WARNING: The following contains spoilers for unOrdinary.
The popular webtoon unOrdinary tells a similar story to My Hero Academia, but in a more cynical world. Vigilante heroes are hunted like criminals, students fight in gangs and pick on the weak and justice sides with those in control. unOrdinary asks, what would our own world be like if everyone had a superpower, and its answer is far less optimistic.
The main star of unOrdinary is John, a boy like Deku who doesn’t have any superpower. In the world of unOrdinary, he’s what people call a "cripple." While My Hero Academia was quick to set Deku on the path to become a superhero, John wants nothing more than a normal life – which is hard to have when everyone arounds him pities or bullies him. Since they all have powers, getting into trouble usually means a broken arm or worse.
There’s no All Might to save him, and few teachers would care to help a hopeless cripple. Compared to Deku, John’s life is much tougher, yet he still finds a way to stand his ground. Even if it means getting slammed into a wall by a student with a body made of stone, John never grovels to those above him, despite how much suffering it earns him, which annoys his school’s crueler students to no end.
The world of unOrdinary is built upon a hierarchy of power. Whereas justice always prevails in My Hero Academia, John’s world follows survival of the fittest. People are sorted into tiers, and anyone who questions the hierarchy is bullied, arrested or even killed. The world’s few selfless superheroes are considered vigilantes and hunted by the police, while villains generally roam free and cause havoc.
In the middle of all this chaos is a single book called Unordinary, written by John’s father. The book describes a superhero in a world where no one has powers. Instead of using his powers selfishly, he helps the weak and protects them. He considers those weaker than him to be his equals. The hero in this book is a lot like All Might, a paragon of hope and justice. In unOrdinary, the book was banned for illegal ideas challenging the "natural order." Still, the book inspires John, who believes that powers should be used for good, and all people are equal, regardless of how they were born.
While John doesn’t have All Might, he does have Seraphina, one of the most powerful students at the school who also happens to be his friend. Unlike nearly everyone else, Seraphina doesn’t look down on John or even pity him. She’ll defend him when he’s in need, but she’ll also let him hold his ground when he wants to. She’s the one person who respects John, despite him being a cripple, and her support is what drives him to keep going. However, it’s also earned her a shaky reputation, since her friendship with him goes against everything the world and its people stand for: survival of the fittest.
What she doesn’t know, and what he doesn’t want her to know, is that John is far more fit than everything thinks. John has a secret that he left behind in a former life – he does have powers. In fact, John is a higher tier in every other student in school. Back in his previous school, John discovered his true powers and used them to hurt and nearly kill everyone who ever bullied him. He was a much darker person who stepped on anyone beneath him, but after reading the book Unordinary, he decided to never abuse his powers again.
Every time someone hits him, says something disgusting about him, or traps him in a corner, John fights the urge to become who he was before. However, his friendship with Seraphina, who is much like the hero of Unordinary, keeps him from tearing apart anyone in his path. He can’t use his powers because he doesn’t deserve them. He could never trust himself to be like Seraphina because his darker side would only abuse and destroy. More than that, he could never let Seraphina know that he deceived her and lose her trust.
Strangely enough, while Deku dreams of being like All Might, John is already at the level of All Might, but he wants to be someone more like Deku. Inside, John knows that he isn’t a hero. If he used his powers again, it wouldn’t be to save someone, it would be to hurt them. In other words, My Hero Academia tells the story of a zero becoming a hero, but unOrdinary tells the story of a villain struggling to reform by becoming an ordinary person. The person inside of Deku is some future version of All Might, but the person inside of John is closer to All For One. He’ll do anything to avoid becoming that person, but with every passing day, the urge to resist becomes weaker.