Fanfic / Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!

"You probably figured it out already, but that baby they're with? That's me. My name is Izuku, and I'm an alien."^note All credit for the art goes to its original owners

"A young boy learns to fly with the world beneath his wings."

—The story's Tagline

Inko and Hisashi Midoriya are on a camping trip by Lake Kawaguchi, one of the Five Lakes of Mt. Fuji, to get away from the world after learning that they are unable to produce the child they always wanted. That evening, the couple see a fireball streak through the sky, following it to find a crashed spaceship with a crying baby inside. Believing it to be more than just mere coincidence, Inko insists that they take this child as their own regardless of the risks, overruling her husband's protests. And so, the baby alien became one Izuku Midoriya, destined to become the world's greatest hero.

Wait, doesn't this sound familiar?

Here's the catch: in this universe, he doesn't want to become a hero... At least at first.

Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku! is a My Hero Academia Fusion Fic written by FoxOnPie. In an Alternate Universe where both DC Comics characters and concepts collide with the world of My Hero Academia, it follows the road Izuku takes to become a Hero as an adopted Kryptonian child rather than a simple Quirkless boy, having a serious impact on his development and outlook on the world as a budding Superman in the making.

It can be read on AO3 and Fanfiction.net, but with more in-depth analysis and active discussion about the story on Spacebattles and Sufficient Velocity. Written by FoxOnPie.

Beware of unmarked spoilers. It hasn't been updated since 2021.

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Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku! provides examples of:

