Comments on: Tips on Writing a Superhero Team

By: Nayan

Nayan — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 03:57:34 +0000

Nolan is the producer of ‘Man of Steel’. Maybe he has given some inputs to the film.

By: B. McKenzie

B. McKenzie — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 02:37:57 +0000

Thanks, H. Lawson, but if I had to pick one person to give them advice, it’d probably be Nolan or Brad Bird (Incredibles/Ratatouille/Ghost Protocol). They both have experience wringing good movies out of WB… no small feat.

By: H. Lawson

H. Lawson — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 01:55:59 +0000

Someone forward this to Warner Bros. lol xD

By: B. McKenzie

B. McKenzie — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 05:24:14 +0000

"B. Mac, I’m thinking you should make an article about superhero team cliches and tropes. It would help people seeking advice on what to avoid or try to avoid when developing a team of superheroes." Thanks for your help. Please see Common Pitfalls and Cliches for Superhero Teams here.

By: Jan

Jan — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 02:57:17 +0000

ekimmak: Oh, gosh. My team of protagonists had five ridiculously underdeveloped men, six Mary Sue women, and one outsider-looking in, with an antagonist team of NINETEEN.

Gosh oh Lord.

By: ChickenNoodles

ChickenNoodles — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 00:13:41 +0000

Hey bmac, I’m thinking you should make an article about superhero team chliches and tropes. It would help lots for peopple seeking advice on what to avoid or try to avoid when developing a team of superheroes.
-ChickenNoodles

By: Myna

Myna — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 23:14:31 +0000

My first superhero novel involved old versions of Seth and Mina, a psychotic mad scientist who was trying to steal powers to create a super-army, a paranoid little girl who claws her eyes out and an insane asylum.

Don’t worry ekimmak. It always gets better. : )

By: Max

Max — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 19:15:34 +0000

I have a team, but I don’t have a name. It’s five heroes, and they all go to defeat the villain because they all think that they’re the only ones who can do it.

By: B. McKenzie

B. McKenzie — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 08:06:52 +0000

“I have to wonder if I’m any good at writing, or just like coming up with characters and plots. Considering that my first work was a superhero team of 12, and way too many antagonists.” My first idea for a superhero novel was a (hilariously weak) version of Wild Cards–10 5000-10,000 word chapters, each one about a character that was more or less never mentioned again. ~8 main superheroes and 10 POV characters? Yeah, not a great plan, it turns out.

Keep practicing–it’ll get better. (Well, it has already, but it’ll keep getting better).

By: ekimmak

ekimmak — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 08:01:59 +0000

I have to wonder if I’m any good at writing, or just like coming up with characters and plots. Considering that my first work was a superhero team of 12, and way too many antagonists… yeah. Maybe it could work, but doesn’t look like it.

By: B. McKenzie

B. McKenzie — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 02:19:25 +0000

“But on that same note, First Class, in my opinion, is of a much better writing quality that X3 would ever be.” Agreed. Focusing less on action and more on character development made First Class a lot more memorable than X3. In particular, I feel like Xavier, Magneto, Mystique and Beast came across as a lot more interesting in First Class than they did in any of the previous movies.

By: TKR

TKR — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 23:51:16 +0000

I was part of the 355 million, believe me.

But on that same note, First Class, in my opinion, is of a much better writing quality that X3 would ever be. And so far as I know, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Xavier never carried their own independent comic like Iron Man and Captain America.

In comparing the Avengers to X3, even at their weakest moments it still surpassed the strongest of X3 – even though Hawkeye may not seem to have too much to add to the plot after he was ‘reprogrammed’ he was still made better use of then, say, Kitty Pride. From my POV, he was there as a counter balance to the dominate leadership, someone just as able to take the orders as he was to give them. And sometimes that’s needed on a team.

By: B. McKenzie

B. McKenzie — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 23:45:36 +0000

Ah, good point, TKR.

One minor point: Killing off Xavier, Jean Grey and Cyclops has not prevented Marvel from making X-Men blockbusters–for example, First Class grossed $355 million at the box office against a production budget of $160 million. In contrast, killing off any of the Avengers* would probably kill off a line of blockbusters–for example, killing Tony Stark or Steve Rogers would almost assuredly abort Iron Man 3 or Captain America 2.

*Besides maybe Black Widow and Hawkeye, but Marvel would probably still be reluctant to kill either. Marvel has a movie for them in the works. If the movie does poorly at the box office, then they might be expendable, but I don’t think Marvel would preempt that possibility.

By: TKR

TKR — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 22:36:12 +0000

New Here, and thought I’d drop a few things.

“Or, if they do kill off a character, it’d almost certainly be in the final third of the movie and the dead character will probably be relatively minor (e.g. Coulson rather than a character churning out $500+ million movies).” While I agree largely with you on the assessment of Marvel, in X3 they did kill off three major characters – Cyclops, Jean Grey/Phoenix and Charles Xavier. Unfortunately for me, that was the last straw for that movie.

By: B. McKenzie

B. McKenzie — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 21:39:49 +0000

“My question would be, if only four are really developed, why do you need the other two?” I had the same question. “I really think it could work if my plot gave these side characters the chance to shine, and their relationship with the main characters would complete the story.” Okay, but do you need two more superheroes on the main team to do this?

Some alternatives:
–They aren’t superheroes and are mainly used in a developmental role (e.g. Lucius Fox in Dark Knight).
–The two superheroes aren’t on the same team, but occasionally join in on particular missions.
–Depending on how large the organization is, perhaps the organization is divided into smaller teams or squads, and these two last characters are on a different squad we don’t see much of. For example, in a police story about two detectives, we’ll see the most of the two detectives, but we might see other police characters in other roles (e.g. backup on particular cases, office politics, conflict from bosses, IA shenanigans, etc).