Hero cliches?

[Anthonynotes]

"Curse you, base villain!"

"Evil never wins, as long as we're around!"

"With great power comes great responsibility"

We've rehashed lists of cartoon villain cliches before, but does anyone have any hero cliches to list?

A few:
- the cliched "hero asks the villain to explain their evil plan" bit (which is a now-cliched riff on an earlier cliche of the villain overexplaining things)

- the hero loses their parents/home planet/family to some catastrophe/Joe Chill/etc. as being a vital part of their backstory

- the "comic relief" sidekick


-B.

[FredNash]

Dinosaurs!!! DESTROY THE G.I. JOES!!!!!

not really a cliche... but one of my favorite evil sayings :)

[Ashleigh]

Here's one that's not mentioned often: superheroes having an almost identical archenemy.

[Contrail]

-Allowing the villain to escape at the end of the episode

-Always falling for the 'drop your weapon or I'll shoot the hostage' trick

[Elven Moon]

Heros save the day once they believe "you can do anything if you try." Sorry, I was watching a Care Bears episode today and that was the story :sweat:

[Eddie G.]

-Hero falls in love with someone who is evil or really woking against him.

-Villian says that he/she is reformed, but the hero refuses to believe this and in the end the villian isn't really reformed. (Three cheers to X-men: Evolution for breaking this cliche.)

-The straight lace hero does something not so straight laced which causes him to smirk after another character points this out.

-To save the world the lead must beat the crap out of arch nemesis

-Villian tries to con hero and gets conned themself.

-With a team of heroes there is the goof off(Hawkeye, Beast Boy, Flash)

-With a team of heroes there is someone either brooding or someone who's just a bad ass.

-Every 12 adventures or so the hero has one really big adventure that might last twice as long as his other adventures

-The arch nemesis is somehow related to the hero

-The hero never kills anyone who is not a robot, alien, or Nazi.

-The worst possible thing that could happen... happens... usually at the end of the first part of a two parter

-An ultimate evil destructive unstoppable monster is killed by something the more vulnerable and mortal hero managed to survive

[Bound High]

Heroes have a tendency to wear panties as apart of their costume if they are female or male.

[shogunthethird]

what about "dissention in villain ranks leads to villain becoming resident hero badass" Dinobot, Blackarachnia, Piccolo, Mouse...the list goes on


or "hero and villain join forces but villain doublecrosses hero at the end" personally I love it when the villain attempts to doublecross the hero but the hero either doublecross the bad guy before or after the villain makes their move

[Antiyonder]

--Villian says that he/she is reformed, but the hero refuses to believe this and in the end the villian isn't really reformed. (Three cheers to X-men: Evolution for breaking this cliche.)

Rubberband Man- Static Shock

Dingo- Gargoyles

[Eddie G.]

Heroes have a tendency to wear panties as apart of their costume if they are female or male.Well I guess you're refering to Superheroes like Batman, Superman, and other characters who have the little color variation in their costume in a specific area. But for the most part these seem to be a color and/or cloth variation that is part of their costume. And although some heroines like Wonder Woman do wear skimpy clothes sometimes that reveal a lot of leg, they rarely are wearing actual panties without an outer layer.

>>Antiyonder-I forgot about those shows and episodes, you're right they did break the cliche also.

[Dudley]

"hero and villain join forces but villain doublecrosses hero at the end" personally I love it when the villain attempts to doublecross the hero but the hero either doublecross the bad guy before or after the villain makes their move
Can you share an example when the superhero doublecrosses the villian before the villian makes his move?

[Lucky Bob]

Five little words (or a variant thereof):

"We'll get them next time."

- in every show that involves the villian to escape at the end of an episode to keep the storyline going.

[Classic Speedy]

"You guys get out of here. (Insert villian name) is MINE!"

[FredNash]

No villain can resist the sweet, sweet goodness of Hostess Brand Snack Cakes and Fruit Pies!!

http://www.seanbaby.com/hostess.htm

[rmarti3926]

"You'll never get away with this!" :p

[Jave]

Villian has the perfect chance to kill Hero for good, but he decides to torture him instead by placing him in a trap that will slowly send him to death, giving Hero enough time to scape.

