SuperHero cliché

 I have always loved superheroes ever since I saw the first one of them. The supermen, spidermen, batmen and the ballmen never ceased to amaze me. Everything about them was cool. Their super-powers, their one-liners, their gadgets made me wonder why they should be confined to comic books, TV and movies.

Guess all these years of being a super-hero fan has taken its toll. I have found lot of glaring similarities across all heroes. All super heroes are nothing but the result of some formula by substituting different values in its variables. 

1)      Every super hero is good looking (only in their masked form). They are the object of masculinity with square jaws, well toned bodies, cool hairstyle etc. The females instantly fall for the super-hero, even though they reject the same person in real life. The female heroes (wonder woman etc.,) are always very curvy and beautiful. They always have pretty eyes and long hair. 

2)      In their unmasked form the super hero is always a nerd/loser. He sucks at everything else in life except being a super-hero. Few of them don’t conceal their identities (Fantastic4, Iron Man etc), even then they are only good at saving the world and nothing else. 

3)      Most of them fly or have some work-around to enable them to fly. Superman, Wonder-woman, Captain America all can fly. Batman cannot fly but has all those gadgets that make him fly. Flash is so fast that he can walk on air, which is close to flying. Fantastic Four has their super cool airplane. 

4)      The lead female is always caught in a love triangle between the superhero and his real life identity. Peter Parker-Mary Jane-Spiderman is the best example. 

5)      The bad guy assumes the state of ‘arch-enemy-in-chief’ only if has the knowledge of the super hero’s one and only weakness, like Kryptonite.  

Let us come to their costumes. My messy-sketch above would have explained half of it. Is it their uniform?? The costumes seem to follow some universal rule.

Mask – All heroes who want to conceal their identity wear a mask. Some are able to conceal even without it (SuperMan).

Symbol – All heroes need to have a symbol. You can find the symbol predominantly on his upper torso. Other places where you can find it are belt, forehead, gadgets. The symbol is the hero’s signature.  

Utility Belt & gloves – Heroes with amazing natural powers like superman have no use for this thing, but heroes with limited powers like batmen heavily rely on the gadgets placed around their utility belts & gloves.

Cape – This is the main thing that makes the super-heroes so appealing. It is chiefly worn by heroes who have the ability to fly (Batman is a glorious exception). It is still not clear whether the cape enable them to fly or they wear it just to look cool while flying. Some capes are also used as shields to protect from laser beams etc.

Boots – they run a lot and have some pretty tough landing a long flight. The huge boots they wear protect them from everything.

Underwear – This is the funniest part of a super hero. They always wear their underwear outside; this does not serve any practical purpose. The Boots, cape and the underwear are mostly of the same color.

Body – The superhero costume is always made in such a way that it reveals their toned body well. No superhero wears loose clothes; they wear tights/spandex and flaunt their bodies. 

      So people, don't be fooled by them, superheores are nothing but a huge cliché.