<Pixar-fanboy>
Regarding super-heroics, no; but then, The Incredibles was never meant to be a super-hero movie as much as it was meant to be a movie about family dynamics, using super-heroes as a hook.
</Pixar-fanboy>
Every team also has a muscley/invulnerable member, and at least member with effective distance attack ability, and a flyer, and if it’s a big enough team a speedster and a telepath/telekine. I wonder if this is less a cliché than what an effective team would need to counter a range of opponents. Or maybe it’s just a cliché, surely they could come up with new archetypes if they tried hard enough.
The worst were all those generic Image teams, that didn’t even try to hide the fact that they were X-Men ripoffs.
Cyberforce:
Heatwave (brooding leader - Cyclops)
Impact (giant - Colossus)
Ripclaw (badass with claws - Wolverine)
Stryker (badass with big guns - Cable)
Velocity (sexy but timid girl - Shadowcat)
Cyblade (ninja babe - Psylocke)
Wildcats:
Spartan (robot brooding leader - Cyclops)
Grifter (loose cannon mercenary - Gambit/Wolverine)
Maul (giant - Colossus)
Warblade (badass with claws - Wolverine)
Zealot (ninja babe - Psylocke)
Voodoo (sexy but timid girl - Shadowcat)
Void (spacy teleporter - Jean Grey?)
Emp (mysterious behind-the-scenes benefactor - Professor X)
Granted, Wildcats got much better, and eventually became one of my favorite comics ever. But most of the Image teams redefined generic, bland ripoffs.
with huge tracts of land.
Well, there were also Bond movie staples.
The syndrome could be called No Matter How Secret Your Group Or How Hard You Try To Hide, We Will Find You. Professor X’s Cerebro machine always struck me as pretty unlikely. Doctor Strange had the Eye of Agamotto but the principal is the same. Reed Richards had computers. Some groups had telepaths but no bad guy could successfully hide when a good guy was after him.
Marvel tried to explain that once I think. In the case of Dr. Banner, he was a mutant but didn’t know it. His mutant traits were how he survived the gamma bomb blast. A nonmutant would have been vaporized, just like what nukes do to people in real life. The rest is history. This was back when everything in the Marvel world revolved around mutation.
sighing in embarassment at my own useless knowledge
[Comics geek]
Not quite. In Marvel, a “mutant” is a human being possessing a specific gene, the X-factor discovered by Charles Xavier (or possibly Moira McTaggert), which allows its possessors to generally (but not always) develop superhuman powers of varying levels of spectacularness at puberty, usually without any prompting from the environment. Some mutants only develop their power with a catalyst, but they all possess the X-factor, which is what Cerebro scans for.
Not all superhumans have the X-factor. Some have a different genetic oddity that allows them to gain powers when exposed to a radiocative or chemical catalyst; but even though their powers (and ability to gain said powers) ultimately have a genetic basis, they aren’t considered “mutants” because, on Earth-616, “mutant” has become synonymous with “possessing the x-factor.” Thus, sentinels mutant-detecting sensors (implicitly developed on technology like Cerebro’s) don’t pick up the likes of Hulk, Spider-Man, et cetera.
now I’m going to go shoot myself for being such a nerd.
[/Comics geek]
Oh, how about It Runs in the Family Syndrome? If one member of a family gets super powers, then one or more other members will also have powers. Examples too numerous to mention, mostly attributable to mutation (Marvel) or the metagene (DC). This syndrome can itself mutate so that even close friends/girlfriends can catch powers (examples include Frankie Raye, the Human Torch’s girlfriend, and Firebird, Firestorm’s girlfriend).
Or the How long does it take for Franklin Richards to grow up? Syndrome. I haven’t bought a comic book in probably 6 years so I don’t know where our little Harbinger of Alternative Universes/Massive Crossover Ripoff Instigator is right now age-wise, but hasn’t he been a toddler for about twenty years?
I seem to recall that an isntallment of the Fleischer Superman cartoon had that bit in it.
(Superman standing up to bullets but ducking when something is thrown at him.)
Well, according to some other Marvel source, pretty much much everyone does have the X-factor, but some (for no known reason) express at puberty. And others pretty much never will and will have to get superpowers elsewwhere.
The International House of Pancakes Sydrome: Whereas when the hero travels abroad, they will encounter superheroes native to the countries traveled to. Said heroes will either be representative steroetypes of their country or will be a cultural/egendary archetype.
Examples:
DC’s Global Guardians: You had Seraph from Israel, Rising Sun from Japan, Lady Godiva from England, Impala from Kenya, Icemaiden from Norway, etc.
Marvel’s Contest of Champions: Introduced a whole bunch of national heroes, such as Collective Man from China, Shamrock from Ireland, Arabian Knight from Saudi Arabia, and Blitzkrieg from Germany (now there’s a really well thought out one.)
Franklin is now about six-years-old. Comic book time goes by waaay more slowly than Real Time, that’s why Franklin was born in, what? 1970? and he’s still a kid. He has a little sister now in fact, Valerie.
Kurt Busiek’s Astro City (awesome series!) plays this to the hilt, down to regional superheroes as well. Sure, you’ve got the Lion and the Unicorn in England, Kookaburra and Barrier from Australia, Iron Cross in Germany, and the Birds of Paradise in Rio, but you’ve also got the Silversmith in Boston, Skyscraper in Manhattan, Mirage in Las Vegas, The Untouchable in Chicago, and The Real Thing in Atlanta. 
You could make an entire thread with ideas, methinks. “Hollywood? Too easy – ‘Starstruck!’”