Die, Die, Die, Comics Cliches

[bartl]

Well, SOMEBODY's got to start the topic.

One problem is that, over the last couple of decades, it has become fashionable to "break the rules", often without paying attention for the basic rule for breaking rules: Don't break a rule unless you know what the purpose of the rule is, and why your case is exceptional.

Still, to be really broken, the reasons behind the cliche's should be recognized, and there are cases where that just hasn't really happened. Here are a few.

1) "If you kill me, then you will be just as bad as I am." When it's been broken, the hero usually just says, "No, I won't." BANG! When Superman killed the Phantom Zone villains, they showed suffering, but didn't really address the issue; they merely recognized that it existed. There HAVE been a number of cases where it has been better examined; in print, the James Bond short story, A VIEW TO A KILL (no relation to the movie) considered it. It has become one of the themes of P. N. Elrod's THE VAMPIRE FILES, as well.

The best handling of that cliche was the major theme of the Japanese TRIGUN, as well, and covered very well there. It would not be giving away too much to say that the major goal of the villain was to get the hero to kill, for the express purpose of making the hero just like the villain. But in American comics, while it has been broken, it has never really been examined.

2) "The goal of the hero is to catch the bad guy." There was one series I know of that broke the cliche. I don't know how many here remember THUNDERSTRIKE; it's a wonderful example of how a good theme and a good plot are not sufficient for a good story, if the rest of the writing is bad. Unlike other superheroes, Thunderstrike followed the dictum, "Protect people first, protect property second, then worry about catching the bad guy." Even better, it was never explicitly stated (remember relevance?). And the cliche continues.

3) "I'm so super, I don't need anything else." There have been cases of superheroes who used equipment to augment their abilities and cover their weaknesses, but they are few and far between. There was a "What If?" where Tony Stark gave powered armor to the Avengers, to augment their powers, but that was an out of continuity story. Even superheroes who are supposed to be thinkers first, like Doc Samson, rely entirely on their powers, and use equipment to cover their weaknesses only rarely. I remember when Steve Gerber wrote Hawkeye, and he came up with the radical realization: He wasn't bulletproof. At least it started a trend for non-invunerable heroes to put on some Kevlar.

[Steven Grant]

I remember back in the day, I came into a discussion including Roger Stern and John Byrne -- I can't remember if this was in the Marvel days or before any of us started working with the company -- on which Marvel heroes someone would be if they were a Marvel hero. Byrne said he'd be Iron Man, because Iron Man's the one guy who encases himself in armor before he gets into a fight, and armor will all sorts of weapons in it. I was asked who I'd be, which I'd never really thought about before that, and after a moment's thought said Hawkeye. Everyone was baffled, but I was just following John's logic, and explained, "Iron Man may dress in armor but he still goes out into one on one combat. Hawkeye doesn't have to get within 100 feet of anyone he fights."

[Michael P]

1) "If you kill me, then you will be just as bad as I am." When it's been broken, the hero usually just says, "No, I won't."
Or, "I can live with that."

[blast_front]

One cliche that has always bothered me is when the heroes face off against some uber-threat and can only defeat it by holding hands and "pooling their power/will/strength". Even as a youngling, I could smell the cop-out of a writer who had written himself into a corner.

Not that an all out slugfest would be a better solution....

[Dennis]

hot chicks who kick ass
muscles showing through clothing
gritting teeth
the banter about pop culture that is used to ease us into a scene

[Brenz]

Some that bug me, so I'm deliberately using in order overturn right now:

--"it was all a dream!" (and, implicitly, the entire story was a meaningless tease)

--Evil twins

--Death of the hero's girlfriend/wife to create sympathy (and, implicitly, suggesting she's weaker, more vulnerable, a victim, and it's more tragic)

--Miscarriage, similar to the girlfriend/wife

--Dead characters coming back

[WatsonGlenn]

I hate when villains refer to themselves as evil or villainous. No one thinks of themselves that way.

I prefer the new Doctor Light who has convinced himself that he is the victim and this justifies what he does nop matter how evil. Or Dr Doom who really believes he should be in charge and does not see himself as evil. Magneto is like that too though he did form the Brotherhood of EVIL mutants.

Now that I think about it the whole idea of evil villians is not at common as it used to be.

[The Mirrorball Man]

I hate when villains refer to themselves as evil or villainous. No one thinks of themselves that way.
Well, see, that's a cliché too.

