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Crosswicking new trope.
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* TheFirstSuperheroes: A bright flash of light (depicted as a comet on the first issue cover) passes by the Earth's atmosphere near a small American town and powers up 113 babies still in utero. This leads to a generation of powered individuals developing their abilities in early childhood.
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* FreudianExcuse: Freud explains the screwed-up natures of the folks involved. Many of them are shown to act the way they do because of their parents. The most notable is probably Critical Maas, the EvilSuperpoweredSide of Stephanie Maas, who was repeatedly abused and molested by her father, and created Critical as a coping mechanism.
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* FreudianExcuse: Freud explains the screwed-up natures of the folks involved. Many of them are shown to act the way they do because of their parents. The most notable is probably Critical Maas, the EvilSuperpoweredSide SuperpoweredEvilSide of Stephanie Maas, who was repeatedly abused and molested by her father, father and created Critical as a coping mechanism.
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* AssholeVictim: The pedophile camp councelor Pyre killed as a child.
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* BookEnds: The last page of the comic draws from the first couple of pages.
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* BookEnds: The last page of the comic draws from shows [[spoiler: Randy Fisk, the last surviving Super, travelling into space and becoming a new meteor, dispersing the superhuman energies over an alien planet, just like what happened on Earth in the first couple of pages.issue.]]
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* FreudianExcuse: Freud explains the screwed-up natures of the folks involved. Many of them are shown to act the way they do because of their parents.
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* FreudianExcuse: Freud explains the screwed-up natures of the folks involved. Many of them are shown to act the way they do because of their parents. The most notable is probably Critical Maas, the EvilSuperpoweredSide of Stephanie Maas, who was repeatedly abused and molested by her father, and created Critical as a coping mechanism.
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* MagicMeteor: Although the trope is typically not used this darkly. May not have been a meteor either...
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* MagicMeteor: Although the trope is typically not used this darkly. May not have been a meteor either...[[spoiler: It's all but stated that the "meteor" was actually an alien being, and the last survivor of it's own Supers, beginning the cycle anew on Earth.]]
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* PowerIncontinence: Due to going on the run and not having access to the training the other Supers had as children, Pyre accidentally burned his parents to death in his sleep, something that haunted him for the rest of his life.
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* {{Stripperific}}: Critical Maas is usually seen wearing some very revealing clothes, such as a mid riff-revealing, low-cut top and low-hanging pants that show off her thong.
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* TakeOverTheWorld: This is what Critical Maas wants to do. She and a few other rogue Supers start by taking over Chicago, cutting it off from the rest of the U.S.
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* BlessedWithSuck: Combined with the fact that the public hates them, the Specials have a terrible time with their powers.
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* BlessedWithSuck: Combined with the fact that the public hates them, Not only are the Specials often treated as outcasts or freaks by the public and exploited by the government, many of them have a terrible time with their powers. weird, creepy or nigh-useless powers that really aren't worth the trouble. [[spoiler: This is because the energy that empowered them is "divided up" amongst them all, and the fewer Specials there are, the stronger and more powers each of them have.]]
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* ISeeDeadPeople: The power given to Lionel Zerb, who uses it to become a kind of supernatural detective as an adult. He can also connect mentally with ghosts and "see" what they see, which he uses at one point to investigate a "haunted" house where living humans are dropping dead.
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* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: The invulnerable Super had a brief career as a pro football player. And we do mean ''brief'', because while he was immune to pain or injury, he was a chubby, unathletic man who didn't have the mass to keep himself from just getting bowled over by the opposing players.
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* HeartIsAnAwesomePower: Laurel can use her powers to telekinetically manipulate tiny objects. It sounds lame, but those tiny objects include your arteries. Deadly. Another gets the ability to be smart, is smart enough to commercialize just enough to hide and spends his time inventing and proving here ReedRichardsIsUseless doesn't apply. . A third gets the ability to talk to the dead. Uses it to get the secrets of the dead and be able to fight political blackmail.
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* HeartIsAnAwesomePower: HeartIsAnAwesomePower:
** Laurel can use her powers to telekinetically manipulate tiny objects. It sounds lame, but those tiny objects include your arteries.Deadly. Deadly.
** Another gets the ability to be smart, is smart enough to commercialize just enough to hide and spends his time inventing and provinghere ReedRichardsIsUseless doesn't apply. . apply here.
** A third gets the ability to talk to the dead. Uses it to get the secrets of the dead and be able to fight political blackmail.
** Laurel can use her powers to telekinetically manipulate tiny objects. It sounds lame, but those tiny objects include your arteries.
** Another gets the ability to be smart, is smart enough to commercialize just enough to hide and spends his time inventing and proving
** A third gets the ability to talk to the dead. Uses it to get the secrets of the dead and be able to fight political blackmail.