Huge cheers to Austin Powers for breaking this cliché for once and for all.

[OnlyJedi]

"Clark Kent wears glasses. Superman doesn't wear glasses. How can they be the same person???" - cheers to Mystery Men for this one.
"Sure, I could kill you and end your days of villainy once and for all. But instead, I'll hand you over to the police so they can put you into an easily escapable jail cell."
"Man, do I look buff in these tights / this kevlar body-suit." - for males
"Sure, I could wear a fully protective body suit, but I much prefer this skimpy outfit to show off my hot bod" - for females
"This cape doesn't have much practical use at all...but it sure looks cool"
"I *must* brand all my outfits, vehicles, and equimpment with my official logo"

[StarScream64]

"Take that, you fiend!" All right, so that one hasn't been used in a while, but you get what I mean.

Impetuous youngest member of the team grows over time to become the second-in-command/leader. Seems to be a recurring theme in Transformers history. (Case in point;my current avatar.) I'm not saying it's necesarily a bad cliché.

[TimL]

"Take that, you fiend!" All right, so that one hasn't been used in a while, but you get what I mean.

Impetuous youngest member of the team grows over time to become the second-in-command/leader. Seems to be a recurring theme in Transformers history. (Case in point;my current avatar.) I'm not saying it's necesarily a bad cliché.
While this is not Animation..The practice in the Batman Series (1966-68) of Labeling EVERY item in the batcave..as if Batman Robin or Alfred who were the only ones there 98% of the time would forget what they are..(Batcomputer, Batropes, Batarang, etc.all had big labels on them.) That seems very cliched.

Tim Lones

[OnlyJedi]

While this is not Animation..The practice in the Batman Series (1966-68) of Labeling EVERY item in the batcave..as if Batman Robin or Alfred who were the only ones there 98% of the time would forget what they are..(Batcomputer, Batropes, Batarang, etc.all had big labels on them.) That seems very cliched.

Tim Lones And, on a related note, naming all their objects to begin with "Bat".

[zimfan3000]

When a superhero, they don a costume, but when they're not being a hero, they're in regular clothing.

[Kury Wagner]

They all say "You haven't heard the last of me!"

[Lord Dalek]

"Up, up, and away!"

[oldgreypole]

When a hero yells at a villain, "Not so fast!"

[Jundaunted]

Hero and main villain becomes temporary allies to fight agaisnt a more poweful bad guy such as the Headman episode of GI Joe or Guile and Bison agaisnt Akuma in the American Street Fighter show. There's also the various instances on X-Men, where Professor X and Magneto had to team up to fight a common enemy (whether it was the Sentinels or Mr. Sinister).

[rmarti3926]

Oh, I forgot...

"Good always truimph over evil."

[RAINMAN]

[QUOTE=Brainatra"With great power comes great responsibility"

-B.[/QUOTE]
That not a cliche.

What about when a villain does something really bad to make the hero mad and they called em a monster.

When something bad happends to someone or someone is about to do something bad the hero call out their name and yell NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[Duke Psychology]

When a superhero, they don a costume, but when they're not being a hero, they're in regular clothing.
um, i don't think it's fair to call that a cliché, since it's in the job description.

it's like saying a cliché in human life is having to eat.

[HellCat]

The main hero or the most rookie member of the team is sent into the future. Without them, the villains easily won and took over. Whilst trying to escape the now ruling bad guys, the character stumbles on future versions of his allies who are now broken and live in fear of the villains. The character will then band togethor his friends in a successful attempt to save the day, before returning to the present to completly erase this alternate timeline.

