Why are street level fighters the most interesting?

Why are street level fighters the most interesting?

You relate to them more.
And by "you" I mean you personally.
I however prefer stories about normal run of the mill people suddenly given unbelievable power, changing their live forever.

They have to deal with more real issues. Like rapists and serial killers.

Heck, some of them are rapists and serial killers.

They aren't inherently more interesting, but the appeal lies in their vulnerability.

Less power levels

Ok Hickman.

>Guts
>Street Level

Actively killing the shit out of giant demon rape monsters empowered by dark godsis street level?

You're not using Guts as an example of 'street level' are you?

Easier to write for.

gay

It's easier to write compelling threats for them.
They're more relatable.
Also easier to show progress rather than just using asspull powers/power-ups/plot contrivances.

...

It's not about them being relateable no matter how many times people regurgitate it. Superman tier beings have been made relatable before.

Simply put, power creep ruins a story. If you've created a tier of being which LITERALLY CANNOT BE HURT by the lower tiers, you've put yourself on the first step to ruining your entire story. The story has to cater to the highest tier or else there's no sense of tension, and it's REALLY EASY to simply continue the trend and make your villain on the tier above your hero who himself was the highest tier possible already. When you've done this enough times that something as simple as a WALL being in the way is no longer a legitimate obstacle for the characters, you've lost 90% of what you can even challenge the character with. All you have is putting another similarly OP character in front of them again and again.

You can make them as relatable as you like. Slice of life with a godling can work, but then it's not about them having physical struggles as there's nothing you can reasonably add that feels threatening. If you want a story that deals with violent conflict, it HAS to be reasonably down to earth individuals.

>WE

It's the difference between showing and telling. High powerlevel stories tell you why the conflict matters and they tell you why you should care about what happens. Metropolis isn't an actual place you know or care about because the story doesn't show you it. Most people who read/watch this stuff have never gone farther than 50 miles from their home town, so saving the whole world just kind of rolls off the shoulder.

Street level stories show you the characters, show you the setting, show you what's at stake and what will be lost at an intimate level. It's not a character breaking the fourth wall spewing "X amount of lives will be lost Superman!", because in reality, it's not that big of a deal. And if the villain wins, no one outside of the story may even notice.

The best case studies for this are Superman and Dragon Ball Z. Both encompass the two methods left to write for godlings without relegating the story to being purely slice of life.

With continual power creep, Superman has created a situation where any villain must exploit a Deus Ex Machina to combat him (kryptonite) or introduce someone equal to him physically. The former is a binary state in which Superman either can do nothing or is allowed to act again by the kryptonite's removal. It's good for keeping him from mucking up the story for OTHER characters, but in a Superman focused story it gets tiresome and isn't very thrilling anyway. Worse if the story invents some kind of super material just for this occasion. Which will likely never come up again because having such a thing be accessible would ruin the setting.

The other option is putting a strong enemy in front of Superman. Superman preserves his setting as a whole by not dragging up those on lower tiers upwards, but this ignores a few important factors still. Any story Superman is not in now has this hanging question of WHY isn't Superman intervening in a situation that could cost thousands or even millions of lives? The only answer is always what amounts to a shitty cop out, or simply ignoring the question no matter how fervently it's asked. Even then, you've got the remaining issue of a setting that now has SUPERMAN LEVEL VILLAINS running around which only Superman can deal with cause only Superman is that strong.

Hes a man so yes.
>bow to trigger faggots in one post

They aren't, you just prefer them. The most interesting characters for me tend to be either planetary or unpowered.

Dragon Ball Z meanwhile adopts a very strange solution to these issues. Interesting ones, but better ones?

DBZ acknowledges that if the general tier of competition raises, all story relevant characters must raise up to that tier to interact with the story. Even if only vaguely in the ballpark. Even if only THEORETICALLY able to hurt the enemy. Even if only theory, it still creates a tension. Even Krillin was able to slice off Freeza's tail.. though he paid for it later. You've tossed away a lot of common struggles you could use in the process, but the logical cohesion of the setting isn't violently shaking itself apart.

Except.

You've still got the arms race. The new villains still have to be strong enough to slap the heroes around and be a threat, but if you're only ever in an arms race this keeps pushing the status quo up. Except at some point you're going to hit the point where these characters can't even FIGHT without blowing up everything by breathing too hard. The level of destruction gets too big to keep having meaningful increases. Destroying a mountain becomes destroying a moon becomes destroying a planet becomes destroying the solar system becomes destroying the galaxy. What do you do? Say enough is enough once the blasts are as wide as the local galactic cluster? Have your fights consist of two gods brawling in an empty void of space cause they blew everything up? It has no meaning at that point.

