How long does a comic hero power up lasts for?

[mr friendly guy]

So I was just checking out what I missed at Marvel and I found this gem about Spiderman.

http://www.comicvine.com/spider-man/4005-1443/

Spider-Man has the proportionate strength of a spider, thus allowing him to press 10 tons without effort and much more when under stress.

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After his encounter with the Queen, Spider-Man's strength had been increased to the point where he has become able to lift over 15 tons without effort and after the Other story arc he was able to lift at least 20 tons without effort.

So this would make him stronger than Eddie Brock Venom at least according to the Marvel Handbook in the 90s. Oh wait, Venom got a power up too.

He began training under Shang Chi to create his own unique martial arts style to make up for his lack of spider sense called the "Way of the Spider". It was then revealed that Shang Chi was instructed by the new Madam Web (Julia Carpenter the former Arachne and Spider-Woman) to secretly prepare Peter for a future threat (Spider-Island). This style consists of among other things, hitting pressure points with Spider Strength, and striking with Spider Speed. This new martial art has considerably improved Spider-Man's H2H capabilities, and so far he has stalemated Julia Carpenter and effortlessly defeated 3 spider-powered individuals in a few seconds during Spider-Island. When he regained his Spider-Sense, he defeated a mutated Kaine who was considerably stronger and quicker than him, and effortlessly trumped a mind controlled Spider-Woman, in handful of blows and kicks.

So Parker learnt some martial arts, which kind of makes sense to me for all characters to learn it. So he sounds pretty good with this new "way of the spider" (snigger) fighting style.

However it got me thinking, about power ups in general.

1. How often do heroes even think of powering themselves up and why?

In the real world, a nation's military would consider its funding requirements based on the capabilities of potential rivals. This makes sense to me, but I don't get the feeling that super-heroes think that far ahead. Case in point, it took Spider-Man, like 40 + years, er I mean 10 years in the Marvel universe before he decides to even take martial arts lessons. And that was because he was forced to by a situation, ie the temporary loss of his spider sense. Using an example from DC now, when Loeb made Superman even more wanked after training with Mongo, it was because he needed it to face another baddies, and not because it was simply a good idea.

Now there are obvious exceptions with those characters which use technology, such as Iron Man. Also all characters do train for the most part, but I would argue they train to maintain capabilities, not to increase it like the Spider-Man training with Shang Chi example.

In fact we have examples where power ups work disastrously for the heroes. Like Batman's venom storyline, where the Dark Knight just turned into a god damn drug addict using the substance Venom to give him an edge.

This idea about developing the hero's abilities further from the beginning of the adventure doesn't seem very prominent in the superhero genre to be honest. It does seem more prominent in say the fantasy genre.


2. How long will the hero keep their power ups? Will the tendency to revert to the status quo win out? The better question is, why do we need a status quo?

I have seen Thor get powered up to Odin power level, lose it, and then gain it again and more in Avengers Disassembled, and then lose it again (yeah fuck Marvel). What perhaps hurt more about Thor losing his new powers was not just the fact he lost them, but the manner in which he did. That is judged unworthy of them (because suddenly the Odin power totally needs to be worthy yet they have a jerk like Odin possess it ) and then sacrifice it again because plot dictates.

Now I can understand there are power ups, and then there are really big power ups. Spiderman becoming stronger most probably would be allowed to stand. The Thing becoming stronger by working out, yeah why not? Characters on a somewhat higher scale like Thor and Hercules (who both reached Sky Father level) would not be allowed to keep the level. From a story telling POV, yeah it can become problematic. Their usual rogues gallery wouldn't mean much if they can just hand wave them away. So it seems the solution is to just bring it back to the status quo.

However I feel another possible solution is to give them a new rogues gallery of more powerful characters or power up a few of the old enemies. I mean the villains as a general rule outnumber the heroes right?

