Ask The Tropers

Designated Hero in Civil War II Print Comic

Ah, Civil War II, the comic book that reignited the old discussions about who is the hero and who is the villain in Marvel's Civil War. I really want to figure out, once and for all, who is the real Designated Hero of the story.

Gamera 85 (I tried to contact him but he didn't answer) defended Carol with the following argument: "So here's the issue here. Beyond blaming Carol for deaths she did not commit, not even indirectly as Thanos and Hawkeye killed Rhodey and Bruce respectively, as well as ignoring the fact the "innocent" woman she accused turned out to be a superhero hating extremist all along and the wider context of the crime Miles was predicted to commit (And how pursuing an investigation for it could've stopped a certain Hydra Double Agent), and even ignoring the fact that precognition is not a theory in the Marvel Universe, but scientific fact as evidenced by time travel, psychics and machines that can even predict the future, let' focus on a key detail. Tony Stark ATTACKED Carol in a suit that looked like her dead boyfriend. He fired lethal weapons at her. Repeatedly refused to stand down when asked to by Carol. He had earlier committed Terrorism by attack the Triskelion. He has assaulted Carol twice now and is clearly trying to kill her... and she's in the wrong for defending herself? Really? That makes her the designated hero example?"

"I guess we're ignoring the fact Tony kidnapped a man and tortured him, all to get those experiment results which are tainted as a result of said torture. And he assaulted a head of state to do it by tresspassing on their sovereign territory. But the Inhumans are jerks I guess, so they deserved it huh? Yeah, I have a bone to pick with the Inhumans vs X-Men entry too, as it ignores the fact the Inhumans are trying to find a cure for the X-Men, trying to keep them from being harmed by the cloud and the mutants do not explain that they're already out of time to find a cure and just attack them outright with no provocation. The entry even ignores how the crossover ends, with Medusa herself learning that the cloud is about to saturate the atmosphere and kill all mutants... and then she instantly kills the cloud herself because that's the only solution obviously, basically revealing this entire war could've been avoided if the X-Men just told the Inhumans the truth."

"But hey, better to find an easy person to blame in both cases, right? And both events do suck, a fact I won't argue, so who cares if we leave out other details that kinda show that this tropes more easily applies to the other side of the fighting. Frankly, I haven't heard one solid defense for what Carol should've done when Tony attacked her. And if we're using alt. Universes to justify the Mutants actions in Iv X, then fine! In another universe, as detailed in the lead up to Infinity Warps, Carol broke off her engagement with Tony to free Miles from his prison bubble thing... and took what appears to be a mortal blow from Tony's Carolbuster suit in the process."

"Tony. Was Trying. To Kill. Carol Danvers. Period. I find this continued attempt to blame Carol for putting the guy who ASSAULTED HER into a coma very "Victim Blaming" of its proponents. Like if a wife puts an abusive husband into a coma, suddenly she's a criminal too I guess? Next woman who knocks out her rapist and gives him brain damage, charge them with attempted murder, right? And sure, Tony didn't do anything nearly as bad as that... but he did commit Kidnapping, Torture and Terrorism in a short span of time. Yet he does not pay for a single one of his crimes and the comics community forgives him just as easily it seems."

"Tony deserves to be called what he is in the story, as the comic is clearly on his side and even ends with Carol throwing herself onto her sword in anguish over her mistakes while Tony's "death" is lamented as a tragedy. It's not, he attacked her, he got what was coming to him. He's the designated hero of CW 2, not Carol. Carol was presented as the misguided antagonist at best while Tony was allowed to run rough shod over her and scream on his soap box. She never got a chance to present her case! EVER! And we keep blaming her for things that other people did! It's ridiculous!"

"The entry should be switched around, the comic clearly sides with Tony Stark. By definition of trope, the author isn't trying to excuse Carol's actions, they are trying to excuse Tony. He suffers no real lasting consequences for his actions, while Carol has to repeatedly blame herself for things she didn't do! And the same goes for Iv X, as that comic is very clearly on the mutant's side. Neither entry fits the trope and is just someone complaining about characters not being perfect. And the implication that Carol should've let Tony punch her face into the pavement and not defend herself, while ignoring everything he did, SCREAMS sexist bias in my opinion."

