When I started reading comic books way back in the early seventies, often heroes and heroines took on ordinary goons and lost. Batman, Captain America, Black Canary, Green Arrow, Daredevil, Black Widow, etc. were portrayed as good fighters, of course, but they were not so invincible that they could not get taken down by a group of thugs occasionally! Even powerful superbeings like Spider-Man and Wonder Woman could be KOed by a thug if they got hit just right. Does that ever happen today? It seems like Batman and Captain America, at least, come out on top even if they are seemingly ridiculously overmatched. When was the last time they got taken out by ordinary thugs? Has any one else noticed this phenomenon-- or is it just me?
Earlier than the 70s, back when I started reading comics in the 50s, superheroes were often up against “common thugs”, who sometimes seemed to get the better of them (at least, short term.)
The George Reeves SUPERMAN TV series never had super-powered criminals… well, hardly ever.
But, deep down inside, those story lines got boring. It was much more creative (in some ways) and certainly more exciting to have Superman pitted against his equals or superiors in strength, etc. As the superheroes got more powerful (from able to leap tall buildings to able to lift planets), so did the villians become more powerful. I, for one, lament it.
Say you’re a writer for superhero comic. You have to keep topping yourself. Always. You can’t go back.
Once Spiderman takes on Galactus, it’s an absurdity to see him being beaten up by an ordinary hoodlum. In the end you get a never-ending upward spiral of improbability that ends in a crash or in a retcom, starting at the bottom all over again.
Life on a monthly comic never ends, never gives one time for reflection. A new supervillain is an easy way out. Pow, crash, biff and you have a comic. That gets you to the next month, when you have to do it all over again. The real problem is that you need 12 new villains a year per superhero and that makes them proliferate wildly. A superhero painfully gets a superpower, and has to learn to live with it, adapt to it, understand how to make it work, and figure out the many limitations it has. This can cover many issues. But a supervillain comes in with no background. All too often, they can fly, have superstrength, and send magic bolts out of their fingers. And yet they still lose. So the next month you need someone 50 feet tall, with diamond spikes, and fire breath. And yet he still loses. So the next month…
One major reason that comic books got the horrible reputation of being… comic books.
Yeah, but good luck landing that punch on Spider-Man!
If he sees your fist coming, his Spider Agility will let him easily dodge out of the way.
If he doesn’t see your fist coming, his Spider Sense will alert him, and he’ll also dodge out of the way.
Ya don’t mess with the kid with radioactive blood!
If you think it’s amazing how these people win against all odds, you should read Wolverine’s comic series. He regularly gets shot numerous times while being attacked by hundreds of Ninjas who all get their kicks in (and stabs). He usually just barely survives to the next storyline.
To answer your question, I’ve noticed that the current storylines just don’t have room for ordinary thugs anymore. They’re trying to tell a story, and if they do fight thugs at all, the fights are just filler to waste time.
There is one exception to this. Many times the X-Men encounter a group of mutant haters who attack the X-Men in mobs. Granted, the X-Men are always driven back because they don’t really want to fight these people anyway, but it’s the only example I can think of where normal people beat superpowered.
I wonder how many poorly-written “erotic” fanfics have started from the OPs premise?
Too damn many, I’m sure.
So, the old-style story lines were boring, but you lament them going away? 
This is often true for long story arcs. but short pieces often deal with this very well. There was a short with Cyclops, I’m not sure where it originally appeared, where he’s walking along a city street in his civvies, and a group of thugs start hassling him and then pull his ruby glasses off. He has to fight them with his eyes closed, and then after it all find his glasses again. It’s a very well-written 8 pages or so, with nary a super-power in sight.
Iron Man has got some “ordinary thug” storylines from time to time. This is possible, because Tony Stark is just a normal man without the armour.
Spider-Man and the Punisher are a lot more interesting against ordinary (well, maybe extraordinary, but not super) thugs. It’s a waste of trees to pit either of these characters against Thanos. I think the best classic Spider-Man stories are the ones that pit him against guys like the Big Man, Fancy Dan, Montana and Ox (street thugs who are, in combo, more than a match for him) or the Vulture (a crafty thug who’s in it for money and kicks, not some Avatar of Eeeevil).
The current Punisher storyline is introducing some very credible mobster antagonists while our hero is far from peak form. They’re much more interesting than unbreakable super-villains like the Russian.
who?
The Russian was a recurring Punisher baddy, essentially hired muscle. At one point he was augmented by a mercenary-type military general, and turned into a nearly unkillable cyborg with … uh … big hooters. Weird character, a prime example of the bigger-is-better mentality we’re discussing.
Wow, am I ever glad I read that title wrong. I thought it said Superheroes and heroines versus ordinary things!
Thought I was going to walk in on something like “Hey, who do you think would win in a fight: Superman or a Swingline stapler?” 
Well, can it be a red Swingline stapler?
I just finished reading my Daredevil #57, wherein Matt Murdock faces, and more or less defeats, a hundred armed Japanese yakuza hitmen. He gets pretty banged and shot up in the process, but … holy moley.
Or even worse, a red Kryptonite Swingline stapler?
Personally, I got a kick out of it when Spider-Man whomped all of the X-Men put together in Secret Wars.
That’s my stapler. Th-th-that’s my stapler. Hello?
Oooo…now there would be an epic battle: Superman vs. Milton!
I think the most powerful hero/heroine to regularly succumb to blows from regular folks has got to be Wonder Woman-- at least her golden age/ silver age depictions. I remember a story from the seventies where she fights some U. S. soldiers (some magic spell makes her see them as Nazis!). At one point she tears a tank apart; then, a few panels later, one of the soldiers knocks her out with a blow to the back of her head with the butt of his rifle! Vast discrepancy between strength and durability!
Exactly. I was going to point that out, but I have a terrible memory and got sidetracked. Spider-Man has always been my favorite hero because of his ability to take punishment. He gets hurt, but he fights anyway. It’s kind of like why I enjoy Jackie Chan movies moreso than Bruce Lee movies. Anyway, Spidey takes a lot of punishment in the Ultimate Spiderman comic series where the old storylines are reinvented. Since he’s just a kid learning to use these powers, the writers make him get hurt a lot more. 