Characters / Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!: Izuku Midoriya

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Izuku Midoriya/Kal-El - Superman

"That was when it all truly started for me. That was the day I stopped wavering and strengthened my resolve. From that day onward, I reclaimed my childhood dream of becoming a Hero, and thanks to that, I started walking the path towards becoming the greatest Hero of all time."

This universe's version of Izuku Midoriya and the protagonist of the story. He was born Kal-El (yes, THAT Kal-El) on Krypton and sent to Earth just before his home planet's destruction. His escape craft landed near the campsite of one Inko and Hisashi Midoriya just days after they discovered that they were infertile, who decided to take him in and raise them as their own son. He spent the early part of his childhood oblivious to his adoption and his status as an alien until his "Quirk" manifested. But after a disastrous brawl with Katsuki Bakugou and the revelations about his identity, he swears off his dream of becoming a Hero out of fear of the harm he could cause and the guilt he felt over his terrible mistake.

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Tropes A to E

• Achievements in Ignorance:
  • Izuku destroyed few robots during the U.A. Entrance Exam because he was too focused on helping other people. He initially believes he failed the exam and laments the fact a week later. He then learns that he earned 160 Rescue Points, passing with flying colors on top of setting a new record.
  • He misunderstands the rules of Mister Mxyzptlk's game and demands to know how he's supposed to pronounce the imp's name backwards when he can't even pronounce it forwards. This inadvertently gets Mxyzptlk to yell "Kltpzyxm!" in frustration, banishing him back to the Fifth Dimension.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Izuku has a less-than-sunny outlook on his powers and quashes his own prospects of becoming a Hero at the start of the story due to lasting trauma and his severe guilt complex. This piles on top of his existential angst and Freakiness Shame over being a Human Alien on a planet that hates aliens, leaving him feeling lost at what to do with his life because he doesn't know why he's on Earth. As a result, he's plagued with even more self-doubt and loathing than his canon counterpart. He starts to get over it with All Might's help, but it's a slow process.
• Adaptational Badass: Izuku goes from Quirkless boy gifted with One For All to a Kryptonian Flying Brick with the Nigh-Invulnerability, Super-Strength, and Combo Platter Powers to match. You do the math. This of course, comes with caveats.
• Adaptational Intelligence:
  • In canon, Izuku barely passed the written portion of the U.A. Entrance Exam due to being exhausted from his intense physical training and being hard-pressed for study time. Here, Izuku has far more time to study due to training on his own terms with some drilling from K.E.L.E.X. and some help from Momo, giving him a nearly flawless score on the test.
  • Flashbacks show that this wasn't always the case, as Izuku used to lag behind his classmates while learning to read and he was always clumsy.
• Adaptational Name Change: Kal-El is Izuku Midoriya in this story rather than Clark Kent and the author has plans to make him take up the name Superman rather than Deku despite the title.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: In addition to being Kryptonian, therefore having their abilities from DC canon, Izuku here turns down One For All in this story.
• Adaptational Upbringing Change: Kal-El lands by Mount Fuji instead of Smallville and is subsequently adopted by Inko and Hisashi Midoriya. So instead of becoming a Farm Boy turned Intrepid Reporter Clark Kent, he's raised as the nerdy Hero-Worshipper Izuku Midoriya. On the same note, growing up with Kryptonian superpowers from the age of four has left him terrified of his own strength, as he nearly killed Katsuki Bakugou after losing control of it when they were kids. He swears off becoming a hero until his teenage years, when All Might encourages him to become a hero despite his past mistakes.
• Adaptational Wimp: Despite the above, Izuku's teenage Kryptonian strength is still no match for the full might of One For All. As a Kryptonian, his showings are much less impressive than his planet-shattering comic book counterpart, but this is mostly attributed to the fact that he isn't fully mature.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Izuku goes from green to black hair, just like Superman. The irises of his eyes also go from green to black, which is unusual, given that Kryptonians are often portrayed with brilliantly blue eyes. This is because the House of El originated from the city of Twenx on Krypton in this story, which is known to have Kryptonians who look similar to those with Asian features.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Due to his Age Lift, as this version of Kal-El, Izuku doesn’t interact much with his comic book equivalent’s contemporaries, like Batman and the Flash. In addition, while he does interact with a Luthor, it isn’t Lex, but rather his granddaughter Lexi. Lastly, his canonical love interest Lois Lane has been replaced by Itsuka Kendo.
• Adaptation Species Change: Izuku is Kryptonian in this story, but is able to pass for a Japanese boy his age without arousing suspicion. This is not unprecedented, as Calvin Ellis, the Superman of Earth-23, can pass for African-American with ease. Izuku's father, Jor-El, is stated to resemble Hikaru Hanada, Superman's Japanese voice actor for the DC Animated Universe and The LEGO Batman Movie.
• Afraid of Their Own Strength: Aside from being an alien and having extremely obvious superpowers, the defining difference between Kryptonian!Izuku and Canon!Izuku is that Kryptonian!Izuku is terrified of his own strength after hospitalizing Bakugou as a child by accident while trying to defend another child from bullies. This makes him swear off his dream of heroism out of fear of the harm he could do while trying to help others until he meets All Might, whom Izuku is still careful not to break in two when latching onto his leg.
  Izuku: After that, I got it in my head that even though I was still a kid, I needed to be more proactive to play catch up. One day, I saw my friend picking on another kid, so I got into a fight with him to get him to stop. He jumped onto my back, so I thought it'd be cool if I tried using one of your moves on him, and I, I, I sent him flying into a building! They had to put screws all over his arm, his chest is covered in scars, he couldn't go to school for a month, he, he, he almost died! My best friend was nearly killed, and it was all my fault!
• The Ageless: K.E.L.E.X. and Jor-El tell Izuku that he will probably be around by the time Earth reaches Krypton's level of advancement, which is several millennia from the present day. They don't bother to elaborate on this, despite Izuku's insistence.
• Aliens Speaking English: Izuku was raised as a Japanese human in the first place, so he doesn't understand the alien language he heard in a video All Might managed to obtain with his connections. He spends part of his Training Montage to get into U.A. studying Kryptonese, but he fumbles a lot of the words because the alphabet and all of the syntax is new to him. He also admits that English isn't his best subject and his attempts to greet Lexi in English come out awkwardly.
• All the Other Reindeer:
  • Not as blatant as canon, but it's implied that everyone in Izuku's middle school class is terrified of his raw strength and remain distant from him out of fear of what he might do to them if they piss him off. This is only reinforced by Izuku's own self-doubts and fears, meaning that he's just as lonely as his canon counterpart at the start of the story.
  • Completely inverted when he walks into his first day of classes at U.A. His actions during the U.A. Entrance Exam have instantly made him the most popular kid in his class and no one can stop talking about how awesome he is.
• Always Someone Better:
  • In a twist from canon, Izuku's Kryptonian abilities make him this to Bakugou, who seethes at the thought of Izuku being able to easily best him in a straight fight, even if it was when they were just kids. When they get to U.A., people just plain like Izuku better than Bakugou, basically ignoring the latter while trying to get buddy buddy with Izuku when they aren't declaring him to be their rival.
  • Aizawa's Quirk Assessment Test shows that Izuku is effectively this to all of Class 1-A. Whoever got the best score in their respective portion of the test in canon has their score beat by Izuku here, with the exception of Uraraka and the ball throw, and even then Izuku got less-than-or-equal-to her score (literally).
  • Izuku considers All Might this, since the Pro Hero is still stronger, faster, and more experienced than Izuku is. Izuku also feels lacking compared to All Might after watching the crowd go wild when he dispersed the Sludge Villain, with Izuku believing that he would never be able to inspire the same reaction and feelings of hope in others.
• …And That Little Girl Was Me: Izuku caps off the first chapter with his own narration.
  Izuku: You probably figured it out already, but that baby they're with? That's me. My name is Izuku Midoriya, and I'm an alien.
• Armor-Piercing Question/Armor-Piercing Response: Unintentionally asks Tenya one when the latter questions why Izuku would bother helping him in the middle of the U.A. Entrance Exam.
  Tenya: Why were you here at all?! I was going to get up eventually, and there's no way that these machines would have done any lethal damage, yet you decided to get yourself involved!
  Izuku: Well, yeah. You looked like you were in trouble, so I just decided to help you.
  Tenya: Because I looked-are you an idiot?! We're in the middle of an exam! You can't waste time worrying about other people!
  Izuku: But isn't a Hero supposed to save as many people as they can? [flies away as Tenya looks on in Stunned Silence]
• Ascended Fanboy: Izuku is still one for All Might since the Hero is the one who finally managed to break Izuku's loop of self-loathing and get him to chase his dreams, but less so than in canon since he refused to accept One For All, believing it to be wasted on him due to his existing Super-Strength.
• Ash Face: All of Bakugou's attempts to hurt Izuku can only lightly singe Izuku's costume and cover his face in soot. This is justified by Izuku's and his costume's Nigh-Invulnerability.
• Assassination Attempt: Because he's so integral to the timeline, many, many people have attempted to assassinate his younger self before he can become his Future Badass self. It's bad enough that the Legion of Super-Heroes have members watch his younger-self in shifts to prevent said attempts from succeeding. And even they can't catch them all, necessitating the intervention of other time-traveling superheroes like the Legends of Tomorrow.
• The Atoner: He initially feels that the only way he could atone for what he did to Bakugou was to never be a Hero so that he wouldn't hurt anyone else. When he comes around and reclaims his boyhood dream, part of his reason for doing so is to make up for his past mistakes and the trouble he's caused by being on Earth.
• Badass Adorable: He's an incredibly dorky Hero fanboy and a crybaby who is overly conscientious of everyone. But none of these things distracts from the fact that he's Kryptonian, with all of the powers that being one entails.
• Bad Liar:
  • Izuku has trouble lying to his mom about what he's up to while trying to hunt down the spaceship that brought him to Earth. The narration outright says that she doesn't actually believe his excuses because he's stammering too much to make them convincing, but lets him go anyways under the condition that he doesn't have a repeat of the Sludge Villain incident.
  • When he's called up to give a speech as the top-scoring student on the entrance exam, Izuku wracks his brain for what to say before spotting All Might in the crowd. He then proceeds to "drop" (conspicuously kick) his phone underneath All Might's seat so they can have a conversation while "looking" for the phone. What sells it is that his horribly delivered lie somehow manages to work.
    Izuku: Oh no! I, um, accidentally dropped my phone to the floor, completely by accident! I really should get it back before I give my big speech that I’m really excited to give! Could you help me out, random citizen? This will only take a minute!
• Batman Can Breathe in Space/Super Not-Drowning Skills: Izuku can breathe in areas without oxygen, allowing him to survive unassisted underwater and in space as well as survive in areas filled with noxious gas for as long as it isn't laden with Kryptonite dust. Izuku takes advantage of this when he visits Korusan Island to begin practicing how to use his powers, breathing the incredibly deadly poisonous gas emitted by the island as if it were fresh air.
• From Bad to Worse: Izuku knows he's in trouble when that strange socialite reveals that she knows what he is. He knows he's in even deeper trouble when that girl is revealed to be not just any Luthor, but the Alexis Lois Luthor, heir to all of LexCorp.
  Izuku: [internally] This is bad.
  Lexi: Alexis Lois Luthor, but my friends, the few that exist, call me "Lexi".
  Izuku: [internally] This is worse! Of all the Luthors, it's the Luthor!
• Bait-and-Switch: The story in the present day opens much like the beginning of the manga, complete with narration about how he was going to become the world's greatest Hero, only for Izuku to throw the reader a curveball by dropping a line that his canon counterpart would never say.
  Izuku: [to his teacher] Yes, sir. I, I really don't want to be a Hero.
  [to the reader] I should probably mention that there were some bumps in the road.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Like his canon counterpart, a young Izuku wanted nothing more than an amazing Quirk to help him be a Hero like his idol, All Might. Little did he know that he hit the Superpower Lottery... but when he tried it out in a fight before learning how to use them...
• Berserk Button: Hurting his family is the fastest way to piss him off. He instantly flies off the handle when Mxyzptlk turns his mom into a dog. This is the same kid who can take all of Bakugou's insults in stride.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Izuku is just as kind and sweet as he is in canon, but his incredible Super-Strength means that he can easily tear someone limb from limb if he were to ever lose his composure, a prospect that terrifies him into inaction.
• Big Man on Campus: Izuku unintentionally becomes this when his performance on the U.A. Entrance Exam thrusts him into the spotlight. He's instantly swarmed by all of the people he helped during the exam before he gets his foot in the door on his first day of school. Everyone around him acknowledges him as The Ace or a Worthy Opponent and hopes to either become friends with him or at least gain his respect. Izuku is bothered by all of this and wishes he wasn't so popular, though he admits that it doesn't exactly feel bad to be admired either.
• Big "WHAT?!": When Lexi tells Izuku that she's going to enter U.A., Izuku is so stunned that he ends up punching through the window of her limousine.
  Lexi: [laughing] Oh my God, I can't believe you actually said all that! I haven't heard anything so schmaltzy since Granny Lois' last talk show appearance! Ah, but it's not so bad, though. It's actually the exact kind of spiel I was hoping you'd give. Now that I know that you're thinking like that, I can move forward with my decision.
  Izuku: Wh-What's that?
  Lexi: I'm going to enter U.A.
  Izuku: [punches through a window after a few seconds of Stunned Silence] Wh-Wh-What?! Y-Y-Y-You're going to try and be a Hero?!
• Blessed with Suck: Izuku has a love-hate relationship with his powers for the same reasons Superman does in the comics. On one hand, he has everything he could possibly ever need to become an amazing Hero. On the other hand, his Super-Strength doesn't have an off switch because it's not an emission-type Quirk like One For All. Because of this, he has to treat everything and everyone like wet cardboard lest he accidentally cause them severe harm with gestures as simple as hugging or shaking their hand. Then there was his Sensory Overload when his Super-Hearing first manifested...
  • When Izuku informs Aizawa that his last ball throw went 520 meters with or without his "Quirk", the latter mistakes the response for a snippy one until Izuku clarifies himself. The same exchange reveals that Izuku used to get in trouble during PE exams because he can't turn his strength off.
    Izuku: N-No! That's not what I'm doing! Really, it's not! It's just that my Quirk isn't the kind of Quirk I can just turn on and off on command. If I want to use less power, I have to consciously put in the effort to put out less power, but that's not the easiest thing to do, especially when I'm doing physical activities. Even though I'd always try and restrain myself, I'd always end up using too much power, and then the teacher would get mad at me because, like you said, we aren't supposed to use Quirks or other abilities for this kind of stuff-
• Born Winner: Izuku's Kryptonian biology gives him a plethora of borderline overpowered Combo Platter Powers under Earth's yellow sun that gradually grow in power even when he tries to suppress them. He's also naturally intelligent and can process information at superhuman speeds, which makes him even more formidable.
• Broken Ace: Izuku is studious, kind-hearted, hard-working, naturally charismatic, and easily among the most powerful students to ever grace the halls of U.A. But his confidence is in the pits due to years of berating himself for nearly killing his best friend as a child and he desperately desires external validation to prove that he's worthy of living on Earth. He's also terrified of letting his alien heritage come to light out of fear of persecution and he has to live with the knowledge that the people who are in the know about him could ruin his life at any time. Encouragement from All Might and Firestorm have jump-started his recovery, but he's still easily intimidated by anyone remotely imposing and remains awkward in social situations.
• Brought to You by the Letter "S": His costume proudly bears the crest of the House of El in white with black outlining.
• Buffy Speak: When forced to make a speech to his entire first year class, Izuku follows All Might's advice to the letter, resulting in this line:
  Izuku: All of us can show off Wisdom, Wonder, Mystery, and Entropy if we just put our minds to it. A-And if you ever think that justice isn’t working, then all you have to do is… is justice harder!
• Bully and Wimp Pairing: Izuku and Bakugou's relationship as in canon, but twisted in that the "wimp" (Izuku) is much more powerful than his bully.
• Calling Your Attacks: Even though he doesn't hold One For All, Izuku is still tempted to yell SMASH while throwing a haymaker.
• Cannot Talk to Women: When Izuku starts talking to Momo, he's stuttering around her due to his inexperience with the opposite sex and becomes a sputtering mess when a restaurant owner jokingly asks if he's her boyfriend. He then decides to sit two seats down from her at the restaurant they were visiting on reflex, only moving closer to her when she chastises him for it. Even then, he's extremely worried about offending her and apologizes for any slights imagined or otherwise. He still does better than his canon counterpart, who was unable to even say anything after Ochaco saved him from falling flat on his face. He's equally uncomfortable around Lexi, but for entirely different reasons.
  Momo: [Izuku sits several seats away from her] Please don't tell me that stupid joke is going to make you nervous around me.
  Izuku: N-No, that's not it. Well, m-maybe a little, but, y'know, I just don't have a lot of experience talking with girls my own age, so I'm just feeling a little anxious.
  Momo: What a coincidence; I don't have a lot of experience talking with boys my own age. This should be a good learning experience for the both of us, then. [Izuku concedes the point and scoots over]
• The Cape: Well, he's Superman. That's all you really need to know. This is best shown during the U.A. Entrance Exam, where he spends far more time helping other applicants than fighting robots, inspiring many of them to do the same. He also takes on the Starro robot and its miniature drones to protect his fellow students even though he knows it would earn him zero Villain Points.
• Change the Uncomfortable Subject:
  • While looking for his spaceship, Izuku accidentally starts up a conversation about how he turned down All Might's offer to make him the inheritor of One For All. He feels absolutely terrible about it and asks All Might to focus on the search for the spaceship.
    Izuku: Well, as great an offer it was, and it really was a great offer, I'm still really, really, really, really, really thankful for it, receiving a Quirk like that would be kind of redundant when I'm already really strong, right?
    All Might: Redundancy isn't the issue, even if it's a good point.
    Izuku: But more than that, I want to try and get a full handle on the powers I already have, and I don't think I'll be able to do that if I have another power to work on. So like I said before, I don't think I can accept your offer. Not yet, anyway. Maybe. I don't know. Let's just get back to this, please?
  • This trope gets Played for Laughs when Jor-El's surprise over learning that dogs, cats, and monkeys exist on Earth leads to an awkward silence between him and Izuku. Both of them agree to drop the subject.
• Character Tics:
  • Izuku still rambles like crazy when he's deep in thought.
  • He frequently breaks into a nervous sweat when he's lying or something is bothering him.
  • He blushes easily when praised or embarrassed.
• Charm Point: Izuku's spit curl, which he's had since he was a baby, is his single most noticeable trait. He's often referred to as "Spitcurl" when people don't know his name and it's the first thing most people remember about him until they see him in action.
  Nejire: [upon meeting Izuku] That's so cool! How'd you—oh, you've got a spit curl! Hey, you ever stick your finger in there and twist it around?
• Cheerful Child: When Izuku first discovered his "Quirk" as a child, he was literally bouncing off the walls with excitement. He's much more sober in his teenage years, but his former childish exuberance leaks through whenever he meets a Pro Hero he admires (of which there are a lot) or just gets to nerd out with someone else. He also jumps for joy when he learns how to use his Super-Breath to create ice, only stopping when he realizes that he's frozen his instant ramen solid.
• Chest Insignia: He has the House of El's crest plastered across the chest of his costume.
• Chick Magnet: From his own account and Bakugou's, he was pretty popular with girls during junior high. While it's died down a lot since since coming to U.A, he still gets the occasional note in his locker.
• Child of Two Worlds:
