Hero In Training was an Adventure webcomic exploring ideas about heroism.

While the predominately teenage lead characters, their relationships with each other and colorful character backgrounds may remind people of El Goonish Shive and The Wotch (and the author likes those comics), Hero in Training itself is darker and less wacky.

The comic centered around the main character's transformation into a hero, via the tuition of a godlike entity who apparently does this for all heroes, everywhere, anywhen. The powers are mostly not active, and the hero has no idea he's using them, but they alter luck and probability to create strange and implausible situations, from alien encounters to run-ins with paramilitary. Eventually, events begin to spiral out of control and the dramatic events that were originally thought to be due to the protagonist become more far-reaching and sinister.

Hero in Training included a significant amount of trope subversion and aversion, the author created the early plot as a satire of Sunnydale Syndrome in other web comics. The cast of Hero in Training typically react more realistically to events like angels dropping out of the sky and getting their butts kicked, which causes a raft of interesting problems.

  • Bullying a Dragon: Yes, Sebastian, spend all your time picking on the most ripped guy in school, a martial artist, the guy who used to to threaten you with a homemade flamethrower, and their new friend who attacked you with a sword. There's no possible way that that could backfire.
  • Catgirl:
  • Compulsory School Age: Gareth suggests this for Sanyiel. Jack points out why it's stupid. They end up going with it anyway.
  • Crapsack World: Well, city anyway. Ashville has been described as "dystopian" on at least one occasion, and the heroes don't find it at all odd that a group of supposed thugs would have a sniper rifle because hey, it's Ashville.
  • Crazy Prepared: Jack, or Koops as the others call him.
  • Meaningful Name: Sanyiel means "God hates me" in Hebrew. It's... fairly accurate.
  • No One Could Survive That: , after falling off a building. You'd think that Gareth would at least look at the corpse before declaring this, though.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: isn't quite the that he appears to be. This does backfire on him in at least one respect, though.

Jack: "I'm not going to trust anyone who can trick me into thinking he's an idiot."
  • Pals with Jesus is pretty much the basis for the entire comic.
  • Pet the Dog: When Sebastian's bullying of Jack and Gareth is interrupted by Jack's dad bleeding to death, Sebastian immediately stops bullying them and saves his life. He's still kind of a dick about it, though. Then he insists on helping them break into a secure facility.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Sanyiel, when he was wielding Choran. The trainer as well, at the start of chapter ten.
  • Red Pill, Blue Pill (but Gareth only remembers it when dreaming)
  • Self-Made Orphan:
  • Series Continuity Error: In chapter seven, Anne says her traumatic backstory happened when she was five, but in chapter four it happened when she was six. Considering she's a senior in high school and it's apparently been ten years, six is more likely.
  • Shout Out: Sharks with Frickin' Laser Beams.
  • Stealth Hi Bye:
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