Today, according to CA’s parent blog, the Asylum Network, is National Cliche Day, and in order to celebrate, I’ve put together a gallery of my ten favorite comic book cliches!

Putting this together was one of those experiences where I was almost overwhelmed with choices, as seventy years of super-hero comics have resulted in an entire language of recurring tropes, from the tradtional Marvel Comics Fight-Then-Team-Up to Gotham City’s absolute refusal to put homicidal maniacs behind anything tougher to break out of than your average grade papier-mâché. But it ended up being a lot of fun picking out the ones that were fun to talk about from the near-limitless selection Laura Hudson and I bantered back and forth.

If pressed, though, I’ve got to admit that my favorite of the ones listed is the outright insanity of super-villain names. Like I said when the last issue of Batman and Robin came out, if I’m Dick Grayson and I meet a guy named “Oberon Sexton,” I’m just going to start hitting him on general principle, and if I’m Jeremiah Arkham, I’m going to think very