# - B

• 20 Minutes into the Future:
  • The story's technology level is somewhere in between My Hero Academia's and Batman Beyond's. There's plenty of futuristic technology that's used to support Heroes and holograms are cheap enough to be used commercially (even if they are vastly inferior to the ones on Krypton), but there aren't any commercially available flying cars or things that would radically change the quality of life in Japan. It's also implied that the story is still taking place in the 21st century, as the Justice Society of America was formed when President [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt was in office.
  • U.A. is revealed to have its own Danger Room-esque facility called the Mud Room, which can replicate nearly any combat environment on Earth for training purposes, which is far beyond the likes of My Hero Academia's typical technology level.
• Academy of Adventure: U.A. High School is All Might's alma mater and the most prestigious Hero School in all of Japan. Others include Ketsubutsu Academy High School, Shiketsu High School, and Seijin High School, but all of them exist in U.A.'s shadow. There are also other other Hero Schools on par with U.A. in other countries, like Gotham Academy and the Lex Luthor Institution of Accelerated Humanity in the United States.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Midoriya here is a Kryptonian Flying Brick with the full array of Combo Platter Powers and none of the bone-shattering recoil that comes with using One For All.
  • Tokoyami has a Reality Warping fifth-dimensional genie bound to him instead of a Quirk, giving him the single most powerful ability in 1-A.
  • The Ultra-Humanite is mainly known for his enormous intellect in the comics, but here he has a powerful Quirk called "Over Man" that limits the physical capabilities of all humans within 100 m of him by up to 75%. This is powerful enough to let him take on Midoriya and All Might at the same time.
  • Hisashi Midoriya is nothing more than a pencil-pushing salaryman in the original My Hero Academia. Here he's one half of Firestorm.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Midoriya meets Momo Yaoyorozu while looking for a place to eat in downtown Nagoya. After helping her retrieve her phone from a storm drain, the two bond over a shared appreciation for Princess Shazam and end up exchanging contact information over lunch to study together in hopes of getting into U.A.
  • While trying to come up with an excuse for his attempts to find other Kryptonians in old news articles and talking to K.E.L.E.X., Midoriya ends up playing a YouTube video featuring Gentle Criminal and La Brava, who don't appear until Midoriya's first fall semester at U.A. in the main story.
  • Kendo Rappa attends the U.A. Cultural Festival and gets into conflict with Midoriya. Thankfully, it was just over a Beebo plush, and he actually walks away with a great deal of respect for Midoriya's Super-Strength.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • According to the author, Dick Grayson went by the name of Renegade when he was a Hero. In the comics, Renegade was the name he used while working undercover as a villain under Deathstroke. In this story, though, it appears to have just been the name he used after he stopped being Robin.
  • In Batman: The Brave and the Bold, the Music Meister is a surprisingly dangerous supervillain who nearly managed to take over the world by singing. Here, he really is Neil Patrick Harris rather than simply being voiced by him, a Hero, and even worked at U.A. in prior years.
  • Giganta, traditionally a villain, is depicted as a heroine who interns with the Flashes, and the Love Interest of the younger Wally West.
• Adaptational Name Change:
  • Kal-El is Midoriya in this story rather than Clark Kent and the author has plans to make him take up the name Superman rather than Deku despite the title.
  • As mentioned above, Dick Grayson takes up the title Renegade rather than Nightwing after graduating from the role of Robin.
  • Heino Okata, known as Most Excellent Superbat in the comics, goes by Most Excellent Wonder Bat here due to the distinct lack of Superman in the story's history.
• Adaptational Slimness: Due to possessing his Kryptonian Super-Strength from an early age, Izuku rarely needed to truly exert himself and most of his ten months of training consisted of refining his control rather than increasing his raw strength. As a result, he keeps his Geek Physique when he gets into U.A.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: Several characters have their powers given different sources, like Midnight being a magic user instead of having a Quirk.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • Despite winning the Superpower Lottery, it's made clear that Midoriya's Kryptonian strength is currently no match for a user of One For All, compared to his canon counterpart's ability to hit as hard as All Might at the cost of breaking a limb.
  • While Aizawa's Quirk isn't exactly weaker, it's far more of a Situational Sword because it's useless against Metahumans, magic users, and aliens compared to his home series, where he only had to worry about mutation Quirks.
• Age Lift:
  • Midoriya is the same age as he is in canon, but as the story's equivalent to Superman, he's much younger than many of the DC heroes he helped inspire in the comics, with Starfire, Renegade, and other heroes traditionally depicted as looking up to Superman being older than Midoriya. For reference, the Golden Age of Heroics began decades ago with heroes like Batman and Wonder Woman, and much of the Justice Society of America is long dead due to old age.
  • Similarly, Barry Allen, better known as The Flash, is usually depicted as a contemporary of Batman. Here he's only been active within the past decade or so, as are the Rogues. By this point, the original Batman has retired and has been replaced by the current Batman (and there were two other Batmans prior to this), Lex Luthor has succumbed to old age, while Wonder Woman has been active for decades.
  • According to the author, John Constantine was active at the same time as the Justice Society, making him decades older than his modern love interest, Zatanna.
• Alien Invasion: Happened during the Lantern War, when the Red Lantern Corp descended upon Earth and attempted to wipe out everyone on it, which eventually turned the public's opinion against aliens in general, forcing alien superheroes to retire and go underground if they weren't killed.
• Aliens Speaking English:
  • Presumably, Starfire and the Martian Manhunter were able to converse with Earthlings during their time as superheroes (though it's justified in both cases by their powers). There's also Midoriya, but he was raised as a Japanese human in the first place.
  • Midoriya runs into the spawn of a Kaiju from another dimension while visiting Korusan Island to train himself. While he initially runs in terror from them, he manages to speak and reason with them while promising to go away. They only snarl back at him but seem to understand him well enough to slink away without fighting.
• All Genes Are Codominant: Subverted. According to the author, it's impossible to have both the Metagene and the Quirk Factor because the Quirk Factor is dominant. The Metagene is recessive because it requires a trigger to activate. It is possible to have the ability to use Magic on top of having a Quirk, but it's very rare. Mutations from toxic wastes or lab accidents bypass all of the above, allowing Barry Allen, who has a forensic analysis Quirk, to obtain blistering Super-Speed.
• All There in the Manual: Several bits of lore regarding the setting are revealed in comments on Tumblr, the Spacebattles thread, and replies on AO3 before they appear in the story proper. Examples include:
  • Renegade was the name used by Dick Grayson in this story.
  • Starfire was active in the Golden Age, and in the aftermath of the Lantern War, she and Dick eventually retired from heroics and society due to Fantastic Racism.
  • Hal Jordan is currently the only Earth Lantern associated with the Green Lantern Corps.
  • Harrison Wells is not Eobard Thawne, he's the original Harrison Wells who also happens to be in a wheelchair.
  • The Doom Patrol are no longer associated with Niles Caulder.
  • It's impossible for someone to have both the Quirk Factor and the Metagene because the Quirk Factor is dominant while the Metagene is recessive. Someone with a Quirk can use magic, but it's very rare. Mutations resulting from toxic waste or lab accidents, however, can give someone powers even if they have a Quirk, as seen with Barry Allen.
  • Kara will show up at some point.
  • Those who become Heroes later in life like The Flash and Firestorm have to take night classes in order to earn their Hero Licenses.
  • There have been no major superhero teams since the dissolution of the Justice Society of America and the fallout of the Lantern War, but some other known teams were the Teen Titans and the Doom Patrol.
  • Lex Luthor had a legitimate Heel–Face Turn, going from supervillain to superhero, even opening up his own Hero academy in America.
  • The Eleven Enemies of Man include the original Seven Deadly Sins along with the Bowdlerized versions (Hatred, Selfishness, Laziness, and Injustice).