Another argument I feel why people revert to the status quo is "traditionalism." This character has been this way since inception, and this is what the fans want. To some extent I am not unsympathetic to this idea. Some changes just go too far and becomes a slap in the face to the character. For example when DC changed Wonder Woman in the 70s to become a "secret agent" type character without super powers (because Themiscyra was fading into another dimension and if Diana stayed away from Themiscyra she would lose her powers), or Doctor Octopus replacing Peter Parker as the Superior Spiderman (yeah like we knew that was really going to last) or Azrael replacing Bruce Wayne as Batman etc. These changes might be fun for a bit, but I can see why fans want the old character back. Because they have become invested in the characters they know and love.

However, new changes can in turn become the tradition. For example Superman didn't fly when he first came out. Only leaped tall buildings. Kryptonite took a while to be introduced. Yet today these are accepted parts of the Superman mythos. Changes done right can for the most part appease even some of the traditionalists.

This brings me back to my point about the status quo. Maintaining the status quo is not without a cost. It seems to be we are deliberately reversing character development by depowering these characters back to "base levels." Think of the stories that could be told if Thor or Hercules had new responsibilities with their heighten powers. With great power comes great responsibility and all that stuff. Not to mention it becomes contrived that every time they gain powers, they get depowered because of <insert plot device here>.

It also cheapens the adventure, if what the character did gets undone. Thor when he broke the Ragnorak cycle not only became powerful, he became smart. Arguably in his early days he was a top notch surgeon, build a freaking android so he should be smart anyway, but lets ignore that. Thor with his new found wisdom realised why Loki hated him (with a believable piece of pseudo psychoanalysis), and knew what he needed to do to end the endless cycle of Ragnorak.

For all his trouble he has reverted back to a dumb barbarian almost as bad as Dan Jurgens run of the title. He gets manipulated by Loki again. Really. Oh this time Loki is on the side of angels so its ok.

Asgard gets an All Mother instead of an All Father whose 3 goddesses are just as manipulative as Odin was. Thor ended the Ragnorak cycle, yet Asgard's enemies are back, more powerful than ever * while Thor is back to before in terms of power.

Now I freely admit Thor's power up is only one part of his achievement in the Avengers Disassembled storyline, but to me it is symbolic and representative of this tendency to maintain the status quo which in turns cheapens what the hero did in a previous adventure.

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Thoughts?


* yes Surtur had magical steam powered machines which wiped the floor with the Celtic Gods. Go figure.

[Crazedwraith]

How long does it last? Till the writer changes and reverts the character back to what he remembers liking as a kid. Or a new film comes out and they change the character's look to tie into it. Yeah you may be able to tell new or different stories with power-ups. But you can't have them keep the powers or change permantly because you can't keep increasing their powers indefinitely and still tell stories. And for long running franchise characters that's bad because they is not supposed to be a definite end point of the stories. They want to continue selling them foreer if possible.

I don't know why you're highlight Marvel especially for this. DC is just as guilty and as far as I know, Marvel at least doesn't completely reboot their universe every decade or so.

[Ahriman238]

Highly variable, remember when Spidery got tremendous cosmic powers for like, half a year? Or died and came back with super-spider powers of every spider, faster and stronger? Mind I don't think they depowered him then, just sort of ignored the extra powers until they went away.

Superman traded in his traditional strengths for energy powers, that lasted a couple of years, didn't it?

[Borgholio]

1. How often do heroes even think of powering themselves up and why?

2. How long will the hero keep their power ups? Will the tendency to revert to the status quo win out? The better question is, why do we need a status quo?

Depends on how you look at it. From a storytelling standpoint, heroes will power up whenever needed to advance the story and plot, and become weaker again when being strong will result in a boring story.

In real life, I would expect heroes to power up often and only lose it when it's plausible to do so. Tony Stark, as in your example, keeps upgrading because as a weapon designer, he knows he always has to keep one step ahead. So he keeps innovating. Batman is not just a smart guy but he is also physically fit and a dangerous hand-to-hand combatant. He has to have trained very hard to achieve this and has to keep training to stay in peak physical form. Superman doesn't really have the need to train much for combat because he is just so damn strong he can afford to take a few hits. This was actually explored in an old comic with Starman where they sparred for a bit and Starman actually got an advantage over Superman near the end.

