Why are comics superpowers so generic and used boringly? You can easily sum up like 99% of superpowers as
>Strong person, often with flight, or slight gimmick. Strength comes and goes, and is nearly always used in simplistic brawling >Super speed, often with no downsides to the power so they are a retard >Mind powers, which of course never work properly, paired with telekinesis or less often something else >Elemental >Mad scientist, with easily mass produced technology that can do wonderful things. Robs banks or fucks around just being a walking Mcguffin. >Super fighting style, often with 'no powers'. Always shown as generic combat, but with basic kicks and blocks instead of just punching. >Magic. It can do anything, and so is used generically or as mcguffins. >Weapons. Often outdated.
Even the potenially interesting powers get used uncreatively. All the power of a imagination, to hit people with green fists and cars.
>>Strong person, often with flight, or slight gimmick. Strength comes and goes, and is nearly always used in simplistic brawling It depends. Powerman's strenght has a limit and rules >>Super speed, often with no downsides to the power so they are a retard Flash doesn't have downsides such as getting crazy because....speedforce. >>Mind powers, which of course never work properly, paired with telekinesis or less often something else I don't really know DC but in Valiant the mind power of the harbringers has the rule of "telekinetis has downside to the health" >>Elemental That's an opinion >>Mad scientist, with easily mass produced technology that can do wonderful things. Robs banks or fucks around just being a walking Mcguffin. I WANT TO TURN PEOPLE INTO DINOSAURS >>Super fighting style, often with 'no powers'. Always shown as generic combat, but with basic kicks and blocks instead of just punching. With magical strenght you never had to fight so you just copy the poses >>Magic. It can do anything, and so is used generically or as mcguffins. This >>Weapons. Often outdated. It depends
Owen Morales
I don’t like complaining, so this thread is now a thread about cool ways to use powers, yes, even the useless ones >post your ideas for cool superpowers and cool way that that can be used, or post ideas for cool ways that generic superpowers can be used
Read Worm. Not every power is interesting, but a lot are, or at least have a neat little twist to them.
But mainstream comic books are just boring a d generic. Who cares about powers when you can fill the pages with words.
Jacob Lewis
Yeah, I know they’re boring. I can think of about twenty ways that powers aren’t used That’s why I asked, because whatever I don’t think of, co will. And I’m curious to see what you guys think You all are very creative
Ethan Morris
I hate posts like this because they scream of this pseudo intellectualism. "Hey I pointed out that most of culture is creatively bankrupt! Aren't I clever mom!" It is the equivalent of crying about how people like blockbuster movies. That's pop culture lad, well done for figuring it out. Like yeah, you have fucking 80+ years of comic book stories. Of course shit has been overused. But like anything, it is about creativity taking generic things and building them into something new. So 90% of stuff is shit and every so often the 10% of other stuff produces interesting things.
Dominic King
Superpowers dont need to be complex. Comics are just stories, so the superpowers are there to enable the writer to tell an interesting story. And having an overly complicated superpower could just get in the way of that, as it gives the reader more arbitrary things to remember in order to make sense of the story.
There are also many examples in comics and cartoons of people using very simple and understandable powers in complex and imaginative ways.
Ryder King
>Why are comics superpowers so generic and used boringly?
thats literally the whole DC, Marvel and Image..
Ayden Rivera
>Complete area controle Charecter can controle the environment any way possible for several meters radius. Liquids can turn to solids, solids to gas, Gas to solid, etc. Can also change the shape of an object.
At its strongest the user can manipulate the very molecules of everything in a certain distance
Juan Nguyen
>It's yet another "wormfag lauds his superiority over cape comics as a cover for his insecurity of not reading them" thread Read Moore's Swamp Thing. Read Morrison's Animal Man. Read Zenith. Read X-Statix. Read Morrison's Doom Patrol. Read Winter Men. Read Morrison's JLA. Read Green Lantern Mosaic. Read Ostrader's Sucide Squad. Read Moore's Captain Britain. Read Planetary. Read Villains United/Secret Six. Casual bitch
I wouldn't say they're not creative, but western writers definitely don't have the balls japs do and often underestimate their audience (maybe rightfully so)
Having seen the pathetic power levels shit that the japs do, I think they do it even worse. Some nigga controlling shadows moving at the speed of light slicing someone up and being cliche as fuck is gay as shit faggotry compared to western tropes.
