miscellaneous
(Meta Trope) A major part of the general public's perception of a character or work is majorly outdated no longer being relevant to said character/media at all.
Any example of the general public's perception of a work/character that the actual media itself has long since moved past.
Spiderman and Mary Jane. The general public image of Spiderman still remains with his true love being Mary Jane. Virtually every adaptation features Mary Jane as the final relationship, and numerous fan works also prominently feature said relationship. In modern Spiderman comics Mary Jane and Peter divorced each other and haven't been in a relationship for almost a decade now.
RWBY and Beacon academy. Originally RWBY was about the characters attending essentially a magical school so they could learn to become monster hunters. Virtually any fan made material, or the vast majority of extended media/reboots is set during this time period. In the main show however Beacon Academy, and even the country it was in, have been long since destroyed with all the protagonists having left it many seasons ago. In Volume 7 they even briefly served a stint attending Atlas' academy instead on a part time basis until also leaving there.
Batman works alone. Virtually every adaptation of Batman puts an emphasis on him being a complete loner, and most fan works treat Batman as working as a lone individual in Gotham. In the main comics Batman has a long list of sidekicks who have now become adults and heroes in their own right alongside him, often referred to as the "Bat Family" now. There is virtually always a team of fellow heroes in Gotham he can call upon if needed.
I still get mad remembering one time, an acquaintance and I were talking about comics, and she asked what character I thought was hottest. I said Spider-Man. She goes "eewww he's like, 16," and glared at me like I was a pedophile. Bruh, he's an adult in SO MANY storylines!
IIRC Spectacular Spider-Man (2008) was the first cartoon to predominantly feature a high school aged Spidey
Previous cartoons either have him in college or post college.
It's the Tom Holland films that re-cemented high school Spider-Man in the public's minds as movie adaptations generally displace other adaptations and source material.
The fact that the general public still thinks of Spider-Man as a high school kid bums me out. My favorite Superhero is Spider-Man, but I grew up with adult Spider-Man in the late 80s, and that's my favorite version of him. The movies always take it back to highschool or shortly after, so that's where he stays in most people's minds.
I feel a big part of that comes from adaptations having in high school, I think Ultimate Spider-Man (comic not the cartoon) played a big part in pushing the idea that Spider-Man is a young hero.
Well...I think they're reasonably safe in their graves in the main universe, but in the Flashpoint timeline Bruce was killed that night instead, and Thomas and Martha became their universes respective versions of Batman and the Joker, and that version of them could cross over.
To be fair, Thomas doesn't just use guns. He also double taps. He's everything Bruce was scared he would become if he just started cleaning house with his villains.
Basically, his death was supposed to be a red herring/fakeout and was going to be retconned. Then they just didn’t do that, and now Batman has a different butler that was like his grandniece or something like that.
Hell ALFRED in universe said that bringing him back so soon would be stupid. He also iirc said he wasn't going to be dead forever but the bat family needs to learn how to live without him.
AKA talking to the audience about how the only thing stupider than this story being approved would be immediately reversing it. They have something new here, they're going to explore it for a bit then bring him back.
And he was right. There's been more than a few misses but it's actually been really damn interesting to see Batman and Bruce not have his right hand man/butler/father. He has to learn how to deal with Damian on his own and it's actually been pretty damn sweet seeing batman be the goofy proud dad and seeing that he has his own catwoman thing going on, like look at this
Batman finally realizing his son is a true Wayne cause he also somehow attracted a freaky alt girl who wants to fuck, marry and kill him at the same time. I mean she's already 1/3 of the way there lol
Which honestly I can respect. I don't mind comics killing off characters and then bringing them back, I just hate how quickly they bring them back. Let us sit in the world without a character we loved for a while. Let the loss be felt.
Honestly this alone makes the post worth it.
Pete's hell that every spiderman fan talks about? Even ik paul and his killer.
Like batman working together? not really a surprise.
And gave zero fucks when the alien started choking him, calling him a "Big Bully" before Batman swooped in and rescued him prevented Alfred from torturing the poor predator
Not a comic reader, is there a "main" continuity at all? I always thought there's tons of different runs which all have their own rules and canon, is there a "the" Batman?
Yes, pretty much every running book is "main" continuity unless it's listed under Elseworlds, (or What If in Marvel's case), or is explicitly set in another dimension or timeline.
Now the rub is, DC often resets their entire continuity. They do it like every fifteen years (or less).