  • Izuku has the values and personality of someone who was born and raised on Earth, but is still an alien biologically. This leads to his internal conflict in which he wants to follow his dream of becoming a Hero, but is so hung up over his past mistakes and his Internalized Categorism that he feels he doesn't deserve to be one. By the 30th century, it's implied that he's responsible for alleviating the xenophobia that plagued Earth after the Lantern War.
  • Even after learning where he came from, it's clear that he thinks of himself as "Izuku Midoriya" first and "Kal-El" second, introducing himself with his Japanese name when Lexi coerces him into having a conversation with her. His internal dialogue also has him referring to himself as "Izuku".
• Chronic Hero Syndrome:
  • During the U.A. Entrance Exam, Izuku is consumed by his desire to help others and ends up flying around the entire testing facility doing nothing but softening the robots up and keeping them from hurting anyone else. After he stops to save Kirishima, Izuku realizes this and wonders why he can't stop being a good person in the middle of a competitive exam. K.E.L.E.X. lampshades this, calling it "counterproductive altruism". U.A.'s faculty is so puzzled by his behavior that they initially suspect Izuku of knowing about the exam's Rescue Points when he did this (he didn't).
    Izuku: What is wrong with me?! The exam's more than halfway done, and I've only gotten fifteen points! I should have been able to get hundreds of points by now, but I keep spending all of my time helping other people get their own points! At this rate, I'm going to completely fail! Why can't I stop myself from being a good person?!
  • Flashbacks revealed that he was this is a child too. After getting his "Quirk", he would constantly use them to help others: breaking up fights, getting cats out of trees, and saving Bakugou from a nasty fall into the river. This earned him praise from all of his classmates at preschool until the day he accidentally threw Bakugou through a wall.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Zig-zagged. Izuku hit the Superpower Lottery hard this time around, but it also comes bundled up with a ton of angst and neuroses about his identity. So while he's packing more than enough awesomeness to fall under an Ideal Hero, his fears, self-doubt, and need for external validation keep him from being one.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: In true comic book hero fashion, he keeps meeting pretty girls who take an interest in him. Between Itsuka, Momo, Alexis, and Lori, he gets more than enough attention to go around. Lori even leaps out of the water to give him a thank you-kiss for crushing a golem about to attack her, to his bewilderment.
• Combo Platter Powers: As in standard canon, being a Kryptonian gives Izuku all the standard powers of one, including Super-Strength, Nigh-Invulnerability, Flight, and so on.
• Coming of Age Story: Izuku's journey is defined by his desire to come to terms with who and what he is and prove that he has a right to live on the planet he calls home even if he wasn't born on it.
  Izuku: [to Lexi] I-It's just like you said. I spent my whole life trying to hide who I am because of what happened when I was a kid. To me, the only way I could ever make amends was to give up on my dreams, and for a while, I thought I was fine with that. But someone made me admit that I was just lying to myself, and that-that's no way to live. I haven't forgotten about what I did, but I want to prove that I can be who I am, in spite of all of that. I want to prove that I have every right to be who I want to be, even if everyone says that that's wrong. So long as I'm drawing breath, I'm going to be true to myself and not let anyone stop me from doing what I want to do, even if that person might be myself!
• Commonality Connection: Nedzu appoints Tamaki to be Izuku's mentor because of their shared social awkwardness and anxiety in hopes that they'll help each other overcome them.
  • He's later shown to strike a friendship with Mina Ashido, Pony Tsutonori and Yui Kodai when they're grouped together in the Alien Studies class.
• Composite Character: Izuku has the identity, beliefs, and personality of his canon counterpart along with the powerset and alien identity of Kal-El. This is reflected in the design of Izuku's costume, which is a pastiche of his manga counterpart's costume and that of various incarnations of Superman and Superboy. It combines the All Might-like hood, color scheme, and detailing of canon Izuku's Costume Alpha, while also possessing the insignia and belt of Superman's Rebirth costume. The striped boots are derived from the original costume of the second Superboy, Conner Kent. The fact that the costume is separated into leggings and a jacket with a zipper is also reminiscent of the most recent Superboy's, Jon Kent's, costume.
• Condescending Compassion: Izuku is constantly heaping praise on Bakugou for his efforts and strategy, but Bakugou thinks Izuku is patronizing him even though he's being completely straightforward.
  Izuku: [after taking a huge explosion] That was… That was really something else. I know it didn't really hurt me, but still! If it was anyone else, then that would have been the end of it, so you should feel happy about—
  Bakugou: Shut your ass up with that patronizing crap!
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • The can Izuku kicked in frustration flew across the city and hit All Might in the head, giving the Sludge Villain an opportunity to escape and attack Izuku, which in turn attracted All Might after he saw Izuku's Heat Vision go off in the distance while the boy was escaping the Sludge Villain. Izuku is painfully aware of this.
    All Might: I almost had him, but then a can fell out of the sky and hit me in the face, giving him an opening. Seriously, a can falling out of the sky! How does that even happen?!
    Izuku: [sheepish] I-I-I wouldn't know...
  • On their first day at U.A., Izuku and Bakugou just so happen to use the restroom at the same time. At the exact same time, Lexi and Mercy are using the bathroom adjacent to the men's room. Then Shouto shows up as soon as they leave. Lampshaded by Bakugou.
    Bakugou: Goddammit, why are so many people who know Deku taking shits, right now?
• Cover-Blowing Superpower: Izuku is able to survive things that no human being, Quirk, Metagene, magic or not, should be able to. For instance, he visits Korusan Island, which emits a powerful corrosive gas that kills Earth-based life and melts all known Earth metals in seconds, to practice how to use his powers and is perfectly comfortable there. When he runs back outside after running into some Kaiju spawn, he considers notifying the local Heroes about them. He stops when he realizes that not only would they be unable to survive the island like he can, but he has no way of explaining how exactly he survived it without blowing his cover.
• Cowardly Lion:
  • Even with his incredible powers (one of them being Nigh-Invulnerability), facing Villains without any kind of Hero training scares Izuku out of his wits and most new experiences tend to startle him. It still doesn't stop him from rushing in to save Bakugou from the Sludge Villain or offering to take on the Ultra-Humanite, who had just thrown All Might into the ceiling, alone. Even after this, Izuku runs away screaming in terror when he runs into miniature Kaiju spawn, even as K.E.L.E.X. assures him that they don't have any abilities that could possibly hurt him.
  • While visiting U.A.'s Culture Festival with his parents, Izuku runs into Kendo Rappa and accidentally gets into a not-so-friendly competition over a rare doll. While he doesn't want the doll and would rather give it to Rappa at that point, Izuku still manages to crush Rappa at both the punching machine and in an arm wrestling contest, easily tossing the enormous man to the side and dislocating his shoulder by accident with a fraction of his strength. Despite this disparity in power, Izuku still finds himself intimidated by him.
  • Izuku is nervous before the practical portion of the U.A. Entrance Exam even though he knows that he could easily rack up hundreds of points with his powers.
  • Shouto is surprised when Endeavor tells him to watch out for Izuku, who looked like he couldn't last five seconds against Kite Man. One speech and Quirk Apprehension Test later, Shouto declares Izuku to be his rival and that he'll defeat him without giving him a chance to counterattack.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: During the Heroes vs. Villains exercise, his fight with Itsuka is this. Despite her extensive training and use of her equipment to prepare the perfect attack, she can't make Izuku budge an inch even after he leaves himself open to her as part of his "villainous" courtesy. She proceeds to let Izuku wrap capture tape around her, knowing there's nothing she can do to get past him.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Izuku is definitely a Nervous Wreck because he's afraid of hurting others with his powers. But he knows that these same powers (namely his Nigh-Invulnerability) makes it nearly impossible for anyone to actually bully him, so Izuku ends up snarking at Bakugou without much fear of reprisal.
    Izuku: I don't think I'm special, and I don't want to be special.
    Bakugou: So what, you're just gonna live the rest of your life like these pathetic little pissants? Just let everything that makes you worth a damn go to waste?
    Izuku: Maybe I am. Not everyone's as obsessed with being validated as you.
  • He also gently snarks at the Ultra-Humanite while being pressed into the floor by a robot T. rex.
    Ultra-Humanite: Your country's cultural heritage is being superseded by someone like Endeavor, and all you can do is shrug your shoulders?
    Izuku: [still under the foot of the T. rex] Well, I don't really have any room for shrugging-
• Deer in the Headlights: Izuku stares blankly like this when he sees Bakugou walking in without a shirt during the Heroes vs. Villain exercise, revealing his mangled scars to the entire class.
  He looked like a cross between a deer in a headlights, someone who just got punched in the stomach, and someone who just got kicked in the balls;
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  • As mentioned above under Change the Uncomfortable Subject, Izuku falls into this while apologizing to All Might for turning down his offer to become the successor of One For All. Coincidentally, Izuku brings up how redundant it would be for someone with Super-Strength to get another Super-Strength Quirk in the same conversation.
  • While exploring Korusan Island, the narration says that for a rotting Kaiju corpse, it wasn't all that bad. Izuku echoes the sentiment immediately afterward.
    Narration: For a decaying Kaiju head, it wasn't all that bad.
    Izuku: Wow! For a decaying Kaiju head, this isn't all that bad.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Izuku doesn't know why he was sent to Earth and doesn't have a direction in life because of his refusal to become a Hero. He learns from Jor-El that his birth parents didn't have a greater destiny for him. They just wanted Izuku to be able to live a long, fulfilling life and to be able to do whatever he wanted to do. He takes this as his reason to become a Hero.
• Determinator: After being blasted off Mt. Fuji, Izuku refused to die because he is so close to finding out who and what he is. His determination spontaneously awakens his ability to fly, allowing him to rush back in to finish the fight.
  Izuku Midoriya refused to die. He knew that he was just blasted with an ionic disruptor cannon, but he refused to die (it helped that it surprisingly didn't hurt that much). He knew that some sort of high-tech bomb was thrown at him, as well, but he refused to die. He knew that he was falling farther than anyone should ever have to fall, but he refused to die. Not when he was so close to the end. Not when the answers to everything were so close.
• Deconstructed Trope:
  • Manifesting your Super-Strength at four sounds awesome on paper, but when Izuku gets into a fight with his pugnacious best friend before he learns how to use his powers... things get ugly real fast.
  • Izuku may be Nigh-Invulnerable, but he still has a Geek Physique. Even if stuff isn't hurting him, he simply doesn't have the body weight to avoid getting tossed around when dealing with powerful weaponry and Villains with Super-Strength. Ten months of training to get into U.A. seems to have remedied this, as he goes from stumbling backward from getting hit in the face to not budging an inch when he leaves himself open as part of his "villainous courtesy" to Itsuka.
  • Chapter 12 shows that despite all the growth Izuku's gone through the past year, his problems and hangups haven't automatically gone away, and because of that, he's unable to finish his fight with Bakugou out of fear of hurting him again.
• Deus Exit Machina: When the League of Villains attacks 1-A at USJ, Izuku quickly decides to fly back to U.A. and get help, but Kurogiri immediately warped him into a zero-gravity chamber. Because his body isn't used to the conditions of space, Izuku is stuck while the rest of his classmates fight for their lives.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Downplayed. During the U.A. Entrance Exam, Izuku takes down U.A.'s robotic replica of Starro the Conqueror almost single-handedly.
• Die or Fly: After being blasted off Mt. Fuji by the combination of both an ionic disruptor cannon and a high-tech bomb, Izuku is sent hurtling towards the ground. Determined to not die and find out who he is (even if the fall is unlikely to kill him), he suddenly manifests his ability to fly, using it to zoom back into the fight before he realizes what he's doing.
  Izuku: [blinks and looks down as everyone stares at him in shock] I can fly?!
• Disproportionate Retribution: Izuku accidentally inflicts this on Bakugou when they were kids when he loses control of his Super-Strength, sending Bakugou through a stone wall for the crime of bullying the kid who took the last cupcake.
• Diving Save: When Bakugou falls off a log over a shallow river, Izuku immediately jumped after him and caught him before he could hit the ground. While he did this out of genuine concern, Bakugou insists that he would have been fine and didn't need Deku's help, shooting an explosion into Izuku's face as thanks.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength:
  • As a child, this led to tragedy when Izuku's lack of awareness and control of his own Super-Strength nearly kills Bakugou. As a teenager, he's generally aware of how strong he is and is constantly moderating his strength to make sure he doesn't hurt anyone. But after he starts training to enter U.A., he surprises himself again when he manages to break a punching machine without meaning to after being egged on by Rappa, a yakuza member who is known for his Super-Strength.
  • During Aizawa's test, Izuku accidentally crushes the grip strength machine provided to him and throws the ball so hard that the score reads, "less than or equal to infinity", dwarfing his previous record of 520 meters.
• Double Take:
  • Izuku has this reaction when K.E.L.E.X. tells him that he's virtually immortal.
    K.E.L.E.X.: [Izuku laments that he won't live to see Earth reach Krypton's level of advancement] IN ALL LIKELIHOOD, YOU MOST CERTAINLY WILL.
    Izuku: Wait, what?
  • When he was five years old, he was rescued by the Legends of Tomorrow, who inform him that they're here to stop Brainiac from killing a child who will become the world's greatest Hero. He says that's terrible and they should find that Hero soon... until he realizes that they're talking about him.
    Selene: This is Brainiac, a SSS-level criminal who hails from the planet Colu. For decades, his plans for genocide on a galactic scale have been foiled again and again by the world's greatest Hero, so he decided to travel back in time and kill said Hero when he was still a child and not a threat to anyone.
    Izuku: Th-That's terrible! You've got to find that Hero and… protect him… from… Brainiac… [everything clinks] M-Me?! No, that can't be right! I'm not… I don't even want to be—
• Don't Say Such Stupid Things!: When Izuku is torn up over his inability to give Bakugou the fight he wanted, All Might calls him an idiot for thinking he could get over ten years of trauma in one. He goes on to say that it's Izuku's desire to improve that makes him just as human as the people around him.
• Dork Knight:
  • Izuku is incredibly powerful with a ton of Combo Platter Powers thanks to his heritage. He's also got a heart of gold and some of the toughest moral fiber there is, but he is at his core an earnest fan of Heroes who can't stop squeeing whenever he meets one of his idols. In casual situations, he's embarrassingly sweet and polite and wants to be treated like a normal kid even when he's running circles around his classmates.
  • He gets embarrassed when he accidentally sounds cool and just asks his new classmates (who are all busy gushing over him) to talk about someone other than him.
    Mineta: First you're on the verge of standing up for me, then you're giving me advice… Midoriya, do you ever stop being cool?!
    Izuku: I haven't even gotten started. Wait, that-that came out wrong. Can we please just talk about someone who isn't me?
• Dramatically Missing the Point:
  • A four-year-old Izuku completely forgot that Quirks were inherited from one's parents because of his excitement over having powers at all. He only realizes this after his Super-Hearing allows him to overhear his parents arguing with Dr. Tsubasa and the police as they tried to justify his abilities. Him finally putting two-and-two together after he blacked out was when his parents were forced to tell him about his origins.
  • Izuku is also completely baffled at Bakugou's constant attempts to one-up him because Izuku already believes him to be an amazing person to look up to. What he doesn't get is that Bakugou's ego feels threatened due to growing up as the center of attention and he refuses to be seen as weak, which happens constantly after their fateful brawl despite working his ass off to overcome it.
• Dramatic Stutter: Because of his frayed nerves, Izuku stutters whenever he's surprised, scared, or nervous. He also sometimes does this when he's excited.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?:
  • Inverted. Izuku is initially so hung up over past mistakes that he has trouble recognizing when he's actually done something good. While he's right to say that the Sludge Villain escaped and was able to rampage because of him, he staunchly believes that he did nothing but put others in danger when he ran in and successfully saved Bakugou at no harm to anyone else.
    Izuku: I was scolded for interfering in Hero business and putting myself in danger. Kacchan, meanwhile, was praised for being so brave in the face of danger. Neither of those statements were true, though: anyone who looked at Kacchan back there would have known that he was scared out of his mind, and anyone who knew me would have known that I put everyone except myself in danger. I could have hurt Kacchan all over again, I knew that, yet I still went in to save him. What did that say about me, then?
  • Fully averted when he gets to U.A., as all of his classmates proceed to thank him and gush about him for helping them out during the entrance exam, quickly turning him into the most popular kid in his class.
• Eating Optional: Izuku technically doesn't have to eat for as long as he has ready access to yellow sunlight, but he still feels hungry and enjoys eating anyways. K.E.L.E.X. points this out to nag Izuku to keep studying, but gets ignored. This also grants Izuku superhuman levels of stamina, as he only feels hungry after five hours of continuous physical exertion in developing his Super-Strength.
• Emotional Bruiser: Izuku is the same dorky Hero Fan Boy we know and love with a penchant for crying. These traits are only compounded by the dose of Adaptational Angst Upgrade he gets in the story. He's also Kryptonian.
• Entertainingly Wrong: In the middle of the U.A. Entrance Exam, he hears people screaming about aliens. He panics and furiously denies it until he sees the actual cause of their distress: a to-scale robotic replica of Starro the Conqueror, the alien that brought the Justice Society together. It's realistic enough that it even fools Izuku at first.
  Random Applicants: Alien!
  Izuku: Wh-What?! What are you-I don't know what you're-
  Random Applicants: [running past Izuku] Get out of the way! We're dead! We're all dead! No one said anything about fucking aliens!
  • He later comes to the conclusion that Shouto learned his Secret Identity from Endeavor, spending the entire first day of school nervous about it. Izuku breathes a small sigh of relief later when it turns out that Endeavor just told Shouto to watch out for him as a rival rather than as an alien.
• Epiphany Therapy:
  • Zig-zagged. On one hand, meeting All Might and completing his quest to find his spaceship gives Izuku a much needed boost in cheer and confidence that lets him chase his dreams again. But he still feels absolutely terrible about what he did to Bakugou. The sight of Bakugou walking in shirtless, revealing his mangled scars to all of Class 1-A, instantly makes Izuku's heart sink with shame and regret.
  • Subverted when it's time for him and Bakugou to fight. Izuku can't bring himself to hurt Bakugou and spends the entire fight just dodging and countering rather than taking the initiative. At the end of the day, All Might chases him down to discuss this with him.
    Izuku: I'm sorry. I know that I should have been better than this after everything we did last year, and I thought I was, but when I actually had to fight Kacchan, it felt like I was back at square one. I don't understand why that happened—
    All Might: That's exactly what I wanted to address, and with just one simple question: are you an idiot?
    Izuku: [thoroughly baffled] What?
    All Might: Did you think your problems were something that could just vanish so easily? You've had to deal with this for ten years, so how could they be completely dealt with in just one? If a person's problems were so easily manageable, then I never would have suffered my injury! So don't get too down in the dumps over it! If the Symbol of Peace is in the same boat as you, then there's no reason to be so hard on yourself, right? Plus, the fact that you want to get better so badly? All that says is that you're just as human as the rest of us.
• Exact Eavesdropping: Izuku's Super-Hearing manifests at the exact moment that the police are discussing how he shouldn't have any powers.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: It's implied that Izuku looks much like how he does in canon. But Kryptonian Izuku is distinguished from his canon counterpart by the spit curl hanging hanging in front of his face as well as his black hair, which have been emblematic of nearly every modern interpretation of Superman.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Invoked. Izuku is selected for the Villains side during the Heroes vs. Villains exercise. While making conversation with Itsuka, he drops his voice an octave in an attempt to sound intimidating.

