As one of the original Superheroine Peril sites Superheroine’s Demise stands as one of the pillars of the genre. A decade ago “The Villain” felt there was a need for this since at the time there were no regularly updated, live action superheroine sites, be them superheroines in peril, not in peril, whatever. With the help of some friends he put together some costumes and some shoots, acting out scripts that he had always wanted to see brought to life. He put them up on a free site on October of 1998, and posted the website on a couple forums. He got a lot of positive feedback because there really weren't any other regularly updated sites at the time. From there he thought it would be fun to create a member site, so he could collect membership dues and use them to pay for models, costumes, cameras, etc. and be able to keep bringing the stuff he’d always wanted to see - to life. That was 10 years ago and they are still going strong.
Describing how he creates his stories and shoots The Villain says he relies heavily on member suggestions. “If a member emails me and says, ‘I like when the superheroine has bare legs, or colored nylon tights, or is demasked, or is covered with green slime’ - we do it.” But he also works in his own interest as well. He says he was imprinted way back in the 70's watching Batman and Wonder Woman. The thing that got him was that, obviously, the costumes that Wonder Woman and Batgirl wore were sexy. “Look at comic books, Boobs everywhere! But, in the TV shows and most comics, the heroines are portrayed as noble, pure, virtuous, honest, and good.” He wondered why, if they were so good, were they fighting crime in high heels, skin tight suits, and little bathing suit looking numbers with boobs jutting out everywhere? Even more puzzling to him was why when they were captured “did the pscyho mentally deranged villain just explain his plot to take over the city and not do what any self respecting criminally insane super villain would have done?” A valid question indeed! Could any self-respecting male really resist at least teasing and taunting them?
Being one of the first businesses in an area or product carries with it the honour of being mimicked. This is an honour that only goes so far however as it means competition, and when you are the first out there the job of maintaining market share can be a bitch! It’s never good enough to say “We where the original so go with us!” Customers these days just don’t value allegiance to the originals anymore. As soon as something bigger, better, and the same or cheaper priced comes along they are gone! Many long gone mom and pop local specialty stores across America can contest to this thanks to Wal-Mart. All the whining from the locals about protecting history and long standing business falls silent the minute a “Suck the life out of the little guy-Mart” opens in town and all those “Protectors” of local small business are cramming for a parking space at the evil empire. But I digress. My point being Sooperhero.com recognized they had to adapt to hold their position. While 10 years ago when we were the only website updating regularly we added 30 pics a week. Now, they often put up hundreds of pics a week, video, artwork, flash games where you can interact with the heroines and actually fight them - among other things. However, the Villain claims that wasn't just because there were more sites popping up. As membership grew, he could afford to produce and add more content. One thing they have done is never take any content down. You pay one price and get 10 years worth of weekly updates. He points out that other sites merchandise their stuff and make it available on DVDs or CDs after a certain amount of time running it in their member section. While he says that's a pretty smart idea, he just never wanted to deal with producing and selling CDs and DVDs. So, he just leaves everything up and no matter how many sites pop up. He feels that competition is a good thing and is always happy to see more sites because, “I'm a fan first.”
In this genre there are PG sites like the Steels and Heavenly Heroines to name a few. Yes ok in the Bible belt these may pass for R-Rates but give me a break! However I’ve always wondered just how many fans of the PG sites also cross over memberships into the R and X Rated interests. That is to say, are the PG sites really competing that much with the R and X rated ones? Tasked with this question The Villain says its tough to say and that he’s not sure himself if those sites effect hi or not. One thing he has learned is that there are so many subinterests within the main superheroine genre itself. Building on that he says, “We are a superheroine in peril site, but we have members that really only want to see superheroines in bondage, or superheroines unmasked, or superheroines lose their power belt, or superheroines having sex, or superheroines having their feet tickled, or superheroines taking a bath with a midget. It is endless so we just try to cover the as much as we can and please as many fans as we can and work together with all the sites out there to continue promoting the genre.”
In regards to how it feels being one of the originals and setting a benchmark for the genre he explains that being one of the first genre sites and the first the first photo comic site he says it makes him feel good. When he launched the site he immediately got some great feedback and help from some big names out there. He and George Pe'rez became friends and he would do artwork for the site. He even hung out at the Superheroines Demise booth at comic-con and signed autographs and did sketches. George was a very big help but he got help from other guys like Dan'O and artists like Rifferus among others. He says that since everyone was so starved to see a regularly updated site, it made him feel incredible that big names would jump in to help us out with content and whatnot. He tells me that not long after his site went up, he found it cool to see some other good sites pop up and feels that he’s helped a lot of people start out, inadvertently, by creating a model of how to do it.
