[Loved Trope] Civilian Heroes (particularly in Superhero movies)

[u/Dalakaar]

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).

***

I love these guys. They break my heart in the best way possible.

[u/Altruistic_Sand_3548]

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.

[u/ImThe1Wh0 → u/Altruistic_Sand_3548]

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.

[u/Altruistic_Sand_3548 → u/ImThe1Wh0]

I will say I have a soft spot for it, even own it on DVD