Tropes F to J

• Fainting: Izuku is so overwhelmed with terror, uncertainty, and discomfort after meeting Lexi that he passes out in the snow after her limo drives away.
• Famed In-Story:
  • Izuku is famous throughout Japan as the alien in the spaceship that crashed into Mt. Fuji, with countless tourists visiting the mountain in hopes of catching a glimpse of the big, green monster man they believe him to be (and possibly capturing him by beating him into submission with sticks sold by vendors). Izuku is understandably unhappy with this "fame" and doesn't like talking about it. By the 30th century, he's famous for a much different reason: being Superman.
  • During the U.A. Entrance Exam, practically everyone in Testing Facility B is cheering him on when he heads out to take on the Starro robot alone and they explode into applause when they take it down. Even Izuku admits that it feels good to be treated like this.
  • By his first actual day of school, everyone is talking about him after he's presented as the highest scoring student in the history of the U.A. Entrance Exam. His fame only grows after he utterly demolishes the Quirk Apprehension Test.
• Family Theme Naming: As mentioned under Meaningful Name, Izuku's name (出久) possesses one of the same Kanji characters as Hisashi's (久しい) which is apparently a theme among the guys of Hisashi's family.
• Fastball Special: In an inversion of the usual intent of this trope, Izuku pitches Bakugou to Mount Lady get him away from the Sludge Villain, with the narration explicitly comparing the event to something that would happen at Koshien, the Japanese high school equivalent of the World Series.
• Fatal Flaw: Fear. More specifically, the fear of others getting hurt because of him directly or indirectly^note Medically, this is referred to as Harm OCD. Izuku's guilt complex over what he did to Bakugou has made him constantly worry about other people's well-being while losing sight of what's in front of him. This is most obviously seen in his refusal to become a Hero. Seeing Bakugou's battered and bloody body blinded Izuku to the fact that he can use that same Super-Strength to rescue others and fight Villains the same way All Might does every day.
  • His constant fear is also shown while he's fighting the Ultra-Humanite. Izuku's Super-Speed fails to save him from getting taken by surprise over and over because he's so concerned about All Might's and Firestorm's well-being that he stops paying attention to what's threatening him, which only puts the Heroes in even more danger as they try to help him.
  • This later becomes prevalent while fighting Bakugou during the Heroes vs. Villains exercise. He does nothing but react and dodge when he could easily take the upper hand because he can't stomach hurting Bakugou again. He sits down and gives up at the end, unwilling to let Bakugou kill himself with his own attacks just to finish a fight with him.
• First Kiss: Izuku gets his when he shatters a golem that was bearing down on Lori Lemaris, prompting her to pull him in for a kiss, much to Itsuka's jealousy.
• First-Person Smartass: Izuku is polite and kind, but he doesn't hesitate to snark at others in his head when it's not appropriate to do it out loud.
  Rappa: [talking about a rare doll that's up for grabs] Forget it, kid! I was here first, so you're gonna have to look somewhere else.
  Izuku: [trying to let him have it] I-I mean, I think I was here first, but I really don't mind-
  "Pitch-Black": Actually, from how I saw it, you both got here at the same time.
  Izuku: [internally] You're not helping!
• Flight: After learning how to fly, Izuku can easily travel a kilometer in under a minute before starting his ten months of preparation for getting to U.A. By the time his exam starts, he can easily maneuver himself in the air with Heat Vision blazing and ends up lapping the entire testing facility twice to help others.
• Flying Brick: Izuku is an alternate version of the Trope Codifier, so this is a given. At the start of the story, he has virtually every power associated with Kryptonians except for Flight, which he obtains after being blasted off Mt. Fuji.
• Foil:
  • Kryptonian!Izuku is one to his canon counterpart. While both struggled to achieve their dreams of becoming Heroes and eventually became the world's greatest Hero, their issues come from completely different sides of the spectrum. Canon Izuku was the Un-Sorcerer until he received One For All and was mocked for stubbornly trying to become a Hero in spite of it. Even then, he constantly broke his own body with his usage of it, leading to grievous self-injuries that threaten his ability to achieve his dream. Despite this, he can't help but rush into the action even when he's totally powerless or after having his bones broken so thoroughly that his arms flop around like empty gloves. Kryptonian Izuku has more power than he knows what to deal with, having spent his childhood reining in his abilities after his traumatic accident with Bakugou left him terrified of using them and is determined to not become a Hero at the start of the story.
    
    Instead of a nameless, Quirkless boy, he's a Human Alien who constantly has to keep his head low to avoid the watchful eye of those who would like nothing more than to destroy him. These factors paralyze him into inaction for the first part of the story until he absolutely needs to use his powers to save Bakugou. He's also Nigh-Invulnerable to the point that even a robot T. Rex can do little to cause him more than minor discomfort. Finally, while Canon Izuku is supremely grateful for receiving One For All as the catalyst for making his dreams come true, Kryptonian Izuku flatly refuses it, believing its awesome power to be wasted on someone who already has a plethora of powers (including Super-Strength) like him and feels terrible about letting All Might down this way.
  • As per canon, Izuku and Bakugou are foils to each other. Both of them were born with incredible powers and grew up together with the same wide-eyed admiration for All Might. Izuku is a Humble Hero who is terrified of hurting others with his constantly growing powers and initially tries to clamp down on them after nearly killing Bakugou as a child. Bakugou is a Smug Super and a Blood Knight who is constantly sneering at people he feels are beneath him while demanding a rematch with Izuku at U.A. While Izuku gets into the business in hopes of saving people to make up for his past mistakes and the trouble he's caused on Earth, Bakugou wants to be become the World's Strongest Man and intends on using his position to prove it.
  • Izuku is also one to the Ultra-Humanite. Both of them are incredibly gifted and powerful individuals in a society that emphasizes conformity. But their reactions to their abilities are totally opposed. While the Ultra-Humanite lashed out at others who would try to stifle his brilliance regardless of the consequences and morality of his actions, Izuku spent his entire life trying to rein in his powers out of fear of what he can do and resigned himself to becoming a nameless nobody if it meant protecting the people around him.
  • Izuku is also one for Lexi Luthor. They were both born with incredible talents and the ability to change the world. But Izuku is an alien who came to Earth and wants to be a Hero for altruistic purposes. He's lacking in self-esteem, socially awkward, and terrified of his own abilities and the day when his Secret Identity is finally leaked to the public. He hit the Superpower Lottery and is determined to make up for his past mistakes by helping as many people as he can. His biological family, while extremely important, was a virtual unknown on Krypton due to Fantastic Racism. While Izuku is fascinated by his home planet's culture, he's not bound by his family's legacy and is extremely close to both of his adoptive parents.
    
