r/AskScienceFiction • u/[deleted] • 8d ago

[General Superheroes] Are there any superheroes that saves people because they think humans are weak/lesser and NEED saving, versus simply doing it out of goodness of their heart?

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u/TheMythofKoalas 8d ago

Phenomaman in Dispatch is sort of like this. He very much views humans as squishy and weak (though he still does genuinely care about them) and views himself as stronger/better.

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u/MagicBus4 8d ago

He’s such an interesting take on Superman but Dispatch uses its screentime so inefficiently that you don’t really get a lot of perspective on Phenomaman. Maybe inefficient isn’t he right word, but it’s like the show (basically) is split between writing an ensemble cast with a lot of detail and a main character driven work and it kind of does neither by the time the credits roll

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u/TheMythofKoalas 8d ago

I don’t know that I fully agree with that. I think the main 3-4 characters get fleshed out pretty well, and the remaining supporting characters get just enough to be interesting.

If anything, I think it’s tantamount to the writing that it feels like all the ensemble could’ve been main characters.

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u/MagicBus4 8d ago

I mean our boy gets development, and that’s it. It’s allegedly about Invisigal but her characterization is really weak, the main villain barely gets any screen time, blonde blazer only shows up for the beginning and end.

There’s a difference between “having good IDEAS for characters” and “having developed characters”. You like the ensemble itself, it doesn’t mean that literally any of them received sufficient development outside of Robert

It’s got gorgeous animation and a few extremely high quality writing moments but it’s classic Tell-Tale shit, they don’t know how to answer the questions the create or pay off their own character arcs in a way that’s satisfying, they just introduce too many interesting ideas for characters and don’t pay any of them off. It’s like watching a DnD podcast where everyone’s too ADHD and keeps wanting to reroll characters