Name a Superhero you just can't stand
For some reason I've just never liked Spider-Man. He comes off as a whiney, ignorant child that never seems to grow up or mature despite everything he goes through. I love a good coming of age story, but he just never seems to become an adult.
Tony Stark - oligarchic propagandist for normalizing the myth of exceptionalism
I like him because he would loudly agree with you, then let you pick one of his sports cars for having the balls to call him out.
The thing about his movie is that he was like, almost okay. Iron Man I was about him learning that selling weapons = bad. He could have continued his moral development.
Instead, we got him fighting Captain America over a very stupid implementation of 'oversight' (coming from the guy who refuses to let gov. oversee his iron man development), being creepy to some random boy he just met (actually twice - first Peter and then some kid I don't remember; in a better set of movies I don't think Peter would be very thrilled to realize Iron Man was advocating for Peter to get outed in a national registry), and having a snit fit about how he doesn't want to help Unsnap people who died because he personally is OK with his future with his daughter who may or may not be a robot he built to mime having humanity.
What makes him really insufferable for me is his fans who think Captain America is EVIL for daring to snub poor Tony, and that Tony should go date Loki (no I'm not kidding; while I am happy with Loki being queer, I really can't see the Marvel Universe Tony being a good date for, well, anyone ever, nor Loki being a good date until he works out his genocidal tendency issues at which point he threatens to become alas a much less interesting character).
Eh, people only fawn over him because RDJ is just perfect in the role, and in a way marked his comeback from some really public struggles.
Chris Evans is great (and a huuunk!) but he's was/is much younger and plays the role of Government-BrandedHeroWhoIsBasicallyJustSoldierWhoAteHisWheaties.
Chris does the job well, but I mean, RDJ kills, and IMHO is a massive reason marvel got to continue making movies.
Stark was literally written to be a character that people should by all rights despise but was nonetheless a hero. That was entirely the point of him.
Also Batman.
Superman. He just does everything and wins. Unless you show him a green rock.
It's stupid. I don't understand how it ever interested anyone.
First, the appeal of Superman is his heart more than his strength. There's one comic where he fights a giant robot and stops a runaway train, but the scene everyone remembers is when he talked someone down from the edge of a building.
Second, Superman may be invincible, but Lois Lane isn't. It's easy to defeat a villain, but much harder to defeat them while also keeping Lois safe. And she actively invites danger, so it's always tricky keeping her safe.
Third, not every problem can be punched. Luthor's greatest weapon against Superman isn't kryptonite; it's Public Relations. You can punch a monster, but that won't help you stop a smear campaign.
He's OK if you stick to classic Superman. He wasn't a god, back then. Couldn't turn back time, out-speed The Flash, or fly into the sun and pupate for a hundred years into some ultimate being.
He became increasingly absurd over the years.
I’m a big fan of Supes myself, but it depends on who’s writing him and what the goal is.
He is at his best when it’s a problem he can’t punch away, it’s about courage, and honor of defending others. Superman without powers is still the same stand up powerful character, that is crux of what makes him interesting.
I love the version of Superman where he growing up and is friends with Luthor and he's like 'I cannot tell him my secret because my dad would disapprove' and it's got accidental closeted queer vibes.
And there's this comic book (not in the same continuity) where Luthor is this mad genius who escapes from prison easily and Clark interviews him and he's like "I like you Clark, you're so humble and down to Earth, but I hate Superman who is the opposite of that."
and then Lois likes Superman more than Clark, at least to start with, in some versions I think.
And then with Brainiac there's the possible storyline of 'this computer has a lot of information stored on my lost culture but he is also an existential risk to all sapients everywhere in the galaxy ahhhhggg'.
And how will Clark deal with an environment where everyone is hostile to immigrants when he is one himself and also dedicated to upholding the law?
And the first comic where he interacts with Batman is actually fairly good: Batman threatens to bomb people if Superman unmasks him and Superman is like 'oh shit, he is not lying, I can hear his heartbeat', but Batman was actually threatening to explode himself. And the cartoon where Batman is fighting Brainiac and his costume gets ripped to reveal he was Superman all along was hilarious: "I did not predict this possibility." The Justice League series in general (part of the same continuity) was pretty good actually.
I like the potential stories there. There's so many emotional possibilities. Stories where he just punches stuff are indeed boring. He is, frankly, under-utilized as a character imo because many writers don't understand that, or think the solution is to make a version of him that is evil which still involves him punching stuff, or because they're scared to actually touch on political issues like immigration or queerness. (can you imagine how many people would explode if Luthor was an ex-boyfriend for both him and Lois and they bonded over how shitty Luthor was as a date lol.)
