What types of superheroes are there?

Yarrun XIX

Which is to say, what kinds of categories do superheroes generally form.

I know, for example, that there's a good number of government-employed superheroes. Your Captain Americas and Falcons and such. 

Imipolex G

Batman

Yarrun XIX

Batman is not a type of superhero.

A type of videogame character, perhaps, but I digress

Klinotaxis

• punching ones
• ones written by weirdos who time travel and have drugged sex with king-of-all-tears and whatnot
• fast ones
• shapeshifters
• etc., see a Champions TTRPG manual
• ones employed by the government
• those that tremble as if they were mad
• ones opposed to a government
• ones that used to be employed by the government but think Tony Stark is a dickhead
• ones in the year 1691 or 3272 where things are basically the same but people talk and dress funny
• teens with attitude
• those that are included in this classification
  

LOAD Cherry

Basically, individual superheroes (not superhero groups) can be classed in one of four categories. The demigods, your supermen and wonder women. These are the people you need involved if you're trying to deal with world-class scale destruction and threats. The vigilantes, your batmen and spidermen, to use two very different examples. These are the people concerned mostly with cleaning up the streets, but aren't afraid to go toe-to-toe with your self-styled supervillains. Your super soldiers, captain america for example. As you said, government employed, largely concerned with threats to the nation that they're a part of. Then there are the wizards, for lack of a better term. Your Doctor Stranges and Green Lanterns. They focus on one specific kind of threat, typically aliens or magical beings, and deal with them. Where demigods have a more broad scope in terms of just trying to keep the world safe, the wizards are focused on keeping the world safe from one ever present type of threat. They might have a few mundanes in their rogues gallery, but largely are concerned with dealing with people of their own kind.

glennmagusharvey

* those who seek strength
* those who live for pride
* those who can read the tide of battle

Imipolex G

most common superpower

Sredni Vashtar

CC Reisz said:

Basically, individual superheroes (not superhero groups) can be classed in one of four categories. The demigods, your supermen and wonder women. These are the people you need involved if you're trying to deal with world-class scale destruction and threats. The vigilantes, your batmen and spidermen, to use two very different examples. These are the people concerned mostly with cleaning up the streets, but aren't afraid to go toe-to-toe with your self-styled supervillains. Your super soldiers, captain america for example. As you said, government employed, largely concerned with threats to the nation that they're a part of. Then there are the wizards, for lack of a better term. Your Doctor Stranges and Green Lanterns. They focus on one specific kind of threat, typically aliens or magical beings, and deal with them. Where demigods have a more broad scope in terms of just trying to keep the world safe, the wizards are focused on keeping the world safe from one ever present type of threat. They might have a few mundanes in their rogues gallery, but largely are concerned with dealing with people of their own kind.

I feel like there are always outliers to this formula, though. Setting aside the fact that heroes only seen as a part of a larger team tend to blur these lines, you also have eccentrics and oddities like Ambush Bug and Deadpool, or the entirety of the Doom Patrol.

One-Winged Eagle

I don't know what the tokusatsu TV show superhero is supposed to be. They wear masks? They beat a monster every week or so?

Sredni Vashtar

I think they can be seen as a subset of the team-oriented hero meta-trope.

One-Winged Eagle

In terms of scope, they're all over the place. Sometimes they literally fight inner demons, sometimes they fight extinction and the apocalypse, sometimes they fight comedic monsters.

Sredni Vashtar

That also depends on the tone of the show in question, I think.