• Alternate Self: Harrison Wells, Harry Wells, and H.R. Wells exist in the same world, all working at S.T.A.R. Labs to promote the greater good. They're also drinking buddies and play Secret Hitler with each other. Midoriya himself is the Earth-2014.00 counterpart to Clark Kent.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: After spending the first part of Chapter 7 discussing how Midoriya is going to prepare for the U.A. Entrance Exam, the story shifts to the first-person perspective of a wealthy socialite in Gotham who happens to be the granddaughter of a famous supervillain who supposedly reformed years ago. The chapter switches perspectives between Midoriya and the socialite for Spring, Summer, and Autumn before they both meet in the Winter section. Said granddaughter is Alexis Lois Luthor, grandchild of Lex Luthor.
• Animal Mecha: Midoriya gets literally stomped on by a robot T. rex while investigating a Villain's lair in Chapter 4.
• Anti-Hero: The current Batman operates outside of the law as a Vigilante. Given that this is Damian Wayne, he's undoubtedly brutal towards neer-do-wells.
• Appropriated Appellation: While attending U.A.'s entrance ceremony, Kendou insists that she and her friends come up with a group name for their posse. Midoriya ends up suggesting "Monstars" on a whim while remembering an "Academy Award-winning movie franchise" and it sticks.
  Midoriya: Monstars?
  Momo: Monstars?
  Midoriya: Th-That just kind of slipped out! You can all ignore that, it really is kind of-
  Kendou: I like it! It’s a deal! [gives him a giant thumbs up with one hand]
  Uraraka: Really? That’s the winner? I know that it’s referencing an Academy Award-winning movie franchise, but-
  Kendou: Nope, it’s the Monstars. I already changed the name of our group chat to that, and that makes it official; so let it be written, so let it be done, and all that. [all of them start laughing]
• Arc Words: In Chapter 7, "For The Seasons", each change in perspective between Midoriya and the socialite starts with them mentioning what season it is and "the time of year when X happens", illustrating the differences in their priorities and personalities. For instance, Midoriya is driven in his reclaimed dream to become a Hero, while the socialite is too disinterested to even complete the Rule of Three in her narration.
• Armor-Piercing Question: "Do you want to be a hero?"
• Armor-Piercing Response: After trying his best to ignore the strange, wealthy socialite who's following him in her limo, Midoriya is forced to stop when she asks if his "special" biology keeps him comfortable in the winter before outright admitting that she knows he's an alien.
• Arrogant God vs. Raging Monster: Izuku is Kryptonian with all the associated powers, quickly establishing him as The Ace of Class 1-A as he effortlessly destroys every single physical test handed to him. As such, he's the only person in 1-A powerful enough to keep the raging Nomu at bay long enough for All Might to arrive. Unfortunately for Izuku, he's the one whose attacks are shrugged off and he's subsequently beaten broken and bloody by the time All Might makes it to USJ.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Hisashi Midoriya is The Ghost in the original My Hero Academia, only being mentioned once in almost 200 chapters and not even by name. Here he's a fully fleshed-out character, a clearly doting father to Midoriya and a nuclear physicist working to change the world. He's also the superhero Firestorm.
  • Itsuka Kendou is a side character in the original series due to being relegated to 1-B. She's in 1-A in this story and becomes one of Midoriya's closest friends at U.A.
• Author Appeal:
  • The author is a self-admitted fan of Savage Garden, which is why their music ends up being on All Might's playlist during the drive to Mount Fuji alongside more popular and famous artists like The Beatles and Mythology Gag-laden musical figures like Neil Patrick Harris as Music Meister and Hoyt S. Martin. The author also loves making Mythology Gags of obscure pieces of Silver Age and Post-Crisis DC lore.
  • Jarro and Volk are both included in the story's iteration of the Legends of Tomorrow. The former has been one of the author's favorites ever since he was introduced into the comics, while the author blatantly admits that Volk is "too cool not to use".
  • The story is laying on heavy Ship Tease for Midoriya and Kendou, who the author shipped together previously in a short story.
• Back to Front: "The Times They Are A-Changin'" begins with Peacemaker assassinating All Might to install Melissa as the Symbol of Peace and ends with Melissa being caught in the accident that turned her into Atom Shield.
• Badass Family:
  • All Might mentions the magically-empowered Shazam Family in Chapter 3. Princess Shazam is also brought up in Chapter 7.
  • The first sidestory "S.T.A.R. Labs Interlude - And We Just Fixed the Security", reveals that the Flash Family, including both Wally Wests, is alive and active in the story as well-respected and well-known heroes in the United States. They get some action in the sidestory "Heroes Out of Crisis".
  • Ma Hunkel, an honorary member of the Justice Society of America, fought T.O. Morrow along with her granddaughter to save the American midsouth from an earthquake.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • The story in the present day opens much like the beginning of the manga, complete with narration about how he was going to become the world's greatest Hero, only for Midoriya to throw the reader a curveball by dropping a line that his canon counterpart would never say.
    Midoriya: [to his teacher] Yes, sir. I, I really don't want to be a Hero.
    [to the reader] I should probably mention that there were some bumps in the road.
  • The first sidestory chapter foreshadows the arrival of a Villain who is bald, light-skinned, with a probable super-genius intellect, which instantly brings Superman's Arch-Enemy, Lex Luthor to mind. It turns out that it also matches the description of the Ultra-Humanite, Superman's first supervillain in the comics.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • The chapters titled "The Übermenschen" refer to the ideology of Friedrich Nietzsche, who believed that an Übermensch will transcend Above Good and Evil. The chapter's title can be translated as "The Supermen", referring to Midoriya and the Ultra-Humanite, who both possess powerful abilities that can potentially change the world.
  • K.E.L.E.X.'s Kryptonese is accurate to translations from the original comics.
• Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: Midoriya helps himself to some of Green Arrow's blazing hot chili for breakfast a week before the U.A. Entrance Exam.
• Brains Evil, Brawn Good:
  • While neither Midoriya nor All Might are inherently stupid, they both have Super-Strength and are inherently heroic when compared to the super-genius Ultra-Humanite. But this gets zig-zagged when the Ultra-Humanite reveals his Quirk, Over Man, which lowers the physical abilities of any human within 100 meters of him by up to 75%. This allows him to manhandle both Midoriya and All Might at the same time, forcing them to use their wits to gain any sort of advantage. The Villain is only defeated after Midoriya discovers his ability to fly and takes him by surprise, deactivating the Ultra-Humanite's Quirk and playing this trope straight again.
  • Similarly, Midoriya is by no means dumb, but he's not quite as intelligent as Alexis Luthor, who graduated from college at five and earned a doctorate in nanoengineering at seven. She uses her vast connections to dig up Midoriya's backstory and declares that she wants to go to U.A. to study him while hanging this knowledge over his head. Unlike the Ultra-Humanite, Midoriya can't punch his way out of this situation.Well...he COULD, but that would require him to smash the skull of a baseline human. Not really the Midoriya, or Superman, way.
• Boulder Bludgeon: Midoriya digs his fingers into the ground and chucks a hunk of asphalt large enough to rip off the giant zero-point robot's arm with a glancing hit during the U.A. Entrance Exam.
• Brick Joke: Midoriya kicks a can out of frustration over Bakugou bullying him. Said can hits All Might in the face while he was trying to foil the Sludge Villain's bank robbery.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • Even though he's fully aware of Midoriya's incredible strength and was hospitalized by him as a kid, Bakugou still goes out of his way to deride Midoriya and calls him "Deku" regardless since he thinks that Midoriya is looking down on him by not becoming a Hero. Everyone in class lampshades the stupidity of this.
    Unnamed Student #1: Man, sometimes it seems like you're asking him to kick your ass.
    Unnamed Student #2: Why do you keep antagonizing him, anyway? You know the guy can punch a hole straight through your skull.
    Bakugou: Fuck off.
  • After being blasted apart by Midoriya's Heat Vision and Super-Breath and captured by All Might, the first thing the Sludge Villain does after escaping is attack Bakugou, inadvertently catching Midoriya's attention again which in turn inspired All Might to leap back into the fray.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Numerous Pro Heroes and other officials are very good at their jobs, but are just as quirky as they are effective. Most notably, H.R. Wells, a co-founder of S.T.A.R. Labs alongside his Alternate Selves, mistakes an "urgent alert" as in "Danger to Central City" as an urgent alert to party.

