Brought to You by The Letter "S": Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

Superheroes are in many ways much like athletes. Both frequently perform amazing physical feats we envy; both often collect themselves into teams with fancy names; both wear colorful, form-fitting uniforms.

 

And both have a tendency to adorn those uniforms with single letters of the alphabet. Stumped for a [[Chest Insignia]]? Just style up the first letter of your [[Code Name]] in sufficiently distinctive [[Useful Notes/Fonts|typeface]], and have at it!

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* Ichi of ''[[Ichi the Killer]]'' wears a big "1" on his back, since [[Meaningful Name|his name]] means "one" in Japanese.

* ''[[Mazinger Z]]'': Although the original series avoided this, in later retellings and spin-offs Mazinger-Z wore a big "Z" letter in such the chest, the Hover Pilder or the Jet Scrander.

* The big red R for Rocket of Team Rocket, general bad guys of the ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' series. Of course, there's also Teams Magma, Aqua, and Galactic - these three use a font style that's a bit more original, but there's still the 'M', 'A', and 'G'.

** Team Rocket had a form of [[Lampshade Hanging]] of this in an episode. They set up a fake Pokemon Center by covering part of the letter 'R' painted on the wall with a piece of paper, making it look like the 'P' associated with Pokemon Centers.

* Gai Shishioh from ''[[GaoGaiGar]]'' wears a large "G" on the right side of his chest.

* "G" is for... ''[[Speed Racer]]'', because his name in the original anime is Go Mifune (he also wears an "M" on his helmet to represent Mifune Racing). His girlfriend Trixie has an "M" on her blouse, for Michi Shimura.

** The late 80's comic version of ''Speed Racer'' by NOW Comics claimed that the "G" stood for Greg, which was Speed's real name in the comic (making him Greg Racer).

** Nami wears a '03' as well as '73' (Na-mi)

** Usopp wears a '04'

* Dr. Minami in [[Heroman]] has an M on his shirt. Wonder why.

* In ''[[Future GPX Cyber Formula]]'', all the cars have numbers throughout the series.

** The "S" in later Asurada models stands for "Sugo", the racing team the main character, Hayato is in. Shoemacher/Osamu in 11, also has the letter "S" in his racing suit. And Kaga's racing suit has the letter "Z" in it, as he belonged to Aoi ZIP formula.

* "A" is for [[Crayon Shin-chan|Action Kamen]], though it's on his belt only. The Spanish dub completely ignored it and called him "Ultrahéroe".

 

* In [[The DCU]] ...

** "A" is for [[Aquaman]] (and Aqualad) and [[Animal Man]]. Anarky also wears this letter, though as part of the "Anarchy-is-order" Circle-A.

** "GG" is for Guy Gardner, during the period when he was operating as a superhero (using Sinestro's yellow ring) with no codename other than his own name.

"Yeah. 'Girl-magnet'." }}

** "GF" is for Geo-Force.

** "R" is for Robin. The resemblance of the original "R" logo to the official "registered trademark" symbol is uncanny, and has been the source of some humor in the past.

** "S" is for [[Superman]] (and "family"). He may possibly have been the [[Trope Codifier]], since he is such a prominent example. Bizarro uses a reversed (twisted in the DCAU) "S".

*** Oddly enough, Superman's Jewish parody Shalomman uses the Hebrew letter shin, which is the initial letter of the word "Shalom." His bizarro-equivalent had the Hebrew letter sin, which in addition to being a shin-with-a-backwards-dot also made a pun on the word "sin."

*** [http://www.the-isb.com/?p=20 No, Superman, the "S" does] ''[http://www.the-isb.com/?p=20 not]'' [http://www.the-isb.com/?p=20 stand for Shakespeare!]

*** "S(blank)" is for too many homages/parodies of Superman to count.

*** Superman once defeated a [[Proud Warrior Race Guy]] called Draaga in gladiatorial combat on Warworld. In the comics, Draaga wore a replica of Superman's costume, while on the ''[[Justice League]]'' cartoon he actually burned an "S" symbol onto his chest - in both cases this was so he wouldn't forget his failure.

** "T" is for Tasmanian Devil (of the [[Global Guardians]] and Justice League Europe) and Red Tornado. The current Mr Terrific has a T-shaped mask. Well, unless that's just facepaint.

** "?" is the Riddler.

* In the [[Marvel Universe]] ...

** "D" is for Demolition Man (sometimes just called "D-Man"). ''Two'' means [[Daredevil]]... though this gets a little complicated when you realize that Daredevil's original costume really did have the one "D", and is in fact the very same costume worn by D-Man.

** "F" is for Flatman, a member of the less-than-astounding [[Great Lakes Avengers|Great Lakes]] <s>Avengers</s> <s>X-Men</s> <s>Champions</s> [[Great Lakes Avengers|Initiative]].

* "MM" is for [[Miracleman]]/Marvelman.

* [[Archie Comics|Jughead Jones]] typically wears a sweater with the letter "S" on it...the meaning of which is known only to Jughead.

