quote:

Originally posted by The Lord of YARRR!:

'traditional' superhero comics do what you were talking about, with the heroes knowing how to use their powers/skills from the start... with maybe a flashback to explain the origin story. stuff like Spider-Man does go for the 'start off weak, get powerful' thing

I think that Marvel is probably the worst offender of the "whiny hero" plot device, particularly Spider-Man. The movies get a ton of play out of the costume ruining his life portion in particular.
For other examples see EVERY X-MAN, who has bitched about their lives or powers at least once, RE: Cyclops, who INVENTS reasons to be unhappy. Marvel characters have issues up the wazoo.

I LIKE Spider-Man. I IDENTIFY with Spider-Man. Sure, it gets cliched (especially with the X-Men), but no dissing my man Spider-Man.

Better some agnst then two-dimensional boyscout Superman

One thing I dislike is how often they take the idea of a superhero with specific powers and then create female or younger versions etc.. An example being Superman leading to Supergirl and Superboy, Batman with Batgirl and so forth. Utterly unnecessary in my opinion. I`m all in favour of superheroines etc.. but wtf can`t they get their own distinct powers rather than rip off an existing superperson?

not a fan of Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, the Marvel Cousins, Marvel Bunny, and all the rest of the Marvel Family?

:-P

besides, Batgirl got cool with the whole Oracle thing...

I`ve never really cared much for tag teams of superheroes either. Unless they started off that way like the Fantastic Four, it always seemed so contrived.

And resuscitating a superhero or villain by putting a new guy in the suit a la Green Goblin just sucks..

except in the case of the Green Goblin... the Norman Osbourne/Harry Osbourne story is pretty emotional, especially the way its looking in the movies... having Pete's best friend haunted by the legacy of his father is some good melodrama

i HATE when books or TV shows or whatever get something i care about horribly wrong, like making OMG VIDEOGAMES ARE EVIL episodes or have a stereotyped view of poetry/music/whatever

Yeah, the first two green Goblins were a good idea. It was when Harry's psychiatrist started getting involved that it got pretty darn stupid really, really quick. And I don't mind Pete's pathos as much as most other superheroes simply because while he does whine, he rarely gives up the responsibility that comes with his abilities, and when he does it's when I would as well. And his problems are believable, unlike Ben "Everyone Takes Me For Granite" Grimm and Tempermental-When-He-Wants-To Be Logan.

Those schmucks whine constantly about how their extraordinary, life-altering and -empowering abilities make their social lives difficult. Peter frets about how having to stop The Rhino (again) means that he's going to miss biochem lab and Dr. Connors is going to yell at him again.

I think it was okay at the beggining of the series, but when Peter's 'mundane' life was awesome and he still whined... thats when I got turned off. I'd LOVE to live in a Villiage apartment and study at NYU and date a model... nevermind the superhero stuff.

Hmmm

I'd probably still whine about it, though. So maybe Spider-Man is realistic.

And how is Ben Grimm's problem not 'realistic'? He's really strong and powerful, but he's cut off from humanity 'cause he looks hideously ugly. That seems like something worth agnsting over.

I'm with you on Wolverine, though. And all the X-Men.


Does all that bother you in stuff like Harry Potter? it seems to be the main thrust of the series. or Buffy... missing class is a big deal, and what use is saving the world if your girlfriend is pissed at you?

My issue with Ben Grimm has always been that he's surrounded by love and supportive people, including a succession of women who love him not despite his deformity or because of it, but because he's a good guy, and he still whines about how he can lift/press 85 tons, save thousands of lives in a day, has personally beaten Dr. Doom into the ground . . . I guess I've just never seen anyone really give him grief for looking strange.

This is partly, I think, because I'm a Nightcrawler fan. I mean, he looks like a demon, literally, but he doesn't complain about how people treat him as much as he worries that their reaction to him will put them in danger.

