I think I want to try my hand at creating my own superhero deconstruction story with horror elements. Yes, very original but I want to bring the things I find cool to life. Any things you wish this genre did more often to help with my brainstorming? Anything you're sick of?
>>152159695What are the things you find cool
>>152159695>Any things you wish this genre did more often to help with my brainstormingI allways found the Hulk's inner battle interesting and scary, I wish more writers delved into the scary fucking monster creature side of his character, if that motherfucker was real everyone would be terrified of him. Maybe you could incorporate something like that.
>>152159695A gun, it's an instrument to shoot yourself with.
Do NOT do a Superman.It's been done to death.
>>152159695Deconstruct superheroes by replacing spandex with giant robots. I fucking love Big O.
>>152159738>All superpowers are grotesque to look at in some way and even stereotypical ones like super strength, duplication, even something as clean as teleporting, have disturbing body horror elements when in use>Powers appear basic at the start but the heroes/villains both reveal their hidden capabilities usually near the climax and are constantly learning new techniques for their later appearances>A lot of supes are psychopaths but even the seemingly kind and reasonable ones suffer from things like serious anger issues or are just weird>Hero/villain names that sound goofy or outright bad but later on strike terror into the hearts of enemies after the supes' powers/feats put those names in a whole new lens>The super empowering event that all supes experience is a mystery with the truth being something horrificAt the top of my head.>>152159763Love that shit. Definitely want to lean into the more "monster" aspect of supes.>>152159795Way ahead of you. For the time being, I can't find a reason to include a flying brick in my story and have no desire to experiment with one.
I'm sick of the whole "all supes = fascism" thing peddled by midwits on social media or irrelevant comic artists but that's just me.Stay fresh, Anon. You can make something of value to someone, I'm sure.
>>152159695>painfully transforms into a mutant grasshopper monster man
>>152159885Thanks, anon! Although I want the story to be dark from time to time, I would still rather it be more entertaining than preachy but I find that to be easier said than done if the supes interact with the public. We'll just have to see how I manage it when I get there.>>152159738Forgot to mention but I like class systems. Hunter X Hunter's types of hunters, OPM's hero/monster classes, the parahuman types from Worm. I also find multiverse shenanigans to be cool "what if" story potential but will hold off from even considering it until I explore the one setting I'm starting off with to the best of my ability.
>>152159800How is this a deconstruction of superheros?
>>152159695I'm sick of twist villains
>>152159844This kind of makes me think of Byrne's Next Men and Morrison's New X-Men a bit
>>152159695You could go into how painful being a superhero actually would be. How deformed your body would become from regular power use.If you had super-speed you'd have baggy, windswept skin and bad bloodflow. Constant muscle cramps.If you had elastic powers your insides would be in constant pain. Broken bones, popped vessels, rearranged every single time you stretch.If you had fire powers you'd have charred, sensitive skin. Your eyes would melt clean off your skull.If you had swinging powers your arms would be misshapen. Dislocated joints, too.A superhero asylum devoted to studying these horrid medical anomalies could be interesting. How do you learn to "control" these powers? You don't. You live with them, they become diseases that fester and flare up when you least expect them. Aggression spikes when these powers flare up, too. It's like BPD but ten times worse.The doctors document the patients' delusions and turn them into... comic books. The patients become freak shows, and this hospital becomes the greatest circus on Earth.
>>152160268Nta, but isn't he basically just mech bruce wayne?
>>152159695i'm sick of>omggg what if we used women as breeding slaves to uhhhh produce supersoldiers for the goverment or uhhhh the super powered baby kills its way out of the mother and can't be abortedit's just fetishbait, nothing interesting. and i say this as someone who finds that scenario hot, so i know fetishbait when i see it
What if Superman was evil??!
>>152160268>>152161203Its more Batman than superheroes in general but that made me wonder what other superheroes would look like if they were Big Oified. Look at everyone in that picture alone and you can tell who they are based on from Batman. In Big O they specifically call the Big O Roger's alter ego which is something I've never seen elsewhere and comes from superheroes. Then its deconstructed again when Roger Smith has no real identity. Actually everyone has amnesia like film noir. Only one city exists which is like how before crossovers even in the animated series it felt like Batman was the only hero. Also maybe it's not even real. I dont know the serial experiments lain guy did it.
