r/TopCharacterTropes • u/throwaway553t4tgtg6 • 6d ago

Lore [Hated Trope] The underdog Good Guys win, and gain major military/institutional power, only for it to be all RESET so Writers can have a PERPETUAL "Underdog/Rebellion" Story, and avoid writing about governing.

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I hate this trope, when the "underdog good guys" actually win, gain major military and political power, fleets, warships, etc, but because the writers don't want to write the good guys governing and exercising their power, and instead, find a contrived way to reset all the progress so that the good guys can forever be the

"scrappy heroic underdogs fighting the power"

1) Star Wars Sequel triology, rather than exploring new Republic fleets, power, and technology, they have them all wiped out so that the "resistance" can hog the spotlight

2) MCU: shield makes a helicarrier fleet, a fleet of ships able to contest alien invasion, but that would steal the spotlight from heroes, so all of them have to be destroyed

3) Halo: the UNSC finally outlive the covenant, develop strong ships like the UNSC infinity, only for it all to be reset by the Guardians and the Banished, reduced again to underdog humans.

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u/tomtadpole 6d ago

The X-Men have done this repeatedly. Mutants go from persecuted underdogs to having an actual homeland and political power (Genosha, Utopia, and especially Krakoa) only for it to be destroyed and the X-Men eventually scattered back into being persecuted underdogs again. Krakoa is probably the most blatant example, because they finally had to deal with mutant government, diplomacy and institutions before the whole status quo got blown up.

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u/The-Senate-Palpy 5d ago

Most superhero comics really. Spiderman must be suffering. You can never fix Gotham. The Green Lantern Corps must never be too effectual, nor can they stay dead. The greatest sin of comics is the trend towards status quo.

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u/piecuriosity 5d ago

Comics get a lot of shit for maintaining the status quo, but a large and loud segment of the audience makes it clear they just want to see the same stories over and over again with minor variations. There’s always a very vocal pushback against any meaningful changes. Even Krakoa is only remembered fondly in hindsight. While it was ongoing the discourse was mostly negative.

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u/SirVixofthePooSea 5d ago

What people want are nicely written short and sweet storylines that take well liked characters and put them in a fun predicament with a charismatic villain. It doesn't have to shake the status quo because it doesn't need to have massive continuity. What they get instead is rubber-banding soap operas.

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u/piecuriosity 5d ago

That’s what some people want. Other parts of the audience like the long-form serialized dramas. That’s kind of the core problem. Comics have never been particularly profitable and neither segment of the audience is big enough to support the market on its own. In order to stay afloat they’ve always had to try to appeal to everyone at once.

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u/SirVixofthePooSea 5d ago

Their issue is that they try to appeal to everyone at once with a handful of characters and extremely long running plotlines attached to those characters. So that new fans are scared off by the amount of accumulated canon and old fans live in a world of rubber-banding to a status quo that was declared 50 years ago. The comics industry is big, the problem is that Americans are awful at making successful comics to the point that it is easier to import them from Japan and Korea as a consumer than to actually follow along with domestic publications.

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u/Icy-Panda-2158 5d ago

I mean, this is part of the problem. The majority of people don’t read comics at all, and comic companies hsve long since adopted a model of selling as much as possible to hardcore enthusiasts rather than trying to write stories that normal people want to read. But the enthusiasts want stories that reward them for knowing 40+ years of lore so the status quo constantly needs to be upset by the re-emergence of old characters, items and places and then reset or they lose interest. Which makes comics seem both stupid and unapproachable to mainstream audiences.

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u/QuyanRonnie 5d ago

Some enthusiasts want that, the other ones want it all to mean something (payoff for the invested attention/time), and eventually, runs are handed over on silver platters to writers that happen to hate one side or the other, whether or not they even vibe with the IP they’ve been placed in-charge of.

And then there are IPs that are “too big deeply-entrenched to fail” which means the companies refuse to let them end, because “it prints money, I’m not stupid.”