Lots of people actually think they're evil and hate themselves for that: they realize that they're selfish, aggressive, that their behavior is potentially harmful to their loved ones, but they just can't prevent themselves from being destructive. It happens to overachievers, alcoholics and other people with addictive personalities.

And here we jump into another cliché. ;)

[blast_front]

Another cliche that has popped up in the last decade or so is "tell, don't show" gimmick of trading on a character's rep. DC has been the biggest perpetrator of this with Superman, but Marvel has been doing it with Captain America lately, as well.

"With Mr. Powerful on our side, we'll surely win."
"Why?"
"Because he's Mr. Powerful."

It's an odd bit of circular logic where an "icon" is iconic because, well, he or she is an icon, while at the same time very little gets shown in the stories these days showing how this iconic status is obtained and maintained. It also creates a situation where "second tier" (and how I hate that term) characters rarely get a chance to break out, as the wagons are tightly circled around the core franchises.

From an economic standpoint it makes sense, but from a creative one it seems stifling to me.

[NatGertler]

Some that bug me, so I'm deliberately using in order overturn right now:

--"it was all a dream!" (and, implicitly, the entire story was a meaningless tease)There was a recent issue of Disney's Comic Zone where more than half of the many short stories in there ended like this. Once you see that pattern, it made everything seem rather pointless. (Not that Comic Zone stories are particularly pointful to begin with.

[Dennis]

in sudan there's the Janjaweed, translated: evil men on horseback

[Steven Grant]

Magneto is like that too though he did form the Brotherhood of EVIL mutants.
In the mid-80s, when Paul Smith and I were supposed to be doing a HOWARD THE DUCK series, the one "Marvel-themed" thing I created for it was The Brotherhood Of Morally Ambiguous Mutants...

[Steven Grant]

Another cliche that has popped up in the last decade or so is "tell, don't show" gimmick of trading on a character's rep.
For a moment, I translated that in my head into "don't ask, don't tell" and thought it was about to get really interesting...

[badMike]

Without comic book cliches, I never would have learned foreign languages:

German: Mein gott and Gott in Himmel

French: Sacre bleu

Spanish: Ay carumba (tho' that may have been The Simpsons)

Yesterday I was reading an old Man-Thing story in Marvel Fanfare and upon seeing the creature a character actually said, "Good lord, *choke*."

[blast_front]

"Good lord, *choke*."

Hah! That line was to EC horror comics what chicken is to chicken soup.

[Steven Grant]

Without comic book cliches, I never would have learned foreign languages:

German: Mein gott and Gott in Himmel

French: Sacre bleu

Spanish: Ay carumba (tho' that may have been The Simpsons)

Sigh. Now I ban be feeling all nostalgic for BLACKHAWK, by yiminy...

[bartl]

In the mid-80s, when Paul Smith and I were supposed to be doing a HOWARD THE DUCK series, the one "Marvel-themed" thing I created for it was The Brotherhood Of Morally Ambiguous Mutants...
I suspect that Steve Gerber would have approved. Of course, I also suspect that Steve Gerber is a lurker here...

[Steven Grant]

I doubt Steve has time to lurk here, but we've discussed my HTD stories (all two that were printed), and, while they were far from great (my assessment, not his), he has told me he thought they were the only post-Gerber HTDs in the spirit in which the character was intended... which was what I intended. My personal favorite was the IT'S A BEAUTIFUL LIFE parody where in every instance other characters' lives would have turned out better had Howard never existed...

[Perry Holley]

Oh yeah, that Xmas story you wrote. That was a hoot.

[mgs]

Well, SOMEBODY's got to start the topic.

One problem is that, over the last couple of decades, it has become fashionable to "break the rules", often without paying attention for the basic rule for breaking rules: Don't break a rule unless you know what the purpose of the rule is, and why your case is exceptional.

Still, to be really broken, the reasons behind the cliche's should be recognized, and there are cases where that just hasn't really happened. Here are a few.

1) "If you kill me, then you will be just as bad as I am." When it's been broken, the hero usually just says, "No, I won't." BANG! When Superman killed the Phantom Zone villains, they showed suffering, but didn't really address the issue; they merely recognized that it existed. There HAVE been a number of cases where it has been better examined; in print, the James Bond short story, A VIEW TO A KILL (no relation to the movie) considered it. It has become one of the themes of P. N. Elrod's THE VAMPIRE FILES, as well.

