The heroes portrayed in television and movies send a tangible message, often based on market research, to the audience about who they are and what they can do. If the audience is primarily male, then a heroine might be shaped with a larger bust size to appeal to them. If the audience incorporates kids, then the costumes might be brightly-colored and their actions might be more exaggerated. For a mainstream audience, a male hero might have an enhanced muscular structure, but not to the point where they no longer look human.

Women and men do impossible things in comics, too, where more artistic liberties can be taken due to the flexibility of the medium. While the way comic book characters are drawn has evolved over time, artistic techniques have sometimes resulted in hypersexualized characters with biologically-impossible physiologies. In recent years, trends have strayed away from so-called “hypersexual” figures, into a more realistically-depicted style. Some heroines — like Witchblade and Wonder Woman — have been reinvented to appear less hyperfeminized than their earlier roots to appeal to a modern audience. The community of independently-owned comic creators has also had a major impact on how heroes and heroines may be explored.

Market research sometimes forces artists and writers to cater the hero for a broader appeal, often factoring in elements like class, ethnicity, nationality and location. However, this is also true of the way non-visual (e.g., story) heroes and heroines are packaged from a marketing perspective. Take a look around your bookstore in the paranormal romance or urban fantasy section. How many covers have pictures of heroines showing their backside with an elaborate tattoo around the waist? Whether or not that picture accurately reflects the heroine is a different issue entirely, but those images are there for a reason.

These gender-based images are rooted within our cultural and personal expectations. In today’s society, we see more images than we ever have before, more ways to depict both hero and heroine because technology facilitates the presentation of micro-and-macro cultures through information, advertising, art, entertainment and our daily lives. Whether we want to or not, we make a judgment when we see a picture, based on our experiences. This is why market research comes into play, to ensure that the visual depiction of the hero meets a common expectation in order to guarantee sales. I feel that’s a drawback of visual media, because the consumer is being fed an image, as opposed to seeing one they’re comfortable with in their mind’s eye.

A heroic figure is developed over a longer period of time in a story than a poster, game, movie or single issue of a comic. The reader gets to know him (or her) through the way they are characterized as opposed to making more rapid decisions based upon the images or snippets of text they see. As a result, the physical form isn’t always as prevalent in a book, because there’s more for the author to focus on. Often, it’s extremely challenging to accurately translate a hero from book form to movie form without taking a few liberties. Remember, a movie can’t get inside the character’s mind like a book can. I wrote a little bit about this topic, with respect to heroines, on my blog when I explored “What’s the Trouble with Female Superhero Movies?”

When I’m writing a heroic character, the physical aptitude and appearance of a hero or heroine isn’t as important as what shortcomings that character must overcome. When I’m designing the world and their backstory, I look at limitations within physical, mental, social or emotional spheres. By going about it this way, I am not painting my character into an artistic corner. I’m not saying, “Well, my heroine can’t possibly do X because she isn’t shaped like X” right off the bat. I have more freedom and more flexibility to work with the character than I would if I focused on gender or simple concepts like “super strong” or “invisible.” Sure, a character can be super-strong, but that’s not enough to sustain a story. Why are they strong? How does that power affect their self-worth? Their relationship with other people? Their role in society?

I have two examples of heroic characters I’ve created recently that are very, very different from one another. In an upcoming anthology dubbed New Heroes from Stone Skin Press, my main character is an iconic hero who is also a vampire. To me, just writing about a heroic vampire wasn’t very interesting, so I took a look at the vampire physiology and tweaked it to give the main character a different limitation. So, in addition to the usual “sunlight” weakness, my vampires cannot get too emotional, for it has a devastating effect on their bodies. The plot of “Fangs and Formaldehyde” and the supporting characters all tie back into that premise, so the limitation is tangible for the hero and for the reader.

The second character is a little, old lady. I wrote a dystopian science fiction story called Lady Yellowbird and the Flight of the Sad Panda which I ended up revising and offering as an e-book. Writing about an elderly heroine was fascinating to me, because there are all kinds of limitations she’ll have to overcome to achieve her goal. Here, this retired schoolteacher does have a power, but in order to use it effectively she has to enlist the help of others. Instead of an emotional limitation, she has physical and social challenges to overcome.

While one character is exceptionally strong (vampire!) and the other is physically weak (grandmother!) both have the beating heart of a hero, because in order to achieve their task they have to overcome a personal obstacle. To me, that’s where true heroism lies. It shouldn’t matter how strong a character is, how much money they have or how powerful they are. It shouldn’t matter what their gender or sexuality or ethnic background is. It shouldn’t matter if they’re pretty, ugly or monstrous. What does matter, is what that character can do in spite of themselves or the world around them. Take away those hurdles and, in my mind, the character isn’t really a hero. They’re just a man (or a woman) who can do impossible things.