Personally, I wouldn't make "no killing" a hard and fast rule. Instead, I'd focus on the preservation of life being one of the heroes' primary goals. Alternately, you could delineate between patterns of killing in a fight vs. cold-blooded killing. This is where I think the Punisher falls off and Wolverine remains. The punisher has no qualms about sitting on a rooftop and shooting someone in the head. Wolverine tends to go man to man and kills people who are trying to kill himself or others.

Usually a WWE plot centers around getting revenge for the harming of a loved one, protecting someone who is being bullied, or similiar. The current story in ECW involves Colin Delany wanting to work for the company, and the manager keeps putting him in match after match against the biggest and the meanest performers across two shows (sub-plot of a sharing of talent to establish a cooperation of villain managers). Tommy Dreamer got involved to protect the cruiserweight Colin as he was forced to battle in a long string of unfair fights just for the sadistic amusement of the manager.

The basis of the John Cena / Randy Orton title feud lies in the fact that Orton attacked Cena’s father when he attended a show last fall. The Jeff Hardy / Randy Orton feud lies in the fact that when the actor portraying Jeff’s brother (his brother in real life as well, but work with me) needed to take medical leave for an appendix operation, so Orton attacked him backstage to explain why his character was off TV. Orton is the go-to bully of the Raw show. A lot of his storylines involve heroes trying to protect people from him, or get revenge for him injuring others. Even his title reign comes from the fact that the person he was feuding with at the time (the aforementioned John Cena feud) was legit injured and the title had to be moved.

And, I’d argue that the observation skills of Adrian Monk and Shawn Spencer are the equal of Batman, Robin, and Nightwing. If we aren’t considering Detective Gorman’s “know anything” ability, or Doctor House’s puzzle solving ability as “Superhuman abilities, or is extraordinarily skilled” then we really shouldn’t count Batman or Punisher either. Even Mr Terrific starts to be on shaky ground.

And, again, I’m not trying to argue that my example shows aren’t super hero stories. I’m just pointing out that they qualify under the listed rules. And, that they qualify on more points than some established super hero comic book titles.

Theno

Monk etc. have mental abilities that set them apart, but they are not super-powers. The abilities those characters display are rare, but within the realm of the possible. Even Batman, with no super-powers, can dodge bullets, is a master at many different scientific disciplines, can survive muliple gunshots and concussions without lasting mental or physical damage, and has sci-fi gadgets for every occasion. I think we can agree that such a character could not exist in the real world. There is a layer of fantasy that one finds in super-hero stories that is beyond what one finds in other genre fiction.

1. They all provide escapism. The characters say what the viewer wishes they could say if they were ever in that situation. The characters act like the viewer wishes they could act if society allowed it.

2. Adrain Monk and Shawn Spenser are almost superhuman in their powers of observation. Shawn Spencer and Gregory House are also fantastic in their interpretations of body language and human nature. Det. Gorman seems to be an expert in any fringe field, as does Gus at times. The physical feats demonstrated in WWE really speak for themselves. (It's amazing what one can do without wires or special effects when both fighters are cooperating, isn't it?)

3. The detective shows (Monk, Psych, L&O: CI) are obviously about good versus evil. The detective finds the villian and brings them to justice. House is a little more abstract in that the "villian" is sometimes the dissease (IMHO, the shows that have a human antagonist are the weakest ones.) And, the underlying theme of the WWE for years has been the struggle of the lone hero against the group of villians.

4. Again, this fits by the very nature of the shows. While the police or detectives may get proded by the villian's actions in order to get involved, they follow through to the end even if they could reasonably stop. Shawn Spencer sometimes continues to think about the case even after he has caught the bad guy, leading him to realize that he caught the wrong person. Det. Gorman continues to search for evidence even when his chief tells him to let it go. Matt Hardy continues to atatck Randy Orton to get revenge for injuring him, even though he isn't in contention for Orton's title.

5. WWE may break this one. The others certainly fit. But, WWE sorta lives in a world where the laws don't behave like they do in real life. A world where kidnapping, threats of violence, and property damage are par for the course, and not a job for the police. Although, that seems to fit most super hero comic books as well, so I think we can let it go.

