Comic Book / Hero Squared

2 Following

Hero Squared is a Super Hero Comic Book series running from 2004 to 2009, created by Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis, and illustrated by Joe Abraham and Nathan Watson.

In one universe, Milo Stone is a lazy, immature and irresponsible slacker. In another, he is Captain Valor, a whiter-than-white-bread superhero. When Valor's universe is destroyed after a calamitous battle with Valor's arch-nemesis, Caliginous, Valor finds himself on Milo's doorstop trying to adapt to a universe without any kind of superheroes at all.

Forced to live with each other, the two versions of Milo discover a warm, reciprocal loathing for each other. Valor is less-than-impressed with Milo's selfishness and complete failure to make anything of his life, whilst Milo resents Valor's smug self-righteousness and over-simplified view of the world and how it works. Romantic tensions also arise between the two; Valor has taken a shine to Milo's long-suffering girlfriend Stephie, whilst Caliginous — an alternate version of Stephie, whose relationship with Captain Valor ended very, very badly — has taken a shine to Milo...

The complete story is told across four separate series:

• Hero Squared X-Tra Sized Special (2004), Atomeka Press one-shot
• Hero Squared (2005), Boom! Studios, three issues
• Hero Squared (2006), Boom! Studios, six issues
• Hero Squared: Love and Death (2009), Boom! Studios, three issues

This series provides examples of:

