What's the plan with the CU column?

[djday38]

The Champions Universe column in Digital Hero is without doubt my favourite in the magazine. I have really enjoyed the new villains, Starguard and the FF.

What are the general plans with this column? is it going to be a permanent fixture in the mag? I know once the FF material is finished you are doing a long series of articles on the Sentinals.
What are your plans after this? are we going to see the Justice Squadron or the DOJ down the line? more individual heroes and villians? is the plan to eventually to get round to all the characters mentioned in the official supplements either in DH or in new supplements (as has been done recently with Mr X, Scarlet Shield and Shadowboxer).
I have noticed that many new characters mention in turn other new characters (such as those villians mentioned in the recent FF articles) so we could have a lot of potential new material.
lastly, it has been mentioned before that a lot of the new CU material came from your own campaigns, if this is so, you must have been playing for an awful long time! did you game in different eras or was much of the material originally just game history and background for a present day campaign?

rgds
Dean

[Steve Long]

That's Darren's column, so I'll leave it to him to answer. Since we're at Origins, it may take a few days before he notices the post and can respond.

[Darren Watts]

Thanks for the kind words! Champions Universe will be in DH indefinitely, or until Dave gets sick of my, ahem, *stretched* deadlines. You're correct about the near future of the column- after the Fab Five's history is completed, we skip back to the early '60s and start over with the Sentinels, since the two teams' fates become intertwined in the 1980s. That'll take several months to complete, since the team has a long history and a much larger cast of members. After that, it'll probably be back to heroes and villains from various points in history- I have a couple of neat ideas about costumed characters in the Civil War and Vietnam that will see print in the future.

As for the Justice Squadron in particular, that's a Steve creation and eventually I plan to bug him for their full details. (It's actually a pretty good clue as to who wrote what parts of CU- if the Fab Five or Sentinels are mentioned, I did it, and if the JS show up it's probably Steve's contribution.)

And yes, many of the characters and concepts that flesh out the CU timeline come from my home campaign. Several characters are PCs of mine (Silverback, Black Mask, Princess Mara) and others were originally played by friends (Shadowboxer, MeteorMan), while still others were long-running NPC creations. I originally made the Fabulous Five for a Silver-Age time travel adventure and they became an integral part of the campaign. We ran two major camapigns in that setting, one modern and one Golden Age, and we probably totalled several hundred sessions- there's plenty left to draw on! dw

[steriaca]

I want to see some stats for some of the heros and villians who died in The Battel For Detrot. Including, if we can, Icestar.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by steriaca
I want to see some stats for some of the heros and villians who died in The Battel For Detrot. Including, if we can, Icestar.
The Icestar from the CU is not the same Icestar from the old Champions books. They just happen to have the same name. :)

[djday38]

Thks for answering Darren, much appreciated. I would like to see some of the teams enemies explored. There was quite a few different characters mentioned in the FF articles alone.

You mention the Sentinals have many more members, are they a bit like the Avengers of the champions CU in that they have a revolving door membership?

Have enjoyed the villains you have covered so far, they have a very silver age feel to them, which I enjoy. Sludge in the last DH issue was very Jack Kirby.

I would like to see more in print on Kestrel's people or would something like that be covered in the previously mentioned "Lost Worlds" supplement?

Will Steve do the Justice Squadron in a supplement or are you looking at that again being done in the CU DH column?

One thing that slightly confuses me are the Justice Squadron a new version of the Defenders of Justice or an entirely different team? the wording in Champions Universe is slightly confusing. I assume they are different much like the JSA/JLA.
If that is the case I guess we will see the DOJ in all their glory when Golden Age Champions eventually comes out.