    Lexi is enrolling in the Support Course as a side hobby in order to satisfy her desire to observe Izuku. She's confident, manipulative, and wields a vast network of connections that allowed her to dig up Izuku's entire life story on a whim. She's disappointed that people don't recognize who she is on sight and her Quirk is ill-suited for combat, deciding to rule the world through her company's influence rather than trying to take it over with supervillainy or saving it every Tuesday. Her parents are neglectful party animals and her grandfather is one of the most famous men to have ever walked on Earth. Lexi is implied to be constantly living in Lex's shadow, making her determined to establish a legacy worthy of her heritage. They're also both Otakus, Izuku for Hero culture and Lexi for Japanese culture.
• Foregone Conclusion: Like in canon, we know from Izuku's narration that he becomes the world's greatest Hero. The story itself is a How We Got Here. He also says that he goes on to become the greatest Hero of all time.
• Forgot About His Powers:
  • In Chapter 3, Izuku is worried about what would happen if he let go of All Might's leg in mid-air, though he admits that he wasn't sure if he'd die if he fell from such a height. Come Chapter 4, he's leaping over huge swathes of the forest at Mt. Fuji's base with ease, showing that he wouldn't even get hurt from such a fall.
  • While walking to the U.A. Entrance Exam, he's so nervous that he ends up tripping and he forgets to use his flight abilities to stop himself from hitting the ground. Ochaco ends up breaking his fall with her Metahuman power.
• For Want Of A Nail:
  • The moment when Izuku defended another boy from Bakugou was a defining moment for both boys in canon, cementing each others' ideologies. This time, Izuku has Kryptonian powers, and the encounter doesn't end well for either of them.
  • Due to the highly public nature of the crash site and the fact that their car was left at their camp site, the Midoriyas were only able to take the baby Izuku and the lid of the spaceship rather than the whole thing as the Kents did. Hence, Izuku has no way to learn about his home planet's culture, only knowing that he's an alien. After meeting All Might, he spends the next part of the series hunting this ship down in order to gain some closure.
  • Subverted with the Sludge Villain incident. Izuku's powers would have let him easily defeat the Sludge Villain, but he refuses to use them out of fear of being labeled a Vigilante, requiring All Might to save him again. He also runs to save Bakugou from just like in canon, but this time he successfully tears Bakugou free and tosses him to safety. He still gets chewed out by the Pro Heroes for intervening even as the crowd of onlookers cheered while seeing him in action.
  • Due to his already incredible abilities, Izuku refuses One For All because he feels that it would be wasted on him. According to the author, this means that Mirio Togata, the one originally scouted to be All Might's successor, will be getting it instead of Izuku. When and how is still up in the air. This also means that Izuku isn't going to go through the same Training Montage as his canon counterpart, instead spending the time before the U.A. Entrance Exam trying to hunt down his spaceship so he can learn about where he came from.
• Future Badass: He's destined to one day become the greatest hero of all time. As a result, lots of people from the future, especially his future Rogues Gallery, have attempted to kill him before he can become a threat.
• Free-Range Children: Izuku used to hang out with Bakugou and go on little adventures with him when they were kids. Their fateful brawl happened while neither of their parents' were available to watch them.
• Friendless Background: Izuku doesn't have any friends at the start of the story because he's too terrified of his own power to even think of getting close to anyone. His classmates don't bother to try to correct him, remaining distant from him out of fear of what he could do to them. By the time he's a teenager, the only person he considers a friend is Bakugou, but even then their relationship is tenuous at best. He makes his first friend in a long time when he meets Momo while training in Nagoya and later becomes fast friends with Tenya, Ochaco, and Itsuka after the U.A. Entrance Exam.
• Friendly Rivalry: He tries to have this with Shouto Todoroki when they're sorted as a team for the Hero vs. Villain exercise, but unfortunately, the latter is too prideful to accept it. Izuku also doesn't understand why Bakugou is so insistent on proving himself better than him.
• Friendship Denial: Izuku is mistaken for Lexi's friend because of how much she knows about him and her insistence on hanging around him whenever possible. Pony is relieved when he repeatedly denies it, as Lexi used to bully her when they met at parties back in America.
• Geek Physique: Izuku starts out as this due to years of trying to avoid becoming a Hero, but he still punches far above his weight class. It's later subverted after he starts training and chasing his dream again, becoming as leanly muscular as most of his peers.
• Genius Bruiser: Izuku has the muscle of a Kryptonian but also the smarts to use it. When speaking with Firestorm, Izuku manages to flip the conversation around to manipulate the Pro Hero into allowing him to help find the alien spaceship with his natural modesty, shocking All Might. Aside from this, he's also able to pick up on obscure clips of music like Czech composer Leoš Janáček's "The Cunning Little Vixen" and knows slang words from other countries like "schway". Then there's his canonical encyclopedic knowledge of virtually every major Hero in the world. He also knows enough about H.P. Lovecraft to name the Kaiju he meets at Korusan Island "Mi-Gos".
• Glowing Eyes: Izuku's eyes glow red whenever he activates his Heat Vision or simply when he gets pissed.
• Good Is Not Dumb: For all his Chronic Hero Syndrome, Izuku possesses a good heap of common sense, refusing to interact with the suspicious limo that followed him home until he's blackmailed into it. He's also studious and creative with his powers.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Izuku tends to resort to these first when entering melee combat due to his admiration for All Might, but his movements are rather clumsy and predictable due to his lack of training. Because of this, the Ultra-Humanite is able to easily dodge and counter most of Izuku's attacks despite being slower and weaker than the young Kryptonian.
• Goomba Stomp: During the U.A. Entrance Exam, Izuku crushes several of the robots simply by landing on them from the air.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: Izuku's involvement in the Ultra-Humanite's defeat was covered up by All Might and Firestorm to keep him out of trouble. He still feels happy when he reads an article in a newspaper about Ultimon and the Super Young Team taking Mt. Fuji as their base, knowing that he played a role in making that happen.
• Hairstyle Inertia: Izuku has had the same black spit curl from when he was a baby all the way into his teenage years. It remains his most distinctive and noticeable trait, with most people referring to him by said spit curl when they don't know his name.
• Happily Adopted: Izuku loves Inko and Hisashi dearly and calls them his real parents for making him who he is even if they didn't conceive him. He struggles to lie to his mom and literally flies into his father's arms when the latter returns home from overseas. The first time Izuku has ever seen going berserk is when he learns that Mr. Mxyzptlk turned Inko into a dog.
• Head Desk: Izuku's reaction to his teacher revealing that he is the only one not applying for Hero School, causing Bakugou to scream at him in the middle of class.
• Headphones Equal Isolation: Izuku carries a pair of "Beats by Canary" headphones that he's first seen using when All Might showed him a video from the night he landed on Earth. After the Mt. Fuji incident, he usually plugs them into his phone to talk to K.E.L.E.X. without arousing too much suspicion. Because of how he seems to always have them on hand, they also reflect how isolated he is from his peers due to his past trauma and his lingering fears about how powerful he is, even if he can easily hear out of them due to his Super-Hearing.
• Healing Factor: Kryptonians are able to heal most injuries simply by soaking in sunlight. Izuku doesn't discover this until he's beaten nearly to death by the Noumu, but a half hour by the window gets him back up and running as if nothing happened.
• Heat Vision: A Kryptonian standard. It's powerful enough to easily slice off the arms of robots, boil the Sludge Villain enough to make him let go of Bakugou, and even match an ionic disruptor cannon. His refusal to become a Hero until recently has left his fine control lacking and he struggles to cut in straight lines when he's directing it, but ten months of training improved his precision to the point that he can solder a storm drain to the floor and slice chunks of ice into equivocal pieces with ease.
• Helping Would Be Killstealing: Inverted. Izuku runs around the U.A. Entrance Exam helping people get points and saving them from getting hurt when he could have earned hundreds of points by wiping out the robots himself. He even apologizes for killstealing when he lands on a robot Tenya was dealing with and flattens it by accident. This behavior inspires half of the other people taking the exam to do the same.
  Izuku: Oh no, it got destroyed! I didn't think I hit it that hard. I'm really sorry about that. I didn't mean to steal your kill!
  Tenya: [flabbergasted and confused] Excuse me?
• The Hero: Izuku is the focus of the story and as heroic as you'd expect him to be, sometimes to his own detriment.
• Heroes Love Dogs: In Chapter 6, Izuku is so distracted by the sight of a dog in K.E.L.E.X.'s hologram that it steals his attention away from the fact that he just learned that he was virtually immortal.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Lasting trauma and his own discomfort with his identity as an alien have given Izuku a guilt complex and crippling self-esteem issues. He's constantly putting himself down no matter what he does and is so hung up over his mistakes that he can't act on his dreams. This also makes him underestimate just how powerful he is, such as his fear that falling from great heights would hurt or kill him when it should be at the bottom of his "things that can kill me" list.
  Izuku: So much for All Might being able to help me. It's not like he was wrong, though. I was just hoping that he'd just give me another one of his big smiles and say "Who cares if you're an alien? Go be a Hero!" I never even thought about him saying anything I didn't want to hear. That was stupid. So, so stupid.
• Hero-Worshipper:
  • Izuku has memorized the backstories, blood types, and even the favorite foods of pretty much every major Hero on the planet. He can ramble about them all day and is shocked when someone tells him something that he doesn't know. He's also visited Might Tower so many times that he's nearly committed the tour guide's entire speech to memory.
  • This trope also gets played more soberly because Izuku is utterly dependent on his idols for validation and guidance due to his lack of self-esteem. So when All Might gives Izuku a blunt, honest opinion that he isn't sure if Izuku should be a Hero, Izuku just breaks down and takes All Might's word as gospel. Luckily, he recovers when All Might apologizes and gives Izuku a Dare to Be Badass after the Sludge Villain incident is resolved. He gets another boost in cheer and confidence when he wins the support of Firestorm.
    Midoriya was at a loss. Meeting with All Might did nothing to help with his conflicting ideals and motivations; if anything, the meeting simply served to exasperate them. After all, if someone like All Might was calling him a hypocrite, it was hard to try and argue with that. If someone like All Might told you to figure things out on your own, there was really no choice in the matter.
  • When Izuku arrives at the Heroes vs. Villains exercise, Itsuka quickly notices his hood and teases him for how cheesy it is on top of his fanboyish admiration for All Might.
  • Izuku still admires Bakugou for his strength and confidence even as the rest of 1-A sneers at him. He doesn't understand why Bakugou is so obsessed with proving himself better than him, since Izuku already considers him a genius and someone to look up to.
• Hiding Your Heritage: Izuku is constantly trying to pass as an Japanese boy with an amazing Quirk to steer clear of his world's anti-alien hysteria. He looks like one and was raised like one, but it doesn't change the fact that he's Kryptonian biologically.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Like Clark Kent, Izuku is able to mingle seamlessly with Earthlings thanks to being a Human Alien. It's even easier for him than Clark thanks to the fact that 90% of people have superpowers in the story, so his abilities would be considered "normal" in the world of My Hero Academia. Inko even references the trope while speaking to Hisashi about adopting Izuku, saying that everyone will be looking for a "big, green, monster man" rather than a boy who's visually indistinguishable from a human. Jor-El specifically cites this as the reason he sent Izuku to Earth, as his new abilities wouldn't stick out there.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Izuku's massive guilt complex and identity crisis have kept him from moving forward with his life and utilizing his full potential to achieve a dream that is definitely within reach for him. While his fear of Fantastic Racism is certainly a factor, only a select number of individuals have access to that kind of information about him. All Might tells him that it's Izuku's defeatist attitude and inability to forgive himself that are keeping him from becoming a Hero rather than his heritage.
  All Might: Midoriya, my boy, I still think you can be a Hero, but whether or not you should be one? I honestly can't say, and it's not because you're an alien, it's because of a shortcoming you could've had, even if you were human.
  • He later acknowledges this during his speech to Lexi about why he suddenly decided to try to become a Hero again, telling her that he's going to be who he wants to be and prove that he has the right to be on Earth no matter what anyone else says, even if that anyone is himself.
• Human Alien: Izuku is Kryptonian, being visually indistinguishable from a human despite being an alien.
• Human Outside, Alien Inside: Played with. Izuku's organs are close enough to a human's that he has no problems passing his medical exams without arousing suspicion. But he can't bring himself to hurl even though hearing the story behind All Might's grievous scarring made him sick to his stomach. He also wonders if he's capable of having a heart attack after his heart metaphorically threatens to leap out of his chest whiel watching the Sludge Villain rampaging in front of him.
  Midoriya felt like his heart was going to fly out of his chest. It felt like he was having a heart attack. Could whatever he was even have a heart attack? It was probably psychosomatic, but either way, he hated this.
• Humble Hero:
  • Izuku's aw-shucks modesty is still intact. He dismisses the idea of having six or seven kinds of Super-Vision as nothing to be impressed by even as All Might's jaw hits the floor upon hearing about it. Aizawa laments the fact that Izuku doesn't flash smug grins for him to wipe off.
    All Might: [talking about Izuku's electromagnetic vision] That's… That's amazing! Not just that revelation, but that power of yours!
    Izuku: Y-You think so? [sheepishly rubs the back of his head] I've had this electromagnetic vision since I was nine, but I never really found anything useful for it. Hearing you talk about it so highly is pretty great, if I'm being honest.
    All Might: No need to be so modest, my boy! Having two different kinds of visions is definitely something to be proud of!
    Izuku: Well, it's more like five. Or six. Or seven? Eight? No, not eight, definitely seven, at most.
    All Might: GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST! Now that's incredible!
    Izuku: Y-You really think so?!
  • Even after destroying the Starro robot virtually single-handedly, Izuku brushes off the crowd's cheers for him as cheering for the end of the entrance exam to avoid getting an inflated ego.
    Izuku: [talking about the results of the exam] O-Oh? Are people really talking about that?
    Itsuka: Hey, you should be proud about that. You were totally awesome out there!
    Ochaco: Y-Yeah! The way you were punching everything to smithereens and zapping stuff with your laser eyes. And the flying. The flying! That was so cool to look at!
    Tenya: It was truly a sight to behold and an inspiration for us all. [Izuku turns beet-red at all the praise]
    Momo: Your new friends certainly speak highly of you.
    Izuku: I wish they wouldn't-oh, wait, you don't even know each other!
  • During the opening ceremony, Principal Nedzu announces how Izuku's performance during the entry exam earned him the highest score ever in the history of the U.A.
    Momo: You didn’t tell us your score was that good.
    Izuku: I-I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.
    Tenya: There was no need for that. There should be no shame in celebrating your accomplishments.
  • He insists that he's just a normal guy and that he's nothing special while everyone's attention is focused on him. This gets lampshaded by Itsuka.
    Kyouka: So I know you asked us to stop talking about you so much, but your power is really amazing, Midoriya.
    Izuku: Yeah, people keep saying that, but I don't really think I'm that special. I'm only able to do all of that because of the way my body absorbs sunlight, so without that, I'm just a normal guy.
    Itsuka: Good to know we can beat you just by sitting around for five billion years.
• Hypocrite: Izuku brushes off Bakugou's aggression by saying that not everyone is obsessed with feeling as validated as he is. Izuku's self-loathing is so severe at the start of the story that he depends on external validation to bring him out of his funk and is utterly crushed when All Might tells him that he isn't sure if he should be a Hero. It takes a lot of praise and emotional support from All Might and other Heroes like Firestorm to put Izuku on the path to recovery.
• I Am Who?:
  • He learns that he's an alien soon after manifesting his powers and badly injuring Bakugou.
  • He has this reaction again when K.E.L.E.X. and Jor-El refer to him as Kal-El.
• The Idol's Blessing: Zig-zagged. Izuku has a ton of powers and is certainly capable of becoming a Hero, but refuses to out of fear of the harm he could cause. It takes a pep talk from All Might, his idol and the greatest Hero in the world, to get Izuku to reconsider and chase his dreams again. All Might also helps Izuku find his spaceship, which gives him the closure he needs to start looking forward.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: After spending the first four years of his life wishing he had an amazing Quirk, Izuku begins wishing that he was just like everyone else after discovering his alien heritage and nearly killing Bakugou.
• In a Single Bound: He clears the forest at the foot of Mt. Fuji in minutes while hunting down his spaceship in Chapter 4, covering hundreds of meters with every leap. He ditches this for outright Flight after he manifests his ability while plummeting from the peak of Mt. Fuji. During his Quirk Apprehension Test, only Mina comes remotely close to his long jump score, as he nearly lands on the other side of the sports field by accident.
• Innocently Insensitive: Izuku doesn't understand why Bakugou is so insistent on proving himself better than him, seeing him as a constant source of inspiration for being so driven, brave, and strong. His concern for Bakugou and tendency to one-up him unintentionally is cosntantly grating on Bakugou's nerves, who constantly feels like a joke no matter how hard he tries.
• In-Series Nickname: Izuku is frequently referred to as "Spitcurl" by people who don't know his actual name due to this distinctive part of his otherwise Messy Hair. He also gets called "Deku" by Bakugou for being too weak-willed and hypocritical to follow his dreams.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Although Izuku's origins and powers are totally different in this story, many things still end up being the same in the beginning. He's still a huge Hero Otaku, feels ostracized from other "normal" people, gets attacked by the Sludge Villain and needs to be rescued by All Might. Then he learns All Might's secret, leaves dejected, rushes in to save Bakugou, and gets the pep talk he needs from All Might to follow his dream of becoming a Hero.
  • Izuku's costume ends up bearing the crest of the House of El, but it's still designed by his mom and has the bunny-ear like hood styled after All Might's hair.
• Interclass Friendship: Momo was born into money, growing up with the latest electronics, high-class clothes, and impeccable manners. She lives in a mansion large enough to take up an entire city block in Nagoya and talks about taking vacations abroad as if it were something everyone does every summer. Izuku and his parents live out a comfortable middle class existence in a plain apartment in Musutafu. Izuku is well-mannered but more relaxed and used to colloquialisms. His phone's specs pale in comparison to Momo's and he's almost embarrassed by his plain t-shirts that only say "shirt" in katakana. Despite their differences, they get along just fine due to their mutual desire to become Heroes.
• Internalized Categorism:
  • After learning about where he came from and the tragic incident with Bakugou, Izuku is constantly thinking of himself as an "alien" or a "monster" and something that doesn't belong on Earth even though he isn't much different from 90 percent of Earth's population aside from where he and his powers came from. Even All Might has trouble getting Izuku over this.
    Izuku: I don't have a Quirk, I don't have the Metagene, I can't use magic, I didn't fall in a vat of toxic waste. My powers aren't anything that belong on Earth. I'm not anything that belongs on Earth.
  • When he was five years old, he dryly remarks that of course the evil monster out to murder the world's greatest Hero is an alien.
• Internal Reveal: Although the readers know that Izuku is Kryptonian, he has no idea where he came from because the Midoriyas were too busy fleeing for their lives with him to collect his spaceship. He finds out where he came from once he retrieves his spaceship, allowing him to speak with a Virtual Ghost of his biological father, Jor-El, who fills him in.
• Interspecies Adoption: A Kryptonian boy raised among Earthlings by his human foster parents.
• Interspecies Friendship: Virtually all of Izuku's friendships are this by sheer virtue of him being an alien. But this is also downplayed because he's culturally human and onliy a handful of people know he's an alien.
• In the Hood: Izuku's costume still has a hood with protrusions shaped like All Might's hair. It gets used against him during the Heroes vs. Villains exercise when Bakugou stuffs it full of bombs and throws it over Izuku's eyes before detonating them all at once. Luckily, all he gets from it is some brief ringing and Ash Face.
• Irony:
  • In canon, Izuku is constantly chewed out for breaking his own bones while using One For All, a power he got recently. In this story, he's constantly chewing himself out for breaking someone else's bones with his then newly obtained powers.
  • In canon, Izuku spent his entire childhood wishing he had an amazing Quirk. In this story, he finds himself wishing that he was just like everyone else and not born with his incredible powers.
• In the Hood: Izuku's costume features a bunny-eared hood styled after All Might's hair.
• It's All My Fault: When Izuku accidentally threw Bakugou through a wall, he broke down in tears and said it was all his fault when the police arrived. This event, along with the revelation that he's in fact an alien, gives him a massive guilt complex and severe self-loathing to the point that he believes that he doesn't deserve to be a Hero. Like in canon, he also breaks down after realizing that his insistence on speaking to All Might ended up freeing the Sludge Villain by accident, only piling on top of his previous guilt. Even after reaffirming his desire to become a Hero, he continues to blame himself for every little thing that goes wrong.
  Izuku: [after seeing the Sludge Villain rampaging] This is all my fault! All of this is happening because I was so stupid. Because of me, innocent people are going to get hurt! Again! All because of me!
• It Was a Gift: Izuku's costume is a gift from his parents: Inko designed and sowed it together, while Hisashi provided the materials for its telepathic interface the the Seventh Metal fibers designed to make it as durable as his son is.
• Japanese Politeness: Izuku is polite when addressing people, referring to anyone who isn't a Hero or a Villain by proper titles with the exception of Bakugou, whom he affectionately calls Kacchan.

