The Trouble With Tanks
This is a mild essay that has been burbling a long time, and was brought to the fore (again) with the recent Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Specifically the scene where Drax the Destroyer, a generic brick type tank, has an extended fight with the main villain of the piece. It should not really be a surprise or a spoiler for me to say that in the early middle of the movie, a single character alone in a composite cast is unable to defeat the primary villain of the piece. But the contemptuous manner in which it was physically portrayed prompts this piece.
A digression along similar lines:
My favorite character in the old 'New Mutants' comic book was named 'Karma'. A Vietnamese refugee, her special power was that she had a particular type of physical mind control. She looks at you, you lose control of your body, and she's now moving it. The tougher you are, the worse her control and the more she has to move her own body to focus on yours, resulting in a harmonizing effect (for those of you familiar with old Glorantha spells). In the case of mooks, she could sometimes control several, but all would act in unison with her in a mook-pyramid effect similar to the end of the excellent movie 'Push' which everyone should go see/rent/Netflix/purchase.
The problem with this story-wise quickly became obvious. If the enemy was a single megavillain Karma's powers could not work because she would look at the villain, take over his body, and the plot would be over. That would be boring, therefore it was never allowed. In any such plot she could only look at the villain, grimace and say, "He's too strong!" then collapse in backlash agony. When this got too stupid, her character was put on a bus to nowhere.
Roleplaying gamers amongst you will recognize the same thing with 'save or screw' magic spells. As characters grow in power and gain more access to spells that instantly neutralize an opponent, the enemies gain more and more immunities/resistances/defenses to such attacks. As games evolve, we commonly see rules fixes changing the nature of these spells to do points of damage plus milder status effects as opposed to 'save or screw'; plus the addition of various powers to protect against such screws. Some examples are:
Disintegrate changing from save-or-dust to save-or-take-2x-level damage
Mind Blank style protections to negate Holds, Charms, Dominates making them just as useless as Karma
4th ed D&D 'shed mark' powers, as authors realize that it was way too hard for a marked enemy to escape the conditions for sustaining a mark
4th ed D&D 'multistage villains' where videogame style the first body 'dies' when its hit points are expended and it spawns the next villain, moving to the second stage of the combat. (And conveniently the second stage is considered an entirely new creature so marks, status effects, and multi-power locking effects are all gone.)
Which brings us back to Tanks. Let's use some primary examples - Colossus, who is invariably done poorly, and Superman, who can often be done well.
Think back. When has Colossus of the X-Men ever won a fight? Flat out, just won? Was bigger, stronger, smarter, and tougher than his opponent, duked it out hammer and tongs, and came out the victor? I can think of very very few occasions; very close to none over twenty plus years and many different adaptations. Oh, sure, he contributes to the team. He soaks up bullet and drugged-dart fire while people hide behind him; he throws Wolverine in the fastball special, and he has a particular gimmick - I think it's a mutant power - to always be underneath a non-flying enemy who has been catapulted into the sky so he punches them back up as they are falling.
But he himself never wins. Never of his own accord due to his grit, determination, well-trained skills, and/or clever application of powers.
Let's look at Superman. Thankfully, Superman is different. Often, the beginning of a Superman story will have him trashing a villain who might otherwise be impressive against others, but is not to him. He wins. Flat out. It's just a lead-in to something more serious, often a problem that can't just be punched, but he does win in a way that Colossus only wins against mooks.
Superman is also commonly put up against events that can't just be punched. A collapsing building. Busted railroad tracks. A bomb somewhere in the lead-lined sewers. A stolen isotope or biological weapon.
Superman also willingly limits himself. He could punch out or kill Lex Luthor any time but he will never do it until he can prove Lex Luthor guilty of a crime.
Superman's moral structure helps create stories that get around the trouble with tanks. For example, take the iPad Superman game, covered here on livejournal. Superman defends Metropolis from incoming meteors and killer robots. They can't hurt him, because he's Superman. But they can knock him around and stun him and when they do, meteors and robots get down to the surface. The game ends not when Superman dies, but when Metropolis is destroyed.
This is an example of setting different goals for tanks. When one writes a Superman story, the goal should (almost) never be, "Can Superman punch out the villain?" Because that answer is usually 'Yes,' that's where the story ends, and that's a quick, boring story. Other goals must be introduced through moral structure, personality, relationships, what-have-you.
Side comment again: The only valid plotline where a tank is allowed to straight-on defeat a primary villain is the loss-retraining-victory plotline common to martial arts movies. It's the one where the hero first encounters the villain, shows some skill, but gets trashed. He then finds an old mentor/trains on the Warworld/fights for survival in the Savage Land/discovers an Achilles Heel to the villain's technique/executes a training montage to take a level in badass and then returns for a final controntation. Bonus points for emotional callbacks to power his endurance. Superman vs. Darkseid in the recent Animated series is the prime example here.