C - E

• Canon Welding: Combines the My Hero Academia universe with DC Comics characters and concepts, as well as characters and details from the Arrowverse.
• Captain Obvious: The narration can dip into this. This is always Played for Laughs, of course.
  Narration: In all honesty, he didn’t know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t a red-colored shark head sitting atop a bundle of tentacles. It was hard to expect something like that.
• Character Narrator:
  • Much like in canon, the story is primarily told from the third-person, but interludes are narrated entirely from Midoriya's point of view.
  • All Might takes over the interlude narration in Chapters 4 and 5, commenting on his experiences with Midoriya and the discomfort he feels over where their journey to find Midoriya's spaceship is taking them.
  • In Chapter 9, Bakugou gets narration privileges.
• Combo Platter Powers:
  • Midoriya has the standard Kryptonian powerset. Aside from him, other characters can have multiple power types at once. For instance, Barry Allen, The Flash, has a Forensic Analysis Quirk but also has his trademark Super-Speed, which came from a Freak Lab Accident. According to the author, it's impossible to have both the Quirk Factor and the Metagene and very rare to have a Quirk and the ability to use magic. It's also possible to have both a Quirk and a Mutation completely different from one's Quirk (like the aforementioned Flash). Certain Quirks can also grant multiple abilities, as All Might mentions that his hearing is enhanced while he's powered up.
  • Firestorm is also one of these, as his fire and EMP abilities are the individual Quirks of the scientists that compose him while his transmutation and nuclear abilities come from the Firestorm Matrix. He keeps these details under wraps out of fear that someone might try to replicate the experiment that led to the discovery of the Firestorm Matrix in hopes of obtaining two Quirks.
• Composite Character:
  • The Midoriya of this story is a combination of the canon Midoriya's personality and desires with the alien status and powerset of Kal-El/Superman.
  • Firestorm is mentioned by the author to be written more like his Arrowverse counterpart. As such, he's considerably more mature than many of the more recent and excitable takes on the character but has the overall power levels of his comic book counterpart. Midoriya mentions that Firestorm has won virtually every battle he's ever had due to his Superpower Lottery winning mix of Playing with Fire and Atomic Superpower. He displays much more of the excitable portion of his more recent incarnations after finding out that Mr. Yagi is All Might.
  • The Ultra-Humanite is also one of these, combining the motivations and history of his comics interpretation with the overall personality and speech patterns of his DC Animated Universe counterpart.
  • The Music Meister is actually Neil Patrick Harris' superhero persona.
• Conspiracy Theorist:
  • Vic Sage, The Question, is one and even transformed it into his alter-ego’s profession.
  • Todoroki acts like one with his insistence that Midoriya is All Might’s illegitimate son, despite having purely circumstantial evidence but no definitive proof.
• The Coup: Spoofed. Midoriya's overwhelming combat performance makes him a shoo-in to be elected class president even though he doesn't want the position or the extra attention. But during the panic caused by the alarms going off, Iida manages to show his stuff as a leader while Midoriya was busy sparring with Mirio. When Midoriya manages to catch up to his friends, they cheerfully tell him that there's been a coup and he's no longer class president, which he's totally fine with.
• Crossover Relatives:
  • Itsuka Kendou is the daughter of Yoru, Bruce Wayne's former martial arts sensei in the DC Animated Universe.
  • Tooru Hagakure's mother is Kimiyo Hoshi, aka the heroine Dr. Light.
• Crushing Handshake: Kendou feels the urge to give one to Lori Lemaris due to being really angry at her for kissing Midoriya. Much to her surprise, Lori ends up being the stronger one there, albeit involuntarily.
• Curbstomp Battle: The fight between Midoriya and the Nomu in the Nomu's favor. Thankfully Izuku recovered quickly.
• Cutting the Knot: Midoriya gets stuck floating uselessly in an anti-gravity chamber at USJ while the rest of the villains are attacking his classmates outside. After getting fed up with the situation and failing to get his flight to work in such a space, he apologizes to Thirteen before cutting the entire chamber in half with his Heat Vision, disabling the anti-gravity to get free.
• Dare to Be Badass: Having powers good enough to become a Hero is not Midoriya's issue here, but whether or not he's willing to learn to use them to help others with full knowledge of the harm he can do if he doesn't. Hence, All Might's "You can be a Hero." moment becomes a "Do you want to be a Hero?" moment.
• Deadly Training Area: Tim Drake designed U.A.'s "Mud Room", a training area that combines Hard Light with the metamorphic properties of Clayface's biology that allows it to recreate nearly any environment imaginable for training purposes. The intensity of the programming means it's usually restricted to third-year students and teachers, but Mirio takes Midoriya there for their spar and uses the room to imitate Centennial Park in Metropolis.
• Denser and Wackier: While the tone of the story can get dark at times, the injection of Silver Age-esque DC elements makes the story far weirder than it already is. Between fifth-dimensional imps, having a potentially criminal but terribly shy samurai warrior for a teacher, and everyone's infatuation with Beebos, there's plenty of weirdness to go around, particularly for Midoriya.
• Department of Redundancy Department: The story (particularly the narration) loves this trope.
  • Midoriya falls into this while apologizing to All Might for turning down his offer to become the inheritor of One For All. Coincidentally, the conversation happened to be talking about the redundancy of getting a Super-Strength Quirk when he already has Super-Strength.
    Midoriya: Well, as great an offer it was, and it really was a great offer, I'm still really, really, really, really, really thankful for it, receiving a Quirk like that would be kind of redundant when I'm already really strong, right?
  • "After what seemed like hours of walking, most likely because it was hours of walking, there was no one around them. Nothing but trees and the wind."
  • "Any second turned out to be five seconds. Five seconds later, the new person dropped out of the air right in front of the two of them."
  • The creatures on Korusan Island are said to make a cackling sound that's somewhere in between "a hyena, a humpback whale, and a smaller hyena". In the same scene, the narration comments that for the head of a rotting Kaiju corpse filled with noxious, poisonous gas, Korusan Island isn't all that bad. Midoriya quickly repeats the sentiment out loud.
    Narration: For a decaying Kaiju head, it wasn’t all that bad.
    Midoriya: Wow! For a decaying Kaiju head, this isn’t all that bad.
  • Mirio compares the sensation of punching Midoriya to hitting the "walliest wall to ever wall."
• Disproportionate Retribution: As a child, Bakugou thought that using his Quirk to beat the crap out of a boy who took Bakugou's cupcake was perfectly reasonable. Midoriya unintentionally inflicted this on Bakugou in turn, nearly killing him and leaving him heavily scarred after Bakugou left the aforementioned cupcake thief in tears.
• Enfant Terrible: Brought up and played for laughs as part of Hisashi's attempts to dissuade his wife from adopting the alien child.
  Inko: So what if he's an alien? It's not like all aliens are evil. The Martian Manhunter certainly wasn't evil. Besides, he's just a baby, and babies can't hurt people.
  Hisashi: Yeah, but the people they grow up to be can! Besides, how do we even know he's even actually a baby? [steps over to Inko and peers at the baby] For all we know, he comes from a planet of beings that just look like babies, and they all try to use their overwhelming cuteness to infiltrate societies and destroy them from the inside! [baby giggles and squeezes Hisashi's nose] That doesn't disprove the theory. [removes baby's hand from his nose]
• Elseworlds:
  • The story "Be Humble" (Which can be read here, here, and here) is an Elseworlds story that focuses on Eri Hasigawa, who was granted the power of Shazam! on Earth 2014.05/Earth 2015-E, an Earth parallel to the one the main story takes place in.
  • "The Times They Are A-Changin'" (Which can be read here and here) by TheInfamousMan occurs on Earth 2014.18, a world populated by the characters of Charlton Comics, where Melissa Shield gains godly abilities akin to Dr. Manhattan and tries to save an increasingly cynical and bitter world while clutching what's left of her humanity.
• Everyone Is a Super: The elements brought over from DC Comics, like the advent of metahumans and magic, means that an even smaller amount of the population is totally powerless. 90 percent of the population has some kind of superpower. This of course, means more Heroes and Villains, including well-known DC Heroes like Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern.

