Webcomic / unOrdinary

Nothing is ordinary in this world...

The world is not perfect. Learning to deal with its flaws is just a normal part of life. But there comes a point where these imperfections spawn a crushing realization... that something needs to change...

unOrdinary is a webcomic created by uru-chan in May 2016, exploring the trials and tribulations of super powered students at an elite private school. The first season consists of 155 chapters, and season two continues from chapter 156 onward. A 2-chapter flashback/ side story focusing on the school exploits of former student Rei takes place between the two seasons.

At Wellston Private High School, abilities determine everything. Those with greater abilities and powers are at the absolute top of the social hierarchy, commanding the fear and respect of their peers. After all, those students are the ones who are going to attend the best universities, get the best job offers, and end up running the world. Those with lesser abilities must bow to the whims of those with more power, unless they want to end up on the wrong end of a laser blast or a super-powered punch. All the way down the scale students jockey for position, picking on those with less power while hoping to avoid drawing the ire of anyone above them in the hierarchy.

And then there are the rare, unfortunate students with no powers at all. They're referred to as "cripples", and are ostracized by everyone. John would rather live out his high school days in peace, ignoring the social hierarchy as best he can. But as a "cripple," he's a common target for his superpowered peers for as much the fact that he's powerless as the fact that he refuses to acknowledge the hierarchy. Coupled with the fact that he can't seem to ignore the plight of those who are bullied, John spends most of his time either running from fights he can't hope to win or in the infirmary with bruises, broken bones, and bloody noses thanks to his antagonistic school mates. Nevertheless, John carries some hope that his peers will eventually learn to use their powers to help one another, instead of for selfish gains. In fact, John's already befriended Seraphina, the single most powerful student at school.

Though he's carved out a tenuous place for himself at Wellston, the time may come when John can no longer continue to ignore the hierarchy. His defiance hasn't gone unnoticed by the students second in power only to Seraphina — the King, Queen, and Jack of Wellston, as well as their allies. Those students aren't happy about John's actions, and they're determined to teach him a lesson about "his place" in the world.

But events outside of Wellston are shaking up the school, and everyone, from the highest elite to the lowliest "cripple" like John, is about to be swept up in a wave of action that will force them to question everything they thought they knew about their powers and their place in the world.

Formerly hosted on Tapastic and then on LINE's Challenge League, it can currently be read at LINE as one of their main series. Also has its own wiki here.

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unOrdinary shows examples of:

• All Your Powers Combined: John's ability, Aura Manipulation, allows him to a) sense active abilities within his vicinity, allowing him to find you even if you're invisible, b) copy your power at what appears to be a higher power level than your own, and c) combine the powers he has access to, such as Blow You Away and Wolverine Claws to get Razor Wind as well. There are probably limits, because it's implied it's possible for people to be stronger than him.
  • When Isen shows Blyke and Remi John's transcripts from his previous school, John's ability is revealed to called Aura Manipulation. Two years ago John was rated a 7.0.
  • Word of God confirms he is currently 7.5.
• Author Avatar: uru-chan herself appears in several bonus episodes.
• Abusive Parents: Seraphina's mother had no qualms about physically assaulting her daughter to force her to start getting in line. She also openly criticizes her sister, whom she deems a disgrace.
• The Ace: Seraphina effortlessly claims the title, literally. However, with all things considered, she's rather a Broken Ace.
• A-Cup Angst: Seraphina is noticeably flummoxed by how large Rein's chest is.
• A Friend in Need: How John and Seraphina became friends.
• Almighty Janitor: Seraphina. In terms of official positions in school, her position as "Queen" has been taken up by Remi for activities such as the Turf War. However, it is still acknowledged that she is likely the strongest in school.
  • John is also one and is played more straight as he's is one of, if not, the strongest characters in the series, but pretends to be a cripple because he's afraid of being a monster again. At least, until he decides that enough is enough...
• Aerith and Bob: The setting features characters with normal names, such as John, Elaine, and Vaughn, as well as entirely fictional names, such as Krolik, Crail, and Broven.
• Affectionate Nickname: John calls Seraphina "Sera".
• Arc Words: "Everyone has something important to offer."
  • "Perfection."
  • "Monster."
