Superhero YA?

Yes, write it.

A lot of my characters look like anime/manga critters in my head too. Just a by-product of 15+ years of watching/reading it. Normally I just don't focus on how they look and give only the physical descriptions that are relevant to the action. That usually doesn't include hair colors or gravity-defying colors.

Plus, if you read through Scott Westerfeld's UGLIES series (EXTRAS in particular), you'll pick up on the heavy anime influence. Including characters that look like literal manga characters. Didn't seem to hold him back at all.

I have this problem too, but usually get around it by having insane futuristic settings where body modification is common, or reserve the weird hair/eye colors for obviously supernatural entities.

Or not mentioning hair and eye colors at all. Those things aren't always relevant...and anime doesn't necessarily have to mean weird hair/eye colors anyway. Besides, there does seem to be some leeway in fantasy at least for characters with somewhat unusual hair/eye colors. I've seen characters with purple eyes, silver hair, etc. But those tend to be the exception, not the rule.

But I agree with KateSmash that there needs to be a reason behind it. Characters can't "just" have unnatural appearances.

Just because you say the character has spiky pink hair doesn't mean your reader is going to think anime. I'm not a fan of anime so spiky pink hair doesn't bring it to mind for me.

And really, character appearance matters to us, but will it really have an effect on the story whether or not the reader sees the same thing as us? No.

(Also, I'm seconding the opinion that Soon I Will Be Invincible was disappointing and that Hero by Perry Moore is really good and that I'm sad that Perry Moore died.)

I wrote a novel about a young girl who becomes a superhero, but it focuses a lot on how she deals with the double life and all the attention her alter ego is getting. I'm a little worried sending it out because there are a lot of female characters who gain super powers. While most of those aren't straight up, put-on-a-costume-and-fight crime I'd think most of those characters would be considered superheros to some extent.

Pfft go ahead and put it out there dmickey. While yeah a lot of females are heroes I wouldn't count them as superheroes. Your's can totally still fit.

I'm no expert on the matter. However I just can't think of a superhero concept that hasn't been written already (and is not dumb).

I mean, of course I could write about a "cowman" (he was bitten by a cow, wait what?) but that'd be plain stupid.

I've had pretty good success with my superhero trilogy - the third book comes out later this year and all three will be in print and available in bookstores.

I've written mine from an adult perspective but I still think there's a demand - go for it!

My book is also a YA superhero novel, and I had a hard time finding a home for it. It's coming out later this year, so I'll have to refind this post and let you know how it does...

My advice: If you believe in your story...write it. If it's good enough, someone will give it a chance.

Part of it too is that the super hero fan base is just not that open to new characters. Marvel and DC are riding off the same crop of heroes it had by the 1960s. Every character in the Avengers was established by 1965. Batman's first appearance was in 1939, Superman 1932. I want to say of the current crop of leading X-Men the most recently created character was Kitty Pride who was introduced in 1980?

Interesting fact if the X-Men aged in real time the icons would be 65-70 years old, Kitty Pride would be 46. Magneto would be 87. The current croup of teenagers would all be in their mid-twentes.

Anyway, the superhero fandom does not respond well to new characters. As a whole comics is a diverse fandom, but fans don't respond well to new characters. In the mid 1990s Chris Claremont launched Sovereign Seven a completely self contained team book in a corner of the DC universe. Despite Chris Claremont's renowned reputation from his decades long stint on X-Men (He's why Jean Grey is known as The Phoenix.) Sovereign Seven lasted maybe 30 issues?

The fan base does not support new heroes. Yes, George R.R. Martin had some limited success with WildCards, but overall the fan base is if not hostile to new characters, not supportive. I've been in rooms with Dan Jolley, who created Bloodhound, talking with fans about why they don't support new characters yet complain that comics constantly recycles itself. It's gotten so bad that DC brought back Wally West, who died in the 1980s, only to use him as a catalyst to reboot their entire universe.

Baen Books spent a lot of money and effort trying to establish original superhero fiction and found there really isn't a market for it.

If DC wanted to license a line of Robin, or Teen Titans YA books I think they would sell well enough. Or if Marvel wanted to a YA X-Men or Young Avengers novel line. But they haven't wanted to do that, and if they did that have a ton of established novelists who already write for them.

I'm not saying don't try it, just understand what the odds are.

That said... Marvel is launching a line of novalizations of their biggest crossovers. So if that shows steady sales I'm sure it will create some room for that genre, but again, superhero fans don't care for new characters.

