Comic Book Clichés
The Lab Accident: person gets superpowers from a laboratory-related accident. As opposed to, you know, dying horribly.

Secret Identity Drip: The hero has a secret identity that is the opposite in personality from the hero: clumsy, slow, low self-esteem, humble, geeky.

Empty Storeroom: A storeroom is always available for changing one's costume. Said storeroom has, ideally, an inconspicuous window.

Reporter girlfriend: The superhero has a reporter girlfriend. She is often modern and liberated (updated from the "I wish Machoid Man would marry me, sigh"), yet somehow she can’t take care of herself and needs to be rescued.

See The Body: The law that says that a character is never dead unless you saw the body, took it home, inspected it, did an autopsy, burned it, scattered the ashes from a plane, and even then you can be only about 89 percent sure.

Relative Atmosphere Law: When you open a door or window in an airplane, it is fairly likely that this won't suck you or anything else out. You're often lucky if it so much as blows loose papers around.

Darkest Hour: The hero has crisis of faith only to be told by close friend to suck it up because the world needs him so much. If only real-life acute depression could be solved with a friend telling you, "Snap out of it!"

Simultaneous Recovery Syndrome: If you knock out a whole group of people, they will all wake up at around the same time, even if each was knocked out in a different way.

Fickle Public: at some point in everyone's hero career, something inevitably happens to make the public forget everything good they ever did. The public usually turns back the other way pretty quickly, however.

Literate 10 Year Old
A ten-year-old girl asked and received help from a librarian on how to use the card catalog. In a little while, the girl approached the librarian again, wanting to know how to spell "tequila."

"T-e-q-u-i-l-a," spelled the librarian, as the girl thanked her and went back to her search. A short time later she came to the desk, looking quite distraught.

"I just can't find it," she said. "What book are you looking for, honey?" the librarian asked.

Replied the little girl, "Tequila Mockingbird."