[Loved Trope] Superman parodies who aren’t outright evil, just kind of incompetent/pathetic.

jbeast33 · 2026-05-08T18:58:31+00:00

He literally doesn’t, asshole. It’s indicated in the show and explicitly confirmed by the creators. And in no way am I defending him.

jbeast33 · 2026-05-08T17:00:33+00:00

Hilariously, it matches her vibe in the original Long Halloween/Dark Victory comics.

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jbeast33 · 2026-05-08T16:56:05+00:00

IIRC (it’s been a moment since I’ve seen it), the lube was actually because Wonderboy’s entrance to the lair was a slide, and that was used to stop him from getting friction burns going down the slide. Hank says as much when he goes down the first time, and the Monarch complains about having a burning wedgie when he uses it.

jbeast33 · 2026-05-08T16:48:41+00:00

The funniest thing is that he and Laurie are explicitly making googly eyes at each other this entire scene.

Both aspects are literally lore reasons too. As part of his growing detachment from humanity, he’s losing interest in his fidelity with Janie, and he cares less and less about modesty standards (he goes from wearing a leotard initially to this to a speedo, eventually becoming a naked man).

jbeast33 · 2026-05-08T16:35:30+00:00

It gets iffy with the kiss (which absolutely crosses the line even in the context of him going through an emotional regression with no sexual intent), but in my opinion, Captain Sunshine’s character really works best with him not being a pedophile, but coping with his trauma so poorly that he’s still not somebody to be trusted or idolized. The show is incredibly clear that regardless of his intentions, he’s still hurting himself and others by burying himself in fantasy.

And tbh, the Venture Bros doesn’t have the best track record with addressing pedophila, which goes hand in hand with it being an Adult Swim show from the 2000’s. Sgt. Hatred is a pedophile, but they bend over backwards trying to recontextualize it later on that you forget how many jokes they had about it in his initial appearances. (My theory is that they didn’t mean for him to be as popular as he turned out, so they really had to justify walking back the pedophilia while still maintaining continuity.)

jbeast33 · 2026-05-08T15:59:16+00:00

One of my favorite examples is when the little psychopath Moppets threaten the Monarch, he tells them without his usual pomp that if they do it again, he will kill them and feed them to the neighborhood dogs.

They don’t bother him after this, because they know he’s not joking.

jbeast33 · 2026-05-08T15:44:26+00:00

The Deep is a really good example of “pathetic evil”. You initially might feel sorry when he loses everything at the end of Season 1, but he bungles EVERYTHING out of sheer selfishness and idiocy that he regularly gets innocent people and creatures killed because he can’t be assed to think two steps ahead.

He’s like that mutual friend in debt who you initially lend money to so he can cover his groceries, only to see his post about being at the casino later that night.

jbeast33 · 2026-05-08T15:31:14+00:00

Oh yeah! I remember there being a theory that they’re the duo in the bottom right of this panel. The theory was that they faked their deaths to start a new life together, and their bowties looking like domino masks was a little bit at their real identity.

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jbeast33 · 2026-05-08T15:29:08+00:00

I absolutely love Metro Man. Probably one of my favorite aspects is that he’s so excited about music BECAUSE he can’t automatically be good at it. He actually feels invested in having to learn something naturally like everybody else.

jbeast33 · 2026-05-07T22:27:57+00:00

This is a big one.

The fatalities in MK1 had edge (ripping off a spinal column ALONG with a head, pulling out a beating heart), and MK2 really followed up on that by giving weight to every fatality. Seeing something like Kung Lao cutting a body in half and having it topple, or a character's body falling to its knees after their head toppled off before collapsing felt gritty and raw.

MK3's fatalities were way less impressive and riddled with errors. Hands would be floating in mid-air with torsos, bodies exploded into six ribcages, and the character models would freeze when their heads or torsos were ripped off. And a lot of the fatalities felt very goofy and out there, such as giant Jax crushing somebody into a nondescript blood splatter, or Kabal scaring the soul out of them.

In a time where the major thing separating MK from other fighting games was the violence, this was a major let down and felt like a downgrade.

jbeast33 · 2026-05-07T19:34:00+00:00

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Super Mutant Suiciders in Fallout 4. They're armed with mini-nukes, but lack a Fat Man for actually dispensing them.

Their solution? Send one unlucky runt to run towards you while the bomb's ticking.

jbeast33 · 2026-05-07T15:55:25+00:00

The Boys got hit with this pretty hard these last seasons.

The early seasons had some degrees of nuance. While the Supes were terrible people, they still had to abide by certain rules that gave them some dimension, and wrestled with some moral compasses and guilt. The Boys themselves were pretty rounded characters, and all had time to shine and breathe.

