Robert "Bob" Parr (better known as Mr. Incredible) is the main protagonist of Disney/Pixar's "The Incredibles" and the deutaragonist in its 2018 sequel.
Background
Mr. Incredible is a person from a race of humans born with superpowers, and is referred to as a "Super". He was one of the most famous heroes of his era and was known for his skill at fighting crime. At some point, he met and fell in love with fellow superhero Elastigirl. However, soon after the two wed, bystanders who had been injured during crime-fighting attempts began to sue. The backlash forced supers like Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl into retirement and witness protection. Mr. Incredible resumed the name of Bob Parr and began a civilian life with Elastigirl, now in her civilian identity as Helen Parr.
Mr. Incredible is considered one of the most powerful Supers. During his early career, he was known for working alone, which was something that led him to push away Buddy Pine. He possesses the powers of enhanced strength and durability, as well as enhanced senses.
In the Operation Kronos database, Mr. Incredible was given a threat rating of 9.1, the highest rating of any of the supers.
Personality
Bob's personality is that of a classical hero. At his core, he desires to be a hero and paragon and to do good for its own sake. But as shown in newsreels, Bob is physically invulnerable, but all too human in his flaws. He grows weary of a world that will not stay saved for more than five minutes; and later, shows a streak of hubris and arrogant pride, seeking to relive his glory days at the expense of his family life.
Bob's commitment to doing what is right is so strong that he displays it even when not involved in heroics. This is shown when while working for Insuricare, he constantly found legal loopholes to help his customers, which often earned him the ire of his greedy and selfish boss, Mr. Huph. These disagreements eventually came to a head, when during a meeting, Bob noticed a mugging and tried to intervene but was stopped when Mr. Huph threatened to fire him. Finally fed up, Bob angrily grabbed Mr. Huph by the neck and accidentally threw him through five walls that nearly killed him, which caused Bob to lose his job.
Bob also has a tendency to try to solve the world's problems on his own, refusing and actively dismissing help from anyone, even from his loving wife and the sage council of his best friend Frozone. These flaws combined nearly cost him his life and the lives of his family.
Bob is also calm, collected, and polite, but occasionally he exhibits an intimidating and ferocious rage, and if sufficiently angered, he can be quite fearsome. When his boss, Gilbert Huph, threatened to fire him if he chased a mugger, he strangled his boss and violently tossed him against a wall, appearing to break several of his bones. He always tries to reason with his opponents and appeal to their better nature to avoid unnecessary violence, but if a villain could not be reasoned with and posed a threat to innocent lives, he tries to terminate them if their capture wasn't an option because he knows how many innocent lives could be lost if he allows them to live. However, he always spares an opponent if they appeared to have underlying goodness, such as Mirage.
Bob is solely interested in his wife Helen, but treats other women with respect. This trait was picked up by Syndrome, who instructs Mirage to be appreciative, but not seductive, towards Mr. Incredible. Bob sees having dinner with Mirage after he deactivated an Omnidroid as a social event and nothing more than that. However, it could be argued that Mirage was having somewhat of a positive effect on Bob's self-image, making him take up a workout routine (albeit one catering to building up his super strength), and Bob behaving more self-assuredly in a manner similar to James Bond. Also, having endured dressing downs and a later job termination from his boss Mr. Huph, Mirage's large payouts and appreciation of the missions were an exact opposite of the hostile workplace he dealt with at Insuricare.
In Incredibles 2, Bob has learned to keep his ego somewhat in check. While initially jealous that Helen was chosen to be the face of the superhero legalization campaign over him, he swallowed his pride and was ultimately the one who convinced her to do it, even admitting that it was for his sake after claiming it was for their children. Also, despite his jealousies, Bob continued to deeply love Helen, immediately attempting to rescue her when he believed she was in danger.
With Helen doing superhero work, Bob decided to try his best at being a good dad for his children. However, his aggressive methods of doing so ironically only caused him to push them away. Meanwhile, his wife's success caused him to hide his failings from her. All of this ultimately caused him to exhaust himself, during which he acted selfishly and short-tempered. It is only when he vents his frustrations and apologizes that he and his children finally start to develop a genuine connection.
Physical Appearance
Bob is an exceptionally tall and muscular man with a massive chest, shoulders, and arms (as it befits his superhuman strength). He has blond hair (which has receded in his middle-age) and blue eyes. As a younger man, he was slim-waisted, but by the time his daughter, Violet was in middle school, he had become obese and was forced to undergo a strenuous diet and exercise regimen, after which he lost enough weight to resume his super heroics before leaving to go to Nomanisan Island.
Trivia
- At the beginning of the original film, Bob was 25 years old. He was also much slimmer than he was in the present day.
- In present day, 40-year old Bob had become somewhat obese, gaining a large gut. He goes on a diet and intense training regime and eventually succeeds in losing a lot of the weight. According to official sources, Bob Parr is 6’8" (203 cm) in height and is 350 pounds (158 kg) in weight.
- In an early draft for the film, he broke the law when he married Elastigirl and had children, as said in the alternate beginning when Syndrome (then a minor one-shot villain who sought revenge) discovered that Mr. Incredible was married to Elastigirl, and they had a baby, he said "Isn't it illegal for Supers to breed?" This concept was cut in the final version, and when a similar revelation was made, he doesn't mention anything about whether it was legal or not for Supers to marry and have kids.
- Bob Parr is the first human protagonist in a Pixar feature film.
- In the second film, Bob admits that many people have discovered his secret identity but Rick Dicker has always been able to erase their memories.
- At the start of the first movie, Bob expresses the desire to retire from superhero duties and make himself a family, while Helen dismisses the idea entirely; in the end, their attitudes towards civilian life are the exact opposite, with Helen content to be a housewife and Bob uncapable of letting go of his past.
- Bob and Helen both still own their classic supersuits in the second film, although it would be assumed the suits would have been destroyed with their old house in the first film: they may have survived because, like Edna shows, the suits are nearly indestructible.
- Curiously, both Incredibles' movies start with Bob failing to catch a supercriminal: Bomb Voyage in the first and the Underminer in the second.
- When Bob, at the end of the first movie, opens his shirt and reveals his super suit under it, he does it in a similar way to Superman, DC Comics hero known for striking the same pose.
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