Camden Garcia
Like? Examples?
Luis Smith
Not the case if you can explain it properly. The light novels of Magical Girl Raising Project have a lot of powers that are used to an extreme to make them useful and just a moron can be confused by them because they are properly explained, but maybe the comic medium is not the best for that, (and most characters die in the end so you don't have to worry about future plot holes because you forgot how they used their powers before)
Jonathan Long
That's true when it comes to the bottom of the barrel shonen stuff (like capeshit is in the west), but the most eccentric and original jap writing eclipses the most eccentric western writing, regardless of the artistic merit of the final result.
>but the most eccentric and original jap writing eclipses the most eccentric western writing Boring. This is just more bait lad. Take your console wars elsewhere.
Grayson Miller
That image sounds dumb man. What does it actually do in simple English. Damage soak? Redirect damage? Throwing numbers and powerlevels in don't make a power better.
Wyatt Ortiz
I'm not saying I prefer it, I honestly stopped giving a fuck after I turned 20 a decade ago, but I don't remember a Zig Forums property ever going full autism on something the way animu/mango shit does
Isaac James
>I'm not saying I prefer it No, you're just doing the same old bait, comics vs manga. And it is boring, user. Real boring. Console wars stuff. Like yeah, if you compare really good manga to bad comics then Japanese writing will "eclipse" western writing. But this is boring. This is reliant on the same narrow narrative bullshit that is basically the avoidance of curating your taste. There is plenty of fucking shit Japanese writing. Loads of it, in fact. Imagine if I just started comparing a load of those tropes to really good western writing. And ultimately the reason why this perspective is super faggy is, it is pretending like you can't just like things from different places.
Wyatt White
Gets triggered, and just lists acclaimed comics like that's a argument.
Worm has issues. But it totally has a very interesting set of powers, across the spectrum and used well. Which comics lack. Like the in setting, Doomsday Crawler. Instead of just getting big and Spikey, he regenerates differently, with new body parts, ways to attack, overcome stuff that hurt him, etc. And that is one of the more straight forward types.
Ryan Taylor
>"Jap writing is more eccentric and autistic that western writing and that's not a good thing" >waaah console wars To be young again
Nathaniel Campbell
I listed comics that have creative power uses you shithead. Can't even fucking greentext, dumb newfag.
Connor Reed
>wahhh muh Japanese superiority shit To be a troll again
Leo Sullivan
Honestly I think it's the disconnect between writer and artist in so many western comics. Battles tend to be better in eastern comics because the artist is often the writer and they can push the envelope easier of how the battle looks and plays out.
Kayden Lee
Do you think Wildbow invented that ability? That's literally The Fury's main ability, a villain from one of those comics you dismissed.
Levi Martinez
The more generic a superpower is, the easier it is to write
James Powell
In simple terms, it makes the opponent powerless for 30 days after a certain amount of time passes. It also allows the user to track whoever its attached to.
Jaxson Morris
Yea but at the same time modern shonen superpowers are so convoluted and weird that they require a 2-3 page explanation just for the reader to grasp what the fuck they are doing. And often it still makes little sense.
Half of the devilfruit powers would be odd and senseless in a western cape book anyway. Imagine someone who turns people into toys, art, makes soap bubbles from their skin, is slippery, their ass is a hippo, their stomach is a lion, they can make crackers from nothing, are made from mochi, make bodyparts spin a lot, capeshit needs simplification.
This is before we get to the weird fucked up shit that happens in Bleach.
Kevin Gonzalez
Because majority of them were invented in the 40s through early 60s.
When they throw us a curveball and invent Scarlet Witch, Mr Sinister, Speedball, Mr Miracle, we have people asking what the fuck are their powers every day for 40+ years.