* The revived ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'' comic books featured many Darkwings. If they were Darkwing versions of other heroes, they'd have a 'DW' or 'D' on them (such as the Incredibles version). {{spoiler|One exception is a result of the entry under Western Animation; one of the infinite Darkwings took over Gosalyn's identity of Quiverwing Quack.}}

 

 

== [[Film]] ==

*** "EG" is for Elasti-Girl; she dropped this after the intro of the movie, for plot-explained reasons.

** "S" is for Syndrome.

** Interestingly, she never explains what the G stands for.

* "1" in an "engraved" style similar to that on the one dollar bill for U.S. Bill of ''[[The Specials]]''.

* "M" is for both [[Megamind]] and Metro Man. {{spoiler|After Metro Man [[Faking the Dead|faked his death]] he chose to change his name to "Music Man" and pursue a career as a singer.}}

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* The eponymous letter in ''[[The Scarlet Letter]]''. It's a red 'A', which is supposed to stand for "adulteress", but since Hester, the woman sentenced to wear it, is so helpful to the people in her community, they start to believe it stands for nicer things, such as "admirable".

 

** The Cybermen of series 2 and the 2008 Christmas Special feature a 'C' on their chests, standing for Cybus Industries, the organization that created them. The Doctor lampshades this, saying that they have been 'franchised'. The Cybermen that appeared in "The Pandorica Opens" still used this design, despite being the original Mondas Cybermen, due to budget issues.

* "CH" is for [[El Chapulin Colorado|Chapulin Colorado]].

* "G" is for Super Grover.

* From ''[[Kamen Rider]]'':

** "V3" is for [[Kamen Rider V 3]] (the 3 is tiny on his belt buckle, but it's there)

** "S" is for [[Kamen Rider Stronger]], with "T" used in sidekick Tackle's breast designs.

** "RX" is for [[Kamen Rider Black RX]]

*** "Chi" is for Kaixa

*** "Delta" is for [[Shaped Like Itself|Delta]]

*** "Omega" is for Orga

** [[Kamen Rider Decade]], [[Milestone Celebration|celebrating the 10th year of the show's Heisei era]], sports an "X" for 10.

*** "A" is for [[Second Rider|Accel]], [[Kaiju|Anomalocaris]], and [[Weapon of Choice|Arms]].

*** "B" is for [[Feathered Fiend|Bird]], [[Beast Man|Beast]], [[Stuff Blowing Up|Bomb]], [[Joke Character|Bean]], and [[Bat Out of Hell|Bat]].

*** "Y" is for [[Mental Time Travel|Yesterday]].

*** "Z" is for [[Villain Teleportation|Zone]].

* In the 1970s PBS children's series ''[[The Electric Company]]'', a recurring cartoon feature, "The Adventures of Letterman", had the eponymous hero sporting a different letter on his "varsity sweater" each episode; his power was the ability to [[Reality Warper|change one object into another by replacing a letter in its spelling]]. When his arch-enemy, the Spellbinder, fired a '''dart''' at him, Letterman replaced the 'd' with a 't', turning it into a '''tart''', which he then ate.

* [[Saturday Night Live|The Ambiguously Gay Duo]] have G for Gary and A for Ace. Unsurprisingly, there happened to be times when they had to stand next to something large and Y-shaped.

** "M" is for [[Mahou Sentai Magiranger|Magiranger]] and [[Power Rangers Mystic Force|Mystic Force]]. In the same series, "W" is for Wolzard and Knight '''W'''olf and "S" is for Magi'''S'''hine and Solaris Knight.

** AkaRed, the living embodiment of every red ranger in history, originally wore a badge engraved with the number "30" during his first appearance in ''[[Go Go Sentai Boukenger]] vs. Super Sentai'' (which commemorated Sentai's 30th anniversary). This was updated to "35" when AkaRed returned as a semi-recurring character in ''[[Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger]]'' (the 35th Super Sentai show).

** The [[Samurai Sentai Shinkenger|Shinkengers]] and [[Power Rangers Samurai|Samurai Rangers]] wear the appropriate Japanese kanji (火 fire, 水 water, 木 wood/forest, 土 earth, 天 sky, and 光 light) on the visors of their helmets.

** "B" is for Basco in ''[[Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger]]''.

** "GB" is for [[Tokumei Sentai Gobusters|Go-Busters]].

** "A" is for [[Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger|Akibaranger]]- their logo is actually a combination of the letter A and the kanji 非, which means "non-" and is the first character in the Japanese word for unofficial, so it's sort of a bilingual example.

 

== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==

** "R" may have been Rosey's insignia once he graduated from sidekickery, but first he was a [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|"Super Hero In Training" (S.H.I.T.)]].

* Scott Steiner used the Superman S — actually the full Superman logo, until the expected legal action forced a change to an S in an ellipse.

* In another non-superheroic example, during his WWE tenure, the number "13" was for Tazz. According to Tazz, the "13" represented the bad luck his opponents must have had to have drawn him as their opponent for the evening.

* Some of [[Kurt Angle]]'s singlets featured an "A" inside a Superman-esque shield, obviously standing for Angle. In his typical smartass fashion, [[Dwayne Johnson|The Rock]] came up with his own vulgar ideas of what the "A" stood for.