DC comics have rebooted a few times and there are some elseworlds stories published every now and then, but yes there is usually one main universe in publication and right now Alfred is dead as hell.
There's a "mainline" yeah. What's included is somewhat... Variable, but it exists. The rest are elseworlds of various flavors.
Canon is a tricky concept in comics. Stuff gets picked up from adaptations or elseworlds, things get retconned in or out of existence. These characters are closing in in a hundred years old with a massive number of different authors.
Mainline is a moving target, but it generally refers to "whatever is going on in the character's core book(s) and other stuff that references events in those books directly, unless it spins off from them in ways irreconcilable with the main books in which case it's not until or unless it is."
"Mary Jane and Peter divorced each other and haven't been in a relationship for almost a decade now"
That's a funny way to say Peter sold his marriage to the devil in exchange for a character who should have died a long ass time ago because the writer is a schmuck.
And somehow every superhero on the fucking planet that could have healed that character turned into colossal fucking morons that suddenly couldn't fix a simple fucking gunshot.
The X-Men alone have like a dozen healers that could have healed Aunt May in a second, including Elixir who has literally brought people back from the fucking dead.
It genuinely would have been better if Marvel had hit the 'don't think about it' button rather than claim that not one single super genius or literal wizard he talked to could heal a basic gunshot wound.
For fuck's sake, go to Doom, who is both of those things, and tell him its either him or Mephisto. Doom will turn Aunt May into a fuckin magic powered cyborg with that motivation.
There's also a hundred characters that could box mephisto into submission so it's not even a big deal it was the devil who got his marriage. Peter is just a major dumbass when it comes to asking for help(because it would solve all his problems)
May Parker did die in 1995 during the Clone Saga and stayed dead for almost 4 years. She had a stroke, fell into a coma, woke up and got to have one last week with Peter and his wife Mary-Jane. She notices that MJ is pregnant before they can tell her and congratulates them both, and later told Peter that she's known he was Spider-Man for years and loved him. It was a very heartfelt and emotional story and a good sendoff for May.
Then they retconned it so Norman Osborn kidnapped the real May while she was in the coma and swapped her out for an actress he had hired to impersonate her who'd been surgically altered down to the genetic level to impersonate her and die in her place. All just to fuck with Peter.
I remember them saying something like they wanted to keep the character and wanted to work with people on making him more suitable as Indian representation but then they just never followed up on that and it's been almost a decade since.
King of the Hill recast Kahn Souphanousinphone to be played in the reboot by The Daily Show's Ronnie Chieng who's actually Southeast Asian (though he's Malaysian not Laotian) and it's been generally pretty well received. I think that opens the door for the possibility of bringing Apu back with an Indian voice actor, and there are several great options for who to cast.
It's funny that the show got more flack from Indian-Americans for axing a character who was basically an immigration success story with a (usually) thriving business, comfortable upper middle class home life, and loving family than they ever did from people offended by Apu.
The Batman one is especially odd since even in popular media ,like the movies, Batman always works with Alfred and Gordon at the least even before mentioning the Bat-Family
Also, he's always one of the founding members of the Justice League. He is canonically paranoid af (contingency plans against all the league etc. even though that's in part to counter potential mind control scenarios which, tbf, happen all the fucking time), but he is also super pragmatic about the logic of working in a team.
It's pretty funny because in the comics, the "Batman works solo" era was also the "Batman doesn't give a shit about killing people" era
It's a status quo that only lasted for roughly the first year of the character's existence, with Robin and the no kill code introduced more or less at the same time. So it's always fun to see people treat one like a fundamental trait of the character and the other like an irredeemable aberration
This is only the case with Spider-Man and MJ because the storyline that broke them up is universally despised. Several adaptions since have also still had them be the endgame couple.
Also, Batman has had a Robin by his side since 1940 (Batman first appeared in 1939). He has hardly ever been alone in his fight against crime, heck, Robin predates Alfred by 3 years. It's really just the movies, especially Nolan, that made him a loner. Batman having a Robin has never been an outdated part of his identity.
I hate the “can’t let Robin be with Batman!” That so much modern media seems to like. The man has been a father figure to a Robin longer then we have been alive.
