Marvel Universe
Deconstructed Character Archetype in this franchise. open/close all folders
Comic Books
- Ares is this across multiple books he appears in. In him we have an Ax-Crazy War God Blood Knight '90s Anti-Hero & The Brute....who flat out quit his job after realizing other Gods will never stop seeing him as anything but a bloodthirsty monster, no matter how many times he fights at their side. Even as a superhero his violent tendencies lead to his teammates seeing him as an idiot at best and a mad dog at worst. His blatant jealousy of both Hercules and Athena, coming from his status as The Unfavorite in both Zeus' and the mortal's eyes, is a source of both his misogyny and untrustworthiness, as he tends to flip back into villainy whenever Hercules is involved. And while he tries to connect with his son, it is clear his life and nature make it extremely hard. His late Character Development improves him a great deal.
- Earth X deconstructs the Fad Super through the Trope Codifier, Dazzler. After retiring from superheroics, Dazzler falls back on her music career... and becomes a washed-up relic because the fad she built herself around is long-dead. She's desperately trying to stay relevant by staging "comeback" tours, with her audiences shrinking more and more everyday.
- Secret Empire deconstructs Big Good, The Cape and Legacy Character. Steve Rogers has always been the moral compass for the Marvel Universe, to the point where Sam Wilson always found himself under Steve's shadow even when Steve gave him his blessing. This bled into the normal citizens, who criticized Sam at every turn because he "wasn't Steve", thus, when Sam quit and they got back Steve, they ended up with a Steve Rogers who was seeking to take control of the world with a fascist army. The Marvel heroes who have always used Steve as a moral compass have found themselves lost and uncertain and the citizens who have taken Steve at face value now find themselves regretting such a thing when he comes after them because they're criminals, Inhuman or mutant.
- Spider-Man
- Spider-Man was actually one of the earliest Superhero deconstructions, showing just how much being a superhero could have an effect on someone's personal life. Specifically Spider-Man / Peter Parker showed what would happen if a teenager became a superhero without an adult mentor or any confidant with whom he could share his Secret Identity and private issues (no Robin, no Alfred, no Ma or Pa Kent), and actually faced the consequences of his actions without the help of the social validation, and police immunity that was given to both Superman and Batman (via a supportive Daily Planet and The Commissioner Gordon giving a blank check on vigilante activities respectively). His stories removed the "training wheels" that had always made the black-and-white and good-versus-evil stories of Superman and Batman possible making his stories about something more mundane and difficult than simply defeating the bad guy du jour.
- Untold Tales of Spider-Man: Ascended Extra Sally Avril serves as one for the Kid Hero in almost the exact opposite direction from Peter. Rather than some injustice, Sally is motivated by fun and glory. She uses weapons developed by her friend Jason, but despite him being of above-average intelligence, they either have no combat function or are so poorly conceived and useless that it earns her the mockery of villains. Finally, despite being a skilled gymnast and a descent fighter, when Spider-Man decides she needs to learn her lesson and refuses to help her, she ends up on the receiving end of a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from a street thug who any other Kid Hero would have absolutely no problem with. When Spidey finally forces her to call it quits, she decides to get her adrenaline fix as a photographer, convinces the unlicensed driver Jason to run a red light, and is killed in a car crash because she was hanging out a window.
- The very essence of The Punisher is deconstructed thoroughly throughout the course of The Punisher MAX, especially in the second half. Frank may be a living death-machine with over 2,000 kills to his name, but the series goes to great lengths to detail how toxic and harmful living a life of constant conflict for thirty years straight is for anybody. By the last few issues, Frank's a broken old man suffering from delirium and chronic bodily pains, and his life ends in an unceremonious bloodbath interspersed with scenes depicting Frank remembering his happy life with his family. Not in any way is Frank's horrible lifestyle treated as something awesome or comic-worthy — we're not reading about some brooding Anti-Hero who makes the hard decisions when no one else can, we're reading about a psychopathic Blood Knight fighting and suffering and bleeding until he dies as he lived: fighting petty, pathetic criminals tooth-and-nail.
- The Sentry: Sentry's essentially a thorough deconstruction of the idea of Superman, the Lois Lane-Superman relationship dynamic, and his Ideal Hero image. Basically his presentation demonstrates the lesson that a single person with such unbelievable godlike power would be universally seen as The Dreaded especially when that person has mental issues or the same mental weaknesses as every other person. The Lois Lane-Superman relationship is inherently toxic as the Lois expy in question is more attracted to the Sentry superhero side than his flawed human side and eventually becomes more horrified by the Sentry's inhuman power as he grows stronger, especially after he brings her back from death. As the final nail in the coffin, the only reason the Sentry is hailed as some ideal hero is because of a Superpowered Evil Side that exists to make him seem more heroic than he actually is. In short, instead of an admirable Superman figure that inspires hope, you have a mentally ill godlike timebomb that puts the world on the edge of a panic attack and whose own Love Interest lives in terror of him.
