1) A guy once said that Marvel make heroes you can relate to, while DC make heroes you can look up to. What I like most, though, is when heroes band together against the forces of evil and try to be smart about it. This is why I love Worm and why I am going to dig up every Hellblazer trade in the county if it kills me. John Constantine isn't very powerful at all, but he's cunning and thinks round corners and tries to game the system as much as humanly possible (which, considering this is a bloke who ripped the wings off the Archangel Gabriel with a friggin' chainsaw, is a surprisingly large amount). Also, something he said struck me as profound.

"I'll tell you the ultimate secret of magic," he said. "Any c*nt can do it."

I want heroes who can be heroes. I also want heroes who aren't immensely musclebound paragons of jock-style masculinity - seriously, Supes, it's the Fortress of Solitude, not the Fortress of CrossFit - and heroines who don't look like two watermelons nailed to an upturned mop. I want to see normal people using their small amount of powers to make the world a better place. I like the small-scale, street-level guys who make lives better for the little guy; not just beating alien invaders, but the crime bosses, protection racketeers, and smaller-scale indignities. It's why I'm getting on well with the Marvel TV stuff on Netflix, I suppose. People fighting in hallways with costumes courtesy of the local Oxfam. Good show.

2) I sort of think I've answered this already with my talking about what heroes mean to me, but I really like the diversity of origins and backstory available to the world of superheroes. They present a much more optimistic worldview (except for that period in the Nineties where everything was grim and gritty and XTREEEEEME) and, y'know, I can respect that. I want more superheroes from other cultures, specifically sub-Saharan African nations (big surprise, I know). I want more than just Americans punching each other and/or aliens. Let's have a chain-smoking Scouse wizard hack his own soul in half to get around a deal with Satan.

Catch Spiderman doing that to get his marriage back. =]

3) A similar objection to the ones Ix has, really. There's not much diversity in the big names. Take the seven founding members of the Justice League (or the Justice League of America to give them their full title, which is a whole other can of worms that led to a brief appearance in one of my Champions campaigns of the Justice League of the Glorious People's Democratic Republic of Milton Keynes and Surrounding Conurbations). Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern, and the Martian Manhunter. One woman. No POC, unless you count the ostensibly Greek-ish Diana. For decades, the black guys on the team were outnumbered by people who were bloody green. Also, super glad that Cyborg's in now, but still. My point stands. I would also really like it if some superheroines could not look like the contents of the artist's spank bank, that can't be too much to ask. =]

Also, to expand on an earlier comment, I hate One More Day and I'd love to see Spiderman get an army together and kick Mephisto's teeth in. Possibly with the help of people from the DCU, like John Constantine. I think they'd get on well.

So why not both at the same time? I do see a lot of similarities between these two, after all.

1) SO many things! The heroes, the villains, the monsters and machines, the over-the-top fighting, the effects... I could go on and on!
2) A lot of stories in both genres are basically "Characters meet each other, fight a lot, and eventually form a team." That's a perfectly fine example of what happens when people work together for long enough and I like it a lot. By the same token, the "villains teaming up with heroes against a common foe" scenario is also fun to watch, especially if it leads to the redemption of the former.
3) tfw minor characters get killed off like flies EVERY SINGLE EPISODE ;_; I just want even the C-Listers to live, dangit!

But since I don't have the patience to answer all of them, I'll answer the ones about magical girl shows.

1) They were some of the first anime I ever watched as a fledgling middle-school weeaboo, and I felt like I understood the main characters a little better than, say, Yugi or Goku. Also, I've always been fascinated by any variety of magic, so there you go.

2) The literal Power of Friendship saving the day. Also how the girls go from cute, awkward civilians to cute, magic-wielding badasses when the monster of the week comes calling.

3) How the heroes (and occasionally the bad guys, too) barely even disguise themselves and still no one notices anything unusual. (Sailor Moon and Tokyo Mew Mew are particularly notable offenders; Cardcaptor Sakura gets points back for having a different costume for each Clow Card fight.)

1) Wish fulfillment, simple as that.

2) Shy/nerdy/bullied kid turns out to have superpowers or gains them through random accident and goes on to become a hero. Again, wish fulfillment; I identified a lot with Spider-Man as a kid for those reasons.

3) Every female superhero looking like this:



Can we please get somebody with a smaller chest in here? I don't think these artists realize how difficult/painful it is to run, let alone fight, with such large *ahem* assets.

Also, the all-too-pervasive "We can't be together because my enemies will hurt you to hurt me" trope. I'm sorry, but the emotional attachment is there and the bad guys know it. Spend time with your loved one while you can, because inevitable kidnapping/torture/murder is inevitable.

1. Action. So much action. I like seeing stuff blow up— and things that go pew pew.
   
   2. Anything related to gunplay, power armour, hi-tech stuffs, fist fighting, explosions, and general badassery. Testosterone Poisoning optional.
   
   3. Fanservice. Why ogle the characters when there's more fights to be had?