Superdickery - Television Tropes & Idioms

If you think that's bad wait till you see the next issue, where our wonderful hero Superman destroys an orphanage. (Just kidding folks, he actually does this.

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Innocent Bystander: Superman—don't just sit there! Stop that thing before it wrecks Metropolis!
Superman: That's just what I'm waiting for it to do!

- cover of The Amazing Adventures of Superman #246

Super Dickery is a widespread tactic in serial fiction. Show a teaser portraying the normally upright hero acting in an evil and despicable manner, causing the audience to wonder "Shock! How could this be‽" and then, hopefully, to read/watch/listen to the thing you're advertising.

You look at the cover to the newest issue of your favorite comic, and what do you see? The Super Hero, apparently killing his sidekick and his love interest! Or, On The Next episode of the new prime-time TV series, the main character goes bad, selling her team out to the Big Bad and shooting the Plucky Comic Relief in the face!

So, you buy it, or watch it, and as the plot unfolds... it turns out, of course, that the good guy wasn't a bad guy after all. They were a Reverse Mole, or Not Themselves, or really not themselves, or were just playacting, or had learned that if Jimmy had gotten what he wanted for Christmas, it would have resulted in the destruction of every possible universe. You should have known that Covers Always Lie and you can Never Trust A Trailer, but you were pulled in... by Super Dickery.

Warning: Silver Age comics did have a tendency to induce Comedic Sociopathy in characters, alongside the strange plot devices and twists. This means that even if Superman wasn't as evil as the cover made him sound, the reader might still have to say "what a dick!" at the end of the story.

Doesn't really work with Anti Heroes.

See also the Trope Namer website Superdickery.com

, featuring whole galleries of delightful examples of questionable behaviour by Superman

and other superheroes

Examples:

