I personally love low powered superhero stories. Not just because they can be underdogs, but it can be easy to relate to. A kid overcoming bullies with a little help, or someone stopping a mugging, can hit closer to home than gods and dimensional entities duking it out.
I can see the appeal of either, but I'd love to hear what people have to say on the topic. Do you prefer your stories cosmic in scale? Enjoy small scale personal triumphs? Sometimes you can have both in the same setting. Watchmen had both Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan.
I have always found that the more you can shrink a story down to the bare human interactions, emotions, and motivations involved the better it turns out. That isn't to say you can't have great stories about dramatic cosmic events, just that it can be difficult to write them and still have that same emotional impact to move an audience. Thoughts?
Id say something in the middle. I like seeing heroes with amazingly expansive abilities that have the potential to cause mass destruction but not to the point where they could be considered God level and not low enough so that they have to stay out of major battles because they could be killed.
I would prefer a lowbie hero rather than a galactic one however, as there is something very interesting about such characters like Jessica Jones. If any of you watched that show on Netflix, I really liked how her abilities give her just the right amount of boost to help her solve cases, but she cant pick up a building and smack a thanos with it for example.
I think that's one reason why I love the X-men. They have great abilities but they still have their own handicaps that keep them from going God level. Storm could potentially cause planetary destruction, but she's claustrophobic, and her empathy towards the planet constantly holds her back due to the consequences of her affecting the weather patterns in other parts of the world.
So would I prefer to follow the story of a Jessica Jones type or the Silver Surfer? Id go with Jessica Jones.
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
Batman is another one. Just a guy in a costume who had a bad day once. His greatest adversary? An insane clown. A fair few of Batman's story lines are dealing with villains who don't have earth shattering power. Which make the stories much easier to swallow than dealing with cosmic level threats in every story arch.
Heroes get remembered, but Legends never die.
Protect the pack kid, no matter how much it hurts. If everyone else in the pack is safe, you can carry on or die knowing you've done your duty. - Fanfiction
Spider-Man. Spider-Woman. Grifter. Gambit. The Darkness. Witchblade. X-Men. Cyber-Force. Gen-13. These tend to be my faves. Characters with enough power to be considered superhuman for sure. Doesn't mean they're cosmic. Though, I don't mind the cosmic. Jean Grey can be cosmic at times for instance.
I don't tend to want to read the comic tales of a kid with no powers, who puts on a mask. This doesn't mean I won't. This doesn't mean it doesn't make for a fun/good movie (Kick-Ass coming to mind). Just means it might not be something I pick up. Not always the case, but as a rule.
For me the power level doesn't matter. I want interesting characters who evolve in their stories. I want the conflict (cosmic or street) to offer new avenues of character development. I don't want the conflict to be the entirety of the plot. It's one of the failings of the DC movies for me. The characters are fairly static or worse yet have ridiculously motivated and quick changes to their personality/goals. The Wonder Woman movie being the exception.
I don't care if the bad guy is Thanos or Joe Chill as long as they give me some info about the characters involved that I don't know.
I like both.
My favorite superhero is Captain America, who is barely superhuman but is more remarkable for his skill, tenacity, and morals than anything physically exceptional.
My second favorite is Doctor Strange, who as the Sorcerer Supreme is one of the most powerful characters in the whole Marvel universe.
You almost can’t get farther apart on the power scale between these two but I really enjoy both for different reasons.
The Netflix shows of Daredevil, Punisher, have recently reinvigorated my interest in low-power or street-level characters over the last few years. That's not to say that I didn't like them before; I did, just to a lesser degree. I used to read Silver Surfer when Ron Lim was the penciler for my cosmic high-power fix, and then go read Jim Lee's era of X-Men for low- to mid-range powerful character storyarcs. In those years it seemed like X-Men had a decent balance, from jet-setting across the Shi'ar Empire fighting Gladiator or cross-dimensionally against Mojo, to more run-of-the-mill stories with Juggernaut causing trouble trying to steal/smash something.
So, not into Jessica Jones? heheh
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
Whoa whoa whoa.
Captain America is totally superhuman now adays. No, barely about it :p
Yeah the MCU version is clearly super strong. Throwing motorcycles at people and stuff. Like most superheroes, the details of his capabilities are going to vary depending on the needs of the story.
I was just thinking about, in the comics, him jumping from f16 to f16 while they're flying the sky. :)
Yeah, but there's no accounting for writing. Wolverine also healed from a nuke, and The Black Panther "arm barred" the Silver Surfer, and the Hulk is so... strong? he can punch... through dimensions? I just don't...
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
storywise, I prefer reading about heroes that are street-level to middling(?) level. I rarely read any of the cosmic powered level folks as the stories tend to be a bit over the top for my tastes. although, having said that I did enjoy seeing Richard Rider (aka: Nova) getting effectively cosmic level power structure during Annihilation...but then he's my all time fav hero...sooo, I am a bit skewed in his favor. :p
playing wise, I have always loved street-level, and again middling power level, heroes. From a table-top perspective you could pretty much stay in your genre forever and the stories were always at your power scale. in the MMO environment it would be hard to do given the disparity in power level...while still feeling a sense of accomplishment. you would almost need a completely separate MMO for each power level otherwise your going to have to divide your dev time up between one of the 2 (or 3) power level structures. this in turn means a drastically slowed down turn out of new material. this doesn't even get into the whole issue of players complaining how X group gets Y rewards... as such, middling road would be my choice for a direction.
