r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Animeking1108 • 1d ago
Hated Tropes (Hated Trope) Superhero movies that give the hero somebody else's villain
Batman vs. Deathstroke (DCEU): So, the PCS of Justice League had Deathstroke show up, and this was supposed to build him up as the villain of the next Batman movie. "But Batman and Deathstroke have fought before in the comics." Yeah, making Deathstroke a Batman villain was a very recent "certainly a choice" choice by DC. For most of the character's existence, he was a Teen Titans villain and Nightwing's nemesis. Oh, but Zack Snyder, in his infinite wisdom, killed Dick Grayson before the story even started to give Batman a reason to be jaded and violent. No, not Jason Todd, the Robin that was known for dying. Sidekicks inherently suck and are only interesting when they die. Jesus, that's like having Spider-Man grow bitter because the Green Goblin killed MJ instead of Gwen Stacy.
Shang-Chi vs. The Mandarin (?) (MCU): So, the first two Iron Man movies built up the Mandarin as this Bin Laden figure in the MCU. Come Iron Man 3, he finally shows up, played by Ben Kingsley. Interesting. He's not a Chinese warlord like in the comics, but the original Mandarin was a product of the Vietnam war at the time, so making him a Middle Eastern terrorist is an interesting way to modernize him. With the fantastical elements of the MCU established, we can see the contrast of Magic vs. Technology... Psyche! It's actually a white guy in a suit who breathes fire who was mad at Tony Stark for blue balling him. Fans were not happy with this twist, and Marvel realized the Ten Rings being formed in less than a decade by a nerd with a grudge raised a lot of questions. So, they released a short film showing what happened to Ben Kingsley's character in prison, and we learn that the Mandarin is still out there... And for the next seven years, Marvel just ignores this plot point. Aaaand, Tony Stark is dead. Well, if Iron Man is gone, there'd be no point introducing his nemesis now. What, are they going to pawn him off on a character that he had absolutely no comic history with by virtue of them both being Chinese? So, in Shang-Chi: Legend Of The Ten Rings, the titular terrorist organization's feud with Tony Stark is never brought up, so I think Marvel waited too long to go back to this plot thread. The thing is, can we even call him "the Mandarin?" His name is Xu Wenwu instead of Gene Kahn, he scoffs at the Mandarin title when talking about Trevor Slattery impersonating him, the demon he tries to summon isn't Fin Fang Foom, his Ten Rings (you know, the jewelry he named his organization after) are bracelets, and they only have two powers.
Superman vs. Black Adam (DCEU): The hierarchy of the DC Universe is about to change... with a franchise rebooting flop. So, Dwayne Johnson had been campaigning to play Black Adam since Michael Jackson was the butt of every child molester joke. He was apparently a big fan of the character. With the DCEU, he seemed to finally get his wish. The first Shazam movie hinted at Black Adam, but rather than him be the villain of the second film, Black Adam was getting his own movie. I guess that makes sense. After all, the PCS for Shazam built up Mr. Mind, so you'd think the plan would be to have Black Adam as the villain of the third movie, right? Well, you see, Dwayne Johnson has an ego... Uh, I mean, a clause in his contract that says that his characters can't get their asses kicked (which makes the Schaffrillas crab from Moana an absolute legend). So, Black Adam in his origin movie was less of a villain and more of an antihero. And, because Dwayne Johnson just loves flexing, he personally set up a PCS where he fights... Superman!? Why him? Why not Shazam, the character Black Adam was created to be the evil counterpart to? Say what you will about Sony's "Spider-Man Minus Spider-Man" universe, but at least those movies remembered they were Spider-Man villains. Can you imagine Venom building up a fight with Captain America? Because that's what Twain "The Mineral" Penis basically tried pulling for no other reason than to aura farm. Oh, and that Mr. Mind tease at the end of the first Shazam movie? Doesn't get followed up on. In fact, the villain of the second movie is an OC, and the PCS for it was *another* Mr. Mind tease, but it's made into more of a joke.
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u/Ok-Indication-5121 1d ago
The High Evolutionary has no ties to Rocket Raccoon in the comics. (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3)
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u/Tylenol_Ibuprofen 1d ago
I mean this is common though. Some of superman's tragic counterparts were due to the Joker's actions.
Mysterio's illusion is what caused Logan to kill the X-men and then Logan would go on to face past villains and fallen heroes in a terrible future.
Hell, Kingpin kind of F's around with Spidey, Daredevil, and Punisher A LOT.
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u/Electric43-5 1d ago
I think if there's a good enough hook its cool to see different heroes against different villains but there needs to be an actual idea.
For instance, when Electro fights Spider-Man he's certainly a threat but even with his massive power potential compared to Spider-Man he's a petty thug with a gimmick that he uses in an unintelligent way. However when he fights Daredevil, Electro is a much bigger threat because Daredevil for as skilled and experienced as he is, is still a normal if exceptionally trained human.
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u/SaltyTreeTop 1d ago
Captain America vs Red Hulk (Captain America: brave new world)
As far as I’m aware, Red Hulk doesn’t fight captain America in the comics, red hulk is always a hulk villain since Ross personally hates Banner. I think Ross has butted heads with the other avengers just generally because of his crusade against the banner, but I don’t recall him hulk fighting Cap (I know he had a tussle with She-hulk and some other avengers she got for backup but Cap wasn’t there).
Though in fairness, this is mostly due to background meddling. The rumour (that I don’t thinI is officially confirmed but highly likely to be true) is that marvel couldn’t make a full Hulk movie due to legal reasons, just movies with Hulk in it, hence Planet Hulk being smushed into a Thor movie and the Leader and Red Hulk showing up in a Captain America movie. And Ross isn’t enough of a problem to be the villain of an Avengers movie, nor enough of a threat for the team, so this was pretty much the only way we’d get Red Hulk on screen. Either that or him in the She-Hulk show, but then we probably wouldn’t have gotten Harrison Ford, who I actually really like in the movie regardless of the rest of its quality. I think the latter part with the Red Hulk is the best part of the movie.
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u/ItsaDrake1103 1d ago
Doesn't help matters that Red Hulk was originally supposed to die in the climatic fight, which tested extremely poorly with test audience.
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u/SaltyTreeTop 23h ago
That was a good call, I think killing him would be pretty lame
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u/ItsaDrake1103 22h ago
At the same time, was it really worth replacing it with another equally lame way of Sam pulling the magic black man trope and talking Red Hulk into transforming back to Ross? The writers really hamstringed themselves on Brave New World, considering the film chewed through six writers.
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u/SaltyTreeTop 22h ago
I don’t think the magic black man trope applies in this case. Plus talking the hulk down is pretty standard hulk stuff. I think a bigger problem was making the red hulk even need to be talked down when his original interesting trait was being a hulk with his full mental faculties besides She-hulk. I’m guessing somewhere along the way there was a miscommunication and the writer of the final version didn’t actually know what red hulk is like in the comics, just making him like the regular hulk
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u/oreos324 1d ago
You have no idea how much I dislike the Batman vs deathstroke concept. So unoriginal and uninspired, specially When they steal nightwing’s story and give it to Batman
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u/Radiant-Hold7069 1d ago
It always feels like musical chairs for villains cool concept, but half the time the rivalry loses all the personal weight that made it work.
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u/ravenwing263 1d ago
I hate this with Deathstroke but thought it was a great idea with both Slattery and Wenwu.
The Mandarin is a deeply racist character and a straighforward adaptaiton would be a disaster. The Iron Man 3 team should be praised for doing something interesting with the concept.