Holding Out for a Hero: Difference between revisions

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* On various occasions, the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit has handled superhuman threats such as Metallo, and Parasite without help from Superman.

* During Mark Waid's writing of ''[[The Flash]]'', it was revealed that one of the liabilities of having a superhero in your city is that people feel more at liberty to conduct dangerous experiments, thinking that a superhero will save them if things go wrong.

** That theme was also explored in Rick Veitch's ''[[Brat Pack]]'' where the presence of the Maxi-Mortal encouraged humans to have lesser safety standards for nuclear power plants. This wouldn't present a problem, however... if Maxi-Mortal hadn't been MIA for years.

** That theme was also explored in Rick Veitch's ''[[Brat Pack (actors)|Brat Pack]]'' where the presence of the Maxi-Mortal encouraged humans to have lesser safety standards for nuclear power plants. This wouldn't present a problem, however... if Maxi-Mortal hadn't been MIA for years.

* Somewhat averted in the Ultimate Marvel Universe, where regular troops are kept fighting in wars. When the Ultimates intervened to help the US government overthrow a rogue state government, a band of superhumans known as the Liberators (supported by various nations), invaded America in response for using superhumans to intervene in political affairs.

* Subverted in the the alternate Marvelverse, ''[[Punisher]] Kills The Marvel Universe'', highlights how easy it is to kill a large number of both superheroes and supervillains (especially if you have [[Garth Ennis]] [[Writer on Board|writing]] enough of [[Plot Induced Stupidity]] into the comic). Punisher {{spoiler|kills off the Avengers, X-Men, Brotherhood of Evil Mutants with a teleporter device and nuclear weapons.}} Imagine how much more peaceful the world would be if the public adopted the Punisher's common sense approach in disposing of supervillains.

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* ''[[Dragon Quest VII]]'' [[Deconstructed Trope|picks this apart]] in small-scale with the [[Love Dodecahedron]] in Verdham. If Linda simply talked to [[Reasonable Authority Figure|Borlock]] and explained she loved Pepe and not his son [[Upper Class Twit|Iwan]], she could easily get him to abandon the [[Arranged Marriage]] and find some other way of repaying her late parents' debt. Instead, Linda expects Pepe to sweep in and fix everything, despite knowing that Pepe is an [[Extreme Doormat]] whom she's forcing to choose between [[Moral Dilemma|her love and his family's welfare]]. Ultimately, this [[Fatal Flaw]] costs her everything.

** Also [[Lampshaded]] several times, with various residents saying they shouldn't ask a bunch of strangers to solve their problems.

* This trope gets discussed in ''[[Wild ~~Arms~~ 2]]''. In fact the whole question of what it really means to be a hero is a major theme of the game.

* This trope gets discussed in ''[[Wild ARMs 2]]''. In fact the whole question of what it really means to be a hero is a major theme of the game.

* In pretty much all ''[[Pokémon]]'' games, we see [[Police Are Useless|useless police]] and [[Apathetic Citizens]] who wait for some random 10-year-old to do everything for them.

* The quest givers in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' will sometimes fall into this. Sure the racial capitals have level 80-something guards patrolling the streets, the throne rooms have level 80-something elites standing by, and the starter areas have ''level 90 elites'' standing around doing very little, but they can still send level 5 players to take care of the local orc problem. Some of the quest givers are just people who send the players to collect those [[Twenty Bear Asses]], even though it's their jobs, but because they're either very tired or just too lazy to do it. You'll also sometimes run into a very high-leveled quest giver in a low-level area who asks you to take care of a problem they're perfectly capable of handling, sometimes not even seeming that busy.

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* In the ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' arc "Phoenix Rising," Oasis takes the role of vigilante protector for the town of Podunkton. Most of the citizens accept her either out of gratitude or fear of being next on her hit list, and the local police force thinks this is just peachy, since they get to collect their government paychecks without having to do squat. Officer Tod ''does'' prove himself able to hold his own against an expert assassin, though, having been a mob enforcer before Oasis cleaned up the town.