Actually, Watchmen is almost as old as I am, originally running through 1986 and 1987. It's just had a huge cult following and got mainstream attention when the movie came out.

And the characters of Watchmen are actually homages to super old comic book characters from Charlton Comics that existed in the golden age of comics. But DC couldn't/wouldn't release the rights, so Allen Moore decided to twist them up. So nothing new there really.

ElizabethJMW said:

Maybe it's because I'm not a huge comic fan, but I personally like new super heroes. What about graphic novels like Kick-Ass and Watchmen? Aren't they relatively new and both made into successful movies? Not as huge as the well-known Marvel/DC ones, but there's still a place for them. I had no idea there were angry mobs who wanted to ban the creation of new super heroes...It seems kind of strange to me. But then, like I said, I don't live in the world of comic con and don't know much about it.

Click to expand...

There is a vibrant non-super hero segment of comics, Kick Ass, which was kind of about not having powers. A short list of comic inspired franchises/movies include, The Losers, Walking Dead, 300, 30 Days of Night, A History of Violence, Reds, Sin City and there's at least a dozen that are on the tip of my tongue that I can't name at the moment. But, when I look at superhero series that have been launched in the the last 20 years that are still printing today it's a pretty short list, Invincible (Written by the same guy who wrote Walking Dead) Astro City, Savage Dragon, Spawn and that's about it. I mean there are some popular new characters within the established character families, but two of Marvels undisputed best new team books in the last decade The Runaways and Young Avengers haven't been able to support an ongoing series.

I would warn people away from ongoing series is that there are a number of established novelists (Including Brad Meltzer) who cross over into comics and none of them have been able to establish a line of superhero novels. If you want to write a comic book character, self publish a comic book.

ElizabethJMW said:

I wish there were more novels (non-graphic) about super heroes and I actually have a few ideas/story lines on my giant list of "MSs I would like to write".

Click to expand...

I'd recommend "It's Superman!" by Tom De Haven. It's a different take on Superman in the 1930s, its a good read. Also, Marvel is publishing novelizations of the big crossovers, so look out for those too.

Sage I know for a fact I'm not writing to comic book readers. I'm writing to just what you said,people that watch the movies or shows but don't really read the comics. My stuff leans more to people who watch things like Power rangers or Sailor moon than Marvel and such.

Sage said:

I'm not sure that most YA writers writing a superhero book are writing to the comic book readers. They're writing to the teens who like to watch superhero movies without ever reading the comics. Who like to watch television shows about people with awesome powers. Who grew up watching the X-men cartoon, but aren't interested in the X-men comics. My superhero book takes more cues from Buffy than it does from DC or Marvel.

Click to expand...

Well yeah.

If you want to do superheros without actually calling that just give them whatever natural abilities you want and call it paranormal or whatever. There are a lot of super heroes out there with the serial numbers rubbed off. The kids in "I am Number Four" books are so clearly superheroes. They're classic super humans layered with completely implausible powers that interlink to form a powerful team, but because they're "Aliens" it's classified as science fiction, which allowed the books to get sold and find an audience.

If you want to write a YA book about traditional super heroes who were spandex and have super powers, that's going to be a hard sell both to agents and editors and the audience.

MDSchafer said:

Part of it too is that the super hero fan base is just not that open to new characters. Marvel and DC are riding off the same crop of heroes it had by the 1960s. Every character in the Avengers was established by 1965. Batman's first appearance was in 1939, Superman 1932. I want to say of the current crop of leading X-Men the most recently created character was Kitty Pride who was introduced in 1980?

Anyway, the superhero fandom does not respond well to new characters. As a whole comics is a diverse fandom, but fans don't respond well to new characters. In the mid 1990s Chris Claremont launched Sovereign Seven a completely self contained team book in a corner of the DC universe. Despite Chris Claremont's renowned reputation from his decades long stint on X-Men (He's why Jean Grey is known as The Phoenix.) Sovereign Seven lasted maybe 30 issues?

The fan base does not support new heroes. Yes, George R.R. Martin had some limited success with WildCards, but overall the fan base is if not hostile to new characters, not supportive. I've been in rooms with Dan Jolley, who created Bloodhound, talking with fans about why they don't support new characters yet complain that comics constantly recycles itself. It's gotten so bad that DC brought back Wally West, who died in the 1980s, only to use him as a catalyst to reboot their entire universe.

Baen Books spent a lot of money and effort trying to establish original superhero fiction and found there really isn't a market for it.