Tropes K to O

• The Klutz: For all his Super-Speed, Izuku is a bit of a klutz. When he was a child, Bakugou sneered at Izuku for being unable to dance the Batusi and for bumping into the table twelve times. As a teenager, he doesn't watch where he's going and bumps into Kendo Rappa. He later trips from nervousness on his way to the U.A. Entrance Exam.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Izuku's enthusiasm for all things Hero-related is undiluted. He's constantly filling out his Hero Analysis journals, squees so hard when meeting All Might that his bows are scraping away at the pavement, and rambles on and on when asked about the details of any particular Hero.
• Kryptonite Factor:
  • Izuku still has the standard Kryptonian weaknesses, including magic, red sunlight, intense sound, and of course, Kryptonite. This also means that Izuku would get flattened by the much more experienced and magic-powered Alan Scott. Even All Might advises Izuku to be careful not to let Alan Scott catch wind of him.
  • His weakness to magic comes to fore when tackling Romero's zombies during a training exercise. Although his unbreakable skin would normally be immune to the bite of a normal person, the fact that they were conjured through magic allows them to bite him, turning him into a zombie too.
• Lame Comeback: He can't think of anything to insult Mxyzptlk with, just angrily referring to him as "you". It gets lampshaded, which only makes Izuku give another one.
  Izuku: I'm going to ask you again: what are you doing here… you!
  Mxyzptlk: Okay, brains clearly aren't my friends' specialty.
  Izuku: Sh-Shut up! Just tell me what you're doing here!
• Last-Name Basis: Izuku is almost exclusively referred to as "Midoriya" by the narrative and almost everyone around him, with only his parents calling him "Izuku" and Bakugou calling him "Deku", much like in canon. The author states that this was done deliberately to avoid the overly flowery prose of fics like Lavender Unicorn Syndrome. This is particularly noticeable in Chapter 7 when he's having a conversation with both of his parents. Hisashi and Inko are both referred to by their given names, while Izuku is still referred to in the narration as "Midoriya". This makes Firestorm's decision to call Izuku by his given name while under duress curious, hinting at Firestorm's true identity as Izuku's adoptive father.
• Last of His Kind: Izuku learns that he's the Last Son of Krypton from his father, Jor-El, and K.E.L.E.X. He falls to his knees after hearing this, but manages to regain most of his composure afterward. But in the week following the Mt. Fuji incident, he tries to find any evidence he can scrounge up that would indicate that another Kryptonian managed to escape Krypton's destruction the same way he did despite K.E.L.E.X.'s assurances to the contrary.
• Lightning Bruiser: Izuku is Kryptonian, so this is to be expected. By the time he enters U.A., he can run at a third of the speed of sound, punch out hunks of Kaiju flesh three times larger than he is, and withstand the pressure of having a robot T. rex stomp on him with only minor discomfort.
• Likes Clark Kent, Hates Superman: Izuku's powers make him the envy of his classmates, who all expect him to become a top-ranking Hero like All Might. At the same time, he's surrounded by people who would like nothing more than to imprison and beat the alien who crashed into Mt. Fuji solely for being an alien.
• Like Father, Like Son: Izuku takes after both his adoptive and biological fathers in his personality and mannerisms. All of them are Deadpan Snarkers who tend to ramble when they're nervous or stressed. They all take it hard when they make mistakes or fail and have a close female friend to snap them out of it when they're overthinking things (i.e. Inko for Hisashi, Lara for Jor-El, and Itsuka for Izuku).
• Logical Weakness: He can't use his power of flight in zero gravity because his body is still unfamiliar with such environments, leaving him unable to properly move.
• Loophole Abuse: The Ultra-Humanite's Quirk only affects humans. Luckily for Izuku, he isn't human.
• Luminescent Blush:
  • Izuku's face reddens and he stammers out an apology when K.E.L.E.X. mistakes his excited rambling for a seizure. He later turns beet red as he's showered with praise after the U.A. Entrance Exam. He wonders if it's an alien thing to blush this much.
  • He's blushing again as his parents nag him over every little thing and talk about how cool he looks in his U.A. uniform while seeing him off on his first day of school.
• Magnetic Hero:
  • Once Izuku gets over his fixation on isolating himself for the benefit of others, his kindness and warm personality tend to draw people to him. All Might and Firestorm are protective to the point of being fatherly towards Izuku despite the former only knowing him for a couple of weeks and the latter for a single day. His constant acts of heroism during the U.A. Entrance Exam earns him fast friends in Tenya, Ochaco, and Itsuka.
  • All of the people he helped during the exam immediately cheer when he arrives in class on his first day of school, thanking him for running in to save them. By the end of the day, no one can stop talking about him and they all want to be his friend sans Bakugou and Shouto.
• Manly Tears: He has these as he finally declares that he wants to be a Hero.
  • He has them again after speaking with his biological father and learning where he came from.
• Master of All: In terms of physical parameters, Izuku is this within his class. He's tougher than Kirishima, faster than Tenya, stronger than Itsuka, and as intelligent as several of the smartest people in class like Bakugou and Yaoyorozu. His ability to fly grants him superior mobility and he has both short-range options (his Super-Strength) and long-range options (his Heat Vision and Super-Breath) in combat. With the exception of his Kryptonite Factor, he doesn't have glaring weaknesses like explosion recoil or jamming engines. His classmates do exceed him in several areas (i.e. Jirou's ability to utilize her super hearing without being constantly overwhelmed), but his ability to excel in so many areas quickly labels him 1-A's golden boy.
• Meaningful Name:
  • The etymology for Izuku's name is explicitly described in the first chapter. The "ku" (久) comes from the Kanji that all the guys in Hisashi's family have that means "it's been a while" or "long ago", which refers to the long travel time Izuku probably had to reach Earth. The "izu" part comes from an alternate reading of the second Kanji of "taishutsu" (退出), which means to be sent away from home, much like Izuku was from his home planet. Put them together and you get "Izuku" (出久).
  • "Midoriya" (meaning "green valley") refers to his favorite color, green, which ends up being the primary color of his costume. The "ku" part of his name sounds like "kyu", the Japanese word for nine, reflecting how All Might wanted him to be the ninth wielder of One For All.
  • His Kryptonian name, Kal-El, means "Star Child" referring to how he's empowered by the sun and his origins as an alien from another star system.
• Messy Hair: His hair is described as curly and is heavily implied to be just as wild as his canon counterpart. The most distinctive part of his haircut is the spit curl he's had since birth.
• Minion with an F in Evil: He's selected for the Villains side during the Heroes vs. Villains exercise and spends most of the exercise complimenting his opponents rather than rushing them down. Itsuka even lampshades this.
  Itsuka: You're really bad at this whole Villain thing, you know? Talk about a total miscast!
  Izuku: H-Hey! A lot of Villains are cordial with their opponents!
• Momma's Boy: Izuku loves both of his parents dearly, but he's especially close to his mom due to Hisashi constantly being away on business. It's implied that his mom is the one who makes and designs his costume. When Mxyzptlk turns her into a dog, Izuku flies into a rage and prepares to try and beat the crap out of him.
• Mood Whiplash: When Izuku first discovers his powers, he goes from being depressed to feeling like he was on Cloud Nine, proudly showing off the door he just tore off its hinges. Just over a week later, he's loathing himself and his powers, wishing he could be like everyone else.
  Izuku: In the span of an hour, I went from feeling like my life was over to being on top of the world. As far as I knew, the doctor was wrong, and I did have a Quirk. A Quirk like All Might's, too! It was everything I ever dreamed of! At least until it became everything I didn't even know I was afraid of.
• Moses in the Bulrushes: Come on, you've heard this story before. Whisked away from his doomed planet by his parent's last efforts. Found by a humble, kindly couple who raises him to have a heart of gold and put him on the path towards becoming the world's greatest hero. The narration of Krypton's destruction even refers to him as "precious cargo", referencing the lyrics of "Deliver Us" in The Prince of Egypt as Moses' mother lays his basket in the river.
• Motor Mouth:
  • When Izuku is excited he can spew volumes of information about a Hero in a short amount of time. He has to be reminded to stop when he starts rattling off Firestorm's entire backstory off the top of his head.
    Firestorm: [upon meeting Izuku] Oh, you know who I am?
    Izuku: How could I not?! Seven years ago, an explosion at the Hudson University Nuclear Plant in New Carthage, New York caused two scientists to gain the ability to fuse together into a single person: the Nuclear Man, Firestorm! With the powers of pyrokinesis, energy manipulation, and transmutation, you're a super powerful Hero who wins basically every fight he goes in! Like the time you stopped Multiplex from stealing a nuclear warhead! Or the time you took down the first Killer Frost after she froze downtown Brooklyn because you wouldn't marry her! Or the time when-
    Firestorm: Okay, I get it… kid! I've done a lot of impressive stuff, just settle down!
  • Happens again when Ultra-Humanite asks what he knows about Endeavor.
    Ultra-Humanite: Yes, I suppose I haven't gotten around to that old cliche, yet. Well, you're going to die, anyway, so I'll ask you a question: how much do you know about Endeavor?
    Izuku: What do I know about Endeavor? Well, he's the Number Two Hero in the world, one spot below All Might, and one spot above Wonder Woman. He has a really powerful fire Quirk and has the world record for most crimes solved by a single person. You'd think that everyone would love him, but he has a really bad attitude, often getting angry with people he works with or too violent with Villains he's apprehending. Because of that, his fans are mostly men between their twenties and forties, so women and people outside of that age group tend to be more critical of him. He's basically the Dark Hero of the Trinity, kind of like the first Batman when he was compared to Wonder Woman and Jay Garrick when the Justice Society was still around. Some other interesting stuff about Endeavor is that his favorite food is kuzumochi, his blood type has a Cis AB mutation, he graduated from U.A. in the same year as Snatch and Misteltei-
    Ultra-Humanite: Okay, so you know a lot about him. In retrospect, I should have specified that I wanted Cliff Notes, not a Wikipedia entry. Do you always ramble on and on like that?
    Izuku: N-no.
  • He starts rambling again when he's trying to figure out what to do about the Kaiju spawn at Korusan Island.
    Izuku: Even if it’s going to take thousands of years for them to reach giant size, they’re still dangerous like this. If they make it to the mainland, they’d cause tons of damage to people and cities. It’d make sense to tell the authorities about this, but if I do that, I’d get in trouble for being here. Even so, the needs of the many outweigh my own, don’t they? Ah, wait! Even if I tell someone, no one could get close to here without dying, so Heroes or the government wouldn’t be able to do anything about this. Plus, telling people about this would bring up the question of how I was able to be here and not die, and there’s no way that I could explain-
• Mundane Utility: Izuku's superhuman senses, speed, and strength make it easy for him to clear out festival stalls of all of the prizes that he wants, which mainly consist of All Might merchandise. Hisashi notes that this is basically an annual affair for Izuku. His Heat Vision is also handy for heating up instant ramen on the go or quickly cooking an egg breakfast.
  Hisashi: Oh, sorry. Didn't realize you were in the middle of your annual scamming.
  Izuku: I'm not scamming anyone. It's all completely legitimate.
  Inko: That's true, but you don't really try to go easy on the poor students, do you? [looks over at the despondent U.A. students running the pellet gun booth]
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Izuku is a scrawny nerd at the start of the story, but he can toss someone three towns over and turn them into a pancake with ease. He only gets stronger after he starts training and actually builds some muscle, overpowering the hulking Kendo Rappa with a fraction of his full strength. Rappa even congratulates Izuku for packing a serious punch despite looking like a walking toothpick compared to him.
• Mr. Exposition: Izuku's narration and fanboying introduces readers to the backstories of Pro Heroes and gives the reader a look into how the aspects of the DC Universe have been integrated into the story's setting.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Izuku is haunted by the time his reckless use of his newly found Super-Strength injured Bakugou so badly that he has scars all of his chest like All Might's as well as screws in his arms to properly set his bones back in place. To Bakugou's credit, he doesn't seem as bothered by this as much as the thought of Izuku refusing to become a Hero, since he feels that it means that Izuku is looking down on him or pitying him in the process.
  Izuku: I-I was in the park, and Kacchan, h-h-he was b-bullying someone. I just, I just wanted to make him stop. I just, I just wanted to be a Hero, but then I lost control, and Kacchan. Kacchan!
• My Suit Is Also Super: His costume is lined with a telepathic interface to allow him to wordlessly communicate with K.E.L.E.X. Chapter 12 reveals that it's woven from Seventh Metal fibers provided by Hisashi, making it so durable that Bakugou's explosions can only dirty it rather than damage it.
• Naïve Animal Lover: He's fond of animals and loved "playing" (read: getting bitten, scratched, and attacked) by Bakugou's cat Dexter when he was a child. He insists that they're still friends even though everyone in 1-A (including Bakugou) flat out tells him that the cat hates him. Izuku is still in denial over this.
  Kyouka: I'm pretty sure this cat hates you.
  Izuku: Come on, that's ridiculous! I've known Dexter my entire life! Sure, he's a little rough around the edges, but he never means anything by this stuff. Things might get a heated, blood may be drawn here and there, but at the end of the day-
  Bakugou: He fucking hates you, Deku.
  Izuku: What? No… no! No, no way. Just, just no! No… but-no, come on! No way!
• Name From Another Species: Inverted. He was named Kal-El at birth, but he was given the name "Izuku Midoriya" by his adoptive parents and only learns about his birth name before his fifteenth birthday. Even then he prefers his human name and refers to himself as "Izuku" in his thoughts.
• Nerd Action Hero: Izuku may be a Kryptonian Flying Brick, but he's also a super nerd for all things Hero-related.
• Nervous Wreck: Izuku is even more of a nervous mess than his canon counterpart due to his fear of hurting others if he's not careful. He's so startled when Mister Mxyzptlk shows up that he accidentally flies straight into the ceiling and instantly panics whenever it seems like someone is onto his Secret Identity. Mxyzptlk lampshades it, calling him someone who doesn't have any guts. That said, he's not afraid to let people know when he's upset, throwing Bakugou against the wall hard enough to unbutton his shirt when he blows up Izuku's Hero Analysis notebook. But he's quick to put him back on his feet before leaving.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Izuku is still growing and is gaining new powers. When he was four, he only had Super-Strength, Nigh-Invulnerability, and Super-Hearing. When he was nine, he started developing his many different kinds of vision. When he was ten, he gained his Heat Vision and Super-Breath. When he's fourteen going on fifteen, he develops his ability to fly. By the time he's fifteen, he's learned how to use his Super-Breath to produce solid hunks of ice of varying shapes rather than just freezing whatever is in front of him. He is acutely aware of his growing array of Combo Platter Powers and fears that he'll never stop getting new powers or gain a handle on them in both a nod to and deconstruction of this narrative device from the Silver Age of comics.
  Izuku: I mean, when my powers first came in, all I could do was jump really high and punch people way too hard. By the time I was ten, I could shoot lasers out of my eyes and knock people down just by exhaling. Now I'm fourteen going on fifteen, and all of a sudden, I can fly. Am I just going to keep getting more and more powers, the older I get? When I'm eighteen, are bones going to start shooting out of my fists? When I'm twenty, is my body going to turn into electricity, and I'll just zap everything around me? Is it ever going to end? Am I even going to be able to control it, forever?
• Nice Guy: Izuku is unbelievably sweet and just doesn't want to hurt anyone. Even tentacled shark-headed Kaiju spawn aren't exempt from his kindness when he realizes that they're not that different. He's also pissed when it seems like Mineta is going to get expelled and is about to protest how unfair it is before Aizawa reveals his "logical ruse".
• Nigh-Invulnerability:
  • Izuku has yet to even get a papercut after his powers manifested. To date, he has been pinned to a wall by robots, stomped on by a robot T. rex, repeatedly punched and kicked by the Ultra-Humanite and blasted square in the chest with an ionic disruptor cannon which rips atoms apart into their composite particles and came out none the worse for wear. Even an island filled with noxious gas that can melt any known metal on Earth and kill any Earth-based lifeform in seconds does nothing to harm him. His natural bio-matrix forcefield also keeps his clothes from getting damaged from all but the worst of attacks. Even after he intentionally leaves himself open as part of his villainous courtesy in the Heroes vs. Villains exercise, Itsuka fails to make him budge an inch.
  • Aside from physical resilience, he's also completely unfazed by extreme temperatures, going out in near-zero degree winter weather in clothes suited for the fall. His sheer toughness can also be used offensively, as most things, like the robots at the U.A. Entrance Exam, will break once they hit him because he's just so much tougher than they are. He can also eat Green Arrow's blazing hot chili without reporting any significant pain or difficulty, which is something Clark Kent could never accomplish.
  • Izuku finally meets his match when he's pitted against the Noumu. In fact, he's completely overwhelmed by the Noumu once it flies into a berserk rage, his steel-like skin crumpling like paper as he's beaten bloody and unconscious. If not for All Might's intervention, the Noumu would have broken Izuku's spine too.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Discussed. Izuku mulls over his options after convincing himself that he failed the U.A. Entrance Exam due to his lack of Villain Points. Out of all of his options, he places Seijin, the alma mater of Edgeshot, at the bottom of his choices, because he doesn't want to be an alien ninja superhero.
  Izuku: It'd be cool to go to Edgeshot's alma mater, but I don't really want to be an alien ninja-
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
  • Izuku's wanton heroics during the U.A. Entrance Exam ends up giving him a paltry 15 Villain Points during the U.A. Entrance Exam. Even with his near-flawless written exam portion, it still wouldn't be enough to get him into U.A. and he begins considering other options for his Hero education until his confirmation letter arrives in the mail. All Might then reveals the exam's Hidden Purpose Test and tells Izuku that not only did he earn with the highest score in the entire exam thanks to his 160 Rescue Points, he walked away with the highest score in U.A.'s history, surpassing even All Might's by ten points.
    Izuku: Yeah, I'm an idiot, I know. I just-I didn't want anyone to get hurt. There's nothing wrong with that. There shouldn't be anything wrong with that. It really sucks that I'm probably not going to get in because of that, though.
  • When Izuku was a child, he was so excited over having his "Quirk" that he immediately started running around and helping as many people as he can: breaking up fights, getting cats out of trees, and making a Diving Save when Bakugou was about to fall into the river. Unfortunately, Bakugou took this as Izuku being a show-off and trying to one-up him, which made their relationship sour and led to the traumatic accident.
• No One Could Survive That!: Izuku spouts this when K.E.L.E.X. instructs him to use the local fauna on Korusan Island (a Kaiju corpse filled with noxious gas that liquefies all known Earth metals and kills Earth life in seconds) as target practice. He's proved wrong when he turns around and sees a shark-headed tentacle monster staring back at him.
  Izuku: Come on, there's nothing alive in- [hears a cackling noise and slowly turns his head to see a monster staring back at him] AAAAAAH! [runs away screaming]
• No-Sell:
  • His Nigh-Invulnerability means he can do this to almost anything thrown at him. When he first got his powers, the most Bakugou could do is startle Izuku by throwing an explosion at his face or lightly sting him over and over with continued explosions. After telling Bakugou that he didn't want to be a Hero anymore, the former punches him in the face, but all it does is make his hand hurt.
  • During the Heroes vs. Villains exercise, he lets Itsuka take her best shot at pushing him out of the way. But even after throwing everything she has against him, she can't make him budge an inch and subsequently gives up to avoid a pointless Curb-Stomp Battle.
• Oblivious Adoption: Izuku (and almost everyone else around him), believed himself to be the Midoriyas' biological son until the fateful day of the accident.
• Oh, Crap!: Izuku has this response repeatedly over the course of the story.
  • As a child, he first realized that he'd made a terrible mistake after Bakugou kept going and going and going after being thrown by Izuku's Oklahoma Smash.
  • While speaking with All Might, Izuku drops enough details about his past for the Hero to deduce Izuku's identity as the alien humanoid who nearly killed another boy his age. Izuku instantly breaks into a cold sweat and begins hyperventilating while considering his escape options until All Might ordered him to calm down.
  • He has it again when he realizes that he's being held hostage by the Ultra-Humanite.
  • Izuku refuses to interact with the strange limousine at first, but freezes when the voice inside reveals that she knows that he's an alien. It goes From Bad to Worse when he realizes that he's dealing with the heir apparent of Lex Luthor.
    Lexi: [snowing in the middle of winter] I'd just like to say that I really love your outfit. [Izuku rolls his eyes] You must be pretty tough to not be affected by this. [Izuku ignores her] Kind of a light outfit, though. It's almost zero degrees out, yet you're walking around like it's fall. [continues to ignore her] You must be pretty tough to not be affected by this. [still ignoring her] Or maybe it's just a perk of your special biology.
    Izuku: [stopping] What?
    Lexi: Don't look so surprised. It's common for people like you to have a bit of an immunity to the elements. Oh, wait, that's stereotyping, isn't it? I'm terribly sorry, I'm just nervous. After all, it's not every day you get to talk to an alien.
• One Hero, Hold the Weaksauce: While he still has his standard Kryptonite Factor, Izuku's abilities have one huge advantage over Quirks: they're not important biological functions. Because of this, Izuku doesn't have any sort of biological limitation on how long or how frequently he can use his powers while he's on Earth.
• One-Sided Arm-Wrestling: Izuku only has to use a fraction of his strength to slam Rappa's arm down so hard that he flies into the air and dislocates his shoulder.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: As one of the last survivors of Krypton, Izuku is one of the only people who can get Kryptonian technology to activate on-touch. Others would have to hack into the programming and rewrite it, which would require a super-genius level intellect given how advanced it is.
• Open Secret: Izuku's Secret Identity holds up in civilian matters, but pretty much anyone in power knows what he is after he nearly killed Bakugou as a kid. At least, all of the current and former Top Ten Heroes know about him as well as the Japanese government and the police. It also wasn't hard for Lexi to pick up Izuku's files with her connections. The entire U.A. faculty is informed of this after he formally submits his application.
• Otaku: Izuku is a nerd for anything Hero-related. His room is plastered with Hero merchandise and he's memorized everything from the backstories, to the blood types, to the favorite foods of practically every major Hero in the world. Hisashi and Inko pity the students manning the game booths at the U.A. Culture Festival every year because they know that their son is going to clear them out of all of their All Might merchandise. Hisashi also reminds Izuku to remember to talk about things other than Heroes on his first day at U.A.
• Our Zombies Are Different: When he's infected by Romero's necromancy, he begins acting like Bizarro rather than a simple moaning zombie.