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'': H is for Elemental Hero, but D is for Destiny Hero and N is for Neo-Spacian (although just to be confusing, one Elemental Hero works with all Neo-Spacians). Not to mention that each of the letters of the word 'Hero' has its own card. Since one of them gets any Elemental Hero from the deck to your hand, and another Special Summons an Elemental Hero from the Graveyard, this could be a literal case of Brought To You By The Letter S (or in this case, E/O).

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* "M" is for [[Mario]], "L" is for Luigi, "W" is for Wario, and logically enough, "Γ" (capital Gamma) is for Waluigi. All these symbols appear on characters' [[Nice Hat|hats]], rather than on their chests.

* ''[[City of Heroes]]''' ridiculously extensive costume creator gives you a choice of the entire uppercase Latin alphabet and figures 0–9. After six months of subscription, players get to access all letters of the Greek alphabet, uppercase and lowercase.

** Hina Kagiyama, a curse/misfortune goddess, has a stylized kanji 厄 (''yaku'') on her dress, meaning "misfortune".

* In ''[[Space Channel 5]] Part 2'', "P" stands for Purge.

 

== [[Web Animation]] ==

* In ''[[Homestar Runner]]'', "M" is for Strong Mad. Coach Z wears a medallion with a stylized letter "Z" on it.

** "TH" is for Bubs' alter ego, the Thnikkaman.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* Mister Mighty, of ''[[Everyday Heroes]]'', of course wears a gold "M" in an oval.

** His teammate, Dot Dash, wears a dot-and-dash on her chest; Morse code for the letter "A". This is one of the most convoluted [[Punny Name]] references ever: The dot is for her first name Dorothea, the dash is for her super-speed, the "A" is for her maiden name of Axel, and Morse code for her married name of Morse.

* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]],'' after Bob very briefly becomes a [[Superhero]] and then loses his powers, he says his one real regret is that he used a permanent laundry marker to make the "B" logo on his shirt.

* Evan from ''[[The Wotch]]'' always wears a shirt with a capital "E" on it. [[Fountain of Youth|Lilly]] wears a dress with a lil' 'e' on it instead.

* ''[[Homestuck]]'': When Kanaya imagines a troll version of {{spoiler|Rose}}, she wears a dress with her initials, {{spoiler|1=[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004247 RL]}}.

** The actual trolls themselves are this as well, in a strange and roundabout way. The symbols the trolls wear on their shirts are twelve out of thousands which just so happen to coincide with our own zodiac symbols. Each color acknowledged by the hemospectrum has a library of hundreds of symbols associated with it; every troll is assigned one after they pupate, and they must wear it somewhere upon their person their entire lives. This symbol acts as a single-character signature for them and they may, in fact, sign documents with it.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

** 'V' for Velocity.

** There's even one villain with a number: '8' for Eight-Ball.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* "A" is for Alvin, as in ''[[Alvin and The Chipmunks]]''.

* "M" is for Marvin White, the aspiring superhero in the first season of ''[[Superfriends]]''.

** "J" and "Z" are for Jayna and Zan, the Wonder Twins.

* "8" is for Manic 8-Ball, a one-shot villain from ''[[The Venture Bros]].''

* "DP" is for [[Danny Phantom]] (the "P" is inside the "D").

* "H" (inside a male symbol) is for Captain Hero of ''[[Drawn Together]]''. It's actually his real name, though ([[Embarrassing Middle Name|Leslie Hero]]).

* "A" is for Atom Ant.

* "C" is for Coil Man of the Impossibles and for Curly Howard of the Robonic Stooges.

* "F" is for Fluid Man of the Impossibles, for his namesake of the Super Globetrotters, for Frankenstein Jr. and for Blue Falcon.

* "G" is for Gizmo Man of the Super Globetrotters; [[Inspector Gadget]] also has a few of these, most notably on his [[Cool Car|Gadget-mobile]].

* "M" is for Multiple Man of the Impossibles, for his namesake of the Super Globetrotters and for Moe Howard of the Robonic Stooges.

* "Q" was (briefly) for Quiverwing Quack; [[Darkwing Duck]]'s daughter really wants in on the family business.

* "SG" for Super Goof as he appeared on ''[[House of Mouse]]'' and in the comics.

* "U" is for [[Underdog (animation)|Underdog]].

* "N" is for [[Captain N: The Game Master]]. It's actually a Varsity letter on a Letterman jacket, so [[In-Universe]], it's more of a convenience that his school's name and the company that produced his favored console (and the fact that Videoland is populated pretty exclusively by characters from or inspired by that company's games) share an initial letter.

* "KP" is for "[[Kim Possible]]". She doesn't wear the insignia, but it does appear on the screen of her [[Comm Links|Kimmunicator]].

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* Anne Boleyn famously had a necklace with the letter B.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Superhero Tropes]]

[[Category:Standard Superhero Suits]]

[[Category:This Index Is Not an Example]]

[[Category:Costume Tropes]]