As far as losing powers, well of course Batman will get old and at some point he will just not be capable of fighting as effectively as he was before. Stark might become more forgetful as he ages and not be as sharp as he once was, and Superman...well...again in the past it was implied that as he ages he does get a bit weaker and more vulnerable to kryptonite but his lifespan is far greater than normal Kryptonians due to living on Earth.

[Vendetta]

It lasts as long as the plot requires it or until another writer who doesn't like it undoes it or until they reboot it.

[mr friendly guy]

Yeah you may be able to tell new or different stories with power-ups. But you can't have them keep the powers or change permantly because you can't keep increasing their powers indefinitely and still tell stories.

That's true, but given it took Spiderman like 40 years to get powered up, I think there is plenty of time before this might even become problem. Ok if you count the cosmically powered spiderman it only took 20 years, but since that was the Uniforce powering him up we knew it was going to be temporary, because the Uniforce always temporarily powers someone up before jumping to the next host.

And for long running franchise characters that's bad because they is not supposed to be a definite end point of the stories. They want to continue selling them foreer if possible.

True although DC can get away with this by doing reboots. There was Crisis of Infinite Earths, Zero Hour Crisis in Time and Post Flashpoint. My favourite Super hero team Legion of Super Heroes had even more. They had Pre crisis classic legion, post crisis class legion (with a few alterations to membership), post zero hour, the Threeboot legion (after events involving the Teen Titans and Fatal Five) and now the Retroboot legion (where the classic legion reappears with minor alterations).

I don't know why you're highlight Marvel especially for this. DC is just as guilty and as far as I know, Marvel at least doesn't completely reboot their universe every decade or so.

I am sure they do and I did highlight DC for some of the same flaws, that is a character powers up when they need to face a powerful foe, and not because its a good idea because of the current foes you face.

In real life, I would expect heroes to power up often and only lose it when it's plausible to do so.

That's the thing. If super heroes and super villains were rival geopolitical states, they would both be constantly powering up to either become dominant or maintain a balance between them. Geopolitical states would continue to develop their economy and their military even if they are the dominant actor. "Realistically" (yeah I know in comics grumble grumble) a character who has the pressures of constantly fighting against other characters would seek to do the same. AFAIK in comics its mainly the villains that seek to do this.

[Borgholio]

That's the thing. If super heroes and super villains were rival geopolitical states, they would both be constantly powering up to either become dominant or maintain a balance between them. Geopolitical states would continue to develop their economy and their military even if they are the dominant actor.

Right, take Superman. There were plenty of times he was out-matched by an opponent who was stronger or knew of his weakness to kryptonite. After a few encounters like that, it would have made sense for him to, as an example, use the knowledge he was sent to Earth with to build a suit of Kryptonian powered armor that would enhance his already impressive strength and durability, and provide protection against kryptonite radiation. Such a thing would have been very handy to have when Doomsday came around, for instance.

[NeoGoomba]

Archangel is one example of a character whose power-ups seem rather consistent and long-lasting, and have been developed rather organically for years now. First he was just a dude with wings, then a dude with wings who became an ace flyer and HtH fighter, then his wings get upgraded by Apocalypse, then his physical body continues to gain in strength and speed, he develops a healing factor because of the tech within him, and eventually he tries to become Apocalypse.

Sure, just reading it summarized in a paragraph makes it seem like a typical "fall-from-grace" storyline that usually take place over a few months. But it was almost decades in execution. Each new X-Men writer seemed to be able to build on him consistently, despite that being almost an impossibility in comics.

[The Grim Squeaker]

That's the thing. If super heroes and super villains were rival geopolitical states, they would both be constantly powering up to either become dominant or maintain a balance between them. Geopolitical states would continue to develop their economy and their military even if they are the dominant actor.