F - I

• Faint in Shock:
  • Inko gets light-headed after learning that Izuku had unknowingly confronted and gained the respect of a member of the yakuza.
  • Izuku's first meeting with Lexi Luthor leaves him so unnerved and terrified that he passes out in the snow as soon as her limo drives away.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Due to the effects of the Lantern War, most people are distrustful of aliens, making it even harder for Midoriya to come to terms with himself. Worse still, Martian Manhunter, Starfire, and Renegade are name-dropped as Heroes who were implied to have either been killed or forced to go underground for being aliens. This has seeped into the culture at the fundamental level. Anti-alien merchandise, movies, and even textbooks are mentioned frequently in the story as part of the continual effort to make this behavior socially acceptable, which has worked, as Midoriya's Super-Hearing picks up on a report that a man was arrested solely on suspicions that he was an alien. After hurting Bakugou, this is one of the primary reasons why Midoriya has been laying low for so long, since Alan Scott's xenophobic tendencies would almost certainly make him hunt Midoriya down if the boy's alien nature were ever revealed to the world at large.
    Midoriya: I don't have a Quirk, I don't have the Metagene, I can't use magic, I didn't fall in a vat of toxic waste. My powers aren't anything that belong on Earth. I'm not anything that belongs on Earth.
    All Might: A lot of people would agree with that. Ever since the Lantern War, people haven't been very kind to aliens. Renegade, Starfire, Martian Manhunter, we lost a lot of great Heroes at the height of the paranoia.
    Midoriya: It's not like that's even over. Look! Up in the sky! The sun's setting, so if you look closely, you can see the light of Alan Scott's Green Palace! The space station he's been living in for almost a century to shoot down anyone like me who comes anywhere near here! And everyone's okay with that!
  • In Chapter 4, Midoriya and All Might discover that Mt. Fuji has been turned into a massive anti-alien tourist trap. Midoriya can only listen in horror as people casually talk about luring out and beating the alien into submission, with young children fully expecting All Might to come and pummel the alien if it shows. All Might is naturally disgusted with all of this, especially since he knows the alien they're referring to personally.
  • In an officially recognized sidestory, the Legion of Super-Heroes are all repulsed by the anti-alien sentiment of the 21st century, as many members of the Legion are aliens themselves. Brainiac 5 reluctantly refers to the period as a "fairly ugly time", when it's clear that he probably had more choice words for the situation Midoriya is facing.
  • At the same time, there are still open-minded individuals who don't think badly of aliens. All Might is one of them, as are Midoriya's parents. Mina Ashido also declares Starfire to be her favorite Hero.
• First Kiss: Midoriya gets his from Lori Lemaris when he shatters the golem bearing down on her, much to his shock and Kendou’s jealousy.
• Foregone Conclusion:
  • Like in canon, we know from Deku's narration that he becomes the world's greatest Hero. The story itself is a How We Got Here.
  • The author has also stated that Mirio Togata is going to receive One For All. How and when is still up in the air.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The man who stole S.T.A.R. Labs tech is stated to be bald, light-skinned, with a probable supergenius intellect. It turns out there's another person who fits that description. Superman's first supervillain in comics, the Ultra Humanite.
  • All Might is unable to find any evidence that shows where Midoriya's spaceship was taken, but instead found a video of the spaceship fighting back against what appears to be government agents as it climbs out of the crash site while yelling in what appears to be gibberish until it says its last word for the video dies out, "KAL-ELOSH". That robot is K.E.L.E.X., Jor-El's former aide and he happens to be yelling in Kryptonese.
  • At the U.A. Cultural Festival, the big guy Midoriya was competing against for the Beebo doll said he wanted to win the thing as a present for his boss's daughter. The man is Kendo Rappa, one of the Eight Expendables of the Eight Precepts of Death.
• For Want Of A Nail:
  • Because this fic crosses over with the DC Comics with their metahumans and magical abilities, 90% of people have superhuman abilities rather than the 80% worldwide percentage the My Hero Academia canon has.
  • The moment when Midoriya defended another boy from Bakugou was a defining moment for both boys in canon, cementing each others' ideologies. This time, Midoriya has Kryptonian powers making it so he can fight back, and the encounter doesn't end well for either of them.
  • Due to the highly public nature of Mt. Fuji and leaving their car at their campsite, the Midoriyas were only able to take the baby Midoriya and the lid of the spaceship rather than the whole thing as the Kents did. Hence Midoriya has no way to learn about his home planet's culture, only knowing that he's an alien. After meeting All Might, he spends the next part of the series hunting this ship down in order to gain some closure.
  • Subverted with the Sludge Villain incident. Midoriya's powers would have let him easily defeat the Sludge Villain, but he refuses to use them out of fear of being labeled a Vigilante, requiring All Might to save him again. He also runs to save Bakugou just like in canon, but this time he successfully tears Bakugou free and tosses him to safety. He still gets chewed out by the Pro Heroes for intervening even though the crowd of onlookers cheered while seeing him in action.
  • Due to his already incredible abilities, Midoriya refuses One For All because he feels that it would be wasted on him. According to the author, this means that Mirio Togata, the one originally scouted to be All Might's successor, will be getting it instead of Midoriya. When and how is still up in the air. This also means that Midoriya isn't going to go through the same Training Montage as his canon counterpart, instead spending the time before the U.A. Entrance Exam trying to hunt down his spaceship so he can learn about where he came from.
  • Numerous readers have pointed out that many of the battles that Midoriya struggled with in canon, such as his fight against Hero Killer Stain, would be trivialized by his Kryptonian powerset. The author responds that this is assuming that Midoriya fights all of the same Villains that he does in canon.
  • Because Midoriya helped several applicants during the entrance exam, while also unwittingly stealing some points (eliminating robots that would have granted points to other examines) and inspiring a number of applicants into helping each other (which earned them many Rescue Points), he changes the canon scores. He ends up with the highest score in the exam's history while Bakugou ends at the bottom of the top ten instead of the canonical first place. Also, Kendou Kendou joins Class 1-A instead of Rikido Sato.
• Free-Range Children: Midoriya and Bakugou used to hang out together without any adult supervision as per canon. Unfortunately, this means that no one was able to stop them from brawling after Bakugou starts misusing his powers to bully another kid for stealing his cupcake, ending with the former nearly dying after being thrown through a wall by accident.
• Fusion Fic: The story mashes the histories of DC Comics and My Hero Academia together into a single world.
• Genius Bruiser:
  • Midoriya has the muscle of a Kryptonian but also the smarts to use it. When speaking with Firestorm, Midoriya manages to flip the conversation around to manipulate the Pro Hero into allowing him to help find the alien spaceship with his natural modesty, shocking All Might. Aside from this, he's also able to pick up on obscure clips of music like Czech composer Leoš Janáček's "The Cunning Little Vixen" and knows slang words from other countries like "schway". Then there's his canonical encyclopedic knowledge of virtually every major Hero in the world.
  • The Ultra-Humanite proves to be one as well, being strong and skilled enough to take on Midoriya and All Might at the same time while the latter was under the effects of his Quirk.
  • All Might is an extremely competent hero and is said to have a 6/5 in Intelligence according to his official power ratings.
• Gratuitous German: The fifth and sixth chapters of the story is titled "The Übermenschen", literally "The Supermen". More literally, this can also be read as "Over Men", referring to the name of the Ultra-Humanite's Quirk, granting him a nearly absolute physical strength advantage over humans or in other words, putting him over men.
• Great Offscreen War: The Lantern War happened long enough ago that Hisashi's father took part in defending Earth from alien attack, which contributes to Hisashi's own hesitation in adopting Midoriya.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: Midoriya's involvement in the Mt. Fuji incident gets covered up by All Might and Firestorm to keep the boy out of trouble.
• Hands Go Down: When Aizawa calls to start the voting for the Class President and Vice-President, Tokoyami raises his hand to ask a question. Aizawa then says that his genie is officially considered a part of Tokoyami so he won't bet two votes. Tokoyami then lowers his hand.
• The Heavy: Atrocitus and the Red Lantern Corps. Decades prior to the story, they invaded Earth and fought against the Green Lanterns in the Lantern War. This led to the public growing to hate aliens and see them as monsters, which is part of the reason why Midoriya hated himself so much for what happened to Bakugou.
• Heroes "R" Us: Heroes are registered with the government and are given licenses to operate out of Hero Offices. They get paid for their work and can even merchandise their image. Midoriya's "Beats by Canary" headphones are marketed by Black Canary and he owns entire collections of All Might merchandise. He also has plenty of merchandise from other Heroes as well, bringing Justice Society figurines to entertain the Mi-Gos.
• Hero-Worshipper: Virtually everyone in 1-A and some Pro Heroes have a Hero they Squee over, but no one is as much of a hero nerd as Midoriya.
• Homosexual Reproduction: The questions on the written portion of the U.A. Entrance Exam reveal that Casey Brinke and Terry None were able to use their abilities to create a drug that allows women to impregnate other women, making this a possibility. Momo is one of the products of such a relationship.
• Human Alien Discovery: Midoriya is an adopted baby Kal-El, but he's unaware of this until his newly developed Super-Hearing allows him to overhear Dr. Tsubasa telling his parents that his powers could not be the result of a Quirk, metagene, or magic. Inko and Hisashi are forced to break the truth of his origins to him after he wakes up from Sensory Overload.
• Humanity Ensues: Similar to her origins in Justice League, Giganta was originally a gorilla who was turned into a human by Grodd.
• Indestructibility Montage: The entirety of Midoriya's rematch with Bakugou is this. The latter pulls out all the stops and uses every underhanded trick he has to try and bring Midoriya down. He stuffs bombs in Midoriya's hoodie before detonating them, blasts Midoriya out of the building with his grenade gauntlets, and tries to wrestle him to the floor for a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. But Midoriya is Kryptonian, and he barely feels it aside from ringing ears and a lightly singed costume.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Kite Man, as per the source material, is brought up as the most ineffectual supervillain imaginable.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing:
  • Hisashi initially refers to the alien baby as "it" until Inko corrects him by saying that the baby is a "he" after looking in the baby's diaper.
  • At Mt. Fuji, the visiting children refer to the alien as "it" while Midoriya is in earshot.