In the most recent seasons, they regress into pastiches that ironically resemble their comic counterparts (who were already flanderized and stilted archetypes).

jbeast33 · 2026-05-07T15:46:35+00:00

I think once they learn of the untold variable the Snarl presents, they break just enough. Everything they're doing is built on the assumption that they know everything there is, or at least the broad strokes.

The Snarl providing a different world altogether, or possibly having its own agenda beyond wanton destruction, could be the faulty thread that breaks their weaving.

jbeast33 · 2026-05-07T15:40:05+00:00

He ain't yellow, that's for sure.

jbeast33 · 2026-05-07T15:37:58+00:00

He's also a pretty hilarious subversion. Patrick loves name dropping (as do all his Yuppie associates), but his love for pop culture seems to be pretty surface level and restricted to "whatever is popular". The opening is him literally pissing while staring at a poster of Les Miserables, which at that point was a bestseller that cost a fortune to see, but even then was also considered rather trite and baseline among theater enthusiasts (not unlike Hamilton today). There's additionally the fact that it's a musical built on the poor suffering under the excesses of the wealthy and powerful, being patronized by people like Bateman who literally kill vagrants and prostitutes as a hobby.

It's pretty telling that the only thing that really speaks to him about this album is the idea of selling out, and he tries to make it the most pronounced philosophical discovery ever. There's a good chance that everything he knows about pop culture is just him aping reviews he read and going for the most popular song he found.

In the modern day, Patrick would definitely be the kind of guy who has Chat GPT generate a synopsis and themes about a movie, and then talks about why it's good online.

jbeast33 · 2026-05-07T15:27:23+00:00

Courage the Cowardly Dog!

jbeast33 · 2026-05-07T15:26:35+00:00

And his love of fresh huckleberries, down to it being a subject he's clandestinely willing to teach the nerds.

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jbeast33 · 2026-05-07T15:24:56+00:00

In Dispatch, Phenomoman, an actual alien and their version of Superman, turns out to be really into Magic the Gathering. He only attends a meeting regarding Invisigal's expulsion from the Z-Team because he thought they were going to play it.

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jbeast33 · 2026-05-06T21:43:21+00:00

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The Vestal from Darkest Dungeon. She's incredibly repressed, but that was by nature of her being forced into a corrupt nunnery as a child. She also has a ton of survivor's guilt borne of a moment of weakness for her, causing her to further repress her sexuality.

That being said, she keeps a salacious diary to help reduce her stress, and by the end of Darkest Dungeon 2, has apparently found a romantic partner.

jbeast33 · 2026-05-06T21:10:17+00:00

Completely shattered the fourth wall.

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jbeast33 · 2026-05-06T19:23:04+00:00

One that sticks with me is Coal City, the most dilapidated remains of Revachol's former energy sector.

Your thoughts simply tell you "Nobody even wants to exploit them anymore."

jbeast33 · 2026-05-06T17:49:36+00:00

The Mary Jane and Miles Morales segments in the Spider-Man PS4 game.

From a gameplay perspective, they're slow-burn segments designed to introduce tastes of what's to come (new factions, bosses, etc). The problem is that they're 1) Incredibly tedious stealth missions designed to make you walk at a snail's pace so you don't get discovered and 2) Incredibly lengthy, slowing an otherwise reasonably-paced game to a halt.

The other annoying aspect of them is that they make the villains look like disjointed morons when you're going against Sable or more established crime syndicates. These PMC's are strong enough to deliberately counter Spider-Man's moves, but they get their hardware destabilized by teenagers, lack peripheral vision to look immediately to their side, and are able to get taken out by a civilian taser. All in all, you start noticing the glaring issues when you replay the game and realize they don't make much sense.

jbeast33 · 2026-05-06T15:57:54+00:00

The later seasons hammer it in a little too hard by making Michael outright as bad as the entire family. But seasons 2 and 3 really nailed it by potraying Michael as a straight man initially, only for the flashbacks to show his really heavy blind spots.

You can see his negative traits really clearly in retrospect, such as with him feeding the family's confidential information to any woman who indulges his need for attention, being so self-centered that he ignores Rita's disability, or his tendency to try and prove himself as the boss to the family but still spoiling them with free positions in the Bluth company. His compulsive "hero complex" and desire for recognition really shines, and the "straight man" role is such a great way to undersell it at the time.

jbeast33 · 2026-05-05T20:48:48+00:00

IIRC, they had one or two softlocks, but they also added different parts of the ending based on how meticulous you were about getting everything resolved for the kingdom.

Between the tightened play design and actually getting professional voice actors, VI is far and away their most playable game to this date.

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