Maybe they're heroes for hire. They're around when I need them. And they apparently have Comic Self-Awareness.

And, as stated on the Character Page, they've not only had lines, but have delivered the punch lines of strips in which they appeared. The Character Page is relatively new, and already a little out of date. One thing at a time.

I learned about hero props at a panel at I-Con Stony Brook many, many years ago. The fellow running the panel, in a classroom at the college, had a bunch of stage props and a few hero props, mostly from Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica -- the original. This was before the reboot existed. In fact, Richard Hatch was there trying to get support for his sequel series (which ignored Galactica 1980).