• All of the Other Reindeer: As a "cripple", John receives disdain and ostracization from most of his classmates.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: How society works in the unOrdinary world. You have status based on your power, though this includes people with noncombat powers that are useful to the powerful people as well, like the Living Lie Detector who works for the Authorities or Elaine with her Healing Hands.
  • This leads to John being kicked out of his first school: he was strong enough they couldn't control him and volatile enough not to cooperate, and in a world where Asskicking Leads to Leadership there's no room for someone like that in the system.
  • This is also probably why the vigilantes are being hunted down. Can't have people strong enough to change the system changing it in ways you don't like...
• Art Evolution: From Challenge League to Featured and from the earlier episodes to later ones. The easiest way to see this is by comparing Arlo in his first appearance to Arlo's current appearance.
• Badass Normal: Despite his lack of powers, John manages to hold his own against some ability users in a fight. Deconstructed in that defending himself against even low-tier ability users is dangerous and gives him considerable injuries, requiring frequent visits to the infirmary. Later subverted that John is just hiding the fact that he has a power like everyone else at the school.
• The Bad Guy Wins: In the finale of the first season, Joker crushes the entirety of the Royals in one go, destroying the hierarchy in the process.
• Bait the Dog: Despite Arlo's arrogance, we see that there might be some possibility of John becoming friends with him; he saves him from other power users and displays more curiosity than outright hostility to him. Instead, he sics two other power users on him in order to get him to reveal his ability.
• Batman Gambit: John pulls this on Remi who expects him to use Cecile's ability to fight her. Instead John comes at her with Zeke's ability to throw her off.
  • In the same fight, John also predicts that Remi is going to try and unmask him rather than actually defeat him, so he makes use of this mentality by pretending to give her an opening to unmask her and instead uses it to deal massive damage.
• Beneath the Mask: John gets very, very violent when provoked enough.
• Beta Outfit: Remi's superhero outfit, as made by Blyke in a few hours, is pretty much just a dark tracksuit with an X stiched onto it, a beanie and a surgical mask she drew a cat face on. While Isen berates Blyke for a shoddy job, Remi approves of the "homemade look".
• Big Damn Heroes: Arlo jumps into the fight between Joker and Remi by saving her from Joker's electric homing lasers.
  • Seraphina pulls this off later on by saving Arlo and Remi from John's electric thorn lances.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Elaine is the first person to greet John in Wellston High... and the first to attack him when she's finds out he's a "cripple".
• Blood from the Mouth: Zig-Zagged. Nearly every fight in the series features one or more combatants bleeding from the mouth. Potentially Justified, as most of the fights take place between super-powered teenagers who all have greater than average strength, durability, and usually some degree of combat training. It's demonstrated that a powered-up hit that would certainly maim or kill an adult low-tier is, while painful, the kind of attack a high-tier high school student can walk away from. It also appears the teens have got no compulsions against whaling on each other due to the availability of accelerated healing - broken bones that John gets from defending himself against other students are usually healed up after a few hours in the infirmary. So while the injuries combatants receive are definitely serious enough to cause internal damage and bleeding from the mouth, those same injuries that would be a serious problem for a normal, non-powered or low-tier person are something mid-tiers and high-tiers can survive. Some powered individuals even get mouth-bleeds as a substitute for Psychic Nosebleed — Arlo takes damage whenever his barriers are cracked or broken, and it shows up as a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth.
• Book Burning: All copies of the titular book were ordered destroyed, and those known to have read it "re-educated", by the Authorities. They claim it's just because the book encouraged vigilantism which is a deadly hobby because the Authorities have superheroes murdered, but it's also because it makes people question the Might Makes Right hierarchy and has caused people to try to help and pay attention to the lower tier districts.
• Book Dumb: John is not a terrible student (mainly in the B and C range) but comes off as this in comparison to the higher ranked students due to his constant struggles with schoolwork. In the past, it is shown that when he puts in the effort, he can get an A with Seraphina's help.
• Broken Ace: Played with. Before Seraphina met John, she was indisputably the top student in school in abilities, academics and reputation. However, this came with a greater deal of pressure and judgement from her peers. In the present story, Seraphina's peers in Wellston see her as this since she started hanging around with John and no longer caring too much about her grades or reputation. However, Seraphina feels a lot better about herself than she did before.
• Brought Down to Badass: A self-imposed action by John. Even without powers, he can still hold his own against multiple low-tier opponents.