"Those are my criticisms, feel free to discuss."

So, what do we do here? I'm perfectly aware that Designated Hero had a TRS clean-up thread, but it was closed because people were using the trope simply to criticize heroes didn't like.

By the way, I already asked this question at Is this an example? to get a proper consensus.

Brian Michael Bendis' Superman = Audience-Alienating Era Print Comic

Okay, I gotta ask: is Superman (Brian Michael Bendis) truly an Audience-Alienating Era? The entry reads:

"While not universally hated, Superman (Brian Michael Bendis) is widely disliked by many Superman fans for a variety of reasons, with many seeing it as the biggest example of DC's poor creative direction around the end of The New10s. The run was already met with immense scepticism before it debuted, owing to forcibly ending the beloved Peter J. Tomasi run on the book, and Bendis' extremely controversial reception, and this only compounded as the run progressed and Bendis' run became infamous for making widely divisive decisions which alienated long-time fans, most infamous among them being his decision to give Jon Kent a Plot-Relevant Age-Up (the backlash to Bendis would infamously mock fans for in both the book itself and on twitter) and have Clark publicly reveal himself as Superman, both of which were derided as spitting in the face of fans. Bendis' run also became known for its weak villains, with a large amount of time spent on Generic Doomsday Villain Rogal Zaar and the overlong, directionless "Leviathan" storyline which eventually petered out into an Aborted Arc despite continual promotion, as well as his well-known quirks such as meandering dialogue and scattershot approach to continuity and established mythology. All in all, despite the substantial push, Bendis' run would end unceremoniously after a little over two years and leaving Phillip Kennedy Johnson to pick up the pieces."

First of, the entry kinda shoots itself in the foot several times by stating that the Bendis era isn't as hated as much as it is divisive.

Secondly, websites and reviewers like Superman Homepage, Comic-Watch, Fortress of Solitude and DC Comics News have positive reviews for the issues directly written by Bendis so there's support for Bendis' comics.

Third, the general consensus for the Bendis era is that "good concepts with bad execution, Superman as a character has a pretty good portrayal but the villains are mediocre", so I sincerely don't know whether the people who hate this run are either a vocal minority or a very sizeable crowd.

Fourth, last time I checked, Audience-Alienating Era applies when

1. the run is a critical and financial disappointment

2. any changes caused by this run are reverted by later stories

3. any time this story is referenced to, it's done in a negative and mocking manner.

So, what do you say?

By the way, I already asked this at Is this an example? to get a proper consensus?

John Byrne's Superman = Audience-Alienating Era Print Comic

Ok, I gotta ask, can John Byrne's Superman, especially The Man of Steel be considered an Audience-Alienating Era?

First of, The Man of Steel was initially listed in the YMMV section as Condemned by History by the following argument: "Back in 1986, Man of Steel sold extremely well and was hailed as the story which modernized and made Superman good and fresh again thanks to scraping off the Silver Age "silliness". Over time, though, Byrne's vision was gradually rejected and ultimately retconned out of continuity. Most of his contributions (the birthing matrix, the unfeeling Krypton...) and interpretations (Superman being the only son of Krypton who rejects his immigrant heritage and declares to be fully American...) were eventually deemed mistakes and expunged from the mythos, whereas most of Silver Age lore and characters (Supergirl, Krypto, the Phantom Zone and its inmates, the Fortress of Solitude...), which he attempted to write off because of their alleged childishness and irrelevance, have been brought back. Nowadays, Man of Steel is considered a dated origin which has aged badly (especially compared to the Batman and Wonder Woman's reboots), and not even Post-Crisis Superman fans seem to want it back., but was later removed.