[img]http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/whiteperegrine/84183/69278/69278_original.gif[/img]
Welp. They're trying to have both Supermanesque adventures and Daredevilesque stories in CoT.
I don't think the power level thing will be much of an issue. Just think of Batman and Supes, they're the same level/power level (or they would be in a game) but one fights a clown and the other fights a dark alien god from another world. Both are able to help out the other and it's fine.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
I like middle of the range heroes generally. The Punisher has always been one of my favorites, which, I'm always a little unhappy when they start shows of characters and they face enemies that are "on their level" when in the comics they are almost always facing enemies well above their abilities.
For example, when Punisher faces off against the Avengers, one of my all time favorite comic series. He's almost always one step ahead, and in the end, he does lose as you'd imagine he would, but not after he accomplishes quite a lot of what he set out to do.
Punisher is also a character of opportunity, so while he can't stand up to god like characters alone, he isn't averse to using weapons or items he wouldn't normally use.
I also like characters like Iron Fist, who has changed a lot through the comics. He's not invincible, and at times he's as vulnerable as anyone else, but he also has moments where he's virtually unstoppable too. Again, Netflix didn't portray him quite right, but I hope they change that soon.
Honestly, I have nothing against strong female characters, in fact I prefer them. What I dislike is complete and utter lack of character growth.
Thats Jessica Jones in the show. Part of the character growth is the complete denial of character growth. Well, I guess in some senses this past season was more a devolution but still. It's a good show, but S1 was way better.
If you are saying that season one was better than season two, then I have literally zero reason to watch season two. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the warning.
Yeah, S2 was really more along the lines of some strange character development and backstory stuff, definitely worth the watch in the grander scheme of things.
Luke Cage June 22nd, so.. I can only hope they don't do stupid things and at least give some buddy time with iron fist, but I'm worried that they're keeping them separate so they can push some of the underlying themes a little better.
I wasn't that big into Luke Cage either. Moving to Harlem seemed to remove him from the prime area of all the previous action, Hell's Kitchen. My biggest take-away from season one of Luke Cage, aside from it's shameless plug, was that Jidenna was a thing. #TheChiefDontRun #LongLiveTheChief
A good comic has elements of both, the internal struggle with personal stakes and the external struggle with other's lives on the line. One of my favorite Superman comics is not when he beat Darksied yet again, but when he talked a teenage girl out of suicide. Or at the end of the graphic novel Killing Joke, Batman and Joker shared one last laugh in one of the most moving Batman stories ever written.
Eh, the trick with Jessica Jones is how to take a character who's defined in part by her broken-ness and give growth without unbreaking her. it's usually remedied by breaking the character in different ways while developing surrounding characters- and note that 'developing' characters differs from having them "grow." Sometimes there's good story in watching a human slow-motion-train wreck.
back to the OP's topic:
I love mid-to-moderate powered characters for the most part. High-to-cosmic powered characters are just less interesting for me. In part- perhaps- because they often require foes or stories that are equally cosmic in scale and I rarely find the epic space-fantasy representation of space appealing. Sometimes good internal conflict can offset my disdain for world-altering epic-scales of events, but it takes a *lot*. I also hate the "bigger badder more threatening than before" threat escalation with a passion, where the stakes are raised just by rehashing a previous threat that's just "more." I have a tough time relating to the fans in the comic shop that revel over the same "extreme power creep" that I find so offputting...
Of course I grew up as a fanatic for the space opera that included superhuman quasi-mysticism, galaxy-spanning events, and a bigger badder death star threat too often to count, so I guess I'm just as bad...
Ooh. I think I need to read / watch this. Cool.
[size=14]"The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths." - Pushkin[/size]
[size=14] "One piece of flair is all I need." - Sister Silicon[/size]
Actually I thought the most recent season of Jessica Jones did a good job with her development from a broken apathetic person into a broken caring person. I thought they handled it in a realistic way that made me feel good about her, maybe even hope. I also think it helps if you watch Defenders between seasons as well.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
I think they did a better job of her caring in the first season. I don't want to go into spoilers for s2, but I think some of the things that happened in S2 were somewhat out of character for a few of the characters, and in the end made the outlook kind of worse than better.
There's some truth to that, but I had more hope for her at the end of season 1... not because I didn't expect her to be consumed by guilt and self-loathing, but because she was surrounded by a team that encouraged her (Malcolm), cared for her (Trish) and protected her from the legal impact of some of her decisions (Jeri). Without spoilers, just as Jessica takes the first steps toward learning to hope at S2, that support network is looking far more fragile.
Well, Jeri was never a good support for Jessica. Jeri is basically a villain.
Trish this season got the jellies.
Malcolm was her one real support and she pushed her away.
In truth, my thought on the second season, was that Jessica should've taken down her mom from the beginning. Instead her idea was "run away with psycho mom and hope she doesn't stay psycho"
everyone was so good about no spoilers.
But yeah it was a lesson learned in the first season that didn't translate into the second one.
Sorry, didn't even think about spoilers, because truthfully, the show is now old in TV time. This wasn't a movie. This was a TV show. :p
Next you'll tell me, telling everyone Vader is Luke's father is a spoiler because someone may not have seen it yet :p
DANG IT YOU RUINED STAR WARS FOR ME!
Vader is WHAAAAAAAT!??!!
The only reason I mentioned spoilers is because someone mentioned they would watch it after we spoke about it a little. If everyone had said they'd already watched it I wouldn't have worried about it.
*goes back and looks* Totally forgot I read that. My bad! I forgot!
haha no worries :D