Yeah, I don't think that it's a fantastic recipe for a character. The powers restrict the plots.
I think that less-potent powers tend to make for better story.
A lot of fictional series in various formats -- not just comic books -- make characters or events more-important or more-powerful over the course of the series, to top each previous episode, and I think that the plots tend to become increasingly constrained late in a lot of series.
It's stupid because you don't understand it? Aeems like you are the dumb one then.
Jane Foster when she was the wielder of Mjolnir. Not for anything about her personally, but the fact that Thor was treated as a codename. It's the dude's actual name, it'd be like if Sam Wilson went around introducing himself as Steve Rogers when he took the Captain America mantle. It's happened a few other times like with Eric Masterson, but at least he had the excuse that for most of the time he used the name he and the actual Thor were sharing a body.
I think it's both, his name and his power. In Thor 1 when Odin sends Mjolnir to earth he whispers to it something like "May he who's been worthy possess the power of Thor".
Yeah, I don't mind it. Thor is a name and a title/power. God (presumably) is a name, and Thor has the power of a god.
Prince is a title. It's also a name. And, to some musicians, Prince is a god.
It'd be rare to win an argument by invoking Prince, but there you go.
Excuse me, but that's always been the case. The first ever appearance of Thor is in Journey into Mistery #83, that's before he had his own comic, in that comic a guy called Don Blake finds a cane, and when he grabs it this happens https://static1.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/journey-into-mystery-83-thor-debut-1.jpg
So Thor has always been the title of the person in possession of the Hammer, he converts himself into Thor by grabbing the hammer, the movies then changed that because in the Marvel Ultimate universe it's different, but Jane Foster is from the original comics, where holding the hammer made you Thor, and she did exactly that in the 70s, just a couple of decades after Don Blake.
The thing is that, as you said, it's happened several times before. Beta Ray Bill, Red Norvell, Eric Masterson... it's been established for a long time that in the Marvel universe the title of Thor, God of Thunder, may be held by people who aren't Thor Odinson (and that he might occasionally lose it, though so far only temporarily, at least in the main continuity).
Marvel ran a miniseries called "Battleworld." Yadda yadda, Dr. Doom a single planet composed of all the different Marvel timelines. The police force controlling everything is the Thor Corps, which includes dozens of different iterations of Thor, including a Groot Thor.
The Flash.
Not because I don't like the character but because he honestly should be one of the strongest characters in DC but they constantly nerf him in the writing because they realized just like superman he could literally just show up and fix everything before anyone else even realized there was a problem
This annoys the shit out of me. I don't care if you nerf your speedsters, at least make them consistent.
Don't hate spiderman. Hate the writers roughly since 2000 that only let him have a break from misery when he's in an alternate universe where he never became spider man.
Having been introduced to Spider-Man through comic books, I always disliked him. And the comics came out well prior to the 2000s. I always just found him obnoxious.
To be fair the comics do him much worse, he kills his first girlfriend trying to save her, he kills his wife with his radioactive sperm, he's the ultimate tragic hero.
However I don't think that's what OP is talking about, I think he's talking about how it keeps getting rebooted so Peter Parker never grows old, he's forever a teenager. In the comics it took time, but he did eventually become an adult, during the Civil War he's an adult for example.
Batman, tries to solve the cities problems by getting himself a load of expensive toys.
Superman.
He's just a dude that was made of perfection. Nothing can go too wrong for him. Perfectly strong. Perfectly sound. Perfectly everything.
Yes I know and am aware of the arcs he's been in where writers have tried to give Superman internal challenges and struggles about who he is as a superhero. But it's like he's going to bounce back from it all anyways because he's walking perfection.
And a lot of over-compensating guys idolize that.
He epitomizes a lot of what I don't like about comics. He was strong and fast compared to earth people... And that's it. The thing about being able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? Yeah, he had to jump because he couldn't actually fly. Then he gained flight, xray vision, laser eyer, frost breath, and a ton of other convenient bullshit.
And batman is just a rich guy that beats up mentally ill people for fun, with young boy sidekicks in tights. Captain sunshine from venture bros kind of nailed him.
Batman. He's a billionaire playboy living in a city full of poverty. He may not kill but he has no problem crippling someone for life. And the fact he apparently learns nothing about the joker over the decades has resulted in so so many people dying to the joker's schemes.