* Happens briefly in ''[[Order of the Stick]]''. After the city is overrun by hobgoblins, several of the fleeing soldiers accidentally become aware of the elf wizard who had fought alongside them also fleeing the invading army under a spell of invisibility. These soldiers actually stop their retreat and proceed to bombard the elf with demands to save them, turn them invisible, teleport them out of there, blast the hobgoblins, anything. Unfortunately for them, said wizard is completely out of spells by this point and can only watch as they are slaughtered by the hobgoblins.

* In ''[[Dubious Company]]'', [[Living MacGuffin|Sal]] plays this straight since she has the [[Born Lucky|favor]] of a [[Random Number God|god]] and [[Designated Victim|1,025 kidnappings]] to justify it before meeting the pirates. She and the pirates then become accustomed to [[Ninja|Tiren]] saving them, until they all get captured. Once they realize the severity of [[Human Sacrifice|Kreedor's plan]] for Sal, the rest of the crew are forced to [[Took a Level In Badass|pull their weight]].

* In ''[[Dubious Company]]'', [[Living MacGuffin|Sal]] plays this straight since she has the [[Born Lucky|favor]] of a [[Random Number God|god]] and [[Designated Victim|1,025 kidnappings]] to justify it before meeting the pirates. She and the pirates then become accustomed to [[Ninja|Tiren]] saving them, until they all get captured. Once they realize the severity of [[Human Sacrifice|Kreedor's plan]] for Sal, the rest of the crew are forced to [[Took a Level in Badass|pull their weight]].

{{quote|Walter: We've still got Tiren! (Cut to Tiren [[Properly Paranoid|chained up, in stocks, from a suspended metal box in a separate cell]].)

Tiren: My nose itches. }}

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* The first episode of ''[[Batman: The Brave And The Bold|Batman the Brave And The Bold]]'' has Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes)'s scarab warp him and Batman to a distant planet that was once saved by a previous wielder of the Beetle powers. The amoeba-like inhabitants are being enslaved and want Jaime to rescue them, but he tries to convince them to stand up on their own two feet. It takes a while.

* This is frequent in ''[[Fireman Sam]]''. In one of the most striking examples, a hob has been left on, and some paper napkins catch fire. Now, that's bad, but you'd think that someone among the half-a-dozen adults would be able to deal with it. Nope, they just panic and shout for help, calling out two fire trucks to save the day. Even worse, one of those present ''is actually a fireman himself'', and his reaction is to yell "Call for Fireman Sam!".

* Averted in the animated film, ''[[Justice League Crisis On Two Earths]]'', where initially President Slade Wilson (one of the few heroes left on the parallel Earth) refuses to use nuclear weapons against the Crime Syndicate. {{spoiler|At the end of the film, President Wilson leads an army of space marines to assist the Justice League in apprehending the Crime Syndicate.}}

* Averted in the animated film, ''[[Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths]]'', where initially President Slade Wilson (one of the few heroes left on the parallel Earth) refuses to use nuclear weapons against the Crime Syndicate. {{spoiler|At the end of the film, President Wilson leads an army of space marines to assist the Justice League in apprehending the Crime Syndicate.}}

** Earlier in the film, when the heroic Lex Luthor brings the Justice League to his earth, he asks Superman not to interfere in his fight with [[Evil Counterpart|Ultraman]], saying it won't mean anything if an outsider defeats him.

* Utilized in a very dark way in ''Superman: Doomsday''. After seemingly coming back from the dead, one of Superman's first acts is to save a little old lady's cat from being stuck in a tree... After which he gives a rather soul-crushing [[Reason You Suck Speech|diatribe]] about the fact that while he was helping doing this, there were any number of car accidents, bank robberies or supervillains he could have been stopping, and the people maybe needed to start thinking for themselves before he started getting angry. {{spoiler|Of course, he was a [[Brainwashed and Crazy]] [[Cloning Blues|clone of Superman]] created by Lex Luthor to discredit the Man of Steel post-mortem, but still...}}

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[[Category:Narrative Devices]]

[[Category:Superhero Tropes]]

[[Category:~~Holding Out for a Hero~~]]

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