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* TheAtoner: Jason after Chicago. His atonement? Straight out of Superman 4, Disarmament.
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* TheAtoner: Jason after Chicago. His atonement? Straight out of Superman 4, Disarmament.''Film/SupermanIVTheQuestForPeace'': nuclear disarmament.
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* FreudianExcuse: Freud explains most of screwed up nature of the folks involved.
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* FreudianExcuse: Freud explains most of screwed up nature the screwed-up natures of the folks involved.involved. Many of them are shown to act the way they do because of their parents.
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* HeroicSacrifice: Defeating Critical Maas takes four: [[spoiler: Cathy Jean, Joshua, Matt (though he just falls into a coma and gets better eventually) and Stephanie Maas]].
* IJustWantToBeNormal: They're all so BlessedWithSuck, who could blame them? A few are not quite as hostile due to PowerPerversionPotential
* IJustWantToBeNormal: They're all so BlessedWithSuck, who could blame them? A few are not quite as hostile due to PowerPerversionPotential
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* HeroicSacrifice: Defeating Critical Maas takes four: [[spoiler: Cathy [[spoiler:Cathy Jean, Joshua, Matt (though he just falls into a coma and gets better eventually) and Stephanie Maas]].
* IJustWantToBeNormal: They're all so BlessedWithSuck, who could blame them? A few are not quite as hostile due toPowerPerversionPotentialPowerPerversionPotential.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: They're all so BlessedWithSuck, who could blame them? A few are not quite as hostile due to
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* MassSuperEmpoweringEvent: The meteor dropping.
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* MassSuperEmpoweringEvent: The A meteor dropping.dropping over the small town of Pederson, which affected every child that was in utero at the time.
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* OneTrackMindedArtist: A variation; as children, the Pederson Specials were all given an assignment to draw a picture of their earliest memory. ''Every single one of them'' drew a picture of the MassEmpoweringEvent that gave them all superpowers, despite the fact that none of them were even ''conceived'' that night.
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* OneTrackMindedArtist: A variation; variation: as children, the Pederson Specials were all given an assignment to draw a picture of their earliest memory. ''Every single Each of them draws an image of fire or darkness, but when put together into one of them'' drew a picture of giant mosaic, they show the MassEmpoweringEvent [[MassSuperEmpoweringEvent comet that came to Earth and gave them all superpowers, despite their powers]].
* PaintingTheMedium: A memorable use in thefact that none first issue showing the character Lionel, who can speak to the dead. He's tormented by [[PowerIncontinence being unable to turn off his power]], so he constantly hears the voices of them were even ''conceived'' that night.the dead. At the end of the issue, there's a full-page image of him sitting in his armchair, alone. Then, on the other side of the page, we see mirror-images of ghostly figures on a white background. You have to hold the page up to the light, at which point the ghosts will show through the page and we see Lionel surrounded by the ceaseless whispering dead ...
* PaintingTheMedium: A memorable use in the
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* PubertySuperPower: Averted for the most part as all of the "Specials" were taken around the age of six and most of them had their powers activated over the next few years, mostly triggered at need (e.g. falling off a floor caused some to fly). Then there were some whose powers weren't activated until adulthood such as Cathy. Chandra is one of the rare ones as her power just turned on one day in high school.
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* PubertySuperPower: Averted for Mostly averted in a way that's also sometimes a plot point: though it's never stated outright, the most part as all of the "Specials" were taken around the age of six and most of them had Specials seem to get their powers activated over the next few years, mostly triggered at need (e.g. falling off when they're first needed, or when they're first in a floor caused some to fly). Then there were some whose situation where their powers weren't activated until adulthood such as Cathy. Chandra is could be used. For example, one child developed their power to fly when they fell off a roof. Cathy Jean was born right in the middle of the rare ones as Specials cohort and ''should'' have a power, but she never developed it—because her power just turned on one day in high school.is to resurrect the dead, and she'd never touched a dead body before.
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* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism Goes both ways. On one hand, you have an evil government agency who wants to control/kill all the main characters, but on the other hand, the Middle East getting farmable land stops all the fighting in that region, vigilantism ends all crime and terrorism, and everyone getting the ability to read minds for a day results in world peace.
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* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Goes both ways. On one hand, you have an evil government agency who wants to control/kill all the main characters, but on the other hand, the Middle East getting farmable land stops all the fighting in that region, vigilantism ends all crime and terrorism, and everyone getting the ability to read minds for a day results in world peace.