- Ultimate X-Men (2001)
- Wolverine's classic '90s Anti-Hero characterization gets put through the wringer during the first half of the series. The comic goes out of the way to show the type of effect that having a Wild Card like Wolverine would have on the team. He's temperamental, untrustworthy, and tries to assert his alpha dominance on his teammates. It reaches the point where he tries to outright murder Cyclops. Over time however, this take on the character ended up disappearing as he underwent Character Development.
- Xavier being a Technical Pacifist who practices Thou Shall Not Kill causes him to wipes Magneto's mind rather than kill him in the first story arc, something that might be acceptable (if still morally ambiguous) in the mainstream universe where Magneto is a Noble Demon and Well-Intentioned Extremist, but is dangerously stupid here since Ultimate Magneto is an unrepentant, egotistical genocidal psychopath-when he gets his memories back, Magneto goes on a rampage. His decision ultimately leads not only to suffering for the X-Men, it leads to Magneto becoming the Big Bad of the entire Ultimate verse, wrecking the planet and killing numerous major characters. Xavier and Magneto being Friendly Enemies is also deconstructed as in this timeline-it seems more like Xavier was in the thrall of a charismatic but very evil cult leader and never quite fully broke free—far from being equals with opposing points of view, Magneto is the domineering personality and Xavier his naive victim.
- X-Men
- Cyclops is the fearless Rebel Leader who's been trained his whole life to fight for mutantkind as leader of the X-Men. If you read that as 'fanatical Child Soldier terrorist,' congratulations! You now understand his character arc. Though Cyclops tends to get Deconsructed and Reconstructed depending on how cynical/dark the series is at that moment, and how much the current writer likes him relative to Wolverine.
- X-23 (Laura Kinney) is pretty much what you'd actually get out of a raised-from-birth Living Weapon Tyke Bomb who endure years of Training from Hell. She was virtually destroyed emotionally by the years of abuse and torture she received at the Facility, leaving her a PTSD-ridden wreck prone to falling into Heroic BSODs at the drop of a hat. Because she was deprived of the affection, emotional support, and socialization a child requires for normal development she's often lost in social interactions, easily confused by her emotions, and frequently experiences bouts of severe and possibly suicidal depression. At least one analysis of her character
suggests she suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder, and a significant portion of her development in the books has been spent on repairing the damage that was done to her.
Films
The following have their own pages:
- Logan deconstructs Child Soldier and Human Weapon with Laura Howlett: Laura is pretty much what you'd actually get if you tried to train a child into an emotionless killing machine. When introduced she's virtually feral, responds violently when she feels threatened, and all but panics at the sound of a passing locomotive. Laura also shows extensive signs of stunted emotional development, evidenced by many behaviors, such as punching every button on an elevator, ordinarily associated with a child much younger than her age. And while she's certainly a highly-skilled and frighteningly efficient killer, she's still just an eleven year-old girl fighting grown men twice or more her size; Laura can be subdued by sheer weight of numbers, and when an opponent does land a solid hit on her (such as X-24 throwing her against a wall) she goes down hard.
- Mangold deliberately made her mute the first half of the film to subvert the sardonic Kid Hero trope, while also choosing to cast a young child rather than the older "hot" actress in a sexy costume that has become so prevalent in the genre.
- Spider-Man: Spider-Verse
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: Peter B. Parker/Spider-Man is one of the Kid Hero All Grown-Up. One of the key tenets of Spider-Man is that no matter how many times they are knocked down, they always get back up. As the oldest Spider-Man, one would assume Peter B. Parker has mastered that lesson. However, after a series of injuries, financial misfortunes, and growing marital tension, Peter B is hit hard by two emotional tragedies that knock him to the ground; the death of his Aunt May and his divorce from Mary Jane when she wanted kids. He is unable to get back up from these blows and descends into a jaded mindset, a burnt-out work ethic, and a pizza-fueled potbelly. Peter B. assigned himself the role Spider-Man while he was in high school at the ripe old age of 15, Peter has been doing this job for 22 years and it's clearly taken an effect on his morale and his outlook on life. After the death of Aunt May and separation from Mary Jane, he's just been struggling with loneliness because everyone likely sees him as a commodity and his role as Spider-Man has affected his ability to form close relationships. As a result, Peter B is miserable, lost his passion for the role of a hero, and is completely disillusioned. He even develops a tone of voice that sounds less optimistic about helping others and sounds more resentful about being dragged into another mess that he has to clean up. That being said, having Miles around with his enthusiasm about being a spider and seeing his potential executed starts warming him up to get back up one more time. To take his own wisdom and take a leap of faith with MJ again.