I'm having trouble finishing the fourth Harry Potter book because he won't stop whining. I mean, he's a fairly realistic teenager, but it's a bit much for me. As far as Buffy goes, the high school drama was believable, but once she started getting the "with great power comes great cleavage, err, responsibility" plotlines post-high school, I stopped being such a fan. In season seven, where she's a field marshal more than a Chosen One, she really, really grated.

quote:

Originally posted by Dweller in Darkness:
My issue with Ben Grimm has always been that he's surrounded by love and supportive people, including a succession of women who love him not despite his deformity or because of it, but because he's a good guy, and he still whines about how he can lift/press 85 tons, save thousands of lives in a day, has personally beaten Dr. Doom into the ground . . . I guess I've just never seen anyone really give him grief for looking strange.

Yes... but when he still looks into the mirror he sees an ugly, mishapen freak. This isn't a metaphor- he is an ugly, mishapen freak. Something like that is bound to bug a guy, no matter how many people tell them they don't care about it.
Besides, each of the FF members has some 'issue'. Johnny's a hothead, Reed's too immersed in his work, Sue can be a doormat sometimes, and Ben has his looks. As long as it dosen't become overwhelming it works with the character. When its handled well, i really like him.

Have you read Paul Chadwick's Concrete? That has a hero that looks like The Thing but is still cool with it...

quote:

Originally posted by Dweller in Darkness:

I'm having trouble finishing the fourth Harry Potter book because he won't stop whining. I mean, he's a fairly realistic teenager, but it's a bit much for me.

oh man, if the whining in the FOURTH book is bugging you, you're going to hate the fifth one. the middle 500 pages are nothing but Harry cleaning a house and whining.

quote:

Originally posted by Cobalt:

quote:

Originally posted by Dweller in Darkness:

I'm having trouble finishing the fourth Harry Potter book because he won't stop whining. I mean, he's a fairly realistic teenager, but it's a bit much for me.

oh man, if the whining in the FOURTH book is bugging you, you're going to hate the fifth one. the middle 500 pages are nothing but Harry cleaning a house and whining.

bwahahaha

i was just going to post, that sheesh the fourth book is nothing compared to the fifth, hehe, harry does turn into a whining irritating wanker, i mean seriously she managed to save him a bit in the 6th, but the 5th book was just awful

quote:

Originally posted by St.CountZero:
What really annoys me is when in an otherwise good book, the author has a foreign character using random words from their native language, to point out that they are, indeed, foreign. I'm sorry, but anybody who speaks any English knows the word "yes", and doesn't randomly revert to "oui", "ja", "da" or whathaveyou in the middle of a conversation. And if they can use relatively complex English words like, I don't know, "circumnavigate", they're not likely to stumble and use their own language when saying "baby" or "milk" or "car". It feels really unnatural and just really bugs me.

Add my name to that list of complaints.
I HATE it. It's just stupid. Yeas, foreigners might know long, complicated words. Yes, sometimes they might want to add some fromt heir own language to "spice" their speech.
But what they do NOT do is to talk in perfectly well, good, grammactical English (especially when a long explanation is needed fromt he character) with complicated syntactic structures and stuff and then randomly forget words or say stuff in their own language and carry on as if nthing happened.
I have NEVER said "Sí" instead of its equivalent in any of the languages I've studied. If I didn't know a word, I' have NEVER said it in Spanish -I'll try to come up with another word, explain it, something.
(Yeas, there's this Spanish guy at work that will say stuff in Spanish to the Polish guys, but it's a game, they shout at me "nice arse" in Spanish and I shout back at them "arsholes" in Polish, but that's different.)
And I've livd in countries when my knowledge of the language was very basic, still I've never said a word in my own language coz that would take me nowhere.)

Also, I hate the part where The Prophecy (or The Manuscript or The Holy Piece of Writing That Holds the Clue to Us Winning In The End) totally change meaning coz of some "translation" problem -aka the "mellon" thing in Lord of the Rings gone lazy and ridiculous.