The Status of Fictional Superheros

So what I've been working on is a comedy taking place in a superhero universe, and the two main characters frequently find themselves engaging in conversational troping.

Superhero tropes are also discussed at certain points, but my question is where would these tropes come from in a world where Superheroes actually do exist?

Would real life superheroes with superpowers negate the existence of fictional ones (as is the case with Watchmen), or would superheroes be treated like celebrities, with comic books, movies, and cartoons being explicitly based on the characters (semi) real life exploits, as would be the case with the original Fantastic Four.

Heck, can I have my characters explicitly talk about The Avengers and The Dark Knight in a fictional context without it being too full of fridge logic?

Perhaps I could even reference other superheros as if those were real life events in this universe, taking full advantage of lawyer friendly cameos and writing around trademarks, kinda like the Venture Bros.

Depends on how good a writer you are. Try it and see how it works.

Just to name a few, Marvel comics exists in the DC universe and vice-versa and there's at least one story in Astro City that focuses on characters in the comic books industry.

Perhaps Grimdark Antihero, local Terror Hero was inspired to fight criminal scum by his childhood hero, Batman.

Perhaps Super Really Awesome Man, local Flying Brick was inspired to uphold truth, justice and the American way by HIS childhood hero, Captain America.

edited 3rd Feb '16 12:50:27 AM by Eagal

My superhero script is a really big deconstruction of the racist tendencies of the superhero genre. My hero explicitly references Superman as an idol, which sucks for him because he feels like he can't be a superhero because aside from maybe two or three minor superheros, he's never seen Asian-Americans portrayed as anything but gangsters or kung fu artists in comics.

When he goes through the Superhero Origin story and his fiance dies in a carjacking, most of the police take weeks/months to do shit because he's a minority in a crime-ridden city. So after a suicide attempt, he does technically become a vigilante... but as a gang leader, because he feels that street justice is the only thing he can rely on anymore. But he manages to keep his gang relatively moral because being nice doesn't mean he can't shoot criminals.

He thinks he's just another rank-and-file Asian-American gangster, but the city treats him as a superhero and it takes him years in-story to process his self-hate and acknowledge what he actually is.

He meets Deadpool at some point because Deadpool is trying to find my gangster's future arch-enemy, and when he's making another suicide attempt, he gets saved by Superman as a Call-Back to the OTHER times Supes has talked suicidal people down from killing themselves.

edited 3rd Feb '16 2:37:51 PM by Sharysa

Super Heroes existing wouldn't necessarily put the kabosh on fictional superheroes. They'd just fall into the realm of "realistic fiction" in their own universe.

Given the frequent dissonance in public opinion, it'd be interesting if some superheroes are portrayed as supervillains in in-universe fiction. Behold, "Attack of the The Spider-Man!" For that matter, guys like Blade and the Punisher are essentially walking grindhouse archetypes, so having flicks to that effect would be only expected.

Speaking of racism, what bugs me is when real life marketing gimmicks regarding some superheros start leaking in-universe, creating quite a few uncomfortable discrepancies. For instance, there's no actual reason for Superman to get all sorts of messianic baggage, while, say, the Martian Manhunter gets summarily ignored. Is it because he's green? Or maybe it's that he actually looks like an alien, so you can't treat him like an idealized version of a human, but have to consider him on his own terms.

Similarly, the way mutants are shunned in the Marvel universe, but the Fantastic Four are popular celebrities makes no sense. The real life explanation is that the latter were designed as a normal family with superpowers, while the former are frequently used as an allegory for whatever social issue the writers have in mind. In-universe, however, the logic isn't exactly sound.

All in all, I'd say fictional superpowered individuals in a world with real ones would be a popular topic, but, realistically, wouldn't invariably be considered heroes, especially if the logical consequences of their activities are taken into account.

I'd say the Fantastic Four's celebrity status makes a lot of sense due to their high-profile jobs and social status. Sue Storm and Reed Richards are a science-y Model Couple, while the average mutant on the street is... well, your average mutant on the street.

Plus, three out of the Four's powers allow them to "pass" as normal because they could train themselves to control it. The Thing is probably one step away from being jailed or ostracized like your run-of-the-mill mutant without being connected to the other three.

I love how applicable the "mutants are a stand-in for [X social issue]" because you can either win the genetic lottery like the Fantastic Four, or you could become a Tragic Villain if you get a really inconvenient/horrible power and either can't turn it off, or don't know how to use it non-lethally. (Or if everyone else's ignorance/bullying forces you into Internalized Categorism.) And then there's the normal people who get caught between those extremes.

It's EXACTLY like real-life racism. Some people are really, really lucky like the Four or people who can pass as normal/human like Superman, some people are really fucking unlucky, and most other people are your everyday mutants with no particularly interesting powers who mostly try to hide it and/or pass as normal.