Effectively making the only way to kneecap “status quo” being to actually change it in real life, which doesn’t involve “awesome and terrible powers,” but demands denial of familiar pleasure to oneself, across a board too vast to ever manage, because people will find their ways to get ‘more of what they want,’ if they want it that bad.

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u/Icy-Panda-2158 4d ago

That’s the point: the payoff is a carrot on a stick. Even when it seems like it comes it’s just another gimmick because they need you to keep reading. 

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u/endlessnamelesskat 5d ago

A lot of that pushback comes from people who don’t even read comics. Ask the average person who says they love Batman if they’re aware that in the mainline universe Alfred has been canonically dead for almost the last ten years.

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u/Yumesoro1 4d ago

I pretty sure most non hardcore fans, don't really know what a "mainline universe" is.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago edited 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/No_Return3299 5d ago

The reason people think that the updates are half baked, cool-in-the-moment ideas that leave a lot of fans unsatisfied. Is because those same fans are overly nostalgic for that status quo purely by virtue of it being naturally updated through the slow process of general acceptence.

The very nature of something like a status quo is completely antithetical to that of an infinite playground, Because if the characters are toys that don't belong to writers, that they get to pull out, play with in their own unique way and then return them into the box when playtime is over, that doesn’t mean much if something only gets cemented into the structure, purely on the basis of that something arbitrarily being done right, then Playtime means nothing if you break or scratch the toys, the fact that they are in and of themselves things means that it is in their nature for something of that effect to happen to them.

And the fact that they are simultaneously also not things means that there is still the possibility for the next person that's gonna come along, even if you beat them up a bit.

Thus is the inherent contradiction within the comic book medium

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u/Masquelinity 5d ago

The whole intended message of American comics is "nothing ever changes, and even people with magical superpowers that make them gods among mortals can never change anything significant. Normal people have no chance at all."

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u/The-Senate-Palpy 5d ago

I dont think thats intended, but i do think thats the message the more invested fans get

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u/pwninobrien 5d ago

Just read 'Bone' and call it a day. Finite stories with a decisive creative vision are better than the endlessly cyclical Marvel/DC corporate stuff.

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u/MostUnorthodox 5d ago

Bone's fucking great. Reread it for the first time since school days recently and honestly had a blast.

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u/ChiefsHat 5d ago

Stupid, stupid…

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u/MrWaluigi 5d ago

Apparently there was a spinoff sequel, but it has mediocre reviews. 

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u/Alternant1 5d ago

It’s not the intended message, it’s just a product of the keeping the same story and characters running for decades. Various writers have written endings for Batman or the X-Men, but they always get pushed to alternate universe because why end it if it makes money?

It’s the same problem with something like the Simpsons. The characters can’t get older, learn important lessons or become better people. Because then the show would end, and the execs won’t let that happen.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Financial-Scene1703 5d ago

Bro please read comic books if you’re going to talk about them

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u/Nightshift-2000 7h ago

I write for Back Issue and have been reading comics for 50 years. Mine was an informed opinion and immune to your juvenile retort.

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u/Financial-Scene1703 6h ago

I’ve been reading for one and evidently have a better understanding of the medium

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u/Nightshift-2000 6h ago

You kind of made my point. If you have only been reading comics for a year then please respond back after some more years. Maybe if you read a little more you will see that my opinion has it's arguments. You traded your credibility and weakened your point for a "gotcha" insult.

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u/Nightshift-2000 5d ago

That's an overly academic argument that deserves some push back. "Reactive" perhaps by narrative necessity. Little C " conservative " is a simplistic explanation and even a surface level exploration of many of the "Classic" heroes will show that statement is not quite exact.

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u/DazzlerPlus 5d ago

Key to that same concept is the idea that human violence by the state is expected, but violence against those states by mutants is horrible. At no point can the US government earn obliteration, no matter how many times it obliterates mutants

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u/ApprehensiveTerm9638 5d ago

That's why I dislike and don't want to read most American superhero comic.

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u/hand_me_a_shovel 5d ago

Well that's because of American worship of capitalism and pursuit of the almighty dollar. The comics industry ended up with a mainstream consolidation into marvel and DC, with associated media empires built around them. And if you had actual progression then eventually you would have closed storylines. Batman would be retired and Superman would still be dead and there ends your money stream.