Right, take Superman. There were plenty of times he was out-matched by an opponent who was stronger or knew of his weakness to kryptonite. After a few encounters like that, it would have made sense for him to, as an example, use the knowledge he was sent to Earth with to build a suit of Kryptonian powered armor that would enhance his already impressive strength and durability, and provide protection against kryptonite radiation. Such a thing would have been very handy to have when Doomsday came around, for instance.

He actually did use one a few times, both after he died ("The Return of Superman"), and on other occasions.
The Kryptonian battle suit(s) are strong, tough, slow and inferior to what Superman can do normally while limiting him a lot. He's better of using a lightweight lead suit, in both cases it'll be torn apart by anything superstrong/fast, but at least it wouldn't slow him down as much.

[Havok]

It lasts until (Insert name here) Comics does an all encompassing cross-over event to de-power the universe, which then lasts for 2 to 5 years.

[Simon_Jester]

1. How often do heroes even think of powering themselves up and why?

In the real world, a nation's military would consider its funding requirements based on the capabilities of potential rivals. This makes sense to me, but I don't get the feeling that super-heroes think that far ahead. Case in point, it took Spider-Man, like 40 + years, er I mean 10 years in the Marvel universe before he decides to even take martial arts lessons. And that was because he was forced to by a situation, ie the temporary loss of his spider sense. Using an example from DC now, when Loeb made Superman even more wanked after training with Mongo, it was because he needed it to face another baddies, and not because it was simply a good idea.

Many superheroes lead busy (often double) lives performing their everyday roles as hero (and secret identity). They may simply not have the time.

How many of us are there, whatever our current level of fitness or skills, who don't think "yeah, I should totally take time out of my schedule to improve my physical fitness, or learn a new language, or practice a martial art that will allow me to defend myself in a different set of situations when I already feel confident that I can take care of myself."

The idea of being continuously devoted to intense self-improvement is actually rather unusual. Unusual enough that it can be a superhero's schtick in its own right, as with Batman.

This idea about developing the hero's abilities further from the beginning of the adventure doesn't seem very prominent in the superhero genre to be honest. It does seem more prominent in say the fantasy genre.

That's because one of the founding influences of the fantasy genre is "the hero's journey:" the archetypal, repeated theme in mythology of a relatively weak figure turning into a powerful one through pluck, courage, wits, and the aid of supernatural supporters.

Whereas the superhero genre traditionally focuses on characters who are already more than human in some way. Making them still more powerful than they already were seldom makes them more compelling.

Now I freely admit Thor's power up is only one part of his achievement in the Avengers Disassembled storyline, but to me it is symbolic and representative of this tendency to maintain the status quo which in turns cheapens what the hero did in a previous adventure.

That's an unfortunate side-effect of the need to keep publishing stories every week or month, I think. You can't write a coherent, self-contained plot, because there is no point at which the author can put down his pen and say "yep, that's the end of the Thor comics, and then the Norse gods all lived happily ever after, the end."

So even the most compelling stories of character growth have to either be reverted out of existence, or somehow the artists have to come up with a way to change the basic nature of the character while still retaining his appeal to the same target audience. So if Batman somehow acquires a Green Lantern power ring, in the process of some marvelous breakthrough that everyone thinks is awesome... either he has to lose those powers, or somehow the Batman artist has to figure out how to tell compelling Batman stories when Batman's been given the powers of a Green Lantern.

That's the thing. If super heroes and super villains were rival geopolitical states, they would both be constantly powering up to either become dominant or maintain a balance between them. Geopolitical states would continue to develop their economy and their military even if they are the dominant actor.

Right, take Superman. There were plenty of times he was out-matched by an opponent who was stronger or knew of his weakness to kryptonite. After a few encounters like that, it would have made sense for him to, as an example, use the knowledge he was sent to Earth with to build a suit of Kryptonian powered armor that would enhance his already impressive strength and durability, and provide protection against kryptonite radiation. Such a thing would have been very handy to have when Doomsday came around, for instance.