6. The definition of "Costume" is kinda loose, so I'll give it a try. I propose: "The Super Hero's appearance is one that is consistant and can be easilly identified, picked out of a crowd or recognized at a distance." So, when the camera pans by a crowd shot, do you recognize Adrian Monk, Shawn Spencer, Detective Gorman, Gregory House, or Stone Cold Steve Austin? Does the actor look "less" like the character in candid shots, or "out of costume"?

Are these super hero stories?

I'm asking because if these are not intended to be super hero stories, then maybe some of the rules need edited or added to.

Theno

The teenage mindset that superheroes seem to spring from is manic-depressive, I guess. The empowering part is greatly attractive, but melodramatic tragedy also seems to be a big part of it.

But you might say, "But DC heroes DO beat the villains most of the time!" Beating a villain isn't the same as winning. If the bad guy gets away with killing even one person, it's not a real victory. And of late, they get usually away with killing SEVERAL people before the hero stops them, often in pretty gross ways. Heck, heroes are dying, or being morally twisted so much in DC of late, that even when they 'win', they lose. That's just *not* a superhero story. A superhero story is supposed to leave you feeling good.

I'm not saying heroes *always* have to win. They can be defeated; they can have doubts. But when they fail to save people, or are left feeling miserable despite their achievements, in such a constant basis, they just can't be considered truly heroic.

And I'm not saying people cannot enjoy such 'unheroic' stories if they want- heck, whole genres of fiction, from Crime Stories to Horror are just like that. But let's call a duck a duck: If a movie had gangsters in it but they never committed any crime, is it really a gangster movie? No. Similarly, just having people with powers and costumes in a comic book does *not* make it a superhero comic. To fit the genre, the Good Guys MUST win in the end, and not Pyhrric victories.

When it comes to genre I think that comic books have the same issues as movies. Is Star Wars a Sci-Fi movie or a Western? I think that Rick Altman tackled the subject as well as anyone in his Film/Genre where he took up a semantic/syntactic approach (he also added a 3rd category in the book but I don't remember what it was) in that there are the stock elements of a genre, the costume, the secret identity, the powers, and then there are the stories of a genre, fighting evil, hiding your identity, avenging fallen friends or family.

So we can say that something like Concrete takes some of the semantic elements of the Superhero genre but takes the syntactic stories from more naturalistic dramas and melodramas. Hellblazer takes the syntactic stories and mixes them with the more noir or mystery genre elements.

Concrete has superpowers, a code name, and a secret identity. I don't think he's a superpower, although he has done good deeds in his world. The last story-arc dealt with Concrete becoming pregnant and arguing about population control. I don't think the story fell within the super-hero (sub?) genre.

Let's go back to Jack Knight. He killed twice, once because he felt his life, family, and city were threatened, and once because he was in the middle of an interstellar war. While he did not make killing a habit, and his killings could be considered justified, he still took life intentionally. Is he still a super-hero? I say yes, because his basic moral (non-killing) code prevailed in most situations, because the two instances may have been life-or-death, and because innocents were threatened.

The Punisher, on the other hand, kills often. He doesn't just kill if his life was threatened. He doesn't only kill the very worst criminals. He kills drug dealers and pimps as often as he does mass-murderers. His moral code justifies killing those that do harm to others. He seems more a sociopath than a hero, even if goals seem to benefit society. Steve Gerber's Foolkiller mini-series showed just how sick that kind of person can be, even if the reader sees his point. I consider Punisher, Foolkiller, and Wolverine (outside of X-Men) anti-heroes.

Golden Age super-heroes may have killed, but the definition of a super-hero is malleable. The earliest form of the super-hero may not be the same as the modern super-hero.

The "no killing" wasn't even originally present in Batman comics, as I recall. It occurred later to writers that he may not want to use guns.

After all, many different things define genres. Horror is a genre defined by the emotion it seeks to cause on the audience. Western is a genre defined by the place and time a story is set. It isn't a stretch to say superhero is a genre defined mostly by the kind of protagonist you have.

I find myself defending Concrete as something different because it's so good! That speaks more about the constraints placed on most superhero stories and the lack of quality and imagination of many of them. Shouldn't superhero comics be able to have the depth and range Concrete has?

Omar, are you not just saying that because you saw that Simpsons episode at an impressionable age like I did? "Pro-active? Isn't that just a buzzword stupid people throw around to sound educated? I'm fired, aren't I?" I remember thinking, 'yeah, that's totally what I'm going to think to be cool!'