When you introduce the hero and villain for the first time, make sure you show their superpowers. For the hero, this superpower will be their unique skill that will help them throughout the story. For the villain, this superpower will be their unique advantage that they’ll use against the hero.
In “Top Gun: Maverick”, Maverick’s superpower is that he’s an extremely good pilot. That skill will prove useful when he trains other Top Gun pilots and then leads them on a dangerous mission. By using his skill, Maverick will be able to shoot down enemy planes and return home.
In “The Hunger Games”, Katniss’s superpower is that she’s a good hunter with a bow and arrow. She uses that skill later to blow up the supplies of the other tributes without risking getting too close to the supplies, which are guarded by land mines.
In “The Shawshank Redemption”, Andy’s superpower is that he’s an experienced banker who knows finance law, which is a skill he uses to gain favor from the guards (by doing their taxes) and then helping the warden illegally launder money. Because Andy knows how these illegal bank accounts are set up (since he set them up), he uses that knowledge to incriminate and defeat the warden at the end.
Watch this scene from “Legally Blonde” to see how Elle’s superpower, her incredible knowledge of fashion and beauty, helps her avoid getting scammed by a dishonest saleswoman. Although seeing Elle shoot down the dishonest saleswoman seems trivial, it actually foreshadows how Elle will eventually win her first court case by using her same knowledge of fashion and beauty, specifically perms.
When introducing the villain, the same principle applies. Show us the villain’s superpower that they’ll use against the hero throughout the story.
In “Crazy Rich Asians”, the villain is a Chinese mother who enters a luxury London hotel with reservations and expects to get her room. However when a racist manager denies her reservation, the villain simply uses her superpower, which is her access to enormous amounts of money that she can wield as a weapon any time she wants.
WAtch this scene from “Crazy Rich Asians” to see how it introduces the villain’s superpower.
In “Star Wars”, Darth Vader’s starship pursues and disables Princess Leia’s much smaller starship with laser blasts. This demonstrates Darth Vader’s superpower, which is having overwhelming firepower at his disposal.
In “Die Hard”, we don’t see the villain initially, but we see two of his henchmen when they stroll into the skyscraper lobby to shoot and kill the security guard at the front desk. This immediately shows us the villain’s superpower, which is that he’s well-organized and well-armed.
When introducing the hero and the villain, always give us a hint of their superpower right away because this is a skill they’ll use throughout the story. Once we know what unique skill the hero and villain have, we’ll get to watch how they use those skills to fight against each other.
