Why do the "bad guys" in comic books always have "bad

not "boring", most people are fine with it
and there was a period of time when good guys had pretty bad powers, we call those people "edgy"

Kamen Riders have the same powers as their enemies generally. And they're still heroes of justice.

>implying being sand mutant is "bad guy" power

half burned psycho is a half burned psycho, not a power

A little form-following-function can add some nice effects (for example people kept yapping on about there being no sound in space, so the Star Trek reboot said "oh, we can make a neat spacediving sequence where they transition gradually from a soundless vacuum into dense atmosphere" and it was neat). But realism on fantasy is an unfortunate trend that should not be followed to its logical conclusions.

What's the point of the genre if people arbitrarily draw lines in the sand about what's "not realistic" especially when it goes so far as to creep into character design?

>>90735435
>mutant sand monster
Human Torch is a mutant flame monster, both of these powers could work either way

>half burned psycho
Like someone else said, this isn't a power, but it is a good way to make someone who was once good turn evil

>regeneration and psychic abilities
Plenty of bad guys have these powers

>>90735472
it kinda is when your burned half takes over your personality and you develop two personalities from it.

>>90735472
This.

Also there's plenty of heroic electric heroes and then there are electric villains. Wolverine and Sabertooth have the same damn powers. Osbourne has pretty much the same kind of super-strength and agility as Spider-Man, but he also happens to be shithouse insane.

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>>90735435
Stabby claws aren't all that noble. Nor is a bazooka in your eyes. Or what about this guy?

>>90735521
but that comic addressed exactly what I'm talking about, and while it was not very good, I appreciated what it was trying to do.

>>90735500
>half burned psycho
Jonah Hex

>>90735435
It's like naming your daughter Glitter or Cupcake - she literally has to become a stripper

If you are born with supervillainy powers you have to become a supervillain

>>90735544
>Hex
>Hero

>>90735579
>It's like naming your daughter Glitter or Cupcake - she literally has to become a stripper
Or a pony, I'd like a pony daughteru

If you give them powers that are too cool they'll end up liking the villain. That's why, more often than not, they have really hate-able powers like super-obesity, being ugly and crazy, something to do with poison or some hideous mutation that makes you half crocodile half wasp or whatever.

>>90735758
>If you give them powers that are too cool they'll end up liking the villain
Wait. Do writers not WANT people to like the villain? What the hell is the point of a villain then?

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>>90735709
>your wife/gf will never give birth to a horse
>ywn get to ride your horse daughter to school and bring her into the first grade classroom like nothing's wrong and she's a completely normal student
>ywn get to enter her into the school sports carnival and watch her annihilate all the human children and make it to the interschool carnival and eventually nationals

why live

>>90735435
Most powers can go both ways.

It's all in the presentation.

>>90735435
It's psychological. You get and use powers according to your personality.

>>90735435
They dont.
Magneto has "good" powers.
Mastermind has psychic power.
Toad has toad powers, so because people shit on him, he goes villian.

Nightcrawler is a teleport devil and feared by people but is a hero.

>>90735435

What're you, retarded?

Gambit's power is to literally cause things to explode.

You're gonna tell me that's a "good guy" power under your definition?

howdeludedru?

You wanna read more Brit comics, they're more mean spirited about shit like that. For example in Strontium Dogs the mutant bounty hunters mostly have no powers, just weird deformations, with the titular exception of Johnny Alpha who can see extra wavelengths with his eyes.

In one story a mutant with nonfunctional wings learns how to fly briefly before plummeting to the ground to his death anyway.

tl;dr american writers are nicer that brits, which is why your comics were so toothless before the brit invasion

>>90736209
Blowing things up is flashy and cool. How is that not a good guy power?

Bad guy powers are things that are grotesque and disturbing. It's not about damage potential or ethics, it's about aesthetics.

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>>90736213

I blame the 80's pulp epidemic.

>mfw I should just burn all of my comics from the 80's because of how terrible the art is and how most of them are just about cocaine, and the mob

>>90736237

>blowing things up is flashy and cool

So terrorism is cool? Are you an ISIS recruiter, Anon?

>>90736237
>Bad guy powers are things that are grotesque and disturbing.

Very rarely is this true, what are you even talking about

>>90735685
He's a hero to some and a villain to others

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>Have a villainous power
>Be treated like a villain because of what you 'could' do with it
>Become a villain because of how you're treated

Buko no Hero touched on it a bit with this guy and I'm hoping it comes back again.

>>90735435
Nearly all heroes have at least one villain in their respective rogue galleries with a near-identical powerset

>>90735435
>but the "heroes" have noble powers like regeneration and psychic abilities riding on omnipotence
Both of those are common villain powers as well. Just about any hero with either of those will have a villain with similar or identical powers.

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Worm played with that a fair bit, in the sense that the good guys were shown to be directly using their powers in certain ways or manipulated the media about what they could do to make them seem more heroic, whereas the villains were totally unfettered and therefor seemed to have more "eviler" powers.

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>>90735435
>or a half burned psycho
hero.

>>90735435
This argument falls apart once you realize that almost every superhero has a villain who has the same powers and abilities. Batman/Joker, Superman/Bizarro, Flash/Reverse Flash, Green Lantern/Sinestro, Wolverine/Sabretooth, Spiderman/Venom, Captain America/Joker, Fantastic Four/Super Skrull, Iron Man has several... How can a power be evil if both the hero and the villain have the same damn thing?

>>90735435
>>90736941
Whoops, meant Captain America/Red Skull.

>mutant sand monster
Reminder that Sandman was an Avenger and is basically only a villain due to circumstance

>>90736941
Joker has clown power, that's the evilest power of all

This is a retarded thread. Kill yourself OP.

>>90735435
>>90735758
OP, I know you have a point, but comics have been around for long enough that there are plenty of exceptions to the rule. I mean, Marrow and Agent Venom and Infectious Lass are things that happened (though yeah, we don't get enough villains with the power to heal other people and whatnot)

Now, if you really want to get into a good topic, you want to talk about how good guys tend to get prettier while bad guys don't. The Blob or Juggernaut are never going to get the same prettiness upgrade as, say, Beak.

>>90735799
You're supposed to get the audience to like the villain through effective characterization. Giving them a hook nose or making them fat or giving them a skull aura that kills people is cheating.

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>>90737118
>talk about how good guys tend to get prettier while bad guys don't.

It happens sometimes

>>90735449
This pretty much.
See how they had to change Ghost Rider and Lobo to fix them.
You can't have someone who doesn't care about looks as a role model.

>>90737177
he was a bit of a bad boy antihero during those times. He's back to being a fat loser now.