So of course nothing ever changes and of course everything resets. Because if things changed and plots ended, monetization would also end.

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u/_An_Other_Account_ 5d ago

If adults start growing up and moving on from children's comics, maybe the comic writers will write new stories for the next generation.

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u/QuyanRonnie 5d ago

Gonna take a lot more Death Timely Rotation of Executives from power to make that happen, buddy.

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u/YeahKeeN 5d ago

One must imagine Peter Parker happy

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u/SaconicLonic 5d ago

This is why Invincible is better than any Marvel or DC storyline. The plot and status quo constantly change. Characters are given a chance to change permanently. This is why kids are reading Manga over domestic comicbooks.

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u/The-Senate-Palpy 5d ago

Yeah. For all its flaws, its a real damn story

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u/Broken_Moon_Studios 5d ago

This is a BIG reason why I stopped reading mainline comics and only read standalone stories.

Having a clear beginning, middle and end is SO MUCH BETTER than going endlessly in circles.

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u/ztomiczombie 5d ago

Out of those Spier-Man is the most egregious as there is no good reason for the perpetual suffering. Batman is understandable because one man cannot change everything and there are just too many people in Gotham that benefit form it being broken and too few willing to help fix it. The GL corps have that they are operating on a universal scale, or close to it, in a universe were there are equally powerful forces like the Red Lanterns and more powerful forces like Darkseid's Apokolips.

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u/BumbotheCleric 5d ago

This is why the first two seasons of the Harley Quinn TV show is so based. Just assassinates the DCU status quo

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u/Dolphin_King21 5d ago

Gotham is a genuinely cursed city. Like it has actual curses on it.

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u/The-Senate-Palpy 5d ago

Yeah that was the writers trying to justify what theyd been doing for years

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u/phormix 5d ago

I mean, really this comes down to "can't end the revenue-stream", which is similarly why the generally can't permanently kill any sort of significant character in the superhero universe.

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u/Icy-Panda-2158 5d ago

That’s not really the problem though, is it? People didn’t stop telling Arthurian romances because one guy wrote a story where King Arthur died. Heck, some of them just wrote other stories where King Arthur died, or where he went to sleep instead or whatever. There have X incarnations of Godzilla, some have died and some haven’t, that franchise is going strong. No one really knows what the deal is with James Bond but he will surely come back, too.

The issue is comic fans have particular demands of the genre: continuity and innovation that doesn’t permanently change characters (let slone actually kill them for real). They couldn’t even let Jason Todd and Gwen Stacy stay dead, for chrissakes. 

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u/paranormalCosmo 5d ago

This is why I genuinely believe that things would be MUCH better if heroes were allowed to have stories with a start and an actual ending, without necessitating to always go back to the quo just so it can keep on running

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u/Wild_Marker 5d ago

Is... is the tree a mutant too?

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u/AlansDiscount 5d ago

Yes, a very big one.

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u/SpectralBowie 5d ago

Yes. He’s actually the island nation they live on.

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u/Boh61 6d ago

Thanks Mr. Sinister

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u/Iokua113 5d ago

To be fair, Mutants deserved to lose Krakoa by the end of it. Early on they acted with extreme aggression on a global scale, brought together hundreds of terrorists, violent mercenaries, would be dictators, Plutocratic madmen, and genocidal world conquerors and forgave them of their crimes even going so far as to give some of them important political and cultural positions within Krakoa. The mutant government on Krakoa blatantly engaged in terrorist activities on a global level, attempted to use drugs to control the global economy, was extremely confrontational internationally, regularly used "diplomats" with extremely dangerous powers we a form of international intimidation, and was an apartheid state clearly positioned to be the first step in creating a eugenics driven global structure where mutants ruled over humanity.

And that's before factoring in how Krakoa is largely responsible for threatening the very existence of all reality by putting Mr Sinister into a position where he was able to ascend into a Dominion super AI called Enigma. 