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
- Miles Morales is one of The Unchosen One. Despite being bitten by a spider like his world's Spider-Man, Miles struggles with feelings of inadequacy because he feels like he didn't really earn the right to become the next Spider-Man, and it takes him most of the first film in order to learn to trust himself and grow more confident about his position as Spider-Man. Across further deconstructs by revealing that he really was never meant to become Spider-Man; the spider that bit him came from Earth-42, meaning that said earth lost the chance to gain a Spider-Man and descended into crime and chaos as a result. Not only that, but Miles' unique situation causes him to become a target of the Spider-Society, an alliance of multiple Spider-Man from all over the multiverse, who deem him an anomaly who threatens the stability of the multiverse the longer he exists.
- The Spot is this to the Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain. Despite having abilities that are, on paper, ridiculously powerful—being able to create portals with his body—no one takes The Spot seriously, due to his petty crimes, jokey personality, and lousy villain name. He claims Miles is his nemesis and they're each other's origin stories, but Miles has no idea who he is, and dismissively calls him a "Villain of the Week," a sentiment all the Spider-People share. And this pisses him the hell off, starting him on a quest to change that. Turns out, his gripes with Miles are true; his actions did lead to Miles becoming Spider-Man, and Miles' actions in turn did lead to him becoming a Humanoid Abomination and his life being turned upside down. Understandably, being treated as a joke does not please him, and the fact that no one takes him seriously enables him to run rampant through the multiverse and figure out the full extent of his powers and become much stronger than he was before. And now, he's no longer content with killing just Miles; he wants to destroy Miles' life the way Miles (unintentionally and unknowingly) destroyed his, by targeting his loved ones... and possibly destroying his world. Lesson: if you don't take your bad guys seriously, they just might give you a reason to.
- Miguel O'Hara is one of The Fatalist. Miguel genuinely believes that things happen for a reason and everything must fall into place in a certain way and at a certain time. Miguel started believing in his Canon Event Theory because he tried to replace a dead Spider-Man in a foreign dimension and he believes that the destruction of that universe was because he went against the grand plan. So Miguel is terrified of Miles because Miles is a living glitch in the algorithm, he was never meant to be Spider-Man, he was supposed to be Prowler's successor but he was bitten by a spider and the original Peter from his universe was killed by Kingpin. Because of his past, Miguel believes he's able to predict the future, ultimately making a decision on behalf of Miles's dimension under the belief that he knows what's best for it, not understanding that he can't predict the future or guarantee that removing Miles from the equation will automatically make it better for everyone else. At his core, Miguel is just a deeply troubled man who's overwhelmed with guilt and lashing out over the senselessness of his hardships. His idea of fate is just a way for him to justify what he went through and make sense of things that were beyond his control, ultimately trying to tell himself that there was a reason why he suffered so much when it was all just a case of life being full of unpredictable events that he couldn't control.
Western Animation
- Iron Man: Armored Adventures: Obadiah Stane deconstructs the Corrupt Corporate Executive Arms Dealer archetype. Obadiah is obsessed with making Stark Industries the biggest weapons manufacturer in the world because of his greed, despite his former partner and friend Howard Stark wanting to use his company and inventions to save lives. After Howard was presumed dead in a plane crash, he took over the company and acted on his ambitions to make it into a weapons manufacturer using the company's technology. However, he finds that his ambition to make his company into a weapons manufacturer utilizing both technology and criminal means ends up hurting him in the long run. Not only does he make an enemy out of Tony because the latter doesn't want the company to make weapons, and his efforts to weaponize technology he doesn't understand keeps backfiring on him. By Season 2, this has cost the company a lot of revenue, and when Tony eventually exposes his criminal acts, Obadiah is fired by the board of directors and left broke. Ultimately, his greed and willingness to perform criminal acts destroy everything for him.
- Spider-Man: The Animated Series: Keene Marlow a.k.a. Destroyer deconstructs The Paragon and Chronic Hero Syndrome, with his refusal to stop being superheroic adventurer even as his powers begun fading quickly going from noble into clear addiction and lack of consideration for those around him. Eventually it leads to death of his wife, when he rushes in to stop a bank robberry.
- Spider-Man: The New Animated Series: Max Dillon/Electro deconstructs the Butt-Monkey. Max was constantly abused by bullies throughout high school and college, with some of these pranks nearly killing him, leading to him developing numerous mental problems and a desire for acceptance among his peers. This proves to be a dangerous combination, and once he becomes Electro, he snaps and goes on a killing spree against anyone he feels that tormented him.