Secondly, John Byrne's run itself is listed in the The DCU's section for Audience-Alienating Era under the following argument: "Although John Byrne's 80's Superman's run got praise and good sales back in the day, it also gained many vocal detractors who decried the erasure of many classic characters and concepts, the loss of the whimsical tone and the colorful high sci-fi/fantasy concepts, the diminishing of Superman's complex dual identity, the messing-up of the Legion of Super-Heroes, the unfortunate message that "immigrants should forget their origins", the shoehorning and mishandling of the New Gods, the blatant misogyny of some stories (Big Barda being mind-controlled, raped and hypnotized into being a porno actress comes to mind), and the long-term damage done to the mythos caused by Byrne eliminating anything not protected by his Golden Age nostalgia. History -and DC, who would go to undo most of what Byrne did- ended up siding with them, and nowadays that period is disliked and disregarded by everybody but Byrne diehards."

An era can only be considered as Audience-Alienating if... 1. the era is a critical and financial disappointment even during the time of release 2. any changes the era brings to the franchise are removed by later stories 3. any time the era is referenced to by later stories, it's almost always in a negative manner.

I bring this up because a lot of examples in AAE come off as blatant editorializing. What do you think?

Problems with Spider-Man Beyond Print Comic

The YMMV page of Spider-Man Beyond has certain entries that come off as reactionary and a bit controversial, such as...

• Dork Age: While Nick Spencer’s run had its controversies, it was largely acclaimed for its repairs to the Spider-Man mythos, and its fair critiques of previous attempts to artificially change the character. Come Beyond, it’s clear Marvel did not learn a damn thing.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The story in general is supposed to be a tragedy, according to Editor Nick Lowe. It certainly is tragic, though not entirely in the way it was intended, and by the end one wonders what the point of all the struggles everyone went through really was.

Dork Age applies when:

1. the story is a critical and financial disappointment

2. any changes the story brings have to undone by later stories

3. anytime the story referenced to, it has to be done in a negative and mocking manner.

Too Bleak, Stopped Caring applies when all sides involved in the story's main conflict and equally unlikeable (pedophiliac serial killer vs genocidal slave trader) or the heroes' efforts ultimately amount to nothing and the universe still sucks. Since the story features clearly defined heroes and villains and the story delivers a positive outcome, the trope doesn't apply.

I feel like I need to remind people here that TV Tropes is not your personal echo chamber that you can use to say whatever you want and not expect any kind of response. So, what should we do about this?

First Come, First Serve? Print Comic

NOYB edited Earth-Prime to change two cases of singular possessive from "s'" to "s's", despite the former being considered entirely valid in English. Does the "first come, first serve" rule apply here?

Is "The Phantom" a Comic Strip or a Comic Book? Print Comic

The Phantom is one of the last surviving proto-super heroes whos strip has been low-key running since 1936. But the wast majority of recurring characters and story-arcs were made in the bi-weekly 30-page Stories from the 70+Year running Comic Books from Scandinavia and Australia). Nothing against the strip but maybe put comic book as the header? Or missed I a definition or three somewhere?

Do self-demonstrating pages get Laconics? Print Comic

Laconic.The Joker is a laconic for SelfDemonstrating.The Joker. Is this allowed?

Is there a limit to how many subpages a work's tropes should be split between? Print Comic

I saw Mr Media Guy 2 split the tropes for Calvin and Hobbes into pages using the same margins as the folders that were on the page previously... meaning that there are now no fewer than ten pages for its tropes. This seems like overkill, should it be scaled back?

What happened to the mouse... or the example Print Comic

In What Happened To The Mouse, there was an example from Elf Quest. That example seems to have been deleted during a re-org to put the examples in alphabetical order. Was that deliberate or has it just been missed? I'm asking because I don't want to jam it back in there if there was a good reason for taking it out. Original text:

• In the ElfQuest - New Blood story "One Life One Lie", the insane elf, Door, uses his rock-shaping powers to trap a human servant boy in rock restraints and shapes a stone knife coming down from the ceiling which threatens to enter the boy's chest and kill him, all because the boy dropped a bowl of fruit. The last time we see the boy, he's still alive and then... nothing. We never see the boy again or hear anything of his fate.

Satanik (Comic Book) - Entire trope spoilered. Print Comic

In the page on the Italian comic-book "Satanik", there is an entry for the The Hero Dies trope (modified to appear as Villain Protagonist Dies) where the trope name and the rest of the entry are enclosed in spoiler markup. I understood that entire tropes are not suppose to be spoilered out. Should I un-spoiler the trope name?

