Least Favorite Trope

[Koltreg]

I started reading Freak Angel since I really like Ellis' work in everything else that I read but I literally felt my brain spasm in pain when it went to the "23 kids were born on the same moment" trope.
I mean that pretty much means that the entire story is going to be focused on those kids breaking into good and bad and suddenly reading this will be a lot harder - it's part of the reason I didn't care for Umbrella Academy.

So, what tropes do you hate?
Is there a way to reverse them or make them new?
(For example, on one day only one baby in the entire world was born for a 48 hour period between humans, animals, viruses and plants, which incidentally wiped out the entire mayfly population along with most common bacteria and viruses - there you have something actually shocking. Considering there are maybe 200,000 babies born every day that means in 48 hours there are at least 69 babies being born every minute!)

[zbg333]

I really dislike Geoff Johns' dialogue ticks.

More specifically, when a NEW SUPERTEAM that doesn't mind KILLING makes the old heroes look lame. I liked Morrison's response to that in JLA: Classified: Ultramarine Corps, where Superman says "In a world of telepathic gorillas and Space Aliens, killing is too simple a solution to most problems."
(paraphrasing, obviously)

[Agent Orange]

Earth is always called a "backwater mud ball" and humans are always "inferior apes", yet they always defeat the enemy with "the power of never giving up/friendship/whatever"

I hate it so much

[Name]

(02-23-2012 11:17 PM)Agent Orange Wrote:  Earth is always called a "backwater mud ball" and humans are always "inferior apes", yet they always defeat the enemy with "the power of never giving up/friendship/whatever"

I hate it so much

"the power of never giving up" makes it sound like it's some sort of Planet of the John Cenas or something. Speaking of that, I really don't like that "the entirety of this planet is defined by one single trait, from the people to the climate" thing.

[Rae]

For a female character to be sufficiently Serious, she needs either to be raped during the story, or to have rape shoehorned into her backstory.

[Name]

(02-24-2012 04:49 AM)Rae Wrote:  For a female character to be sufficiently Serious, she needs either to be raped during the story, or to have rape shoehorned into her backstory.

I'd go further than that, though that specific type is a special kind of terrible, and say that using rape to make a story in and of itself Big, Serious, and Important is just something that needs to be done away with.
Also, the way Marv Wolfman writes teenagers should earn him some sort of public flogging.

[Koltreg]

(02-24-2012 04:49 AM)Rae Wrote:  For a female character to be sufficiently Serious, she needs either to be raped during the story, or to have rape shoehorned into her backstory.

And there is the trope that if there is a woman warrior character teamed up with a less violent female character, the woman warrior always dies as if there is some undercurrent that women in a safe society cannot have the will and ability to fight, like some domestication that can only be solved with death.

[Rae]

(02-24-2012 05:11 AM)Name Wrote:  

(02-24-2012 04:49 AM)Rae Wrote:  For a female character to be sufficiently Serious, she needs either to be raped during the story, or to have rape shoehorned into her backstory.

I'd go further than that, though that specific type is a special kind of terrible, and say that using rape to make a story in and of itself Big, Serious, and Important is just something that needs to be done away with.
Also, the way Marv Wolfman writes teenagers should earn him some sort of public flogging.

Yes, yes, and yes.