Said this in a separate comment but Bruce Wayne only existed as a character separately from Dick Grayson for 11 months. Batman debuted in 1939 and Robin debuted in 1940 (I’m blanking on the exact months, but I wanna say it was March 1940 and April 1939)
I'd say that the only reason it's still interesting to tell stories about them separated the way they are is because they're still seen as fundamentally a couple, fundamentally belong together. If people on the whole started seeing them as divorced and done, those stories would no longer be fun, what was juicy would become depressing.
"Mild-Mannered Reporter Clark Kent" is kind of a relic at this point for Superman in most versions. He's usually portrayed in comics as a 40-something dad who's built like a brick shithouse and just happens to wear glasses. It's very rare for him to do any reporting and 90% of the important people in his life know his secret identity. My Adventures With Superman was really the only version of the character to lean into it in recent years.
My favourite “recent” example of Clark doing reporting is a single panel of him, Lois and Jimmy asleep in an armoured tank in armoured “PRESS” get ups, presumably having just reported on an active warzone.
I think it's because it's the easiest to animate (grounded, medieval fantasy without monsters (excluding Zodd and Wylad but no one adapts Wylad thank god)) and because it is kinda a self contained story. 97 and Golden Age both had dreams to continue it, but if you're unsure if you can keep up the series better to do something that can kinda be its own thing.
but every Berserk adaptation is that over and over again
I think most adaptations (we dont count 2016) focus on this as the next arcs would be incredibly difficult and controversial to animate.
The very next part after the Golden age arc is the lost children chapters. With scores of children being massacred by monsters and Guts himself as he didnt know they were transformed into monsters
Plus things became just much more sexual with the monsters appearing. It went beyond murder as sexual assault and rape became more common. Hell in the Lost Children chapters there was the "adult attack". I cant even post a Pic of that without fear of getting banned. Not to mention the myriad of penis's on so so so many of the monsters.
I love Berserk. But adapting anything post Golden age would be hell to animate as the monsters and world design became much more intricate. Moreover, it'd be controversial as hell when it aired.
And in the opposite direction, I recently saw someone bitching about millennials aren’t retiring and we’re monopolizing the job market and keeping young people out. My guy. I am thirty.
I'm ambivalent because I just know they were born as marketing terms to define target demographics and that's garbage, but they are also sort of useful to get a general idea of the historical context people lived through.
The main characters of Assassin's Creed games have rarely worn their iconic white, hooded robes since Edward Kenway in ACIV: Black Flag, some 13 years ago now. They've all either dressed in regular clothing of their era or in non-white hooded robes - except for Basim in AC: Mirage.
Because almost none of the recent games features actual Assassins, as in members of the Assassin Order.
Origins: the precursor of the Assassin Order is only created after the game,
Odyssey: happened 400 years before Origins and features a Spartan warrior who got involved with Isu legacy,
Valhalla: features a Viking who gets involved with Assassins and discovers some of their hideouts, but never becomes one,
Mirage: is the only one that features a traditional member of the Assassin Order, hence the getup,
Shadows: features a member of a Japanese ninja village whose mother is an Assassin (kinda), but she is never formally inducted or have any contact with the Order or formal Assassins until the DLC.
So yeah, other than Mirage, the last game that featured actual members of the Assassin Order came out in 2015.
Sakura (Street Fighter) Everyone knows her as a spunky teenage schoolgirl that fights, but ever since Street Fighter 5, she’s an adult now with a part-time job at an arcade.
She’s actually going through a bit of a struggle wondering if she should keep fighting or settle down and start a family
Yes and no. In the latest game he actually working construction and is avoiding fighting. He is presented as a disfunctional father trying to do better. It's part of why Luke feels like a kindred spirit with him.
I am utterly (but pleasantly) surprised that there has been such character development to where many Street Fighter characters have their own families now!
And he has also turned out to be an evil, devious bastard many times rather than some kind of benevolent force for good. And Magneto has been a significantly better leader
https://giphy.com/gifs/Af6ldnmNLUXDTk4oyr
Jubilee in the 616 comics hasn’t been a teenager in a long time. She grew up, lost her powers, got turned into a vampire, became a teacher, adopted a son, all the usual milestones we all go through.
Its not suprising most younger people don’t realize this. The cost of living crisis has made many push back when we achieve these milestones into our 30’s. And the cost of unliving crisis means we’re still looking at another decade of serving as familae and ghouls for our tenebrous masters.
Speaking of: Mocking Jubilee for her "weak" fireworks powers.
Despite being a literal walking fusion bomb capable of blowing up a starship bigger than New York City with one blast. And we still don't know if that's the upper limit of her powers.