If DC wanted to license a line of Robin, or Teen Titans YA books I think they would sell well enough. Or if Marvel wanted to a YA X-Men or Young Avengers novel line. But they haven't wanted to do that, and if they did that have a ton of established novelists who already write for them.

I'm not saying don't try it, just understand what the odds are.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be dismissive, but this entire post is highly inaccurate and as a result, misleading. It's absolutely not that superhero fans aren't receptive to new ideas and characters....its that for the most part, publishers stick with the characters and properties that are known to make a profit. You're confusing cause and effect.

Not to mention your stats just aren't accurate. Take for instance the X-Men. In the current line-up of X-Men comics, there are easily a couple of dozen characters created in the three decades since Kitty Pryde who get just as much if not more page time than her. In the critically and commercially successful 'Wolverine and the X-Men' comic, fully half the cast was created in the past ten years, including Kid Omega, Oya, etc. The equally successful Uncanny X-Force stars Fantomex, a creation of the past ten years, and Deadpool, a creation of the nineties who has starred in several solo comicbook titles and featured prominently in the Wolverine movie and is being considered for his own spin off. These are fan favorite characters. Two of the characters in last year's X-Men: First Class movie only debuted in the comics in the past ten years. The last three X-Men video games have featured over a dozen characters from the nineties and the current century.

Claremont's 'Sovereign Seven' comic didn't fail because audiences don't want new characters, it failed because Claremont has been critically panned for almost twenty years now. All of his comics have done badly, including his return to the X-Men books, where he used all the old characters he'd once helped make famous. Sovereign Seven was quite simply just a bad comic. The characters were forgettable. Offhand I can think of a dozen superhero titles that debuted around the same time that are still thriving and with active fanbases. Gen13 - characters still active, rabid fanbase. Stormwatch, Wildcats, the Authority.....all hugely popular and critically and commercially viable.

George R. R. Martin did not have 'limited success' with Wildcards. Wildcards was one of many shared universe properties that all debuted around the same time in the early to mid-eighties. It shared shelf space with the likes of Thieves World and Shadowrun.....all of which have now gone the way of the dodo EXCEPT Wildcards. The 22nd volume of the Wildcards novels is due out this year....that's 22 novels in the same series since the first one debuted in 1987. That's not limited success. That's nearly unheard of longevity in any kind of fantasy or sci-fi prose series. There's a mere handful of other series that can claim that kind of longevity.

The idea that readers are hostile to new superhero characters is a fallacy much like the idea that comicbook readers can be polled on their opinions at all. There is a proportionally small but extremely vocal minority of comicbook readers who actively comment and post about comicbooks online. Some of the comicbooks that readers online seem to absolutely despise the most actually sell the most issues....because the vast majority of the people buying those issues just aren't joining the conversation online. Opinions online don't matter. Sales matter. And yes, a lot of new characters and books fail. A lot succeed as well. And quite often, there are other factors involved in why some books fail, and it quite often doesn't have anything to do with the characters' popularity.

You cited Runaways in another post....but the Runaways have been hugely popular with fans since their inception. Its just that after their creator left the title, the book changed writers every five or six issues, and none were able to find their footing. Runaways failed because of the WRITING, not because of the characters. The characters are still popular and frequently appear in other books, like currently where they're guest starring in Avengers Academy. You also cited the Young Avengers. The Young Avengers don't have a current monthly comic because their creator, Allan Heinberg is an active television writer who doesn't have time for a monthly comic and has an agreement with Marvel to be the only one to write them. Those characters are also hugely popular, and one of the most common questions Marvel hears is 'where are the Young Avengers showing up next?'

I don't mean to nitpick, but the idea that a superhero book is any harder to make successful than any other genre book is just absolutely untrue. The absence of a wildly successful superhero prose novel isn't an indicator of anything other than the fact that one hasn't broken out yet, much like dozens of other 'niche' premises. Good characters are good characters, its that simple. If a hundred fantasy books can do their own version of the chosen one sets out on a quest to save the world premise, there's no reason a hundred superheroes can't derive from similar beginnings.

The only problem with most new superheroes was mentioned tangentially earlier in the thread. The thing is, so many people focus on the gimmick, or the name, or the power....the flashy, superficial aspect that may be the first thing readers see about the character, but can't BE a character, in and of itself. Too many superhero writers forget to write a character first, a superhero/powers second. Spiderman isn't a beloved character because he has the powers of a spider....its because of his trademark theme of with great power comes great responsibility. Superman isn't Superman because he flies....its because he's the last survivor of an alien planet dedicated to defending his adopted world. Batman isn't cool because he dresses like a bat....but because he's a badass vigilante who was traumatized by the murder of his parents and set out to take justice in his own hands.

