What is a Superhero to you?

[nexus]

When someone says "Superhero" to you, what images enter your mind? Whats you defination of a Superhero and what character (current or past) best illustrate what you feel a Superhero is.

[proditor]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

My absolute first reaction to that word is two characters. Superman and Captain America. I guess that also sums up what I think a Superhero should be. If I made a list of all those who espouse the ideals that I think mean superhero, the list would be chock full of the "Mom, America and Apple Pie" and the "With great power comes great responsibility" crowds. What does it take to be defined as a superhero in my opinion? Selfless, honorable, honest, forthright, protective of the common man but not overriding thier lives or achievements.

[JMcL63]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

Hmm, the debate seems to be hotting up. That's 3 threads now covering essentially the same territory.

 

My definition of a superhero? Someone who has superhuman powers and/or unique skills, and who fights the good fight. The latter can be defined in a variety of ways, many of which will be an expression of my personal moral, social and political views, and some of which would therefore (as some of us know already) exclude certain supers from other people's defintion of hero.

 

I can't pick a single (or even just a couple of characters to define this, but I can exemplify different kinds of superhero- or different subgenres perhaps- with some examples:

• classic all-round good guys: Superman and other early DC
  
• classic 4-colour: Spiderman and Daredevil
  
• contemporary 'edgy': Watchmen and The Authority.
  

I'm sure my choices here fall into the Silver, Golden, etc. classifications, but I'm not actually sure what they mean in toto.

[Guest bblackmoor]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

su·per·he·ro (soo-per-hîro) n. pl. su·per·he·roes

 

A figure, especially in a comic strip or cartoon, endowed with superhuman powers and usually portrayed as fighting evil or crime.

 

It's the dictionary definition, which I usually abhor as the answer to this sort of question. Nonetheless, that is precisely what I think of.

 

As for what character do I think best represents what a superhero is (rather than what character is my favorite superhero, a very different question), that's difficult to do. There are so many, and there are so many different kinds of superheroes. I suppose if I had to pick just one... Batman. Batman has the core traits that I think define a superhero (above), along with a host of tropes that I tend to associate with the genre (costume, secret base, secret identity, gadgets, "grey" relationship with law enforcement, weird or superhuman enemies, etc.).

[JMcL63]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

Yes, Batman, he is indeed a superhero archetype. If you think of hyper-skilled normal and superpowered being as a continuum, then I'd say that Batman and Superman represent opposite poles of that continuum. Which is to say that between them they more or less define the range across which superheroes/villains can be defined according to the source of their super abilities. Everything else pretty much falls in between I'd say.

[Theron]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

Someone with preternatural abilities who fights against that which society deems bad or evil. By my definition, this covers Achilles, Superman, Captain America and Jack Hawksmoor. I don't equate heroism with being a nice person.

[RDU Neil]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

It's the dictionary definition, which I usually abhor as the answer to this sort of question. Nonetheless, that is precisely what I think of.

 

 

Yah... me too... as boring as it is, it is, as all definitions are... A PLACE TO START... not the end all be all. Important that it states "usually" rather than any absolute terms.

[Hermit]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

Well, if we're quoting dictionaries etc, I found these thoughts on heroes and Power kind of apropo.

 

Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes. -Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

 

There are new words now that excuse everybody. Give me the good old days of heroes and villains. the people you can bravo or hiss. There was a truth to them that all the slick credulity of today cannot touch.-Bette Davis (1908 - 1989), The Lonely Life, 1962

 

I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom. Bob Dylan (1941 - )

 

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.-Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

 

The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.-Umberto Eco (1932 - ), Travels in Hyperreality

 

Heroing is one of the shortest-lived professions there is.-Will Rogers (1879 - 1935), Newspaper article, Feb. 15, 1925

 

We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.-Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

 

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. -Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865)

 

The sole advantage of power is that you can do more good.-Baltasar Gracian, The Art of Worldly Wisdom, 1647

 

To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it.-Charles Caleb Colton (1780 - 1832), Lacon, 1825

 

The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.-Lord Macaulay, review of Lucy Aikin, 'Life and Writings of Addison,' 1943

[RDU Neil]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. -Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865)

 

Friggin' brilliant. Thanks for my new sig line.

[Guest bblackmoor]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

I found these thoughts on heroes and Power kind of apropo...

 

As cool as some of those quotations are, I don't think they're relevant to the questions Nexus actually asked. I mean, you don't seriously think of Will Rogers and Abraham Lincoln when someone mentions superheroes, do you?

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

As cool as some of those quotations are' date=' I don't think they're relevant to the questions Nexus actually asked. I mean, you don't seriously think of Will Rogers and Abraham Lincoln when someone mentions superheroes, do you?[/quote']

 

I think he was more using the quotes to define hero.