He kind of did- and the result of that going on for a while is the sort of cumulative clutter that arose near the end of the Silver Age Superman comics. Now Superman has a faithful dog who also has superpowers! And he keeps some useful technological devices from his past, so he can zap bad guys into other dimensions and get rid of them without having to kill them! And he has this! And that! And the other thing!

The net result of this is that it's harder and harder to think of a convincing explanation for why he'd ever be stuck fighting at a disadvantage, or ever have to think of a new tool for beating an enemy rather than just pulling out one of the old ones. And the only way to get things under control is to deliberately say "okay, we're rebooting the universe anyhow, so let's write Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? and put a capstone on it!"

[mr friendly guy]

How many of us are there, whatever our current level of fitness or skills, who don't think "yeah, I should totally take time out of my schedule to improve my physical fitness, or learn a new language, or practice a martial art that will allow me to defend myself in a different set of situations when I already feel confident that I can take care of myself."

The idea of being continuously devoted to intense self-improvement is actually rather unusual. Unusual enough that it can be a superhero's schtick in its own right, as with Batman.

I don't think comparing to a person who doesn't engage in superheroics is a fair comparison. There is less need for me to improve my fighting ability, while there is clearly a need for me to improve my advance life support training. Now if I was a superhero and run the risk of getting killed, then yeah I would seriously consider improving my fighting ability from early on when it becomes clear I am going to be doing this for the foreseeable future.

Also I wouldn't be too quick to label all superheroes already confident that they can take of themselves. Sure against your average comic book thug, but against some of their know foes. Lets take Spiderman. He struggles against the Eddie Brock Venom and gets trounced by Carnage that he needs to team up with Venom to win. After learning martial arts from Shang Chi he beats up Kaine, who IIRC was tougher than Spiderman, Venom and Carnage combined.

That's because one of the founding influences of the fantasy genre is "the hero's journey:" the archetypal, repeated theme in mythology of a relatively weak figure turning into a powerful one through pluck, courage, wits, and the aid of supernatural supporters.

Whereas the superhero genre traditionally focuses on characters who are already more than human in some way. Making them still more powerful than they already were seldom makes them more compelling.

To be honest, I find the fact that characters are not willing to grow makes them actually less compelling. Perhaps this was one of the reasons I found Crossgen comics particularly appealing. They started off having powers, but not the skill to use them and we see them grow as the story progresses. Plus I guess CG did have a time limit and they did plan to end it at a certain time if the company hadn't of gone bankrupt.

That's an unfortunate side-effect of the need to keep publishing stories every week or month, I think. You can't write a coherent, self-contained plot, because there is no point at which the author can put down his pen and say "yep, that's the end of the Thor comics, and then the Norse gods all lived happily ever after, the end."

So even the most compelling stories of character growth have to either be reverted out of existence, or somehow the artists have to come up with a way to change the basic nature of the character while still retaining his appeal to the same target audience. So if Batman somehow acquires a Green Lantern power ring, in the process of some marvelous breakthrough that everyone thinks is awesome... either he has to lose those powers, or somehow the Batman artist has to figure out how to tell compelling Batman stories when Batman's been given the powers of a Green Lantern.

That's true, but its not actually that hard to fit around these two competing directions (Batman with the GL ring, and Batman as before). Its called spin offs. When the original Thor came back, his replacement Eric Masterson got his own comic called Thunderstrike, while Thor got back to his own comic book. Spiderman has spin offs with what the Scarlet Spider starring in one of the Spidey books while Peter Parker got a few others. For a time Dick Grayson was Batman while Bruce Wayne was somewhere else. Hal Jordan became the Spectre and Kyle Raynor took over the role of Green Lantern. Now that Hal Jordan is back, Kyle Raynor still has his own spin off book (GL : New Guardians), while Jordan is in the other two GL books. This way the company gets some poor sod to buy more books. So its doable by having another character take the role the previous character did.