r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Ultrimus-Prime • 1d ago

miscellaneous Media Made to Prove the Haters Wrong

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Tunak Tunak Tun (Daler Mehndi) Critics claimed his music videos were only popular because they featured attractive women dancing. Mehndi responded by making a music video featuring nobody except multiple green-screen versions of himself. It became a massive hit and his most famous song.

Five Nights at Freddy’s - Scott Cawthon previously made a family-friendly game called Chipper & Sons Lumber Co. Critics complained that the characters looked like creepy animatronics. Rather than abandon that visual style, Cawthon decided to turn them into an actual horror game using scary animatronics.

Superman Kingdom Come - Mark Waid and Alex Ross were reacting to the 1990s trend of increasingly violent, cynical superheroes.

Their story deliberately challenged the belief that traditional superheroes like Superman were outdated. It portrayed the consequences of abandoning heroic ideals and argued that compassion, restraint, and morality were still essential to superheroes.

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u/R0b0uteGuilliman 1d ago

Fans of the show love to glorify the comic… but the comic version of The Boys is actual trash. there is not a single aspect of the story that has some deep message outside of shock value, and the author fucking hating superheroes. That’s all the comic is a hate letter to superheroes.

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u/demonsdencollective 1d ago

Sometimes I mentally slip into toxicity and start hating on everyone and everything. Then I remember how fucking dogshit The Boys is and correct myself to be more open minded and positive again before I start ruining the things I'm passionate about too.

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u/Motivated-Chair 1d ago

Series so dogshit made you a better person.

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u/demonsdencollective 1d ago

It's incredible. I hope it leads to some golden age throwback hero movies. Maybe we could call those types of movies Incredibles. Wait...

https://giphy.com/gifs/g0Ub5PgMoLqaNKBpDH

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u/counters14 1d ago

Wait I'm confused here. Don't people widely love the series? I thought that the criticism was mainly about how the fans were media illiterate and didn't understand the narrative so they ended up idolizing the bad guys? I never watched the show or kept up with the hype but I thought people genuinely liked it?

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u/Motivated-Chair 1d ago

It got worse in later seasons even for people that got It. With the finale being disliked. Honestly not surprised considering the production pipeline these shows are force into.

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u/chronoflect 1d ago

Had a similar realization when I was watching Toy Story 3 with friends and they asked me to stop being a cynical asshole, constantly pointing out "mistakes" and such.

Permanently stopped watching cinema sins after that.

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u/jobforgears 1d ago

Cinema sins and rotten tomatoes I think did a lot of damage where people started to channel and internal critic that they really didn't have before. Most people rate movies better than critics because they watch them to have fun conversely, critics have a nagging sense that this is wrong/cheap/overused/etc. These are way more accessible than talk shows like siskle and ebert and aimed at teenage/young adult audiences that are still forming their judgment. That being said, I'm also more educated on physics and engineering than I was when I was a teenager and so I know when things are wrong whether I want to give the movie a chance or not.

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u/theaviationhistorian 1d ago

Nowadays they're doing better with Cinema Wins. They honestly were a good recommendation for some films I overlooked.

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u/Federal_Waltz 1d ago

Are we talking about the comic or the tv show? The tv show is pretty decent, and that's coming from someone who hates the current marvel pump and dump 20 shit-tier movies a decade approach.

The boys is probably one of the best superhero digital media (tv/movies) in the last decade.

No clue about the comics though

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u/Goodmindtothrowitall 1d ago

They are 100% talking about the comic. The tv show is quite different in a few very important ways… which is why it’s good

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u/gprime312 1d ago

did you watch the last 2 seasons?

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u/ExternalPromotion542 1d ago

It started out good. The first few seasons werent too bad.

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u/knightmechaenjo 1d ago

When you see something so cynical it makes you wanna be better

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u/Affectionate_Yam1654 1d ago

Hell yea homie. I dunno if I’m just getting old and tired but I can’t stand to be so negative anymore. I spent 20+ years shittin on and being critical of everythin. It’s exhausting. Let people enjoy things. You don’t make great art without making trash art first. Just because society has changed it doesn’t mean things that aged bad and are shit today that they wasn’t fun in the when they happened. I mean we still gotta have standards so fuck AI soulless theft of humanity, but just because Trump bombs schools full of children today doesn’t mean I can’t fondly remember Kevin McCallister meeting the dude I thought had to be the richest man in the world when I was 7.

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u/iamamotherclucker 1d ago

"The Boys" comics must be up there for "most larped pieces of media", because I keep seeing people talk about how it's so much better than the show and posting edits (that consist of the same five pages) only to never talk about anything actually in the comics

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u/ThisIsFrigglish 1d ago

I once described it to a friend as

Look, it's Martian Manhunter - but he's a pervert! Look it's the X-Men - but it's a groomer cult! Look, it's a crude pastiche of Teen Titans/Young Justice/New Warriors - but they're r----ds who just rescue cats from trees and have ice cream parties! Look, it's Thor - but he's an alcoholic groper! Look, it's all the 'my superpower is money' heroes - but he's a degenerate rapist! All so Ennis' quartet of the most agonizingly late-90s Donut Steel edgelord OCs plus Simon Pegg have someone to gruesomely disassemble in full color with super-strength. Essential plot lines include a Superman expie going from "that varsity kid who used to shove Ennis into lockers, but with powers" to homicidal god-complex by mistake, a central protagonist killing a superpowered baby (this is presented positively), and a drooling sub-70 IQ crude parody of Cheney knocking the President unconscious in the secure White House bunker during 9/11. It's just a subway wizard shoving his grubby finger in your mouth because he saw you reading a comic book.

