Superheroes

[Ihe]

With all this Hollywood superhero craze of the last few years my comic-loving side has woken up a bit. As part of my re-acquaintance with the genre, I've seen the Watchmen movie (again) recently, and I simply cannot stop wondering how the creators managed to come up with such meaningful, relatively serious, badass (sometimes ironic) names for their heroes. Rorschach, Dr Manhattan, Ozymandias, The Comedian... The gimmicks are awesome as well. I want to come up with cool, serious names like that . I've found good villain names are easier, but superheroes I struggle with.

In the near future I'll write something with a heroes/villains shtick in the background (working on a few ideas), and so far have come up with a few villain names I'm pleased with. I would appreciate if you guys threw a few nice ideas my way (names, gimmicks, abilities). Keep in mind it's a realistic setting and the heroes/villains are mostly normal humans (they can have special skills/equipment within the realm of possibility/real physics, and if they have actual "powers", they should be VERY limited in scope and highly contextual, maybe even a mild nuisance. No OP characters here: think Batman meets Watchmen vibe).

On a different note: I know the superhero thing is being force-fed to the public and there is an overload of it. There are films and books with different takes on the theme. Is there any fresh take on it that can be done or is the genre at its peak and can only go downhill from here on out? Watcha think?

 

[Loren]

I see this as the equivalent to flash paper.

People will burn out and find something else equally as shallow.

 

[Mad Alice]

The batman franchise has been going on in different incarnations since the thirties. Eighty years.
I think you just need the right format.
Watchmen was a graphic novel, put out by DC.
It was based upon characters from Charlton comics that were reworked into original characters.
The graphic novel was a comic containing another story comic as well as a supplementary novel attached to the graphic novel.

Watchmen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you want to do that, you will need a graphic artist.

 

[Ihe]

I see this as the equivalent to flash paper.
People will burn out and find something else equally as shallow.

Ouch. The comic format might lend itself to shallowness, but the plight of the superhero pervades a great deal of genre lit, and not all bad. God knows I've seen/read "serious" stories shallower than Watchmen, or the movie Super, or even the Batman trilogy. As long as morals, justice, and the person behind the mask are explored, any superhero work can be as deep as you want it to be. The only real difference I can find between superhero stories and other types of genre literature is the flashy gimmicks, tbh.

 

[Shyrka]

I think there's definitely a barrier of perception when it comes to considering superheroes as a 'serious' genre. The recent flurry of films has been going on since 2000, don't forget (by my reckoning, it started with Bryan Singer's X-Men), and shows no signs of abating. It's no more or less shallow than many a great sci-fi franchise - Star Trek or Star Wars are equally silly when you break them down and have far less rigourous rules behind their 'magic'. That said, I'm sure the current glut will end eventually - everything has its day, after all.

As far as names for heroes go, it's something I've wrestled with myself: the story I'm currently working on is superhero-related but I've decided not to stress about the names and just write. If you're aiming for realistic, I'm fairly sure you can avoid them more or less entirely and just pay lip service to them (see Jessica Jones, for example, or even the last Superman movie). If you're dead set on having hero names you can dig through the dictionary looking for unusual nouns and try to build something from there or, from the other side, think of a theme or power set and work back. I've had an immense amount of fun playing with the character generators in games like Champions Online, DC Universe Online & the original City of Heroes and usually the names 'fall out' at the end of the process.

 

[Loren]

Ouch. The comic format might lend itself to shallowness, but the plight of the superhero pervades a great deal of genre lit, and not all bad. God knows I've seen/read "serious" stories shallower than Watchmen, or the movie Super, or even the Batman trilogy. As long as morals, justice, and the person behind the mask are explored, any superhero work can be as deep as you want it to be. The only real difference I can find between superhero stories and other types of genre literature is the flashy gimmicks, tbh.

I should clarify what I said. From a literature perspective you are very much right. I grew on comic books (much to my parent's chagrin) and their heroes. From a movie perspective it is a little different. I think a good portion of the fanfare over the last decade centers around special effects, with each new movie trying to usurp the last one with bigger, badder, and more astounding action. That can only go so far.

As this technology matures people will not be so drawn to movies simply because they offer better special effects and those movies will need to rely more on the actual story and the actors that play the roles. Note, I really liked Robert Downey Jr. in his role of Tony Stark in the Iron Man character.

A lessor factor will be changing age group population demographics. Over the years the population of young adults has been declining slightly, which is where most of these movies are aimed.

As population proportions shift, so will the industry. As I said, this is a smaller contributing factor, but it should not be ignored in my opinion.

 

[Ihe]

Yes, as both of you have pointed out, nothing lasts forever: medical dramas, police procedurals, vampires, parody movies, zombies... The craze for all of these has eventually died down. Superheroes will have their decline,eventually. I totally agree about the obligatory shifting focus from special effects to actual good storytelling, as it should be. But for all that popularity surge-and-then-slump, I'll say that superheroes will never really die out. Just like detective stories, they simply will enter a cycle where they saturate the audience, then wait for the demographic to "refresh", then go on the rise again. IMO, the superhero fantasy is the ultimate fantasy. It won't go away that easily, unless, of course, something catastrophic like horrible natality rates hampers the "demographic refresh".