  • The people hunting down Seraphina have at least one way of reducing the powers of the main characters. They appear to have some kind of device in their van with a limited duration that dampens powers (John couldn't sense Arlo's power and initially couldn't copy it either, both their barriers were far more easily broken, and Seraphina noticed her time stop wasn't slowing people down as much as it should), and Seraphina was also injected with something that she couldn't rewind and that continued to mess with her powers long after she was out of sight of the van.
    • Leilah later elaborates on their modus operandi, as part of the organization "Spectre". Not only are they in control of production of ability-disabling drugs, but are also equipped with devices capable of cutting the power levels of affected ability users in half.
• Bully Hunter: Despite his desire for a peaceful school life, John doesn't hesitate to get involved when he sees instances of bullying.
• Bullying the Disabled: Cripples and low tiers are victims of intense bullying and discrimination from those who have power.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Or Calling the mother out. After so long, Seraphina finally calls out on her mothers abuse which allows her to return back to school earlier from her supposed suspension.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The teddy bear Seraphina gets as a reward for scoring high on the power measuring test is later revealed to contain a tracker device which lets Spectre figure out where she went after she defeats them the first time.
  • The eponymous book, which John lends to Seraphina, later leads to her suspension, and then Keon's arrival at school.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • The power level reading vendor from the early chapters returns (and then quickly leaves) when Remi, Blyke and Isen go to the same mall.
  • A post-mortem one. Early on, news reports talk of a superhero being murdered. The same superhero later turns out to be Remi's brother Rei, whose passing motivates her to start investigating EMBER.
  • Terrence, introduced as a helpless child being attacked in a single scene, returns a full season later as a spy for Spectre, an important faction, and is also the first on screen death of a major character.
• Color-Coded Characters: A character's eye colour and hair often matches the colour of their speech bubbles.
  • John: Black
  • Seraphina: Magenta
  • Arlo: Gold
  • Isen: Orange
  • Blyke: Red
  • Remi: Pink
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Seraphina vs anyone.
  • Arlo during his "fight" with Rein during the Turf War against Agwin High.
  • John when he used his ability to defeat half of his classmates at his old school.
  • A god-tier vs anyone else.
  • John against Meili, Ventus and Arlo when he was provoked into finally using his special ability.
  • John against all the royals. Blyke got a couple hits in with help from Isen, but once he found their location, John made short work of them before resuming his fight with Remi. Even Arlo's last minute attempt had no effect.
  • John against anyone in general, short of Seraphina after she gets her abilities back.
• Comes Great Responsibility: A major ideal of the story and one which John is an advocate of. He wishes that those with powers would use them to protect the weak rather than to oppress them. Seraphina does make the observation that the onus of change is still on those with power.
• Cowardly Lion: John shows shades of this in early chapters. Justified in that he's facing ability users every day and getting sent to the infirmary daily which makes him somewhat reluctant to engage unless absolutely necessary. As the series goes on, he sheds this.
• Curtains Match the Window: This is true for the majority of characters. Even more so is that the colour of their eyes and hair often matches the colour of their speech bubbles.
• Crapsaccharine World: It soon becomes apparent that underneath the sunny plazas and candy-coloured hair the world is a rather awful place to live, with superpowers creating a class system where the low-tiers can be freely bullied by high-tiers. The authorities ignore social injustice, instead supporting the high-tiers, while mentally crippling the god-tiers to control them and, if Remi's speculations are correct, assassinating the superheroes to preserve the existing status quo.
• Dark and Troubled Past: In a transcript from his previous high school, John was revealed to be an anti-social and extremely violent and aggressive student, ultimately resulting in him being expelled for taking down half of his class for an "unexplained" reason.
• Destination Defenestration: John pulls one on Gavin in their first fight. He doesn't die though.
  • Blyke does this to John later on. He isn't much worse for wear either.
• Deus Exit Machina: Seraphina is suspended from school partway through the story. Most students consider her the strongest in school and one of the reasons why John's bullying hasn't been worse.
• Differently Powered Individual: Similar to My Hero Academia, people without superpowers are the exception rather than the role. Because John doesn't seem to display any superpowers, he is deemed a "cripple".
• Dissonant Serenity: Arlo looked noticeably calm and undeterred, both when Blyke was getting sliced up by Rein and again when he began brutalizing Rein straight afterwards. This is even more disconcerting when he shows the same expression when John brutalized Meili and Ventus after being provoked into using his ability. The next two chapters has this averted as Arlo shows frustration as he thought back to his loss.