[FredNash]

The main hero or the most rookie member of the team is sent into the future. Without them, the villains easily won and took over. Whilst trying to escape the now ruling bad guys, the character stumbles on future versions of his allies who are now broken and live in fear of the villains. The character will then band togethor his friends in a successful attempt to save the day, before returning to the present to completly erase this alternate timeline.
I love that one :anime:

[GCFyouthcamper]

I don't think this is common nowadays, but I remember a few cartoons where the hero's real name was just too similar to his hero name. Anyone remember Tigersharks? The guy named Walt turned into a Walrus-like creature and Dolph turned into... anyone, anyone? Duh...

[shogunthethird]

I always liked the alternate take on time travel

Character from war-torn future comes back in time to prevent catastrophe from happening, unfortunately villain from future comes back in time to ensure said catastrophe happens or as I call it the "Terminator" scenario, it's happened on JCA and the entire Trunks Saga of DBZ is the same thing

although as for the hero ending up in the future the best one of those I ever saw was the Gargoyles episode "Future Tense"

and let's not forget "Hero who has connection to villain betrays heroes to said villain, heroes think ally turns evil but in reality the whole setup was a plot by the hero in question to get close to the villain and they had to pretend to betray their friends to make it seem believable

[Bones Justice]

Since we are talking time-travel, here is my least favorite:

Hero travels through time only to end up in an alternate version of existence. Good guys are now bad, bad guys are either gone (ie redundant) or are now good but powerless, or things are just bleak in general. Anyways, hero convinces some or all of them that "this isn't the way things are supposed to be" (usually quite easily, I might add) and they all work feverishly to bring about their own non-existence just to send the hero home or to "set things right".

Numerous examples of this happening in various series. Rarely does anyone resist causing their own non-existence except maybe the bad guys, though usually they don't know about it. :shrug:

[HellCat]

I always liked the alternate take on time travel

Character from war-torn future comes back in time to prevent catastrophe from happening, unfortunately villain from future comes back in time to ensure said catastrophe happens or as I call it the "Terminator" scenario, it's happened on JCA and the entire Trunks Saga of DBZ is the same thing

although as for the hero ending up in the future the best one of those I ever saw was the Gargoyles episode "Future Tense"


DBZ's take on it took the unique (at least as far as I'm aware) stance that even if the future was changed Trunks' alternate timeline would still exist alongside it, which was interesting. No cliche' "Thank you" *time traveller fades out of existence*

[Bones Justice]

DBZ's take on it took the unique (at least as far as I'm aware) stance that even if the future was changed Trunks' alternate timeline would still exist alongside it, which was interesting. No cliche' "Thank you" *time traveller fades out of existence*
You're right, I can't think of that being used in any other animated series. I've seen it in scifi, books, and comic-books, though.

If you think about it, even if Trunks was able to travel back to the future into the timeline he originally came from, his destroying Cell would not accomplish anything except to create yet another alternate timeline where Cell was never able to make the journey to the past in the first place. It certainly didn't appear to erase the bleak future that Trunks lived in when he destroyed Cell in the future. So we can assume that his past did not change after destroying Cell.

It isn't even really a gracious act on Trunk's part. Sure, he created an alternate timeline without a time-travelling Cell but it probably wouldn't have existed in the first place if he had just left well enough alone. Though this would depend upon what actually creates alternate timelines in DBZ -- do you actually have to make a significant change to history (defeating Cell, present or future) or is simply travelling through time enough to cause a time branch? Some time-travel fiction is like the latter. If you travel to the past but don't change a single thing, you still actually just created and travelled to an alternate branch of the timeline than your own.

Okay, class dismissed. :D

I wonder, is the idea of alternate timelines what the writers really intended? Or did they think they were just putting a "cap" on the whole time-travel story and didn't realize that it shouldn't work out that way? I tend to think this is actually what happened. Most of DBZ's stories play pretty fast and loose with science as it is. I didn't see any other indication that they were writing about alternate timelines. Instead, I think it was creative on your part to come up with the explanation -- it's clever and it fits even so. Good job!

[Conan-san]

I always liked the alternate take on time travel

Character from war-torn future comes back in time to prevent catastrophe from happening, unfortunately villain from future comes back in time to ensure said catastrophe happens or as I call it the "Terminator" scenario, it's happened on JCA and the entire Trunks Saga of DBZ is the same thingAs was the latter half of Sailor Moon R but it was good for it. Even if ChibiUsa was a brat.

