Heroic Henchmen

Why is it that having a cadre of minions seems to be nearly exclusive to villains? Seems like the whole hero thing would be a lot easier if they didn't insist on working mostly solo.

In JLU, the watchtower was run by minions, and the Avengers had minions who helped man the Hydrobase in the early 90's. As for why it's comparatively rare, I suspect it's because we're meant to sympathize with the heroes, which becomes hard if they have no face.

>implying it's hard to characterize background characters
Sounds like laziness, honestly. You can easily have a few recognizable recurring bit parts. Doesn't have to be a bunch of running arcs with deep character development, just enough to show that they're people with lives.

And as for being faceless, presuming they'd be wearing helmets or masks, just give their outfits distinct markings, or give them different body types. Star Wars The Clone Wars did the former to great effect.

Villains like to have control, heroes go for the whole "no-one else should suffer for this" thing.

Which just seems silly when they team up with other heroes. In fact, it seems almost selfish in a way. Like, would any given superhero outright reject any volunteers seeking to help them? What gives that hero the right to tell them to stay away, when it's their world too?

If we're to fall back on trite platitudes, then "They know the risks.", so there's no need for the martyr crap. Scope out some help, fool.

>Like, would any given superhero outright reject any volunteers seeking to help them?
Try to count out how many times a hero has said
"Go home kid" ("this is too big for you" or similar)

There is nothing impressive about a hero who sends lackeys to do his job

There is everything impressive about a villain who others pledge their allegiance to

It's like, you've heard of the "hero cop" before, the guy who dared it all and risked his own life....that's heroic

Just like there is the Mafia stereotype of the boss not "getting their hands dirty", they command respect through fear and have others do their bidding, it's badass, keyword bad, not heroic

>"Stay here, it's too dangerous."
>"If we stay together, my enemies may try to hurt you."
>"I must do this alone, it's my destiny."
And so on and so forth. It's all very trite and cliche, and yet we still glorify the idea of fighting crime alone, even though it's fucking stupid.

It's honestly ridiculous the GL Corps don't have some kind of support staff.

Who is this cute snek

Otto had them,they were useful in his sieges an attacks but became a massive liability when Norman used them as target practice.I think most heroes just don't want to have that responsibility on ther heads,though these are the same guys that recruit kids sooo

>There is nothing impressive about a hero who sends lackeys to do his job
Why? What's uncool about a hero who has such power and influence that they command many vigilantes to fight villains? I'm almost certain there's no comic that features any kind of superhero mafia, as it were, and it's all because of this odd obsession with the lone hero idea. Which also brings up the question of why team books are even a thing.

Still it does give a good "oh shit" when the villian realizes he's outmanned AND outgunned

Closest they got is Salaak, and he's a ring slinger too.

Sensor of the Legion of Superheroes. She's the first reboot's incarnation of Princess Projectra.

That's a good point. Sidekicks are okay, but hiring trained mercenaries or something isn't?

Henchmen are meant to be expendable. Using human lives as expendable resources isn't a very heroic thing to do.

SHIELD. That's the heroic henchmen. Nick Fury had a shitload of mostly nameless dudes helping him out.

Star Trek did that too, the disposable Red Shirt guys were heroic henchmen too. Although Trek is only tangentially related to Sup Forums

Because the point of a hero is to bask in how heroic they are, not how influential they are at getting others to do their bidding

Team books are about heroes working together, not one sitting back with their feet up as other people take care of the dirty work

Minions are not part of a team, they are subordinates

>Henchmen are meant to be expendable.
No, they're meant to be a means of force, since there is strength in numbers.

Mooks getting their asses kicked is an easy way to show off how strong a character is, and frankly, I always saw it as bad writing. I'd say it's video game logic, but even video games(good ones anyway) have the nameless goons put up a decent challenge. Red shirts should especially be somewhat capable, since they're the good guys, and thus we're meant to care about them. Hard to get invested in incompetents.

The point of a hero is to help people and protect the world from danger. Not to masturbate over how awesome they are.

It really shouldn't matter how they go about doing that, so long as they do it. And frankly, the superhero genre could use a bit of variety in that regard.


>Minions are not part of a team, they are subordinates
Your point being...?

>The point of a hero is to help people and protect the world from danger. Not to masturbate over how awesome they are.

Ok allow me to reiterate
Super hero*
Nobody would read a comic about Superman sitting at a desk while his goons do Superman things instead, that defeats the purpose of a Superman alltogether

People don't read super hero comics because they are representations of the real world, news fucking flash

They should probably have GL-aligned helpers in every sector. Just people that know the field and can prepare the way.

First off, can we not use Clark as a point of comparison here? He obviously doesn't need an army. Though he does have robots who maintain the Fortress.

And besides, even though any given extant hero would of course personally lead their troops into battle, you can't really say "nobody would read that" because, well, it's never really been done before in cape comics. Seriously, can you actually think of any series that functioned like that? Hard to gauge people's interest in something that doesn't exist.

Captain America should have henchmen.

Yeah, you just can't run an operation like that without some kind of infrastructure. Like, who builds the rings and power batteries? Are all the medics ring slingers? Who builds all the GL facilities, independent contractors?

