u/GodPerson132 — reddlx

Whenever people make wishlists, rosters or fan made stuff regarding superheroes and there’s always one or two outliers there that make no sense. Transformers, Predator, The Walking Dead. That stuff is NOT superhero media and will never be. And so I wanted to rant about what I would consider to be a list of what to check by regarding whether something is superhero media or not.

Established world: this is the most important one since if you have a world revolving around superheroes then it’s almost always superhero media. Marvel, DC and even the Incredibles have amazing world building and ways for fitting that world building into character stories. Other media like Robocop isn’t built around superheroes, it’s built around police and one corporation that just so happened to create Robocop.
Rules of saving/rescuing: Many hero stories revolve around a character saving another, but most superhero stories have rules or expectations of saving or rescuing. Give Invincible, he always saves as much people as he can. Why? Because that’s what he needs to do, he chose to be a superhero so that’s what he does. In a story like Star Wars, Luke doesn’t have to save people because ultimately his mission is to destroy the empire. He doesn’t need to, he wants to.
Sense of identity: Most superheroes feel the need to fill an identity, Superman, Iron Man, Homelander are all identities of what they are and never stray away from them and is always the main identity they follow. However, a character like Max Rockatansky is the road warrior but it’s not his main identity and he mostly stays at just Max through the film. Even though he has an identity it’s not one he sticks to or plays into.

I could go on about the superhero genre, but my point is that you just can’t rope in other characters into another genre just because they have a powers and save people. There’s rules and world building and identities of what those characters are to be considered part of that genre. And basically it pisses me off that it happens so much with a genre I like.