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* SuperPowerLottery: Oh Boy. Powers vary, and many get some combination of a classic power, flight or strength, with some thing else. So you got the 'high powered' Patriot and Mathew Bright with Genius level minds, super-strength, and flight. Goes all the way down to the lower powers of [[WhatKindofLamePowerIsHeartAnyway Heart]] with Paula Ramirez's ability to sing beautifully. At the end of Book 1, [[spoiler:TheGovernment kills one too many of them in a Waco-style incident, pushing all of them to high power, and most gain at least strength or flight, except Brody who gets even smarter.]]
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* SuperPowerLottery: Oh Boy.boy. Powers vary, and many get some combination of a classic power, flight or strength, with some thing else. So you you've got the 'high powered' Patriot and Mathew Bright with Genius level genius-level minds, super-strength, and flight. Goes all the way down to the lower powers of [[WhatKindofLamePowerIsHeartAnyway Heart]] with Paula Ramirez's ability to sing beautifully. At the end of Book 1, [[spoiler:TheGovernment kills one too many of them in a Waco-style incident, pushing all of them to high power, and most gain at least strength or flight, except Brody who gets even smarter.]]
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* WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway: Paula Ramirez has the ability to sing beautifully in some manner that goes beyond her voice, almost like telepathically beaming beauty in to the brains of her listeners. Unlike every other Special important enough to have a name and appear in multiple issues right up to the end series, this ability is never used in any plot- or thematically-relevant or way.
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* WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway: Paula Ramirez has the ability to sing beautifully in some manner that goes beyond her voice, almost like telepathically beaming beauty in to into the brains of her listeners. Unlike every other Special important enough to have a name and appear in multiple issues right up to the end series, this ability is never used in any plot- or thematically-relevant or way.
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* ObliviouslySuperpowered: Cathy Jean was conceived during the same MassSuperEmpoweringEvent as the rest of the Specials, but because of the nature of her powers (she can resurrect the recently-deceased), she remained completely unaware of her powers until she was in her thirties.
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There's no point mentioning things that aren't examples.
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** Oddly averted with more difficult math -- while 113 women in a small town being pregnant sounds like a large number, about 3.13% of women are pregnant at any time. Adding in the male half of the population, this comes to just over 8000 people in Pederson, and doesn't even account for multiple births.
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* TheCape: Patriot set out to be this due to being a huge superhero fan, but it was the capeless Matthew Bright who better embodies the ideals of this kind of hero. He wanted to help people so badly that he got a fake identity in order to be a police officer, since Specials were banned from any government service. At one point an investigation into some bombings results in several fellow officers being trapped in a burning building. To use his powers to save them means exposing himself as a Special, losing his job and being subject to a media circus, as well as the scorn of his friends. Matthew's inner thoughts says it all.
-->'''Matthew:''' I signed on to save lives. If I meant that, then I had to do what was necessary. Or it was all a lie. Whoever did this was smart, all right. Lead me on a wild goose-chase. And now my men are trapped inside the building I didn't search. I can't let them die. I refuse. Damn the exposure, '''I refuse'''.
-->'''Matthew:''' I signed on to save lives. If I meant that, then I had to do what was necessary. Or it was all a lie. Whoever did this was smart, all right. Lead me on a wild goose-chase. And now my men are trapped inside the building I didn't search. I can't let them die. I refuse. Damn the exposure, '''I refuse'''.
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* TheCape: Patriot set out to be this due to being a huge superhero fan, but it was the capeless Matthew Bright who better embodies the ideals of this kind of hero. He wanted to help people so badly that he got a fake identity in order to be a police officer, since Specials were banned from any government service. At one point an investigation into some bombings results in several fellow officers being trapped in a burning building. To use his powers to save them means exposing himself as a Special, losing his job and being subject to a media circus, as well as the scorn of his friends. Matthew's inner thoughts says it all.
-->'''Matthew:''' I signed on to save lives. If I meant that, then I had to do what was necessary. Or it was all a lie. Whoever did this was smart, all right. Lead me on a wild goose-chase. And now my men are trapped inside the building I didn't search. I can't let them die. I refuse. Damn the exposure, '''I refuse'''.
-->'''Matthew:''' I signed on to save lives. If I meant that, then I had to do what was necessary. Or it was all a lie. Whoever did this was smart, all right. Lead me on a wild goose-chase. And now my men are trapped inside the building I didn't search. I can't let them die. I refuse. Damn the exposure, '''I refuse'''.
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* InMediasRes
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* MagicPants: Averted: Pyre is naked when he's using his powers.
* MuggleBornOfMages: Specials' children don't inherit their parents' powers.
* {{Novelization}}: Arthur Byron Cover novelized the series over three books: ''Born In Fire'', ''Ten Years After'' and ''Change The World''.
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* SuperpowerfulGenetics: Averted. Specials' children don't get their powers.