Obvious Captain Hydra jokes aside, Steve, being an old school soldier, would absolutely field a squad of troops. Same with Wonder Woman, which really should be the case if they insist on harping on the warrior shit.

Steve is a leader of a squad of superheroes though. His henchmen are heroes in their own right.

And what's stopping the henchmen from being considered heroes? They'd be contributing to the protection of civilians and the defeat of villains after all. Does it only count if you wear a flashy costume and codename? Do you need to get solo XP to be considered worthwhile?

...

You're perfect just they way you are, Sneckie. Pay no mind to all those plebs yelling "not muh".

Lots of heroes have followers. You probably won't find them in capes, though, but you can find them in military, maybe in military sci-fi or heroic fantasy.

Although in order to focus on hero, they will likely all die to establish the threat.

Why don't you just read G.I Joe comics or something then, but even STILL that is more like a team book....

You imply minions, nobody wants to read about underlings, henchmen, goons, etc, because that status alone renders them nameless and of low status, if they were acting alongside their leader hero, they would be team mates, and that's been done tons of times

Yes, you've got it just right.

From a narrative perspective, it doesn't work that way. Story follows action. If henchmen are the ones doing the work, then suddenly that's where the "action" is and they become who the story follows. In fact, this happens a lot and we just don't categorize them as "henchmen". Any team or individual who follows orders from a "boss" character essentially fills this role. Hell, the X-Men are all essentially henchmen. Green Lantern is a henchman.

The second aspect of it is that the protagonist is usually intended to be relateable, and often (particularly in cape comics) a representation of certain ideals. Most people can't relate to being the "big boss" as well as they can to being a loner or an average joe working for the man, and in terms of idealization, "heroes" work better as teams of equals, or as mentors/students, than as subordinates. So instead we have teams like the JL or Avengers who all work together, we have team-ups and partnerships like Daredevil and Spiderman, and then we have sidekicks, like Robin, or Robin, or Robin. Or Speedy.

The trope of a "henchman" kind of goes hand in hand with being expendable, being a subordinate, being unrelatable (faceless, so the reader feels no remorse when they're beaten) and not being competent enough to be the focus of the narrative. If you change those things too much, they stop being a henchman and start being something else.

A hero rarely has minions since they're usually a central character that goes up against an enemy with greater numbers in order to give them more mooks to punch or whatever. I suppose you can consider the police as "minions" for a hero.

Then give them names. Like I said before, just because they're minor characters doesn't mean they can't still be characters.

>nobody wants to read about underlings
Again, you can't know that because it hasn't really been done. There aren't any superheroes who employ a battalion of personal soldiers to help in their work.

Well that's just dumb.

This guy has been using people that could easily be described as henchmen since before cape comics were a thing.

>Again, you can't know that because it hasn't really been done. There aren't any superheroes who employ a battalion of personal soldiers to help in their work.
That's literally what SHIELD is, and there have been plenty of series that focus on them over the years. They also have a TV show.

First off, relatability is bullshit. Absolutely none of us can relate to being a god-like alien, a magic warrior princess, or a psychotic billionaire.

Second, the responsibility of leadership is a fairly easy thing to empathize with. Leadership comes with tough choices, which generates conflict and drama.

In the early X-Men they were explicit henchmen.

Xavier found them, trained them, sent them on missions, made their tech and he was vastly more powerful than any one on the team. .. and 30-40 years older than anyone else too.

Are there any cape series besides SHIELD that has the heroes in command of an army?

The logistics alone opens doors to tell plenty of stories.

Clone wars, lots of clones got some focus, so you could later mourn their demise.

GI-Joe I remember one run where you could recognise some of the "green" guys by their traits, like the weird face or one that was always chewing bubblegum.

>Clone wars, lots of clones got some focus, so you could later mourn their demise.
This was one of the best parts of that show. Kinda makes you wonder why more shows don't do that. Have the red shirts hang around for a while, so we might actually give a shit when they get axed off. Though I'd rather they not kill them to begin with.

That was something I always hated about red shirts, and Star Trek specifically. Killing off an extra to prove how serious a threat is is just plain shit writing. Like, fucker, I know the situation is deadly, the danger is kind of obvious. Oh, spatial anomalies and guns can kill people? You don't say.

You're just being sadistic at this point. I can only hope the new show doesn't rely on killing red shirts.

U.S.Avengers seems to have henchmen, though there is a lot of focus on the top people being part of the action themselves:

That's fine. I really should get around to reading that at some point. Nice to see a superhero team with a proper support staff.

You're so blatantly off course I don't even know how to respond. Are you saying no one relates to Spider-Man? No one relates to Batman? This isn't a binary option, you can have a fantastical premise while still being relatable. That's how fiction works.

And you're right about leadership, but my point is that those themes change the nature of the story. And those stories exist all over the place, just not in the narrow definition you're working with. Any war story or cop story, or sports team, or what have you, includes those elements.