I think it's also just a case of what they're initially presented as being capable of doing, all before someone just goes "wait, if she can do that, why can't she do this?" sort of thing. Like how Iceman went from being a guy who could cover himself in snow to being able to freeze continents.
The Power Rangers being teenagers (with attitude). Throughout 30 seasons, the vast majority of rangers have been adults. A few teams had one teenager among them. Teams made up primarily of high schoolers are pretty rare, being just MMPR through In Space (that era encompasses anywhere from 1-6 teams depending on your view on the Ship of Theseus), plus Dino Thunder, Megaforce, and Ninja Steel
For comparison, the list of teams where being a ranger is a full time job with a salary is: Lightspeed Rescue, Time Force, SPD, Overdrive, RPM, and Beast Morphers. That's 6 teams
Spiderman comics Mary Jane and Peter divorced each other and haven't been in a relationship for almost a decade now.
They didn't divorce. Their marriage was literally wiped from existence in a deal with Mephisto under the most stupidly contrived "plot" in the history of stupidly contrived Marvel plots.
The general public image persists because PEOPLE FUCKING HATE ONE MORE DAY and refuse to abandon the ship.
I have a friend who doesn't read Spider-Man and I turned him into a die-hard Fuck Paul supporter just by telling him a short summary of what happened in Zeb Wells's run.
The thing that will always stick with me about Quesada was when he went on the Colbert Report when Stephen Colbert was doing a bit about wanting to run for president, but not knowing who to be his running mate. Quesada ends his interview with some props: candidate bumper stickers with "COLBERT" then another name, as you typically see.
He takes out the first one, "COLBERT | SPIDER-MAN", haha yeah! A New York hero to get a good pop from the crowd!
Then he has "COLBERT | HULK" Uh oh! That'd be wacky, if his running mate might become an indestructible monster! Aaah, good one!
Then comes the final bumper sticker, clearly set up as the big punchline, per the comedy rule of 3s, right? This one has to be the best or funniest option...
"COLBERT | QUESADA"... what? Himself?? He thinks he tops the Hulk and Spider-man???
Less common of a perception but kamen riders haven’t been based off bugs for a LONG time.
One of the most recent ones were based off snacks, dreams, what ever the hell geats theme is besides cats, and even older kamen riders were based off of space (fourze my goat) ,swords I think, I never actually watched saber, and what ever the hell build is based off.Im on episode 29 and honesty dont know the theme.Its just random bullshit mixed together.The upgraded form is based off soda but the super form is based off tanks and rabbits.
Ash still has a reputation among Pokémon fans and non-fans alike as this novice trainer who never evolves his Pokémon and has a team of wimpy baby starters.
The funny part for me is while I recognize all of them from greg ninja to goodra and hwalcha this is my first time seeing ash own them. Ik them mostly from the games and pokemon cards. I stopped watching nearly a decade ago. So yeah my mind the moody charlizard is still his strongest pokemon
It didn't help that until Alola, the writers made him lose in asinine ways except for Johto and Hoenn. Those two were legitimate losses.
Kanto: Sleep equals unable to fight, and he couldn't get them to delay the fight because of Team Rocket interfering.
Sinnoh: Some guy named Tobias was essentially a Diabolus ex Machina (devil in the machine, opposite of Deus ex Machina) since he had two legendaries.
Unova: Cameron the scrub who had 5 pokemon, thought the Unova tournament was in Johto, and had Lucario evolve and win. If it was Virgil who fought Ash and won because of Sylveon, I would have considered it a legitimate loss and a better ending since it does hint at Gen 6. Plus who wouldn't want to see an eeveelution team in the anime?
Kalos: Alain went from being a liked character to being despised because his Charizard X won against Ash-Greninja despite them winning against Mega Sceptile.
- Rogue has been able to touch without killing for almost 20 years. Married Gambit a decade ago.
Xavier has spent about half of the last 50 years out of a wheelchair
The mansion has come and gone (and gone to literally hell and back multiple times). It’s currently a telepathic figment as a side thing of the three different main team books
Magneto has mostly been a hero/anti-hero for about 45 years
Wolverine/Jean is barely ever a thing in the main universe, and even then is mostly in his head. She’s been with Cyclops (and/or dead) for most of 60 years, even when she’s off in space. Also Wolverine is busy banging everyone who isn’t Jean.
Jubilee hasn’t been the Team Kid Sister since the 90s. She adopted a son over a decade ago.
