Superheroes — why?

Okay, I'll admit. I haven't had much experience with the superhero genre outside parodies.

But seriously, what's the draw? I just don't get it. They fight, they save, they fight some more, they angst, they fight some more, they angst some more, they save some more.

That's a good question. I would say that the Fanservice is a part of the draw. How much of it makes up the draw is...debatable.

The funny thing is, you could make a Comic Book story that is on par with text-filled Literature, but that has only happened a handful of times. Those few successes could be another part of the draw.

But a very simple answer might be Wish-Fulfillment. Consider this: Superman was created in the 1930s by Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster, both of them children of Jewish immigrants, a group that experienced oppression at the time. Superman basically represents the defender of the weak and oppressed, and everything that his two creators wished they could be. So it could be said that people see themselves in superhero characters...or at least what they wish they were!

I...I'm not understanding the problem.

They're people with gifts who use them to help other people. I mean it's not that hard. Maybe you should actually read some instead of asking people about it. "Why do you guys like RP Gs so much? It's just reactionless combat and pointless loot!" Well yeah it seems that way on the surface but there's so much more waiting for you to experience it.

I highly recommend Swamp Thing and Animal Man. Both skirt the line between super hero comics and supernatural comics, and are honestly some of the absolute best of the New 52. There's also batman, which has been especially amazing since the reboot. Talon is such a threatening character, and batman is really pushed to the brink.

And you can't really go wrong with good ol' Spidey. He's been hit or miss the last decade, but ever since Dan Slott took over it's been awesome. It's a little dumb but knows it, super fun, and while there's constant danger, angst isn't really a thing here. They're also 2 issues into a fantastic arc called End of The World, so it's a perfect time to jump in.

edited 20th Apr '12 6:58:55 PM by OdieEsty

I actually tried playing RPGs a few times and I still don't get it. Unless it's Pokémon.

Wish fulfillment? Isn't that just another word for Mary Sue?

edited 20th Apr '12 7:28:43 PM by Twentington

No. Mary Sue is a term that gets thrown around so much that it's lost all meaning.

And really, maybe if you stated what some of your tastes are, we could see where your problem is.

Because they're fun?

Really, what more reason do you need?

That's the thing. I'm totally green when it comes to comics. I read a few issues of Sonic growing up, but that was about it. Overall, I tend to gravitate toward furry characters, humor/parody and I don't really know what else.

Where's the fun in a fight if you know your guy will always win?

... uhm...

I'm not even sure where to start. You have some very strange preconceptions about superhero comics. Short form, find something relevant to your interests- there are loads of recommendations floating around the forums- and have a read. There's not much more that needs to be said; if the initial investment is a difficulty, try your local library- you'd be surprised how many branches have trade paperbacks for loan.

I don't see any recommendations anywhere that are humorous, furry or humorous furry.

edited 20th Apr '12 9:56:13 PM by Twentington

For one thing, you don't always know your guy will win. Spider-Man loses regularly, he just manages to survive to get another shot.

For another thing, though, knowing the end result doesn't really matter. Far more important is how the story reaches that point. How it's told matters. That's why people still go watch Shakespeare plays. It's why they'll read books they've read several times before, or watch a movie a dozen times.

Superhero comics are just fun. Sometimes mindless, sometimes very deep and thoughtful.

I dunno...why do YOU like funny animals? Give me enough time and I can shoot all kinds of holes in that genre too. What is it you're after here? If you want a recommendation, you could just ask for one, ala "hey, what are some good superhero comics for someone to read who isn't familiar with superheroes?" Trying to make people explain/justify why they like 'em just seems needlessly adversarial.

In the end, why does anyone read anything? People read superhero comics because that brand of fantasy appeals to them. Because they've come to enjoy, appreciate, and care about the characters. Superman's managed to hang on for 74 years because people care about him, and have found ways to relate to the various aspects of his character. And, yeah, they can be a lot of fun. As far as the fights go, you could make that same complaint about nearly any type of story that involves action or conflict; the hero is in the vast majority of cases going to win, eventually. Commercial writers know that it's generally not a good idea to get an audience invested in a character's conflict or struggle and then have them fail.

