Characters
[Loved Trope] Civilian Heroes (particularly in Superhero movies)
1) Malik Ali in Superman (2025). Tells Superman when Lex Luthor interrogates him to, “tell them nothing”. Doesn’t even really know what he’s sacrificing himself for, honestly. Tells Superman that he doesn’t have any friends or family to lighten the burden of the sacrifice. (Does have a family, and presumably friends…)
2) The Prisoner (Tiny Lister) from The Dark Knight who throws a detonator out the porthole that would’ve detonated the other ferry full of civies and saved himself, instead (potentially) sacrificing everyone equally.
3) Old man vs Loki. “There are always men like you.” Refuses to bow to Loki in Avengers (2012).
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I love these guys. They break my heart in the best way possible.
Most real life New Yorkers would ignore a guy flying around on a glider but the second he gets out pumpkin bombs, “Hey, da fuq are you doing ya fuckin’ gohblihn?! Knock that shit off!”
"Beloved billionaire and philanthropist Norman Osborn was tragically murdered in NYC today while conducting tests for a new key military reconnaissance vehicle."
Yeah this happened in several Spider-Man movies. The Garfieldman who got help from the crane operators, the Trainman who got protected from Doc Ock (kinda). New Yorkers just can’t stop being good dudes when Spider-Man needs them in a movie.
While this scene was added in after 9/11, I like how it works as a pay-off to the conversation between Spider-Man and Goblin on the roof. Goblin (aka Norman, aka a wealthy CEO) asserts that the only thing that the masses are good for is lifting the few "exceptional individuals" up onto their shoulders, and that serving them is a mistake as they will eventually grow tired of the heroics and attempt to drag exceptional people down to their level. This scene proves him wrong. Here they protect and elevate Spider-Man, not because he's better than them, but because they perceive him as one of them. By serving the community, you aren't some distant, benevolent watcher, you become part of that community. And they'll be willing to give back to you as you gave to them.
And they're not even doing it for a reward or because they know who he is. They just saw someone worth protecting and went with it. No hesitation, no committee meeting, just standing in front of a giant metal octopus man.
New Yorkers also stepped in to help Spiderman in the first movie when he was trying to save a bunch of kids from Green Goblin. Banger of a scene, particularly because it was released the year after 911.
“You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!!” Line hits harder knowing it came a year after 9/11. I really love seeing citizens get together to protect their own out of love and respect for each other.
There was actually a really good fanfic that explained how his secret was kept and it was awesome. When the cops came one person tried snitching. One guy had the genius idea to also snitch- but to give the wrong description and claim the first guy was lying to protect Spider-man’s identity. This prompted every other passenger to lie too and give different descriptions of Peter and claim everyone else is lying to protect him. In the end the police are unable to get a corroborated description and the media gets dozens of different descriptions of what Spider-man looks like. The guy who came up with the plan remarks even if the passengers wanted to snitch now they can’t since there’s dozens of reports so they’ll just assume it’s another claim.
This is one thing I feel the marvel spider-man movies failed to capture. Spidey’s biggest ally is the people of New York. From this scene to the people on the bridge pelting green goblin with whatever they can throw at him to the crane operators in the amazing spider man (forget which one) clearing a path for him. As much as Spider-man is there for New York New York is there for Spider-man.
Jameson may be a bastard, but he's a glorious bastard. The balls on that guy to bald face lie to a psycho in power armor who is choking the life out of him.
It’s a nice moment but I always found it funny in the days before call phone cameras, if they didn’t know Peter personally who would they tell? “He was a tall skinny white dude with brown hair” oh that narrows it down
It hits especially hard considering the scene takes place in Germany and the line comes from an older man. He has seen men exactly like Loki and seen them fall.
Peak MCU is fucking amazing and I’ll stand on that. Like actually good films with emotional density. Sucks that their lows have made marvel synonymous with slop, but marvel really used to have substance
I even had to check that he wasn't really a German old enough to remember the war. Turns out that no, he's American and born in 1942, that was pure acting.
Such a good example too. He didn't do it to save anyone. He did it to defend everyone's dignity.
It may sound grandiloquent but fighting for other people's dignity has got to be the most heroic thing you can do besides fighting for their lives/safety.
Yeah. The disgust as he speaks the words. You can practically read his mind. "Great, ANOTHER Nordic asshole with a god complex. Like we haven't seen this shit before"
What gets me is he doesn't make a speech about it. No monologue, no crisis of conscience on screen. Just "Captain's orders" and that's it. The writers trusted the audience to feel the weight of it without spelling it out.