DBZ thus resorts to the same methodology as Superman. If you reach an uncomfortable question.. ignore it. The actual displayed level of destruction in Dragon Ball Z has not increased since the Saiyan Saga. Arguably, it hasn't increased since the end of fucking Dragon Ball's tournament fight with Piccolo. We get TOLD the numbers are increasing, but the displayed power is the same. DBZ just ignores the issue entirely and ignores anyone who points it out. Same as Superman must ignore the issues his own existence causes the settling.

guts routinely gets his ass kicked and nearly killed several times tho + he's not even remotely strong enough to fight the big bads

I see you are a fan of the man of gripes

Because they have more detailed fights, and random bursts of energy in fights get boring fast.

Dragon Ball Z's problem is that every enemy now is just "Guy with REALLY BIG power number!"

In early Dragon Ball you had lots of unusual abilities and fun shit to watch Goku figure out a way around like a rabbit man who turns people into carrots and a dude who stinks really fucking bad

They try something every now and then like the guy in Super who's so fat punches bounce off of him but the gimmick fighters inevitably get swept under the rug for Serious Guy With Big Number

The last bunch of enemies I can even remember from DB with abilities that the heroes actually had to work around and not overwhelm with brute force were the Ginyu Force. And that was just the time stopper and the body swapping guy

>And that was just the time stopper and the body swapping guy
Actually, Vegeta had to murder him for the midgets using brute force.

...

Vigilantes like Batman or the super setais from Japan have cars, jets, robots, etc. Capes that fly dont. Being a fan of the human heroes is more fun

>some of them are serial killers

Yeah remember how his awakening killed 3000 people and he didn't deal with any remorse or repercussions for it? So interesting.

Well I didn't mean Starbrand specifically, But why would he have repercussions for something he had no control over, nor any idea it would happen?

You're right. It's not like he was a mutant.

For me it's just cool watching someone use skills/tools to fight rather than throwing out laser beams or moon-shattering punches.

I get your point of view, but a lot of the time "I solve this problem by punching it unbelievably hard" end up playing out the same as "I've figured out exactly how to punch this problem to solve it".
That's why I like people with pretty specific power sets finding creative ways to use their powers to solve problems.
>"Okay Armadillo-man think! You've got two paper clips, a piece of string, and the ability to roll into a ball. How the fuck do I stop this runaway train!?"

KEK

Someone draw this scenrario please

Some kind of armadillo humanoid, but slightly more man than armadillo so it aint straight up anthro.

>Superman is relatable

No he isn't, I'll always remember that he can practically kill the League and conquer Earth if he wanted. Any butthurt he gets over not being human is plastic to me because he still fully embraces and enjoys his alien heritage. There's a reason why Batman is more popular

Well on the street level you can see anything that's going on. Say there's a fight on a roof, you'd have to know about it and get up on that roof in time, which could be quite tricky.

>Gary Stu
>interesting

Here we have the 1% of 1% of the threads that is not shit.

You might like to try out Worm. It is a online serial that is technically done story wise but the author is still editing it before he actually properly publishes it.

Most capes have a specific power and most of them use it in intresting ways. The main protagonist is a bug controller and uses them as extra sensory, tags on enemies and allies, uses flying insects to transport objects and other insects, use spider silk for her own armor and to tangle people up, uses bugs to swarm and attack, etc.

He's just strong and trained, user. He's street level.

Don't pretend that Batman is more relatable because he's a "normal" human. Having such riches he can afford to shrink distant red stars and the tech genius to incorporate them into a functional brass knuckle, is not relatable at all. Batman is a fun character and have good stories, but he is not relatable by far
Stop perpetuating this meme

>Having such riches he can afford to shrink distant red stars and the tech genius to incorporate them into a functional brass knuckle, is not relatable at all.

Technically, he didn't have the tech genius to do that, it was all Ray Palmer.

Still an asspull though.

I know it's Sup Forums, but I feel that Saitama is kind of relatable despite being incommensurately strong. The way he carries himself through his day feels very genuine, as well as his frustrations and sense of a lack of purpose. Despite being on the other side of the spectrum compared to people who feel lost because they have no talent, Saitama is so talented at one single thing while being relatively incompetent at every other aspect of his life that he does managed to connect with people who have lost their way in life, if they ever found one.

Superman's weaker than multiple other JL members. The League would trounce Superman if written for any other reason than to make Superman stand out.

He is now desensitized to danger, not scared of anything and bored out of his mind. Nothing was meaningful for a while, he's just a funny gimick now. That's why supermen-tier characters are boring.

