Do You Consider Superhero/Comics "Sci-Fi?"

[Wes]

I've always sort of considered comic superhero media (for example, the Avengers movies) as their own genre, not as "science fiction" proper. When I think of sci-fi, I'm thinking of spaceships, aliens, and the scary implications of future technologies, not so much about superheroes.

I was wondering if you guys feel the same or if I'm just out of touch, because it bugs me when I search for sci-fi stuff and get superhero results instead of what I'm looking for.

 

[Fred]

I guess?

Just like how Romance includes Romantic Comedies and Romantic Dramas, I kind of figure Science Fiction has subgenres. Superhero flix tend to try to justify larger-than-life figures in a mundane world, which I suppose is one facet of what science fiction can be.

 

[Primitive Polygon]

Guess you could call it science-fantasy like the kind you find in Star Wars, but not science fiction? Kind of ironic seeing as they are almost always set in the real world as a rule of thumb, but consistent logic doesn't really tend to be a super hero movie strongpoint...

 

[Aendri]

I tend to categorize them more or less like Primitive. It's more Fantasy than Science-Fiction, to me, even if they do include certain elements of science.

 

[raz]

Marvel and DC are certainly both sci-fi universes by explicit design. Using the same example, the first Avengers movie is as much sci-fi as 2005's War of the Worlds, if an alien invasion of New York is any sort of measurement. But no, I don't see all superhero content as sci-fi and have run into similar frustrations when looking around the internet. Don't think anyone would say "Captain America is my favorite science fiction," either.

 

[Moogle]

Superhero comics have always been science fiction. Lab accidents, wild inventors, travelers from another planet. . .

 

[Syaoran]

Depends on the hero if you ask me. For instance, Dr.Strange, not really Sci-fi. A lot of them are lightly to heavily sci-fi but plenty of them aren't. And you can't jsut lable them by what 'world' they inhabit because connected comic universes apply to many genre. Like how Batman isn't really a sci-fi book. Even if it has light sci-fi elements(sophisticated tech) it's not really sci-fi cause that's not at all the focus of it.

 

[shadowclasper]

Considering, that as far as book stores and most websites are concerned, lord of the rings is categorized as 'science fiction', I don't think it's really up to us to say one way or another.

 

[Zack]

The first thing I think when I hear this is that there can be superheros who aren't Sci-fi.

"Jonnah Hex is a DC character from the old West!" I would say, bringing up an obvious counter-example, "he rides horses, shoots guns, and constantly time travels to fight people in/from the future using spaceships and flying robo-horses!"

wait... Crap.

Ok, so lets check the wikipedia:

Science fiction

is a genre of speculative fiction dealing with imaginative concepts such as futuristicscience and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes andextraterrestrial life. Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a "literature of ideas."[1] It usually eschews the supernatural, and unlike the related genre of fantasy, historically science fiction stories were intended to have at least a faint grounding in science-based fact or theory at the time the story was created, but this connection has become tenuous or non-existent in much of science fiction.[2][3][4]

Strictly speaking, it looks like modern comic books are solidly sci-fi.

On the other hand, I don't think that distinction means much.

 

[LittleWasp]

I generally think of superhero material as being more power fantasy than sci-fi.

Sci-fi tends to be about having fun taking theoretical and factual scientific concepts and creating one's own image of how those concepts might be used (usually in the distant future).
Superhero stuff always felt more like having a lovable cast of characters who have fantastical abilities, with more emphasis put into the 'what' rather than the 'why' and 'how'.

If I were to imagine a 'crush beam' in a sci-fi setting, I'd feel a hell of a lot more pressure to determine and describe how and why this beam tends to crush things that it hits. As for 'Captain Man', he might obtain his bagel super-powers from an irradiated bakery, but the exact reason or circumstances as to why usually dangerous gamma rays would affect his body in such a thematic way would not be an immediate concern. Instead, I'd probably get 'round to doodling up some fluff for his bakery powers a few years down the line, where I'm more jaded and wondering what on earth I was thinking about when I first wrote the character.

 

[Syaoran]

@LittleWasp brings up a good point kind of hinting at the difference between Science Fiction and Science Fantasy, where Sci-fi is mostly about taking things relatively seriously, and explaining things(The Expanse) and Science Fantasy is just a fantasy story with high tech(Star Wars). This puts the Famous Star Trek somewhere in the middle leaning more to Science Fiction.

But I think the real thing is what makes something a genre of a series? I don't think something is a 'genre' unless it's a key element of the story, at least that's my opinion. so like Spider-Man for instance, though his back story is science, and lots of bad guys have high tech stuff, that's not really the point of his books, so he'd be outside of sci-fi, or for the sake of argument just barely in it, but if you were describing the book to someone who doesn't know anything about it, I don't think 'Sci-fi' is a word you'd use.

I also think 'Superhero' is its own genre in the first place, it's just that we only really saw it in comic books until relatively recently in terms of media. But now that it's getting everywhere, even in Japanese media now(I'm talking non super sentai stuff) I think it should probably be considered its own genre.

 

[Primitive Polygon]

Star Trek is more kind of a victim of the unfortunate truth that it's a lot faster/cheaper to make a god-like hazy blur with a voice over, than it is to make a fully articulated nine foot bug man with his own language and customs. Even when they made TNG and the budget seriously improved, they were stuck with the cannon god-aliens baggage. I guess that's the main "space opera" element that it shares with Star Wars.

Oh well. At least they tried a lot harder to be consistent and hard-science than series like Space 1999.

Which is actually kind of another point, in a way. Surely 'badly explained' Sci-fi can also still be Sci-fi? Things like Close Encounters and X-files tired their hardest to tell the audience as little as possible.

 

[Rhysis]

Without taking the time required to read all the other posts...because I'm tired...my answer is no, they're not sci-fi by themselves. Now, is it possible for superheroes to be included in sci-fi? Absolutely. But the existence of a superhero, by themselves, doesn't qualify as science fiction.

 

[Born-On-Board]

negative, because superhero fiction is its own genre.

at this point, any science-fiction present in the work becomes a secondary element.