And the reality is that he's still that same child in that alley but in an adult's body. He takes on different child robins because he never grew past that. He has trauma that was never treated and one of the main symptoms of trauma is being stuck in the time period that the trauma happened. He doesn't really have a personality beyond the trauma.
I have to assume you've only seen the Spider-Man movies of recent years and not the comics, the original live action show, or the 90's animated series.
All of those go well into Peter Parker's adult years and he's a much more likeable character. I don't particularly like what they have done to him in the modern stuff (outside of Spiderverse since Miles is a totally different person anyway). It doesn't help that it's been rebooted 3 times so all they've shown is his origin story a bunch of times. I can't stand modern Spidey, either. And it's extra infuriating because Spider-Man is my favorite.
I'm starting to think maybe we just related to the whiney teenager more when we were one, (looking at you 90s TV show) but experiencing him as a jaded adult just doesn't hit the same.
The Flash. No list of reasons. Just never appealed to me at all.
Specifically Ezra Miller. God damn, fuck that guy.
I really can't stand Damian Wayne I just find him annoying and bratty.
If anyone has any good story recommendations with him I would like to hear about it.
That's why I liked Super Sons so much. Damians saltiness gets perfectly balanced out by Jon's sweetness.
That's also why Bats amd Supes are such a good duo, they play off each other and through that complete each other.
Damn you Brandis for taking Super Sons from us Angrily shakes fist at sky
That sounds good, I look into it. I do love Bat and Super team up, and it sounds like it can be similar.
Stories where someone slaps the dogshit out of him?
I recommend Batman and Robin by Tomasi & Gleason. What's great about Damian being annoying and bratty is that it allows some character growth. Unfortunately, whenever a new writer takes over, it results in him regressing back to his previous characterization.
I also recommend Batman and Robi n with Dick Grayson as Batman. Its has an unique take on Dynamic Duo with a serious Robin and Light-hearted Batman.
If you like those you can check out Robin Solo run and supersons as well.
I check those out, another person also recommend supersons, and I will look into it it sounds like something I would like.
Cyclops. What a toolbox.
And in the X-Men ‘97 reboot, WOW! have they ramped up the toolbox factor.
All of them. Can't stand the superhero-dominated media market.
I agree, they are just not for me either... It just feels the cinema industry focusing on what is safe to sell well enough.
Maybe the original material (comics) is way better than what I could see on TV growing in the 90s , not sure.
Yeah it's just such a simple and easy topic. Studios funnel all their money and focus into a genre that requires no creativity.
After Iron Man 2008, sure it was neat for a few years to see a "connected universe" but it's a bit of a joke now....
That's what makes me the most excited for auteurs like Francis Ford Coppola or Lynch or Aronofsky or Tarkovsky - I watch movies to be immersed and feel something, and blam-blam-boom-booms have just never done it for me.
I prefer film-as-art over film-as-entertainment I guess?
Fuck, you are so cool. Edgy and cool. Too cool to like a single super hero which are diverse and many! Finger guns Please, dunk my nerd face in the trashcan.
Cool, hip people hate superheroes and downvote me for saying you're a contrary, close minded, jerk off.
Deadpool. He's not funny, he's just obnoxious.
That's kind of the point of Deadpool, though.
Fuuuuuuck...
I hated how he became the symbol now of people who're desperately quirky. You couldn't throw a damn rock without it hitting some average person who closely associates with Deadpool because "he's like me! I say and do random shit for the lulz and so does he and that's all foonay!".
And yes he is fucking obnoxious to the nth degree, he isn't creatively written or crafty with his wits. People just think "oh Deadpool is totally the guy who'd ride a unicorn into battle....BECAUSE IT'S DEADPOOL! HAW HAW HAW!!". Like I don't think I want Deadpool to be overly serious or edgy, I just want him to be written not in the way he is now. I just feel there could be more there because he's not a character anymore - he's noise. Loud and obnoxious noise.
He has really departed from the way he was written in the beginning. Becoming popular forced the character to be written shallow.
I can't think of the name, but that one superhero that wears the funny outfit.
Do you have any idea how little that narrowed it down?
Sorry, I was being facetious. Probably was drinking at the time.
Hulk. He's an angry green guy with muscles, created with gamma radiation, nothing special. After a while, he feels less like a super hero and more like a Super Smash Bros fighter.
For this same reason, he's one of my favorites.