I believe he offers a good representation of an average Joe. He lives in a small apartment he can barely economically maintain. Until very recently he was basically unemployed and living off other people's charity. He's got such a mastery over his work that it's become mindbogglingly monotonous.
He's basically a factory worker whose job consists on pressing a button over and over again for 8 hours before he returns to his lonely apartment where he only can improvise some dinner with the little money he has earned and go to bed so he can wake up the following day and repeat.
It's a pretty depressive outlook on life, especially when the series takes an extraordinary position and makes it as dull as your average cashier job.

Yeah in that sense he's way more relatable then others, good point.

>slays 100 men
>a shit ton of apostles and their spawn
>generally is near superhuman in strength
>Then he gets the super armor and becomes genuinely superhuman

Street level. Right. So is Superman

One Punch Man and Saitama are very different from DBZ and Superman's case, because it's more like a parody of the aforementioned's Power Creep issue. The story is written around not ignoring the problems that the existance of someone superpowerful exists. That and the gag of nobody knowing/acknowledging it.

This.
I love Batman, but power creep can also happen by just extending "Oh he is super resorceful and smart" into extremes.

That's why I love me some stands.

Yes that's a Jojo reference.

To be fair, he is probably at the top of Street Tier, or near the top.

Because writers are inspired by real world motives and elements. The unrealistic feats bits is just a part of the classical storytelling meant to entertain the audience.

I think a big issue with high-power characters is that their powers are intrinsic, rather than extrinsic.
IRL most power is extrinsic; a navy SEAL will probably lose a fight with an old woman in a wheelchair if she has a gun and the element of surprise.
Once your intrinsic power level gets too high, you can't really add in situational modifiers as easily; common things like terrain and guns mean nothing to Superman, and stuff that will actually influence a fight at his level, like a wave of radiation mucking with his super-vision or an enemy having a laser cannon that's strong enough to hurt him, needs a lot more setup.

Situational stuff is at the heart of a good fight scene getting an unexpected-yet-believable result, and the only thing you get in return for the disadvantage is increased level of spectacle.

Speaking of JoJo 2 and 3 definitely have some interesting ways the heroes beat the villains compared to a lot of other shounen

I'd say it carries over to the other parts as well

Dude Jotaro just punched DIO to death.

So what would happen to Sup Forums?

Yes, this is one of the roots of JoJo's popularity

After Dio displaying some creative ways with his Time Stop. Also it was the final battle. It had to end in an epic showdown.

Part 4
>imbeding a guy into a rock for his life
>reversing spaghetti into its main components
>escaping mind control Being literally blinded by rage
>Using that one allyway that takes your soul if you turn back to take something one your back to hell
>Cutting yourself to find an invisible Baby
>Letting yourself be turned into paper so you can reach the off switch
Part 5
>turning a Gun into a banana and letting a guy eat the banana, while you turn it back into a gun, making the guy kill himself
>Setting a whole street on fire to find your attacker
>Cutting your toung off to escape your villians control on it
>zipping your heart in half so your heart beat won't be detected
Part 5 was pretty brutal

Smaller consequences if they fail. Lower stakes means you can believe them failing.

Iron fist is technically street level, same for spider-man.

>flash has the fucking speed force and can turn super brain to mush if he wanted, go back in time and just kil baby supes back in kansas.
>Diana is literal god-tier at times and is on occasion a better hand to hand combatant than supes. Has magical weapons
>Batman has kyrptonite and multiple contigencies should supes go rogue.
>J'onn can just mind rape supes.

I'm tired of these fucking normies think superman is the only OP dc character.

>Exept Superman's laser eyes can set J'onn on fire, which is his cryptonite
>Because Batman really stopped Supes good in Injustice and other scennarios where Superman didn't have to catch a nuke beforehand
>Except Superman can match Flash's speed on the short term, and with his flight can stay out of reach.
>Diana is just a woman

Yes, I'm just baiting, but you have to admit that Superman have a lot of counter-chance, and his victory depends on what the writer wants to write about.

>Reading comprehension

Saitama is an interesting case of circumventing the issues with having a singular godling among a more down to earth cast.

First important thing to note. The story starts with Saitama as a lethargic bum. This makes the fact he doesn't just solve everything himself believable because he's already this way. He's a no good bum that doesn't really car about much, and he only registered as a hero because people started calling him a weirdo for doing it only as a hobby. While he may be super strong, he's also not written as particularly smart, and he's not exactly well off financially. While he is incredibly strong, he is also deeply flawed.

Even when Superman is written as less powerful, Superman tends to be flawless in other ways, and troubles in his common life are never his own fault. Usually some outside force that he'll resolve as Superman. You'll never see Superman excited about a meat sale that he NEEDS to attend or else he doesn't get to eat meat.