Now in their tenth year they have plans to do some very cool things like bringing back Wren Andrews (this month I believe), their original model who still looks great but retired from modeling for a while to focus on her professional career. Most of all he is hoping for at least another 10 years of fun!
-- Edited by Alex on Sunday 3rd of May 2009 08:33:22 PM
I blame this Superheroines Demise for getting me addicted to Superheroine Peril
Superheroines and superheroines in peril might just have been a passing interest for me when I first found their free stuff back in 98. But like a junkie to a devious crack dealer I sucked up the free spandex filled fantasy peril until I was hooked. Then like the devious crack dealer they started charging for it! Bastards! Well it was nothing robbing a few Quickie Marts could not fix. All kidding aside the only the only way The Villain of Sooperhero.com is similar is that he gave, and continues to give, us what we want, and being one of the trailblazers in the genre he’s cemented his site as one of the genre’s pillars.
I would say this is an old site but considering I remember its beginnings I just makes me feel old. So we’ll stick with “it’s a well experienced site that can still keep up with all those young whipper snappers out there!” After 10 years of photo stories one naturally starts to run dry on fresh ideas but www.Sooperhero.com shows that the villain is really a criminal mastermind in that he can still pull out original plots. I’ll admit that while I have been a member a few times since he first started the site, I went in this time around not expecting to see too much new in the creativity and plot areas. I was pleasantly surprised to see a number of sets that made me go, “wow, I’ve never seen that.” For example I can’t recall seeing any (granted I have not seen everything) villain freezing or attempting to freeze the poor heroine and actually make it look pretty cool, no pun intended, in the process. After a decade his level of creativity has not really slipped. What he has moved to more of in recent years is more brutalization of the heroine, killing of the heroines, blood etc. Using effects and make up to do this to a level I have not seen anywhere except maybe some foreign stuff from like Zen Productions. It this is not your cup of tea be assured it is not in every story. However you can be certain that every story will have the heroines outfit torn asunder from her defeated body. You know, that just has to happen now and then. This is likely why Supergirl has had like six outfits over her career. Taking into consideration the sheer amount of plots the site has had to create over the years and the fact they can still pump out originals I have to give very good creativity points. The models he uses are very nice but generally fall short of awesome. There was a spell I found them a bit too skinny and unheroic looking but more recently that has changed for the better. Expression and believability of the models in the shots is really a mixed bag depending on who is used, and coupled with their general looks bring them an average model, but not much above average. Costumes are plentiful and have to be since they get trashed regularly. Creating high end costumes to be ripped up after one shoot is an unrealistic expense for the most part but the site manages to pull off some very good and sexy outfits that are constantly changing. So for good quality and awesome variety they earn high marks in the costume area. The site manages to maintain a number of different settings ranging from studio, warehouse, forest, house and more, and even has created some good quality original props to create things like a space ship bridge. One of his heroines even got her own custom heroine car with her symbol on the side and hood. Many different props have been used as well to add to the shoots, all this giving high marks for location and props. Photography is nothing special but still very good. There is a negative in this however as I don’t see too much improvement in photographic composition and quality over the years and I somewhat would expect things like lighting and composition skill would have naturally increased with experience, but I don’t really see that. The site itself is laid out fairly simply and is nice an functional and easy to find what you want. This can however also equal boring if carried too far, and I think the members area is really walking the line here. The site itself has, for all intents and purposes, not changed drastically over its 10 years and could use a good new look for its 10th birthday present. While the members area does offer more variety on top of photo stories and videos such as, artwork, guest galleries, and flash games / clips, most of these sections have not been updated for many years. For those who like previews of what the average content they can expect this site also falls short in that area. Offering only a little sampling of their overall content to help one make the choice of whether they should join on trust that the rest of the stories are at the same level.
I calculated the rating for this site and shocked myself. I went over it again and again until I was at risk of changing things out of bias and emotional attachment. But I need to be fair to the other sites that were all rated on the same scale within the same formula. The formula which is weighted based on what I have seen to be fans biggest interest in ShiP sites. The biggest factors on this scale are the models and outfits followed by production, and since this is a review on the overall site a good portion of consideration needs to be given to the website layout, offerings and functionality itself. Unfortunately Superheroines Demise only comes out average on the model and website front. While all other ratings are above or well above average the average ratings of these key points hurts in the end here. To use an analogy, if one has an option between getting a product from a store that is in need of renovations and displays outdated products, and getting a similar product from a bright shiny store with up to date products at a cheaper price they are going to go to the latter store. The fact site has not seen a major esthetics change in many years and much of its displayed offerings have not seen new material since 2001 and 2003 save for the main stories and videos hurts it. Sooperhero.com is a solidly and above average site that could have many more years in it still, unfortunately I don’t give marks for longevity beyond a few for a large archive, which gives Superheroine’s Demise 3.5 out of 5 Capes
