Superhero Themes and Cliches

[YeshuasHeart]

What are the common superhero themes? What are its cliches?

 

[Corty]

• Coming from space as a baby.
• Exposed to radiation or some super-sciency element.
• Bitten by an animal or legendary monster, giving him/her powers.
• Finding an ancient relic that turns him/her into a deity-like being.
• Injecting them with a serum to grant them super-duper-mega-awesome powers.
• Magic.
• Interdimensional travel. Beep-beep mutherfucker, it's Truck-kun time!
• Dying, then climbing back out of hell or something.

Could list more, but I'm lazy.

 

[Le_ther]

What are the common superhero themes? What are its cliches?

Sacrificing yourself then ends up either being a time dweller(reincarnator,regressor,returner) guy who saves the world

 

[T.K._Paradox]

As of late, deconstructions of classic heroes.

They usually take a popular hero, like superman and twist it to make it more 'realistic'.

Examples being: Homelander from the 'The Boys' who was written to be a charismatic, homicidal, man child.

And Nemesis, a wealthy sociopath who's life goal is to spread as much terror as possible to deal with his own boredom.

 

[CarburetorThompson]

If it’s modern comic book super heroes then it’s always peddling a hamfisted political message, with no subtlety in a way that doesn’t fit the character at all, subsequently killing comic book sales and the industry as a whole.

 

[Tempokai]

If it’s modern comic book super heroes then it’s always peddling a hamfisted political message, with no subtlety in a way that doesn’t fit the character at all, subsequently killing comic book sales and the industry as a whole.

Also add the weird slice of life moments that don't fit into the story, degraded morals where the superhero kills baddies with no thought, strange race swaps, and the corporates giving IPs to unqualified communist loving writers

 

[TheEldritchGod]

TV tropes is your friend.

 

[K5Rakitan]

Being an orphan or otherwise neglected as a child. I get that conquering the odds against you makes what you do seem more impressive. It's inspiring, but it's not realistic. Of course, superheroes were never meant to be realistic, but when the characters start claiming that neglect made them stronger, no. No, it doesn't make a human stronger.

 

[YeshuasHeart]

Being an orphan or otherwise neglected as a child. I get that conquering the odds against you makes what you do seem more impressive. It's inspiring, but it's not realistic. Of course, superheroes were never meant to be realistic, but when the characters start claiming that neglect made them stronger, no. No, it doesn't make a human stronger.

So the characters slowly overcomes their past is realistic?

 

[ConansWitchBaby]

Villain of the week syndrome
Guns more prevalent with antiheroes. They don't have to use them they just show up more often than other super's stories.
Itemized world building. i.e. stuff supposedly happened in another place that has never been talked about before or even hinted.
Stock heroine(who uses sidekicks anymore?) that are half yes-men, half flavor of the society at the moment.
Bromances
Sisterhoods
That one alien; let's ignore the other few million to billions of others of the same species.
Token magic that gets them out of trouble once in a blue moon.
Gary

Spoiler: Gary

I'm not explaining this one.

Auto-idolization of new heroes.
Blank ignorance of emerging villains.

 

[K5Rakitan]

So the characters slowly overcomes their past is realistic?

With help from a therapist, yes. It depends on the type of hero, too. The strengths need to fit the backstory.

 

[KrakenRiderEmma]

• Being orphaned at a young age; usually also accompanied eventually by "dark family secrets"
• Having a weakness that nullifies your powers due to a substance, color, phobia, etc
• Powers that sometimes go out of control, especially while learning powers, or after getting an increase in powers
• A villain that kills someone close to you so that the plot can go FULL OUT REVENGE (also known as "fridging")
• Either being a teen / young adult who accidentally stumbles into superhero-granting powers, OR a "one of a kind" alien orphan / chosen one / hybrid vigor special being, OR studying special skills from secret masters
• Magic that doesn't really work on a fantasy-style magic system and just functions as a mysterious plot device to do whatever the author wants
• Misunderstanding when running into another hero, causing two good guys to battle against each other; eventually they figure it out (especially common when you're a new superhero)
• All-knowing, mystical or extra-dimensional being or alien who gives you dire warnings, missions, etc.
• Different kind of inter-dimensional or mystical being, alien, or surreal accident-created hero who's a goofy surreal slapstick cartoon, doing wacky things to irritate "regular heros"
• Enemy or rival that has very similar powers or is basically a "dark clone"
• Secret identity (actually not as common anymore as people think; Spider-Man and Daredevil are the only real big Marvel heroes that have this regularly, though Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, X-Men, Nova, etc did in the very early days)
• Friend, rival, family member or love interest who has opposite opinion of the superhero as they do of the secret identity
• Love "triangle" between love interest, superhero and secret identity
  

 

[Paul_Tromba]

What I like to call "the big choice" is when the hero is given a choice where they are essentially given a version of the trolley problem. The writer can cop out and give them a third, safer option but that's usually considered lazy and rather annoying. The other option is to make the character choose. Failing to select the in-character choice will cause the readers to let you know in every way possible. Don't fail in that choice; you can either define your character with it or break the character for a bad boy phase. No matter where you go with this cliche it will cause problems and it is outright boring for most stories. In order to make "the big choice" special you need to have a good build-up in order to retain the audience and get them to care. I know it is integral in most hero stories to have a major choice but why can't it be done in more interesting or less common ways?

 

[BearlyAlive]

You forgot the most important detail of them all: They all are wearing rompers!

But yeah, orphaned, (family) secret, some fantasy-esque science to explain superpower MCGuffin, a bit fridging here and there, some trauma or anti-hero (not antihero) McGuffin, Highlander syndrome when meeting other heroes, """"secret""" identities (consisting of wearing a pair of glasses or less), getting cloned so the clone can get the cool outfit, either one main villain that always fails their plans or a few rotating villains that always fail

 

[YatagarasuStudios]

I think the best place to start is tropes and cliches linked to needing the series to continue indefinitely, such as characters always coming back no matter what (they had to REALLY loophole it to make sure Kraven STAYS dead FOREVER - by replacing him with a clone son that looks and acts like him and has his role)...

... reality resets (so that one's secret identity stays secret)...

... multiple realities for the sake of it (and also for the sake of straightening out continuity - by making even more continuity.)

... so on.

If your work is intent on just not following the status quo of continuing your thing indefinitely - a work where your character will change permanently in many ways - a work where a start and end is in place - yeah, just wing it.

Others have mentioned the 'Evil Superman' trope. That thing, that evolved from a cynical mindset that one with such powers will absolutely, definitely use them for self-gain and self-benefit. Superman's comics have explored that idea too, granted they used Manchester Black and his gang as the foil while Superman stays his superheroic self, which kind of shows that 'Evil Superman' and 'regular, played straight Superman' can co-exist in a story, and one can pressure the morals and views of the other.