Heroes: Archetypes, stereotypes, and new ideas
By NiteFly 5 Comments
Throughout the course of the television show Heroes, I have reveled in the varied use of mutant-like abilities that have been popping up, and geeking out by giving my girlfriend the official names of most of the abilities given. I have also enjoyed the different characterizations that come with various powers and abilities, and comparing them to what would seem to be their comic book inspirations. Most of the character's powers we have seen are pretty old hat for comic book fans. A few have surprised me, however, by the unique spin they have exhibited. Today I am going to commit to digital some of my various musings on the varied abilities of a few choice heroes characters.
Claire Bennet
is probably too easy, but she shows a lot of promise in the show. I say promise not because her power (or her character for that matter) intrigue me a terrible amount. Her motives are not particularly unusual in a blossoming super-hero, and her ability to spontaneously and quite rapidly regenerate all forms of bodily tissues seem to be on the level of a contemporary Wolverine. I say that I see promise here because she, as a character, has demonstrated an extreme desire to use her powers for good, and learn to fight. As far as powers are concerned we do not get thrown too many curve-balls in this show, and I would love for the writers to give her a means to use her powers in an offensive manner that we have not seen before. Perhaps she can mutate into something more like Elixer where she controls not only her own cellular structure, but potentially that of others as well. That coupled with the rate at which she can heal herself would make her a dangerous opponent indeed.I was both amused and pleased to see Mohinder give himself powers. As soon as he injected himself he gained superior speed, agility, reflexes, and strength. Before exhibiting those, however, I would like to mention that my girlfriend said he was going to become Spider-Man. I told her she was full of it. The next episode he was walking on walls. I'm quite glad that my normal drive to make bets over such things did not kick in. I believe my words were "Holy crap!". To this day I have no idea how she figured that one out. I am so very proud.
began as the character on the show that irritated me the most. Peter was a whiny dreamer with bad hair and a habit of watching old people die (O.K., so admittedly he had one redeeming quality). I am really glad that his power wasn't limited to his brother's flight. Like Claire we have seen similar abilities a la Mimic, Amazo, the Super-Adaptoid, and Sync. As the show's resident powerhouse I have grown a taste for Peter. I find Peter to be interesting for a couple of reasons. FIrstly, Peter is good. Those types of power levels are often reserved for bad guys because of how relatively unstoppable they can be. Secondly, Peter does not seem to have any real restrictions on his powers. He can copy as many abilities as he needs, remembering all of them. He only briefly needs exposure to gain a new power. He seems to be able to use any of the powers at any given time, and his power level does not drain very rapidly at all. If I were to have anyones powers it would be Peter (although with my luck I already have this ability and there is no other person in the world with powers to copy).
Taskmaster merged with a teenage girl. Simply awesome. 'Nuf said.
I think Niki Sanders is probably the show's biggest disappointment for me. She didn't present too much potential in the beginning, but the new "Ice Queen" version of herself got me extremely excited. I just knew that she was the Heroes take on Legion. Nope, sorry NiteFly, she's just a lame science fair experiment. NEXT!
Sylar is the quintessential bad guy. I'm not sure if he really even believes in his own motivation. I'm not sure that really has any sort of innate drive to kill and take powers. Sylar is the scarred side of the Peter/Sylar coin, and I like it. Sylar seems to be able to do everything Peter can do, but must cut people open to see how their powers work before being able to (seemingly) grow the appropriate connections in his own mind to use their abilities. I find this spin to be particularly unique. Sylar is a great bad-guy because he is bad for the sake of being bad. Come on. Awesome.