History DeconReconSwitch / ComicBooks

* ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'': ''Fantastic Four: 1 2 3 4'' by Creator/GrantMorrison appears to be deconstructing the Fantastic Four by showing them to be the maladjusted, dysfunctional people they would be in real life. Then, it's revealed that this is all a ploy by Characters/DoctorDoom to destroy them through a form of superscience mind control and their normal personalities ''are'' who they would be "in real life" -- because being DarkerAndEdgier isn't the same thing as "real life", and a cynical take on a fictional character is just as real as an optimistic one. Consequently it ends up reconstructing the Four and deconstructing Doctor Doom himself, suggesting him to be little more than a petty, self-obsessed, self-deluding, and unbearably pompous monomaniac who isn't nearly on Reed Richards's level of intelligence and, through devoting his time to a pointless feud driven only because he can't accept his own failings, has pretty much wasted his entire life. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And he also appears to be going bald.]]

* ''ComicBook/{{Superior}}'': The series at first seemed like a deconstruction of what would happen if a kid got superpowers and of what it would be like in real life if someone actually had the PhysicalGod level strength Superman had. The world is also shown to be cynical with people acting as self-centered and selfish as they would in real life. Then issue #3 happens and suddenly the child with the powers, Chris, saves a falling space station, keeps it from pancaking New York, and starts saving lives all around the country like stopping a train from hitting an ambulance, stopping a nuclear meltdown, and rescuing a damaged submarine. While people are skeptical at first, they quickly find themselves inspired by the superhero brought to life. Chris even manages to clear out Afghanistan without a single fatality while saving hundreds of innocents. While the realistic tone is still in the comic and the people shown are not to be perfect, Chris is genuinely heroic and the people are ultimately grateful for everything he does. To make the Decon Recon Switch even clearer, it turns out his powers were part of a DealWithTheDevil without him knowing and the good guy still wins in the end because the Devil in question didn't realise by making Chris a supremely powerful superhero beyond even age and death (being effectively indestructible), he claimed a soul he couldn't collect and is promptly dragged off to hell when the date for the soul comes due. Chris loses his powers but learns he doesn't need them and the world, while thinking Superior is dead, mourns hims as a hero and everyone is inspired to be better. The end has a touching dedication to Creator/ChristopherReeve and Creator/RichardDonner and the whole book was a love letter to the lighthearted movie that made everyone believe a man could fly.

* ''ComicBook/{{Hawkeye}}'': ''ComicBook/Hawkeye2012'' does this to {{Trick Arrow}}s within a single issue. They're AwesomeButImpractical, and a big waste of time due to them being tailored to specific situations. Plus Clint never bothered to label any of them so when caught in a car chase, he's firing arrows of varying degrees of usefulness. By the end though, many of the arrows that Clint uses become more and more effective in fighting the Tracksuits and keeping him alive, and the Boomerang Arrow that Kate mocks at the beginning of the issue does wonders to get Clint out of a hairy situation.
* ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'': The series picks apart tons of superhero tropes, depicts a world of BlackAndGrayMorality, is willing to feature graphic violence to emphasize that heroes aren't holding back, subverts many classic superhero origins and motifs, and rather viciously deconstructs the idea of teenage superheroes. And yet in the end it reconstructs the genre -- no matter how many tropes it subverts or deconstructs, the heroes are still heroes protecting the world from evil and many times their idealism and courage ultimately wins out over the cruel and cynical villains.

* ''ComicBook/{{Superior}}'': The series at first seemed like a deconstruction of what would happen if a kid got superpowers and of what it would be like in real life if someone actually had the PhysicalGod level strength Superman had. The world is also shown to be cynical with people acting as self-centered and selfish as they would in real life. Then issue #3 happens and suddenly the child with the powers, Chris, saves a falling space station, keeps it from pancaking New York, and starts saving lives all around the country like stopping a train from hitting an ambulance, stopping a nuclear meltdown, and rescuing a damaged submarine. While people are skeptical at first, they quickly find themselves inspired by the superhero brought to life. Chris even manages to clear out Afghanistan without a single fatality while saving hundreds of innocents. While the realistic tone is still in the comic and the people shown are not to be perfect, Chris is genuinely heroic and the people are ultimately grateful for everything he does. To make the Decon Recon Switch even clearer, it turns out his powers were part of a DealWithTheDevil without him knowing and the good guy still wins in the end because the Devil in question didn't realise by making Chris a supremely powerful superhero beyond even age and death (being effectively indestructible) he claimed a soul he couldn't collect and is promptly dragged off to hell when the date for the soul comes due. Chris loses his powers but learns he doesn't need them and the world, while thinking Superior is dead, mourns hims as a hero and everyone is inspired to be better. The end has a touching dedication to Creator/ChristopherReeve and Creator/RichardDonner and the whole book was a love letter to the lighthearted movie that made everyone believe a man could fly.