 

To me a Superhero (as opposed to a superpowered character) Puts on tights, has abilities beyond that of normal men (and Batman qualifies there) and fights crime/evil. In this fight because he is a "super" hero, his methods and approach are more noble, higher than that of normal heroes. Batman (in the current incarnation) never kills, Superman and Cap are Superman and Cap. Not only do the fight the bad guys, because of thier greater than normal abilities they can do it with a higher code of ethics than those that don't have those powers. To me the Super in superhero not only applies to the power level, but to the ethics, morals whathaveyou of the character as well.

 

Hence I don't consider the Authority to be superheroes. They are merly superpowered people in costumes.

[Misery Lad]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

Hmm' date=' the debate seems to be hotting up. That's [b']3[/b] threads now covering essentially the same territory.

 

My definition of a superhero? Someone who has superhuman powers and/or unique skills, and who fights the good fight. The latter can be defined in a variety of ways, many of which will be an expression of my personal moral, social and political views, and some of which would therefore (as some of us know already) exclude certain supers from other people's defintion of hero.

 

I can't pick a single (or even just a couple of characters to define this, but I can exemplify different kinds of superhero- or different subgenres perhaps- with some examples:

• classic all-round good guys: Superman and other early DC
  
• classic 4-colour: Spiderman and Daredevil
  
• contemporary 'edgy': Watchmen and The Authority.
  

I'm sure my choices here fall into the Silver, Golden, etc. classifications, but I'm not actually sure what they mean in toto.

 

I think, quite simply, that the definition of what counts as even a superhero in the eyes of the people (meaning the basor reactionary level of both those who read comics and those who at least have a passing understanding of them) changes with the times. We're all used to Superman being the epitome of the hero who only peripherally nudges along the destiny of mankind, despite his god-like power. Yet, I have some Golden Age stories showing Superman kicking the absolute crapola out of the Japanese during WWII. And I don't mean just breaking the wings off of their planes while the pilots parachute to safety. I mean grabbing bombs and hurling them down on the people to blow them to smithereens while they run for shelter on the ground. I mean sinking whole submarines to the bottom of the Pacific with the crews still aboard. I mean grabbing Zeros in mid-air and smashing them into other planes head-on. Back then, Superman was one bad mother and the people loved it because that's supposedly what America needed at the time: A hero who took no prisoners, who showed as much mercy as the enemy showed us.

 

Notice how things changed throughout the fifties. Suddenly, heroes were, overall, less powerful, less overt, more neighborhood-oriented. It became more important to patrol whatever small town you grew up in as a hero than to pay attention to the state of the world at large (check out the Silver Age Flash, Atom, Dial H For Hero, etc.). Suddenly, it wasn't kosher for heroes to stick their international noses in where they didn't belong, thanks to HUAC and all that jazz. The times became an age of suspicion, with true heroes being those who rooted out Red Conspiracy on the homefront. Never mind that the ways in which they went about it routinely invaded citizen privacies and was driven by an initial lack of hard evidence. It didn't matter. If Robby Reed thought that Joe John Smith who lived down the street was spending a little too much time on his short-wave radio late at night, you'd better believe that by the end of that story, Robby would have uncovered a hideous Soviet plot to rob our children of their precious bodily fluids. And that kind of police state mentality was deemed the best way of keeping comics in circulation by the Powers-That-Were.

 

Movin' on to the sixties. Had it not been for Marvel and Stan Lee, who knows what the comics industry would really be like today? One thing I believe is that we wouldn't be living in quite such liberal times as these. The best I believe we could hope for is the renaissance of the mid-eighties only just now being realized. I'm not saying that Marvel is all that. I'm only saying that for most new societal tangents to take off, they require someone (it could be an individual, it could be a concerted force of like-minded people) to essentially "Change the course of mighty rivers" and get other people to see that Satan and his cronies won't suddenly start dancing on top of the Statue of Liberty if four people take an impromptu trip into space, gain super powers, become a family and make a spectacle over being a dysfunctional fighting team for all time to come. And the Apocalypse won't come raining down if a kid gets bitten by a radioactive spider, gains super powers and goes on an angst-fest for the next forty years.