• Alliance of Alternates: Valor attempts this at the start. Sadly, the alternate version he goes to for help never got superpowers and is just an immature slacker.
  • Then there's the Captain Valor Corps, a team of several dozen alternate Valors gathered together to defeat Caliginous.
• All Women Are Lustful: Caliginous is very voracious for Milo, both emotionally and physically. At one point, she starts making out with Milo in the middle of a therapy session.
• Amazonian Beauty: Earth Goddess is a ten-foot-tall muscular woman with flowing silver hair.
• And Call Him "George": Happens on a cosmic scale. After their petty super-squabbles destroy their own universe, Captain Valor and Caliginous find themselves stranded in a more mundane universe. Valor eventually realizes that in this universe, superheroics and physics don't go well together.
• Armored Villains, Unarmored Heroes: Valor is the cape wearing Underwear of Power pitted against Caliginous and her Mini-Mecha suit.
• Becoming the Mask: When he first became Captain Valor, Milo Stone was a fifteen-year-old awkward nerd who had no idea how to act... so he emulated the simple heroic philosophies of his beloved comic books. He eventually adopted that personality full time, even as the years passed and he grew into adulthood.
• Black-and-White Morality: Captain Valor's view of the world is based largely on this — heroes protect the innocent, villains cause trouble, heroes punch villains until they stop, and repeat. It's gradually subverted throughout the series, however.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Milo Stone may be The Slacker, but he's not a total moron — he has a nuanced view of the world and frequently makes sensible arguments against Valor's oversimplistic idealism.
• The Cape: Captain Valor. Possibly justified, as he received his powers at the age of 15, and in his youthful naiveté he modeled his behavior and viewpoints on the Black-and-White Morality from his beloved comic books.
• Captain Ersatz: The leader of the Captain Valor Corps is a cartoon dog who looks and talks like Goofy. He's never actually named, but the resemblance is obvious.
  "Garsh, Milo — what're you starin' at?"
• Classically Trained Extra: Darren East, who played "Captain Valor" in the TV series of the comic-book hero, bemoans his time on the show as a Star-Derailing Role.
• Commitment Issues: Milo eventually realizes he's been self-sabotaging his relationship with Stephie because he thinks life sucks and he's not entitled to happiness.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Milo's friend Blaine thinks Captain Valor is a creation of the Bush Administration to distract people from the problems in his administration.
• Create Your Own Villain: Captain Valor turned his Stephie into the villainous Caliginous after he used his Super-Strength to accidentally (maybe) spill a chalice of cosmic toxins on her.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Milo's beloved parents died in an auto accident when he was young. This ends up giving Milo the belief that life sucks, leading to some deep-seated Commitment Issues.
• Death by Gluttony: According to Caliginous, the Blaine from her reality died from overeating Twinkies.
• Deconstruction: Of Valor's Black-and-White Morality and the concept of The Cape; Valor means well, but his actions outside of a comic book are in many ways just as destructive and irresponsible as the super-villains he battles. Furthermore, for all his fine talk and self-righteousness, he proves to have feet of clay and similar issues to Milo — which is not entirely unexpected, seeing as they are essentially the same man.
• Destructive Saviour: A Running Gag in the series is Captain Valor being told by others that his attempts to save the day end up causing more destruction than Caliginous and her forces.
  "I did not wreck half the city! ...maybe a third."
• Embarrassing Middle Name: To tell them apart, Milo starts referring to Valor with his/their middle name, "Eustace". Valor finds it incredibly embarrassing, while Caliginous laughs herself silly when she learns it.
• Evil Doppelgänger: Done in issue #4 of the 2006 series, appropriately titled "Clone Saga" (complete with Take That!).
• Fictional Counterpart: In Milo's universe, "Captain Valor" comic books are published by Kapow!Comics, led by Rich Eee.
• Gasshole: When Milo and Valor go to see a therapist about their personality issues, Milo uses well-timed farts to undercut Valor's pompous proclamations. Valor does not take that well.
• Go Through Me: Milo throws himself in front of Valor to stop Caliginous from killing him.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: All of the characters are ultimately flawed-but-decent people. Even the supervillain.
• Heroic Build: Captain Valor plays this trope perfectly straight, and it's emphasized for laughs when he's compared to the scrawny and slouching Milo.
  "Unless he's been working out at ten gyms at once — that is not Milo."
• Heroic BSoD: Valor experiences one of these after one of his super-encounters leaves twelve people dead and over 300 injured. He ends up re-evaluating his entire outlook of life based on it.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Valor willingly allows Caliginous to kill him, hoping that it will end her universe-destructing rampage. It works.
• Holier than Thou:
  • Captain Valor. His self-righteous condemnation of Milo's various shortcomings, including Milo's previous adultery on Stephie, are somewhat undermined by revelations about his conduct in the alternate universe. Specifically, he broke up with his reality's version of Stephie and then slept with Earth Goddess, causing his Stephie to become the villain Caliginous. He's also quite quick to move in on Stephie when she breaks up with Milo, which is rather low, even with his assertion that he didn't intend for it to happen.
  • According to Caliginous, Captain Valor accused her of taking this attitude, and cited it as one of the reasons why he dumped her for Earth Goddess instead.
• I Can Change My Beloved: This is Stephie's main motivation for sticking with Milo over all these years. They met at the age of 13, when Milo was a slovenly acne-riddled friendless teenager with poor grades. She saw his potential and his sensitive nature, then befriended him and gradually helped him improve. Too bad that Milo has some deep-seated insecurities that are holding him back...
• Identical Panel Gag: One page is a nine-panel grid of Milo in the exact same pose.
• I Just Want to Be Special: By all appearances, Captain Valor enjoys being The Cape, finding it far superior to his former life as an awkward nerd — he seldom reverts to his normal form, he is contemptuous of Milo for remaining awkward and nerdy, and despite the pressures of being a respected superhero he's never walked away from the role. Caliginous believes that part of the reason Valor broke up with her is because she remained in love with his mild-mannered self, and Valor grew to resent her for that.
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: Valor cites this trope as the reason why he broke up with his universe's Stephie. She accuses him of using it as an excuse to pursue other women instead.
• Kid Sidekick: Caliginous mentions that the Grim Knight had numerous teen boy sidekicks, who tended to expire very rapidly from the dangerous crimefighting lifestyle.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: After a particularly destructive battle and a bout of Heroic BSoD, Valor finally realizes his idealistic approach is too destructive for Milo's world and quits being a superhero.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: As Caliginous leaves for her reality with Captain Valor's corpse, she erases everyone's memories of the last battle. Only Milo and Stephie are allowed to remember what happened.
• Loves My Alter Ego: This is a major part of the story, as Milo and Stephie's relationship is strained by both Captain Valor and Caliginous' affections for them.
  • If Caliginous' assessment is correct, Valor's breakup with her is another example of this trope. According to Caliginous, she originally loved Milo Stone for the dorky-but-sensitive nerd that he was. After Milo became Captain Valor, he grew to resent that she preferred his mild-mannered alter ego when he'd rather remain as Captain Valor all the time.
• Mini-Mecha: Caliginous goes into battle in a twelve-foot-tall enclosed mech suit, piloted with a series of joysticks and pedals.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Caliginous gets this after she kills Captain Valor. She was calling his bluff, and had expected him to pull a last-second save to thwart her.
• My Greatest Failure: Valor sees Caliginous as a maniacal villain and assumes the worst from her as a coping mechanism to avoid facing the fact that he hurt her emotionally and was the one who turned her into a supervillain.
• Never My Fault: Caliginous insists that Captain Valor is the one who set off her universe-destroying superweapon with his carelessness — but even if her version of the story is accurate, she's still the one who created a universe-destroying superweapon in the first place.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Though they're suggested to be technologically-based, Caliginous' powers are never clearly defined, and she displays new abilities when needed to advance the plot. Possibly justified as her powers apparently come from the mystical Empyrian nectar that scarred her body when Captain Valor dumped it on her.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: Caliginous sees herself as this — from her perspective, she's not trying to take over the world, but to save it from super-powered beings who use their powers to rule over the Muggles.
• Odd Couple: Captain Valor and Milo, with Valor's oversimplistic worldview clashing with Milo's unambitious lifestyle and nuanced perspectives.
• Offing the Annoyance: Caliginous has Sloat, a very obsequious henchbeing who fulfills her every demand. Whenever he annoys her too much, she kills him and clones another.
• Only Sane Man: Stephie's probably the most down-to-earth character in the book.
• Other Me Annoys Me: Milo finds Valor annoying, while Valor thinks Milo is wasting his life away.
  Valor: What happened to you, Milo? How did a young man of such extraordinary potential become... this?
  Milo: Could you say that again, with just a little more contempt?
• Parental Substitute: Milo was raised by his Uncle Paul and Aunt Betty. By all accounts they love Milo unconditionally and are fully supportive of him.
• Power Limiter: Caliginous' Mini-Mecha is actually an inhibitor to contain the Empyrean Energies inside her, which threaten to destroy the multiverse if unrestrained.
• Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: Caliginous turns herself into a universe-destroying supervillain after Captain Valor broke up with her and started seeing other women. He claims to have done it for her safety, but she thinks he resented her for reminding him of his mundane past and wanted to find someone who'd embrace his life as The Cape. The fact that he (accidentally?) dumped a cauldron of scalding mystic toxins on her didn't help matters any.
• Put Them All Out of My Misery: Captain Valor hurt his girlfriend, so she became a supervillain and destroyed the entire universe. At least, that's how Valor tells it...
• Questionable Consent: Although everyone, including Milo himself, treats it as cheating, Caliginous threatens Milo's life should he say no before sleeping with him.
• "Rashomon"-Style: Used repeatedly in flashbacks to events before the start of the story — any time Valor or Caliginous talk about something from their past, it will have minor but significant differences depending on who's doing the telling.
  • Issue #2 of the 2005 series tells the destruction of Captain Valor's universe in flashback, from both Valor and Caliginous' perspectives. Both, naturally, vary significantly, and we never really find out whose was closer to the truth. Valor says he was tricked into accidentally triggering the bomb, while Caliginous says Valor set it off because he was careless with the detonator.
• Redemption Equals Death: Captain Valor offers to have Caliginous kill him to amend for all the pain and hurt he has inflicted on her.
• Refugee from TV Land: This trope applies to Captain Valor and Caliginous, as their adventures (as well as those of everyone from their reality) are considered pop-culture fodder in Milo's world, complete with comic books, action figures, movies, and television shows.
• Reset Button: After she kills Captain Valor and realizes he wasn't lying about his Heroic Sacrifice, Caliginous uses her Empyrean powers to change the past so the Milo and Stephie from her universe never went on the museum field trip, preventing Milo from becoming Captain Valor and averting everything else that followed.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Sloat speaks with grandiose flowery language laced with gratuitously long words.
  Sloat: Sloat will not countenance such calumny!
  Milo: "Countenance such calumny"? Is that English?
• Shout-Out:
  • The cover for issue #1 of the 2006 series is a replica of Amazing Fantasy #15 (the introduction of Spider-Man).
  • Similarly, issue #6 of the 2006 series copies Detective Comics #26 (the introduction of Robin).
• The Slacker: Milo dreams of being a film director, but spends most of his time either playing video games, watching movies, or tinkering with a documentary about his uncle the sanitation worker.
• Smug Super: Captain Valor, in some ways. He gets better eventually.
• Some Nutty Publicity Stunt: When Caliginous' forces invade New York City and try to kidnap Stephie, she accuses them of being part of a stunt as part of some government scheme.
  "You're probably a bunch of actors hired by the Republican National Committee to strike fear into the populace so that the right-wing industrial fascists can—"
• Stalker with a Crush: Milo briefly regresses into one of these after Stephie breaks up with him.
• Superman Substitute: Captain Valor is this played straight and idealistically. In addition to his Flying Brick power set, he has a form of X-Ray vision and refers to having heat vision. He's also the leader of the Planetary Brigade and its most powerful member, and his costume consists of a cape, spandex, Underwear of Power, and a stylized "V" across his torso. His origin, however, is more evocative of Billy Batson/Captain Marvel.
• Superpowered Alter Ego: Captain Valor is this to Milo Stone, who received his powers when he was a 15-year-old awkward nerd. Although Valor can revert to his normal human form, he almost never does so, apparently because he enjoys being a superhero too much.
• Surveillance as the Plot Demands: Caliginous has a limitless number of micro-cameras that allow her to see anything and everything that the other characters are doing.
• Sycophantic Servant: Sloat, Caliginous' reptillian henchman, shamelessly grovels and debases himself to please her.
  Caliginous: Stop groveling!
  Sloat: But majesty — Sloat cannot help it! Groveling is as much a part of Sloat's genetic programming as sucking up!
• This Is Reality: A recurring theme of the series is that Milo's universe does not follow the Comic Book rules that Captain Valor and Caliginous are accustomed to, which causes unexpected and catastrophic problems all around. In a mild example, after an elderly man suffers a heart attack in the street, Captain Valor flies him to a nearby hospital in under a minute — but that's still not enough to save him.
• Thou Shall Not Kill: Played for laughs with the Grim Knight.
  "Everyone in the Planetary Brigade took a solmen vow never to kill! Grim Knight only used his sword to wound... and occasionally maim. And... on very rare occasions... sever a limb or two."
• Too Much Information: Sloat literally worships being crushed beneath Caliginous' feet.
  Sloat: Sloat adores the Lord Caliginous' boot heels. In fact, Sloat has spent many joyful hours alone... caressing them!
  Caliginous: That's really more information than I needed.
• Tragic Villain: Caliginous definitely qualifies. She fell in love with an awkward teen with a sensitive side, only to see him become a Flying Brick and become The Cape with a reductionist view of the world. She sticks with him for years through thick and thin, only to have him dump her for a super-powered Amazonian Beauty, then gets burned on half her face and body when he dumps a giant chalice of cosmic toxins on her. Finally, he fights her as his Arch-Enemy, refusing to help her heal or even listen to her.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Milo's Uncle Paul and Aunt Betty, who are shown in flashback to be a fat sloppy sanitation worker and a power-suit executive, respectively.
• Wizard Classic: Xisuthros, the Old Seer who gave Captain Valor his powers mostly fits this trope, being an ancient male with a Magic Staff and a white Wizard Beard that covers his entire body.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Caliginous has decided that life is nothing but pain, misery, cruelty, and death, and should be ended in preferably a fashion to hurt Valor's pride as much as possible. Valor just sees her as an evil megalomaniac, but his alternative self Milo manages to recognize that beneath it all she's a broken, lonely, psychologically tormented and suffering woman.