History Main / FadSuper

* ComicBook/{{Dazzler}} (pictured at right), who later became a member of the Comicbook/{{X-Men}}, was introduced with disco-based powers and costume (white jumpsuit and roller skates) just as disco [[DeaderThanDisco was dying]]. It didn't help that she was given a big marketing push, meeting up with the likes of Galactus in a vain attempt to make the character cool, or that the entire project had begun as a proposal for a [[LiveActionAdaptation live action film]] starring Bo Derek. But at least she wasn't called the Disco Dazzler, as originally planned.

** Once the "disco diva" gimmick was dropped, Dazzler became a fairly popular second-tier X-Woman. Dazzler revisits the disco diva gimmick during some of her performances as part of a tribute. She's a main character in ''MarvelZombies vs. [[Franchise/EvilDead Army of Darkness]]'', and Ash hits on her repeatedly.
** In Dazzler's introductory issue, Scott and Jean look for Dazzler in a makeshift disco inside a dilapidated buildling, with Scott wondering "if this was where old discos went to die".
** Dazzler's sister/nemesis, Mortis, sports a costume similar to the Misfits from ''JemAndTheHolograms''. So one sister visually evokes 1970s disco, while the other evokes 1980s hair metal and glam rock.

* Vibe, a member of the [[DorkAge much-maligned]] Detroit-based JusticeLeagueOfAmerica, was a breakdancer with vibrational powers.

** This trope is possibly a reason why Dick Grayson got new {{Nightwing}} costumes. His first one was [[http://www.hyperborea.org/flash/bigimages/grayson2.jpg very 80s]] while his second was [[http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/6500000/Nightwing-2nd-Costume-nightwing-6544193-252-360.jpg very 90s]] with hair to match and that followed him into his more familiar costume for a time.
* Grunge from ''{{Gen13}}''. Adam Warren had one of his sparring partners mock his name by calling him "Easy Listening" and other musical genres. Gail Simone's run explains this as a reference to the fact that he has "grunge under his fingernails", although Roxy provides a LampshadeHanging with the comment "Grunge? You mean the stuff dinosaurs have on their iPods?"

* Videoman, of ''{{Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends}}'', was based on arcade-style video games. Other characters of similar vintage are Marvel's Megatak and DC's Colonel Computron, and Bug and Byte. The latter three could potentially be made into credible threats again considering the incredible advances in computer technology since their creation, but Megatak's entire thing is being a character from an eight-bit arcade game.

* Guy Gardner didn't become an actual GreenLantern until the 1980s, where he was essentially made into a walking parody of Reagan-era policies. He started a war with the USSR and frequently expressed admiration for the amoral corporate raiders of the era. His characterization has progressed since then, but his 1980s look remains intact.

* Comicbook/GhostRider is actually a combination of two different fads at the time the character was created in the early 1970s: stunt cycling and characters with horror-themed origins, which were then popular at {{Marvel Comics}}. Thankfully, his occult adventures and highly distinctive design fit in rather well during the 1980s and '90s, especially with the influx of [[NinetiesAntiHero anti-heroes in the 1990s]]. His popularity has faded considerably in recent years, however.
* The new ''[[TheFlash Flash]]'' character Turbine seems like he was created to cash in on the renewed interest in the Tuskegee Airmen after the release of the movie ''RedTails''.
* The ''{{New 52}}'' introduced a female villain named the [[BondageIsBad Masochist]], whose initial design bore [[http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzccj3gtBy1qbujox.jpg more than a passing resemblance]] to Lisbeth Salander, the title character of the then-recently popular film ''[[Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo]]''. Due to some InternetBackdraft, she was renamed Anguish, her design was altered and all of the tattoos, piercings, and fetish elements were removed from the final costume.

* The 2001 ReTool of ''{{X-Force}}'' (later ''X-Statix'') cast the new team as a group of fame-hungry [[ThePrimaDonna Primma Donnas]] right around the time ''Series/BigBrother'' and other [[RealityShow reality shows]] were becoming wildly popular.

* Night Thrasher, leader of the NewWarriors in the MarvelUniverse, was created in 1990 with a skateboard grafted onto his urbanized Franchise/{{Batman}} schtick to cash in on the rising popularity of the sport in the late '80s. As the '90s progressed, he used the board less and less and settled on a CoolBike early in the series.

* You also used to get a lot of "kneejerk reactionary" villains in the 1980s, like [[CaptainAmerica Warhead]], who held the Washington Monument hostage until the United States started war with somebody, ''anybody''. Strangely, he was an inversion of a real-life incident where a peace protestor threatened to blow up the monument unless the U.S. disarmed.