[Planeteer]

How about whenever someone screws up, they wind up saying the words "What have I done?" Wouldn't the more important question be, "What am I gonna do?"

[Merilee]

Hey, how about the famous mind-swap eps, where the villian invents this machine that enables him to swap minds with the hero, either by capturing the hero and attching him to the machine or by sending out some sort of beam to the hideout of the hero and changing minds that way.
Once the minds are exchanegd the villian, now in the heros' body tried to imprsonate the hero and purposely sending the other heros out into danger, while they suspect something is wrong, while the hero, in the villans body has to impersonate the villian so the sidekicks won't get suspicous while at the same time trying to get back into his own body.
Soon, though he manages to get in touch with his fellow heros who at first don't believe him, until he proves that his mind was exchanged, and then they team up to catch the villan and put the minds back.
I've seen that happen in almost every action cartoon! Even Captain Planet!
Merilee
:cool:

[Planeteer]

Y'know, I think what would make for an interesting twist would be:

Villain's Henchman: (to hero in villain's body) "It's no use trying to fool me; I know you're not really (villain's name)."

Hero: (putting on arrogant pose, pretending to be villain) "What makes you so sure?"

Villain's "Henchman": "Because I'm (villain's name)."

Hero: (confused) "Huh?"

Villain: (calmly) "I traded minds with (henchman's name) earlier. He's the one in your body, under orders to impersonate you."

Hero: (totally confused) "What are you doing in his body?"

Villain: "I switched minds with him both to test the mind-transferral device and to make sure you would not be able to trick him into thinking you were me. So instead of you making him think you're me, you've been trying to convince me that you were me when I'm me and you're you and...(starts to get confused himself) wait a minute..."

[Rover_Wow]

Y'know, I think what would make for an interesting twist would be:

Villain's Henchman: (to hero in villain's body) "It's no use trying to fool me; I know you're not really (villain's name)."

Hero: (putting on arrogant pose, pretending to be villain) "What makes you so sure?"

Villain's "Henchman": "Because I'm (villain's name)."

Hero: (confused) "Huh?"

Villain: (calmly) "I traded minds with (henchman's name) earlier. He's the one in your body, under orders to impersonate you."

Hero: (totally confused) "What are you doing in his body?"

Villain: "I switched minds with him both to test the mind-transferral device and to make sure you would not be able to trick him into thinking you were me. So instead of you making him think you're me, you've been trying to convince me that you were me when I'm me and you're you and...(starts to get confused himself) wait a minute..."

Sounds more like a parody... meanwhile, ISTR that Pirates of Dark Water did this plot too. Lloyd in Space, Jimmy Neutron, KP, all did it. What can I say? Body switching is fun! ;)

[The Detective]

You know, the old Buzz Lightyear animated series Disney did is pretty much episode after episode of textbook cases of these cliches. Buzz is fond of shouting, "evil never wins" (along with a host of other cheese ball lines) they had an alternate universer ep where Buzz was was evil, a body swapping ep, a Zurg and Buzz team up ep, as well as a host of others I'm probably forgetting.

And I know all this because I have almost every episode of the show on tape. *shifty eyes* What can I say, when I was younger my tastes were simpler. ;)

</The Detective>

[90'sCartoonMan]

Here are a few just off the top of my head:

Hero faces new villain, loses, trains or comes up with some idea, beats villain by the end of the episode.

The hero's identity is revealed to the enemy, but not really (Parasite forgets Superman is Clark Kent, a powerless Peter Parker convinces the Insidious Six that he's not Spider-Man).

The villain blows up the hero's home and/or headquarters.

[Captain C]

How about when a hero has to work with the villian? I think every show's done THAT at least once.

[Alph]

When a hero is a bout to reveal his secret identity, but plot contrivance stops it.



Or heck, any time any serious plot changing character development is about to take place, but plot contrivances stop it so that nothing ends up really happening.