J - O

• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Midoriya's enthusiasm for all things Hero-related is undiluted. He fills out his Hero Analysis journals, squees so hard when meeting All Might that his bows are scraping away at the pavement, and rambles on and on when asked about the details of any particular Hero. Firestorm's professionalism collapses when "Mr. Yagi" reveals himself to be All Might, squealing like a rabid fangirl even as Professor Stein is implied to be telling him to calm down.
• Landmarking the Hidden Base: Firestorm comes to Japan in Chapter 4 to hunt down a Villain who was believed to have set up shop in the area. He and Midoriya find out that said Villain has built a base inside Mt. Fuji, arguably Japan's most recognizable landmark, even before Midoriya's spaceship crashed at the base of the mountain. The Villain also mentions that he didn't actually construct the base himself, rather it was hollowed out long before he had arrived.
• Last-Name Basis: All of the Japanese characters in the story are referred to by their surnames with the exception of Heroes and Inko and Hisashi Midoriya. By contrast, the American characters introduced in the story are all referred to by their first names if they don't have a Hero Name.
• Legacy Character:
  • All Might is the eighth wielder of One For All, having inherited it from Nana Shimura, who in turn inherited it from the six wielders before her. He wanted Midoriya to be the ninth, but Midoriya refused on account of having a ton of other Combo Platter Powers to master and the redundancy of giving a Super-Strength Quirk to him.
  • In Chapter 5, Midoriya mentions that there has been more than one Batman, comparing his role as the "Dark Hero" to Endeavor's in the present.
  • In the same chapter, Midoriya also mentions that Jay Garrick, the first Flash, was part of the original "Trinity" of superheroes, the others being Wonder Woman and Batman. His title as the Flash was later succeeded by Barry Allen and his nephews, both named Wally West.
• Literal Metaphor: During the Heroes vs Villains test, Hagakure notes that Todoroki is turning his left shoulder towards All Might - as in, giving him the cold shoulder.
• Locked Out of the Fight: When the League of Villains attack the U.S.J, Midoriya tries to fly back to the school to get the rest of the teachers for help. Unfortunately, Kurogiri opens a portal and traps him in a zero-gravity zone where he can't use his flight to get out.
• Mad Scientist: Midoriya's second real Villain encounter is the Ultra-Humanite, Superman's first supervillain.
• The Magnificent Seven Samurai: Discussed. Momo laments the fact that her new group of friends with Midoriya, Uraraka, Iida, and Kendou only has five people in total. If they had two more they could have been the Seven Samurai.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right: Midoriya's Future Badass status as the world's greatest Hero attracts all sorts of unsavory people to his door. It's all but outright stated that his childhood/preteen years are under constant surveillance by countless Time Travel superheroes specifically for this reason.
  • In "Hope Carried 1,000 Years", an assassin from the 31st century traveled back in time with a Kryptonite bullet, intent on assassinating Midoriya before he becomes Superman. Luckily, the would-be assassin is foiled by the Legion of Super-Heroes.
  • "Time and Chance (1): How the old Ice-Cream Parlor will Change" shows that this wasn't even the first attempt on Midoriya's life. Brainiac assimilated a two-bit Villain named Koujou Joubu as a proxy to deal with Midoriya when he was five years old and vulnerable.
• Malicious Slander: Todoroki quickly spreads the rumor that Midoriya is All Might’s illegitimate son, and while he does partly believe it there are signs that he’s spreading it due to being sore over Midoriya getting in his way and lecturing him during the Villain ambush.
• Mecha-Mooks: The Villain lair Midoriya finds in Mt. Fuji is filled with them, ranging from humanoid robots to half-spider things to robot T. rexes. It also gives him a good excuse to burn one's arm off with his Heat Vision.
• MegaCorp: Multiple huge corporations are active in the story, including LexCorp, Wayne-Powers, Queen Consolidated, Fries Financial, and Holt Holdings.
• The Men in Black: Mentioned by Hisashi as part of his hesitation in adopting Midoriya. Later, a group of mysterious unnamed individuals intervenes while Shitsugen is interrogating the Midoriyas and Bakugous, taking over the investigation as Midoriya blacks out from the stress of his Super-Hearing.
  Hisashi: If anyone finds out that we were the ones who took him, our lives are over, Inko. I work in government, I hear whispers about this all the time. Guys in black suits will be at our doorstep in the dead of night to cart us off for interrogation and torture. After that, all of our neighbors and family will think we just disappeared, when really we "disappeared". Do you want that to happen?
• Mood Whiplash:
  • When Midoriya first discovers his powers, he goes from being depressed to feeling like he was on Cloud Nine, proudly showing off the door he just tore off its hinges. Just over a week later, he's loathing himself and his powers, wishing he could be like everyone else.
  • In "The Buddy System", everyone is dead serious after Midoriya is beaten half to death by the Noumu and prepare for the worst when they come visit him. They're all flabbergasted when he opens the front door for them, seemingly oblivious to their previous concern for him.
• Mythology Gag: So many they needed their own page.
• Nervous Wreck:
  • Midoriya is even more of a nervous mess than his canon counterpart due to his fear of hurting others if he's not careful. That said, he lets Bakugou know when he's upset by throwing him against the wall hard enough to unbutton his shirt when Bakugou blows up Midoriya's Hero Analysis notebook as he does in canon, though he's quick to put his bully back on his feet soon afterward.
  • His father Hisashi isn't much better at the start of the story, descending into hysterics and conspiracy theories after he and Inko took Midoriya from his spaceship and ran away with it. He seems to have mellowed out for the most part after years of raising Midoriya with Inko, who has taken up the role of being the family worrywart.
• Never Trust a Title: Although the title would imply that Midoriya would take up Deku as his Hero Name, the author states that Midoriya will end up being Superman instead.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: The Music Meister, who is voiced by Neil Patrick Harris in the cartoon, actually is Neil Patrick Harris this world. “Music Meister” is merely a stage name.
• No Ontological Inertia: The primary weakness of fifth-dimensional beings is that all of the direct effects of their Reality Warping vanishes the moment they're banished back to the Fifth Dimension.
• Not Listening to Me, Are You?: In chapter 1, when Hisashi and Inko are still reeling from the shock of a meteor landing near their campsite, Hisashi realizes his wife is just blankly replying "Uh huh" to his questions. He tries to snap her out of it by saying "I think I'm gonna turn into a walrus and start living on the moon."
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • While Izuku is initially terrified of their inhuman appearances, he soon realizes that the Mi-Gos are a lot like him in that they're alien creatures who are stuck on a planet that would destroy them if their presence were ever revealed to the world at large. He then goes to apologize to them and hopes that they can become friends.
  • The good Izuku calls evil Izuku out for being a lot more like Bakugo. The amount of times he defaults to trying to set his good self on fire with Heatblast and yelling when that comes up makes this point pretty clear.
• Not So Invincible After All: Midoriya spends most of the story up to the USJ Arc effortlessly shrugging off everything thrown at him. But after pummeling the Noumu long enough to make it pause, he's quickly pummeled to the point that he screams in agony before being left bloody and unconscious. Only All Might's decision to kill the Noumu saves Midoriya from a broken spine.
• Oh, Crap!: Many characters have this reaction over the course of this story.
  • Midoriya is on the verge of having a Freak Out when All Might deduces Midoriya's identity as the alien humanoid who injured Bakugou ten years prior to the main story. He starts panicking again in Chapter 6 when he realizes he's being held hostage by one of the most venerated Villains in the world, the Ultra-Humanite.
  • All Might has this reaction when he realizes that he's run out of hero time, forcing him to revert to his withered state in front of Midoriya.
  • The Ultra-Humanite has this reaction when he realizes that his Quirk has been deactivated, leading to his Precision F-Strike. He has it again when All Might and Firestorm rush in to kick his ass after Midoriya exposes this fact.
• Old Superhero: Ma Hunkel, the original Red Tornado, is well into her golden years when she battles T.O. Morrow along with her granddaughter and All Might.
• Origins Episode:
  • "Izuku Midoriya: Birthright" serves as the typical "Kal-El arrives on Earth" story followed by "Midoriya decides to become a Hero". Meanwhile, The Übermenschen Part 3 reveals the story's version of the events leading up to Krypton's destruction.
  • The sidestory "The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boys and Girls" reveals how the Justice Society of America got together.
  • "Deku's Pal, Katsuki Bakugou Part 3: Katsuki Bakugou: Secret Origin" covers the events leading up to the accident, the immediate aftermath, and Bakugou's struggle to become a Hero afterward.