>>152160080>I also find multiverse shenanigans to be cool "what if" story potential but will hold off from even considering it until I explore the one setting I'm starting off with to the best of my ability.I like multiverse and parallel universe stuff when it's a scifi way to explore characters. That way it becomes more classic like the the movie Its a Wonderful Life. Or how Mirror Universe stuff in Star Trek explores a characters potential dark side. Or that part in Fringe where the scientist stole his parallel universe son from it and fucking Gundam where Lalah made parallel universes to try to save Char. (Last case honestly felt like it was all in her head.)I really like when shit gets meta but it's to explore the relationship between the audience and fiction as it's such a fucking unique human thing. Instead of 'it's all just a dream' shit like The Neverending Story movie. Or whatever the fuck Flex Mentallo was about. I'm ranting a bit hope some of that helps somehow.
>>152161309I forgot a train of thought I that post. Character driven parallel universes as opposed to shit like EVERYONES HERE SUDDENLY LIKE SMASH BROS or crosses on infinite earth big events to clear up continuity. Small character focused things that impact the characters and are extremely personal. Kind of like how Everything Everywhere All At Once pretends to be scifi to get people in but it's really about a dysfunctional family imagining lives they wanted to live. Or it's a wonderful life could be seen as a scifi parallel dimension movie if you replace the angel with some scifi mumbo jumbo.
>>152159695If you're serious about this, a few suggestions, OP1) Read some old horror and science fiction comics. The kind from before the Golden Age of comic books ended, with anthologies like DC's House of Mysteries/Secrets or Marvel Tales. Get a clear sense of the level of dread and fear people put into new technology and societal fears of the time. Take in how a lot of monster tales came from this era, as well as superheroes who were presented as figures of inspiration and awe but also speculation and mild dread for what kind of world they are about to shape with their presence.2) Take a look at tokusatsu stuff. And I don't mean just old power rangers and all, I mean Garo, Ultra Q, Kamen Rider Amazons, older monster movies, stuff like that which explores how this campy shit might look to the civilians in the setting, people who don't see a bunch of goofy people in costumes flailing around fake-fighting but strange garish creatures with strange and confusing motives imposing themselves upon our world for brief moments at a time.3) Remember that less is more sometimes. Most deconstructions understand the shock value of the efficiency of heroes and the seeming lack of permanent consequences in superhero fights and then shit all over that with excess gore, violence, and swearing, but that's the writing equivalent of a pizza cutter; All edge with no point to it. You don't need to show excess cruelty or shock content to get across your intent, sometimes just a brief flirting with it will do more for your story than an entire montage of violence will.and4) Frankly, read some deconstructions and decide if you really want to throw another onto the pile. Not because I'm telling you "don't do it", but because you should decide what kind of point you want to make about superheroes and their concept overall that hasn't been said already before devoting time to making yet another superhero deconstruction.Anyways, gl and hf with that, OP.
>>152159695No "superheroes are good but actually evil" that shit's been done to death. What about "superheroes wouldn't work in real life" instead?
>>152159695I want people to actually go balls in and question the relationship between heros and old cultural legends of powerfull aristocratic men empowered to save the plebian. Like a superman or batman figure just laying out their justification to for operating outside the law with>You had your Hercules, your Samsons, Solomons, Bhimas and Gilgameshs>All were great men, greater than those under their protection, and they were respected for it>They were recongnised and venerated, given full dominion over the lives of those they sought to better>We venerate knights and samurai alike, and they too were great men who were held above others>Even when they murdered, plundered or defiled, their powers and heroism outweighed their sins>And yet, as I stand before you as a modern incarnation of your cultures heros, as I protect and uphold justice and peace for the sake of it, you wish to hold yourselves above me?>To control me?>Tell me what happened to those who sought to control Samson or Hercules, or those who tried to challenge Bhima or Gilgamesh>And try as you might I will still be remembered fondly for crushing such resistance, so why provoke the point?>Why make an enemy out of your one savior, what does it matter what my moral failings may be?>You should respect me for appearing more human...
>>152159800>>152161285I love The Big O but a "deconstruction" (a term I don't really believe in) is the last thing I would call it. It's an homage to many things the creators both loved and worked on, and the collective amnesia, Paradigm City being (supposedly, probably not) the last bastion of civilization in the world, etc. just comes with it being a mystery sci-fi series which was never meant to have a canon answer beyond what you, the viewer, wanted to give it (per Konaka's own words). I doubt Roger piloting a robot instead of having superpowers is meant to mean anything either besides them liking Giant Robo and wanting to do kaiju/mecha fights.