** Skateman is interesting because the other two major facets of his life, being a karate blackbelt and a Vietnam vet, are also heavily tied to the early 1970s

** There was a karate fad in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. He was reworked to fit the kung fu fad of the 1970s. He still predates the movie ''TheKarateKid'' by decades, so he's not quite as derivative as he sounds.

* ''Series/VRTroopers'', ''SuperhumanSamuraiSyberSquad'', and ''Series/DenjiSentaiMegaranger'' all had 1990s-high-tech cyberspace/virtual reality themes (though ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' modified ''Megaranger'' into [[Series/PowerRangersInSpace an outer space theme]]).

** The producers of ''Series/KaizokuSentaiGokaiger'' justified its {{Pirate}} theme by literally arguing, "Well, ''Manga/OnePiece'' is popular, innit?" It's also hard to imagine that ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' didn't play a role, or at least won't play a role once it comes time to adapt it for ''Franchise/PowerRangers''.

* There were a lot of black superheroes created in the wake of the {{Blaxploitation}} trend. In addition to the aforementioned Cage and [[AfroAsskicker Misty Knight]], there was also BlackLightning, Black Goliath and WonderWoman's black "sister" Nubia.
** {{Dwayne McDuffie}} ended up creating the ''{{Icon}}'' character Buck Wild as a parody of this trend.

* ''MarvelZombies''. It's probably not a coincidence that an alternate universe where all the superheroes have become zombies became a recurring theme at the same time that books and movies about zombies were trendy.
** There's a bit of "retro on purpose" there, though. The Marvel Zombies universe (the first one, at least, before they go dimension-hopping) is a bit further back in the timeline than the "real", 616 MarvelUniverse but doesn't perfectly match any particular era. Captain America was a colonel, Earth has never seen Galactus before, and most of the zombified heroes wore costumes that those characters hadn't worn since the 1970s. However, Magneto had acolytes, which didn't come along until the 1990s in the 616 MarvelUniverse.
* There are plenty of {{Goth}} superheroes, like Marvel's Nico Minoru (formely Sister Grimm until they decided to ditch the codenames) and DC's Black Alice.

** Coinciding with the popularity of ''RozenMaiden'' and the rise of the ElegantGothicLolita subculture, almost every work of popular Japanese media produced from 2002 to 2008 or thereabouts had to have at least one character that was a 10-14 year old girl dressed in frilly, modified Victorian dresses armed with mystical powers, if not total command over the forces of darkness. Characters include but are not limited to [[TheKingOfFighters Ninon Beart]], [[SoulSeries Amy Sorel]], every character of the VideoGame/{{Touhou}} Project, and more.
** NeilGaiman's Death is also now an example. She typically dresses as a 1980's goth, even in time periods before the 1980's. From a modern perspective, she has an odd fixation on death imagery from one historical time period to the point that she even uses it in another.

* Video game example: [[TheKingOfFighters Hinako Shijo]] was based almost entirely around a very short-lived fad that revolved around petite women and high school girls that wanted to learn how to sumo wrestle. Seriously.

* Fire and Ice from the [[JusticeLeagueOfAmerica JLI]] had very 80s-looking costumes, complete with [[EightiesHair big hair]] and T-shirts over spandex. Ice even {{Lampshaded}} this by claiming she and Fire looked like they belonged in a HairMetal video. Needless to say, the more recent comics and cartoon adaptations have chosen to give them different outfits.

** They're bringing her back in the ''WesternAnimation/BewareTheBatman'' cartoon. To modernize her look, she's now been redesigned to resemble LadyGaga.

* DC's SuperYoungTeam subverts this while trying to play it straight. They aren't tied to any specific trend, but they're obsessed with staying fresh and current. That said, Most Excellent Superbat, the most materialistic of the lot, is adamant that they're also somehow more than all that.
* Video game example: The Koopalings, introduced in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'', were generally given a punk aesthetic to reflect [[TheEighties Eighties]]-era trends (the most notable exception being [[LudwigVanBeethoven Ludwig von Koopa]]). They went on hiatus after ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'', which would seem to reflect on Nintendo abandoning past fads. Luckily for them, they got a comeback in the last dungeon of ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'', followed by top billing in ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii''; WeirdAlEffect is definitely present, though.

