Heroic Build



We all know that certain things come along with having superpowers. No, we're not talking about responsibility, justice, or even the American way (or whatever is their Evil Counterpart, for the morally villainous). We're talking about a great bod.

Wherever spandex and capes are found, so too are found tight butts, sculpted chests, and washboard abs. Wherever there are chainmail bikinis, there are large breasts, slim waists, curvy hips, and shapely legs. It could almost be called a secondary power in itself - the ability to have a perfect (one might even say over-exaggerated, but surely we won't go that far) physique.

This is true even for heroic men whose powers do not include physical strength, such as psychics, speedsters, and super-scientists. For example, you wouldn't expect someone with an Imagination Based Superpower to have a bodybuilder's physique just from concentrating on things really hard, but it is so. It's just become a convention of the genre, and many comic book artists don't know how to draw in any other way. Even ordinary civilians will often be implausibly muscular.

Some parts of this may be Justified, since many superheroes/supervillains seem to spend a great deal of their off time training religiously. Although one should note that, for females at least, reducing body fat tends to make a figure a lot less lush than that of the typical superheroine/supervillainess. And forget about Stout Strength.

Note that in classical sculpture, the term "heroic proportion" refers to characters with healthy figures who stand eight or more heads high (i.e. their head is an eighth or less of their total height) this imposing figure was used for statues of Greek gods and later biblical figures (Michaelangelo's David, for instance). It is a given that almost all western superheroes and supervillains are eight-and-a-half heads tall or more, and most fashion designers sketch their ideas onto outlines of over eight heads. However, in early Marvel comics, as well as a few from other houses, this rule was subverted: heavily built figures were often drawn with huge heads in proportion to their height so that they looked squat and burly despite being over six foot (see early versions of the Thing, Hulk or the Kingpin).

Sub Trope of Beauty Equals Goodness.

Super Trope to Most Common Superpower.

See also Hollywood Homely, Sculpted Physique, Lantern Jaw of Justice, Top Heavy Guy, Amazonian Beauty. Compare Muscles Are Meaningless.

Please limit examples to exceptions, justifications, and exaggerations.

Anime & Manga

 * In Tiger and Bunny, Mr. Legend wasn't just an old, fat superhero -- he was an old, fat superhero that just happened to be the best damned superhero of his time, and possibly the first superhero.

Comic Books

 * The Blob (one of the X-Men's villains) is Nigh Invulnerable and a Fat Bastard. His resistance to damage is derived from his excessive elastic like-skin.
 * The Juggernaut is often depicted often almost as broad as he is tall, with fists bigger than his head. This insane physique comes from the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak, which makes him Unstoppable. When he's not using the Gem's power to its fullest, his physique remains big, though the proportions are considerably less impressive.
 * Nightcrawler is usually depicted with either a gymnast's or a swimmer's body (or sometimes just out-and-out scrawny). When he is drawn especially muscular it's usually his legs rather than torso that's overdeveloped.
 * Ben Grimm, aka "The Thing" from Fantastic Four, is a mishmash. In the comic books, as Ben Grimm, he's fairly muscular; as The Thing, he's pretty much rectangular with no definition at all. In the movies, Michael Chiklis as Ben is less sculpted, but Thing has distinct abs, biceps and triceps.
 * Also on John Byrne's run on Fantastic Four he drew both Reed Richards and Johnny Storm skinnier and less buff as they looked when they first appeared in 1961.
 * Dr. Banner of The Incredible Hulk is not particularly muscular or defined as himself (Bill Bixby, who played Banner in the TV show, was widely regarded as having the proper physique); how sculpted he becomes when he Hulks out depends on the artist.
 * Let's not forget Fatman, the Human Flying Saucer!
 * Subverted by Herbie The Fat Fury. Superficially he is a fat, rotund, bespectacled loser with a Moe Howard haircut, with a costume consisting of red longjohns and a toilet plunger on his head. But armed with his magic lollipops, he has enough powers and abilities to take on anyone like bank robbers, alien invaders, and Satan.
 * Avengers: The Initiative member Butterball is overweight, and because his Nigh Invulnerability powers prevent his body from changing, will always be overweight.
 * Before they gave up on training him, the Initiative program theorized that a starvation diet would probably cause him to lose weight but it would take months.
 * In Major Bummer, Gecko and Francis are both very skinny.
 * Red Tornado of the DCU-- not the current Red Tornado, but the Golden Age Red Tornado -- a chubby, crimefighting housewife named Ma Hunkel.
 * Roxanne Spaulding (aka Freefall) of Gen 13 is usually drawn as having relatively small breasts and moderate curves, at least compared to her teammates Fairchild and Rainmaker.
 * Peter Parker in Ultimate Spider Man retains his scrawny teenage physique even though he has super-human level strength.
 * Even in the regular Marvel comics, Spidey's physique was sometimes closer to a jogger than a bodybuilder, Depending On the Artist. On the other hand, it's also not unusual for characters to be surprised by those firm biceps that uber-nerd Peter Parker is hiding under his baggy shirt.
 * Some will even draw him very thin. You will often hear artists say that Spider Man has a gymnast's body. While female gymnasts tend to be very small and thin, male gymnasts are actually quite muscular, if slim.
 * Nightwing was an acrobat and usually portrayed as such. A tad muscular for that, but only occasionally did someone draw him as a full-on bodybuilder.
 * Likewise, in Batman comics, Tim Drake is usually drawn as leaner than Nightwing. While they can both end up more muscled, Depending On the Artist, they are usually shown on the leaner side in comparison to Bruce and Jason.
 * Also Damian Wayne, justified as he's only about 10-11 years old. When people do draw him with a full out heroic build, it nears Uncanny Valley.
 * Big Atomic Lantern Boy of The DCU's Super Young Team is a little chubby, but not truly fat. He tries to hide it under a Badass Longcoat, with moderate success.
 * Top Ten plays this straight only with a few characters: Smax, Peregrine, and King Peacock. Other than that, the cast ranges from scrawny (Shock-Headed Peter, Toybox) to paunchy (Spaceman, Irma Geddon, the Word) to simply average (Synaesthesia, Jack Phantom, Dust Devil). Of course, given the setting - a city where everyone is a science hero - this only makes sense.
 * Lobo, supreme icon of Sheer Manliness (and example of Testosterone Poisoning), had kind of an average build in the first issues of Justice League International that he appeared in, but as his popularity grew, so did his physique. Depending on the artist, he makes Mr. Olympia look like Woody Allen, often becoming Top Heavy Guy.
 * Like Spider-man, The Flash (any of them) are often drawn as "jogger" rather than "bodybuilder". Which makes sense since they're fast rather than strong.

