Quote:
Originally Posted by malloyd
Keep in mind that both concepts have roots in the genre of heroic epics, which date back to the origins of literature. The parallels between the fantasy party and the super team are later additions, but probably more an inevitable consequence of structuring a story so multiple characters can contribute to advancing the plot than anything else. Plenty of other genres have specialist characters for just that reason.
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This is the answer I'd endorse.
Adventure fiction can operate at the ordinary level (where "heroic," when used, has the sense "courageous, noble, or self-sacrificing") or at the heroic level (where "heroic" has the sense "impressive, legendary, or mythological in power"). There are lots of variations on both – and some takes on horror, in particular, introduce a third level where the protagonists are
less capable than ordinary people.
I'd say that supers and dungeon delvers – and action-movie protagonists, and pulp heroes, and many others – operate at the heroic level. This generates similarities, the most important of which are "the protagonists are more powerful than most people around them" and "if there's more than one protagonist, the characters will have distinctive niches to justify the presence of several heroes rather than just one." That doesn't mean the genre conventions or tropes are the same overall.