If you want to know why people like superheroes, go get some superhero comics and read 'em. Your library probably has some collections. If, after that, you still don't get it, that's okay. Not everyone likes 'em, not everyone has to. Me, I've never understood the attraction of Pokemon ("they're capturing these critters to...make them fight? Where's the ASPCA in Pokemon world?)

Okay, maybe that wasn't the best way to go about it.

What do you recommend then? Are there any that are comedic? Furry? Both?

Anything else that's just generally good for a "gateway" series — something without decades of canon and alternate continuities out the ass?

Spider-man. Spider-man is always skirting the line of serious and humorous in the best way. You can't go wrong with good ol' spidey.

Depends on the storyline.

In any case, I would recommend Ultimate Spider-man.

edited 21st Apr '12 8:33:25 AM by KingZeal

I don't know about Ultimate as a starting point. If we're talking about since Miles took over, it takes a few issues to really get going. If we're talking Ultimate Comics: Ultimate Spider-man personally I thought the relationship part took over too much of the comic. Understandably some people might really like that, but it's a little out there for new readers who aren't familiar with the characters.

I'd like to throw in a question on the topic. One of the things that's typically appealing about fiction is plot progression and character development - the story ends in a different place from where it started out, and the protagonist becomes a different person from who they started out as.

But my sense of the long-runners in superhero comics, the really famous ones, is that there's a fair amount of character and plot stasis: because the characters are so famous and so established, there's a very limited degree to which they or their circumstances can change without them becoming something other than the character everyone's familiar with. And when things do change, it's generally in the sense of going from "dark and angsty" to "even more dark and angsty", which I find less than satisfying (it's why I dropped the Star Wars Expanded Universe books after they stopped being about telling enjoyable stories and became about "let's find new and exciting ways to torture our characters!"). It's the Status Quo Is God issue.

So, how many new and interesting stories are there to tell about the different ways a character can beat up, or be beaten up, by bad guys? How does a character that's become as much an archetype as a character - Superman, Batman, Spider-Man - stay interesting? How do you get some sense of catharsis, or of something being achieved, if Gotham's still a hellhole decades after Batman started operating? It's not the superhero genre that troubles me, but the problem of stasis. I like superhero movies, even when there's several in a series, because there's enough change in them to make it interesting, and there's a fair degree of space for characters and settings to evolve. But how do you get the same effect with a comic that's been running for several decades?

edited 21st Apr '12 9:50:06 AM by WarriorEowyn

There isn't much inherently wrong with a superhero. There are many ways to create one, many ways to end one's story, many different stories to tell.

Turn evil, retire, achieve goal and move on, start a business, die gloriously, ect. That many American superhero comics refuse to have any kind of long term plot development or conclusions is the problem. If we weren't dealing with superheroes and instead were talking about police officers, high school football, or a house cat wouldn't change that. Why are the fashions changing but not the character ages? Why did kids live through both the fall of rise of Batista and the resignation of Fidel Castro?

It is just an inherent problem of long runners, compounded by everything done by Marvel having to either be shoved into the same shared universe, ensuring it will cause all sorts of other problems and never have an end or be put on an imprint they actively hide from readers(not they promote their mainstream stuff well).

Another problem is frequent shifts in writers, many of them who are not very good or not very motivated. Nothing of this is inherently a "superhero" problem, its a Marvel problem. Marvel just happens to do superheroes.

Well, Status Quo Is God is quite the complicated trope when it comes to Comic Books. Sometimes a writer makes a change gets made that lasts for years and years in Real Life, and then another writer comes along and undoes the change. That's a product of having multiple writers, each one with his or her own interpretation. Marvel Comics has demonstrated that averting SQIG causes the readers to left feeling like they can't get comfortable with anything that happens in the stories. No matter how SQIG is handled, there will be an Unpleasable Fanbase.

I saw this one show talking about the origins of DC Comics, and it was quite fascinating. C Bs have actually changed with the times and society. You have The Golden Age Of Comic Books turn to The Silver Age Of Comic Books due to Think of the Children! and that quack Fredric Wertham's book Seduction Of The Innocent.

