cable’s clone, raised by Apocalypse.

Rachel Summers, the daughter of Cyclops and Phoenix from an alternate, dystopian timeline.

Talia, the alternate timeline daughter of Nightcrawler and the Scarlet Witch.

The sheer number and variety of alternate timeline/artifically aged offspring has resulted in at least TWO adult grandsons of Cyclops and Phoenix (who are themselves no more than thirty). It’s gotten to the point where a more or less normal child, like Quicksilver’s daughter Luna, is the exception.

That was almost certainly a William Messner-Loebs story, and he’s soooo underrated as a comics writer it’s not even funny.

Tengu. It was El Hombre I was thinking of, not Bravo. Bravo was his partner. All in the “Tarnished Angel” storyline with Steeljack.

Aaah, right, that Bravo. How embarassing…Tarnished Angel is my favourite arc.

Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot?
:confused: :confused: :confused:

Coast City was Hal Jordan’s turf, Mordru didn’t destroy it, aliens did, and I think it was 11 million.

But other than that…Golden. :wink: :slight_smile:

[Nitpick]
Mongul.
[/Nitpick]

You’re right…so of the JLA big seven, you had three with teen sidekicks, two with associated teen character who nevertheless had solo adventures (becuse, really, does Supergirl need rescuing?), and two without sidekicks (unless you want to count Pieface, who was definitely not a kid, anywhistle). Over on the marvel side, only Hulk, Captain America, and Captain Marvel had a sidekick (all the same one, in fact; Rick was SUCH a hero slut), unless you to count the likes of the Wasp as being Hank Pym’s sidekick. As I said, it’s not really a cliche, just a recurrent theme.

Well, post-crisis Diana has no secret identity. Pre-Crisis she was easily the most ludicrous of the bunch, since it was PUBLICLY KNOWN that WW’s real name was “Diana.” But you can fanwank that as Aphrodite or Athena magically preventing any mortal from realizing the truth unless Diana deliberately spilled the beans.

You mean “Mongul.”

And you’re wrong anyway. First, it was the Cyborg who was in charge there, not Mongul. Second, at the end of the storyline Superman definitely and deliberately destroys the Cyborg’s body; he didn’t destroy the Cyborg’s consciousness because frankly he didn’t have a clue how to do so, but figured he should at leasta minimize the danger. And third, I am SUCH a geek.

Tho’ I remember an X-Men ep (“He’ll Never See Me Cry”) from 20-odd years ago in which Colossus got into a bar-fight with Juggernaut - thereby saving Wolverine the trouble, 'cos he was going to paddle young Rasputin for breaking Kitty Pryde’s heart - and, after Colossus had been rendered unconscious, Jug large-heartedly tossed down a fat roll of note “for the owner, to fix up his place”, while telling Wolvie and Nightcrawler to pat Colossus on the back when he woke up for giving it a good go.

THAT WAS NOT TWENTY ODD YEARS AGO!! :eek: I AM NOT THAT OLD!! :eek:

Strange, I had you pegged as a juve, Askia, but take my word for it. I was out of the office that day and a passing lorry broke its flywheel, and a fragment of the rapidly-spinning metal rebounded off the roadway and through my fourth-storey window, and whizzed past within a foot or so of where I would have been sitting. It punched through a plasterboard wall, across the corridor, and through another plasterboard wall, leaving a hole larger than my hand. That sort of tends to strengthen associations in the old memory.

Heck, it’s a dozen years and more since Superman got croaked. Time’s a-flyin’.

OSHA and UL laboratories do not exist in this world I also call this “Gotham Technology.” Anytime a villain throws a chair at the hero and misses, it will hit a computer console which then explodes into flame and sparks and sets the whole place on fire. This is more an animated thing than comic books. How many secret lairs does an evil mastermind have to lose before he gets a decent electrical contractor?

No one has mentioned George Reeves Disease a.k.a. “I’ll stand here and let bullets bounce off my chest but when they throw the empty gun at me, I’ll duck” syndrome.

Well, who else has it? I can’t think of one.