• Dramatic Irony: When we all know that John has powers but Seraphina still doesn't.
• The Dreaded
  • Doctor Darren is this at Wellston High. With his short temper and his Ability, Nightmare^note  This causes all within the vicinity to fear the user, he scares the crap out of everyone in the school when he's in a bad mood.
  • Those who know of John's ability and what he can do are visibly unnerved by his presence. Shedding this and seeing people more comfortable around him after his fight with Seraphina is a big sign of him getting better.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: When Blyke saved Amora from Lance and his gang, Amora did not thank him because she suspects that Blyke was fighting for the other reason. The other reason is to improve his ability.
• Easily Forgiven: After hospitalizing them—and a bunch of other students—Remi and Isen are willing to treat John as just another student and prospective Safe House member without holding his violent rampage against him, though he could have easily killed several of his victims even with their society's advanced medical care. Blyke on the other hand does not forgive or forget what John's done, and points out how lucky he is that Remi and Isen are willing to forgive him the way they have.
• Enemy Mine: While they utterly despise each other, Arlo and John do work together when Spectre shows up.
• Establishing Character Moment: In the first few chapters, we get a sense of John and Seraphina's characters and role within the story.
  • John is introduced as your average high school student who is bored with his class. When he witnesses a fight between two power users, his initial thoughts are to just ignore it when things get too chaotic. However, when he sees another fight with a student getting brutalized by another one, he doesn't hesitate to get involved.
  • Seraphina is introduced on the rooftop of school while class is still going on. Despite her initial teasing of John when they meet in the infirmary, she's shown to be good friends with him and willingly stays with him to pass the time. Finally, she effortlessly defeats the bully who John had trouble with. This reveals the massive difference between power users.
• Everyone Is a Super: A deconstruction. In this world just about everyone has some form of power or ability, but how powerful that ability is varies from person to person. This can be measured by the system that ranks a person's power on a scale of low to high tier, with a rare few basically winning the Super Power Lottery and being considered "god-tier". As a result, society is very much a Might Makes Right sort of place where those with high-tier powers can bully and push around anyone under them without any consequences because their powers make them nearly undefeatable, mid and low tiers squabble and fight amongst each other when not tormenting anyone lower than them on the totem pole, and the rare few born without powers (derided as "cripples") are basically slaves and punching bags to all of the people above.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: John usually gels his hair before attending school. After suffering through a considerable amount of bullying day-after-day, John gradually returns to his former wild hairstyle.
• Extranormal Institute: Wellston Private High School.
• Faceless Masses: Unimportant extras and crowds are rendered in grayscale. They are usually faceless, but in some cases a mouth or a nose is added to show expression.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Guns are absent in the story for some reasons.
• Fights Like a Normal: John, after the revelation that he hides his power to appear 'normal'.
• Fight Unscene: Joker's beatdown of Abel on the school roof isn't shown.
• Foil: John and Seraphina are on opposite ends of the power spectrum and in terms of academic ability. Despite their differences in power, it is John who comes off as more independent whereas Seraphina was constrained by the expectations others had of her. Continued when Seraphina seems to loose her ability while John is starting to let loose with his.
• Foreshadowing:
  • For John:
    • John, when he noticed that someone was following him and Seraphina when they were leaving the mall.
    • Also, John is the only character whose speech bubbles change colour.
    • In addition, you clearly see his eyes glow in the first two chapters.
    • In Episode 21, his father calls to alert him about the EMBER gang that had been targeting people in John's area. Thing is, up until then, EMBER had only went after high-tiers. If John truly had no abilities, he would't have to worry.
  • For Remi: Soon after the news talk about a superhero having been killed, Arlo mentions she's absent because she had to go to a funeral. Also, the deceased man was called X-Static, and Remi herself has Shock and Awe powers.