* ''ComicBook/{{Irredeemable}}'': The series is a deconstruction that asks "[[BewareTheSuperman What if Superman went bad]] ''for real?'' That is until the ''very last page'' where [[spoiler:the [[Characters/IrredeemablePlutonian Plutonian's]] essence has been scattered to the corners of the multiverse...and some of it ends up in our world and [[http://www.comicsforge.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/ending.jpg inspires the creation of Superman]]]].

* In a meta example, the superhero genre as a whole has done this to a certain extent. UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks deconstructed a lot of the tropes that had built up over the decades of superhero comics. UsefulNotes/TheModernAgeOfComicBooks works to reconstruct the superhero genre in light of this deconstruction. There are several matters of debate in this, including whether or not it's actually working or if this age is simply a GenreThrowback to the Gold and Silver Ages.

* ''ComicBook/KingdomCome'': The series deconstructs UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks and at the same time reconstructs UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|of Comic Books}}. [[spoiler:In the ending, though, both the Silver Age ''and'' Dark Age heroes realize they're fatally flawed in their world views, take off their masks, and rejoin normal human society.]]

* ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'': ''Fantastic Four: 1 2 3 4'' by Creator/GrantMorrison appears to be deconstructing the ComicBook/FantasticFour by showing them to be the maladjusted, dysfunctional people they would be in real life. Then, it's revealed that this is all a ploy by Characters/DoctorDoom to destroy them through a form of superscience mind control and their normal personalities ''are'' who they would be "in real life" -- because being DarkerAndEdgier isn't the same thing as "real life", and a cynical take on a fictional character is just as real as an optimistic one. Consequently it ends up reconstructing the Four and deconstructing Doctor Doom himself, suggesting him to be little more than a petty, self-obsessed, self-deluding, and unbearably pompous monomaniac who isn't nearly on Reed Richards's level of intelligence and, through devoting his time to a pointless feud driven only because he can't accept his own failings, has pretty much wasted his entire life. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And he also appears to be going bald.]]