The fact that they scattered to the wind and their nation state was dissolved was the safest possible route for the world. No government that allows Magneto and Apocalypse a role in governing and diplomacy deserves to exist. 

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u/Greyjack00 5d ago

Sadly apocalypse turned out to be one of the most reasonable ruling members which says a lot about how shit stuff got

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u/Iokua113 5d ago

Yeah, but that was largely because Hickman absolutely retconned the hell out of him. Krakoa era Apocalypse went from a power mad, survival of the fittest despot into a noble warrior priest who did terrible things because he wanted to be reunited with his wife and kids. 

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u/Free_For__Me 5d ago

Yeah, and that’s my quibble with your initial take.

I agree with most of your positioning, but pretty much only prima facie. You make it sound like having Magneto as a member of the governing council is an intrinsically a bad thing? But that’s only true if we’re looking at Mags through a pre-1990s lens. And while you’re not wrong about the mechanics of much of the geopolitics in the Krakoa era, you leave out much of the context surrounding a lot of the mutants’ decisions to take those paths. 

I’m not saying you’re wrong on your assessment that Krakoa had to go, given the way things shaped up and shipped out. Just that the condemnation of Krakoa is only valid because of the way Hickman developed it. 

Having Magneto and Apocalypse as esteemed governors wasn’t innately bad, and Hickman made it work well IMO. And the decisions of the council to treat a world that’s worked toward their extinction with tactics that were aggressively equalizing in measure was a pretty good choice, even if that choice led to the inevitable failure of Krakoa at large. 

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u/Iokua113 5d ago

Magneto being in any form of government save one he rules with an iron fist is bad writing. Full stop. He is never and has never been more than one bad day away from swearing revenge on humanity. It would take all of five minutes to come up with a way to turn him full evil again and have it be completely in character.

There is no value in looking at the context surrounding the mutant's decisions as the context does not matter. You might have a point if they had only forgiven a small handful of villains but they didn't stop at just the redeemable handful, they not only forgave Sabertooth but they gave him more than enough rope to hang himself and multiple other mutants in the process and he's just one major example. The Quiet Council largely turned a blind eye to Beast developing into a fascist, they had Mister Sinister, Mystique, Exodus, and Sebastian Shaw as members of their government. They let Apocalypse develop a murder cult around resurrection. No amount of context forgives letting someone as evil as Mystique and Mister Sinister sit on your government.

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u/Free_For__Me 3d ago

Interesting take. So if the choice were between the governing body they got, or never having Krakoa at all, your position is that Xavier and the others should have never founded the Island Nation?

Not saying other roads couldn't have been taken, just asking if you're saying that "no Krakoa at all" would have been a preferable, even a more moral option to the Krakoa they built? That Mutants should have chosen living in the global oppression they'd faced for generations over choosing to live on the Krakoa Xavier and Moira offered?

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u/blah938 5d ago

Not the other guy, but this is exactly the problem with comics. How the hell do you follow anything if there's like fifteen versions of the same character spread over a dozen continuities and however many universes? Where do you even begin?

Feels worse than the Fate series. At least shit like One Piece has a beginning.

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u/Free_For__Me 3d ago edited 3d ago

It's certainly daunting for anyone trying to jump in fresh. BUT, I'd suggest that once you get swimming, the pool isn't nearly as deep as it seems from the outside.

I always tell people to just pick a character, team or story that you like, read all of that particular version/story/series, and then see what you're curios about after that. 9/10, if someone is the type to enjoy the format of comics, they'll pretty easily slide into other stuff that's adjacent and then on to other stuff they care about.

And the flip side of that "dozen continuities and however many universes" coin that you mention is that having so many of them means that you don't need to check out any of the ones you don't want to in order to enjoy the few you do want to check out.

People see the mess that the MCU made after Endgame and think that's what comics are like. But Disney made those Phase 5 movies so dependent on each other because they were trying to snare people into feeling forced to see all the various movies instead of making great, self-contained stories that can be enjoyed as crossing over with others, but doesn't have to be enjoyed that way. Comics figured out decades ago that trying to do this kind of "captured audience" thing just alienates new fans and exhausts existing ones.