P - Z

• Papa Wolf: All Might becomes extremely protective of Midoriya and vows to defeat the Ultra-Humanite after the latter seemingly kills Midoriya. Firestorm is even more so, threatening to turn Mt. Fuji into a pillar of salt for the same reason. Of course, his rage is understandable when it's revealed that he's Midoriya's adoptive father.
• Person of Mass Destruction: All Might can generate massive windstorms with his movements and veritable twisters with his punches. Firestorm also threatens to turn all of Mt. Fuji into a pillar of salt in anger after Midoriya seemingly dies.
• Physical God: The story has several levels of this:
  • On the superhero level, you have heavy-hitters like All Might and Wonder Woman, who are universally considered Earth's strongest Heroes at the story's outset. They're strong enough to level skyscrapers and change the weather with their punches, regularly stop villains trying to cause national disasters, and are generally head and shoulders above their peers in power. Midoriya's growing Kryptonian powers give him the potential to become this with time and training, but he's admittedly far inferior to All Might and Wonder Woman in the present.
  • Above them are cosmic entities like fifth-dimensional beings. Mister Mxyzptlk and Dark Shadow can warp reality with a thought and pay little heed to things like "physics" or "logic". Their only real limitation in the third dimension is the fact that everything they do is reverted once they're banished back to the Fifth Dimension.
  • At the top are the truly primordial and abstract beings like the Endless, anthropomorphic personifications of the facets of the universe like dreams, death, and destruction.
• Poor Communication Kills: Just like in canon, the defining trait of Midoriya and Bakugou's relationship. There are too many misconceptions between them to count, but the greatest one is, perhaps, Bakugou's belief that Midoriya is looking down on him and doesn't believe he can be a hero. In reality, Midoriya looks up to him, and probably has the most faith in Bakugou next to the boy himself.
• Punny Name: In the Elseworlds story, "Be Humble", Eri (who is Shazam! on Earth 2014.05) attends Jaguchi City Elementary School under the pseudonym "Ringo Raiku". Jaguchi can be translated to "Faucet", a homonym for Fawcett City, the hometown of Billy Batson.
• Pro-Human Transhuman: Numerous alien Heroes were this in the past, but are implied to have either been killed or forced underground due to Fantastic Racism. Midoriya himself is one, thinking himself no better than anyone else on Earth even though his incredible abilities outclass most other Quirks on the planet in terms of raw power and usefulness.
• Race Lift: The person controlling Firestorm's body is Japanese, as opposed to the Caucasian Ronnie Raymond or the African-American Jason Rusch.
• Rapid-Fire "No!":
  • In the first part of "Izuki Midoriya: Origins", this is Hisashi's reaction to Inko trying to convince him they should adopt the alien baby they found in a crashed spaceship. He then punctuates it with a Big "NO!" and a blast from his fire-breath Quirk.
  • Midoriya denies being friends with Lexi this way.
    Midoriya: [frantically waving his arms around] No no no no no no no no! God no! Please stop thinking that!
• Reformed Criminal:
  • Victor Fries, better known as Mr. Freeze, quietly surrendered after a fight between him, the first Batman, and the fourth Robin accidentally ruptured the cryostasis tank holding Fries' wife, Nora, who had been miraculously cured of her debilitating illness by the Quirk she manifested while she was on ice. He then spent fifteen years as a model inmate in Arkham Asylum and even helped foil numerous breakout attempts by the other supervillains before leaving a free man and starting Fries Financial, an incredibly successful conglomerate on par with Wayne-Powers, Queen Consolidated, and Lexcorp.
  • Lex Luthor underwent a Heel–Face Turn at some point, becoming the president of the United States and ushering in an era of peace and prosperity in the U.S. Scholars debate whether this was an attempt to change his image after years of trying to take over the world or a genuine change for the better.
• Retired Badass: Although she's officially retired and likely well into her golden years, All Might mentions that Ma Hunkel, the original Red Tornado and an honorary member of the Justice Society of America, helped him battle T.O. Morrow along with her granddaughter a week before the U.A. Entrance Exam.
• Rocket Punch: In Chapter 14, Kendou mentions that she'd like to be able to fire her hands this way.
• Scene of Wonder: Midoriya is awestruck when he gets to see Krypton (as a hologram) for the first time, marveling at its architecture, locales, and technology as he comes to grips with the fact that this is where he came from.
• Secret Identity:
  • For the most part, subverted due to the public and regulated nature of Heroes in the My Hero Academia universe. All Might is one of the only Heroes playing this trope straight due to his need to keep up his image as the Symbol of Peace, letting only a select few people see his True Form. Midoriya also does this to a more limited extent, being careful not to let anyone know the true nature behind his powers or to keep himself and his parents out of trouble, though it's somewhat subverted since the police, government, and top ten Heroes are already aware of his existence due to that fateful day when he was four years old. The government is also keeping tabs on him, allowing Alexis Luthor to get a general idea of his life story.
  • Chapter 4 reveals that All Might does this two-fold. In public, he uses the pseudonym Hikaru Hinata. Meanwhile, he works as his own secretary under his actual name, Toshinori Yagi. That way, the people working at his Hero office won't be able to make a connection between the two. Lampshaded by Midoriya.
    Midoriya: That's so cool! It's like how Heroes disguised themselves as normal people before the Golden Age Act was passed!
    All Might: I know, right?! That was the only thing on my mind when I came up with it! Who doesn't love a bit of nostalgia, right?
  • The test questions on the U.A. Entrance Exam reveal that all of the Robins except for the fourth one (Damian Wayne) revealed their identities to the public to take a more active political role in addition to their heroic activities. The Golden Age Act also allowed Heroes who were active before the establishment of the Hero system to keep their identities a secret, but all subsequent Heroes are required to make their names known to the government (but not necessarily the public).
• Secret-Keeper:
  • Like in canon, Midoriya is keeping All Might's true form a secret from the public after accidentally seeing it. All Might in turn is keeping Midoriya's identity as an alien secret since he believes in the good Midoriya is capable of.
  • Firestorm and the Ultra-Humanite agree to keep their knowledge of Midoriya's identity as an alien and All Might's true form a secret in Chapter 5.
  • In Chapter 7, Lexi Luthor reveals that she knows Midoriya is an alien, but seems to have no intention of revealing this to the public for the moment.
  • Chapter 8 reveals that U.A. knows that Midoriya is an alien. They grumble about it while watching Midoriya's performance at the entrance exam. As much as All Might would like to support him, he can't blame them for their discomfort. The following chapter reveals that the government informed them.
  • In Chapter 10, Dark Shadow reveals that he figured out Midoriya's identity while feeling him up in the previous chapter. He promises to keep it a secret from Midoriya's classmates, but he already blabbed about it to the other fifth-dimensional beings, which draws Mister Mxyzptlk to Earth and throws Midoriya's morning routine into chaos.
• Shock Jock: Holly Taniguchi constantly takes potshots at U.A.'s students and faculty to produce more eye-catching footage while using semi-reliable sources and making wild accusations. She's known as "Hero Hater Holly" for this reason.
• Shout-Out: Enough to have its own page.
• Shown Their Work: The Kryptonese used in the story isn't just random words, but taken from unofficial Kryptonese language guide, complete with correct syntax and sentence structure.
• Suicide Attack: A four-year-old Midoriya remembers a fight between All Might and Lord Death Man, where the latter attempted to blow them both up with a powerful bomb strapped to his chest. Due to Lord Death Man's regeneration Quirk, he would survive while All Might would not. Luckily for the Hero, he managed to throw Death Man off of him with his Oklahoma Smash. resulting in Lord Death Man's defeat. This is what inspires Midoriya to emulate All Might while fighting Bakugou, which ends disastrously.
• Superdickery: Referenced in the author's notes for Chapter 9, fittingly titled "Deku's Pal, Katsuki Bakugou".
  "Join us next time when Midoriya adopts Bakugou as his son and spends weeks emotionally abusing him!"
