The Avengers: A 70's storyline tried to deconstruct the concept of the Token Minority. The Falcon is forced into the team in order to fill a diversity quota, which not only leads to friction with Hawkeye, but causes Falcon to doubt his own worth as a hero. He eventually quits after growing to resent being thought of as the Avengers' token black guy.
Does anyone remember what kicked off the Marvel Civil War? A group of superhero reality TV Stars.
Freedom Ring was created by Robert Kirkman as a deconstruction of the teen superhero archetype. Specifically, he wanted Freedom Ring to struggle with his new abilities and ultimately die early on his superhero career in order to contrast how easily most teenage characters adapt to their powers, which he saw as unrealistic. Unfortunately, the decision to make him gay meant that when his deconstruction-mandated death occurred, it took out about 20% of Marvel Comics's homosexual population.
Hawkeye: Much of Hawkeye (2012) was about the realities of a non-powered Badass Normal superhero, particularly what their life would entail when not saving the world. The result: Clint is near constantly exhausted, bruised, and in some degree of pain during the series because his "day job" has him constantly getting tossed around and hurt.
Part of the reason for the infamous "incompetence" in the series is just showing the realistic outcome of one man fighting a much larger group of people. They don't use lasers or superpowers, they just Zerg Rush him and jump him when he's not expecting a fight, and thus doesn't have his arsenal of Trick Arrows to take them down without doing serious damage. This also affects Kate later, who not only has the disadvantage of being outnumbered, but is also a very tiny woman who lacks Clint's physical strength. She can take down a guy twice her size without a problem, but fighting several is going to be a problem.
In issue #7 (the Hurricane Sandy issue), Grills asks Clint why he isn't out with his fellow Avengers. Clint responds by stating that his archery skills would be rendered useless thanks to the hurricane's winds.
It first starts with Avengers Disassembled showing what happens when you entrust the world to a set few ultra powerful humans. It then goes into House of M, proving what happens if the super humans took over.
Civil War (2006) addressed the stupidity of having the government let walking A-bombs blow themselves up in New York everyday while simultaneously showing how said government control plans would fail. This is shown in the deliberateFlanderization of Captain America and Iron Man showing how both sides are pretty stupid. This was also explained in the what if story arc when both sides find a balance and thus achieve peace.
Dark Reign then deconstructed the entire "Lone Cop saves the world and get promoted" genre by showing exactly what would happen if said psychopaths were really appointed to such positions of power. Thor, Reed Richards and Iron Man's tenures as God, Guardian and Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. in each of their individual story arcs show how each quest to "fix" the world leads to disaster. Then, the New Captain America saga had a deconstruction of the Sidekick. The idea of power and potential is again brought up in The Hood's story showing what happens if all the D-list heroes in the universe eventually got together and actually applied their powers, while the Mighty Avengers show how these super teams affect the political climate.
The Illuminati is in itself a deconstruction of large hero collaborations (and how they lead to failure i.e. World War Hulk & the Secret Invasion) and its counterpart "The Cabal" showed just how incapable a society of villains would be at functioning.
All this is paralleled by the Annihilation and War of Kings series depicting exactly what kind of galaxy is filled with empires that invade and blow up planets on a daily basis and exactly how disillusioned it makes characters. Seeing Black Bolt turn to insanity was just further reconfirmation of what a world Cosmic Marvel is. The Nova Corps pretty much deconstructed all Space Cop tropes with its nigh-omnipotent run band of non sanctioned super soldiers and exactly how that would affect any political situation.
The Decimation arcs in X-Men show exactly how humans would react to mutants if the odds were evened. And the Secret arcs show exactly what being a real spy means and all the details it entails.
The Ultimates attempts to put a more realistic spin on the superhero genre, specifically by trying to show what would happen if a team like The Avengers existed in real life. The Ultimates become used as a tool of the government and end up causing a group of foreign countries to attack America with a Legion of Doom-type team consisting of superhumans from nations that the U.S. has attacked. Subsequent storylines deal with the idea of a superhuman arms race between the U.S. and hostile nations.
Even before The Ultimates, the Captain America character William Burnside (the Captain America of the 50's) was created as a deliberate response to the use of Politically Correct History for Golden Age superheroes. He and his sidekick Jack Monroe (the 50's Bucky) were depicted as being just as racist, sexist, and xenophobic as the average white male from the 1950's would likely have been.