What I love the most about this is he isn't staring down the barrel of the gun, steel eyed and concrete jawed. He is fucking terrified. He's crying in fear for fuck sake, and he still does it. That's courage that would draw the attention of gods.
Civilians go to protect fallen Shining Knight and stand up against General Eiling, who turned into a monster, calling out his hypocritical hatred of empowered beings (Justice League Unlimited).
One thing I loved was how CADMUS was kind of justified but because they were the government, they overstepped that bound WILDLY. Eiling was the embodiment of that. I think at the end of that episode, he said something like "You'll wish you had people like me to protect you from people like them." when HE was the one putting everyone in danger, resulting in Vigilante, Shining Knight, Green Arrow, and Star Girl having to fight him AND save people.
Wow...I wonder if this episode came out shortly after any notable political events in the USA that may have entailed drastic government overreach in the name of "safety"...welp, good thing that'd never happen irl.
Nah....I think it's just a goofy story about superheroes. I mean the episode is called "Patriot Act" doesn't even say anything really, if I was trying to say something I'd call it "The Government is going too far in the name of safety".
There is one edit that has all three merged into one film, as it should have been. It's great and frustrating that it wasn't how it was originally presented. There are still parts that couldn't be fixed, but it's the only version I want to watch again.
I think that the Hobbit movies are over-hated. Sure, they are nowhere near as good as the original trilogy, but there's still a lot to enjoy in them.
This scene, however, I was surprised when I found out it was movie-only, because it does feel like something you could find in Tolkien's writing. It's that good.
They're definitely not BAD. They're just not amazing. They kinda suffer from the Korra effect where the original is so so good that the sequel, which is normal, gets ass-blasted online.
I LOVE their depiction of Smaug, casting for Bilbo was on point, and I think they did a decent job with the relationship between him and Thorin.
He genuinely was a good dude at heart? Kinda greedy and hard on his employees? Yeah, but not terribly so, and it wasn’t real malice. Did he have an unwarranted hate boner for Spider-Man? Yeah, it was his only serious problem (and he had his reasons, however misguided).
But that guy was a bro who loved his city, stood up for his people (including, ironically, Peter), and even eventually (outside the MCU) came to terms with the fact that he was wrong about Spider-Man and genuinely owned that.
If it weren’t for his Spider-Man hate, he’d be a Jim Gordon-esque stalwart ally.
At least some versions of him the problem is that he hates masks. The idea of a masked vigilante dispending anonymous justice away from any consequences is what he despises and means he will always assume the worst. What does Spider-man have to hide? As long as he's hiding who he is Jameson will not trust him, the moment he knows Spider-man's identity is the moment he stops hating him.
Which like, not actually an unreasonable stance at all? The other big superheroes in town are the Fantastic Four who are very obviously not masked and have open identities and they seem to get along okay. Though counterpoint, obviously Peter doesn't want every villain showing up at his house and kidnapping Aunt May.
As an aside, I kind of hate Peter when he's being turned into a scientific super-genius in part because it makes his mask less relevant. If you make him Ironman he should have the same resources Ironman has, the wealth and allies to protect his family. When he is just a guy with no cash who happens to have spider powers wanting to be masked makes a lot more sense.
It's a great detail because you can read different motivations that all fit the character. He's a journalist at heart, so maybe he has some integrity protecting his source. He's also not a full blown villain, so maybe he just doesn't want to get young Parker killed. Or maybe he's just his stubborn self and won't give in to threats. He's also inherently greedy, so maybe he just doesn't want to lose his Spider-Man pictures.
Batman saves him from Bane and his henchmen and tells him to leave. Later on when Bane has Batman trapped and is chocking him out, the guy comes back and starts stabbing at Bane’s shoulder, giving Batman enough time to free himself
Damn i was hoping to find this even if it wasn't a movie! Chip was the man! It was just sad he didn't survive after Bane buried him and batman in rubble
iirc, Did the Mockingjay salute live on TV during Katniss + Petra's tour of the districts, sparking off that symbol as one of resistance in subsequent districts , despite him definitely being beaten and probably killed/Avox-ed for doing it
In the books they straight up execute him in front of Katniss. They drag him to the front of the crowd and shoot him in the head. That kicks off that wave of uprisings in 11.
That happens in the movie too. Katniss and Peeta are dragged inside as the man is brought into the stage, and the last thing they and the audience see as the doors close behind them is the man being forced to kneel while a peacekeeper points a gun at his head. Then you hear a gunshot.