My last vote for a character to be covered is the sixties hero Hornet. I have mentioned elsewhere I feel he is the CU version of Spider-Man and I would love to see him get a set of articles, fleshing out his supporting cast and rogues gallery.

what do others want to see?

rgds
Dean

[Steve Long]

Darren's welcome to do the Justice Squadron; I've already got enough DH writing to do. I just made 'em up, so all I really know about them is their names (and, thus, their powers); Darren will do his usual fine job elaborating on those snippets of information.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by djday38
You mention the Sentinals have many more members, are they a bit like the Avengers of the champions CU in that they have a revolving door membership?
I do not think it is so much a revolving door membership as it is the fact that the group has been in existance since 1961. Members come and go over a 42 year period. Only the heroes who have an extended lifespan can really contribute to the group for long periods of time. Saying that, I would assume that the characters presented in the article will be taken from different time periods within the group's 42 year history; hopefully ending with the existing group.


what do others want to see?
I am a huge superhero fan myself, so I want to see them all. Of course I am not as interested in older heroes as I am in getting an idea of what the current heroes are all about. It might be interesting to see some Father/Mother-Son/Daughter articles though; articles which show two generations of heroes. That way we get to see how some of the children or grandchildren are carrying on the legacy (characters besides Black Mask that is).

[djday38]

Originally posted by Steve Long
Darren's welcome to do the Justice Squadron; I've already got enough DH writing to do. I just made 'em up, so all I really know about them is their names (and, thus, their powers); Darren will do his usual fine job elaborating on those snippets of information.

AHA!! The Pressure is on! yet another hero team for Darren to pile through in the pages of DH.

Any chance in the mantime someone would be so kind to give us some names and basic powers for them to help in the meantime (I think it's going to be quite a while until they see the light of day!).

thks in advance.:D

rgds
Dean

[Monolith]

Originally posted by djday38
Any chance in the mantime someone would be so kind to give us some names and basic powers for them to help in the meantime (I think it's going to be quite a while until they see the light of day!).
The names of all the known heroes in the CU are listed on the CU-Supers pdf available for download from the free stuff section of the website under the HERO System Documents sub-link.

[djday38]

Originally posted by Monolith
The names of all the known heroes in the CU are listed on the CU-Supers pdf available for download from the free stuff section of the website under the HERO System Documents sub-link.

I thought the only hero mentioned by name in the Justice Squadron was Vanguard, is that incorrect. :confused


rgds
Dean

[Monolith]

Originally posted by djday38
I thought the only hero mentioned by name in the Justice Squadron was Vanguard, is that incorrect. :confused
As of the writing of Champions Universe, the Justice Squadron consists of: Blink, Brawler, Drifter, Electron, Flashover, and Tomahawk. Vanguard was killed in 1992. All of the names on the CU-Supers pdf were taken from Champion Universe and Millennium City. They are all named in there but they are all "hidden" within the text.

[bcholmes]

Originally posted by Steve Long
Darren's welcome to do the Justice Squadron; I've already got enough DH writing to do. I just made 'em up, so all I really know about them is their names (and, thus, their powers); Darren will do his usual fine job elaborating on those snippets of information.

I love the Champions Universe column, too, and really enjoy learning more about the CU characers... but the one gripe I have is that I'm sure that the column is going to eventually contradict the continuity of my campaign.

For example, my players have already met a few members of the Justice Squadron. Since I think of them as similar to the Justice League/Justice Society, I modelled them on some of the classic JLA characters:

Electron = Wonder Woman (think Zeus' lightning bolts!)
Blink = Flash
Drifer = Phantom Stranger
Tomahawk = Green Arrow (but with a different weapon)

At some point, Darren's gonna write up much more brilliant characters, and I'm gonna get all angsty about wanting to do something interesting with them. And I'll be sad. Sad, I say!

Fortunately, the CU characters that play the biggest role in my campaign are the Canadian ones, and I suspect that writing up the non-American heroes is pretty low on the priority list.

[Steve Long]

Someone asked for brief descriptions for the JS members. That much I can provide, assuming my memory doesn't fail me. ;)

Blink: Teleporter
Brawler: Brick
Drifter: Supermage (it's short for Astral Planes Drifter)
Electron: Gadgeteer
Flashover: Fire-based energy projector
Tomahawk: Trained normal type with HTH weapons, etc.

[steriaca]

Originally posted by Monolith
The Icestar from the CU is not the same Icestar from the old Champions books. They just happen to have the same name. :)

Ya...like that matters. Icestar is still Icestar, even if he can't be THAT Icestar. And man, I want to see his stats and have his orgin told to me.

Now, the next thing your going to tell me is that there's no such thing as a Marksman. (LOL)