 

The seventies and the less said the better. High points: Green Arrow's sidekick Speedy caught shooting up. Low points: Prez. Why such disparity? Because America's collective head at that time was firmly up its own posterior. Between the sudden death of Free Love, the joys of Watergate, the breakup of the Beatles and God knows what else I'm forgetting at the moment, the national ship was rudderless. I got so sick and tired of hearing people saying that they needed to find themselves. Believe it or not, even comic books reflected this wayward outlook. Again, referencing Green Lantern and Green Arrow, remember the hard-traveling heroes story arcs? Green Lantern had been stripped of half his power by the Guardians (A lesson in humility? Hmm... sort of the same kind of "lesson" that a lot of people were saying America needed at the time, in the wake of Vietnam.). Green Arrow, disenchanted with the way things were going, decided that a trip across the country "to find America" was a necessary ingredient to gaining perspective (Didn't the series Simon and Simon start off with the older brother coming home and saying to the younger one something like: "I went off to look for America. I didn't find it."?). Great googly-moogly! This ended by just ending, with no great universal revelations rising to the fore other than the realization that we are all simply human at heart. When it came to how heroes conducted themselves, there was a high penchant for irony and self-deprecation - a questioning of the rightness of what you were doing, rather than the necessity.

 

The eighties (Or, as I like to call it - The Night Of The Ten-Year Bloodbath): Realizing that the seventies were a lot like trying to race down the road with your foot slamming the accelerator while the car was in Park, a willingness to tear down the icons and start again became the order of the day. It was all about reinventing oneself and comics jumped on that bandwagon too. Suddenly, it was cool to see heroes hurt, mangled, casually killed in some of the most gruesome ways imaginable. Who can forget that kooky Guardian of Alpha Flight holding his smoking power pack after having been practically prison-porked by Box, staring at his wife and saying that immortal word: "Heather..." just before becoming a tasty french-fried snack? Do I need to mention Crisis On Infinite Earths, or, specifically, Barry Allen and Supergirl? Or Secret Wars (whatever the hell that was all about) or Jean Grey/Phoenix? How about the gruesome beating Karate Kid took at the hands of Nemesis Kid or the tearing off of Harpis' wings in Omega Men or panel after bloody panel of Tigorr disembowlelling Primus? The whole superhero scene became almost cannibalistic and it was the rule of order to allow the villains to get away with great travesties of pain and torture.

 

The nineties and the initial signs did not bode well. It was the Age of Image and vapid, half-dimensional "heroes" took the stage, catering to the wide-eyed 12-15 year-old who was led to believe that somewhere Out There were women who featured in every way the bubble-busting topography of Image Babes. Sex was on the plate and, for a while, it seemed that people were getting more enjoyment out of seeing who was going to end up with whom than the whole issue of just why those four-color compatriots were wearing the outfits to begin with. Re: Robin and Starfire. The Elementals (Remember: Those Elementals Sex Specials came out in '97). While Green Arrow The Longbow Hunters came out in the eighties, the sexy trend begun with him and Black Canary continued on into the nineties with other partners. Did someone say gay superhero? Alpha Flight #106 (1992) had it all!

 

Perversely, I believe it was the nineties that really put the whole issue of being a super hero back on track. Because characters were really being shown in human light, questioning their own motives, feeling doubt, being caught up in blind rage and just making stupid blunders became more part and parcel. For the first time, the picture was starting to look truly balanced and that pretty much brings us to today.

 

Now: The feel of comics today is almost that of the aftermath of a really bad party. One that you're almost ashamed to have been a part of on some levels. But the upside is that you've learned so much - about yourself, about life in general - that you simply cannot condemn the experience to the realm of "never happened". Many of our greatest icons today have become more tactiturn, though not necessarily grim. It's something I've often said about the way Leonard Nimoy and Mark Lenard played their respective Vulcan characters. Many times, they seemed to almost half-smile with the secret knowledge of some grand cosmic joke that only they knew the punchline to. In the face of so many new kids on the block, this Old Guard reaction is sometimes seen and that's a good thing. Older heroes are presenting themselves as though they've made it through an overly long period of growing pains and can see just how dangerously potent they could be in the world if they just gave in to their lesser judgements. For the first time, I think the universes of super hero comic books are being presented in the light that they always deserved: As annals of new mythologies, tall tales for the sophisticated. These characters are our new Hercules, Beowulfs, Sigurds, Gilgameshes. Take JLA, for example. In some ways, the characters are now so remote as to seem apart from the very people they protect every day. They are literally an elite pantheon that the average man on the street wouldn't be able to relate to. Again, a reflection of the times. Many people believe that our very government has been consistently made up of administrators and policy-makers who are completely out of touch with the common man and who yet make book on his everyday existence. As comics have consistently tried to take any sort concurrently bad situation and turn it around by saying: "Just imagine if the world had heroes who could get involved in this event...", it makes sense to see that the premiere super team of comics is being handled this way and that this is the way people are seeing heroes as being most effective. As future history comes and goes, you'll see the tide change once more. The conclusion is that, while you can touch upon certain consistent trends in the makeup of the hero, the big picture on what counts in the eyes of the beholder as a hero will change. It's as inevitable as a force of nature.

