How to Date a Superhero Ch. 08

She knew Apollo was an arrogant cheater!!!

apollo was an arrogant prick...over entitled and slimy through the whole story,sucks jordan died but penny and travis are supposed to be together,at least thats the way it felt for me from the start,wish you'd gotten more detail in on the incest though...but then i am a pervert

While I pout over how wrong things could go in this one chapter.

I for one hope you don't put Mega Girl and Travis back together. He was a bit of a bore until he ended up with Jordan, and now I could care less what happens to him at this point.

As for Jordan, her death was a bit anticlimactic to me tbh. Nevertheless, she was a more engaging character than Travis.

The worst thing was probably the cheating bit. All those chapters spent building up their relationship and it all goes to flames just like that. It's still your own story of course, but I hope you didn't write that just to cater to the Apollo-haters. :/

I mean, sure, he can be quite annoying but sleeping with Artemis made his character do a complete 180. He was all lovey dovey about forsaking porn and other women for Mega Girl but completely unravels because Artemis kissed him? I understand that Artemis had unresolved feelings for him, but there was no foreshadowing whatsoever that Apollo felt the same way. Grrrr...I didn't find that necessary at all.

Looks like we're taking a turn into Greek Tragedy here. I guessing things may get a lot worse for our heroine before they get better.

If it gets really dark you might want to put some kind of tone shift warning on the first chapter just to let readers know not to get too comfortable. ;)

Actually, the trope references the fact that female heroines--or other characters--are more likely to be brutalized or killed for the purpose of furthering/highlighting the male superhero's character arc. (You know: *falls to knees* "NOOOOOOOO....!") It's actually not referring to Mega Girl at all (so no Peter Parker parallel--except that they're guilty, too: Gwen Stacy, anyone?). It's referring to the woman who was cut up into pieces and stuffed in the refrigerator for Mega Girl to find: Jordan.

It is true that conflict is necessary for development and interesting plot--but not necessarily character death. Look at your general reader response to Jordan's death here: "Aww, man, I sort of liked her." "Well...I guess I understand why you did it." "That wasn't necessary."

No impact to the heart. Or very little. And it didn't create conflict--Jordan was the one who kissed Travis, right? That means you decided that her dying was the best way to tidy up any potential conflict/drama between Travis and Penelope. The opposite of what you claim. Jordan probably didn't have to die--it was just the cheap "throw-away death for a secondary character for a moment of action to give the hero/ine a reason to be upset but it doesn't really affect the audience" tactic that people have come to expect and are inured to in action movies. Jordan will be forgotten within a chapter or two because the readers didn't really feel her loss all that much.

Definitely women in refrigerators. There was probably a better way to do this, but "beat up the woman to make the hero look good" is a long-standing mechanism.

I am kind of hoping that Travis winds up doing a more successful Orphic trip to the underworld to retrieve Jordan. I understand the pull toward setting him and Mega-Girl up again, but i hope that it is just a red herring. I mean how cool would it be if a simple mortal wandered into Hades, warred against the unspeakable creatures (fingers crossed it the Cerberus) to get back what was taken from him (while Mega-girl beat the shit out of Pluto). Not to mention that this would put him in the position that Penny had in the beginning with him, potentially leading both an understanding from him with regards to the "fucked-up" nature of the Penny/Mega-Girl personality crisis, and hopefully to him becoming a more involved character, rather than just the useless assistant (as Jordan was anything but useless). I just think with the introduction of the technology based hero (Dr Prizim, or whatever his name is) then who's to say that this couldn't potentially push Travis into becoming an Ironman-esque hero with the same fanatical drive that Batman has due to his personal loss. As this could work with the reintroduction of Jordan quite well. But then again its probably just going to be a set up to Mega-Girl and Travis getting back together "sigh". But i still hold hope the predictable wife in the fridge cliché is, as i said before, just red herring. Although that wouldn't solve the Apollo arc like a reunion of Travis and Penny would.

:)

Yeah, poor Mega-Girl had it rough this chapter. I don't know that females in spandex have traditionally had it any tougher than males, I remember some issues of Spider-Man that treated Peter Parker pretty bad...

It's been important to me that this series not be all bunnies and roses. It has raised the ire of many readers, but I feel tension and conflict to be critical to good character development and storytelling.

Thanks for reading!

I really enjoy your storytelling but Jordan's death really falls into that women in refrigerators trope. Superheroines have always suffered a disproportionate amount of life-derailing tragedies when it comes to character development and there were two in one chapter for Mega-Girl. Thata really rough pacing.

I think that you were a bit extreme with Jordans death. But I understand why you did it. Furthermore I like that Apollo is (hopefully) romantically gone out of her life.

JW