  • The poker game played as early as in chapter 64 is rife with this, and especially the second hand:
    • After Seraphina loses the first match because John and his dad let her think they had high cards while they did not, she gets a little bit worked up but realizes later that John keeps his cool because he's applying the principles of poker to real life. He has been acting as if he had 'low cards', while he actually has 'high cards'. The cards brought to the table neatly match up with the Playing Card Motifs the school council has going on. The first 10 can be seen as the subordinates of the King - Ventus and Meili, sent to go after John by the King personally and count as a Wake-Up Call Boss. Then, the King (Arlo), a Jack (Blyke), a Queen (Remi) and a 2 are set up. But after the Jack is set up, a Joker 'accidentally' enters the fray... the name of the identity John would pick up later, and noticibly after Blyke had been beaten.Together, the order of this setup symbolizes the order in which John, as Joker, would defeat the higher ups. The 2 symbolizes his unveil, as if it was the 2 that made her lose. The following line sounds different when you know all this:
  Seraphina, to John: You bet low to make you think you had nothing. Then came back and bit me in the end while I was already invested!
• From Nobody to Nightmare:
  • As Isen finds out John used to be classified as a measly 1.2 until at some point in the middle school his power level skyrocketed mysteriously and he became violent and uncontrollable.
  • In the Branish story arc, Waldo is described as this - a 2.8 office worker who, after being fired on a whim, vanished for a while and returned with enough power to essentially subjugate the entire district.
• Ghost Story: When the Safe House goes on a trip Evie gathers most of the members at the hotel poolside at night to tell a ghost story about the hotel they're staying in. Despite one of them pointing out that she's making it up as she goes she manages to creep out her audience, and John who happens to be sitting nearby.
• Glowing Eyes: All of the characters do this when activating their abilities.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: High-tiers do this to intimidate lower-tiered individuals.
• Government Conspiracy: EMBER is publicly known as a mysterious and apparently untraceable group of serial killers targeting superheroes to brutally kill and leave in public, but is actually a group of covert government agents killing superheroes for challenging the status quo and keeping track of teenagers who are disillusioned with the current system.
• The Heavy: Arlo serves as the main antagonistic presence in the series thus far. Not only he is one of the top students in the school, it is also revealed that he orchestrated Seraphina's suspension from school, subsequently making John's bullying even worse. Although there are hints of a larger plot featuring the organization EMBER, the story mainly centers around John's experiences at Wellston which makes Arlo the more immediate antagonist.
  • John ends up taking the role during the second season, with his violent tendencies to lash out brutally at anyone who crosses him even slightly. When the Safe House is established, he openly antagonizes it, threatening violence to anyone who joins, and later publicly beating down Blyke while he was in charge of heading the club. It takes Seraphina regaining her abilities and talking him down to bring him back to his senses, but not before his actions at last have reached a head and Vaughn decides to suspend John indefinitely.
• Hero Killer: The shady organisation known as EMBER has recently been going around executing self-titled superheroes.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Sera's fight with John after she gets her Ability back plays out like this.
• Internal Reveal: In the season 1 finale, John is finally outed as Joker and having abilities to Sera after piecing it together by noticing how Joker has the exact same build and moveset as John.
• I Shall Taunt You: Because of his lack of power, John finds himself taunting his opponents nearly as often as beating them hand-to-hand.
• Jerkass: Arlo, Wellston's King. He also doubles as Jerk with a Heart of Gold, as rare as it is. He admires Rei, the former king of Weston high school, and is really close, and cares about Remi.
  • Elaine. When John first joins the class, she is initially amicable. As soon as she finds out that that John has no ability, her personality does a complete 180 and she reacts with complete disgust from having "wasted her time talking to him."
• Jerkass Has a Point : Arlo, when John berates him about letting Seraphina get hurt when John ordered him to protect her. Arlo counters by mentioning the fact that due to being a closer friend to her and having a stronger ability than Arlo John was better suited to protect her, but has been inactive due to his inhibition to use his power.
• Kamehame Hadoken: How Blyke's powers tend to appear offensively.
• The Last Straw: when John learns Seraphina was abducted by a group of schoolmates who beat her up overnight.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: For a while, whether or not John had powers was practically a Driving Question. Then they used a picture of him activating his powers, complete with Glowing Eyes of Doom, as the official image you click on to reach the comic in Webtoons.
• Lightning Bruiser: Seraphina's ability lets her move too fast for the eye to see during fights.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Seraphina to John. When she is suspended from school, John's bullying intensifies and he begins to despise his classmates.
• Lured into a Trap: Arlo tricks John into believing they have the start of a friendship then coaxes him to the turf war field to have him ambushed to force him into using his ability, all so Arlo could force him to take his place in the power based hierarchy their school, and society, is run on. John just wanted to be left alone and Arlo quickly finds that John is much stronger than him, and that John has a very brutal vindictive side that emerges when using his powers.