[Hermit]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

As cool as some of those quotations are' date=' I don't think they're relevant to the questions Nexus actually asked. I mean, you don't seriously think of Will Rogers and Abraham Lincoln when someone mentions superheroes, do you?[/quote']

 

They're entirely relevant. They are quotes that say, in more eloquent terms than I probably could, what I think of when I think of super heroes. As Lord Mhoram said, one can use them to express how one defines a hero. They coincide with my views, much like the dictionary definition coincided with yours.

[Hermit]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

Btw, great post Misery Lad.

 

In truth, I do think you have a point about how even the styles or ages of the super hero we dislike can teach us something. I will probably never like the Iron Age, but I can appreciate what it was striving for better than I have in the past.

[Theron]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

While I think a moral code is an inevitable part of the path of the Hero, I don't believe it's as inflexible as some here. The definition of the Hero has changed throughout time. To say The Authority aren't superheroes because they don't fit a particular definition of said code is hair-splitting.

 

IMHO, YMMV, ONGINS, etc.

[Evil Toki]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

I think a superhero is a fluid changing idea... and what it means to me, won't mean the same to you... besides I prefer superpowered beings then just vapid superheroes...

 

It is the Aberrant influence in me...

[Guest bblackmoor]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

To me the Super in superhero not only applies to the power level' date=' but to the ethics, morals whathaveyou of the character as well.[/quote']

 

The question is "what images enter your mind", so if that's the image you have, then of course that's a correct answer.

 

For myself, personally, I thing that's a peculiar way of looking at it. Rather like saying, "to me a superhero is someone who works at a newspaper", or "to me a superhero is someone who is extremely wealthy and buys nifty gadgets with his money", or "to me a superhero is someone who has a base floating in orbit around the earth." It would never occur to me (if I weren't actually witnessing it) to define an entire genre in terms of what a couple of specific examples are like, and to exclude everything else. It's like saying that "apples aren't fruit because fruit has a rind, not a skin: apples are merely seed-bearing plant products".

 

There's probably a technical term for this, but it's slipped my mind just now. It'd probably just start an argument if I remembered it, so it's just as well.

[Guest bblackmoor]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

Notice how things changed ...

 

Wow. I feel like I should applaud or something.

 

And thanks for the reminder of Supergirl vs. the Antimonitor, a.k.a. The All Time Best Appearance Of Supergirl Ever. I think I cried at the end of that.

[nexus]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

Wow. I feel like I should applaud or something.

 

And thanks for the reminder of Supergirl vs. the Antimonitor, a.k.a. The All Time Best Appearance Of Supergirl Ever. I think I cried at the end of that.

 

The point of the question was to see what "box" people were thinking inside and how the definition of Superhero is a personal to their fans. I don't CARE if you into Milk drinking Squeaky Clean Boy Scouts or Captain Bloodkiller and his side kicky Bustywoman or Glowing Alienated Demigods who sit around for hours on end discussing the nature reality each other as the little monkeys destroy themselves. See I just slammed them all in one sentence. Whatever you like, whatever you enjoy is fine. I'm not making value judgements I just wanted to see what people thought.

 

Can we leave out the "vapid superheroes" and "shallow concepts" and "Limited thinking" comment, please?

 

AND

 

"That's not a superhero."

"Thats a vigilante"

"That's...whatever"

 

stuff too. We all think what we like is superior but its really annoying to other people when rub their faces in that fact.

 

There another thread for that. It was one I started about Code vs Killing.

[Evil Toki]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

But what people thinks boils down to what we as individuals like and dislike? So inevitably there will be statements made that others will feel deride their favorite genre conventions...

[Enforcer84]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

This is almost an NGD level topic.

Quick! someone call someone else Hitler!

[Evil Toki]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

This is almost an NGD level topic.

Quick! someone call someone else Hitler!

Can I call myself Hitler...

 

Honestly I am not a super big comic book fan, I just enjoy the genre the sense of power the characters have and the artwork... I love the artwork

[nexus]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

Post #19 was not directed blackmoor. I just hit quote instead of reply. Too fast on the draw. I apologize for any hard feelings.

[nexus]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

Can I call myself Hitler...

 

Honestly I am not a super big comic book fan, I just enjoy the genre the sense of power the characters have and the artwork... I love the artwork

 

I dub thee....Hitler!

[RDU Neil]

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

 

Oh... and as to "what image pops into mind" from comics, it would be Nightwing as Chuck Dixon wrote him...

 

... but mostly, from my own games, it's a combination of these three guys.

 

(No that isn't Firewing... it's Thermal, in my campaign... a hero who inherited Firewing's power.)