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Comic Books

Way, way, way overdone in the Silver Age Superman comics, to the point where Supes seemed more like some kind of sadist for putting his friends through these situations, even if they were fake. If you look at enough of them, you start to realize that, for many of them, there is no possible situation that could explain what you're seeing. Other than utter lunacy, of course, because this is the SILVER AGE!
- It's not just Superman who had this happen to him, either. There were plenty of covers involving Jimmy Olsen or Batman giving away the secret identity of/imprisoning/refusing to help/killing Superman.
- One peculiar but common thread through these comics is that Superman spends most of his time ensuring that nobody else has powers like his. If a reason is even given for this, it's because The World Is Not Ready. Superman has clearly decided he is the only arbiter of truth, justice, and various national ways.
- Lois Lane is being blackmailed, and what's Supes' response? Impersonate her blackmailer because he simply must know her terrible secret. This leads to a bit of actual story-within-a-story Super Dickery, as "her" secret actually turned out to be footage of Superman killing a bunch of people... whom further footage reveals to be evil aliens in disguise, for that What Measure Is A Non Human bit of okay-but-you're-still-kind-of-a-dick.
- All too often, though, the torment of another character by Superman (often someone he's supposed to be friends or loved ones with) really does occur, and for no apparent constructive reason at all. In at least one silver age comic that this troper read, Superman puts Lois Lane (You know? The love of his life?) through an embarrassing and gut-wrenching physical transformation without her permission, allegedly to keep a crook from recognizing her. Of course, even supposing that reason held any water at all, that still doesn't excuse how Superman pretends not to recognize Lois immediately after the transformation, and even out-and-out insults her on her appearance. That comic had me thinking of Supes in the same light as Doctor Kelso.
- It should be noted that while many Silver Age stories had Superman being a dick, many had his friends being dicks to him- Lois Lane (and Lana Lang, when he was Superboy) constantly tried to prove that Clark was Superman, on the assumption that he would have to marry her once she did! He also had to constantly save them from danger that they put themselves in recklessly. The latter was also a problem with Jimmy Olsen. So it was really a mutual thing. About the only regular character who wasn't a dick was Perry White, despite his gruff behavior.
  - Of course, he'd never marry either of them, for this reason. And, of course, is totally a dick in explaining it.
  - In Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #76, Perry forces the other members of the Daily Planet to go on a death march.
  - One Astro City story, "Shining Armor," was a Deconstruction of Lois Lane's own brand of dickery. An Expy Lois Lane (Irene Merriweather) tries to prove herself worthy of an Expy Superman (Atomicus) by exposing his secret identity, but when she finally succeeds, he just gets pissed and leaves Earth forever. It turns out he never wanted to play that game with her but was too afraid to admit it. But just to reiterate so that the gravity of the situation can sink in: Irene was so insane about discovering Atomicus' secret identity that he, the greatest hero of the Atomic age, left the freaking planet forever. To wander aimlessly through space. Forever. That is how insufferable she was.
  - What's more? In her initial inquiries into his identity, word started spreading and Atomicus' house was blown up by the local mafia. Afterwards, she freaking kept trying to prove he was Adam Peterson.
  - There was also a brief mention in another story of a situation that would seem rather familiar; Supersonic, after an adventure that temporarily gave him 16 exact doubles, took his Lois-type girlfriend Caroleen to a dance as Supersonic and had one of his doubles come as his secret identity of Dale Enright. He did this just to mess with Caroleen for no reason.
A cliffhanger ending in one issue of the City of Heroes comic book (yes, a comic book based on an MMORPG based on comic books), the Badass Normal of the super-team depicted in the book was shown killing the team's leader in the last panel. The catch? He planned to have the man returned to life as soon as possible and only killed him to appease the one person who could restore the powers of the rest of the team.
Can be done on-panel: In the Torn Story Arc of Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, a depowered Cyclops was casually gunning down villains and talking about it as if completely unconcerned. (This after the previous issue's Wham Episode ending of him shooting Emma Frost.) Turns out he's not crazy: he's the only one who's figured out that they're psychic projections created by a villain to move her Xanatos Gambit along.
Another on-panel version - the original introduction of the Skrulls had the Fantastic Four doing criminal acts, from the minor to the not very minor. Soon after, it's - surprise - the Skrulls causing trouble.
An early Judge Dredd shows Dredd cheerfully ignoring criminal activity on the streets of Mega City One, before being sworn back in as a Judge after his tour of duty elsewhere, and going back to dispense his usual harsh justice on the criminals. With Dredd, though, it's open to debate as to which version is the dick.
The various incarnations of the Legion of Superheroes, particularly in their secret character tests for Superboy, and in their periodic tryouts for new members.
- The Legion actually started with Superdickery before moving on to actual heroics. It was several years before stories about the Legion fighting villains and being heroes outnumbered the stories of them being jerks to Superboy.
- The latest round of Legion stories had a handful of people they rejected from the team being so devastated they turn homicidal and take over the Earth. Oops. Of course, it also explained that the real reason they were rejected was for being dangerously unstable.
This trope was frequently used the other way around in the British comic The Beano with Dennis the Menace shockingly becoming good. Of course, it didn't last.
Inverted in Wolverine 70. The cover shows him fighting with his Rogues Gallery and losing but in the comic he handles them quite easily, because they are his friends and he was fooled by Mysterio.
Speaking of Wolverine, one issue of X Men featured Wolvie standing over an eviscerated Kitty Pryde. Wolverine was actually Mystique in disguise, and Kitty was an android; Mystique was just practicing.
Spider Man had at least one run-in with this when a comic opened with him robbing a bank. He was actually taking a bomb meant to destroy the safe out of it.
- Done again in Ultimate Spider-Man, where one issue starts with Spider-Man bursting into a bank with an unconscious cop in one hand and declaring that the bank is being robbed by none other than Spider-Man. It's quickly revealed that this is not Peter Parker/Spider-Man, but an impostor copying his motif.
- Done yet again in the Playstation One Spider-Man video game, which opens to Spidey stealing some technology, and it is not subverted by the fact that the person he's stealing from is Doctor Octopus, reformed or not. Later revealed, of course, to be Mysterio, stealing the tech for none other than Doctor Octopus himself.
In issue #11 of The Simpsons comic book, Ned Flanders gets lost during a camping trip, and when he comes back, he acts like a criminal, doing such things as robbing a bank and using a slingshot to knock Bart off his skateboard on the cover◊. It's not really him - it's a clone manufactured by Kang, Kodos, and Sideshow Bob.
Deconstructed in Irredeemable, in which a Superman expy reveals his true identity to the Lois Lane and instead of throwing herself in his arms and agreeing to marry him (which is kind of what happened in the real DCU), she freaks out and rightly calls him a manipulative monster. He doesn't take the rejection well.
The cover to issue #28 of Sonic The Hedgehog depicts Sonic having just beaten up the other Freedom Fighters and being commanded by Robotnik to finish them off. However, the apparent dickery here is kind of made moot by the fact that this was printing the second half of a two-part, and therefore if you read the previous issue, then you know that Sonic is just suffering amnesia and thinks he's on Robotnik's side.
- The more recent #203, has Bunnie pinning Sonic under her foot and preparing to blast him with her arm cannon, complete with the caption "Bunnie Gone Bad?!". Actually reading it reveals the Iron Queen, being a techno-mage, has taken control of her cybernetic limbs and is forcing her to fight the others. They did the same thing next issue with Monkey Kahn, though, like the above example, it's moot if you've read the previous issue. It has almost the same explanation as Bunnie's.