Literature

 * In Wearing the Cape, Atlas, the setting's Superman character, wears a sculpted muscle-suit that mimics a Mister Atlas body. Elsewhere, Hope notes that not all superheroes can get away with spandex, and the Hollywood Knights are chosen not just for their powers but also for their physiques (often the result of personal trainers and plastic surgeons).

Live Action TV

 * While Power Rangers toys and merchandising range from "realistically muscled" to "standard buff superhero" to "ridiculously overexaggerated", the show itself averts this as the Ranger suits show no definition at all. Well, with two exceptions, justified as powerups: Andros' Battlized form and Xander's Mystic Muscles spell.
 * The Adam West version of Batman was rather lumpy in comparison to most other incarnations of Batman.

Webcomics

 * Jasper from Sidekick Girl. Granted, from the front he looks fine.
 * Candi Levens of Ciem Webcomic Series is deliberately made in the books to look as much like an Ethnic Treasure otherwise-ordinary girl that might win a high school or college freshman beauty pageant, but not much else. Her breasts are size A-1/2 or B, her behind is unusually small for an Indo-Persian Mulatto, and everything about her seems to say "cute" rather than "hot." Her lover Donte has reason to fear being mistaken for an Ephebophile, since she looks like a high school teen rather than a true college freshman. In the comic, due to it being a machinomic, she is justified in looking like just any other Sim. Either way, she is not what is usually paraded as an "ideal" superheroine.
 * While most super heroines in Grrl Power are incredibility photogenic and highly muscled, the main character Sydney Scoville is not. Harem is also fairly average looking compared to the others.

Web Original

 * While some of the characters in the Global Guardians PBEM Universe had heroic builds, you'd just as likely find a superhero who was skinny, or slightly overweight. Mostly, this happened with the Badass Normals, who justifiably worked out to keep their physiques.

Comic Books

 * DC Comics's "Major Bummer" (see listing at Missed the Call) has a sculpted physique due to Imported Alien Phlebotinum but he uses it as little as possible.
 * Caitlin Fairchild of Gen 13 went from a Hot Librarian to Amazonian Beauty because that's part of the powers she gained, as evidenced by an attempt to copy her Super Strength that also resulted in another superpower... on a guy.
 * When Jon Osterman's original body was destroyed in a Freak Lab Accident he built himself a new one based on the ideal male form to become Doctor Manhattan of Watchmen.
 * The X-Men, when drawn more muscular, do have the justification of all the workouts in the Danger Room.
 * They've also tried to justify this a few times with the idea that mutants generically get an Olympic-level physique and Spidey-level rapid healing. It never really took.
 * Steve Rogers (aka Captain America) has a rather impressive physique, justified by the Super-Soldier Serum that turned him into the peak of physical perfection.
 * Batman. We see him training all the time, and his abilities solely come from that physical training. Same with Jaosn Todd, Green Arrow, Wildcat, etc.
 * When Colin Wilkes turns into Abuse, he gains this build, but is more heavily built than the average hero due to it coming from the same stuff Bane uses.
 * Really most BadassNormals fall here.

