# Superheroes and Supervillains **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 17, 2015, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422 "2015-07-17T16:08:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/21 "2015-07-20T23:20:55Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I’ll bet nobody else does, though. > > “Hey, Paste Pot Pete!” > > “I’m the Trapster!” > > “Yeah, like fuck you are, Pastey.” “I’ll tell Mom!” ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/22 "2015-07-21T18:47:52Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > It’s still largely about punching people in the race as hard as you can. Occasionally, deceit, lying, or blackmail may be necessary to maneuver someone into position for the punch, but there’s always a punch. I’d take out the word “still.” IMO, it’s mostly been that way since the '80s or '90s. In the Golden and Silver Ages, though, it was mostly a battle of wits between hero and villain. I mean, if it just came down to who could punch the hardest, then the Penguin wouldn’t be one of Batman’s most enduring foes, stories of Superman versus Luthor (or Brainiac, or the Toyman, or the Prankster) wouldn’t last more than two panels, and every member of the Flash’s Rogues Gallery would be a has-been before he ever got started. It’s not the hero beating the villain that makes a good story, it’s the hero foiling the villain’s _plans_. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/23 "2015-07-21T21:18:40Z")
> [@pianodave](#): > > I understand it’s all about personality, but how do the writers have one character defeat the other? If each character has superhuman this or that, is it just that the winning character happens to be more superhuman than the other one? Should two superhumanly strong characters with superhuman powers just cancel each other out? . . . . In addition to what’s already been said, there’s always “My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.” The good guys care more or they’re more determined or they have more friends or more loyal friends or they have better karma, getting the necessary break. Comics include more than a few actual or functional gods, too, so the god-machine ending is always a possibility. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/24 "2015-07-21T21:50:00Z")
Another reason is the “collateral damage” factor. If Superman went all out he could easily defeat most of his enemies, but would leave Metropolis a smoking rubble if he did. ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/25 "2015-07-22T14:56:12Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > Another reason is the “collateral damage” factor. If Superman went all out he could easily defeat most of his enemies, but would leave Metropolis a smoking rubble if he did. Good point. _Superman II_ illustrated this well, when Superman drew the Phantom Zone villains away from Metropolis when he realized how much damage was being done, and how terrified the civilians were. Someone once said that in the DC Comics universe, Batman is a policeman and Superman is a fireman. Batman’s main goals are to prevent crime and bring criminals to justice. Superman’s are to prevent disasters and save lives. I’m not saying there’s no overlap, just that their motivations are different. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/26 "2015-07-22T20:52:35Z")
I’d never heard that metaphor before… I like it! A fireman gets to kick down doors and chop holes in walls, if that’s what it takes to save the rest of the block. Superman’s impressive record of collateral damage really is unavoidable, given the class of villains who come along to challenge him. Batman is a pretty good policeman, given how many times he’s arrested the Joker. Too bad Gotham City doesn’t have as heroic a Prosecuting Attorney, or they’d have long since executed that monster… ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/27 "2015-07-22T20:56:48Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Too bad Gotham City doesn’t have as heroic a Prosecuting Attorney, or they’d have long since executed that monster… They do. It’s just that it’s [this guy…](http://underscoopfire.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/two-face.gif) ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/28 "2015-07-23T01:09:51Z")
Talk about a politician flip-flopping… ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/29 "2015-07-24T15:50:11Z")
> [@Cartoonacy](#): > > In the Golden and Silver Ages, though, it was mostly a battle of wits between hero and villain. OTOH, at least in the Silver Age, that “battle of wits” frequently degenerated into, IMO, lazy writers resorting to “the villain/threat knows the hero’s one weakness”, and the hero having to work around that. Example: Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) is my all-time favorite superhero, so some years back I bought a thick volume that DC released that collected all of the earliest GL comics from the 1960s and early '70s. It quickly became ridiculous and boring when nearly every single story revolved around this month’s threat being colored yellow, the one color GL’s ring was powerless against. Sea monster attacks Coast City? The monster is yellow! The Army is testing a new missile, which goes haywire and is now headed straight for Coast City? It’s painted yellow! Airplane loses its engines and is going to crash into Coast City? Yellow! Aliens attack? They’re yellow! Giant robot? Yellow again! I started collecting comics in 1987, and by that time, thankfully, comic writers were focusing more on characterization and longer story arcs than on gimmicks. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/30 "2015-07-24T16:39:45Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > It quickly became ridiculous and boring when nearly every single story revolved around this month’s threat being colored yellow, the one color GL’s ring was powerless against. Sea monster attacks Coast City? The monster is yellow! The Army is testing a new missile, which goes haywire and is now headed straight for Coast City? It’s painted yellow! Airplane loses its engines and is going to crash into Coast City? Yellow! Aliens attack? They’re yellow! Giant robot? Yellow again! The ultimate example is the Shark, who has an invisible forcefield. No, screw you, Green Lantern; it’s a _yellow_ invisible forcefield. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/31 "2015-07-24T16:41:41Z")