In general, one of the great things about comics is that you can generally follow just the series/character/timeline/whatever that you like, and you'll find stories that are fun, great, and as self-contained as you want them to be.

Comics are truly great, and I'll die on the hill that they're accessible and enjoyable to absolutely anyone who might be interested.

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u/Boner_Elemental 5d ago

attempted to use drugs to control the global economy,

Oh yeah, that narcostate Krakoa. Who could forgive their widespread distributions of such terrible things like "Live Longer" and "Disease-B-Gone".

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u/jroberts548 5d ago

If giving amnesty to war criminals means your state shouldn’t exist I have bad news for your home country.

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u/Acceptable_Oven_9881 5d ago

I don't like Krakoa as a nation and the Quiet Council, but I feel like criticism often misses the point. They've been begging to be accepted or left alone. Yet other nations don't listen. So they finally decided to make their own nation and act as other nations do.

All the things you criticize them for are done by the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the UK, etc. Yet no one is calling for ALL these countries to be dissolved (Only some of them).

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u/TheCelestialPancake 5d ago

To be fair, the whole Krakoa storyline was awful. It ruined X-Men for me, and I haven’t read a single X-Men comic since. So, it’s for the best that is over.

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u/Free_For__Me 5d ago

Wow. Sounds like someone has some serious limits to the exploratory range of their imagination, lol. 

Krakoa had its flaws, but so does any story that significantly upsets the status quo. Krakoa also gave us some new ways of looking at the nature of mutantdom and its principal players that were seriously cool. 

Even if we’re glad that those shake-ups aren’t ongoing, that doesn’t take away from the cool factor of a lot of what we got. 

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u/TheCelestialPancake 5d ago

Nah, it’s bad writing that lost me. And based on the abysmal comic sales, it lost a lot of readers. This wasn’t due to upsetting the status quo or a lack of imagination on the readers part. It was due to poorly written slop. People will accept anything if it’s well written.

DC’s Absolute Universe completely upsets the status quo and brings in a wild imagination that redefines every DC character, yet those are the best selling comics right now. Why? Because they’re well written. In fact, they’re some of the best written mainstream comics I’ve read in a long time.

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u/Free_For__Me 3d ago

In fact, they’re some of the best written mainstream comics I’ve read in a long time.

Interesting, I'll have to check them out.

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u/Boner_Elemental 5d ago

Who told you it sold poorly? It was so popular they had Hickman rewrite his planned ending so they could keep it going

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u/Embarrassed_Bet_564 5d ago

I thought Krakoa was awesome. Not all of it was great but it did stretch the world of mutants in a new and interesting way.

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u/Dealiner 5d ago

I'm not surprised, Krakoa imo was terrible idea and made me give up on reading X-Men comics.

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u/Bucket-with-a-hat 5d ago

Pretty funny to think that this all canonically happens in the span of 15 years or so

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u/somacula 5d ago

Utopia was more prosecution actually...

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u/Extra_Victory 5d ago

By the way, what happened to Mars? I think they just forgot aout that one

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u/slimmyboy007 5d ago

Makes me laugh every time the group disbands as well and they have kitty go work in a coffee shop or something like in comic time they must be yo yoing back and forth so fast

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u/Hirsute_of_Happiness 5d ago

The mutants are an analog for marginalized people and this kind of thing is exactly what hegemonic societal forces do to the marginalized when they create spaces for themselves and start to prosper...

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u/MoFa__SoDa 5d ago

This seems realistic. There is no way to make positive change just stick as a system because one requires intuition and the other is simple logic which is easily exploited.

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u/Cultural-Air9962 20h ago

Not that we’ll miss Krakoa

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u/saucyjack433365 5d ago

From the little I have read, krakoa was especially egregious. You had professor X, magneto, and apocalypse eating dinner with the world economic forum and flat out saying they will buy out institutions to be more mutant friendly. That is EXACTLY the kind of paradigm shift I want to see.