Tropes P to T

• The Paragon: During the U.A. Entrance Exam, Izuku flies around and does almost nothing but save others. This inadvertently inspires over half of the applicants in his test site to start helping each other out. Watching this dispelled any doubts All Might had about Izuku's prospects as a Hero.
  Nedzu: Midoriya-kun was the first one to make a habit of protecting people. In this society, good deeds like that become infectious when performed by someone who knows what they're doing, so from watching him, people started to think 'If someone as strong as him thinks that this is more important, then I should do it, too!' They start following his example, and they, in turn, inspire more people to protect their fellow man. Then those people inspire more people to inspire more people to inspire more people-well, you get where I'm going with this.
• Parental Abandonment: Discussed. After learning that he was an alien, Izuku wondered why his original parents hadn't come to pick him up after he spent nearly fifteen years on Earth. He figured that his relatives were either held up by something, dead, or simply didn't want him. Anyone who knows Superman's backstory would know that the second option was true.
• Percussive Maintenance: A non-machine example. After fainting from the sheer stress of his newly awakened Super-Hearing, Izuku tried to dismiss everything that happened as a bad dream. Then his Super-Hearing acted up and proved that it wasn't. After giving himself a Dope Slap, he found that it at least turned off his Super-Hearing.
• Precision F-Strike: He says, "Oh, fuck." when he realizes he's been bitten by one of Romero's zombies, turning him into one too.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Izuku's powers first manifested at the age of four, in line with the time most kids get their Quirks, which has helped him blend in. Even at 14, he's still way too short and scrawny to be representative of what he's capable of. Ten months of training to master his abilities give him a more fit physique, but he's still smaller than several of his less physically powerful classmates.
• Poor Communication Kills: His sour relationship with Bakugou is fueled by their inability to hold a proper conversation. During the Heroes vs. Villains exercise, both of them accuse the other of mocking them, Izuku with his refusal to go all-out, and Bakugou with his decision to go shirtless to broadcast the evidence of Izuku's worst mistake.
  Bakugou: What did I say about patronizing me! Don't say you want a fair fight when you're just letting me run around doing shit all nothing to you! Stop making fun of me!
  Izuku: Stop saying that! [glares at Bakugou] Stop saying that I'm the one making fun of you when you're the one dressing like that! [points at Bakugou's scar]I-I can barely even look at you like that, so if you're not doing it just to throw me off, just to keep reminding me of what I did, then I don't know what you think it means to make fun of someone, at all!
  Bakugou: What? You think I'm making fun of you? [jabs a finger towards his chest] You think this,is so I can make fun of you?! [laughs sardonically] Fine. Fine! Go ahead and think that, go ahead and think you're the one who's a laughingstock. If that's how it is, then take this as me being done laughing!
• Power Misidentification: Izuku passes off his abilities as a Quirk to avoid drawing suspicion. It helps that he discovered his abilities not long after being declared Quirkless, making it look like a misdiagnosis. That said, the government, police and the Top Ten Heroes already seem to know about him, but it seems to have been covered up for the most part by mysterious unknown strangers who barged into the hospital while the police were interrogating the Midoriyas. Even after he discovers his origins, Izuku continues to refer to his abilities as a Quirk, simply because they're genetically inherent to him and function much like one.
• Power Perversion Potential: After Izuku reveals his many kinds of vision, Mineta and Kaminari immediately bring up the idea of peeking through the girls' clothes with his X-ray vision. Izuku is instantly mortified by this, but luckily he's spared the wrath of the girls' Pervert Revenge Mode because they know he's too meek and polite to dare think of using his powers like this.
• Pro-Human Transhuman: Izuku thinks himself no better than anyone else on Earth even though his incredible abilities outclass most other Quirks on the planet in terms of raw power and usefulness. He also chooses to devote himself to heroism for the sake of helping others.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
  • While arm wrestling with Rappa, Izuku is fed up with the constant escalation of the situation when he really just wants to walk away and emphasizes his frustration with punctuation as he finally decides to push back.
    Rappa: Is that all you got, kid?! Huh?! That all you got?!
    Izuku: No. It's. Not! [slams Rappa's arm down so hard that he tosses Rappa into the air]
  • He also punctuates every word when he demands to know who Lexi is. She isn't impressed.
    Izuku: Who are you?
    Lexi: Isn't it customary of the Japanese to introduce themselves when meeting someone for the first time?
    Izuku: I'm... Izuku Midoriya. Who. Are. You?
    Lexi: "Who am I"? You really don't know? I know you're just a kid, but that shouldn't be a real excuse for not knowing me. Is my company really falling so far behind Wayne-Powers that my family can't be recognized that easily?
• Quest for Identity: After the Birthright chapters, the story shifts to Izuku trying to find out where he comes from to obtain some closure, asking All Might to help him find the whereabouts of his spaceship. This ends up overtaking Izuku's better judgment, as he inadvertently places the Pro Hero Firestorm in harm's way when he refused to evacuate what was most likely the lair of a Villain, causing Firestorm to get stabbed in the leg. A week after the Mt. Fuji incident, he starts looking through newspapers and tabloids published around the time of his arrival in hopes of finding another surviving Kryptonian.
• Race Lift: As Kal-El, since the Els are from Twenx in this story, and Kryptonions there have East Asian features.
• Rage Breaking Point: Try as he might, Izuku eventually can't contain himself as the Ultra-Humanite continues to pat and roughly treat his spaceship, eventually screaming at him to stop touching it.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: It's a good idea to run when Izuku's normally dark irises glow red. As any comic book reader knows, that's when his Heat Vision is primed and ready to fire.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Izuku is the Blue Oni to Bakugou's red. Izuku is a demure Shrinking Violet whose costume is colored a cool green with white highlights and detailing. Bakugou is a fiery Hot-Blooded Jerkass whose costume is full of warm colors like black and orange.
• Refused the Call: In yet another divergence from canon, Izuku feels that One For All would be wasted on him since he is already superhumanly strong and has a plethora of other powers to his name. All Might is bummed out about Izuku's refusal, but promises that he'll find someone else.
• Required Secondary Powers: Izuku finds it nearly impossible to fly anywhere inside of a zero-gravity chamber because his body isn't used to generating propulsion outside of Earth's gravity. As a result, all he can do is float uselessly in place.
• Rousing Speech: Parodied. Izuku has no idea how to give a good speech and he panics when asked to give one in front of the entire incoming student body on his first day at U.A. After getting some quick advice from All Might, Izuku gives the most cliche-ridden speech imaginable with tons of stuttering and a shaking voice. It somehow manages to earn thunderous applause.
  Izuku: H-Hello. M-My name's Izuku Midoriya. [stops as the audience cheers] S-So! I, um, I did good-did well on the exam, really, really well. I'm not trying to rub it in, or anything! I-I'm just still really surprised by the whole thing! For the longest time, I never thought that I'd be able to go to U.A., and then I find out that I did a better job of getting in than everybody else. That-That's crazy!
  Random Audience Member: You're so humble!
  Izuku: T-To be honest, I'm surprised that I got in, at all. No one told us about Rescue Points, so I thought that I only managed to earn fifteen points. The whole time the exam was going on, I thought I was doing a terrible job, but I couldn't bring myself to change that. I-If someone had gotten hurt, and I knew that I could have stopped it, I, well, I don't know what I would have done. So even though you're all acting like I've done something great, I-I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for all of you. That's why, if you ask me, you're the ones who are really great! You're… the real winners!
  Random Audience Member #2: He's right! We are awesome! [more cheers and applause]
  Izuku: Y-Yeah, that's right! It's not just about me, it's about all of us. We're all in this together; once we know that we are, we'll all be stars. All of us can show off Wisdom, Wonder, Mystery, and Entropy if we just put our minds to it. A-And if you ever think that justice isn't working, then all you have to do is… is justice harder!
  Random Audience Member #3: I love it! [even more applause and cheering]
  Izuku: [shaky] Plus… Ultra? [crowd absolutely explodes with applause]
• Samaritan Syndrome: What ultimately helps Izuku overcome his fear of his own powers in time to save Bakugou. He's terrified of hurting his best friend again after what happened in their last real fight. He's even more terrified of just letting him die by standing around and doing nothing.
  Izuku's Self-Doubts: Izuku, you gotta stop. You know what you can do. You can tear his arm off. You nearly killed him once, and now you're going to do it, again.
  Izuku: [internal narration] I know what I did! I know what I can do, too! I know that I can tear his arm off! I know that I can rip his organs out of his body! I know that I can throw him up into the clouds and make him a pancake on a sidewalk three towns over! That's not important, though! Nothing that pops up in my head is important!
  [out loud] What's important is making sure no one dies!
• Saying Too Much:
  • While trying to express his concerns about becoming a Hero to All Might, Izuku accidentally gives All Might all the information he needed to piece together Izuku's identity. Izuku freaks out when he realizes what he's done, but luckily for him, All Might is an All-Loving Hero who is more focused on Izuku as a person rather than wherever he came from, deciding to act as Izuku's Secret-Keeper.
  • Izuku nearly blows All Might's Secret Identity while visiting Might Tower when he exclaims the Hero's name in shock while meeting up with "Toshinori Yagi", only averted by All Might's own timely wordplay.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In Time and Change, he's so startled by being nearly murdered by an alien named Brainiac and getting rescued by a good, miniature version of Starro the Conqueror that he tries to bail on everyone, only to get caught by Selene.
• Secret Identity: Izuku may be Hidden in Plain Sight, but he still has to keep his dual identity as Kal-El of Krypton a secret lest he attract unwanted attention. The only ones he's trusted with his secret are his parents, All Might, and Firestorm. This is somewhat subverted in that the police, the government, and the rest of the Top Ten Heroes know about his existence, but the information remains highly classified and is unlikely to be released to anyone but the extremely powerful and wealthy.
  • During the U.A. Entrance Exam, it's revealed that U.A.'s faculty are also aware of Izuku's identity.
• Secret-Keeper: Like in canon, Izuku is keeping All Might's true form a secret from the public after accidentally seeing it. All Might is keeping Izuku's identity as an alien secret in turn, since he believes in the good Izuku is capable of. He also keeps One For All a secret even though he turned down the opportunity to be its successor. All Might also mentions that none of the teachers at U.A. know that they knew each other prior to the first day of school.
• Sensory Overload: After his first use of Super-Hearing as a child, Izuku refuses to use it again because he'll hear about all of the horrible things that are happening all over the world and the strain is physically painful for him.
• Shared Family Quirks: Chapter 1 shows that Izuku's tendency for Tender Tears and rambling come from his parents. He also got his penchant for snark from both of his parents. He also got some more snark and rambling from his father, Jor-El.
• Ship Tease: Izuku gets this with Itsuka in "The Mysterious Mister Mxyzptlk". Izuku is too rattled by his encounter with the fifth-dimensional imp to finish making or eating breakfast, rushing out the door after cooking his mom's portion. By the time he gets to school, his stomach is growling in protest. Itsuka notices and offers him her yakisoba bread, insisting that she has a spare. Izuku gratefully takes it as she walks away. Then his curiosity got the better of him and he peered into her bag with his X-ray vision, realizing that she was lying to be nice to him. This just makes him even more grateful for the gesture. All the while, "The Feeling of First Love" from Mob Psycho 100 is playing in the background.
• She's Not My Girlfriend: A variation. Despite being cordial to Lexi Luthor, he frantically makes it clear to his Alien Studies group that, at least from his perspective, they're not friends.
• Shrinking Violet:
  • Izuku is shy and lonely due to his frightening physical strength and his own discomfort with his identity. He constantly thinks of himself as something that shouldn't belong on Earth and remains withdrawn out of fear of hurting others. He only starts to come out of his shell when he earns All Might's approval and support.
  • By the time he gets to U.A., his deeds have made him the most popular kid in his class and he wishes he was less popular so people would stop talking about him so much.
    Izuku: Can we please just talk about someone who isn't me?
    Bakugou: Never thought I'd actually agree with you on anything.
• The Shut-In: "Time and Chance (1): How the old Ice-Cream Parlor will Change" shows that Izuku shut himself in his room as much as possible a year after the accident, reasoning that he couldn't hurt anyone if he wasn't around them.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Izuku notes that none of his powers are especially complex or technical, but any of them would be Pro Hero material on their own. This makes it difficult for him to come up with new applications for them and improving himself aside from just making himself stronger. Of course, sometimes you don't need anything more complex when you're a Lightning Bruiser who can easily flatten robots,
• Smarter Than You Look: The Ultra-Humanite considers Izuku to be this for recognizing the work of a Czech composer that was playing in the Villain's base. The Villain also describes Izuku as "someone who exhibits no signs of culture and refinement".
• Smug Super: Inverted. Despite outstripping most of his peers in power, Izuku insists that he's just a normal guy. In his mind, anyone with his abilities would do what he's doing. He's humble to the point of self-deprecation and doesn't want to be put on a pedestal for his abilities. Izuku is also also extremely hesitant to ever use more power than necessary out of fear of hurting people.
• Spectacular Spinning: One of the special moves Izuku develops consists of him using his Flight, Super-Speed, and Super-Strength to spin himself at high speeds and act as a living drill, easily boring through the walls of Korusan Island.