Yeah, out of all of the superheroes that have the spotlight, Hulk's is one I just don't find as special as others. His stories are all bland and limited. His rogue gallery of opponents aren't even challenging because he easily defeats all of them and there are so few that were memorable.
And the way his powers work is laughable, because the only way he ever gets strong is just by being angrier? It's totally unimaginative and soundingly lazy. Like it sounds thought of by some angry internet user who dreams of getting angry and strong to "git back at them internet bullies!" kind of deal.
It's a great premise, but he shouldn't be a "superhero."
Superheros need villains and a reason to "save the world" Hulk would be a great story of someone who struggles with every day life trying to keep his internal monster at bay, but stuffing him into the superhero role just turns a psychological allegory into "Who we smashing today?"
She-Hulk, read a few of the comics, saw another version, I don't get the appeal. So she's a lawyer, so is Daredevil, it's a job that doesn't lend itself well to perilous adventures. Filing a brief....at the edge of madness! She forgot that the county clerk's office is closed on Memorial Day (US observed)!!! Dun dun duuuunnn
I kinda hate all spin-off superheroes. Supergirl, Superdog, Batgirl; although it's mostly _Girl versions of _Man. You never see WonderMan. WhitePanther wouldn't get much love. It just feels like wringing the ol' franchise of every last drop of blood.
Sometimes it bites me. SpiderVerse is supposed to be good, but it breaks my spin-off Rule.
You never see WonderMan.
googles
Apparently not a "spin-off", though it looks like there was some friction over the relationship to Wonder Woman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Man
Marvel Comics' then-publisher Stan Lee said in 1978, "You know, years ago we brought out Wonder Man, and [DC Comics] sued us because they had Wonder Woman, and... I said okay, I'll discontinue Wonder Man. And all of a sudden they've got Power Girl [after Marvel had introduced Power Man]. Oh, boy. How unfair."[7]
White Panther
This idea is like nitroglycerine
Yeah, spin offs aren't my thing, except for Frasier.
So she’s a lawyer, so is Daredevil, it’s a job that doesn’t lend itself well to perilous adventures.
Perry Mason's kind of a Sherlock Holmes-type character. Not a superhero, but a lawyer character who does get into dangerous situations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Mason
Perry Mason is a fictional character, an American criminal defense lawyer who is the main character in works of detective fiction written by Erle Stanley Gardner. Perry Mason features in 82 novels and 4 short stories, all of which involve a client being charged with murder, usually involving a preliminary hearing or jury trial. Typically, Mason establishes his client's innocence by finding the real murderer. The character was inspired by famed Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Earl Rogers.
Ok, put Mason in yellow spandex and we'll see.
Did you ever watch the Spiderverse movies? I feel like you’d appreciate Peter B Parker a lot.
Personally I don’t really hate any superheroes. I never fell in love with Wolverine like most people did though. My first experiences with X Men were the first two live action movies, however.
I'm kind of annoyed by most superheroes as characters because of the costume thing.
The spandex thing that's a pretty-common convention was because the Comic Code Authority disallowed nudity. Solution? Skintight outfits.
Now, I've got no problem with nudity, or salaciousness, or outright adult comics for that matter.
But we've got all that historical baggage of just about everyone running around in skintight outfits. So a lot of the genre winds up with having to come up with elaborate explanations as to why they're wearing the things.
The CCA is long dead. You can have nudity or salaciousness in comic books if you want. But the convention is still with us because of designs that date to that era, and it's just senseless. I feel like it kinda restricts the genre and doesn't help the immersion.
There are comic characters who don't do the spandex thing. John Constantine or Dick Tracy wear trenchcoats. Dream in Sandman doesn't have fixed garb, but doesn't do spandex.
The Parahumans series -- Worm and Ward web serials, not comic books but certainly superheroes -- are what I'd call some examples of modern superheroes that don't have a design dating from an era where there were CCA constraints. Granted, they aren't graphic novels or comic books, so there are different incentives, but even so.
Are you claiming that Batman wears spandex because originally he was supposed to be naked but the CCA wouldn't allow that?
Well, he'd still need his utility belt...
The spandex thing that's a pretty-common convention was because the Comic Code Authority disallowed nudity. Solution? Skintight outfits.
That's definitely a... unique take. Do you have any quotes or sources for that? IMO, superheros started with spandex for the same reason everything else about them was larger than life: to appeal to children and teenagers. No offense and from one nerd to others, but come on. They have brightly-colored capes, they travel the world and go to space and travel through universes and time, fighting the bad guys with over-the-top magical powers. And we loved it. I still do!