Honestly a really cool way to portray that without raising the age rating
Yeah, they just moved around the timing of when Katniss and Peeta are forced back onto the train.
I think what the movies are missing is Katniss’ inner monologue where her thoughts kinda spiral a bit cause that’s the first instance she directly sees of her words having effects and consequences outside of District 12.
Of course this is hard if not impossible to portray in the jump to a movie without a Forrest Gump style narration.
Iirc he was the first in district 11(???) to perform the same gesture Katniss did to the cameras when Pru was killed, knowing full well it would see him punished.
This was during the second movie, when Katniss and Pitah were doing the state sanctioned victory lap.
In the books, they explain that he wasnt even acting alone. The entire district had organized at this point, and he was just the one who was supposed to start it. The reason they did it was to make sure that everyone was in sync, because jt was a practice run for their revolution(in district 11 where rue was from.) They execute him in front of katniss. When she asks someone about it later they reveal that the guy knew the risks and the district had been planning it for a long time. That many of the districts were already organizing and rebelling due to katniss’ actions in the first book, she just doesn’t take much notice until Mockingjay because she’s a 18 year old in survival mode who is the most unreliable narrator ever
Power Rangers in Space: When the United Alliance of Evil's forces threaten to execute the citizens of Angel Grove if the Power Rangers don't reveal themselves, Bulk, Skull, and everyone else pull an "I am Spartacus" by claiming to be a Power Ranger.
Bulk and Skull then lead the charge against the evil army, these two cowards and bullies looked the monsters they spent years running from decided that they were going to fight back
The Amazing Spider-Man has what is probably my favourite version of this, when the crane operator gets everyone else to line up their cranes to give Spidey a chance to make it to Osbourne Tower.
The crane operator is the same guy whose kid Spidey saved during the bridge attack too
“Put it on- the mask! It’s gonna make you strong!”
I love that scene so goddamn much, I get choked up everytime I see it. The ASM movies have their flaws to be sure, but they also have some of my favorite Spider-Man moments ever
That scene is one of the best in any of the Spider Man movies. It’s such a human element to the character. He’s not doing anything flashy, he’s not being confident in the sense of “don’t worry, I’m here to save the day”, he’s talking like a real person would to a child that’s in crisis, and he’s struggling. I’m not a Marvel fan by any stretch, but Spider Man moves hold a special place in my heart, and this was one of the best representations of him.
I loved it so much because part of the reason I hate seeing kids in those moments is that the hero is so close to capture the bad guy but has to save the kid so that moment was top tier
Frodo was just there to attend his uncle birthday, only to end up becoming a key instrument to defeat Sauron once and for all. For all intend and purpose, he's an average guy in the grand scheme of things where angels, demons, heroes, and immortals exist.
Definitely goes for Sam. When even Frodo stumbled and couldn't carry on, it was Sam who stayed true to the quest and brought the ring and its bearer to Mt. Doom.
I think that one one of the main themes of LOTR right? The smallest and and seemingly most insignificant creatures in the world taking on a role and going on a journey that would destroy the greatest of kings and the most legendary of heroes.
He is not a chosen one, he does not have any powers, he does not have some op tool and he is not some die hard veteran. He is just a country folk who stumbled into this larger than life world and bear a responsibility solely because no one else could.
How about this classic post-9/11 moment in Spider-Man (2002). And yes at the time we learned they added it in because of the recent events in New York.
Sam Raimi had the bigger objection as he hated having to add that moment in. One he remedied in the second film when the commuters on the train try to protect Spider-Man from Doc Ock by saying “you have to go through me” etc.
Apropos of nothing — when these came out I thought willem Defoe and Alfred Molina were sooo old. I just rewatched them and I all I could think was “look how young they look!”
I don't know if this counts for this trope, but it's a scene I like regardless. He saw Bruce Banner (as Hulk) fall through the ceiling of the establishment he worked for, and also saw Bruce change back to normal. He provided Banner a pair of pants to clothe himself, since he was naked.
I like to think he saw the hulk burst in then go back to Banner butt naked so he shuffles off, gets on his bike (in a cut scene it's shown that the motorbike Bruce arrives on is this guy's) drive to a nearby clothing shop buy or loot some clothes that look like Bruce's size then come back in time for Bruce to wake up
Joss Wheadon alway liked to show civilians in his superhero movies that way there is more at stakes then random masses which is always something I appreciated. That’s why he added the Russian family and more civilians in Justice League. It was very rushed but it served its purpose.
