Or am I just overthinking things?
Are single word adjectives more appealing as superhero/heroine names nowadays than "Insert adjective/thing + Noun"?
I’m not sure what you mean..
Historically, superhero titles followed a formula. This is most evident with the "Man" suffix.
Superman
Batman
Spider-Man
Iron Man
Power Man
Aquaman
Antman
I can continue all day.
More generally speaking, the "Man" pattern falls into the wider pattern of a describing word followed by a noun (a noun is a person, place, or thing)
IronFist
GreenLantern
Captain America
Nite Owl
Black Panther
Nightcrawler
Deathstroke
Deadpool
Doctor Strange (technically Doctor Strange reverses the typical pattern, featuring the noun before the adjective)
OP is asking if this pattern is being set aside, in favor of just single adjectives.
He uses the modern character Invincible as an example. If Invincible were created in the 60s, he'd probably be called Invincible Man.
It matters very little honestly. The creators are only trying to name their creations without ripping off past creations. I mean single adjectives character names have also been in use for a while. Supreme.
@the_hajduk: Ah I see. I assumed he was talking about “Invincible” in some way but since I don’t read it I wasn’t sure. Thanks.
Rorschach? Punisher?
I think that the "Man" pattern specifically has died out and is viewed as cliche and cheesy now, but the overall adjective followed by noun pattern remains prevalent. And like you said, single adjectives or nouns aren't a new thing anyway.
Punisher
Hulk
Cyclops
Wolverine
Robin
Flash
When I was listing examples in my previous post, I thought up just as many single adjective or noun characters as I did the opposite. They were equally prevalent back in the day. Is the single adjective or noun pattern now taking precedence? It's hard to say because I'm having a hard time thinking of new characters in general. I can only think of legacy characters and they don't count because they are inheriting names.
The Wildstorm imprint was probably the beginning of modern comics and most of their characters do in fact follow the single adjective or noun pattern. Midnighter, Apollo, Nemesis, Grifter, Zealot. Mister Majestic is the only example from Wildstorm I can think of that follows the old pattern.
@the_hajduk: Wildstorm... Yuck! Burn it with fire!
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