What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

[Rene]

I was thinking about posting this in the superhero concept thread, but I thought it maybe merited it's own thread, since it involves game worlds, not specific characters, and the topic seemed interesting on it's own.

 

Particularly, there are two background concepts I'm tired of seeing.

 

The first one is the "International/UN superteams". I'm still not sure why it ticks me off. Maybe because it's such a obvious liberal wet dream, or maybe because I think it unrealistic as hell (I mean, I don't think the UN would ever have the political balls to assemble and coordinate an effective pro-active superteam). And it's even worse when the GM makes the UN corrupt and evil, and then all the good supers in the world are forced into the role of rebels or dupes.

 

Yes, I know the superhero genre isn't necessarily about realism, still...

 

And it may be weird, since I'm not American myself, but the more I play supers, the more I think it's an American genre, and I've been feeling weirder and weider trying to wrap my head about international supers as protagonists. I know, I know... realistically superheroes should be spread all through the world (Hehe, and I was raving about unrealism before, so I'm a contraditory person...). Still, sometimes I feel it's like playing a western/cowboy game and setting it in some other place but the US.

 

So nowadays I mostly stuck with American supers.

 

The other thing that I've come to dislike is the reaction to superheroes taken to absurd extremes. You know what I'm talking about. You've got worlds where superheroes are viewed as saints who can do no wrong in the eyes of the public, and in other worlds they're dirty muties to be shot on sight no matter what. I find both extremes somewhat ludicrous and annoying.

[Kevin]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

OK.

 

It appears that you really dislike all world concept genre conventions.

 

Would you prefer a game setting based on how people might actually react in the real world to the emergence of super powers?

[austenandrews]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

I'm very interested in the answers to this question.

 

Myself, I'm burned out on generic Avengers/JLA-clone "Dream Teams." I want a hook, maybe a unique schtick or motivation; something that sets each supergroup apart from the others, besides just having different members.

 

-AA

[Bloodshot]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

Extreme reactions are the ONLY ones you could expect from the general population towards those with super powers. They will either be worshipped as gods or despised as abominations. If you think otherwise, I think you are fooling yourself.

 

I would suggest digging around and grabbing some copies of the "Wild Card" books. I own about 8 of them and I think they do a great job of showing how the real world might react to those with abilities way beyond the human norm.

[Rene]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

It appears that you really dislike all world concept genre conventions.

 

No, God forbid! Maybe you've misunderstood me. I'm quite alright with settings where the reactions are *mostly* favorable or *mostly" unfavorable toward superheroes. The key world here is "mostly". What I dislike is when this reaction is taken to extremes both in frequency and intensity, do you see?

 

For instance, I quite enjoy most of the Marvel Universe, most of the DC Universe, Astro City, and Wild Cards. I like it when there is at least some variety in people's reactions, even though there may be a prevalent oppinion. But when *everybody* seems to have identical reactions to supers, and these identical reactions are always extreme, I don't like it.

 

 

Would you prefer a game setting based on how people might actually react in the real world to the emergence of super powers.

 

I usually prefer game settings where reactions aren't monolitical. I also happen to love settings where reactions CAN shift with time. That is the beauty of settings like Astro City and Wild Cards. You have time periods where supers are viewed more negatively than others.

[Rene]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

Extreme reactions are the ONLY ones you could expect from the general population towards those with super powers. They will either be worshipped as gods or despised as abominations. If you think otherwise, I think you are fooling yourself.

 

I would suggest digging around and grabbing some copies of the "Wild Card" books. I own about 8 of them and I think they do a great job of showing how the real world might react to those with abilities way beyond the human norm.

 

I have all the 16 Wild Cards books, and have read them multiple times. Most of the time, Aces aren't worshipped as gods or despised as abominations by *everyone* they meet. And I agree the books do a wonderful job in showing people's reactions.

 

In some time periods, Aces are *celebrities*. That is quite different from being worshipped as a god. Sure, *some people* are fanatical in their adoration, but by no means all people. Some people see them as aberrations, but again, by no means all people. And the bunch of the populace don't kneel before them or shot at them whenever they see an Ace! There is a whole spectrum of reactions in the novels.

 

I also agree that *initial* reactions to supers would tend to be more extreme. As people get used to supers, these reactions would cool down a little in a considerable portion of the populace.

[Lowly Uhlan]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

Internatioinal superteams have been done a lot, the last Champions campaign I played in had us playing one. It was OK, the concept really doesn't bother me.

 

What I am tired of is Mutants. Everyone besides my character in that game (and all previous games that I had heard about being run locally) had mutant PCs and a registration act. Give it a rest. I love the X-Men but the whole mutant threat/registration thing has been done to death.

[Blue]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

The ONE universe conept that I'm having trouble with is the one that I think has the most potential but that I think is being botched badly, and that's EXILES.

 

For those unfamiliar, it's about a group of characters plucked from various superheroic worlds and put together as a team. They're dropped on a planet to accomplish a mission, and if they succeed then they are moved onto the next world. Ultimately, if they achieve enough missions they are retired back to their own world. Not a bad concept at all. The problem I have is that these guys are constantly killing, maiming, and acting very un-heroic. Now as a single storyline where they have to make a brutal choice, I'd have no problem with it. But it seems that the writers have taken the concept as an excuse to randomly introduce and kill characters!

 

You can't get attached to any vesions of the various characters because it's likely that one will be killed off next issue. You can't be happy with a job well-done because the job is often messy and unappealing to begin with.

 

I'd like to see someone do this right. But for now it's a genre that is turning me off.

[Supreme]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

I'm pretty much sick of the entire "Dark Champions" schtick. Yeah, there's potential in a story about heroes who fight for a people that will never thank them, or there WAS the first 8649 times. Now it's a little old.

 

And you know what else is old as HELL??? Mutants and anti-Mutant hysteria. Stan Lee originally came up with it as a cop-out for thinking up origins for the X-Men. He couldn't think of an origin, then decided that if he just said "mutants" the problem would be solved. Forty years later, we're still paying for his laziness.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

I'm tired of the whole "nasty superhero" stuff. Take the Punisher, take the Authority and flush them all away.

[Rene]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

And you know what else is old as HELL??? Mutants and anti-Mutant hysteria.

 

Reading yours and Lowly Uhlan's posts, I'm glad to know I'm not alone.

 

I forgot to mention, but I dislike even more those games where every man, woman, and child in the planet hates your guts than those where everybody on Earth thinks you're Jesus.

 

OTOH, unified origins for all superpowers (such as mutation) don't bother me none.

[Hermit]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

Okay, second the comment on the UN sponsored teams. That's my whole problem with UNTIL normally and I fully admit my RL political views/disapointment in the UN may tarnish my other wise silver age outlook on them.

 

I think a European Superteam would be interesting, but for some reason comic books often seem to assume that if you aren't an American Super Hero, you simply must have the government assemble you. Mind you, this isn't true all the time, but it happens enough that it's annoying, and if I were a non US resident, I might even find it a tad insulting. I mean, come on, Americans are a great people (Says the American) but they're hardly the only ones with initative and organization skills. Why wouldn't Super Heroes be the same?

 

 

The mutant hysteria thing has gotten old, and really works best when there are no other types of super heroes (We love the Fantastic Four, but hate the X-Men? Why? Uhm, better PR ) . I don't blame Stan, it was a brilliant sneaky concept at the time that saved him work, and allowed some excellent social commentary about persecution. However, let the poor horse die already.

 

I agree with the idea that different people would have different views on super humans. Some folks might even see them as an oppressed minority and rabidly support them dragging them into political situations the supers never wanted to be a part of. Others might indeed seem them as weapons that need to be controlled. Others may see them as celebraties; but like Rene said, give it variety.

 

As for the "I kill because I can" mentality found in some iron age universes. Ugh. Fine, those folks maybe super, but they aren't (in my opinion) heroes. They're beings with god like power, who let their morality run downstream because they've talked themselves into saying "it gets results" when they really mean is "it's too hard to take the higher path."

 

I don't mind a super hero slipping in his ideals once in awhile, that's human. It's when they slide down the mud with their pants down going "WHEEEEEEE! I'm a psycho killer!" that I get annoyed.

[Vondy]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

I'm pretty much sick of the entire "Dark Champions" schtick. Yeah, there's potential in a story about heroes who fight for a people that will never thank them, or there WAS the first 8649 times. Now it's a little old.

 

I tend to agree. I'm a big fan of lower powered street level superheroes with more "realistic" storylines, but there is a definate brooding, angst-ridden, nastiness in Dark Champions that doesn't need to be there on a regular basis, and gets old very quickly. Birds of Prey, Nightwing, and Marvel Knights sans the Punisher are more my speed.

 

I've actually started running a high powered heroic level game set in 2222 with narrower sfx superpowers and more realistic applications. Its more hard sci-fi (well, sort of) than it is comic book. Man has colonized the solar system and alphas have emerged.

 

I find my comic book games are getting less and less comic book over the years. Its more like another genre with dashes of comic book here and there.

 

I don't like contemporary united nations teams either. Its a multilateralist fantasy. I do think - if you are doing a silver age style game - that an independent team with good relations with the UN, or even quasi-official standing, isn't that unrealistic. A JLA team for instance.

 

I don't care for dream teams, either, though. They're all popular so lets put them in a book together. Yeah, that makes for an excellent story. Once.

 

I understand the notion about it being an american genre. I've noticed european comic have a lesser emphasis on super-heroes, and that japanese comics tend to have a technology, naked girl, bubble-gum focus. I've tried to run a superhero game set in Jerusalem. It just didn't work. I couldn't suspend that much disbelief.

 

I think its interesting that you mentioned cowboys, though. There are some excellent literary critiques that point to the fact that the hard boiled detective replaced the cowboy as the lone rugged individualist hero and seeker of justice in the American psyche - and the superhero is, in many ways, an extension of that. I think there is something very American about the superhero concept.

 

Maybe taking powers and putting them into anothe genre would work.

[Pegasus]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

You can count me in the Anti-Anti-Mutant group. What kills me about the whole hysteria thing is the damned inconsistency of it all. If you're phobic about mutants, how the hell do the other supers get so popular? But it gets truly ridiculous when other supers are anti-mutant! It just drives me crazy. Not to mention that the sole reason for the X-Men's existence for the past oh, two centuries now, has been to defend themselves from people whose sole existence is devoted to killing them. Interaction with the "outside world" is non-existent.

 

The world/UN team doesn't bother me so much because I see it more as an excuse for the team to have stories around the globe rather than a political agenda.

 

Using the Punisher as the definition for a world or genre has always turned me off.

 

For my money, though, there aren't nearly enough Nazi worlds!

[Supreme]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

You can count me in the Anti-Anti-Mutant group. What kills me about the whole hysteria thing is the damned inconsistency of it all. If you're phobic about mutants' date=' how the hell do the other supers get so popular? But it gets truly ridiculous when [i']other supers[/i] are anti-mutant! It just drives me crazy. Not to mention that the sole reason for the X-Men's existence for the past oh, two centuries now, has been to defend themselves from people whose sole existence is devoted to killing them. Interaction with the "outside world" is non-existent.

 

The world/UN team doesn't bother me so much because I see it more as an excuse for the team to have stories around the globe rather than a political agenda.

 

Using the Punisher as the definition for a world or genre has always turned me off.

 

For my money, though, there aren't nearly enough Nazi worlds!

Well, I can actually see people being more phobic about the X-Men than the Avengers. The X-Men, and the other mutants, represent mankind's evolultionary replacement, where as the (non-mutant) Avengers tend to represent people who have benefitted from accidents and use those benefits in mankind's service. True, the idea of the mutant itself is dumber than a sack of hammers - or getting drunk with Mightybec, but taking that idea as a given it follows a certain internal logic. And that was interesting about 40 years ago. Let's give a new idea a try hm?

 

Of course Thor is a whole 'nother ball of uru-wax. He represents the confirmation of the ancient Norse pagan relgion. Holy crapeth! Does that mean that the world will end in Ragnarok and not the second coming of Christ?!?! Think that might cause something of an uproar?

 

And when it comes to always being hated vs always being loved, I think that it's much more realistic to have the characters being controversial and to have the attitudes about them to be mercurial. When it comes to our own real-life celebrities we laud and boo them whenever the wind shift. I think the next time I run a campaign, I'm going to have the PCs become keenly aware of how elections effect their activities.

[Blue]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

Okay, I definitely agree that having mutants hated but superpowered folks of equal stature loved, is a silly thing.

 

But generally speaking I don't think it was meant to be a companion piece to the Avengers. It was intended so they could have a group of heroes who act like heroes and yet are persecuted by the public. I have no problem with that when it's done well. But as you all point out, it would be great if they could come up with ANY logical reason why Beast: Avenger would be loved and Beast: X-man would be hated.

 

As for Stan Lee being "lazy" I don't think that EVER figured into it. "I've got these heroes and I guess I can just write up one origin and leave it at that." Nope. Seriously doubt it. First off, they DO have origins. Sure they weren't inventing the gamma bomb, or bitten by radioactive spiders, but their origins are less contrived; They lived in [country] and whent hey hit puberty, blammo! And this caused specific conflicts that the individual had to try to overcome. There's a ton of parity in the backgrounds, but I can't say that Wolverine's background, Stom's Background, and Rogue's Background are ANYWHERE alike before reaching the team.

 

I like the settings where the heroes are gods (Like JLA). I like the settings where the heroes are outlaws who do good (Like X-men), and I like settings where they just seem to fight without consideration one way or the other (Avengers, Defenders, Fantastic Four). All my campaigns are just like the last category. I might try something different next time.

[Rene]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

The best explanation I've ever seen for why mutants are hated and other heroes are loved is the one Supreme has mentioned and is brilliantly dealt with in issue 2 of "Marvels".

 

One issue of "Alias" also had a cool conversation between the heroine and her Dad where he explains to her why Spider-Man is hated and the FF are loved. Put it simply, the FF are a family and they don't hide. Spider-Man has a creepy mask, a creepy posture, and creepy powers.

 

This "favoritism" on the public's part don't bother me, good writers can explain it away. What bothers me is *everybody* hating the X-Men no matter what they do. You can say what you want about Grant Morrison and his post-modern writting style (I happen to enjoy it), but if he ever did a good thing was to introduce more shades to the X-Men's reputation. C'mon, if the X-Men really existed, don't you think rebel teens everywhere would love them? Morrison captured this well.

[devlin1]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

As for Stan Lee being "lazy" I don't think that EVER figured into it.

Actually, he's admitted to that in more than one interview. Around when Spiderman was out he was getting interviews all over the place, and I'd have to say that, with one or two exceptions, he told the story of "I couldn't think of an origin for these people, then I thought 'Hey, why can't they just be, like, born that way?'" every time.

[Blue]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

Actually' date=' he's admitted to that in more than one interview. Around when Spiderman was out he was getting interviews all over the place, and I'd have to say that, with one or two exceptions, he told the story of "I couldn't think of an origin for these people, then I thought 'Hey, why can't they just be, like, born that way?'" every time.[/quote']

Heh. I wonder if he wasn't just being lazy in the interview

Okay, so he was lazy. Never came across to me that way. If I make someone "born with powers" it's because it fits the character best.

 

But to go off on another tangent...

 

ULTIMATES. Yes, I've decided that any universe where they take existing characters with real and distinct personalities and turn them into something else entirely (and I don't just mean as part of a single storyline), that I hate it. I picked up ULTIMAT SIX because it had just started and I'd never read an Ultimates title before. I kind of liked it... until I saw the Avengers. 'Scuse me? SHIELD pawns? I couldn't like this idea any less. Especially when you've got a Thundergod on board. Why would this guy go along with it?

 

Liked the Six themselves, because they were still somewhat true to what they had been in the original universe, even if they looked different.

[Rene]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

ULTIMATES. Yes' date=' I've decided that any universe where they take existing characters with real and distinct personalities and turn them into something else entirely (and I don't just mean as part of a single storyline), that I hate it. I picked up ULTIMAT SIX because it had just started and I'd never read an Ultimates title before. I kind of liked it... until I saw the Avengers. 'Scuse me? SHIELD pawns? I couldn't like this idea any less. Especially when you've got a Thundergod on board. Why would this guy go along with it?[/quote']

 

Thor isn't "officially" a team member. Actually he is quite opposite to the Ultimates idea, he is the "liberal" voice of dissent in a conservative group. Basically he is there because he became good friends with Captain America and Iron Man, so he helps them out in a case-by-case basis. That is it.

 

Heh. I like the Ultimates. I don't have a problem with the different versions, the idea intrigues me, actually. Though I have to admit that the last few issues where somewhat of a let down. Too much big-screen "Authority" action and too little of the provocative shocking character stuff that I was enjoying.

[devlin1]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

Heh. I wonder if he wasn't just being lazy in the interview

Okay, so he was lazy. Never came across to me that way. If I make someone "born with powers" it's because it fits the character best.

Well, he said that he was more or less painting himself into a corner with previous character origins-- radioactive spider bite, gamma radiation, etc.-- and was having trouble thinking of more "excuses" for people to just turn super. I think the mutant idea was a fine one, myself, and a good example of thinking out of the box for Stan Lee.

[Beetle]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

I'm another one who's tired of the whole "mutants" thing. I don't know if it's because it's been done to death or if it's because I watched with horror as the "kewl" mutant titles devoured everything in the 1990s (and shunted the classics to an alternate universe where they were botched by kewl writers)

[Vex]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

I pretty much consider the mutant/mutate debate to be centered on perception for the most part. But, besides that, in theory, mutants can and will reproduce their mutations or at least the "X-gene", mutates should breed either as a human or be sterile. At least that is what goes on in the campaigns I have been apart of.

 

We had a mutate that was labelled as a mutant and he had a press conference to say that "I am not a Mutant", to which the press asked him what he had against mutants. It was funny, he kept saying stuff like "No, no, no, I don't hate mutants, some of my best friends are mutants!" and "ok, it's like when people say that Tom Cruise is gay". Of course the media made him look like a fool, all the mutants hated, most of the rest of the people that he was stupid, the anti-mutant groups labelled him a "Mutie-Lover" and he got sued by Tom Cruise slander.....

[Supreme]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

...As for Stan Lee being "lazy" I don't think that EVER figured into it. "I've got these heroes and I guess I can just write up one origin and leave it at that." Nope. Seriously doubt it...

Except that Lee has expressly stated this in interviews about the X-Men many times. He has even characterized himself as "copping out" on their origins. Check out his interviews in the X-Men DVDs and you'll see what I mean.

[Vondy]

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

 

I didn't say anything about Stan Lee, though I do consider it a cop out - as does he it would seem.

 

I was specifically thinking about players who hand me the ever nebulous "mutant" who has an all too broad array of inexplicable powers.