Figure out why your character is a hero in the first place, what makes them do it, what their higher calling is....THEN worry about their powers. That's what sets the memorable heroes apart from the crowd.

Haven't read all the replies ITT but FWIW, do it!

My first published novel wasn't really about superheroes per se, more like the interaction of the MC with them. Sure, I popped in the superpowers and had them do superstuff, but focused on the MC's reaction (going from hero-worship to somewhat disollusioned to liking them in a different way when he finds out what they truly are) and the way he worked with them.

Nothing wrong with having your MC as a superhero but if you follow the same kind of 'gothisherpowersinastrangeaccident' storyline it might become boring. If you focus on the ramifications of him/her becoming what he/she is, how others view the MC('s) and the world around him/her/them then it could play very well.

Superheroes rule. Period.

rynthewin said:

Yay, I'm so excited to meet someone else! Considering that Sailor Moon inspired a huge part of the 90's generation, I'm so surprised it hasn't inspired more writers.

Click to expand...

Add me to the list of being inspired by Sailor Moon and other magical girl anime/manga.

The first novel I completed was about a magical girl and faeries. Most of the novel was terrible so I stopped working on it. But I wrote a 9000-word short story to go with it that I think has a far more interesting plot.

But with the growing interest in superheroes, I've been tempted to take another look at that story. If it still sucks, I can always expand on the short story.

I just wanted to add, I have two other ideas that it in the magical girl genre. One's from a boy's point of view that launched off the question, what was/it like for Tuxedo Mask always having to save this girl he doesn't know and/or like? The other I consider to be more a magical boy story with a girl protagonist, complete with lots of martial arts and sword-fighting action.

And I wrote a vampire novel a couple years ago where the main character is obsessed with Sailor Moon.

Yttar

KalenO said:

You cited Runaways in another post....but the Runaways have been hugely popular with fans since their inception. Its just that after their creator left the title, the book changed writers every five or six issues, and none were able to find their footing. Runaways failed because of the WRITING, not because of the characters.

Click to expand...

That is just not accurate. Runaways was cancelled by low sales and only came back because a groundswell of word of mouth about the TPB. Sales were lagging by the time Brian K Vaughn left and the guy who took over for him was some guy with two brilliant movies in the theaters right now, including one that has potential to be the highest grossing film of all time. So it's not exactly like you can blame the writers.

While there are some popular new characters on established, ensemble books if you look at the Diamond top 100 for March the only books anchored by recently created characters is Kick Ass 2 at 32, Saga #1 at 40. Winter Solider (Which is arguably isn't a new character) 49 Walking Dead 54, and X 23 (Which is only popular because its a female Wolverine)

Storm Watch, which is 19 years old, (Which OMG has made me realize that own comic books that are older than my boyfriend) has been cancelled at least three different times and its current reincarnation is only related to the original in name only and is there to fulfill contractual obligations to Jim Lee. Wild C.A.T.s has been cancelled five times and wasn't even involved in the New 52, although I will grant you that some of their characters have shown up in radically different forms.

And a superhero book is harder to sell. Not to name drop or anything but a couple of years ago I took a superhero concept I'd been working on to a writers' convention and Toni Weisskopf, the publisher of Baen Books, told me that Baen has spent a lot of time and money trying to get novels about original super heroes off the ground to no effect, and now won't even look at superhero stories. Publishers tend to look at genre sales before buying a book. So when you're trying to sell a first novel in a genre that doesn't sell particularly well it's going to be a hard sell.

yttar said:

Add me to the list of being inspired by Sailor Moon and other magical girl anime/manga.

The first novel I completed was about a magical girl and faeries. Most of the novel was terrible so I stopped working on it. But I wrote a 9000-word short story to go with it that I think has a far more interesting plot.

But with the growing interest in superheroes, I've been tempted to take another look at that story. If it still sucks, I can always expand on the short story.

I just wanted to add, I have two other ideas that it in the magical girl genre. One's from a boy's point of view that launched off the question, what was/it like for Tuxedo Mask always having to save this girl he doesn't know and/or like? The other I consider to be more a magical boy story with a girl protagonist, complete with lots of martial arts and sword-fighting action.

And I wrote a vampire novel a couple years ago where the main character is obsessed with Sailor Moon.

Yttar

Click to expand...

Hah my WIP goes totally Magical boy. You should go back and look at it. So nice to see more people who get driven by stuff like that.