* Along the same lines, DCComics announced in 2013 that they'd be debuting two new series, one a relaunch of the failed 1970s concept the Green Team and the other a massive group of working-class heroes known as "The Movement". The idea is to represent "the one percent" and "the 99 percent."

* Spoofed in an ''{{Asterix}}'' one-shot from the 60s in which Uderzo was (in {{Kayfabe}}) bowing to reader pressure to ReTool the characters to fit the then-trendy psychedelic craze. In the story, drawn in the style of ''YellowSubmarine'', he removed Asterix and Obelix's usual SuperSerum-induced SuperStrength in favour of giving them hippie-themed EmotionBomb flower magic that causes attacked Romans to experience a DesignStudentsOrgasm of enlightenment, peace and love. Obelix is not amused by this and opines that he prefers punching people.

** Her Ultimate version was a punk rocker. But at least this time, [[ContinuityNod the anachronism was deliberate.]]

** Her Ultimate version was made a punk rocker. But at least this time, [[ContinuityNod the anachronism was deliberate.]]

** The Ultimate version was made a punk rocker, which is almost as anachronistic.

*** Not really ironic; Heinberg was directly referencing O'Neil's run. It's quite popular in the past decade to re-appropriate various DorkAge ideas into a quality story. In this time we've seen things like [[Comicbook/GrantMorrisonsBatman Bat-Mite's 'return']], a new [[ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan Clone Saga]] and even multiple references to [[WesternAnimation/SupermanBatmanPublicEnemies The Composite Superman!]]

* Spoofed in an ''{{Asterix}} one-shot from the 60s in which Uderzo was (in {{Kayfabe}}) bowing to reader pressure to ReTool the characters to fit the then-trendy psychedelic craze. In the story, drawn in the style of ''YellowSubmarine'', he removed Asterix and Obelix's usual SuperSerum-induced SuperStrength in favour of giving them hippie-themed EmotionBomb flower magic that causes attacked Romans to experience a DesignStudentsOrgasm of enlightenment, peace and love. Obelix is not amused by this and opines that he prefers punching people.

* At the height of ''{{Ultraman}}'''s popularity, Franchise/{{Godzilla}} was forced to hang out with [[Film/GodzillaVsMegalon Jet Jaguar]]. That didn't go so well.

* ''Series/VRTroopers'', ''SuperhumanSamuraiSyberSquad'', and ''DenjiSentaiMegaranger'' all had 1990s-high-tech cyberspace/virtual reality themes (though ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' modified ''Megaranger'' into [[Series/PowerRangersInSpace an outer space theme]]).
** Similarly, ''MahouSentaiMagiranger'' was made to cash in on ''Literature/HarryPotter'''s popularity, whereas its American counterpart ''Series/PowerRangersMysticForce'' was remade in the style of ''Film/LordOfTheRings''.

** ''NinpuuSentaiHurricanger'' / ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm'' seemed fit to muscle in on a piece of the ninja pie inspired by ''Naruto'', as did ''JukenSentaiGekiranger'' / ''Series/PowerRangersJungleFury''.

!!Examples:

* WonderWoman was once caught up in this trope. For a time in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Wonder Woman lost her powers and familiar uniform, gained a wise old Asian mentor who taught her martial arts, and had espionage adventures wearing a white jumpsuit ... right around the time spy shows like ''Series/TheAvengers'' were popular. Most people hated this, Gloria Steinem even commenting how it was a needless depowering of the strongest female hero in comics, and it's pretty well in a DorkAge.

* Fire and Ice from the [[JusticeLeagueOfAmerica JLI]] had very 80s-looking costumes, complete with [[EightiesHair big hair]] and T-shirts over spandex. Ice even {{Lampshaded}} this by claiming she and Fire looked like they belonged in a HairMetal video. Needless to say, the more recent coomics and cartoon adaptations have chosen to give them different outfits.

!Examples:

!!Examples:

* It's easy to forget the SilverSurfer is a fad super. He was created in the 60's when surfing first gained popularity but since he's an alien who never knew anything about surfing (the Human Torch gave him that name) and the board is actually just an extension of himself he uses to fly through space and not technically a surfboard, the fad aspect of his character never distracted readers.

** In ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'', Raven was worked to fit the {{Emo}} and {{Goth}} fads as well, with... varying levels of success.

** Then there's the dance-based ''BattleFeverJ''.

* Along the same lines, DCComics announced in 2013 that they'd be debuting two new series, one a relaunch of the failed 1970s concept the Green Team and the other a massive group of working-class heroes. The idea is to represent "the one percent" and "the 99 percent."