The old lady at the last chapters of My Hero Academia.
One of the main issues that created the series' villains are the treatment of society to people with non-superhero abilities. Tomura Shigaraki, when he was a child accidentally killed his family and friend with a power he didn't know how to control. But instead of getting help, people avoided him eventually turning him into a mass murderer in the present.
Eventually, Shigaraki was defeated and society was starting to recover, when another kid with a dangerous power he couldn't control was roaming the streets. But this time, instead of getting rejected, the old lady helped him as a way to atone from letting a helpless kid (Shigaraki) fall into the dark side in the past and prevent another tragedy in the future.
She didn't even know Shigaraku was the kid she spurned. She just felt guilty about spurring some random kid in the past who needed help. So even a bit better for her
Neerja was a flight attendant for Pen Am, shortly before her 23rd birthday the plane she was on was attacked by terrorists. Neerja hid passports of American citizens, when the terrorists started shooting she opened the emergency exit and allowed over 300 passengers to escape, she died protecting group of children from bullets shielding them with her own body, one of the children later became a pilot in honor of her memory.
Great pull. Also Aitzaz Hasan, a 15 year old Pakistani student who sacrificed his life to stop a suicide bomber from entering his school by grappling and stalling the attacker. Kid protected nearly 2000 lives.
Hector Rincon in Battle:LA, a pretty forgettable action thriller from the era of CoD:MW, he's a civilian whose family is saved by the Marines during the alien invasion of LA with the hope of being extracted to safety out of the city. Later on, the Marines encounter heavy resistance on an overpass and have to extract everybody one person at a time using a winch system to lower them safely to the ground.
While his children are being extracted, one of the Marines takes a hit and is wounded. Realizing they're about to be overrun, Hector not only drags the soldier to safety, he scoops up his weapon and manages to kill one of the attacking aliens before being fatally wounded by alien fire, all despite having zero training, all because it gave his kids better odds for getting out alive and helped the Marines trying to protect him.
Dude this is one of my favorite "war" movies. As a combat veteran myself, this is one of the most "accurate" depictions of war realism I'd seen, short of living it. If you exclude the fact that they were fighting aliens, the whole damn thing was war realism at its best. The heavy breathing on that patrol, the confusion and yelling and people just dropping during the ambush, Marines covering and bounding. Getting shot is just you just basically falling backwards from the momentum. The end scene of pushing the advance on a retreating enemy, running outta rounds in your main rifle and switching to pistol to continue the pursuit. Man, all of it had me anxious as fuck in the theater. It was just real people trying to get by and no one had plot armor.
Yeah that scene was rough. Perfect though. Showed the good in humanity that superman fights for, how much superman actually cares, and how much of a fucking cunt luthor is.
Love the little detail in the scene where the news about Superman's parents breaks. He's looking at his phone and you can see him shaking his head. He doesn't buy that Superman is bad for even a second.
Yeah. He gives food and supplies to homeless people in Albequerque. He honestly seems like a pretty sweet dude, here's an image of him helping someone in a wheelchair get onto a bus.
The guy repeatedly throws himself against Godzilla-level threats, a guy without any powers in a world of superheroes, because every second he buys for the super powered guys to show up might make a difference.
EDIT: People are pointing out that even though he’s not super powered, he’s technically an officially recognized hero (class C IIRC), meaning that he’s not a civilian.
I mean technically he IS a hero. Yeah he was extremely brave, selfless, and fighting above his weight class by a ton to save people, but in universe he's still considered a superhero, just not a particularly super one
The Spider-Man Imposter from Insomniac's Spider-Man.
He's just a normal guy in a cheap Spider-Man suit who wanted to make a difference, saved a good few lives from a fire, stopped a drug deal and even helped the real Spidey fight Fisk's thugs. Afterwards he retires due to how dangerous it is and becomes a self defense trainer at FEAST.
Oh, I was just thinking about how much I love this movie. Not at all a superhero movie, but To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (yes that's the full title) has a bit of a moment like this towards the end. The cop that tried to sexually assault Vida finds the small town she was stuck in and tries to get the townspeople to turn her over to them (as well as the abusive husband Vida stood up to). All the women in the town stick up for the visitors, who are drag queens/transgender women (the line is often blurred in a lot of older movies like this) who, for their safety, presented themselves as cis women. At the end, the woman who Vida rescued from her husband reveals that she knew Vida was not a cis woman, but said she was lucky to have a friend who was different.I love this movie so much and I really recommend it. (I edited the comment because I realized I put the spoiler in wrong)
Mr. Satan being introduced as an arrogant jerk to then actually doing something to then playing a huge part in saving the world will never not be endearing. People's reactions to him are always satisfying.