• Spit Take:
  • Izuku barely manages to avoid spewing his tea all over the table in Chapter 4 after All Might tells him that he's found nothing about the spaceship despite using his Hero connections, only to clarify his statement by adding that he's found nothing that Izuku wanted to find.
  • He has one in full after All Might tells him that U.A. already knows that Izuku is an alien before his first day of school.
• Stronger with Age: The intensity and variety of Izuku's powers have been gradually increasing with every passing year without him even trying. He's terrified of this and fears that he'll eventually get to the point that he won't be able to do anything without wreaking wanton destruction, leading him to brand himself a monster. In the present, he's still far from the Story-Breaker Power Kryptonians are usually depicted as having because he's not fully grown yet. All Might, for instance, is still way stronger than Izuku is. Of course, K.E.L.E.X. and Jor-El have stated that Izuku is practically immortal, so that will definitely change in the future.
  Izuku: After my parents told me that, it made sense why I was able to hurt my friend even without a Quirk: because I'm the same kind of terrible Monster they always say aliens are in school. I almost killed him when I was just four years old, and I'm getting stronger and stronger every year, without even trying. Someone like me doesn't deserve the right to be a Hero. By the time I'm old enough, I'd just destroy everything around me! Just like a Monster!
• Strong Family Resemblance: He looks enough like Inko and Hisashi that he never realized that they weren't his biological parents until they told him. He's surprised by how little he looks like his biological father, Jor-El, but is quick to notice how much he looks like his biological mother, Lara Lor-Van.
• Stunned Silence:
  • After hearing All Might's blunt opinion of him, Izuku is virtually catatonic for several seconds before he breaks into inconsolable tears.
    Midoriya just stood there, looking at nothing. Listening to nothing. Thinking about nothing. Then he cried once more, and no one was able to stop his tears from flowing.
  • He has this reaction again after meeting a Virtual Ghost of his biological father, learning that he's the last member of his species, and watching the destruction of Krypton.
• Suit Up of Destiny: At the end of Chapter 9, there's a scene cut to where Izuku is putting on his costume for the first time. After confirming that everything is in place, the narration declares that it's time for Izuku to be a Hero.
  Belt, check. Striped boots, check. Symbol of the House of El displayed proudly on his chest, check. Bunny ear hoodie that was there because he just had to have it in, check. General pattern of green and white running across the entire outfit, check. It was official, everything was in order. It was finally time for Midoriya to be a Hero.
• Super-Breath: Izuku's manifested when he was ten years old along with his Heat Vision. He first uses it in the story to blow away the Sludge Villain and later to get a robot T. rex off of him. He later develops the ability generate vast quantities of ice with his freezing breath rather than just cooling down whatever is in his vicinity. He also learns to use the inverse of this power, super-inhaling, to retrieve Yaoyorozu's dropped phone from a storm drain.
• Superpower Lottery:
  • While his showings aren't nearly as grand as his comic book counterpart, Izuku is superhumanly strong, fast, and tough with none of the drawbacks that his canon counterpart experienced with One For All. He's also packing Flight, Super-Senses, Eye Beams, Super-Breath, and Freezing Breath. Of course, this comes with some serious caveats like being Afraid of Their Own Strength, his Kryptonite Factor, and his Sensory Overload problem, but his incredible powers continue to make his classmates envious.
  • When Izuku inadvertently gets into an argument with the hulking Kendo Rappa, Inko is terrified for her son's well-being. Hisashi, who is well-aware of the full breadth of Izuku's abilities, is much more relaxed.
    Izuku: [as soon as Rappa is out of earshot] Oh my God, that was terrifying.
    Inko: Oh my God, that was terrifying! [runs over to Izuku] I kept standing there thinking that guy was going to go crazy and try to hurt you!
    Hisashi: I'm pretty sure "try" would have been the key word there, honey.
  • This is blatantly showcased during the U.A. Entrance Exam, as he's the only one at his testing facility powerful enough to take down the zero-pointer robot: a replica of Starro.
  • When he takes Aizawa's Quirk Apprehension Test, the only test where Izuku isn't top dog is the ball throw. Even then it's only barely, since his throw was recorded as "less than or equal to infinity", implying that he threw the thing into orbit.
• Super-Reflexes: Izuku has excellent reflexes as part of his Super-Speed, easily kicking an oncoming missile into the air and blasting it and the robot that fired it with his Heat Vision in an instant (albeit after ten months of training). He also quickly drops his phone and kicks it underneath All Might's seat to buy time for the two of them to talk.
• Super-Senses:
  • Izuku manifested seven types of vision by the time he turned nine. He has already used his telescopic vision to see what people were busy looking at after he spoke with All Might for the first time, his electromagnetic vision to track down his spaceship, and his X-ray vision to expose the Ultra-Humanite's nervousness after his Quirk was deactivated. He also has ridiculously sharp Super-Hearing, allowing him to hear everything from what his parents were saying behind closed doors to cries for help and crimes around the world, resulting in Sensory Overload that knocked him unconscious when it first manifested. He has refused to use it since because of how traumatic it was for him.
  • Even when his hearing isn't activated, Izuku is stunned after Bakugou stuffs his hood full of Die Die Discuses and sets them all off, briefly deafening Izuku in the process.
• Super-Speed: Izuku can hopscotch his way across an entire forest in minutes and can throw someone faster than most people can blink. This also affects the speed at which Izuku can read and process information, allowing him to read through an entire newspaper in seconds. Izuku has also used his speed to move faster than the eye can track, hiding the newspapers he was reading and changing what app he was using on his phone while Bakugou's eyes were trained on him. He later clears the 50-meter dash in .39 seconds, placing him at just over a third of the speed of sound. Despite all this, he admits that he probably won't be able to keep up with a true speedster like the Flash or compete with a fully serious All Might.
• Super-Strength: The first power he developed, making it his official "Quirk". He's strong enough to kick a can hard enough to hit All Might on the other side of a city, effortlessly lift people by the collar with one hand, and go toe-to-toe with the Ultra-Humanite. Ten months of training have allowed him to easily throw objects straight through walls while retaining enough momentum to have it soar off until it's nothing more than a speck in the distance. He can also overpower other Super-Strength Quirks with a simple love tap and going all out easily wrecks a machine designed to take hits from inhumanly strong people. During his Quirk Apprehension Test, he crushes the grip strength machine completely by accident and throws the ball so hard that his score is "less than or equal to infinity", implying that he threw it into outer space. The last time he did a ball throw, it traveled a relatively paltry 520 meters.
• Surprise Jump: When a giant rift in space opens up in his apartment's kitchen, Izuku gets into a defensive stance in hopes of clobbering whatever comes out of it. Then Mxyzptlk suddenly appears behind him and offers some friendly advice, which spooks Izuku so badly that he crashes into the ceiling.
  Mxyzptlk: [from behind Izuku] My friends' arms are a little crooked. Straighten them up for a tighter defense.
  Izuku: Really? Thanks for the adviYAAAAAAAH! [flies into the ceiling hard enough to crack it]
  Mxyzptlk: Geez, Louise! My friends doesn't have any guts, at all! It's so pathetic! Not so pathetic that it can't be fun, however.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Izuku resorts to this frequently because of his Bad Liar tendencies, particularly when his friends stumble upon his Kryptonese practice.
  Momo: Midoriya-san, what is this? [peers over at Izuku's notebook] I want to say Hebrew, but that doesn't feel right. Is it, though?
  Izuku: It's not! [snatches away his notebook] It's, um, remember how I said that the symbol on my costume means 'hope' in the secret language my dad and I made up when I was a kid? Well, this is more of that! It's just more of that secret language. That we made up together. When I was a kid.
• Talented, but Trained:
  • Izuku has every nearly every power he could possibly need to become an amazing Hero, but ten years of actively trying not to become one has left his actual usage and fine control lacking. Because of this, he spends ten months going back and forth to Korusan Island to train his abilities in secret before the U.A. Entrance Exam, greatly improving his precision and the number of applications he has for his powers and even coming up with a bunch of special moves. He also manages to increase his strength to the point that he can punch off a chunk of Kaiju flesh three times his size, learns how to use his Super-Speed and Flight to drill through objects, and throw things so hard that it can easily punch through walls as it soars off into the distance.
  • Izuku also mentions that his grades are near the top of his middle school class because he spends a lot of time studying. He struggles to learn English and Kryptonese, but devotes himself to his studies because he knows they're important if he wants to get into the school of his dreams and learn about his heritage.
  • When Shouto confronts him on the last day of school, Izuku thinks about this trope and knows that he still has a long way to go if he's going to be a great Hero.
    Izuku: He's not wrong, though. It's not like I don't already know that I still have work to do. I wouldn't be here if I thought anything else. I'm not trying to pick a fight with you or anyone else, but Todoroki-kun, if you try and come at me, don't think I'll just stand and take it.
• Talking Is a Free Action:
  • Subverted. While escaping the Sludge Villain, Izuku mulls over his options out loud in one of his trademark mumble fests, first trying to run away and find a Hero to arrest the villain, but that would allow it to run away and attack someone else. He then considers using his ice breath to freeze him, but that might count as vigilantism. He then wonders if the authorities would go easy on him since it would be technically an act of self-defense, but then decides it wouldn't be worth the trouble. After all this happened, the Sludge Villain had more than enough time to recuperate from being blasted with Heat Vision and blown away by Super Breath and latched onto Izuku again before All Might arrived.
    Izuku: I've gotta get out of here! [starts rambling] I need to find a Hero and get them to come over here and arrest him. Wait, but if I do that, he'll probably be gone by the time I get back. Should I try to detain him, myself? I might be able to freeze him with my ice breath, since his body's like a liquid. But what if I get in trouble for vigilantism? They might go easy because it was self-defense, though. Even still, I'd be more likely to get in trouble than I would be to not get in trouble.
    Sludge Villain: [grabbing Izuku with a slimy tentacle] Will you shut up, already?! I've had enough of you! It's over, kid!
  • Played straight and discussed during the Heroes vs. Villains exercise. He stops and takes the time to praise Itsuka's attempt to get past him and rush for the bomb, which shows that he's confident that she won't get past him. She takes the fact that she stops to listen as evidence that she's afraid of challenging that claim.
• Tall Poppy Syndrome: The Ultra-Humanite believes that Izuku is a victim of this much like himself, since he's of the opinion that they're both extraordinary individuals that the rest of the world is trying to suppress into mediocrity because of how different they are.
• Tempting Fate:
  • After the chaotic opening ceremony, Izuku hoped that the rest of his first day of school would be smooth sailing going forward. Subverted at first, since the day goes normally and peacefully. Double Subverted when he has a tense encounter with Bakugou, Shouto, and Lexi after class.
  • Played completely straight when he wakes up on his second day of school thinking that the day is going to be perfect. Then Mister Mxyzptlk shows up and proceeds to turn his morning upside down.
• That Was Not a Dream: He hoped that his brawl with Bakugou was just a bad dream, but he was quickly proved wrong when his Super-Hearing started acting up again and reminded him that it wasn't.
• Thicker Than Water:
  • Subverted. Even after speaking with Jor-El and watching everything leading up to his arrival on Earth, Izuku considers Inko and Hisashi Midoriya his real parents more than his birth parents.
    Izuku: I-I mean, my mom and dad didn't make me, but they're the ones who raised me. They're the ones who taught me right from wrong. They're the ones who always tried to make me feel okay with being, well, me. Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van gave me life, but as far as I'm concerned, Inko and Hisashi Midoriya are my real parents.
  • This is also reflected in the way he addresses his adoptive parents. Jor-El gets called a distant and formal "Father", while Hisashi gets the warm and familial "Dad".
• This Is Gonna Suck: He has this reaction to being paired with Shouto against Bakugou and Itsuka and realizing that Shouto wasn't going to listen to reason.
• Three-Point Landing: Izuku attempted this as a child as part of a Dynamic Entry, but he just ended up falling flat on his face.
• Token Non-Human: He’s the only person in UA to be not from Earth.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness:
  • The end of Izuku's Quest for Identity gives him some much needed closure and renewed purpose on top of a noticeable boost in cheer and self-worth. Case in point, he was terrified of facing the Ultra-Humanite in a fight just a few hours earlier, but calls the experience "pretty exciting" when reflecting on it with All Might afterward. He also learns why his parents sent him to Earth: To do nothing but live a long, happy life the way he wants to. He plans on fulfilling his parents' wishes by following his dreams of becoming a Hero.
  • After learning that he was admitted into U.A. even as the U.A. faculty knows what he is, he flashes a bright smile as he says that it means they don't care about where he came from. Just imagine trying to hear this kind of optimism from Izuku at the start of the story.
• Trademark Favorite Food: It's still katsudon, fried pork cutlet over rice with other toppings.
• Tranquil Fury:
  • Izuku is thoroughly pissed when he discovers that the zero-point robot is a replica of Starro because of how hard he's trying to fit in and prove that he deserves to be on Earth like everyone else. Despite this, he never loses his composure and methodically battles the robot while darting in and out of the fight to keep others from getting hurt.
    Izuku: [eyes glowing with Heat Vision] You need to stop talking.
  • Izuku is about to blow a fuse at Aizawa at the thought of Mineta getting expelled. Aizawa is actually worried that Izuku would start a fight over it.