I don't think the fact that they didn't want nudity in their comics (which was even more stigmatized back then) implies causality with many of them having skin-tight uniforms. Both male and female forms were exaggerated for the aforementioned reasons and tighter suits were just another reason to emphasize that larger-than-life human evolution thing. Plus, it would be easier to move in clothes that stretch and move with you...
All of them.Deadpool was kinda funny.
Robin from the batman franchise, his character seems so extra and forced.
The original, too? He was the epitome of the necessary sidekick, and have Batman an external voice, other than just growing at criminals.
I love the classic TV Dynamic Duo.
The Adam West version is all good, I forgot about that one.
The live-action TV series was kind of like some of the early comic books I've seen -- the characters tooling around openly during the day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjIEBCVFaGM
I think I prefer the darker approach, where stuff happens at night.
Modern Batman and Modern Superman.
I won't go on my 2 hour rant off everything wrong. But a short version is the writing for them is lazy and undeveloped. Both of them represent the most uninteresting form of a power fantasy. The modern Batman of 'having a plan for everything' and being this overburden angsty character is just awful. If Batman was a d&d character, he has loaded dice and is throwing that 20s on intimidation. And for Superman he's just not interesting, because with the amount of power he's been given and the amount of abilities he has the fact that lex luthor is somehow a villain of his is laughable.
Batman used to be the world's greatest detective. And for me the last time I saw Batman be Batman was the '90s animated series. And frankly the most recent movie The Batman also did a very good job I thought in that regard.
Superman used to have limits. He was fast but not infinite speed fast. He was strong but not infinite strength.
In both cases it feels like the people who write for these characters use one simple rule... This my favorite character so he win. Neither character feels like their struggles are earned, because the writing is forced. Like it used to be if Superman needed to save somebody you weren't 100% sure he'd be able to get there in time, stop the bad guy save the people! Modern Superman is like, a being a hundred light years away, tripped and their falling! They need your help before they get a boo-boo and I have no doubt Superman would get there somehow and then save a hundred worlds along the way. (An over-exaggeration I know but I want to get the point across at how lazy I feel the writing is). Or the fact that anybody fears Batman when most of his villains barely fear him. You have members like Green lantern, Martian manhunter, Superman, and Wonder woman who act like in any way Batman is a threat to them.
I'll stop ranting cuz I can honestly go on. But I will say with the massive decline for me personally with these two, I've been far more receptive of some of the other DC characters that I used to overlook when I was younger. I can't believe I 100% slept on the flash like that dude is straight boss. Or plastic man! So at least some good came of it.
Iron Man.
The guy supported Yellowjacket joining the Avengers.
Not sure about iron man but I can't stand Robert Downey Jr.
Are you judging by the movies, or the comic books? The movies keep him a perpetual teen; he's way more sassy and adult in the comics.
There are tons im not wild about. Can't stand. I dunno. at this point there have been multiple versions of most and usually at least one interpretation is decent.
I agree with spiderman, I've still not watched his stand-alone movies.
Also hulk once he becomes "smart" hulk in end game.
Also fat Thor in end game, again not funny just whiny.
I don't think it was supposed to be funny. I think that was their attempt at somehow mangling mental health into their stories because that's what the kids are all about or something
All but Dexter.
Captain America
"He just never seems to become an adult"
What are you expecting? That fictional superheros grow up and get old?
Spiderman first appeared in -62, so you'd have never seen him as an immature teenager, but a grumpy middleaged dude.
On that note, there are depictions of adult Spiderman. Like in "Into the Spiderverse" or what was it.
But the essence of the character is the relative immaturity. Like Batman's is gruff vigilanteism and Superman's overtly good nature.
All of them: I want authenticity,
and "superheroes" are fake human-meaning, engineered to push distractine power/ego-fantasy instead of actual-human development.
Read both of John Truby's books, "The Anatomy of Genres", & "The Anatomy of Story", and become much competenter in what story/movie makers should be doing,
and then consider how much is being invested in preventing realism-of-context from being known by mass-media consumers..
..and then understand the long-term consequences of deliberately/systematically diverging mass-awareness from what real meaning, real human context, is, .. through decades..
It's part of a whole-class, or whole-population, suckerpunching, but it seems to be of unconscious, not conspiracy, intent.
Pretence-programmed populations are less realistic & less reality-competent.
Bollywood & Hollywood both produce divorce-from-reality.
That isn't required, for story, or human-meaning, is it?