 

[Mad Alice]

I should clarify what I said. From a literature perspective you are very much right. I grew on comic books (much to my parent's chagrin) and their heroes. From a movie perspective it is a little different. I think a good portion of the fanfare over the last decade centers around special effects, with each new movie trying to usurp the last one with bigger, badder, and more astounding action. That can only go so far.

As this technology matures people will not be so drawn to movies simply because they offer better special effects and those movies will need to rely more on the actual story and the actors that play the roles. Note, I really liked Robert Downey Jr. in his role of Tony Stark in the Iron Man character.

A lessor factor will be changing age group population demographics. Over the years the population of young adults has been declining slightly, which is where most of these movies are aimed.

As population proportions shift, so will the industry. As I said, this is a smaller contributing factor, but it should not be ignored in my opinion.

So people need to have more kids you are saying?

 

[Ihe]

Get to it people!!

 

[NbDawn]

Interesting discussion here! I myself am beginning to get bored with all the superhero movies. But it doesn't mean that a superhero novel wouldn't be great. I think someone already said that good story writing is what really counts. You asked,

I would appreciate if you guys threw a few nice ideas my way (names, gimmicks, abilities). Keep in mind it's a realistic setting and the heroes/villains are mostly normal humans (they can have special skills/equipment within the realm of possibility/real physics, and if they have actual "powers", they should be VERY limited in scope and highly contextual, maybe even a mild nuisance.

As for names, are you talking about their given names or their superhero names? I'm thinking for given names, using common names will help people relate more - but not too common like John or James. Names like Peter (Parker), Bruce (Wayne), Tony (Stark), Steve (Rogers), are common but a little less so. An uncommon last name can make them stand out.

Abilities don't have to be super powers. Intelligence can be a "super" power, such as being very good at electronics, hacking computer systems, analyzing data, chemistry or other sciences, or just knowing a little bit about everything. Other "super" powers can include being good at seeing things other people tend to overlook (like Holmes), being able to read people through their gestures and facial expressions, having good social skills that open doors that would otherwise be closed or that gets people to share things they normally wouldn't, having great athletic ability such as in martial arts or gymnastics, having sharpshooting skills, having a way with languages, or maybe just having the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the right time.

 

[Ihe]

I meant superhero names haha. If I ever need help coming up with a normal name, I'll give up writing on the spot .

About special abilities, yeah, I feel a "superpower" is a very cheap conflict-resolving/creating swiss knife for any given story, and often tend to be over powered. Something milder would go a long way, but @NbDawn, good social skills as a special hero ability? I wouldn't go that far .

 

[NbDawn]

but @NbDawn, good social skills as a special hero ability?

When I mentioned that, I was thinking about the sci-fi version of someone who uses their ability to make people do what they want them to do.

 

[Ihe]

I figured you weren't referring to actual comic superpowers, but I still had to point it out because the notion was hilarious in itself.

 

[NbDawn]

I figured you weren't referring to actual comic superpowers, but I still had to point it out because the notion was hilarious in itself.

 

[Old_Man_Steve2016]

I've been using Powerlisting Wiki to help think of and check on superhuman powers that others have created/developed/experimented with.
A typical page there has a power title, basic description, alternative names, power applications (with adjoining links), limitations (if any), and known users of said power. For example- you might see a LOT of users of superspeed, along with alternative names like 'flash-step' (Bleach or Naruto?) and the characters that use it.

Be forewarned; this site can eat your time as fast as TV Tropes!

 

[Ihe]

TV Tropes is a death trap, I know. It'll never let you go. I don't think I've ever voluntarily stopped browsing it--it's always been an external motivator that forces me away from that site (angry girlfriend, starvation, exploding bladder, visitors...). I envy people that can stop their Trope intake by sheer willpower; at any moment. I'm reticent to go into that Wiki if you compare it to TV Tropes .

 

[NbDawn]

I realized why I thought of good social skills as a "super" power... Have you ever seen the TV series called Leverage? Well, if you're looking for people with certain skills to be heroes without having supernatural and implausible skills, then this show has them. A hacker skilled in both electronics and mechanics, a thief who is an athletic daredevil and also has a bit of mechanical skill, a grifter who has the social skills to con just about anyone, a hit man with martial arts and sharpshooting skills, and the leader with great organizational and leadership skills - they all work together to stop bad guys where the law has failed.

 

[Ihe]

Love the show, yes! But I am looking for something with a bit more "umph". Flashier, just not too much.

 

[Martin Gill]

The comic format might lend itself to shallowness

Ouch to that! Alan Moore. Neil Gaiman. Pat Mills. Warren Ellis. Dave Sim. To name some well known names tackling major topics like war, sexism, religion, politics, the environment and more. And there's a plethora of less well known writers and artists taking on the most serious of subjects... Jason Lutes, Jeff Lemire, Gilbert Hernandez. Don't relegate the comic medium to 4 colour superhero superficialdom. I'd urge you to go out and take a different look.

 

[Ihe]

I know there are exceptions, but when talking about superhero comics, the vast majority are not masterpieces. And I had in mind your standard Marvel or DC comic, tbh. But you're right about the format being more than just that.

And in my defense, I did say they "might". Just accepting there are stinkers out there.