I wish it was different, but it is not. It is the shackles of story structure. Without it, we wouldn't have stories, and then where would we be? All that I ask is that it be done with some respect. That it be done well. Love your tank for what he does.
FISS forever.
A digression along similar lines:
My favorite character in the old 'New Mutants' comic book was named 'Karma'. A Vietnamese refugee, her special power was that she had a particular type of physical mind control. She looks at you, you lose control of your body, and she's now moving it. The tougher you are, the worse her control and the more she has to move her own body to focus on yours, resulting in a harmonizing effect (for those of you familiar with old Glorantha spells). In the case of mooks, she could sometimes control several, but all would act in unison with her in a mook-pyramid effect similar to the end of the excellent movie 'Push' which everyone should go see/rent/Netflix/purchase.
The problem with this story-wise quickly became obvious. If the enemy was a single megavillain Karma's powers could not work because she would look at the villain, take over his body, and the plot would be over. That would be boring, therefore it was never allowed. In any such plot she could only look at the villain, grimace and say, "He's too strong!" then collapse in backlash agony. When this got too stupid, her character was put on a bus to nowhere.
Roleplaying gamers amongst you will recognize the same thing with 'save or screw' magic spells. As characters grow in power and gain more access to spells that instantly neutralize an opponent, the enemies gain more and more immunities/resistances/defenses to such attacks. As games evolve, we commonly see rules fixes changing the nature of these spells to do points of damage plus milder status effects as opposed to 'save or screw'; plus the addition of various powers to protect against such screws. Some examples are:
Disintegrate changing from save-or-dust to save-or-take-2x-level damage
Mind Blank style protections to negate Holds, Charms, Dominates making them just as useless as Karma
4th ed D&D 'shed mark' powers, as authors realize that it was way too hard for a marked enemy to escape the conditions for sustaining a mark
4th ed D&D 'multistage villains' where videogame style the first body 'dies' when its hit points are expended and it spawns the next villain, moving to the second stage of the combat. (And conveniently the second stage is considered an entirely new creature so marks, status effects, and multi-power locking effects are all gone.)
Which brings us back to Tanks. Let's use some primary examples - Colossus, who is invariably done poorly, and Superman, who can often be done well.
Think back. When has Colossus of the X-Men ever won a fight? Flat out, just won? Was bigger, stronger, smarter, and tougher than his opponent, duked it out hammer and tongs, and came out the victor? I can think of very very few occasions; very close to none over twenty plus years and many different adaptations. Oh, sure, he contributes to the team. He soaks up bullet and drugged-dart fire while people hide behind him; he throws Wolverine in the fastball special, and he has a particular gimmick - I think it's a mutant power - to always be underneath a non-flying enemy who has been catapulted into the sky so he punches them back up as they are falling.
But he himself never wins. Never of his own accord due to his grit, determination, well-trained skills, and/or clever application of powers.
Let's look at Superman. Thankfully, Superman is different. Often, the beginning of a Superman story will have him trashing a villain who might otherwise be impressive against others, but is not to him. He wins. Flat out. It's just a lead-in to something more serious, often a problem that can't just be punched, but he does win in a way that Colossus only wins against mooks.
Superman is also commonly put up against events that can't just be punched. A collapsing building. Busted railroad tracks. A bomb somewhere in the lead-lined sewers. A stolen isotope or biological weapon.
Superman also willingly limits himself. He could punch out or kill Lex Luthor any time but he will never do it until he can prove Lex Luthor guilty of a crime.
Superman's moral structure helps create stories that get around the trouble with tanks. For example, take the iPad Superman game, covered here on livejournal. Superman defends Metropolis from incoming meteors and killer robots. They can't hurt him, because he's Superman. But they can knock him around and stun him and when they do, meteors and robots get down to the surface. The game ends not when Superman dies, but when Metropolis is destroyed.
This is an example of setting different goals for tanks. When one writes a Superman story, the goal should (almost) never be, "Can Superman punch out the villain?" Because that answer is usually 'Yes,' that's where the story ends, and that's a quick, boring story. Other goals must be introduced through moral structure, personality, relationships, what-have-you.
Side comment again: The only valid plotline where a tank is allowed to straight-on defeat a primary villain is the loss-retraining-victory plotline common to martial arts movies. It's the one where the hero first encounters the villain, shows some skill, but gets trashed. He then finds an old mentor/trains on the Warworld/fights for survival in the Savage Land/discovers an Achilles Heel to the villain's technique/executes a training montage to take a level in badass and then returns for a final controntation. Bonus points for emotional callbacks to power his endurance. Superman vs. Darkseid in the recent Animated series is the prime example here.
I wish it was different, but it is not. It is the shackles of story structure. Without it, we wouldn't have stories, and then where would we be? All that I ask is that it be done with some respect. That it be done well. Love your tank for what he does.
FISS forever.