What Is A Superhero?

[Wofano Wotanto]

At the risk of sounding like a certain supreme court justice, I can't define what a superhero is, but I know one when I see one.

 

[payn]

"I'm Batman" = "I am Groot!" ?!?

No, I was going with extraordinary abilities, but not necessarily superhuman. Able to keep up (mostly) with super human folks. I mean, Batman isnt just Batman, hes got Robin, Batgirl, and Alfred. Its a collection forming one story-line that rolls into others as needed. Guardians follows that concept, but not a literal copy.

 

[Deset Gled]

Or can flip-flop between genres in different works.

Now we're embracing the power of OR.

If this thread goes on long enough, we may eventually get to the ultimate power of NAND.

 

[Reynard]

Now we're embracing the power of OR.

If this thread goes on long enough, we may eventually get to the ultimate power of NAND.

I'll see you in Hell first!

 

[Kaodi]

A superhero is a hero with the word super in front. It may be worth asking whether the problem is simply that the there has been linguistic drift in both the meaning of "hero" and "super" in the last couple of decades.

 

[Umbran]

No, I was going with extraordinary abilities, but not necessarily superhuman.

It was a joke, payn. Don't worry about it.

 

[aco175]

A superhero is someone with superhuman abilities and/or gear AND who uses them to make the world a generally better place for other people. Lacking that second factor either makes them a supervillain (out for themselves) or just a superhuman (just living life).

I'm mostly here, but feel that the term superhero can mean any person with powers or abilities and not divide them into hero/villain/person unless it needs to be specific. A bit like arguing big D Democracy and little D democracy.

Using this, I think Punisher is a 'superhero' because he has certain abilities, but not be too hung up on the hero part.

At the risk of sounding like a certain supreme court justice, I can't define what a superhero is, but I know one when I see one.

I thought this was Al Gore's Wife Tipper and the music industry putting warning labels on CDs, but she could have taken it from Scotus.

 

[billd91]

I'm mostly here, but feel that the term superhero can mean any person with powers or abilities and not divide them into hero/villain/person unless it needs to be specific. A bit like arguing big D Democracy and little D democracy.

Using this, I think Punisher is a 'superhero' because he has certain abilities, but not be too hung up on the hero part.

Totally have to disagree with you there. A hero puts their abilities to use for good ends - that's a significant part of what makes them tick and why superhero stores are modern mythology. And why stories about people with superhuman abilities but who aren't putting them to use for the common good aren't really superhero stories.

I thought this was Al Gore's Wife Tipper and the music industry putting warning labels on CDs, but she could have taken it from Scotus.

Justice Potter Stewart in the Jacobellis v Ohio decision. He wrote, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I thought this was Al Gore's Wife Tipper and the music industry putting warning labels on CDs, but she could have taken it from Scotus.

No, it was definitely Justice Stewart Potter, commenting on the subject of whether the film The Lovers was obscene or not (it was not). The exact quote is usually gotten wrong (the "shorthand" he's referring to is about legal obscenity being hard-core pornography, itself an ill-defined term), but the full form goes like this:

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."

Pretty famous case in both law and cinema circles, and a useful turn of phrase for many other subjects. Subjective subjects, even.

EDIT: Dang, sniped. That what I get for going to lunch before finishing my post.

 

[aco175]

Totally have to disagree with you there. A hero puts their abilities to use for good ends - that's a significant part of what makes them tick and why superhero stores are modern mythology. And why stories about people with superhuman abilities but who aren't putting them to use for the common good aren't really superhero stories.

This is what I was thinking about the general vs the specific, from the Suicide Squad Wiki page.

It does specify that they are villains and anti-heros, but they all fall under superhero.