* ''Fantastic 1234'' by Creator/GrantMorrison appears to be deconstructing the ComicBook/FantasticFour by showing them to be the maladjusted, dysfunctional people they would be in real life. Then, it's revealed that this is all a ploy by Characters/DoctorDoom to destroy them through a form of superscience mind control and their normal personalities ''are'' who they would be "in real life" -- because being DarkerAndEdgier isn't the same thing as "real life", and a cynical take on a fictional character is just as real as an optimistic one. Consequently it ends up reconstructing the Four and deconstructing Doctor Doom himself, suggesting him to be little more than a petty, self-obsessed, self-deluding, and unbearably pompous monomaniac who isn't nearly on Reed Richards's level of intelligence and, through devoting his time to a pointless feud driven only because he can't accept his own failings, has pretty much wasted his entire life. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And he also appears to be going bald.]]
* ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'' picks apart tons of superhero tropes, depicts a world of BlackAndGrayMorality, is willing to feature graphic violence to emphasize that heroes aren't holding back, subverts many classic superhero origins and motifs, and rather viciously deconstructs the idea of teenage superheroes. And yet in the end it reconstructs the genre — no matter how many tropes it subverts or deconstructs, the heroes are still heroes protecting the world from evil and many times their idealism and courage ultimately wins out over the cruel and cynical villains.
* ''ComicBook/{{Irredeemable}}'' is a deconstruction that asks "[[BewareTheSuperman What if Superman went bad]] ''for real?'' That is until the ''very last page'' where [[spoiler:the [[Characters/IrredeemablePlutonian Plutonian's]] essence has been scattered to the corners of the multiverse...and some of it ends up in our world and [[http://www.comicsforge.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/ending.jpg inspires the creation of Superman]]]].
* The first few issues of ''ComicBook/KickAss'' deconstruct the notion of the NonPoweredCostumedHero, by showing just what would happen if a kid were to dress up in a silly costume and go around looking for crime to fight. Then it picks it up again by having Dave help bring down a crime syndicate and officially do something special with his life. The next two volumes then follow [[Film/KickAss the movie's lead]] in its treatment of superheroes. The superhero fad Dave inspires eventually morphs into a subculture of altruistic social work and neighborhood watches. A few of the heroes are competent and well-trained, and the rest gain experience fighting thugs and watching each other's backs, and superheroes as a whole become more competent and better fighters than a [[TheMafia Mafia-funded private army]]. In the end, the superheroes garner tremendous public support, and are acknowledged without irony as superheroes but face antagonism and harassment from the police, who ''do'' have the authority and capability to take them down.
* ''ComicBook/KingdomCome'' deconstructs UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks and at the same time reconstructs UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|of Comic Books}}. [[spoiler:In the ending, though, both the Silver Age ''and'' Dark Age heroes realize they're fatally flawed in their world views, take off their masks, and rejoin normal human society.]]
* [[ComicBook/MsMarvel2014 Ms. Marvel]]'s origin story deconstructs and reconstructs the AscendedFanboy trope and the character's own status as an AffirmativeActionLegacy. Our heroine, Kamala Khan, is a daughter of Muslim Pakistani immigrants. She's regularly ostracized for her faith and heritage and fantasized about being "less complicated" so her peers will accept her. She finds escape in her passion for superheroes, especially [[Characters/MarvelComicsCarolDanvers Captain Marvel]]. Then when she unexpectedly gets shape-shifting powers and turns into a younger Captain Marvel, she finds that being someone else only complicates matters further. It's exhausting to force herself to be a different person, and she finds her HealingFactor only works when she's in her own form. Kamala only comes into her own and saves the day when she realizes that her friend's best hope is for her to be the best version of herself, not a watered-down version of another hero.
* Creator/GrantMorrison's ''ComicBook/NewXMen'' was a solid deconstruction of the ''X-Men'' mythos, detailing some of the harsher aspects of how an oppressed minority of superhumans might operate in the real world, and introducing a slew of adult themes like genocide, drug abuse, marital infidelity, and the confusion of adolescence, leading to a climax that, while still featuring the good X-Men fighting the evil Magneto, was shadowed with brutality and shades of gray. Creator/JossWhedon's ''ComicBook/AstonishingXMen'', a direct sequel to ''ComicBook/NewXMen'', continued many of the themes and plot arcs started by the former series, but it also featured the team reinstating their classic spandex costumes and reforming into a good old-fashioned superhero team, showing the world that there's still a place for bold superheroics amidst the chaos and ambiguity of modern life.
* ''ComicBook/PeterCannonThunderbolt2019'' deconstructs ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'''s deconstruction of classic superhero comics, and in the process reconstructs many elements of the genre. Yes, it is a bit recursive; in the end, [[spoiler:the villain of the story is ''literally'' killed by deconstruction]].
* ''ComicBook/SecretEmpire'' deconstructs Marvel's love for DarkerAndEdgier and LetsYouAndHimFight by making [[ComicBook/CaptainAmerica Steve Rogers]] a super villain whom everyone loves as he uses HYDRA to take over the United States, forcing the usual heroes to resort to more and more darker actions and being called out for it and when things reach their darkest, the heroes realized they messed up and begin reconstructing the idea of LighterAndSofter by rejecting the ideals that got them there in the first place and Steve becomes the comic book super villain he should be in these stories.
* ''ComicBook/Shazam2012'', the ComicBook/New52 reboot of ''ComicBook/{{Shazam}}'', initially serves as a grittier take where Billy Batson is depicted as more cynical due to being jaded by his rough upbringing as an orphan, even initially [[MistakenForPedophile assuming the Wizard who gives him his powers intended to molest him]], but the notion of using his powers as Shazam to help others greatly appeals to him and he grows attached to his adoptive family, to the degree that his confrontation with Black Adam has him make the effort to reason with Adam and show sympathy for his plight before he has no choice but to battle him like any other villain. In short, this continuity goes from deconstructing Billy Batson by showing that his hardships would tarnish his views on humanity to reconstructing him by showing he still has some good in him and having him learn why it's important to care about other people and lend assistance to the less fortunate, becoming the altruistic and amiable hero he's supposed to be.
* Seen in ''ComicBook/SpiderManReign'' when Spider-Man foregoes the DarkerAndEdgier black costume in favor of the classic red and blues, all while singing a [[WesternAnimation/SpiderMan1967 familiar tune]].
* ''ComicBook/StarWarsLegacy'' started off as a DeconstructorFleet for ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends''. The lead Skywalker was an amoral drug-addicted bounty hunter, the Galactic Alliance was on the ropes again, the Sith numbered in the thousands, the Jedi were fleeing across the Galaxy, and Sith rule seemed certain for decades. But then Cade Skywalker experiences some CharacterDevelopment, and the Alliance and the true Empire join forces and emerge victorious, giving ''Legacy'' one of the most positive and idealistic conclusions in the recent SWEU.
* ''ComicBook/{{Superior}}'' which was written by Creator/MarkMillar seemed like a deconstruction of what would happen if a kid got super powers and of what it would be like in real life if someone actually had the PhysicalGod level strength Superman had. The world is also shown to be cynical with people acting as self-centered and selfish as they would in real life. Then issue #3 happens and suddenly the child with the powers, Chris, saves a falling space station, keeps it from pancaking New York and starts saving lives all around the country like stopping a train from hitting an ambulance, stopping a nuclear meltdown, and rescuing a damaged submarine. While people are skeptical at first, they quickly find themselves inspired by the superhero brought to life. Chris even manages to clear out Afghanistan without a single fatality while saving hundreds of innocents. While the realistic tone is still in the comic and the people shown are not to be perfect, Chris is genuinely heroic and the people are ultimately grateful for everything he does. To make the Decon Recon Switch even clearer, it turns out his powers were part of a DealWithTheDevil without him knowing and the good guy still wins in the end because the Devil in question didn't realise by making Chris a supremely powerful superhero beyond even age and death (being effectively indestructible) he claimed a soul he couldn't collect and is promptly dragged off to hell when the date for the soul comes due. Chris loses his powers but learns he doesn't need them and the world, while thinking Superior is dead, mourns hims as a hero and everyone is inspired to be better. The end has a touching dedication to Creator/ChristopherReeve and Creator/RichardDonner and that the whole book was a love letter to the lighthearted movie that made everyone believe a man could fly.

