I've never really counted Nietzsche's Superman. He could only leap over garden sheds, and it often took more than a single bound. Whereas Shaw gave him the cape, and wrote the brilliant stage play sequel, Kryptonite and the Man.

Especially as they never even stick to what Plato actually said.
But yes, I am somewhat sick of Atlantis myself. After the Most Excellent Disney movie, all uses of it just went downhill.

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

The mysterious guy who asks the probing questions, is seen doing suspicious stuff, or watches you with binoculars, but never seems to interact with the actual villian, is an undercover agent.

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

Whenever a villain has a super powerful weapon he holds it in reserve and sends bumbling henchmen to attack the good guys instead.

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"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky

" Kinda quiet out there....."

" Yeah.......too quiet..."

The great Robert Stack

Mxyzptlk I dislike seeing names misspelled and that one happens to be one I know without looking up.

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An emperor without enemies, a king without a kingdom, supported in life by the willing tribute of a free people.

" Kinda quiet out there....."

" Yeah.......too quiet..."

Except there's a real world basis for this one. If you've ever been in a thick forest, you've probably noticed that it can actually be fairly noisy from the various critters making their sounds. However, if disturbed, those critters get quiet. That can be a signal that others (perhaps people not friendly to you) are nearby.

I've always thought the argument that "Superman is too powerful to make intresting stories" was a cop out.

Of course, my favorite comic of all time is "The Sandman" by Neil Gaiman, which was specifically created to show that you could have intresting stories even when your protagonist has more power than the gods themselves.

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Carl Matherly

Offical Battlestar Galactica Apologist

Named Time Magazine's 2006 "Person of the Year"

My favourite take was a cartoon by someone whose name escapes me. The caption was, "The washing line was quiet. Too quiet."


Well I did come to that conclusion because I'd noticed that Superman stories tended to be less-than-interesting.

Don Martin did a great cartoon for MAD magazine on the "too quiet" theme: in his final panel the cavalry at the wagon circle were almost deafened by the sound of hundreds of Apache warriors all doing their best bird and insect impressions...

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If our brains were simple enough for us to understand, we'd be so simple we couldn't

QQR

But saying "it's too quiet" in a city (As it is usually said) would mean trouble in a whole different way.
So did I. Well, perhaps it's that DC style of "focus on fantasy". Sure, they throw in some realism by mentioning Jane Goodall or Stephen King in passing, but when it's being said by a guy blasting a monster from a Martian's nightmare, the realism is... rather muted.
Similarly, Marvel may write some things that are really fantastic, but in the end, you know it's dudes just like you under the masks.
The companies have their own styles and you just pick the one you like and read that company's comics.

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

************
Oh....yes!!! You are absolutely right about that.
Dan

The '40s, actually. Except then it wasn't called that, it was just a higher intensity of his "x-ray vision". Which since the mid-80s no longer uses x-rays at all.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Actually, you pick the stories you like and read those. Neither company nor writer is a guarantee of meeting your own standards of entertainment.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Saw this on PZ's website: mad scientists who are bald.

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

I'll fixyzptlk it.
(Which one is that? The original Golden Age version, or the later misspelling that became Silver Age and later canon?)

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Are there actually enough to establish a cliché?

No. "Mad scientists who have wild hair," yes. Bald? No.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

That seems to be the rule:













although there are always exceptions:

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A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.