- Armsmaster: Who are you?The Iron Giant: Superman.
is a Worm fanfic on SpaceBattles.com written by Ten Tailed God and is a Fusion Fic with The Iron Giant.The story begins with the Iron Giant awakening after sacrificing himself to save Rockport from being destroyed by a nuke. He awakens below the surface of the ocean in Brockton Bay and stumbles upon the fight between the Undersiders, Taylor, and Lung. After aiding in stopping Lung, they are interrogated by Armsmaster, where Taylor discovers who the Giant is and decides to take him to her grandfather; Hogarth Hughes.
I am Superman provides examples of:
- Achilles' Heel: Electric currents are Superman's weakness. Taylor opts to prevent others from learning this, as his enemies would start exploiting it to try and take him out.
- Adaptational Name Change: Instead of Skitter being her Cape name, Taylor decides to go by Scarab here.
- Alternate Universe Fic: Aside from the obvious crossover, the Giant reforms in the ocean rather than the Arctic like he did at the end of the movie.
- Ascended Fangirl: Taylor looks up to the Giant as one of the greatest heroes ever thanks to her grandpa's stories. Now she gets to fight alongside him.
- Beware the Nice Ones: The Giant is an absolute sweetheart, but get him angry and you're in for a world of hurt.
- A Boy and His X: A girl and her giant alien robot, with the growing friendship between Taylor and the Giant being a major part of the story.
- Character Catchphrase: The Iron Giant makes use of a modified version of Superman's iconic "Truth, Justice, and the American way!"Iron Giant: I'm Superman. Truth, justice, and no gun!
- Cool Old Guy: Hogarth is an understanding elder who consoles his granddaughter and has helped several people in overseas countries being ravaged by eldritch abominations.
- Crossover Relatives: Taylor is the granddaughter of Hogarth Hughes on her mother's side of the family.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Giant barely puts any effort into his fight with Lung. He's more focused on trying to stop him than he is trying to damage him, and Lung's attacks couldn't even phase him anyway.
- Dead Guy Junior: Taylor's mother was named after Hogarth's mother, Annette Hughes.
- Doesn't Like Guns: The Giant hates guns, as usual. He also incorporates this into his own emulation of the Superman catchphrase.
- The Dreaded: The Giant hasn't been around for a day in Brockton Bay and the PRT is already considering him a potential threat. Armsmaster even compares him to an Endbringer. Makes sense since he's a giant robot of unknown origin that effortlessly overpowered the most dangerous criminal in the city. Hogarth also wonders if this is the reason the U.S. government covered up his existence.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Averted with the Giant. After the Giant helps save civilians from a fire, the firemen thank and praise him. Even the standard citizens are either in awe of him or find him cool. The only people who don't respect his actions are the PRT, and that's more out of fear for what he can do, not to mention it's their job to fight things like the Giant (and even if the Giant is friendly, it wouldn't be the first time a nice cape turned villainous). Even then, it's not like the Giant's going around demanding respect anyway. He's just happy he can help.
- Eating Machine: The Giant only eats metals. Thankfully, Hogarth has plenty of scrap metal in his junkyard for the Giant to eat.
- Entertainingly Wrong: The Giant is mistaken for a Tinker-construct at least twice. Piggot does this mistake when she muses about the possibility of Hogarth being the creator, which would make him the oldest known Parahuman.
- Fusion Fic: Earth Bet is the Earth that The Iron Giant took place on, only decades into the future after Capes, the PRT, and the setting of Worm have all been established.
- Generation Xerox: Just like her grandfather before her, Taylor meets and befriends the Iron Giant and forms a strong bond with him.
- Gentle Giant: The Giant is the absolute nicest giant robot you'll meet.
- The Greatest Story Never Told: The government deleted all files on the incident in Rockport, so almost nobody outside of certain government officials, Hogarth, or Taylor know about what happened. Not even Dragon can find anything about the incident barring that there was a government cover-up.
- Hero Worship: Taylor greatly looks up to the Giant, having grown up on hearing his story from her grandfather.
- Hulk Speak: The Giant might be an alien construct from beyond the stars, with computer systems that no man could comprehend, but his speech patterns aren't as complete as they could be.
- I'm Standing Right Here: Early on, Armsmaster pulls Taylor aside and asks that she keep the Giant company until they can scan him because he doesn't trust something that shows up and easily defeats the most powerful criminal in the city, which makes him clearly dangerous. Taylor then points out that the Giant can very well hear him.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: Hogarth averts this and refers to the Giant as "he", but Taylor and the narration refer to him as "it", largely because the Giant's gender is unspecified. The PRT, however, only call him "it" and see him as either a Tinker-tech weapon or a mechanical Endbringer. During her meeting with Taylor, Piggot has to actively try to avert this so as not to unintentionally anger her.
- Legacy Character: Superman may be a fictional character in this story, but that sure won't stop the Giant from taking up the mantle. If there's anyone who deserves to lay claim to the title though, it's the Iron Giant.
- Martial Pacifist: The Giant is an incredibly powerful robot, being able to shrug off Lung's best attacks and crush the guy like he was nothing, but he'd rather give you a hug than crush your rib-cage.
- Nice Guy:
- Hogarth is as rightful and kind as he was when he was a kid, helping others and consoling his granddaughter when she's going through a rough spot.
- The Giant is basically the world's largest metallic teddy bear. Also, the world's only large metallic teddy bear.
- No-Sell: None of Lung's attacks could remotely damage the Giant. Back in the day, the US Army's attacks had similar effect.
- Older and Wiser: Given that many decades have passed since the time of the film, Hogarth is in his elder years and is a good source of advice and inspiration for Taylor when she's feeling down.
- Properly Paranoid: The PRT do have good reason to fear a metal giant that can easily overwhelm the strongest criminal in the city since that much power could threaten innocent lives and it wouldn't be the first time they've dealt with a Nice Guy having the potential to be a villain.
- The Real Heroes: Hogarth, despite not having powers, has done quite a bit of humanitarian work in his time. He's served as a doctor and provided medical services to countries that have suffered from the Endbringers assaults.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Played with. Piggot makes it clear to Taylor that neither she nor the PRT have any intentions of taking aggressive action against her and her family, but the tone she uses when she tells her this makes it clear that she doesn't care either way.
- Secret Identity: Blown out of the water by Armsmaster who quickly identifies Taylor when she mentions her grandpa's name. Let's cut the guy some slack, a giant robot able to take down a frigging dragon-man would make anyone a bit antsy. Though they do plan on helping maintain the secret identity both for her protection and theirs.
- Secret-Keeper: Hogarth knows about Taylor's powers and hero work while her father doesn't. He's also aware of Emma's betrayal and the bullying she's been going through. He also talks with her when she visits to help her vent out her emotions.
- Super-Toughness: The Giant is completely unfazed by any of Lung's attacks. Hogarth speculates that one of the reasons the events surrounding the Giant were classified was because the Giant was strong enough to No-Sell an assault by the United States Army without taking so much as a scratch.
- The Worf Effect: To establish the Giant's power, he pretty much easily overpowers Lung and beats him down without effort. Considering that Lung is the most powerful Cape in the city who fought off Endbringers by himself, that's a relatively good indicator of how strong the Giant is, which proceeds to freak the PRT out.
- Wrong Context Magic: The Giant is of alien origin and had his existence covered up by the government. As a result, many who see him are under the impression that he's either just advanced Tinker Tech or an artificial Endbringer and not a super-powered alien machine. After Piggot learns that he's an alien, it really unnerves her that not only is there life on other planets, but they can create technology that's on par with creatures that can bring about Armageddon.