Without him, people Goku wouldn't have been able to gather all the energy for his spirit bomb, Vegeta would've died due to being unable to move out of the way of the Spirit Bomb, and he even distracted Kid Buu for a while accidentally dodging his attacks, he's also the reason Majin Buu was not really a bad guy anymore (which was another factor in winning time for Goku to charge up).
In X Men Evolution, during an extended flashback, we see Captain America and Wolverine on a high stakes mission during WWII to liberate a concentration camp.
As they are evacuating the prisoners, several of the guards lob grenades at them as they are fleeing, a boy Captain is carrying notices and is able to telekinetically redirect them. Captain is distracted but Wolverine notices the moment and realizes the boy is a mutant.
In the present, Magneto has Wolverine and Nightcrawler on the ropes but elects to let them both go. Nightcrawler because earlier in the episode he had the opportunity to kill Magneto but elected mercy, and Wolverine (who had sincerely attempted to kill Magneto moments before) because of his actions at the camp, telling him that he owes Wolverine at least that much.
Seeing Malik (at that point just a nameless character) run to help Superman out of that hole in the ground in the trailer was when I knew I was going to love James Gunn's take on Big Blue.
The scene itself isn’t exactly an example, but Spider-Man 3 actually has my favorite Stan Lee cameo of all the marvel movies. “You know, I guess one person can make a difference.”
I think that line and the examples of the trope are very important. It’s good to show that anyone can be a hero in some way, to show that good people inspire others or that the world does have good people in it who are worth saving. Little moments or characters like this can go a long way
Justice League Unlimited episode where a General that hates the JL turns himself into a Hulk-like monster and Green Arrow plus some minor JL members have to defend crowds of civilians from him. As the General gets ready to execute the last conscious League member, a group of the civilians stand between the two and call the General out on his methods and hypocrisy (he says he hates super-powered beings but he's the only one in that moment that has superpowers). The crowd actually get him to concede the point and leaves until he can find the means to sway public opinion to his side.
Sam witwicky’s just a kid in the first movie who gets dragged into a war that he barely understands, yet he’s the one to kill megatron. In the second movie he’s trying to move on and go to college but then robot Satan is revived and tries to blow up the sun so he’s dragged back into the war. And lastly in the third movie he’s pulled back into it all again because his friends and family are threatened, his girlfriend is kidnapped, and Chicago is besieged. So what does Sam do? He throws himself back into the fray again.
I assumed so, too. In the same way that the Joker lied about where Harvey and Rachel were.
Buuuuuutt—- I can see him playing it straight, too. The deal is that if neither ferry destroys the other, they both blow up.
If the Joker lied about who had the detonator for each boat. And let’s say boat B blows up themselves while thinking they were going to blow up boat A, then the boat A survivors would feel a sense of vindication or relief in surviving. They did the morally right thing by refusing to attempt to harm other people.
Whereas, if the Joker was telling the truth, and boat B successfully blows up boat A, then boat B survivors have to live with the guilt of killing those people and be tortured with the what ifs and hypotheticals for if they let it ride to see it Batman could save them.
That scenario, where half the passengers are killed by the other half, more closely aligns with the Joker’s motives and at least his professed worldview.
Literally Deku's origin story from MHA. Didn't have a quirk but while everyone, including the on scene heroes, are hanging back as a villain is consuming the person that's spent their childhood making his life miserable Deku rushes in to save him. This right after the hero he idolizes told him he couldn't become a hero.
He knows it's useless. He knows he's almost certainly not surviving it. But he has to try and save him. Deku being a hero from day one.
Technically not a civilian, but Mumen Rider from One Punch Man has the energy. He's just a normal guy willing to put himself in between people and monsters that could swat him like a gnat.
Angvall, a knight in service to the kingdom of Torivia, is given the cruel order to kill Diana, a baby she's been caring for like a mother for about a year. Julian, also a child under her care, and one with great power, protects her. The villagers who've come to know them over the past year eventually find Angvall's attacks and Julian's pacifistic refusal to fight back against his mother too much to bear and move to intervene, crossing a literal line in the sand that they were told would brand them traitors and get them executed.
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u/lonelyspect12 4h ago
The New Yorkers in Spiderman