• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

News He-Man anime series from Kevin Smith coming to Netflix

Christopher said:
Coming back with a more serious reply... The idea is to have more than one defensive strategy working in tandem, so if one fails, you have a fallback. Like having both a seatbelt and airbags, or getting vaccinated and still practicing masking and social distancing. It's the Swiss cheese analogy -- each individual method has holes, so the more layers of protection you have, the better your odds of staying safe.

So, for instance, Zorro or Batman wears a mask to prevent recognition, or Clark Kent slouches and wears glasses, but they also don an ineffectual persona as an additional layer of misdirection. However, that doesn't really account for Filmation's He-Man or She-Ra, or Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman in seasons 2-3 where she largely ditched the glasses and fought crime openly as Diana Prince. Those are instances of the storytellers not really bothering much with the logic of the secret identity.

I find it a bit ironic that the reboot She-Ra has Adora gain something like two feet in height when she transforms, which would be a great help in maintaining a convincing secret identity, yet the writers made no effort to give her a secret identity and had her be totally open about it with everyone. It underlines the extent to which the secret-identity trope has fallen out of favor in fiction. I guess MOTU: Revelation does too, in that it opens with He-Man's secret being exposed.
Click to expand...
I think they just thought the secret identity had been milked for all it was worth and there was more fertile ground exploring the fall out from the revelation. Of course it works a bit better from a fan perspective if he's still around as well.
 
Christopher said:
Coming back with a more serious reply... The idea is to have more than one defensive strategy working in tandem, so if one fails, you have a fallback. Like having both a seatbelt and airbags, or getting vaccinated and still practicing masking and social distancing. It's the Swiss cheese analogy -- each individual method has holes, so the more layers of protection you have, the better your odds of staying safe.

So, for instance, Zorro or Batman wears a mask to prevent recognition, or Clark Kent slouches and wears glasses, but they also don an ineffectual persona as an additional layer of misdirection
Click to expand...
It's interesting that in the classic Superboy stories the young Clark Kent was depicted as your average teenager (perhaps a little more stiff than his peers), not the wimpy klutz of his adult counterpart. They even addressed this in Action Comics #400, an anniversary issue.

Now, it goes without saying that they wanted just to justify why the two versions of Clark Kent published at the same time differed so much from each other, but in-universe as an explanation it doesn't make much sense. No one (except Lara) in Smalville, a small town where everyone knows each other, ever suspected that Clark and Superboy were the same person. But now that he has moved to a megalopolis of millions of inhabitants, he is worried ???

Pauln6 said:
I think they just thought the secret identity had been milked for all it was worth and there was more fertile ground exploring the fall out from the revelation. Of course it works a bit better from a fan perspective if he's still around as well.
Click to expand...
Interestingly, this "Secret Identity" trope is practically dead nowadays. In the MCU movies no one really has a "secret identity" that he has to hide from friends and colleagues and even in the comics Superman has revealed to the whole world that he is Clark. It is evident that the authors are tired of inventing another excuse to make the protagonist disappear and make his heroic alter ego appear.
 
Skipper said:
Interestingly, this "Secret Identity" trope is practically dead nowadays. In the MCU movies no one really has a "secret identity" that he has to hide from friends and colleagues and even in the comics Superman has revealed to the whole world that he is Clark. It is evident that the authors are tired of inventing another excuse to make the protagonist disappear and make his heroic alter ego appear.
Click to expand...

I think there are a number of reasons why it's fallen out of favor. One is that series fiction is more serialized now, so you can't just use the same plot formula over and over; you need an ongoing narrative with changes in the status quo. So secrets tend to come out over the course of the story, and it's better for characters to be in the loop so that their relationships can advance, while characters kept out of the loop of a big secret tend to have a more static role (like how Aunt May got to grow far more as a character after she found out Peter Parker was Spider-Man). Or maybe it's just that more fiction revolves around ensemble casts rather than a single lead, a limited supporting cast, and featured guest stars. Though I think those two things might be interconnected.

I think part of it, though, is also just that we live in more public, more connected times. We post what were once private thoughts as live tweets and status updates, we post photos of our meals and selfies of the bathroom mirror... the younger generations just take that kind of open connection for granted, so it's reflected in today's fiction. Plus there's a greater awareness of the toxic side of lying to loved ones. A lot of the things superheroes do to trick their friends and families are tantamount to the gaslighting behavior of abusers, so it just doesn't feel right anymore.

Or maybe part of it is just that modern technology renders secret identities less credible, as illustrated by this well-known cartoon.
 
Marvel Movies do not have recurring Supervillains.

Everyone dies or gets amnesia, or runs the fuck away to the other side of the world, or gets put in a super prison that no one gets out of.

Batman and Spider-Man in the comics, have 80 villains at any one time out of prison and thinking about killing them, so its a massive miracle that they attack one at a time.
 