Adding tearjerker section to My Dress Up Darling page Print Comic

I want to add several examples of tearjerker for this series, but I don't know how to create a tearjerker section.

Overly Literal Troper? Print Comic

Dragon Master 408 removed an example of Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse from Seven Soldiers on the grounds that the example did not meet the standards for Freudian Excuse, except that I've looked at the main page for Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse, and nowhere on that page does it say that examples must qualify for Freudian Excuse - all that is required is that a character give an excuse for their behavior and be called out for it, a standard which the Seven Soldiers example meets. Can I undo the edit?

Comics section on trope pages Print Comic

I've noticed that on trope pages that are divided into sections by medium, there's sometimes both a "Comic Strips" and a "Comic Books" section. This corresponds directly to the name spaces Comic Strip and Comic Book, of course, so it's entirely reasonable.

Sometimes there's a section called "Comics" that combines these two. And sometimes there's just a "Comic Books" section that contains examples both from Comic Book and Comic Strip.

What's the preferred organization here? In the last case above, should the "Comic Books" section be split and the strip examples moved to a new section?

Unnecessary redirects Print Comic

There’s a troper going around renaming and redirecting pages. I don’t feel it’s necessary and I also don’t see a thread calling for it. An example is changing Jonathan Hickman's X-Men to X-Men (2019). The problem is Jonathan Hickman’s X-Men is a bunch of books, not just the volume that began that year. Is there a reason for this? It seems unnecessary.

Re PariahPrisoner Print Comic

Just an observation - using a full page from a comic as page image doesn't quite do the job if you can't read the talk bubbles - the text is microscopic. Is there a way of expanding theimage so as to be able to read it?

Valid They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character example? Print Comic

Sarcasm Kid added this to Justice League Incarnate, a comic about a multiversal Justice League traversing and policing the multiverse:

• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Earth-13 is toted as a magic based universe inspired from more superheroic versions of characters seen in the Grant Morrison Doom Patrol era and The Books of Magic. However, when Earth-13 is given a full glimpse in Justice League Incarnate #2 its hero community seems to only be made up of preexisting magic characters from the main DC Universe such as Raven and Black Orchid but with no attempt at making them seem unique or different from their regular counterparts.

This doesn't feel like an example to me. First off, I don't know where they're getting that first sentence from (the team members are the same as listed by Grant Morrison themselves in The Multiversity), and this isn't so much that they wasted a character as they didn't create characters this troper wanted.

Vertigo's Childrens Crusade Print Comic

I am planning on making a page for Vertigo's Children's Crusade event, but as there already exists a The Children's Crusade work page, obviously the new page with have to have a distinguisher attached. Should it be called The Children's Crusade (Vertigo), The Children's Crusade (1994), or something else?

Splitting Off the Animal Man Page Print Comic

I'd like to split the current Animal Man to create a new work page devoted solely to the Jeff Lemire run, as it is very different from the classic Morrison and Delano runs. Should the new page be labelled Jeff Lemires Animal Man, or Animal Man (2011)? I'm currently leaning towards the former, as Lemire seems to have been the sole writer for the entire run, but I figured I should probably ask for input first.

Is there ever newspaper filler text on a print comic or on an animated show? Print Comic

Every so often, in movies and TV shows, you see paragraphs like these in fictional newspapers:

Those come from an Earl Hays Press prop newspaper.

In a comic book, I think there's never any need for filler text, because any text that is not relevant to the story can be represented as squiggly lines, gray bars, etc.

As I'm not a regular reader of comic books, I don't know if I'm right about this or not. So my question is: when a newspaper appears in a comic book, is there ever any kind of filler text used?

Dec. 27, 2021 — Just remembered about the classic "Old Man Yells at Cloud" headline from The Simpsons. From the article body I can kind of make out "Oldest Abraham Simpson" and after that I'm not sure...

Massive Edit on RomanticTwoGirlFriendship Print Comic

Acebrock went through the entirety of "Romantic" Two-Girl Friendship and commented out every single example that they deemed "zero-context examples", even though several of them did have at least some context. Was this part of some cleanup project?