You want to know something funny? One of creators of Barry Allen The Flash came up with B.A., because he thought Jay Garrick's character, from outfit to origin story, was stupid. Remember, that was the 1950s, when they were trying to use science to give more plausible explanations for gaining superpowers, as opposed to gaining superspeed because you inhaled water vapour!

edited 21st Apr '12 10:54:43 AM by TiggersAreGreat

It IS a legitimate problem, but it's not a constant. Again, it's about the journey and even if it's inevitable that things will change back at some point, you can enjoy the fantastic stories told until then. And honestly, you'd be surprised how long these changes last. Batgirl was handicapped a few years back and stayed that way until the New 52 rebooted things.

About a year ago they changed Venom from a villain to a hero and every issue has been spectacular. Will there inevitably be a villainous Venom again? Of course. But that doesn't cheapen the current comics.

He or she said that s/he enjoys humor in their comics. The series is that, and it strives to balance realism with entertainment.

I recommend starting from the very beginning (meaning Ultimate Spider-man #1).

Think of superhero comics as having a similar appeal to A Day In The Life stories. It isn't necessarily what changes, or where things end up that's entertaining. It's interesting allegories, comparisons, and differences between everyday life and what a superhero encounters. You can learn about yourself and the world as a whole. For example, comics have asked interesting questions about altruism by virtue of what the genre is about.

Well, part of the appeal can be taking something extremely familiar and using it in a way that is unexpected. For instance, my favorite character throughout most of my comics readership has been Superboy ("Kon-El"). I found him interesting because as a kid, I always wanted to have Superman's powers, and here was a teenage version of the character that let me project myself onto him. Everything that was familiar about Superman became fresh and unfamiliar just by creating a much younger and less altruistic character.

Also, as I've told people before, if you can like superhero movies, you can like superheroes. Basically, think of a superhero book not as one big story that has a beginning, middle and end, but as a collection of stories. Consider each storyarc, each creator run, each graphic novel, and so on to be their own individual stories.

I've heard it said that every story has to have the status quo change for someone. It doesn't always have to be the hero, though. And the change doesn't have to be particularly big.

One of the great truths about series fiction, of any type, is that for the main cast it all ultimately becomes about character maintenance. It's true of TV, books, or comics. Is the Sherlock Holmes you meet in the last Holmes story significantly different from the Holmes you meet in Study in Scarlet? The reason for this is simple: the writers/producers/whathaveyou don't expect the same people to stay in their audience forever. They hope SOME of them will, of course, and the ones that do will generally want the characters they're familiar with. For any new readers, well, it's all new to them anyway, right?

Generalizing that much, you could say any romance story is They meet, they come closer, they kiss, they fight, they angst, they come closer some more, they kiss some more, they angst some more.

You could say any crime-detective story is They kill, they investigate, they kill some more, they investigate some more, they kill some more.

You could say any Western is They ride, they shoot, they ride some more, they shoot some more.

You could say any terror story is they die, they die, they die, they die, they die.

Really, find me any genre WITHOUT formulas that repeat themselves and you'll have redefined fiction.

edited 22nd Apr '12 8:16:19 AM by NapoleonDeCheese

Part of the reason for the dominance of the superhero in US comics is traceable to the comic book moral panic of the '50s. Doctor Frederic R. Wertham managed to convince much of the US public that the crime and horror comics popular at the time were causing juvenile delinquency and other problems because of their plotlines, along with the amount of violence and gore they supposedly contained. The comics industry, worried about their livelihood, created the Comics Code Authority and heavily cracked down on the content of comics. Horror and crime comics largely became unwritable, with even traditional horror fodder like werewolves and vampires banned. Superhero comics, which had lost popularity in the years immediately after the war, slowly began to pick up steam, especially once the romance comics that were still publishable faded in popularity. Marvel and DC would come to publish primarily superhero comics, and would continue to do so even when some of the more restrictive aspects of the code were dropped in 1971.