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Barb's Comic Book Cliche List

Barb Lien-Cooper

Inspired by Roger Ebert's EBERT'S LITTLE MOVIE GLOSSARY, this is going to be the definitive list of comic book cliches. If Park and I missed any, write in and we'll list them in a future column soon.

The Lab Accident: person gets superpowers from a laboratory-related accident. As opposed to, you know, dying horribly.

Super-strength: character has superhuman strength.

The Strong Guy: All teams must have a Strong Guy. Made famous, obviously, by Peter David.

Invulnerable: The character is mostly or totally invulnerable. Tough skin is okay to a point, although Thor pushes it WAY too far. Regeneration is okay. But a personal force field is a bit of a cop-out.

Shooting energy from hands: especially when it's non-descript generic energy that can knock down a wall but doesn't kill anyone or electrocute anyone or start any fires in-and-of itself. Or give people cancer. And yes, kinetic energy is a cop-out. The last straw was: Bishop.

Wisecracking during fight: The common superpower of the under-30 crowd... in an era when almost everyone is under 30. Made famous by: Spidey.

Reporter girlfriend: The superhero has a reporter girlfriend. She is often modern and liberated (updated from the "I wish Machoid Man would marry me, sigh"), yet somehow she can't take care of herself and needs to be rescued. She gets into trouble constantly as if she had some sort of deathwish. Most of us are too intelligent to fall for the "anonymous source who has a scoop for you, but come alone" gambit, but not she! She's always the one who, while hiding, continues to listen in on the supervillain's plot long after the rest of us would have high-tailed it for the exit to phone the cops. Forget Jimmy Olsen, Superman should have given LOIS the signal watch!

Empty Storeroom: A storeroom is always available for changing one's costume. Said storeroom has, ideally, an inconspicuous window.

Secret Identity Drip: The hero has a secret identity that is the opposite in personality from the hero: clumsy, slow, low self-esteem, humble, geeky.

The Negaduck Law: The hero has, probably in another dimension, an arch nemesis who is his exact opposite. He is evil, with a stylish costume of the opposite color scheme, and is evil, tyrranical, and cruel. And yet, he is a straight white man (or duck) who looks identical and whose powers work in exactly the same way etc.

Curse of the Triple J: The character has someone, a detective or a reporter, etc, who feels that the character's vigilante actions are actually worse than the terrorists and supervillains the character fights. A: At some point, the hero will save this person's life, and they will become such fervent supporters of the hero that it will be nauseating. B: Even if the hero saves the life of this person, saves his or her spouse, son, daughter, baby, house, apartment building, business, homework, dog, cat, lover, any or all of the above, it will only inspire deeper hatred towards the hero.

Death of girlfriend: The comedy-relief sidekick will almost never die, but the loving girlfriend may be killed.

Final Speech: Dying characters are allowed/obligated to give a final speech. Maybe they have 'em written in advance by professional speech writers.

How To Drive A Spider Nutty: When, after many, many years, a person who has known the hero for a long time, when said hero has gone to great effort, and lost blood, sweat, tears and bile in order to keep his or her secret identity a secret from this person, this person reveals that they knew the whole damn time. Extra Spider Insanity points may be earned if this comes as a part of a Final Speech.

Back from the Dead: Character comes back from the dead. Cross-Reference with See The Body.

See The Body: The law that says that a character is never dead unless you saw the body, took it home, inspected it, did an autopsy, burned it, scattered the ashes from a plane, and even then you can be only about 89 percent sure.

Water Isn't ANYONE'S Kryptonite Rule: UNBREAKABLE to the contrary, if you're a real superhero, falling into the water will never, ever kill you. You can fall out of a plane and into the ocean from 400 feet up and live. Crossreference, however, with the Relative Atmosphere Law.

The Trial: after some time and a career that involves citizen's arrests without Miranda Rights, fighting criminals across county, state, national, and solar system boundaries, and all sorts of other vagaries and loopholes, the hero is put on trial for doing something that no reader has any moral qualms about whatsoever. Made famous by: Barry Allen. Interesting that Wally West went through the Civil Court version of this cliche when he was sued for failing to save an innocent bystander. You think there would be a superhero exception written into every Good Samaritan/Failure to Rescue laws in the DCU, but no such luck.

Courtdoom: The same as above, only the judge and jury and witnesses are made up of the characters' greatest enemies.

The Fight-And-Become-Friends Rule: A. A man and woman who hate each other must be sexually attracted. B. Training-- A character in training meets someone who starts out as a rival, then they become friends, then enemies. C. Most common-- whenever two heroes meet for the first time, they MUST fight.