Film

 * Mr. Incredible of The Incredibles is a Justified example, as he is indeed shown to lose shape with age until he started training again. Note that he doesn't go all the way back to his youthful heroic build, either.

Manga and Anime

 * The commercialized nature of superheroics in Tiger and Bunny makes appearance just as important as actual heroics (especially for heroes marketed on their sex appeal, such as Blue Rose and Barnaby Brooks Jr.). Thus, HeroTV's provided the heroes with training facilities, which they use quite frequently in their down time.

Web Original

 * Whateley Universe has the exemplar power set to justify it in character.

Comic Books

 * The adult Superman is one of the earliest and most blatant examples, since in the comics and cartoons he is nearly always shown to have a bodybuilder's physique, despite the fact that his powers come from the sun and not his muscles.
 * Actually, originally his powers came from his species being highly evolved. Later this was changed to sunlight AND Krypton having a higher gravity which would justify this a bit more.
 * It's also somewhat justified in that Clark, even without powers, worked his father's farm his entire life, which will get you buff, was an All-American athlete in high school, and even now does his best to keep in major shape.
 * Also consider that Superman tries to continue fighting crime even when depowered, and has even had training from Batman in combat. Odds are he finds a way to work out so his physical abilities are superior to most normal people's even if he finds himself in a depowered state.
 * In Superman's earliest appearances, he was fairly lean. Later interpretations generally gave him a bodybuilder physique, or at-least a fairly buff one.
 * Kryptonians still get stronger by increasing muscle mass. That's why Power Girl works out so much.
 * His original designs were based on the circus strongmen of the time.
 * Rob Liefeld is immensely fond of drawing grossly exaggerated human physiques.
 * Strong Guy from X-Factor has an immensely exaggerated musculature. Also justified in that a childhood accident with his mutant powers permanently deformed him, and he's in constant pain because of it.
 * Tom Strong has the title character parody both this and Top Heavy Guy. He's drawn with a physique that is just slightly exaggerated. He's got a huge torso and comparatively skinny legs- not to the point of cartoonishness, but more like he's very slightly deformed. Indeed, it's actually implied he is, being described by multiple characters as looking like an upside down triangle- which just happens to be his Chest Insignia.
 * Marvel Star Wars was all over the place with regards to this trope and Luke Skywalker. Towards the end they usually averted it completely... except in the very last issue, which also inexplicably removed his shirt and gave him a huge gun he did not use once.
 * The Doctor Who Expanded Universe comics apply this to the Eighth Doctor (while he's shaving and wearing his Goofy Print Underwear), even though, thanks to his rather numerous Shirtless Scenes in the film, we know for a fact he's not quite that chiseled and muscular. Kind of trim and athletic, but not a six-pack in sight.

Webcomics

 * Beyond the Canopy parodied this when Greliz draws a poster depicting Glenn (who's scrappy but not at all muscular) as a mix of Conan the Barbarian and The Incredible Hulk. Another character points out "Muscles don't work like that."
 * Happens again in an April Fools' Day comic: the comic briefly turns into Fist of the North Star, and Glenn is drawn as Ken.

Web Original

 * This was parodied in a Homestar Runner cartoon; Strong Bad discusses a hypothetical Strong Bad action figure, which looks remarkably like this. Strong Bad lampshades it by claiming it would look "just like him," specifically mentioning the relative sizes of his head and body. In an Easter Egg, Homestar, Strong Mad, Strong Sad, and Pom Pom get the same treatment; the action figures' physiques are Liefeldishly overmuscled, even Pom Pom and Strong Sad, who are literally spherical.
 * This trope being associated with WWE wrestlers is parodied in Hogan vs. Flair by the created wrestler TF British and his ludicriously muscular self.

Other

 * Bodybuilder physiques on action figures was a general trend in the 90's. While it (somewhat) made sense for characters like He-Man who's so muscled he shouldn't be able to move, it looked downright weird for, say, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo.
 * And of course being surrounded by these physiques leads to body dysmorphic disorder, which ultimately leads to obsessive exercising, use of steroids, etc. And you thought only girls had it tough. Not so in The Nineties!
 * Many children's Halloween costumes have exaggerated chest and arm muscles, even if the character they are dressing up as is not so buff. The most obvious example is probably Spider-Man, who is toned but slim in most incarnations, but the costumes look like bodybuilders.
 * In a Tonight Show appearance, Jeff Goldblum brought on his action figures from Jurassic Park and Independence Day, to show "how much he bulked up between the two movies".
 * On The Red Green Show, Ranger Gord, who is slender and lanky, has a cartoon segment in which he is portrayed as having an astoundingly muscular physique, so much so that when he bends an arm or even a finger, there is a metallic squeaking sound.