  • Although John knew Terrance sets up a trap, Blyke and Isen does not know until John told them.
• Meaningful Name: As a normal in a school full of superpowered students, John Doe^note A John Doe is the general term used for a missing person. is particularly fitting.
• Melting-Pot Nomenclature: Overlaps with Aerith and Bob; some names are clearly invented, while some seem to be derived from Chinese (e.g. Wenqi, Meili) and Japanese (e.g. Remi, Rei).
• Might Makes Right: People with more powerful abilities and higher power levels exist at the top of the food chain. Even Seraphina notes that she can do whatever she wants because she is stronger than everyone else. Blyke lampshades this later on after John takes the throne.

Blyke: Tell me, Isen. Where's the damn line?! What does this guy have to do for it to finally not be okay? Or does him being stronger than all of us just get him a free pass for everything?

• Mirror Character:
  • Despite being on opposite sides of the power spectrum, neither John nor Seraphina seemed to be able to escape judgement and criticism from their peers. It was partly for this reason that they eventually became friends.
  • In the past, John was an even more vicious tyrant in school than Arlo. In the present day, it's shown that he knows from experience what it's like to be a King.
  • John and Blyke are this when they have similar hairstyles, hot-headed, jogs often, likes chillstep, and even become depressed from guilt. Seraphina lampshades this.
• Morality Pet: John to Seraphina. Despite not sharing the same ideals, she is nonetheless protective of him and defends him from bullies. In turn...
  • Morality Chain: Seraphina functions as this to John. When she is suspended, John gradually becomes more violent and spiteful towards his peers due to the increased bullying.
• Mr. Fanservice: One striking shot of John waking up in the morning, revealing his surprisingly muscular upper half.
• Nerves of Steel: One of the reasons Arlo takes an interest in John is his seemingly complete lack of fear of high-tiers despite apparently having no power.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Waldo. When researching him, Isen and Remi note that while in any other district, his rampage wouldn't last a week, in a low-tier area like Brandish, he's essentially undefeatable.
• No Power, No Color: Cripples are unable to glow their eyes.
• No-Sell: Arlo's barriers are completely impenetrable to those with a lower power level than him. Even Seraphina damages herself breaking through it, as well as John, though she healed herself in seconds by rewinding the injury. Additionally, anyone who attacks the barrier appears to have the force the used reflected back on them, hurting them even more, though whenever his barrier breaks Arlo takes damage as well.
• Oh, Crap!: Isen when he realises that John was expelled from his previous school not because he beat up half his class, but because his previous school couldn't control him.
  • Arlo gets this when John's dead set on dethroning the Royals and breaking the school order.
• One Person, One Power: People are strictly born with a single power, however their power may have multiple different yet linked applications (e.g. Isen with his power "Hunter").
• Only Friend: Seraphina to John. Before this, Claire and Adrion.
• Ordinary High-School Student: Subverted with John, who introduces himself as this then turns out to actually be ordinary, as he has no supernatural ability, unlike everyone else. Double Subverted later on when it turns out he does have an ability; it was so powerful that he managed to take out half his class at his past school.
• The Perils of Being the Best: Seraphina was suffering from them until John liberated her mindset with his I-do-what-I-want attitude.
• Playing Card Motifs: Very similar to the school council in Shugo Chara!, the members of the student council have positions named after the face cards. These positions are King (currently occupied by Arlo), Queen (currently occupied by Remi), Jack (currently occupied by Blyke) and Ace (sometimes regarded as being occupied by Seraphina, although she, after abdicating from the Queen's position, did not return). Becomes especially apparent when John's identity gets called 'Joker', see Foreshadowing above.
• Plot Device: The Unordinary book written by John's dad, W. H. Doe, that inspired many high-tiers to become self-styled superheroes.
• Posthumous Character: Rei's first "appearance" is when his death was announced in a news broadcast in Chapter 6, but only his vigilante name was given in the report. His death wasn't "confirmed" until Chapter 41. A flashback special that was published between Seasons 1 and 2 focuses on his school career.
• Powers Do the Fighting: The way certain characters, like Rein and Arlo, tend to use their high-level abilities.