The Woman/Girl in the Shower for No Reason: soap/steam/water always cover the naughty bits, but it's still soft core porn, if one's honest about it. The Last Straw: Gen 13.

Bootstrap Rule: African American characters are always from a lower-middle to poor background. We have no African American Bruce Waynes in comic books, no millionaire playboys of color, no Lex Luthors running multi-national companies, for instance.

Relative Atmosphere Law: When you open a door or window in an airplane, it is fairly likely that this won't suck you or anything else out. You're often lucky if it so much as blows loose papers around.

Bruce's Law: Won't carry a gun/use fatal force "Because I am a hero".

Glass Jaw Theorem: It's not that hard to knock the average human out with one punch.

Jean's Law: In Marvel, a female superhero will have wimpy distance powers that provide an excuse from being thrown into the heart of battle. The exception that makes the rule: She-Hulk. It figures that she's most often been played for comedy.

"What's the Matter, Lady, Can't You Afford A Damn Bra?": D-Cups that stay firm under all conditions. Have their implants turned to rock?!? (Park says: "And yet you seem surprised that they all have access to either telekinesis, magic, or warping the laws of probability") (Barb says: I think it's just part of their mutant powers... you notice they all get their powers at puberty... perhaps it's no coincidence.)

Darkest Hour: The hero has crisis of faith only to be told by close friend to suck it up because the world needs him so much. If only real-life acute depression could be solved with a friend telling you, "Snap out of it!"

10-Year Anachronisms: Caused by folding time resulting in stupid details of flashback stories. Hairstyle, dress, fashions are stupid. Also complicates rebooting infinitely.

Simultaneous Recovery Syndrome: If you knock out a whole group of people, they will all wake up at around the same time, even if each was knocked out in a different way.

Who Watches The Night Watchmen: If you are a night watchman or other nighttime security guard, you will eventually be killed, UNLESS you happen to luck into a Lab Accident.

Rip Torn: Even if a woman is a superhero, her clothes will get ripped... this is not as true for a man.

Ollie's Skill Level: when GA (or indeed any archer hero) shoots someone in an arm or leg, he never hits bone or artery... he's/they're just that good.

Garth's Exception: you never see anyone reading a book, in comics, except those written by Garth Ennis (although they aren't neccesarily reading what that character WOULD be reading, really...).

Slaves of the Tyrants: Set up: the superhero group of your choice is taken to another world and forced to become slaves. Last Straw: Mark Waid sends the JLA to Rann.

Sufferin' Rao: Even though we never see a superhero's or superheroine's spiritual practices IN PRACTICE, they still inevitably curse/swear with the gods of their cultures. For instance, did Kryptonians believe in reincarnation? Why does a boy raised in the heartland shout out the god of a dead planet when he's startled?

Sons of Computo: the computer that develops a personality and decides to take over. Last seen in: The Matrix (oh, come on, that was just another Time/Warner comic, right?)

Fickle Public: at some point in everyone's hero career, something inevitably happens to make the public forget everything good they ever did. The public usually turns back the other way pretty quickly, however.

Ivy's Law: Villainess starts her career just to get closer to you. However, it never really works: instead of a date at the Hard Rock: Keystone City, she ends up in jail. Someone in the superhero world needs to write: Villainesses Who Love Superheroes Too Much---talk about your unavailable men. You have to wonder if these women come from dysfunctional families or have father issues or WHAT...

Undressing the Heroine: girl or woman is kidnapped and she wakes up someone's changed her clothes... inevitably into something sexier.

Superman's Pal, Stinky: The child that no one likes who gets to meet the superhero/help the superhero.

The Aladdin Gambit: hero's girlfriend/whatever is tricked by villain to give something away of importance or bring something into the house that harms the hero.

Clunky Exposition Syndrome: "Do you mean to say, Lobster Man, that while you were tied up over that vat of butter, which is the only substance against which your powers are useless, that Iron Chef, your arch-enemy ever since you both went to Tom Landry Junior High back in Infinitessimalville, Indiana, escaped with the fabulous Baseball Diamond, the world's largest gemstone, by using your reporter girlfriend Katie Krishna as a hostage, thus escaping Lt. Dumas, who's a bit of a bumbler but is in charge while Inspector O'Shaughnessy is in the hospital due to that giant advertising egg timer prop falling on him?" "That's exactly what I'm saying, Mussel Lad."