As one gets older, one tends to reflect on things. Things that make us laugh. Things that make us cry. Things that make us cringe so much one needs medication to stop. We are talking about Tropes. The things that happen seemingly all the time that we can’t help but have a chuckle at. Pull up a chair, grab a drink from the fridge and let’s get into it.
Trope #1 – The Tragic Backstory.
Ah, yes. The sad and tragic backstory. It is as common a trope in comics as it is in Dungeons & Dragons. My parents/Uncle Ben were killed and I sought revenge/justice to make sure it never happens again. From Batman to Spider-Man to Cyclops (as far as he knew in the beginning before he found out he had the coolest dad ever), If you were to plot all the family members killed from back alleys to the circus, it would begin to look an awful lot like Charlie’s conspiracy map. Sure, It may not be “My parents were killed in an alley”, but how many characters have either been ripped away from their families at birth (Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver), run away from an abusive family (Rogue when her biological parents found out), had a best friend die (Jean Grey) to secret government projects like Weapon X (see trope two). It’s such a common trope that it has almost become the default.
Trope #2 – “I fell into a vat of chemicals and all I got was this T-shirt” Superpower Origins
From Radioactive Spider-bites, to Jack Nicholson’s movie Joker origin (later swiped for Harley Quinn in the movies), to “I’m a frozen man because of a botched experiment”, the ways characters tend to get their powers is always kind of a roll of a six sided dice. One of the best has to be Marvel’s Mutants (or DC’s Meta-humans) because (Queue the Lady Gaga) “Baby they were born this way”. Turns out Stan just didn’t want to put thought into it as he had a hand in churning out new characters seemingly daily and apparently had a lazy day (I Say this as a joke. Stan did have a logic behind it, I just like to make fun of it).
Trope #3 – The Rivalry Turned Team-Up.
This doesn’t need much explanation. Step one – the misunderstanding. “I don’t like you, and you don’t like me”. Step two – the fight. “Lets punch each other stupid” part 3 – the team up. “Did we just become best friends?” “Yup!”
Trope #4 – Death
Apparently in comics, death is as temporary as the common cold. I can count on 1 hand the number of characters who have (mostly) stayed dead, and even they had come back in some alternate universes. Two of the worst offenders I can think of are Jean Grey and Optimus Prime. Both have died and come back numerous times. I’m actually hard pressed to find an A tier character who hasn’t come back (don’t say Nightwing, because he DID die in Forever Evil and was brought back less than 2 pages later). Hell, the X-Men even had a plot about it during the Krakoa Era, and I can honestly say I wasn’t a fan of taking that off the table because you automatically lower the stakes when that loss can just be undone.
Yes yes, I know. There are more tropes than this. What say you? What are some of your favorite tropes you see that you can’t help but poke fun at? If there was one you could do away with, what would you pick?