*** The Goth subculture's also not even close to dead (though the music's unrecognizably different now, of course) ... its corresponding superheroes tend to be about ten years behind the current popular "look."
*** Negasonic Teenage [[MonsterMagnet Warhead]], or Why It's A Bad Idea Let A Goth Teen Name Herself.
*** Coinciding with the popularity of ''RozenMaiden'' and the rise of the ElegantGothicLolita subculture, almost every work of popular Japanese media produced from 2002 to 2008 or thereabouts had to have at least one character that was a 10-14 year old girl dressed in frilly, modified Victorian dresses armed with mystical powers, if not total command over the forces of darkness. Characters include but are not limited to [[TheKingOfFighters Ninon Beart]], [[SoulSeries Amy Sorel]], every character of the VideoGame/{{Touhou}} Project, and more.
** NeilGaiman's Death is also now an example. She typically dresses as a 1980's goth, even in time periods before the 1980's. From a modern perspective, it she has an odd fixation on death imagery from one historical time period to the point that she even uses it in another.

** Similarly, ''MahouSentaiMagiranger'' and ''Series/PowerRangersMysticForce'' were fairly obvious in trying to cash in on ''Literature/HarryPotter'''s popularity.

* Fire and Ice from the [[JusticeLeagueOfAmerica JLI]] used to sport some very...1980s-looking costumes, complete with big hair and T-shirts over spandex. Ice even lampshaded this by claiming she and Fire looked like they belonged in a rock video. Needless to say, the more recent comic books and cartoon adaptations have chosen to give the heroines different outfits.

* The ''Heroes for Hire'', [[LukeCageHeroForHire Power Man]] and [[ImmortalIronFist Iron Fist]], capitalized on the popularity of blaxploitation and kung fu movies, respectively, by combining the two trends. As did their female counterparts, the ''Daughters of the Dragon'' Misty Knight and Colleen Wing. And the vaguely-affiliated Sons of the Tiger.

* ''VRTroopers'', ''SuperhumanSamuraiSyberSquad'', and ''DenjiSentaiMegaranger'' all had 1990s-high-tech cyberspace/virtual reality themes (though ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' modified ''Megaranger'' into [[Series/PowerRangersInSpace an outer space theme]]).

* Night Thrasher, leader of the NewWarriors in the MarvelUniverse, was created in 1990 with a skateboard grafted onto his urbanized Franchise/{{Batman}} schtick to cash in on the rising popularity of the sport in the late '80s. As the '90s progressed, he used the board less and less.
** And since any connection between skateboards and the term "thrashing" has largely passed out of public awareness, his name [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast just sounds]] [[FreudWasRight awfully nasty]] (although Spider-Man [[LampshadeHanging made a joke]] along this line in ''1991''.)

*** Not really ironic; Heinberg was directly referencing O'Neil's run. It's quite popular in the past decade to re-appropriate various [[DorkAge Dork Age]] ideas into a quality story. In this time we've seen things like [[Comicbook/GrantMorrisonsBatman Bat-Mite's 'return']], a new [[ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan Clone Saga]] and even multiple references to [[WesternAnimation/SupermanBatmanPublicEnemies The Composite Superman!]]

* Night Thrasher, leader of the NewWarriors in the MarvelUniverse, was created in 1990 with a skateboard grafted onto his urbanized {{Batman}} schtick to cash in on the rising popularity of the sport in the late '80s. As the '90s progressed, he used the board less and less.

* Obscure Comicbook/{{Batman}} villain Magpie used to sport a mohawk and an outfit that made her look like a reject from an 80's hair metal video.

* Occasionally employed in a self-aware manner by ''AstroCity'' -- for instance, flashbacks to TheFifties might feature an appearance by a hero called "The Bouncing Beatnik".

[[quoteright:300:[[{{Dazzler}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/discodazzler_5063.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Ah, {{Dazzler}}. [[TemptingFate Surely]] your appeal will [[DeaderThanDisco last forever!]]]]

* Dazzler (pictured at right), who later became a member of the Comicbook/{{X-Men}}, was introduced with disco-based powers and costume (white jumpsuit and roller skates) just as disco [[DeaderThanDisco was dying]]. It didn't help that she was given a big marketing push, meeting up with the likes of Galactus in a vain attempt to make the character cool, or that the entire project had begun as a proposal for a [[LiveActionAdaptation live action film]] starring Bo Derek. But at least she wasn't called the Disco Dazzler, as originally planned.