I guess we all know our super hero classics, Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Robin,Captain America, the Hulk, the lot. All of them heroic and poised, ready to help out where needed, saving the world from evil. But let's talk about the ones that fail to make the grade at being a super hero, either by lacking superpowers and gadgets or lacking the composition to be a real super hero.
First up, here's one of my favorites. I even use his name on a couple of Forums I'm a member of. Dragonball Z's
The Great Saiyaman
Son Gohan, for the ones not familiar with the series, was in his mid teens when he started attending high school after having been home tutored for most of his childhood. While being in a different city, he discovered that that city was enormously crime infested and on three occasions used his Super-Saiyan powers to thwart criminal activities. But every time he did so he found out that people started talking about the "Golden Warrior" (when becoming Super Saiyan, Gohan's hair, normally black, turns in a bright golden color) so seeing that that city would need a hero and to keep people from recognising him as the "Golden Warrior" he had a costume made and as
The Great Saiyaman went to fight evil. Saiyaman has super powers: he can fly, shoot beams of energy and has superhuman strength (He once saved an airliner that was going down by simply plucking it from the sky.) So what would make him a failed Super hero? The fact that Gohan is a nerd and performs a highly elaborate (and absurd) dance routine to announce himself when arriving at a scene of a crime, making it impossible to take him seriously. Add to the fact that when he's facing a female opponent, the fact that beneath his helmet hides a shy teenage boy comes into play, which is seen clearly in this clip.
Gohan is also a terrible liar, not being able to keep his secret identity a secret. as this clip shows.
Then there's the one that puts all of what Superheroes stand for to shame, from the little known series "Dr. Slump"
Suppaman
Kent Clarke is a part time TV news reporter in a town called Penguin Village and is as you can tell A middle aged man with a sizeble gut. But when eating Umeboshi (Sour plums) he becomes
Suppaman (litteraly: "Sourman")
Kent Clarke
Suppaman, doesn't wait for opportunities to fight for justice, rather he
creates them. Like the one he's based on, he prefers phoneboxes to change in and if that phone box happens to be occupied he clears it by throwing in a hand grenade. Hand grenades are also used to generate emergencies in which he can play the hero. As for superpowers, Suppaman has none. He rides along lying on his belly on a skateboard pretending to be flying. Suppaman's greatest achievement was when he cleared all the fish from a river in an efford to save them from drowning.
Suppaman in the German version of "Dr. Slump"