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Film

Live Action TV

Done a few times with Angel, with the additional attraction that there was no guarantee he wouldn't do the awful things hinted at, thanks to his "bad side" Angelus.
- Played straight in an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, where Angelus allies himself with Faith to lure Buffy into a trap. When Faith has Buffy completely at her mercy, it turns out that...
  Faith: "What can I say? I'm the world's best actor."
  Angel: "Second best."
Painkiller Jane has done this at least twice. Once, it was a Shapeshifter's con, the other time it turned out to be All Just A Dream.
Given the massive amounts of mind-altering powers and chemicals that showed up in early Smallville, this trope quickly wore itself thin, with Lana kissing Clark, John going nuts, etc. However, even once that wore out, they continued to claim that the next episode would have Lex finally turn to evil. The scenes they showed were antihero actions out of context, or else Lex under, you guessed it, mind-altering powers and/or chemicals.
Season 3 of Heroes features many instances of dickery by the heroes. However, other than Hiro stabbing Ando (which turned out to be an elaborate hoax by the two of them to fool the bad guys), most of it was actually real.
Done at least once in The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Dress the friendly neighborhood Terminator up in a way to evoke memories of the T-1000 and stick that sucker in the trailer, and your fanbase starts wondering if she hasn't gone bonkers.
Supernatural has used this multiple times. The first and most shocking being when the teaser featured a woman being tied up and tortured by a sadistic captor, the police storm the place only to reveal... it's Dean! Turns out it wasn't, they were tracking a shapeshifter who assumed Dean's form.
Subverted (rather brilliantly) in Season 7 of 24. The preview trailers suggested that Tony Almeida was the culprit of the terrorist attacks: and at first it is revealed that Tony is working a deep cover agent, but later it turns out he has his own agenda after all.
An episode of Stargate Atlantis which featured Teyla impersonating a Wraith queen came with commercials trying very hard to imply she'd gone off the reservation and wanted to wipe out the Atlantis crew. The episode itself contains not even the hint that this is a possibility, and her "Destroy that ship!" lines from the commercials were directed at another Wraith hive.
An episode of Sanctuary opened with Will killing Magnus by cutting off the air to her compartment of the sub. He actually does most of the episode tells why, including his debating with her about it. He then works very hard to bring her back after the bug infecting her has left.
There's at least one Doctor Who cliff hanger that uses this technique. In The Invasion of Time the Doctor returns to Gallifrey to claim his post as the Lord President. He starts acting out of character and becomes abrasive, moody and power mad. At the end of one episode in the story he's seen laughing evilly as he helps a group of evil aliens take over Gallifrey. Of course it was all part of an elaborate plan to defeat said aliens, but he can't tell anyone that because the aliens can monitor his thoughts. None of this stops the Doctor from obviously enjoying a chance to freak out people he dislikes by playing The Caligula.
Castellan: Is there anything else I can get you, sir?
The Doctor: Yes. A jelly baby. My right-hand pocket.
Castellan: What color would you prefer, sir?
The Doctor: Orange.
Castellan: (nervously) There doesn't appear to be an orange one.
The Doctor: (suddenly grabbing the Castellan's arm) One grows tired of jelly babies, Castellan.
Castellan: Indeed one does, sir.
The Doctor: One grows tired of almost everything, Castellan.
Castellan: Indeed, sir.
The Doctor: Except power.

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Video Games

Used in trailers for Devil May Cry 4, in which Dante, usually a wiseguy at worst, was seen bursting in on some sort of church-esque place and shooting a prominent priest-like person in the forehead. Turns out the shootee, Sanctus, was the Big Bad. It also has Nero, the protagonist for most of the game, uttering the line, "I know the reason I was given this arm ... it was to send demons like you to hell!" apparently directed at Dante, but actually, in the game itself, to Sanctus.
In Disgaea, the first time the player is treated to one of Etna's chapter introductions fits this trope. She cheerfully proclaims that in the next chapter she'll kill Laharl and usurp his throne herself. This doesn't happen, and later chapter introductions get steadily more surreal.
- The fifth chapter ending does explore this, however. Amusing how little effort she expends beating everyone. Laharl gets the worst of it, being a complete afterthought.
- And in the bonus "Etna Mode" unlocked after beating either of the remakes she actually DOES kill Laharl.
This is the plot hook for the upcoming Tales Of Symphonia: Knight of Ratatosk, with star of the previous game Lloyd Irving apparently having headed the murder of an entire town of people and prompting the Replacement Scrappy's quest. No doubt it will be revealed that either it wasn't Lloyd or it was a Town With A Dark Secret halfway through the game.
- It wasn't Lloyd, just some creepy stalker dressed as him. Duh.
- There still remains the question of why the titular knight chose a snarky squirrel as his emblem.
  - Said snarky squirrel is actually The Summon Spirit of the World Tree, and the being responsible for the distribution of all mana in the world, the lord of all monsters, and the guardian of the door to Niflheim. Norse mythos are never exact in the Tales universe.
  - In the actual Norse myths, Ratatosk the squirrel is a minor trickster spirit who has fun provoking Nidhogg the dragon, and occasionally carries messages between the various branches of the World Tree.