* ''ComicBook/Shazam2012'', the ComicBook/New52 reboot of ''ComicBook/{{Shazam}}'', initially serves as a grittier take where Billy Batson is depicted as more cynical due to being jaded by his rough upbringing as an orphan, even initially [[MistakenForPedophile assuming the Wizard who gives him his powers intended to molest him]], but the notion of using his powers as Shazam to help others greatly appeals to him and he grows attached to his adoptive family, to the degree that his confrontation with Black Adam has him make the effort to reason with Adam and show sympathy for his plight before he has no choice but to battle him like any other villain.

* ''ComicBook/PeterCannonThunderbolt2019'' deconstructs ''ComicBook/Watchmen'''s deconstruction of classic superhero comics, and in the process reconstructs many elements of the genre. Yes, it is a bit recursive; in the end, [[spoiler:the villain of the story is ''literally'' killed by deconstruction]].

* ''ComicBook/{{Irredeemable}}'' is a deconstruction that asks "[[BewareTheSuperman What if Superman went bad]] ''for real?'' That is until the ''very last page'' where [[spoiler:the Plutonian's essence has been scattered to the corners of the multiverse...and some of it ends up in our world and [[http://www.comicsforge.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/ending.jpg inspires the creation of Superman]]]].

* ''Fantastic 1234'' by Creator/GrantMorrison appears to be deconstructing the ComicBook/FantasticFour by showing them to be the maladjusted, dysfunctional people they would be in real life. Then, it's revealed that this is all a ploy by Characters/DoctorDoom to destroy them through a form of superscience mind control and their normal personalities ''are'' who they would be in real life - and it ends up reconstructing the Four and deconstructing Doctor Doom himself, revealing him to be little more than a petty, self-obsessed, self-deluding, and unbearably pompous monomaniac who isn't nearly on Reed Richards's level of intelligence and, through devoting his time to a pointless feud driven only because he can't accept his own failings, has pretty much wasted his entire life. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And he also appears to be going bald.]]

* The first few issues of ''ComicBook/KickAss'' deconstruct the notion of the BadassNormal, by showing just what would happen if a kid were to dress up in a silly costume and go around looking for crime to fight. Then it picks it up again by having Dave help bring down a crime syndicate and officially do something special with his life. The next two volumes then follow [[Film/KickAss the movie's lead]] in its treatment of superheroes. The superhero fad Dave inspires eventually morphs into a subculture of altruistic social work and neighborhood watches. A few of the heroes are competent and well-trained, and the rest gain experience fighting thugs and watching each other's backs, and superheroes as a whole become more competent and better fighters than a [[TheMafia Mafia-funded private army]]. In the end, the superheroes garner tremendous public support, and are acknowledged without irony as superheroes but face antagonism and harassment from the police, who ''do'' have the authority and capability to take them down.