New OOTS products from CafePress
New OOTS t-shirts, ornaments, mugs, bags, and more
Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 31 to 40 of 40
  1. - Top - End - #31
    Banned
     
    Goblin

    Join Date
    Mar 2012

    Default Re: Non-standard "Super Heroes"

    Quote Originally Posted by endoperez View Post
    Wait, Spiderman goes to school? I thought he had had a full-time job since the 1980s or something.

    Any way, I'm not that knowledgeable about superheroes, but if there are other superhero books that do it without capes and secret identities, perhaps you should post them?
    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.

  2. - Top - End - #32
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Material Plane
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Non-standard "Super Heroes"

    Quote Originally Posted by willpell View Post
    There's an entire genre of television shows, a few comic books from publishers other than the Big Two, a book here and there, and probably even video games and such, that are cropping up these days which revolve around nonstandard sorts of superheroes. In particular I've noticed a genre of "eruption" stories - ones which revolve around a single incident which creates a small number of empowered individuals, often with a tie among them such as a place they were all at or a power that they all have.
    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.

  3. - Top - End - #33
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location

    Default Re: Non-standard "Super Heroes"

    Quote Originally Posted by Man on Fire View Post
    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.
    Who are you arguing with?

  4. - Top - End - #34
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Non-standard "Super Heroes"

    Quote Originally Posted by Serpentine View Post
    No particularly strong opinions on the matter, but I'd like to point out that just because there are exceptions doesn't mean they're not standard tropes or anything. Luke Cage and Jay Garrick not having secret identities doesn't change the fact that a secret identity is a superhero trope that Buffy doesn't have, and the mere fact that those superheroes don't have that specific trope doesn't mean they're not still standard superheroes.
    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.


    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    That Indian movie in which a super-robot is fighting an army of his copies might also qualify as a superhero movie. If Iron Man and Batman can be superheroes, than a super-robot could qualify as well.

    Super Robot is it's own genre with it's own history.
    Last edited by Jayngfet; 2012-12-02 at 05:28 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Fawkes View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Jayngfet View Post
    I don't care what you feel.
    That pretty much sums up the Jayngfet experience.
    Quote Originally Posted by Fawkes View Post
    something something Jayngfet experience.

  5. - Top - End - #35
    Troll in the Playground
     
    turkishproverb's Avatar

    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    Under a 1st Ed AD&D DMG

    Default Re: Non-standard "Super Heroes"

    Quote Originally Posted by Jayngfet View Post
    Their enemies are outright monsters, so it doesn't count. I mean, even Batman makes exception to his rule when he has to fight things that are completley mindless killing machines.

    Even then, Riders do tend to help any monsters they can, even if most are beyond help. I mean, if I remember right the original rider managed to bring back a bunch of transformed victims early on. Drake and Sasword both tried to save enemy Worm who looked like they might be turned, but that always went sideways. Double's enemies always survived, or at least didn't die from injuries he inflicted in every occasion I remember, and Fourze/Meteor didn't kill anybody either. OOO's enemies were never anything but mindless disposable drones and science experiments gone wrong except the last boss.

    I mean, Kabuto stopped a bank robbery without killing anyone once, so it's not like they kill out of choice so much as necessity.


    You MIGHT make a case for riders I haven't seen, but the way you're phrasing it comes off as very different from the reality. Rider villains tend to be worse off mentally than even the Joker, since the Joker at least spent most of his life as a regular joe and presumably might be cured one day with the right help.

    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by Man on Fire View Post
    I didn't say never, just that 90% kill rate was well more than a "standard" superhero.
    Avatar by Akirim.Elf
    Spoiler
    Show
    by Akirim.elfKickstarter Avatar by Savannah
    Quote Originally Posted by Nerd-o-rama View Post
    Star Wars canon is one of those things where people have started to realize that the guys in charge are so far off their rockers that it's probably for the best to ignore them.
    Quote Originally Posted by Triscuitable View Post

    OH GOD THEY'RE COMING! RUN! RUN, TURKISHPROVERB, RUN!

    Quote Originally Posted by Maxios View Post
    GENERIC FLAMING COMMENT, POSSIBLY INVOLVING YOUR MOTHER !

  6. - Top - End - #36
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    GreataxeFighterGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2008

    Default 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?

  7. - Top - End - #37
    Banned
     
    Goblin

    Join Date
    Mar 2012

    Default 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"?

  8. - Top - End - #38
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Yora's Avatar

    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Germany

    Default 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

  9. - Top - End - #39
    Banned
     
    Goblin

    Join Date
    Mar 2012

    Default 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.

  10. - Top - End - #40
    Pixie in the Playground
    Join Date
    Dec 2012

    Default 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.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •