Who Came First the Superhero or the Supervillain?

[Rune]

In your Champions campaign, did the public first see in action a superhero, a supervillain or was it simultaneous? How did this shape the campaign?

[fredrik_nilsson]

This far I've run a "by the book"-version of CU, so I guess the supervillain came first (provided you look at it from an anti-nazi point of view).

[Trebuchet]

In our campaign two members of MidGuard, Catseye and G-Force, rescued Queen Elizabeth's husband from IRA terrorists in London in March of 2000. Much of the fight was caught on live television from a block away at the police barricades, including G-Force (long since retired) picking up and smashing the panel truck the bad guys were trying to escape in.

[Sketchpad]

In my campaign, the first meta was a Nazi, which was followed by the first American hero and a slew of others shortly after

[Arkham]

In my campaign there have always been Metahumans.
One of the first publicly famous ones being Hercules.
He even joined the first Superhero team, the Argonauts.

[Black Rose]

As far as the public consciousness goes, the first super was a villain. There were "heroes" (really metapowered normal folks) running around, but they were keeping themselves very low-key (it's easier to get things done that way). There's no reason to run around calling yourself Compensating-For-Something Man unless you're trying to PRE Attack, or you're... well... compensating for something.

Most of the metas are low-powered enough to be barely noticable, but not so much that people don't annoy them all the time; "You have a 25 STR, 1/2 END? Can you come over and help me move this weekend?"


Note: this is all in the metas campaign I would dearly love to run, but can't, due to laziness on my part.

[TheEmerged]

*Most* of the novas that erupted the day of the Emergence (September 20, 1972) were heroic -- most notably Hyperion (campaign equivalent of Superman/Captain Marvel), generally viewed as the first nova. At least one of the 'first novas', Gunner, started out a heroine but became a villain.

However, technically he was not the first nova -- but telling more would be a campaign spoiler.

[Rune]

So, in campaigns where the first public metahuman was a superhero, did that early hero act as a role model for later heroes?

A popular comic book theme is that the public gets the idea to "ban all the superheroes." Usually, this is the result of the manipulations of some supervillain. In campaigns where the first public metahuman was a supervillain, has that theme emerged or is the public more resistant to that kind of manipulation because a supervillain came first?

[RDU Neil]

Actually... in my world the whole "Villain or Hero" thing is a bit nebulous. There often aren't clear distinctions. Characters are lauded as heroes for some actions, villified for others. It is a gray world... and the real question is always "What do you do with the power you have" without proscribing certain actions as good or bad, heroic or villainous.

As to the original metahumans... so lost in time, it is hard to tell. It has only recently begun to be shown that the original metahumans were likely the ones who became "Gods" within their respective cultures. It has been shown that early metahumans whose manifestation of power was shaped by their culture at the time... the ones we know of evolved into the level of "gods" as in the pantheons of myth. Current metahumans have realized that they to have the potential, if they survive and mature appropriately without destroying themselves or the world, to become "gods" as well. Kind of an ascension dealio that is unique to each metahuman and very much shaped by their link to humanity and humanity's "Belief" in them. (i.e. a couple of main PCs have cults following them, especially the mentalist Locke who has died and been reborn a number of times, and has granted power to "believers" in a way).

Essentially, the earliest metahumans didn't follow and hero/villain model... it was more of a demigod to god model... and whether they were good or evil was based on the reactions of society.

[zornwil]

The early history:

Super-heroes started appearing in early 1948 - the first being Superman, basically as found in the comic books. Nobody knew where he came from, though, or what, if any, secret identity he had. He first came to light in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, like Superman, he was also quite vulnerable to krypton, at least in large quantities, and particularly forms which manifested green, which was quickly manufactured by a villain not out of the comic books known as simply "The Mad Scientist" - self-proclaimed and usually followed by his mad cackling. After a crime spree in retrospect aimed at gathering enough cash to afford a stockpile of kryptonite, he killed Superman with green kryptonite bullets. His career was swiftly ended with capture by Spiderman, first appearing in 1948 in Phoenix*. The ball started rolling quickly, spreading primarily but not exclusively from the American southwest and radiating out across the country and beyond.

The world did not take kindly, though, to these "mutants" as they became known (scientists argue over whether they're mutants or mutates, but that's another story). The destructive powers they embodied quickly earned them notoriety due to the few who abused it. It seemed the biggest issue arose with a series of psychotic killers using special powers in their murderous sprees. While most were caught by other mutants, the public became livid as the Evil Brotherhood of Mutants, a crazed group of serial killers and rapists with various superpowers, assaulted some 500 or more people, killing at least 400, in a short two months, all across America. Most troubling was their self-conscious and brazen defiance of society and moreover their organization. In fact, some social theorists argued it was the earlier creation of the Avengers, a group of mutants pledged to organize to do good, that inspired this same organization by their criminal counterparts. Quickly Congress responded by passing the Unnatural Humans Act, under the mutant witch hunt of Joe McCarthy. While McCarthy's career folded when he attacked the military and its use of supers such as Corporal Punishment, he succeeded in establishing the policy that mutants would be registered and their powers outlawed except for where they served the public as a governmental agent. Even unusual weaponry and "unusually applied capabilities" were banned except where given governmental approval and supervised or monitored.

* - Spiderman is now semi-retired (although Peter Parker is not) and has been operating out of Chicago for some decades

[Hermit]

I go with the official CU with a few tweaks, so I guess the Supervillain ("The Darn Nazi rat!") came first

[lemming]

In my campaign, it was in the middle of WWII, so the classifications didn't really go villian/hero though the Axis were the ones who first got the tech to produce them.

[starblaze]

When I ran my Golden Age Champions game I used the character of Captain Atlas as the first superhero to appear publicly. There my have been some others but they operated in secret.

[Kirby]

Oh look, another thread Zornwil revived. (You really ought to look into getting your Z capitalized. )

Okay, kidding aside, while I haven't created a timeline in years, just using the ones that come with the book (and sometimes not even putting any emphaisis on it), I prefer to have a Golden Age hero show up first.