• Power Levels: Stated in-universe to range from 1 to 10. There are even people who can gauge ability levels for a price.
  • As stated by the Word of God, the power levels go as so: 1-1.9 are considered low-tiers, 2-3.4 are mid-tiers, 3.5-4.9 are elite-tiers and 5+ are considered high-tiers.
  • In the high-tier category is the sub-category, god-tier. With a power level of 6+ these guys are feared by all and are said to be impossible to defeat by those outside of the god-tier. And if you haven't forgotten, Seraphina has a power level of 8.
    • John's transcripts from New Boston show he was a 7, and he's later confirmed as a 7.5.
• Power Parasite: Both Spectre and Ember use conversion technology in order take powers from others and implant them to their members.
• Power-Up Full Color Change: Gavin turns shiny and purple when he powers up.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: John slowly becomes the main antagonist due to his anger issues and it's clear that Seraphina is the protagonist of the story now.
• Pull the Thread: Arlo realizing that things about John don't add up sets off the main plotline of the series.
• Punny Name:
  • Remi chooses X-Rei as her nickname, both as a reference to her brother's name (Rei) and nickname (X-Static), and as a pun on X-Ray.
  • Waldo, for whom Remi is searching in the Brandish arc. Comes to head when she asks one of his thugs Where's Waldo?.
• Reality Warper: Seraphina, Arlo, Seraphina's mother Narisa, and the other god-tiers. Also John.
• The Reason You Suck: Claire gives one to John after the latter beats up half their class in a curbstomp battle.
• Rewatch Bonus: A lot of earlier interactions and conversations take a whole new meaning after the revelation of John's true status.
• Sacrificial Lion: In Episode 319, William is executed by Jude of the Bureau for anonymously publishing UnOrdinary (retitled Untitled) and causing a new wave of vigilantes to spring up, in defiance of the leeway Jane's sacrifice gave his family.
• School of No Studying: Half the action takes place at Welston School and the adjacent dormitories, but it doesn't seem like much education is going on. Virtually no teachers show up in the series (aside from the Principal and school nurse Dr. Darren). The main characters don't seem to worry overmuch about their grades or tests (until it becomes a plot point in a flashback). The teens spend most of their onscreen time wandering the halls in their uniforms and getting into school-sanctioned fights, beating each other to a bloody pulp and having to get dragged to the school infirmary.
• Secret-Keeper: At least some among the school staff - including the headmaster, the doctor and the head of security - know that John is a god-tier, but they intentionally hide it from the rest of the school at his request.
• Shout-Out:
  • Seraphina is seen reading OFR-Ice, one of the author's older webcomics.
  • A pretty clear one to the Dragon Ball series. Blyke's energy beams greatly resemble the famous kamehameha attack and he is even see copying the attack from a television show as a child.
  • Remi demanding to know Where's Waldo? from one of his thugs.
  • In chapter 48, Isen, Blake and Remi go out to see Siren's Lament.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Cecile's point of view to Rei and Remi's idealism.
  • John's point of view regarding the Safe House and Remi's ideas of equality in general.
• School of Hard Knocks: Wellston policy is to let students use their powers, and it don't seem different elsewhere.
• Scary Flashlight Face: When Evie regales the other Safe House members with spooky stories she uses her illumination power to light up her hands beneath her face and cast spooky shadows.
• Shadowed Face, Glowing Eyes: To indicate that John is slipping back into the angry hyper violent mindset he had while masquerading as "Joker" his face is shown shaded to total darkness with only the eerie eye glow of his activated ability shown as detail while fighting the Rowden Royals.
• Spotting the Thread: The one thing that tells Arlo that something is up with John is that he's not afraid, unlike every other low tier in the series.
• Superpowerful Genetics: Genetics plays a roll in abilities, with High-tiers often born from other High-tiers. If there's a difference in tiers, it can also influence the child's abilities with them developing later in life. Terrance was born from a High-tier and a Low-tier, eventually becoming Elite-tier. John was born from someone who was crippled and a God-tier, resulting in him being a late-bloomer who reached God-tier.
• Superpower Lottery: God-tiers won by a large margin. Word of God noted that a god-tier can only be defeated by another god-tier.
  • With a power level of 8, the god-tiered Seraphina is leagues above everyone with her ability to manipulate time. This is even more impressive by the fact she was able to quickly deal with Arlo (a fellow god-tier) with little effort.