And then the emerging one that’s a COUNTER version of all this: Emma Frost hasn’t always been a good guy. She used to be absolutely horrid, darling.
I like how Marvel writer are so out of touch with their fan. Like they expect Paul children and his death to be heart broken but it was celebrated by everyone. And when they hint for another “One more day” They got clown on again because they keep thinking people still care about M.J and Peter relationship and also Aunt May.
Hawkman and Hawkwoman are known for reincarnating, but in the Hawkman storyline by Robert Venditte, after defeating the evil god Lord Beyond the Void, they finally broke the cycle and were rewarded by the Presence with a long lifetime.
Also even Shayera being more knows as Hawkgirl she is called Hawkwoman since...1973 but Justice League Cartoon called her Hawkgirl.
Well, in the public's defense Spider-Man has been subjected to a nearly endless series of terrible editorial decisions by Marvel, most of which are better off forgotten.
Many people still depict the Straw Hats as they looked during the Fish-Man Island arc; that arc ended in 2012, and they have all changed their outfits since then
This one is understandable tbh. They change outfits every arc and unless artists go for some specific arc they want to be able to pick something neutral, like "I don't wanna Wano Straw Hats or Egg Head Straw Hats, I want JUST Straw Hats" if that makes sense
Fantastic Four hadn't been a four member team since 1968 with debut of Franklin as a baby. And currently it's a team of 5 adults, four kids and two weird uncles. The only stable thing about FF that is left from the team's begining is Johnny's horrible luck with long term relationships
It changes depending on the story. Mostly, it weakens and hurts him, but it's usually not enough to kill him outright unless he gets, like, shot with a kryltonite bullet or is exposed to a whole truckload of the stuff.
Honestly kyrptonite just feels like a plot device meant to show how cool and strong super man is for overcoming it, used to be a way to let superman be hurt and give the story stakes but now, both kinds suck but at least the second has the excuse of being needed for some good plots
Thats because kyrptonite is a plot device meant to show how cool and strong super man is for overcoming it, and a way to let superman be hurt and give the story stakes.
I honestly never understood how Kryptonite works. If it's a piece of Krypton and nullifies the effect of sunlight on Superman from which he gets his powers, shouldn't it just reduce him to the power level of a normal human? Why does it weaken him to the point that he is not even able to stay on his legs?
People often seen purple guy as the main antagonist of Five Nights at Freedys. However, he is dead for several years now and, while his deeds are still the cause of many suffering, he himself is not present in the most recent games for a while now
I mean, he is still the main antagonist of the original saga, and I haven't seen anyone really mistake him for being the villain still. Also, it's possible he was Burntrap in Security Breach, and Secret of the Mimic is pretty much caused by him after screwing with Edwin.
Mario and Luigi being plumbers from Brooklyn isekai’d to the Mushroom Kingdom, at least considering the games. The Yoshi’s Island series, as well as Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, establishes that Mario and Luigi are native to the Mushroom Kingdom, and delivered by storks to mysterious parents.
The 2023 movie decided to go with the original lore, as the movies are separate from the games
All of the family guy characters have morphed over the years but the most extreme is Stewie. He isnt the evil mad scientist baby i still remember him as anymore.
He isnt really a genius anymore. Just a baby who makes way too many sexual jokes.
They’ve also leaned way into his homosexual tendencies, whereas the OG Stewie had a crush on his female babysitter and was always having “sexy parties” like a little High Hefner
Spock remains largely perceived culturally as someone emotionless, assertive and cold. Leaving aside the fact that the current Spock has been dead since 2016 (RIP Leonard Nimoy) and that he wasn't exactly as emotionless as it could be, he learned the balance between emotion and logic a long time ago, like since 1991
RWBY is interesting because I’m 90% sure people focus on Beacon Academy stuff for fanworks because that’s where most of the cool fight scenes are known from.
So that’s where people want to animate their OC’s doing fights
Is this just the opposite of flanderization? As a character moves on and becomes more complex, than fans linger on the simpler version from early on, and exaggerate that as being the only version of the character?
Peter and MJ didn’t divorce, that would make sense. No, their entire marriage was wiped from existence in a deal with the devil to save aunt May’s life because thier union was too pure and their future child too important to exist.
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u/jonawesome 15d ago
I think that "Spiderman is a high schooler" is even more prevalent in the popular imagination, despite most of the comics having left HS decades ago.