Tropes U to Z

• Underestimating Badassery: Due to his height and meek personality, people tend to underestimate just how powerful Izuku is. Rappa challenges him to an arm wrestling match, Itsuka calls him arrogant for thinking that none of the robots at the entrance exam could hurt him, and Shouto wonders why Endeavor is so wary of Izuku. Of course, all of those thoughts are dispelled once they see him in action.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: Due to him being Kal-El in this story, Izuku isn’t Inko and Hiashi’s biological child.
• Unreliable Narrator: Izuku's perceptions sometimes color the third-person narration. For instance, it calls Bakugou a stand up guy right before he starts demanding an apology from a kid and threatening to beat the crap out of him.
• Unskilled, but Strong:
  • Zig-zagged. Izuku has a good grasp of his abilities due to spending his entire childhood reining them in as much as possible out of fear of what he's capable of, subverting Power Incontinence. But he's constantly developing new powers that he has to learn on the fly. While he knows how to use his powers, he doesn't have a lot of experience using them in a fight. Case in point, he's on the losing end of his fight against the much more experienced and well-trained Ultra-Humanite, despite outstripping him in every way physically.
  • Later on, he realizes that while he can turn his powers on-and-off just fine, his fine control stinks due to ten years of actively trying not to use them. He can't even cut a straight line with his Heat Vision. His Training Montage over the next ten months consists of him studying how his powers work and getting the hang of them. By the winter of that year, he has a solid enough grasp on his abilities that he can generate blocks of ice in midair with his Super-Breath and use his Heat Vision carve them into pieces with ease.
  • Bakugou calls Izuku's guard pathetic when they're staring each other down and most of Izuku's moves are improvised and clumsy at best. But it's hard to exploit it when Izuku can take anything Bakugou can dish out at him.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: As a child, Izuku had no idea how much his "Quirk" was bruising Bakugou's ego until it was too late.
• Upbringing Makes the Hero: Specifically cited in Izuku's narration as the reason he was able to become the World's Greatest Hero. He even tells Firestorm that Inko and Hisashi were the ones to teach him right and wrong and make him who he is, which makes them his real parents more than his biological parents.
  Izuku: Even though I was an alien, even though no one liked the kind of thing I was, they never treated me like I was anything other than their son. It's thanks to their love and support that I became the person I am today, and it's because of their love and support that I was able to become the greatest Hero in the world.
• Up, Up and Away!: Izuku strikes this pose while delivering the finishing blow to the Starro robot, plowing straight through its innards to rip a hole from front to back.
  With a yell from the bottom of his gut and the encouragement of every onlooker, Midoriya flew straight at Starro. His arms were facing outwards, hands flat against the air, a magnificent flying pose. Starro sounded like it might be trying to bargain, but Midoriya wasn't paying attention. He was too busy listening to the sound of steel breaking apart from steel as he tore straight through the center of its body.
• Wall of Text: When Izuku becomes an excited Motor Mouth, his dialogue is rendered like this, and he usually has to be interrupted to get him to stop.
• Weirdness Magnet:
  • As if being possibly one of the only aliens on the planet wasn't enough, Izuku tends to attract all kinds of weird phenomena. He gets attacked by the Sludge Villain on his way home from school, subsequently running into All Might in the process. His quest to find his spaceship pits him against an army of robots inside Mt. Fuji and a super-genius who transplanted his brain into that of an albino gorilla. He doesn't even get to finish making breakfast on his second day of school before he gets a visit from Mister Mxyzptlk.
  • His future as the world's greatest Hero attracts all sorts of unsavory people to his door. In "Hope Carried 1,000 Years", Libra and the Cult of Evil sent an assassin back in time to kill Izuku while he was looking for his spaceship. Even before then, Brainiac sends a proxy back in time to kill a five-year-old Izuku in "Time and Chance (1): How the old Ice-Cream Parlor will Change".
• Wham Line: Izuku shouts "Dad!" in the final portion of Chapter 6, revealing Firestorm's Secret Identity.
• What the Hell, Hero?: He gives this to Todoroki at USJ, when the latter resists Izuku's attempts to buy him time to escape and even tries to freeze Izuku's arm.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: Subverted. Hisashi is an Ascended Extra in this story and Izuku mentions seeing him once or twice a month despite Hisashi's busy overseas job. Izuku has nothing but good things to say about him and is ecstatic to see him home in Chapter 6.
• Willfully Weak: Izuku is constantly holding back to avoid breaking everything he touches as his powers continue to grow. When he finally decides to become a Hero again, he surprises himself when he destroys a punching machine designed to take hits from Super-Strength Quirks completely by accident when pressured into going all-out. He finally goes all out at USJ against the Noumu after taking All Might's and Tamaki's words to heart.
• Wingding Eyes: While searching for Izuku's spaceship, All Might isn't sure if the stars he sees in the boy's eyes are a visual side-effect of Izuku's Super-Vision or simply showing up out of admiration for him.
• With Friends Like These...: Even after all they've been through, Izuku still considers Bakugou to be his best friend in his conversations with All Might and can't help but rush to his aid to save him from the Sludge Villain even with the fear of accidentally hurting him.
• Wonder Child: Izuku is the Midoriyas' space baby in this story, but downplayed in that virtually everyone has superpowers here, so he's able to blend in more easily.
• The Worf Effect:
  • Mister Mxyzptlk's power is evident in Izuku's complete inability to inflict any kind of harm on him.
  • At USJ, Izuku rushes at the Noumu to try and fend him off long enough for Todoroki, Aizawa, and Yamashiro to get to safety. Everyone is stunned when Izuku actually manages to beat the Noumu back with Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs. Then the situation is reversed on him when the Noumu goes into a frenzy and quickly beats Izuku into the floor with strength rivaling All Might's.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Played for Laughs, but he cringes when Mineta sings his praises for making Momo's outfit even more Stripperific than it already was.
• Youthful Freckles: Like his canon counterpart, Izuku has a cluster of four freckles on each cheek just under each eye.

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