Deconstruction Of Superheroes, Specificly Reed Richards Is Useless

Martin Shuster is about ten and about to enter his family's tradition of super heroism, but he has come to the conclusion that being a superhero is not the best use of their clan's incredible power, as opposed to his adopted sister/cousin Jane is all into it, and his twin/clone, Stanley, who's like a wee little nineties anti hero.

Opens on 1978

edited 16th Dec '11 7:05:56 AM by Zolnier

It sounds good, yes. What kind of powers are we talking about? Where on the Super Weight scale? If the person's ability is simply to, say, lift no more than a few grams of weight telekinetically, while that is certainly useful, it would be a whole different can of worms than someone with a Superpower Lottery.

I've talked extensively about how much the Reed Richards Is Useless trope is choking the life out of the superhero genre, so I'm eager to see something that subverts it. How exactly is the protagonist planning on using these powers, anyway?

I'm curious to hear your arguments on that - I feel the same way, but I've never thought out exactly why it's bad besides just my innate hatred of Status Quo Is God.

Well he and his family are basically like Superman, super strong, fast, durable, enhanced senses, flight, intelligance, stuff like that. And the protaganist thinks that maybe they should try to do stuff like figure out what makes them long lived and reproduce it, or maybe sell the advanced tech they use to have kid's (they can't have kid's with humans without superscience), or just use the tech from their base to solve stuff like housing. Also he finds secret identies immoral.

edited 4th Jul '11 9:11:21 PM by Zolnier

To avoid rewriting a lot of the stuff I've already said, here's a conversation where I first brought it up:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=12986982590A92380100

Anyone have any thoughts on the stupidity of secret identies?

edited 4th Jul '11 9:39:34 PM by Zolnier

Secret identities serve a purpose. For example, Spider Man would have a hard time taking down the Kingpin or an equally powerful entity without the comfort of knowing his personal life is safe. In real life, one of the things that makes real organized crime and government corruption frightening is that everything and everyone is part of a system. You can't go anywhere, do anything, or be anyone without someone knowing about it and gaining information (and thus ammunition to destroy you).

The current convention for secret identities, however, is a bit outdated. Batman, for example, has no realistic means of protecting who he is—especially since he operates within one city and out of one main headquarters (located directly under his civilian abode). Spider-man is another case, especially in this age where surveillance is ridiculously easy. Recently, Marvel has been tossing forward the idea that SHIELD (Nick Fury and/or Steve Rogers in particular) have been protecting his identity through misinformation.

There was a post once on how even if you do where a disguise, your loved one or friend can still discern who you are.

Okay how about the idea of superheroes brining their young kid's into the "family buisness"?

I think you'd need to research medieval lords and knights to see how that used to work. Passing down family responsibility is great, so long as the kid comes to accept it. If they feel "pressured" or "trapped" into it, though, they could resent it. There's also the problem posed from The Caligula: eventually, when you have a hereditary power structure, you'll run into a generation where that power is either abused greatly or used incompetently.

So does this sound like a good way of justifying Clark Kenting? The family posses very strange eyes so hiding them goes a long way.

I'm not sure I understand. How do they hide their eyes?

edited 4th Jul '11 10:07:26 PM by KingZeal

Special glasses, I mean they don't wear them on duty and they draw the most attention of their features, so it helps a lot to wear the glasses. And any thoughts on a last name for the family?

A one-syllable word would work as a last name. Like Tom Strong, for example.

And special glasses? Hm. I dunno. I think they'd honestly be better off being as clandestine as possible. For example, in Smallville and Superman's Post Crisis origin, he at first operated by moving at Super-Speed so that he was always a blur and constantly out of focus. No one even had a chance to see what he looked like.

But, if there are cases where they must be physically seen, then a helmet, along with baggy clothing (closer to Army Active Combat Uniform would work best because it would be harder to notice any physical features.

Well it'd help hide the alien eyes any way. And also would the civilian identies not being very famous help?

edited 30th Oct '11 5:28:54 AM by Zolnier

Of course it would. See Spider Man 2 for an example.

edited 4th Jul '11 10:27:56 PM by KingZeal

So any tropes related to the idea of superpowered Human Aliens that could use deconstruction?

So any bog standard comic book plots that could have resulted in the female protaganist?

Hm. You're deconstructing superheroes in a different manner than I did. I suppose a way to do it would be having the kid interfering in national wars. Use an Alternate History, for example, and have him screw around with some war. Perhaps one of the shitstorms in Africa, to use an example...

Any issues he could have had trying to blend in as a kid? Does this sound like a less silly origin for the sister? She's the boy's bio cousin but her parents were killed in the line of duty.

edited 5th Jul '11 11:04:13 PM by Zolnier

Trying to blend in where? In the US Military? Yeah, he'd never get in... Then again, if he's bulletproof, all he needs to do is show up and start ruining the combatants' days. Preferably the ones that are doing bad things, not, say, the UN Peacekeepers (unless they are doing bad things too, or you're going for some kind of Armies Are Evil aesop)...

Edit: I'm not sure. Is this in the present day?

edited 5th Jul '11 11:06:19 PM by USAF713

He's ten remember.

Well, I'm not sure how her parents could be killed in the line of duty. Are there supervillains, too?

Yes there are supervillains, it's hinted that they're the result of the founder of family trying to make more superhumans.

Anyone have any thoughts on names for the Mc's?