Gods and Champions

[caris]

Elementals had a fundamentalist team, but they were a very Iron Age group.

In general the idea of a superhero who believes their powers come from God would be far too scary for Marvel/DC to handle.

And I consider what has been done to Native mythology no worse than what has been done to Norse mythology with Thor. The main difference is that it's more politically sensitive.

Well, Marvel tried it for a while with a revamping of Firebird, but they went back to her original attitude not that long after.

[Lightray]

JLA had an angelic character for a time to replace the missing "winged guy" archetypes while the Hawks were in comic continuity limbo. Don't recall his name, but he was supposed to be from one of the Hosts of Heaven.

They also had that stupid Supergirl/Matrix merges with Linda Danvers and becomes a fiery angel plotline.

And the Spectre, as mentioned, has pretty much been defined as the Angel of Vengeance.

The Sandman and Vertigo runs aren't really mainstream comics, but God and the angelic Host played parts in many of those stories.

[OddHat]

Mystic World has a fairly good treatment of some of these issues.

[ghost-angel]

Read through this and all I could think of was the "Preacher" series of comics...


I our games we deal heavily with religion in many forms - followers, fanatics, faithful and then the Gods themselves.

Though, in our world Gods are merely Paranormals/Mutants who simply had figured out how to gain immesurable power with the catch that it was follower based - the more people who followed you the more power you could tap into and thus the Gods were born - and all the pantheons with them. So people like Zeus were once paranormal humans, that evovled to a higher state over time. I kind of like that approach personally.

[Just A Guy Name]

Elementals had a fundamentalist team, but they were a very Iron Age group.

The Rapture. All the members were named for different [Book: Chapter: Verse] passages from the Bible.

[Enforcer84]

Well, Nightcrawler is catholic, Shadowcat is Jewish. But they don't fight crime as God boy or anything like that. Azureal was an Angel and the JLA fought a renegade angel trying to conquer heaven.

The Specter is a spirit of vengance.

[Enforcer84]

oops no, the JLA guy was Zauriel was he not?

[Madstone]

oops no, the JLA guy was Zauriel was he not?

Right. Azrael ate smurfs.

[Enforcer84]

and was the insane batman replacement.

[st barbara]

I developed a character named "Misericorde". a nun with healing powers (and the ability to drain as well as heal) who is the only known super in The Vatican !

[Metaphysician]

Frankly, I really liked Zauriel. Its a pity he doesn't show up more often.

[CrosshairCollie]

Doesn't it seem that religous based Superheroes get a sort of lopsided treatment? Characters like Thor, Hercules and others never seem to catch much flak for claiming to be pagan gods and such, but Christian based supers are either unheard of or portrayed as over zealous wack jobs. I'm not a particularly religous person so please don't take this a some sort of rant, just something I've noticed.

I think characters like Thor should be facing some major PR issues, more so than mutant really. Claiming not only to be divine, but Pagan would raise some serious issues in some places. Maybe there would be an organization like the Church of the Archangel Michael or other mutant hate groups, but religously inspired and dedicated to putting down/debunking the false gods. Has anyone done anything like this in their campaigns?

I just kinda skimmed the threads so far. Having once played in a game that featured a good half-dozen divine avatars, ranging from the Egyptian to the Native American (I kept waiting for the press to dub the team "The God Squad"), I've never really seen it. Primarily because nobody *believes* it.

I think that the body-on-the-street thinks that people like Thor and Hercules are just picking those names, based on mythological beings, because they have powers that happen to match, kind of like old Pro Wrestlers like Zeus and, again, Hercules.

Another thing comes down to just how one defines 'god' vs 'God', for lack of a better way to put it. Thor and Hercules and their ilk are extra-dimensional beings who were once worshipped by humanity and possess significant power. God, in the Christian sense, is a being of unproven existance in whom people have faith. Nobody worships Thor or Hercules anymore (at least, not in an organized sense, as far as I know), so nobody raises a fuss.

Now, the Spider-Man 2099 comic did an interesting take on this ... Thor actually had a following of worshippers, dubbed simply enough 'Thorites'. I've never done anything like this ... I prefer to keep religious themes out of my games, of all sorts.

[Koshka]

Nobody worships Thor or Hercules anymore (at least, not in an organized sense, as far as I know), so nobody raises a fuss.

I don't know about "organized", but I know there's groups worshipping the Norse deities. The only ones I've heard of worshipping Greek deities are specifically worshipping the Greek goddesses (so Hercules doesn't qualify ), but there may be some out there who worship the whole pantheon.

However, I lost several of my contacts when the new age bookstore that carried my stained glass on consignment closed, so I may be way out of date here.

[Worldmaker]

The Rapture. All the members were named for different [Book: Chapter: Verse] passages from the Bible.

Does anyone know where I can get more information on this team?

[megaplayboy]

hmm...I've played a couple gods, demigods, even metagods, and have had players who had angelic, demonic, or divine PCs. The full religious implications never got too heavy in terms of public relations, but there were a few clashes here and there...we had an angel and a half-demon and a pagan demigod on one team at the same time