Christopher said:
Or maybe part of it is just that modern technology renders secret identities less credible, as illustrated by this well-known cartoon.
Click to expand...

It does bring to mind things like in Justice League Unlimited where Waller gets a hold of Batman's DNA, as she puts it, he was leaving it all over town. And in the comics there have been several times when it has been mentioned that the batfamily have taken steps to make sure that their fingerprints and other markers gets erased from law enforcement systems to make sure that their regular ids can't be connected to their superhero personas.
 
Christopher said:
I think part of it, though, is also just that we live in more public, more connected times. We post what were once private thoughts as live tweets and status updates, we post photos of our meals and selfies of the bathroom mirror... the younger generations just take that kind of open connection for granted, so it's reflected in today's fiction.
Click to expand...

True in some respects, though on the other hand, a large number of us hide behind a fake name and "secret identity" to say what we want to others with less fear of repercussions. Not the same as why a superhero might do things, but the concept is more alive with us now than before the internet.
 
Christopher said:
I think there are a number of reasons why it's fallen out of favor. One is that series fiction is more serialized now, so you can't just use the same plot formula over and over; you need an ongoing narrative with changes in the status quo. So secrets tend to come out over the course of the story, and it's better for characters to be in the loop so that their relationships can advance, while characters kept out of the loop of a big secret tend to have a more static role (like how Aunt May got to grow far more as a character after she found out Peter Parker was Spider-Man). Or maybe it's just that more fiction revolves around ensemble casts rather than a single lead, a limited supporting cast, and featured guest stars. Though I think those two things might be interconnected.

I think part of it, though, is also just that we live in more public, more connected times. We post what were once private thoughts as live tweets and status updates, we post photos of our meals and selfies of the bathroom mirror... the younger generations just take that kind of open connection for granted, so it's reflected in today's fiction. Plus there's a greater awareness of the toxic side of lying to loved ones. A lot of the things superheroes do to trick their friends and families are tantamount to the gaslighting behavior of abusers, so it just doesn't feel right anymore.

Or maybe part of it is just that modern technology renders secret identities less credible, as illustrated by this well-known cartoon.
Click to expand...
On Prime there is Invincible, a quite good show about a teenage superhero
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
On a couple of occasions there are scenes that seem to be directly taken from a Superman Silverage comic, where the protagonist (who is at that moment with his girlfriend when danger comes) has to pretend he feels sick or another excuse so he can change costume and became the titular superhero.

After a while (spoilers!!!) he finds all the deception stupid and a waste of time, but most of all, he feels bad about lying to the girl he loves. it's an interesting take: one must be a decent persone to use his/her powers to do good. But this hypothetical good person, how would s/he feel to lie all the time without really having a valid reason?
 
Last edited:
IMDB did their weekly refresh, MOTUR is now in 28th place in popularity.

Not that big of a drop at all.
 
Pauln6 said:
I do recall thinking it was odd that so many of the heroes were female and that only two of the villains were
Click to expand...

Catra was apparently supposed to be the main villain before they decided to add the male Horde characters from the MOtU toyline.
https://www.he-man.org/forums/board...03-What-if-Catra-had-been-She-Ra-s-main-enemy

There's an audio book called "The Power of the Evil Horde" (which has dialogue from the Filmation voice actors) that seems to predate the She-Ra series, with Hordak being on Eternia.
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
I read a theory where Bruce Wayne is a delusional toffee unco, and his war on crime is an orchestrated and directed pantomime by Alfred and Gordon.
 
Last edited:
Josh Kelton said:
Catra was apparently supposed to be the main villain before they decided to add the male Horde characters from the MOtU toyline.
https://www.he-man.org/forums/board...03-What-if-Catra-had-been-She-Ra-s-main-enemy

There's an audio book called "The Power of the Evil Horde" (which has dialogue from the Filmation voice actors) that seems to predate the She-Ra series, with Hordak being on Eternia.
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
Click to expand...
Crumbs there were three female villains. I didn't even remember Catra, so if she was that memorable I guess she would not have made a great arch villain.
 
This picture is guaranteed to ruin your childhood:

brZeopJ.png
 
I seem to have a vague recollection that Orko's people (Trollans) had some kind of taboo about showing their faces in public. I think maybe there was some episode where Orko was very embarrassed about losing his hat or his scarf or something and was hiding his face. Is that right, or am I imagining it?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Trek Writers Room
STAR TREK: Expedition 8180 - Episode 3 "Fly Me to the Moon"
Replies
14
Views
1K
Trek Writers Room
Trek Writers Room
Trek Writers Room
STAR TREK: Expedition 8180 - Episode 1
Replies
8
Views
993
Trek Writers Room
Trek Writers Room
Trek Writers Room
  • Locked
STAR TREK: Expedition 8180 - Introduction
Replies
1
Views
877
Oddish
Oddish
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top