  • With the revelation of John's ability, it is clear that he too won big at the lottery.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Sometimes characters find time to talk even during heightened speed dashes, but the single case of Seraphina and her fight with John stands out, because her skillset relies on freezing time for everyone but herself, meaning characters shouldn't even be able to hear her speak when she lunges to attack.
• Superpowered Mooks: Justified — in a world where Everyone Is a Super, it's inevitable that the gangs of baddies employ mooks with combat-oriented abilities.
• Tall Poppy Syndrome: Inasmuch as everyone at school seems to adore Seraphina, the moment it becomes apparent she's losing her powers, it becomes clear that it's actually resentment rather than actual respect, as they're quick to mock behind her back.
• Tempting Fate: In Episode 28, Seraphina says "this will be the last we ever hear of 'Unordinary'".
• Time Master: Seraphina can't travel through time, but she can stop time - allowing her to eliminate entire teams in the blink of an eye - and "rewind" any injury she does manage to receive, restoring her to perfect health... and this is all in addition to Super-Strength, Super-Reflexes, and Super-Toughness. John explicitly compares her to a god.
  • Her mother, too, but Seraphina demonstrates her powers are stronger than her mom's when she decides she's done with her controlling ways, and presumably her sister Leilah as well.
• Token Good Teammate: Implied with Remi. Despite being one of the higher-tier students, she has so far not acted antagonistic towards John compared to her peers even when John lashes out at her on impulse.
• The Worf Effect: The differences in power levels make a considerable difference in terms of fight outcomes. Those that are higher tier are able to effortlessly deal with lower-tier opponents that John gets injured by.
• Thou Shall Not Kill: The powers of many of the strongest characters would be lethal under normal circumstances, such as lightning and lasers. And the fights are depicted as rather bloody, but when the students fight they tend to avoid doing anything permanent crippling due to self-control as part of their mastery. Averted when it comes to Spectre and EMBER, both of whom actively attempt to kill targets who serve no use to them..
• Unseen Evil: Spectre is an odd case, all members of the violent, teenager targeting, illicit experimenting criminal organization are shown greyed out with no identifiable features or with their faces in shadow and given no personal names except when they are posing as being unaffiliated with the group or pretending to be allied with the protagonists. The only exceptions are two members that have broken away from the main group and claim to be benevolent, though their trustworthiness is still in question.
• Unsound Effect: "SIGH AF" from John, among others.
• Underestimating Badassery: Arlo had John attacked knowing he was a high-tier. His mistake was believing he was stronger.
• Unwitting Test Subject:
  • EMBER is testing ability amplifying drugs by plying vengeful people in low-tier towns and communities with them, observing their reign of chaos and the eventual horrific side effects of withdrawal.
  • Spectre drugs high-tier ability users to remove their ability, then forces them to work for them in order to get treatments to restore their ability. Except those treatments turn out to only allow for temporary ability restoration making them have to come back again and again despite initial promises and they force their victim-recruits to be unconscious and unaware for the overnight procedures so the full extent of what they're doing to them is unclear.
• Villain Over for Dinner: Arlo invites Remi to meet and ask questions of his aunt with the Authorities over lunch to prove the Authorities are actually investigating Rei's death and can be trusted. Remi quickly realizes Arlo's aunt is Volcan who nearly killed Remi, and did kill Rei, confirming her suspicion that the authorities are behind the recent EMBER murders of superheroes. Unfortunately Arlo's aunt recognizes Remi as the masked hero X-Rei and through her identifies Issen and Blyke as her assistants marking their files as discontents to be targeted with the Authorities.
• What You Are in the Dark: Blyke hunts down Lennon and realizes he's amped-up and probably out of his league, so decides to call it quits. He hesitates though and instead jumps into the fray to save the lives of a group of locals who would have been killed by Lennon, telling them to run even though he's likely to get killed in the ensuing fight. He only survives due to the intervention of a more experienced hero.
• World of Technicolor Hair: Practically everyone but Arlo and John has impossible hair colours, like pink, magenta, bright green, and teal.
• Xanatos Gambit: Subverted during Episodes 53 to 55. While Arlo can get John to reveal his true power or a chance to subjugate John and show him who is boss, he underestimates how powerful John is and essentially puts his position as King in danger as he has now earned the enmity of the true strongest male student in the school.

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