Do you like the uber-mensch?

[Kahuna Burger]

"ubermensch" = super man. I'm talking about the character you occasionally get in stories that is at a whole other power level above the other characters. The one that can outfight the fighter, out think the brain, basically do everything better. Gandolf in LotRs. Pheonix in the XMen and Excalibur comics. Jonathan in that one ep of Buffy. Westley in the Princess Bride come to think of it. Its been claimed that River fits the bill in serenity, but I haven't seen it.

I don't enjoy that style of character for a couple of reasons. One, they suffer from the "transporter problem" that Star Trek had - for the crew to get into serious trouble on a planet there had to CONSTANLY be some contrived reason they couldn't be beamed out. For the time Pheonix was in the X books, first step in any adventure was a contrived excuse to remove her from the action. Then the others would struggle through until she could be returned to functionality and save the day. LotRs suffered from this a bit too.

Second, I like an ensemble story and ubermensches tend to screw those up. I spend half my time rooting against a member of the team, desperately wanting them taken down a peg.

Finally, I enjoy seeing a character struggle. I like to see them occasionally fail and have to try again. A character who never fails unless there is some outside agency hobbling them bores me to tears.

So, who do you think is an ubermensch and do you like them?

 

[Particle_Man]

As long as you know what you are getting into, like a Superman Comic or an L.E.Modessitt Jr. novel, it is ok. It sucks if you are expecting a real story, though.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

...

Universe Man, Universe Man,
Size of the entire universe man....

sorry....

 

[Hand of Evil]

CSI team and no I do not.

Captain Carter on SG-1 and I do like her but that is do to Jack's answers are more right than hers.

Maybe Rodney on Atlantis but his answers cause more problems in most cases, he does not really think about results, just that he came up with an answer. I sort of like him.

 

[Desdichado]

It works occasionally. John Carter, Tarzan, Conan--all ubermensch in stories that I enjoy immensely.

But in general, no, I don't like them, and I agree with you about the difficulty of having one.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

Sayid on Lost is kinda like that. Apparently, the Republican Guard will train you to be friggin' MacGyver (how'd we ever beat these guys?). He fixed a transponder, built a radio triangulation setup, built some radio thing that Kate broke, fixed an antique computer, and he's an expert torturer to boot. I fully expect if Jack ever dies, Sayid will step up and say "I was also trained as a field medic," at which point he'd whip out a scalpel and a pair of forceps and remove someone's gall bladder or something.

That said, I dig the character. If he were poorly written he'd suck.

 

[Rackhir]

This is pretty much Dragon Ball Z. In the original Dragon Ball Series, Goku was the toughest of the bunch but they could all at least hang together. In Z though, the other character litterally exist only to annoy the bad guys until Goku finally arrives from what ever was holding him up to save the day. This was okay up until the end of the Freeza Saga, but got seriously repeditive after that.

 

[Fast Learner]

He fixed a transponder, built a radio triangulation setup, built some radio thing that Kate broke, fixed an antique computer

Just a note that those things are all well within the same realm, and I know lots and lots of guys in my everyday life that could do all of them, guys who are far from supermen. If you trained any of these guys to torture, they could do that, too, I'm sure, but there's no reason to think that Sayid's pre-guard training wasn't electronics.

 

[Prince Atom]

The Skywalker men can do stuff like blow up motherships and Death Stars, and everyone else just exists to block for them or die under their lightsabers.

I don't think McKay is a superman. He's very intelligent, but he left basically every stat at 8 so he could buy up his Intelligence. He can't do everything. Neither can Carter. She outshoots Jaffa regularly, but Jack and Teal'c are better fighters and Daniel knows (at last count) 23 or so languages (including many dead ones).

BTW, ever notice how the SG universe all knows English?

River Tam's a fighter. That's what the Blue Sun group was going for. She seems to be able to pick stuff out of other people's minds, but she's certainly no doctor or engineer. Sure she was flying Serenity at the end of the movie, but that doesn't mean she was any better than Mal at it. Certainly didn't prove she was a Wash-level pilot.

Any of the characters from Wheel of Time, but Rand is very powerful because he's the Dragon Reborn. Getting to talk to wolves? Pfft.

Ridley from the D&D movie. He's the only one who can move the plot forward and kill all the bad guys.

Spider-Man has untapped resources of power (at least in the comics) and is a super-genius to boot. But his book's not a team book.

Why doesn't Prof. X go with the X-Men on their missions and just shut everybody's minds down? The X-Men won't have to blow up stuff that way.

Finally, Data and Wes Crusher. Of course, they also end up getting the crew into trouble that only they can solve, so we must keep them around so they can solve those problems they cause.

TWK

 

[DM_Matt]

pparently, the Republican Guard will train you to be friggin' MacGyver (how'd we ever beat these guys?).

1. Not as good as the show indicated
2. They tended to run away a lot
3. Inferior technology. Old Russian tanks < New US Tanks.
4. No air force of significance since the very beginning of the first war.
5. Baathist cronies in important military positions instead of qualified folks.
5. Their air defense strategy was as follows: Each flak battery is assigned a section of the sky. Fire at random at that area and hope you hit something. (They may have initially had a better one, I don't recall, but evnetually, it was that one).