Another interesting example by Grant Morrison is Fantastic 1234. At first, it seems like a traditional deconstruction of superheroes by way of the Fantastic Four, highlighting their 'real' personalities via highlighting their worst aspects as they would be in real life; Ben Grimm is a self pitying misanthrope with a violent temper, Reed Richards is a emotionless autistic who seems to value his inventions more than his friends and family, Johnny Storm is a brooding Greaser whose tastes for fast cars and fast women can't fill the void inside of him, and Sue Storm is an insecure, passive-aggressive neurotic who feels she is trapped in a loveless marriage and is severely tempted to run off with Namor, who is presented as a coldblooded sexfiend willing to do anything to make Sue his own. However, it ends up being a subversion of such a deconstruction; Reed Richards has realised that Dr. Doom has been using a reality altering device to 'deconstruct' the Four and bring out the worst possible aspects of the four's personalities in order to destroy them and gain ultimate revenge on Richards. Richards builds his own variant of the machine to 'reconstruct' the Four and save the day, the point clearly being that the standard portrayal of the Four are their real personalities. In fact, for his arrogance Doom ends up being the one who's deconstructed, and rather painfully at that, where it is revealed that he is a lonely, pathetic man-child with a ridiculous speech pattern who is not even remotely on Reed Richards' level of genius and whose vendetta against the four is petty and stupid. Also, he seems to be going bald. Ouch.
Marvel comics Marvels and its Evil TwinRuins similarly focus on the impact of superheroes on an "average" person.
The original The Punisher maxi-series by Garth Ennis featured a trio of vigilantes, each of whom are essentially a more realistic take on the concept behind the Punisher, as well as the entire "armed vigilante" Sub-Genre of fiction. Elite is a complete racist who primarily kills black and Latino men because he blames minorities for ruining society, the Holy is a mentally-disturbed serial killer who justifies his crimes by claiming he's punishing the wicked, and Mr. Payback is an idiot whose poor planning causes collateral damage and civilian casualties. The message seemed to be that while the Punisher is a cool character, he's also complete fiction; chances are real world vigilantes would not be as focused, unbiased, or precise as he is. The Punisher himself ends up killing them after delivering a "The Reason You Suck" Speech where he points out why they're terrible at being vigilantes.
Marvel's events between Age of Ultron and Secret Wars (2015) deconstruct the idea of Earth Is the Center of the Universe, the human heroes getting involved in cosmic level events and exactly what happens after you punch out Cthulhu. They also show that, contrary to most comics, violence is not always the answer and might does not always make right. The heroes continually make increasingly heavy-handed decisions in order to save the world which has far-reaching consequences, like the time traveling in Age Of Ultron creating a massive time rift that results in 616-Galactus almost destroying the Ultimate Marvel universe, and lets Ja'son of Spartax unite the universe in their hatred of Earth. The hastily-done destruction of the Web of Life and Destiny by the Superior Spider-Man in Spider-Verse and the cosmic-level destruction of the Maker in Ultimate Fantastic Four throws everything out of whack in a misguided attempt to set things right. The Illuminati's secretive nature ends up working against them in saving their universe with it basically stated had they told people instead of doing it themselves they could have prevented it rather easily. And it ends with Doctor Doom seizing ultimate power, all because of the heroes' arrogance.
Films
Captain America: The Winter Soldier deconstructs Spy Fiction. The very world environment that gave birth to espionage networks and such was nothing but a decades-long lie spread by a super-villain organization to make people scared enough to hand over their freedom on a silver platter. Everyone who lived in that world and accepted it as "necessary" was a sucker, with Captain America being the Only Sane Man who refused to accept it.
The 2003 adaption of Daredevil deconstructs a lot of elements found in comic book adaptions. Due to his vigilante lifestyle, Matt is in extreme pain from fighting, nurses multiple broken bones and nasty scars on his body, munches down painkillers regularly and is frequently absent from work. His super senses mean that he needs a sensory deprivation tank to sleep, his refusal to handle guilty or dishonest clients means that his law firm is constantly struggling, and he is dealing with a wreck of a personal life. Which is to say nothing of the fact that the poor guy is so miserable and downbeat by life he can barely muster the energy to keep going.
Western Animation
Iron Man: Armored Adventures offers an interesting take on the teenage superhero genre in the fact the hero really couldn't care any less about school or fitting in, claiming it's a waste of time and instead stating that his work as a hero is more important. He then proceeds to cheat on his tests and homework in order to pass, since him being a hero gives him the latitude to do so, and high school is meaningless and doesn't matter once you graduate, especially since he's already a)rich, and b)a genius inventor.