The best handling of that cliche was the major theme of the Japanese TRIGUN, as well, and covered very well there. It would not be giving away too much to say that the major goal of the villain was to get the hero to kill, for the express purpose of making the hero just like the villain. But in American comics, while it has been broken, it has never really been examined.

2) "The goal of the hero is to catch the bad guy." There was one series I know of that broke the cliche. I don't know how many here remember THUNDERSTRIKE; it's a wonderful example of how a good theme and a good plot are not sufficient for a good story, if the rest of the writing is bad. Unlike other superheroes, Thunderstrike followed the dictum, "Protect people first, protect property second, then worry about catching the bad guy." Even better, it was never explicitly stated (remember relevance?). And the cliche continues.

3) "I'm so super, I don't need anything else." There have been cases of superheroes who used equipment to augment their abilities and cover their weaknesses, but they are few and far between. There was a "What If?" where Tony Stark gave powered armor to the Avengers, to augment their powers, but that was an out of continuity story. Even superheroes who are supposed to be thinkers first, like Doc Samson, rely entirely on their powers, and use equipment to cover their weaknesses only rarely. I remember when Steve Gerber wrote Hawkeye, and he came up with the radical realization: He wasn't bulletproof. At least it started a trend for non-invunerable heroes to put on some Kevlar.
again, the reliance of superhero and superhero-type comics to make a point about all comics is usually frustrating and goes nowhere.

to see what others have to say about these things, I think it is necessary to go look at comics other than the ones, I believe you are looking at.

[bartl]

again, the reliance of superhero and superhero-type comics to make a point about all comics is usually frustrating and goes nowhere.

to see what others have to say about these things, I think it is necessary to go look at comics other than the ones, I believe you are looking at.
This thread was a response to a request in Grant's column to start such a thread.

[bartl]

Here's a subset of the lack of enhancing equipment cliche; the chainmail bikini. This is the cliche that a woman who is going out to get into fights is going to wear a costume that exposes a maximum amount of flesh, and provides a minimum amount of protection.

[lonewolf23k]

Here's a subset of the lack of enhancing equipment cliche; the chainmail bikini. This is the cliche that a woman who is going out to get into fights is going to wear a costume that exposes a maximum amount of flesh, and provides a minimum amount of protection.

Well, the obvious answer to that is the distraction effect...

[Adam Crocker]

Here's a subset of the lack of enhancing equipment cliche; the chainmail bikini. This is the cliche that a woman who is going out to get into fights is going to wear a costume that exposes a maximum amount of flesh, and provides a minimum amount of protection.

The roleplaying game GURPS actually mocked this cliche by inventing an ability in one of its books called "bullet proof nudity."

[badMike]

Hah! That line was to EC horror comics what chicken is to chicken soup.Now that you mention it, I suppose the Man-Thing story I read was supposed to be an EC homage. Not a great one, but I guess it was.

[jonahhex]

I doubt Steve has time to lurk here, but we've discussed my HTD stories (all two that were printed), and, while they were far from great (my assessment, not his), he has told me he thought they were the only post-Gerber HTDs in the spirit in which the character was intended... which was what I intended. My personal favorite was the IT'S A BEAUTIFUL LIFE parody where in every instance other characters' lives would have turned out better had Howard never existed...

DAMN!!! sounds like yet another old comic book to add to my wantlist. I always avoided the non-Gerber issues out of some weird loyalty, but if Steve Gerber himself read 'em, I am there.

[Steven Grant]

That was in an issue of BIZARRE ADVENTURES (#25, maybe), a comics-sized issue (previously it had been magazine sized) with a skeletal Santa Claus on the cover... I colored that story myself, by the way, my only pro coloring job. Marvel's coloring dept. had fits because I used silver, which nobody ever did; I told them to just go with it. (This was when the concept of high quality paper, which the comic was printed on, was new.) There were a couple color things that didn't quite make the transition to print (varying shades of blue, mainly) but overall it came out pretty much the way I wanted it to look. Back then, everything was still color-coded, so most colorists were trained to consider the color code first and the actual look of the comic second, with a strong emphasis on primary colors for the foreground and secondary colors or flat knockouts for the background. I didn't know the color code and didn't care about the coloring rules, I just knew what I wanted it to look like, so that's what I did. It was pretty striking for the time...