And yeah, my superhero gangster makes a whole lot of snarky comments about "a pretty white scientist who stopped doing science after he got his magical bendy powers" and how "Superman is a fucking alien, but he didn't grow up getting asked to speak Krypton because he looks white."

My superhero's archenemy is a weather-mage who's most definitely a Tragic Villain. He grew up in the foster system and couldn't get adopted because 1) he's Latino, and 2) a child with powerful weather-magic scares the shit out of parents who would otherwise be happy to adopt him. To say nothing of the extra money/time needed for therapy and proper training, which a lot of people couldn't afford. He and my other protagonist (his Filipino foster-sister) frequently mention that "Nobody wants a kid with powers. Unless they're nice powers, like healing or gardening."

So he aged out of the system and grew up with a lot of anger that he can't really handle properly (partly due to machismo), and then he starts a rival gang that's heavily populated with magical teens/twenty-somethings like him, which contrasts with my Badass Normal main gang who only has one person with inherent magical abilities (my female protagonist).

Both gangs are also heavily populated by minorities. This is set in California, after all.

edited 4th Feb '16 9:48:48 PM by Sharysa

Marvel's civilians are dumb. Not really that complicated.

Or their writers are inconsistent. For that matter, the perennial matter of registration acts - and I mean specifically the ones focusing on active vigilantes, rather than ordinary people with paranormal abilities - is invariably regarded as some totalitarian ploy for governments to gain control of super-soldiers, rather than enacted for the same reasons vigilantism is illegal in real life. Even regular human-staffed agencies like S.H.I.E.L.D. are regarded with suspicion almost by default, perish the thought for the muggle authorities to be portrayed positively.

Speaking of which, the actual backbone of superheroes has always been the necessity for regular authorities to be weak and incompetent, and in a world with ballistic missiles powerful enough to vaporize a skyscraper yet precise enough to barely scorch the one next to it, that attitude just doesn't fly anymore. Urban fantasy has endured as a genre precisely because its more secretive and specialized premise allows freelance operators the independence required for the action to work. With the exception of mercenaries like Deadpool and sometimes Wolverine, or wretched hive dwellers like Batman - which may explain their popularity - classic superheroes have steadily grown obsolete. In the MCU, even the Avengers feel more like a G.I. Joe spin-off than what they are in the comics.

Putting it all together, I don't think fictional superheroes would be all that popular in superpower-present worlds, apart from maybe some government-sponsored teams.

edited 5th Feb '16 2:00:50 AM by indiana404

After reading all these posts, I think I have a solution. Something that works from both a plot standpoint and a comedy standpoint.

As of the time of this writing, it would seem that a lot of people in real life are backlashing against the superhero bubble that's been so prevalent in Hollywood recently. Cracked.com, for example, seems to be particularly bitter against these superheroe's popularity, saying that it's nigh impossible for a movie to be made without someone performing some act of superhero-esque action. This implies that even movies that aren't about superheroes are still about "Superheroes" (Limitless, Push, and the Transformers movies come to mind in this regard)

A nice little satire on that would be the idea that superheroes are actually everywhere, not only existing in-universe as actual tangible characters, but also in all facets of pop culture. Popular block buster movies would still have superheroes featured pretty regularly, but many of them will likely be "Based (loosely) on a True Story". Similarly, movies that aren't about superheroes are still likely to feature them, in the same way real movies, regardless of genre, are likely to feature cops. This way, I can still have my characters discuss Batman as both a real person and as a character they saw at the movies.

Another thing I really like about this idea is how this relates to my main character. Sam Datum and Circe are rookie super-villains, and having them constantly surrounded by Superheroes has some real comedy potential in my mind.

I also really like the darker implications of what this means for the world. Similar to how movies like Transformers will get funding from the army, movies featuring Superheroes could be seen as some form of propaganda. The country might actually be a police state, but the only people who would care about the fact would be the villains.

As for the conversation on Racism, based on what I already have for my world, I don't think I can work that in to well. Sam kinda falls into ambiguously brown territory, and ultimately this story is supposed to make people laugh. Actual racism and sexism, though certainly important subjects to talk about in other pieces of work, are kinda to political for the kind of story I'm wanting to tell.

Thanks guys!

I think the fractured nature of superhero comics makes a lot of sense.

Some people adore superheroes, other people hate them, and still others have no real emotion towards them because unlike our world, they're not this theoretical concept. It's just, you know, life.

In the US, West Coast people are so used to earthquakes that we sleep through most quakes under Levels 4-5, and we made fun of the East Coast people getting terrified of an earthquake that maybe shook the windows for a minute. (They retort that West Coasters freak out about two inches of snow.)

Metropolis probably has part of the budget set aside for "Superman repairs," and Gotham is "drive through it as fast as you can" territory. NYC is just crazy.

edited 6th Feb '16 3:34:42 PM by Sharysa