Fights become a foregone conclusion, but people still read for the fights all the same. Saitama's 'supporting cast' is full of street level individuals with only a few standouts.. that still aren't nearly as strong as he is. Their fights are still real and dangerous. Saitama COULD show up, but even this is a point of contention in the story. He might not show up at all. He can't fly or see through the city or hear for miles to find every danger. Nor is he driven enough to babysit the whole country anyway. When he does show up, it's exciting. You relish be beatdown because he DID show up and now the villain is going to get turned inside out. If he doesn't, you still get the thrill of street levels trying their best to survive and win.

It's practically cheating.

This is a good observation as well.

Becoming so strong that the character itself grows beyond tool use limits the stories you can tell. If they don't find tools useful, then people won't find tools useful against them either. Then what?

I lovED stands, but now I just finished part six and the further I read the more they get into silver-age Superman levels of learning new powers whenever they need to.

>Cutting yourself to find an invisible Baby
God this bugged the hell out of me. Dammit Joseph you used to be a genius, you literally have a specific power JUST for finding things!
It was almost as bad as "Oh no the cell phone broke, I've have to find a new one!"

Maybe because they have clearly defined limits and have to be actually resourceful and cunning to win their fights.
Instead of
>my blue lazer is now purple thus I'm stronger than you now

this

I think part 6 is pretty shit personally, but when it hits part 7 things scale back into more reasonable and less asspully.

Who would win in a fight? Wolverine or Guts?

Guts couldn't kill Wolverine, but Wolverine isn't actually that great at combat in any sense.

Yeah, Guts eventually traps Logan after realizing he can't die. Logan might win earlier on in Guts' career, but post Berserker armor there's no contest.

Not even earlier. Wolverine is really just kind of shit at what he does.

He's supposed to be. He's considered one of the best melee fighters in marvel.

I was thinking pre-eclipse, Wolverine would have the advantage - Guts wouldn't yet be used to magical bullshit and he'd be unprepared for an opponent that can cut through metal and doesn't die when you stab it.

Wolverine gets slapped around like an old dirty rag far too much for me to ever respect his combat prowess. He's the kind of character that gets called a good combatant by other characters, but the screen time he gets is usually his shit being pushed in to make the villain look good.

>Guts
>interesting

He's too lethal for his own good. If he could kill everyone he fights he'd take down most non-cosmic opponents easily, but that would be boring and Marvel would start running out of villains.

>user
>Not a fuckboy

Sounds like his designer was retarded, then. You can't just have him lose every fight then go WELL HE WOULD WIN BUT I CAN'T LET HIM WIN. It's just another way of admitting he's a loser.

That's what you get for trying to design something edgy.

Well his designer never gave him healing powers. Or claws for that matter. Back when he first showed up in Hulk all he had was scent and super dexterity. And he still gave hulk a run for his money.

He wasn't meant to be a permanent fixture at the time, was he? People just ended up liking it.

I'd think Wolverine would have been designed differently if he'd been intended to stick around.

It was basically the only available solution at the time, due to lack of time what with the baby drowning and all.

It took LONGER than it would have taken to just use Hermit Purple to find where she was.

He's in his 70s stands are somewhat affected by your health

Hermit purple works best with technology and is kinda shit at finding someone he doesn't know well he couldn't get a picture of Josuke so why should he be able to find a random baby

He'd just used it to grab the baby 5 minute ago.
He needed technology at first but it got stronger, as stands do, over part 3. He couldn't remote view Josuke because he didn't know him, but you can also just look for a thing and Hermit Purple will show you the exact location of the closest one nearby. Hell he was looking for rubber cement and just hit the ground and it drew a detailed map of a city he'd just arrived at with it's location clearly marked, complete with his location updated in real time marked by a fucking rock, technology is not required.

The only thing relatable about Batman is his anger about his parents and how unfair the world is. People relate to having injustices done to them and the desire to strike back.

Has there ever been a work where high-powered characters/power-creep was written in an interesting, good way?
For example, has there ever been a revenge story where a character becomes very OP, and hunts down whose who have wronged them, but the story is told from the viewpoint of one of the targets of the OP character, and is about the target's reaction to the fact that they are doomed?

Street Level isn't always about powers per say. Many consider Spidey street level despite being relatively broken power wise for the last 20+ years. Same with Batman.

the Necalli problem

if they win, the other character fucking dies, so they can't win

I don't think that. It all comes to good writing which can make godlike characters like Supes relateable with the whole ''Walking his dog on the moon instead in the park'' shtick. I do read street stuff when I want to take a break from grandiose or epic level stories like end of the world scenarios or villain organizations terrorizing cities for the lolz.

>Guts
>street level