[badMike]

That was in an issue of BIZARRE ADVENTURES (#25, maybe), a comics-sized issue (previously it had been magazine sized) with a skeletal Santa Claus on the cover...Not to be a total dork, but it's number 34. I know because it used to be one of my favorites as a kid and I read it every Christmas for years. Not just the HOWARD story, but there's a great "Son of Santa" story and a bunch of other really offensive/wacky stuff. I think it was the last issue of the series. The cover's amazing, too.

[Steven Grant]

#34. Good. Got that settled. I think it may have been the last issue, though maybe it went to #37. My only real problem with the "Son Of Santa" story is that the title suggested something altogether different from the story's pretty literal interpretation, esp. coming only a few years after that summer, and I would have liked to have read that other story.

Of course, the first time I saw the title, on a product sheet at Marvel, I thought it said "Son Of Stan," and I would have loved to have see that story too...

[bartl]

Of course, the first time I saw the title, on a product sheet at Marvel, I thought it said "Son Of Stan," and I would have loved to have see that story too...
Well, I suspect that Stan Lee is the only man who could father a son without any need for a mother...

[Steven Grant]

I was thinking more in terms of someone committing gruesome very public murders because of "messages" he got from reading '60s Marvel comics...

[WatsonGlenn]

the chainmail bikini.

I know its a stupid look but I still love it.

[Publius]

Bart,

Since you used the Phantom Zone story as an example, let me share my thoughts on how it was initially good for the character, but rapidly disintegrated into a really thoughtless approach to Superman.

It was great that Superman was able to perform here when the world needed him. Obviously, the threat of the Phantom Zone criminals was just too great. It wasn't solely Supes seeking justice for the murder of an entire planet...it was also a preemptive measure since they promised they would do the same to his earth, and no prison could effectively contain them.

His guilt, mental deterioration, adoption of another heroic persona to balance the 'executioner' Kal-El, self-imposed exile, and eventual 'redemption' through the process of refusing to kill an opponent for sport on Mongul's Warworld was a more thorough approach to the situation than most have attempted.

But there were a few instances in subsequent runs that took Superman's aversion to bloodshed to ridiculous extremes. Take for instance the DarkHorse 'Aliens' crossover in which Superman refused to slay the aliens because he had sworn never to kill another sentient lifeform.

You have to take into account that Supes grew up in a rural area...and was familiar with hunting, self-protection (Pa Kent has pulled out the rifle a few times) and the like. My own conviction is that Clark could eventually reconcile himself to the fact that he peformed his duty by executing the Phantom Zone Criminals and not to the extent that he would be too emotionally crippled to employ lethal force against essentially mindless forces of nature to save a little girl.

It's kind of the same thing with Captain America. Some writers have approached his wartime past appropriately, but not a small number have glossed over the fact that Steve Rogers engaged in brutal, mortal combat with a determined enemy--and it's a little insulting to readers' intelligence to imply that Cap was able to skirt through virtually an entire war by just zonking Nazis into unconsciousness with his shield.

I'm not certain every writer considers the long-term ramifications of the difficult moral choices they present. Some take the Spider-Man route (an otherwise excellent movie) and offer an impossible choice (such as choosing between the life of a loved one and a car full of civilians), only to have the hero surmount the laws of physics and bypass the decision altogether, and others seem to imply that there are only two essential 'types' of heroes, and no choices in between being of the Superman/Batman 'do no mortal harm under any circumstances' mould, or the Punisher's 'vengeance is mine' ethic.

On a side note, I've always wondered why it's so much more acceptable to condemn criminals like Zod to a meaningless, hellish eternity in the Phantom Zone (the Zone would be equivalent, I suppose, to life in the 'hole') with the possibility of them escaping than to simply end their mortal lives entirely. If you aren't going to give them so much as a book to read or any possibility of redemption, what's the point?

How'd you like to have a license plate that says 'NLB4ZD'???

[ChildOfTheDarkholde]

Is narration a writing cliche?
It seems that every comic book I pick up is narrated by the protagonist...I know that narration works in many ways, but I personally find it a little annoying after seeing it in every comic book...

[Steven Grant]

Yeah, I think first person narration pretty much has gotten worn out. Some people still manage interesting things with it, but not many...

[bartl]

Yeah, I think first person narration pretty much has gotten worn out. Some people still manage interesting things with it, but not many...
I kind of liked the 2nd person narration of IRON FIST.

