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Thread: Non-standard "Super Heroes"
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2012-12-02, 01:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2012
Re: Non-standard "Super Heroes"
There was a time he was a high school teacher (the best Peter Parker if you ask me) and all king of strange things were happening at the school, so still - Academy of Adventure trope right here.
90s cartoon Spider-Man was going to the college, so he still counts.
Every time he is potrayed as teen superhero he goes to high school - Ultimate Spider-man comics, that awful cartoon by the same name, Spectacular Spider-Man, Marvel Adventures Spider-Man comics. He's a cop in Spider-Girl but she goes to high school.
Now tell me, in one episode of Buffy that I actually seen she deals with invisible schoolmate. Tell me, how was that really so "no-standard" compared to Spider-Girl fighting her schoolmate turned into a Carnage host?
As for lack of costumes and secred idienties - see trope I linked in my previous post, not wearing tights.
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2012-12-02, 03:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2006
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- Material Plane
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Re: Non-standard "Super Heroes"
That's true. I know a few shows about people who could be superheroes:
Angel A bit redundant to mention but he was a superhero.
Dark Angel Jessica Alba as Max is about as strong as Buffy (because of genetic manipulation).
John Doe He knew everything. That's right, everything. May sound dull but it was surprisingly fun to watch. He had also amnesia, colorblindness and too early cancellation.
Mentalist Okay, he didn't have any real powers but damn he could play with people's minds with what amounted to parlor tricks.
As for movies, I'd recommend the following:
The Crow The first one. That's nonstandard. There was also a tv-series but sadly no sequels I'm willing to watch.
Dark City He is a normal guy and it's a weird movie but... see for yourself. I don't want to spoil it.
Man from Earth He claims to be immortal.
Unbreakable Bruce Willis is apparently invincible.
Robocop is totally a superhero. Only the first one is good.
Edit: Oh, and the videogame Second Sight (PS2). It's a stealth action game like Metal Gear Solid but instead of playing as "Solid Snake", you play as "Psycho Mantis".Last edited by Raimun; 2012-12-02 at 03:47 PM.
Signatures are so 90's.
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2012-12-02, 05:03 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2005
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2012-12-02, 05:27 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
- Gender
Re: Non-standard "Super Heroes"
Of the ...8 or so green lanterns of earth, I think only about three ever bothered with secret identities. The space lanterns barely bother with secret identities at all.
I'm pretty sure Tony Starks identity has been public for a while.
Cape comics don't have a specific checklist they need. A list characters have public identities all the time.
Super Robot is it's own genre with it's own history.
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2012-12-02, 07:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2006
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- Under a 1st Ed AD&D DMG
Re: Non-standard "Super Heroes"
The point is it's a non-standard superhero narrative if almost all of the villains are killed off with no real remorse or hesitation. I freely admit rider series vary on it. For example W has only 3 or 4 actual fatalities caused by the hero, while most older series use the "enemy combatant" excuse to kill hordes of Shocker Mooks and Kaijin. Honestly, in some ways the most over the top would be Kamen Rider Kiva, a series that features the hero mass executing a species and having their souls eaten and/or destroyed throughout the show.
And villains have rarely been mindless killing machines in Kamen Rider. Even in the original villainous kaijin showed sapience, as did mooks.
OOO villains were capable of change, becoming sapient and even being redeemable, as illustrated by Mr. Named-for-a-live/death-sigil. And it, like W, kind've belongs to the newer school of "low kill" riders that started with W, rather than the previous decades of riders with huge bodycounts of unquestionably sentient enemies.
Look, I like KR. But it's certainly not "traditional" by western standards. Heck, the "kill your enemies" thing caused controversy when it was left intact in the translation/readaptation of Power rangers in the 1990's, and they were more justifiable than in KR, where most of the enemies are one step away from the hero in half the different iterations.
I didn't say never, just that 90% kill rate was well more than a "standard" superhero.
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2012-12-02, 10:17 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2008
Re: Non-standard "Super Heroes"
A lot depends on exactly how we define "non-standard" here, and look the standard stuff is dealt with within a work. For example, in the OP, it's mentioned that Buffy doesn't have a secret identity. That's not exactly true. Sure, she doesn't wear a cape or a mask, but people aren't really supposed to know that she's the Slayer. It's that it's not a secret identity, it's just that it's a poorly-kept one. That lets them play with the trope a bit; there are several times when someone says, in essense, "I know that nobody is supposed to know that you're the Slayer, but I (or we) do".
A few others that might be considered superheroes:
Nick Knight from Forever Night. He's a vampire, and has basically the standard, traditional vampiric powers and vulnerablities, but sometimes (though not always) the villians he's matched against are mundane criminals, and are often caught through standard police work rather than by superpowers.
Walter Sherman from The Finder. It's not exactly clear whether or not his ability to find missing things is a superpower or not. If it is, then I think he'd count as a superhero. If he's a superhero, he's definately a non-standard one.
Jim Ellison from The Sentinel. A similar backstory to Walter Sherman, but Ellison's heightened senses are definately shown to be a superpower.
Highlander?
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2012-12-03, 05:59 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2012
Re: Non-standard "Super Heroes"
I think that we should wait for Yora, the OP, to narrow down what "standard" superhero means to her. because what I got from first post was "not connected to Marvel or DC Uinverses" and everybody have either very wide or very narrow definition of superhero - for me for example there isn't anything non-standard about not having secret idientity or killing the enemies. Technically Guyver would be non-standard superhero - at one point vilians win, take over the world and heroe go underground and for the ressistance. Hell, in very narrow definition of Superhero Tiger & Bunny is non-stadard, because it potrays both superhuman registration and commecrially-sponsored supers as something normal and okay while most superhero comics show both things as evil incarnate.
So, Yora, what do you understand as "standard superhero"?
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2012-12-03, 06:57 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2009
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- Germany
Re: Non-standard "Super Heroes"
The Marvel and the DC Universe. Everything else is fair game I would say.
We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.
Spriggan's Den Heroic Fantasy Roleplaying
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2012-12-03, 01:48 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2012
Re: Non-standard "Super Heroes"
If so, then all of my suggestions are fair game. And I would also like to add Incognito - it's a series by Ed Brubaker that's published by Marvel but outside Marvel Universe, about reformed supervilian who bailed out his boss and is a part of withness protection. Now he tries to live normal life and when that doesn't work for him to become low-profile superhero, but it drags attentions his former buddies, now wanting revenge. Comics is strongly set in pulp climate and every issue features essay by literature expert about pulp stories.
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2012-12-03, 09:11 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2012
Re: Non-standard "Super Heroes"
As the guy who writes The Legion of Nothing, I'm all for JH recommending my story.
Not wanting to be entirely self-serving, I'll also recommend another superhero serial--Curveball.
Additionally, if you're looking for someone who's essentially a superhero (at least to the degree Buffy is), you might look into Jim Butcher's "The Dresden Files."
He doesn't have a secret identity, but he does protect people against beings that normal humans can't hope to fight. As a wizard/private investigator, he finds himself coming up against just about anything supernatural--vampires, the fae, werewolves, and so on.Last edited by zoetewey; 2012-12-03 at 09:12 PM.