>Are you saying no one relates to Spider-Man? No one relates to Batman?
Considering the vast majority of people who read those stories are neither reporters with tons of gorgeous women throwing themselves at them, nor perpetually brooding billionaires, no, most people cannot relate to them because they lack those elements in their real lives. "Relatable" is a meaningless buzzword that people throw around to be snobby about characters they like.

You are incredibly dumb.

You clearly don't understand how stories work, then, and so I'm not sure how productive this discourse is going to be.

A story *has* to, by its very nature, be somehow relatable. If a story weren't relatable in any way, it would be completely alien and thus entirely unintelligible.

Furthermore, you don't need to experience identical circumstances to be able to relate to those circumstances. I don't need to be stabbed in the ankle to understand that it hurts like hell, and because I understand that it hurts like hell, I can relate to that element in a story.

Kids pretend to be superheroes when they play, dress up in mock costumes and fight imaginary crime. They are *literally* relating themselves to those characters. I'm pretty sure none of them have super powers in real life.

That is a fat load of crap. What you're referring to is empathy, not relatability. You can empathize with someone's struggles, but unless you have experienced the same things, you cannot relate to them because none of that shit has happened to you. Again, that word is just a term used by snobs to say "My favorite character is better than your favorite character!".

Empathy and relatability are related. You can't have empathy if the character isn't relatable in some way. And no, he's not referring to empathy.

>"Hey, that person just got shot in the knee. But they're nothing like me, so I don't really care."
Uh huh.

Except... no one's doing that. So you're just discounting an entire argument because you don't like the way that other, irrelevant people misuse that specific word in contexts that have nothing to do with this discussion.

You came in here asking a question, "Why don't heroes use henchmen?" I and other anons have expressed not only examples where heroes DO use henchmen, but also offered up explanations why those stories and themes are less common in cape comics. Your response to both is to essentially go NUH UH and circle back to this narrow-minded way-too-specific concept that you're fixated on while pretty much refusing to actually participate in a discussion.

So I'll cut straight to the point and communicate with you in your own language: No, your idea is a piece of shit, and no one's written it because it's a piece of shit, and no one would read it because it'd be a piece of shit.

Heroes disable villainous henchmen, but a villain would kill heroic henchmen. Everyone fighting the Red Skull has to be able to survive, and anyone who can survive a fight against the Red Skull isn't a simple henchman.

The mook life is a rough life.

The only example you've given is SHIELD, and they fucking suck because they may as well be villains at this point.

And I love how you call me narrow minded when you absolutely insist that mooks must ONLY exist to die. Retard.

>The only example you've given is SHIELD
OH REALLY
>In JLU, the watchtower was run by minions, and the Avengers had minions who helped man the Hydrobase in the early 90's.
>Otto had them
>Why don't you just read G.I Joe comics or something then,
>. Hell, the X-Men are all essentially henchmen. Green Lantern is a henchman.
>shadow
>U.S.Avengers seems to have henchmen,

I'm talking about goons who join the hero in the field. I'll give you Otto, but some of those aren't even superheroes. I'll be damned if I'm gonna read G.I Joe, so don't even insult me with that garbage.

You're the one missing out then.

Oh yes, I'm totally missing out on more shitty 80s cartoon action. Woe is me.

The closest thing i can think of to this would be The Shadow's support network, and even then that's only somewhat related to what we're talking about.

Let's try and come up with one, that isn't just "Oh look at how supervillain he is!" like SpOck. Would we attach a hench/support network to an existing hero, or build one with that concept from the ground up?

sidekicks tend to be "extreme" circumstances typically taking a kindred spirit under their wing. Hiring goons doesn't have the same implications since sidekicks are rarely just taken on because they need manpower. Plus there's a certain expandability Henchmen are supposed to have which isn't heroic. If you want to get paid to beat up criminals in a uniform just become a cop.

>Would we attach a hench/support network to an existing hero, or build one with that concept from the ground up?
Either one works for me.

You're also ignoring or dismissing all the explanations as to why it's nearly exclusive to villains, despite your OP question being "Why is it that having a cadre of minions seems to be nearly exclusive to villains?"

Said explanations are fucking stupid and make no sense. It all sounds like capes do the lone hero thing pretty much because that's what everyone is used to, even though from a practical standpoint it makes no sense for most heroes to go solo and without any kind of support structure. Hard to accept explanations that boil down to straight up laziness.

Frisky Dingo maybe?

I mean Xander Crews/Awesome X is an asshole but he's acknowledged in-universe as being an out and out superhero and he employs the Xtacles which he personally believes to be robots even though they're real dudes. And he claims his actual superpower is management.

I know it's a comedy but I'm wondering if that sort of scenario is what you're asking for but with fewer jokes.

but it's not. On top of meta reasons most heroes tend to have personalities, MOs, or budgets that don't support having henchmen especially proper henchmen.

That is actually a perfect example. Comedic, yes, but the Xtacles are indeed Xander's designated goon squad. They even have personalities and lives outside of their job. Yeah, they tend to drop like flies, but that's part of the joke. Ain't no rule says that mooks have to die, they just do because the writer chose to kill them.

The super rich ones have no excuse. They're just being dumb.