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham:
  • Due to differing jurisdictions and having his own hands full with the Rogues and Black Hole, Barry Allen, better known as The Flash, decides not to intervene after S.T.A.R. Lab tech is stolen and is en route to Japan, simply alerting the Japanese Hero community to let them handle it.
  • Subverted with Firestorm, who is Japanese in this story. While he does most of his work in America, he comes to Japan in search of stolen S.T.A.R. Labs tech in place of the Flash.
• Superpower Lottery:
  • As a Kryptonian, Midoriya has definitely won out in this regard. While his showings aren't nearly as grand as his comic book counterpart and he's still inferior to All Might overall, he's still superhumanly strong, fast, and tough with none of the drawbacks that his canon counterpart experienced with One For All. He's also packing Super-Senses, Eye Beams, Super-Breath, and Freezing Breath. Of course, this comes with some serious caveats like being Afraid of Their Own Strength, his Kryptonite Factor, and his Sensory Overload problem, but his incredible powers continue to make his classmates envious.
  • Firestorm is also mentioned to be a super powerful Hero, winning practically all of his battles over the course of his seven-year career thanks to his potent mix of Playing with Fire and Atomi Superpower which also grants him Flight.
  • All Might's Quirk, One For All, is one of the most powerful in the world. He can easily overwhelm Midoriya's teenage Kryptonian strength and speed even after losing much of his power to an injury he received five years before the events of the story.
  • Tokoyami puts them all to shame with his possession of a fifth-dimensional genie, potentially making him a Reality Warper on par with Mister Mxyzptlk if he can formulate the right wishes.
• Surveillance as the Plot Demands:
  • While the Japanese government doesn't have Midoriya under constant watch, it generally keeps tabs on him after he nearly killed Bakugou when they were children. This lets Alexis Luthor obtain Midoriya's life story with her connections, thoroughly unnerving Midoriya when they finally meet.
  • As per canon, the testing sites for the U.A. Entrance Exam are littered with cameras for the proctors to observe the students with.
• Take a Third Option: During class elections, Momo and Kendou find themselves tied for vice-president. They try to settle it by rock-paper-scissors, but they spend hours tying each other against all odds. At the end, they get so frustrated that they decide to do a coin flip, only for it to land on its side. Aizawa is fed up with this and tells them that they're both vice-president.
• "Test Your Strength" Game: The punch strength variation is set up at the U.A. Culture Festival. Midoriya immediately runs up to win it with his Kryptonian Super-Strength after spotting a rare Beebo doll among the prizes. His plans are cut short when it turns out that Kendo Rappa is after the same doll. While Midoriya initially tries to back out, the two end up getting egged on into a strength contest that ends with Midoriya destroying the machine while actively trying to lose. The strength levels range from city-destroying, to country-destroying to planet-destroying, to wrecking the space-time continuum itself. The student manning the stall admits that she didn't know it went that high.
• There Are No Coincidences: Inko considers it fate to have found Midoriya after discovering that she is infertile, using this trope to justify adopting him over her husband's protests.
  Inko: Hisashi, don't you think that we need to be doing this? The whole reason we were there was because we wanted to forget about the fact that we could never have a child of our own, and then a baby falls into our laps? That can't just be a coincidence.
  Hisashi: It is absolutely a coincidence! If you looked up coincidence in the dictionary, the definition would read "What is happening to Hisashi and Inko", right now!
• There Are No Therapists: Midoriya and Todoroki suffer from severe psychological issues. The former is plagued by his constant guilt over nearly killing Bakugou and his fear of being outed as an alien, while the latter has Abusive Parents who have left him an aloof, stoic Jerkass who wants nothing to do with his father or his powers. Neither of them is able to seek out therapy because of the root causes of their problems. K.E.L.E.X. even recommends Todoroki to visit a therapist, but Midoriya shoots down the notion immediately.
  K.E.L.E.X.: IT WOULD NOT BE UNWISE TO ASSUME THAT HIS ATTITUDE STEMS FROM SOME MANNER OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUES. I SUGGEST INFORMING HIM OF THIS AND DIRECTING HIM TO THE NEAREST THERAPIST.
  Midoriya: Yeah, that—there's no way that could be a good idea.
• The Triple: Lampshaded at the beginning of "For All Seasons".
  Spring. The time of year when the birds are singing. The time of year when the bees are buzzing. The time of year when some other third cliche is taking place.
• Too Dumb to Live: The Kryptonian Science Council, as usual, refused to heed Jor-El's warnings of Krypton's impending destruction despite seeing photographic evidence of Krypton's destabilized core. Naturally, this doomed the entire Kryptonian race and Jor-El was only able to scrounge up just enough resources to finish Kal-El's ship before the planet's destruction.
• Unobtanium: DC's numerous supernatural metals, such as Nth Metal, are brought up as rare and valuable materials throughout the story. They're difficult to acquire due to their supernatural properties and are often hoarded by specific factions, such as feminum for the Amazons. Uraraka's costume is made of a feminum alloy hard enough to crack Iida's armored costume. Hisashi also pulled some strings to get Seventh Metal fibers to weave into Midoriya's Hero costume, making it similarly durable.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: A driving source of conflict in the story is that the majority of the public is aligned against aliens, even Human Aliens, because of the destruction wrought during the Lantern War. Amazons and Atlanteans have also been mentioned, but the word is out on the public's general opinion of them.
• Womb Level: While scouring old newspapers and tabloids in hopes of finding any signs that another Kryptonian could have survived Krypton's destruction, Midoriya comes up with the idea of using Korusan Island, a structure a kilometer off the coast of Japan, as a training ground for his powers. The "island" is actually the corpse of a Kaiju that was killed by Big Science Action three years prior to the main events of the story. It turns out to be a perfect stomping ground for Midoriya due to its massive size and the fact that it constantly releases a corrosive, poisonous gas that can kill Earthlings and dissolve any Earth metal in seconds, minimizing any chance of him being discovered. At the same time, the interior of the island is well-lit due to the bioluminescent crystals growing inside, and the floor is soft and squishy like Tuscan grape stomping. Of course, there's still plenty of rotting brain matter, flesh, and shards of bone, but these don't bother Midoriya much compared to the sharkheaded tentacle creatures he runs into soon afterward.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • The Sludge Villain still has no problems targeting Midoriya or Bakugou in an attempt to use them as bodysuits to escape All Might.
  • The Ultra-Humanite also has no problems with executing Midoriya, but not before he gives his usual evil monologue.
• Wounded Hero, Weaker Helper: Iida's great-grandfather, Tenka Iida, had just acquired his Quirk during the Lantern War when he saw Jay Garrick pinned by a Red Lantern using Still Force energy. He immediately rushed in to help and was pummeled senseless by the furious Red Lantern. But this bought enough time for Garrick to recover and fight back, prompting a generations-long friendship between their households.
• Year X:
  • Unlike canon, in which the year is left deliberately vague, the author uses the year 20XX to describe the time period. This makes conversations hilariously confusing when the year is brought up.
    Pathetic! You're all pathetic! It's not 20XX, anymore, it's 20XX, for crying out loud! Be better than this and don't bother me when all you have to offer is mediocrity!
  • All Might mentions that his car was only manufactured in 198X and the old Beebo cartoon ran in the 19XXs. Midoriya also says that the Justice Society was founded by suggestion of President [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt, implying that it's still in the 21st century.
• Zerg Rush: Midoriya, Firestorm, and All Might are swarmed by legions of robots while investigating Mt. Fuji. Firestorm ends up taking out the majority on his own, but more appear when they confront the Villain responsible.

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