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u/Michelanvalo 1d ago

Don't forget about the dog that rapes on command.

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u/ThisIsFrigglish 19h ago

There are a lot of small things I could have brought up - the Captain America knock-off bottoming for a place on the team, the rape dog, the zombie kept in a room full of his own shit - but I thought leaning into three of the things Ennis felt should drive the plot was enough.

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u/jackofslayers 1d ago

"OH you like Aquaman? Well MY Aquaman is a piece of shit that does drugs. and also he gets killed by My edgy OC characters. OH you like the Flash? Well MY flash rapes people and also he gets killed by my edgy OC characters."

Literally just that on repeat.

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u/Nyx87 1d ago

The show had a lot of problems, but i like how they handled both A-train and Deeps redemption (or lack thereof) arcs.

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u/DaemonG 1d ago

most of the supes, at least among those that were in the show from early on, got handled pretty damn well. Starlight being an unfortunate exception.

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u/Dropbeatdad 1d ago

A good internet meme can do that

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u/Admirable_Profit_729 1d ago

No one actually thought the comic was good, or was worth taking seriously.

The show’s ending was just so generationally ass people tell themselves it’s the better adaptation (trick question: both of them are shit media)

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u/Federal_Waltz 1d ago

I always wonder how people who don't like The Boys feel about the last decade of Marvel movies.

I feel like there's a lot of people who pretend Avengers and associated movies are anything but dogshit but somehow complain about the boys.

If we're going to complain we need to be consistent, and if you like recent Marvel content you've basically destroyed any credibility in reviewing these genres.

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u/Galle_ 1d ago

I respect your moxie.

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u/Admirable_Profit_729 1d ago

That’s… a very specific genre of person

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u/jcbaggee 1d ago

I've said ever since the show started: the first year or so of The Boys comics and the last two arcs are actually pretty interesting. Everything in between is just edge-lord nonsense for the sake of being edge-lord nonsense.

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u/Railboy 1d ago

After the first season I thought I'd check out the comic and oof what a disappointment.

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u/TwoHungryWolves 1d ago

I've always disagreed with the complete dismissal of the comic. It is full of shock / edge stuff, but it makes people dismiss a lot of the well done parts. Specifically, there's a theme of revenge never really being this big beautiful cathartic thing. It never plays out the way it does in someone's fantasy. One big bad dies off panel, at the hands of another villain. Another big bad gets a would-be "cool revenge death" but he's happy because he's completed his life's work. When Huey avenges his girlfriend, it's hollow, and gross. Huey gains absolutely nothing from doing it. The whole thing seems mainly like a takedown of "edgey/badass" characters in comics and movies.

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u/Necroxenomorph 1d ago

I also am a vehement defender of the validity of the comic. Its got a lot of shock/edge stuff, and i think goes on too long. But as you noted theres a whole lot of exploring revenge and various common ideas rooted in machismo, the obvious takedown of glorifying superheroes which was less common back in 2006.

I think a lot about how the guys who made The Venture Brothers said failure was a major theme of that show in their writing. They waffled around on it some over the years, but I think Garth applies the same theme to the Boys. The superheroes are all basically failures. Hughie is like failure personified at every level. Butcher's ending is to me the great thesis of the whole series, and the final bits show what a failure of a human he ultimately was. The machismo is ultimately all just toxic masculinity.

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u/Youthsonic 1d ago

And people never talk about how Butcher, Baker, Candlestickmaker, dear becky, and the ending of the comic all prove that under the cynicism and anger, Garth Ennis is just a cringy romantic. I mean just look at why the team is called the Boys "You didn't know her, hughie. You dunno what she meant to me. What she made me into. Men are only so much use, Hughie. Men are boys"

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u/Necroxenomorph 1d ago

I agree about the romantic part of Garth. It shows through really well during Preacher especially.

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u/Torneco 1d ago

Garth Ennis makes a lot of trash, but is interesting trash

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u/stautism 1d ago

Spectacle is the word that comes to mind. He makes a good spectacle

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u/Great_Maximum_6007 1d ago

Had a better ending.

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u/OperativePiGuy 1d ago

yeah I thought the show was rough enough for it's shock for the sake of it. The comic manages to be even worse about it.

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u/Historical_Sugar9637 1d ago

I literally couldn't read beyond the first issue because I hated everything about it.
As a result I have also never watched the show. Even if it is as different from the comic as everybody says, I still don't find the premise appealing at all.

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u/king_of_satire 1d ago

I qoupdmt say the comics has no deep meaning thats just nonsensical criticism but it does drown any of its points and commentary with a giant wave of edgy slop

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u/MeekAndUninteresting 1d ago

I still think the comic is much worse, but in all honesty I was surprised how much of Ennis was still in the show. I didn't make it past season 1, but after hearing people talk about the show as a serious, meaningful work, I did not expect them to decide the only way to deal with this superhero is to shove c4 up his ass.

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u/Faptainjack2 1d ago

It's not that the comics were good. It's that the show was worse.

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u/Sedona54332 1d ago

Do they love to glorify the comic? Every time I hear people talk about the comic it’s about how the comic is much worse than the show.