[badMike]

Is narration a writing cliche?
It seems that every comic book I pick up is narrated by the protagonist...I know that narration works in many ways, but I personally find it a little annoying after seeing it in every comic book...I've been reading a bunch of Alex Ross books lately (Marvels, Earth X, Kingdom Come) and I have to say I'm sick already of the "non-involved narrator" the books employed, which is weird because all three books have 3 different writers. So why does each one have the same dumb setup? Marvels has the photographer, Earth X has Machine Man and Kingdom Come the preacher, all of whom amble through the book, not affecting or not being affected by the plot. It's more of a distraction than adding anything to the story.

Although, I don't mind Busiek's narrators in Astro City probably because the stories are actually about them, not just them watching other characters do things.

[Bob Violence]

I was thinking more in terms of someone committing gruesome very public murders because of "messages" he got from reading '60s Marvel comics...

"Son of Stan"? :o

[Steven Grant]

Yeah, every time I saw the title "Son Of Santa," for some reason I read it as "Son Of Stan," and had to correct myself.

I like the concept of "Son Of Santa," as a serial killer getting messages from the reindeer at the zoo that he had to show who was naughty and who was nice. That's sort of like the old comedy routine -- I forget who did it -- of Boris Karloff doing a dramatic reading of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town"...

[bartl]

I like the concept of "Son Of Santa," as a serial killer getting messages from the reindeer at the zoo that he had to show who was naughty and who was nice. That's sort of like the old comedy routine -- I forget who did it -- of Boris Karloff doing a dramatic reading of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town"...
Off topic, but isn't it interesting that a lot of actors who play intensely evil people are actually very nice people in real life (coming to mind immediately are William "Boris Karloff" Pratt, Vincent Price, and Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund).

[Radical]

Two things irk me about comics.

One is the cliche of how, although superheroes run into miraculous tech like teleporters, healing gizmos, webbing, limitless non-polluting energy, etc. they never share this tech with "normal" people. IRL if anyone ever invented/discovered that kind of technology Earth's standard of living would advance by centuries (and said inventor/discoverer could name their own price).

The other is rather specific to Superman's origin. An entire Science Council runs the place...and only one scientist discovers the planet's gonna blow? It should be more like the whole freakin' Council compared notes! (Although I once read a story on the Never Ending Board about how the Council believed Jor-El but kept mum to prevent a panic...)

[bartl]

The other is rather specific to Superman's origin. An entire Science Council runs the place...and only one scientist discovers the planet's gonna blow? It should be more like the whole freakin' Council compared notes! (Although I once read a story on the Never Ending Board about how the Council believed Jor-El but kept mum to prevent a panic...)
Not if the planet's explosion was based on theories not in general acceptance. It takes a long time for new theories to break through old school thinking, even if there's plenty of evidence backing the theories.

[Bob Violence]

Two things irk me about comics.

One is the cliche of how, although superheroes run into miraculous tech like teleporters, healing gizmos, webbing, limitless non-polluting energy, etc. they never share this tech with "normal" people. IRL if anyone ever invented/discovered that kind of technology Earth's standard of living would advance by centuries (and said inventor/discoverer could name their own price).

The other is rather specific to Superman's origin. An entire Science Council runs the place...and only one scientist discovers the planet's gonna blow? It should be more like the whole freakin' Council compared notes! (Although I once read a story on the Never Ending Board about how the Council believed Jor-El but kept mum to prevent a panic...)
I always figured science on Krypton to be very political and in-bred. If there were only one civilization on Earth, funding through the one gov't wouldn't go to "People Who Want To Tell Us We're Doomed" but to "People Who Tow The Line". Guys like Jor-El would get the crumbs.

[Adam Crocker]

On a side note, I've always wondered why it's so much more acceptable to condemn criminals like Zod to a meaningless, hellish eternity in the Phantom Zone (the Zone would be equivalent, I suppose, to life in the 'hole') with the possibility of them escaping than to simply end their mortal lives entirely. If you aren't going to give them so much as a book to read or any possibility of redemption, what's the point?

Not sure myself, especially since, as far as I know, there's never been a provision for releasing the criminals if they are pentient. Grant Morrison tried addressing this in the story he did for JLA Classified. Superman said that death is of little concern to many of the opponents they faced and so the punishments that the League has had to devise over the years tend to make execution look like a walk in the park. (They League was about to slap Gorilla Grodd in the Phantom Zone.)

But that begs the question, if you are going to devise what you regard as a fate worst than death, why is death so awful to you in the first place?

How'd you like to have a license plate that says 'NLB4ZD'???

I'd love it. :cool: