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A normal city with a small difference
A short-lived British comedy series, No Heroics was the first sitcom produced by ITV2 and ran from September to October 2008 for six 20-minute episodes.
The series is set in modern-day Britain, in what the opening describes as "a normal city with one small difference: there are superheroes". They're pretty much common-place, with powers ranging from super strength to controlling monkeys, and since the public knows about them, they just hang out in capes all day. Our main characters themselves are a group of "capes" who meet after work in The Fortress — the pub where superheroes go to unwind and where there are "No Masks, No Powers, No Heroics", hence the title.
Of course, the series parodies a good number of superhero tropes and there's a lot of Genre Savvy and shout outs going on.
No Heroics provides examples of:[]
- Alliterative Name: Maggie Mayhem, Velvet Veil.
- Badass Cape: Excelsor tries to invoke this with his golden cape.
- Badass Normal: Notable by their absence.
- Badass Spaniard: Don/Timebomb.
- Bad Guy Bar: The Stronghold.
- Bad Powers, Bad People: Lampshaded by Lightkiller.
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She-Force: You should use your powers for good. |
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- Cape Busters: Anti-cape leagues go around beating up low-powered capes.
- Chest Insignia: They all have one.
- Clark Kenting: No one recognizes She-Force when she's Jenny at work, even though she just put a pair of glasses on. Justified, as there are so many superheroes that you'd have a hard time figuring out who's who anyway.
- Comes Great Responsibility: Played straight for some capes, parodied for most as they fight crimes to be famous and get money from goodies.
- Dating Catwoman: She-Force considers dating one of her former foes, Lightkiller.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: Sarah asks Alex to pretend they're dating again because she knows her dad hates him.
- Everything Sounds Sexier in French: The Hotness tries to invoke this during one of his date.
- Eye Beams: Part of Excelsor's powers.
- ~Fail O'Suckyname~: Ladytrouble. People keep making fun of The Hotness, too.
- Fan Dumb: In-universe, when She-Force and Electroclash go meet the fanclub of their old superheroine team.
- Fantastic Racism: Some normal people hate superheroes and create anti-cape leagues.
- Form-Fitting Wardrobe: Almost all the capes wear tight spandex, including out of shape men.
- Good Powers, Bad People: Invoked with Excelsor, who has all of Superman's powers but is a major Jerkass.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Parodied with the death of Thundermonkey:
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The Hotness: A terrible, terrible waste of human life. |
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- Hot Amazon: She-Force.
- Hurricane of Puns: Pretty much everything in the pub is a pun on superhero series: Shazamstel, V for Vodka, Logan's Rhum, Gin City...
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness: She-Force.
- Infant Immortality: Avoided with the mouthy, homophobic young prince.
- Insult Backfire: Alex's insults always end up like this one way or another.
- Jerkass: Devlin/Excelsor.
- Kick the Dog: Devlin, joking about Alex's dead mom.
- Killed Off for Real: Thundermonkey in the last episode.
- Local Hangout: The Fortress
- Malevolent Masked Men: Doomball
- Maximum Fun Chamber: When Timebomb tortures Doomball.
- Most Common Superpower: She-Force.
- Mouthy Kid: The prince whom Timebomb is hired to protect.
- Mundane Fantastic
- Mundane Utility: All the time. In the opening, The Hotness uses his superpower to warm up a meal, She-Force uses hers to move a car and get a shopping
carttrolley... Electroclash is fond of using her powers to get money and cigarettes for free. - Noodle Implements: Subverted when Timebomb tells Doomball he's going to torture Doomball with bite-size potatoes on toothpicks. Cut to the next scene where we're shown that Timebomb wasn't kidding.
- Nineties Anti-Hero: Parodied with Timebomb, who ends up going to group therapy to try to deal with his attitude.
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Timebomb: At least you got to break somebody's arm. I miss that. |
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- Power Perversion Potential: Excelsor has a whole speech dedicated to how his powers make it impossible for him not to please a woman.
- Reckless Sidekick: Justified as heroes are assigned troubled sidekicks as part of community service.
- Secret Identity: She-Force is the only member of the group who even tries to have one. She works as an accountant.
- Sensual Spandex: Everyone, really.
- Sidekick: Jackrabbit to Electroclash.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Norse Dave, the barman.
- Shout-Out: Too many to count, as the people who made the series were real geeks.
- Smug Super: Excelsor.
- Soaperizing: Most of the show centers on what happens in The Fortress, with only a few minutes of actual hero action in the whole series.
- Stripperiffic: Electroclash's costume is tame compared to what comic book heroines wear, but she still gets remarks.
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Electroclash: Have you seen my costume? It's fucking tiny. |
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- Strange Minds Think Alike: Everyone thinks Alex's beard makes him look like a pedophile.
- Superpower Lottery
- Super Strength: She-Force.
- Super Villain: A lot, including Doomball and Lightkiller.
- The Cape: The term is used to describe any super in the universe but the only one who'd seem to fit the trope is actually Electroclash's dad, Rampart.
- The Hero: Subverted with Excelsor who's basically Superman but acts like a complete asshole to everyone in The Fortress.
- Theme Tune: "Make way for Ladytrouble!"
- The Stoic: Don/Timebomb.
- Unfortunate Names: She-Force and Electroclash used to be a team of superheroines called Ladytrouble.
- Verbal Tic: Fuseboss fuses words. "New friend. Nend."
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Avoided in most cases, since even capes with the power of photocopy are put to good use. Played straight with Thundermonkey, who can summon monkeys:
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Electroclash: How long does it take for the monkeys to get there after you've summoned them? |
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