> [@pianodave](#): > > I always wonder who’s really super powerful if lots of characters have similar super powers. Shouldn’t they be unique? All real-life soldiers have the same basic human powers/abilities; that does not make them all the same – some are more formidable than others, and different soldiers have different skillsets and specialties. ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/32 "2015-07-24T17:07:17Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > The ultimate example is the Shark, who has an invisible forcefield. > > No, screw you, Green Lantern; it’s a _yellow_ invisible forcefield. That used to bother me, but relatively recently I realized that there is a rationalization. Many glow-in-the-dark plastics and paints appear white or cream-colored in the daylight, but glow bright green in the dark. Do they stop glowing when the sun comes out or when you turn on a lamp? No, they’re still glowing, but the ambient light is so much brighter that you can’t see it. It’s an _invisible green_ glow. BTW, I never found those stories boring. I enjoyed seeing the different ways the writers came up with for Green Lantern to get around what was a pretty commonplace vulnerability. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/33 "2015-07-24T21:13:28Z")
The single best use of the “yellow” crock was when Larry Niven took a brief fling at writing for GL. An enemy had a green-hued laser and GL deflected it easily. So the guy flees away from the scene at such a high percentage of the speed of light that the green laser was red-shifted to yellow. Zip, right through GL’s force field defense. You never saw a Silver Age writer come up with anything that damn clever! ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/34 "2015-07-24T21:26:05Z")
> [@Cartoonacy](#): > > That used to bother me, but relatively recently I realized that there is a rationalization. Many glow-in-the-dark plastics and paints appear white or cream-colored in the daylight, but glow bright green in the dark. Do they stop glowing when the sun comes out or when you turn on a lamp? No, they’re still glowing, but the ambient light is so much brighter that you can’t see it. It’s an _invisible green_ glow. Somebody give that man a No-Prize! ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/35 "2015-07-24T22:23:22Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > The single best use of the “yellow” crock was when Larry Niven took a brief fling at writing for GL. An enemy had a green-hued laser and GL deflected it easily. So the guy flees away from the scene at such a high percentage of the speed of light that the green laser was red-shifted to yellow. Zip, right through GL’s force field defense. > > You never saw a Silver Age writer come up with anything that damn clever! It was clever, but you got it sideways. GL was facing a villain who was also armed with a power ring. So he sped away so fast that the beam from his own ring redshifted to yellow, and penetrated his enemy’s defenses. That was “Ganthet’s Tale,” and you can see pages from it [here](https://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/1374400.html?thread=43035584)(scroll about halfway down). ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/36 "2015-07-24T23:29:18Z")
> [@pianodave](#): > > I always wonder who’s really super powerful if lots of characters have similar super powers. Shouldn’t they be unique? Not really. ‘Deliberately created to have unique powers’ is the only mechanism that would logically lead to that. If they arise ‘naturally’, if there’s more than a handful of superhumans (and only in a small handful of superhero universes is that not true), there’ll be multiple persons with the same power, because there really isn’t THAT much variance in the human species, and there’d likely be consistency in how the laws of physics differ from those of the real world, thus which superpowers are even possible. If they’re created deliberately, unless the goal is _specifically_ unique powers, there’ll be significant overlap, since certain powers have broad ranging utility (super strength, invulnerability) or are common fantasies, which may or may not have utility beyond that (flight). If they’re inborn as part of the species, the entire species will have the same ones, within a certain amount of variance. And that’s just in-universe explanations of overlap within the same universe, though the ‘created deliberately’ paragraph also applies to a significant extent to the creators of the media. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/37 "2015-07-24T23:39:03Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > If they’re inborn as part of the species, the entire species will have the same ones, within a certain amount of variance. It seemed to me that, amongst Marvel’s mutants, mental abilities (telepathy, telekinetics, etc.) seem to be in the overwhelming majority. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/38 "2015-07-24T23:55:59Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > It seemed to me that, amongst Marvel’s mutants, mental abilities (telepathy, telekinetics, etc.) seem to be in the overwhelming majority. Psychic powers are probably the most common mutant ability, but they’re no where near a majority of mutants. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2015, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/39 "2015-07-25T01:35:53Z")
> [@Cartoonacy](#): > > It was clever, but you got it sideways. GL was facing a villain who was also armed with a power ring. So he sped away so fast that the beam from his own ring redshifted to yellow, and penetrated his enemy’s defenses. > > That was “Ganthet’s Tale,” and you can see pages from it [here](https://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/1374400.html?thread=43035584)(scroll about halfway down). Very right you are! My little gray cells, they are not what they were when I was a younger man, n’est ce pas. ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422/40 "2015-08-04T21:03:48Z")
From the OP: … Matter\_Manipulation Maybe I’m not understanding something here, but why does the site not list Mera? As with all of her people she could make “hard water” objects and manipulate them. It seems to me that she is somewhat like GL, although limited to being underwater. Also, he could manipulate energy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-and-supervillains/725422.md?page=3)