The Hero's Journey Matters More Than Their Powers

 On Monday's entry I talked about someone's review of the whole Girl Power series.  Rereading the last book, GAIA:  Rogue State, I commented:

For reasons I can't really explain, my favorite characters in this series are the non-powered heroes like Melanie, Diane, Tonya, and Robin. Melanie especially is a favorite as she goes from a geeky fanboy in the first book to a female sidekick to de facto leader of Earth in the third book to Nick Fury on a shoestring budget in this book. If I hadn't found a lot more profit in writing gender swap fiction under another name after writing this, I probably would have written more adventures for Melanie and her discount spy agency.

I suppose that's mostly true about comics in general.  I mostly like heroes who don't have really powerful superpowers like Batman, Batgirl, or Azrael.  I also like Captain America, Spider-Man, Superman, and Wonder Woman but maybe not as much.

When it comes to Greek mythology I always liked Theseus more than Perseus or Herakles.  Theseus was more the Batman type who had to rely on his own skill and gifts whereas Perseus was given a bunch of shit by the gods so he was more like Wonder Woman and Herakles had all that strength like Superman.

I guess I like it better when it's more of a challenge.  Though really in the Scarlet Knight series she is more of a Perseus, given magic armor and a magic sword.  But for heroes like that, I think what you have to do is focus more on the characters than the powers.  I always tried to focus more on Emma than the Scarlet Knight aspect.  Part of that is until the last book, Emma doesn't really get any new powers and that was only because she made a new suit so she fixed some defects the old one had.

By the same token what was great about Al Ewing's Immortal Hulk was how it focused on Banner--and the various parts of his persona--versus focusing on the Hulk smashing stuff.  The best Superman comics are the ones that focus on his humanity, not him lifting shit to throw it into space.

Getting back to my original comment, what I really liked about Melanie is how she developed as a character.  In the first book Melvin is a nerd getting beat up in high school until Robin Holloway--formerly Midnight Spectre--comes along to save him.  And then Melvin finds Robin's lair and becomes a de facto sidekick before getting changed into a girl while saving the world.  She continues growing and maturing, especially in the third book where the other heroes are all eliminated one way or another, leaving her as the only one left and so she has to step up to find a way to save the world.

Except for the gender swapping part it kind of parallels the development of Dick Grayson over the years as he goes from a sidekick to a hero in his own right--and even Batman a couple of times.  Or you could even compare it to Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars as she goes from an annoying sidekick to basically a Jedi.  What makes the characters so great and memorable is how they grow.

I'd like to think people would see that with Melanie or Emma Earl.  But maybe not.  I mean, first people have to actually read the books.

Fun Fact:  Recently I found some old notes for GAIA Rogue State in a notebook.  They do pretty well fit the finished story: