Power Suggestions

[Blue]

I'm working on a new character. Attached is his picture and below is his origin. I have a vague idea of what powers he might have but haven't cemented anything yet. Creative group that you are, I thought you might have suggestions.

 

Here's the origin of Monochrome (aka Captain Video):

 

-----------------------------

In the 1950s, Captain Video was popular host of a national TV show. But like all pop culture icons, he faded from memory except in the hearts and minds of a small but loyal following. The man who played the Captain slowly became infirmed and spent many years in a nursing home, anonymously living out his waning years.

 

While visiting another patron at the nursing home, Josh McMurtry spotted the old man and recognized him for who he had been. He was a collector of goods related to old TV shows. He visited actor Andrew Bolens even long after the guest he'd originally come to see had passed on.

 

But Bolens’ health failed and he was on his death-bed.

 

That’s when what can only be constituted as miracle occurred. McMurtry put out a call to all of the members of the Captain Video fan-club so that they might meet their idol before he died. Bolens awoke to find his room flooded with avid Captain Video fans who were all there to pay their respects and thank him and wish him the best. The true miracle began when a number of his fans brought back to him their pieces of his costume that they had bought through auctions and science-fiction conventions over the decades and presented them to him. Bolens donned the uniform one last time as a tribute to his fans and entered the corridor to the stunned disbelief of the fans. It was as if it were 1953 all over again. He stood tall and broad-shouldered, crisp and neat as the image on a TV screen. Captain Video was not only well, but he was young again.

 

The fans had somehow wished him into health and back to his fighting prime. What’s more, he looked exactly the way they remembered him, complete to the fact that he was in black and white! Even more amazing was that while special effects had carried him through his show, now he found he actually had those powers.

 

------

 

I'm thinking his powers have to be flashy (at least for black & white technology). He's the traditional 50's superhero sterotype of a chronic do-gooder. He has distinctive feature (Has no color at all). I thought about giving him the ability Teleport using Television screens (He could t-port to a location that has a TV) but that might be too modern a concept to fit with the 50's. Anyway, throw me some suggestions. Thanks.

[Blue]

OOPS forgot the picture

 

Pic Attached

[JohnTaber]

HI Blue,

 

How about 2 dimensional powers. TV screens are flat afterall. Maybe Disolid to slip under doors and such and/or DCV levels only from the sides??? Something like that...

[Supreme]

First of all, let me say what a great origin story that is. This is one of the cooler concepts I'd heard in a long time. Does the actor go back to being infirm when he takes the suit off?

 

Anyway, let me make a few comments.

 

Costume

The costume, though quite cool, doesn't really look like the costume you'd see on an old 50s adventure show. He should have a more classic, but B&W golden age costume. I'd model it more on the Flash Gordon costumes (which were also the inspiration for the original Superman costume). He should also have only a domino style mask (just covers the area around the eyes) or no mask at all.

 

Powers

If these powers are based upon the powers he'd had on the 50s TV show, then you should be thinking one thing: cheap special effects. Captain Video wouldn't have had super-flashy, light-show-style, dazzling super-powers. He'd have things that you could shoot on a budget. It might be interesting to explore what happens when Monochrome learns about the powers the writers wanted to give him, but were told "no" by the production company because of budget concerns. Anyway, here's my short list of powers that characters often had on old sci-fi/adventure shows because they were easy to shoot.

• Invisibility (just cut camera and have the actor walk away, follow up with voice-overs)
  
• Teleportation (same trick, no voice-overs)
  
• super-strength (paper-mache props were a stand-by)
  
• invulnerability (guys shoot guns loaded with blanks, the actor stands there and smiles)
  
• flight (on "Superman" with George Reeves, George would just jump out of a window with a mattress on the other side, cut to stock footage of George "flying" in front of a screen projection)
  
• enhanced senses (the cheapest of all, cut footage between the hero and the crime, as soon as the crooks make a loud noise, walk out from behind the lead wall, do something "evil", etc. the actor then stops what he's doing, stares off into space for a second, then has to go - there's trouble!)
  

Good luck with the character.

[Blue]

I considered some kind of desolid where he kind of "pixelizes" and becomes intangible, but I also like your idea of perhaps having a desolid that lets him pass through objects that have some kind of "gap" in them.

 

The problem I'm having is that I'm stuck between two different concepts of where his powers should come from.

 

In #1, he would be the sterotypical hero of the 50's and his powers would be limited by the imagination of the time. Typical brick stuff, Heat Rays, etc.

 

In #2, he would actually take on properties of video, materializing in people's living rooms, perhaps have some kind of flash attack, video "illusions".

 

#1 fits better with the character concept, but #2 sounds like more fun.

 

I'm also thinking 50's heroes had capes (generally). So I'll say the cape was never retrieved. Instead it belongs in the hands of the villain he fought in the serial in the 50's, who has powers becuase he's delusional and actually thinks he IS that character; He breaks out of the asylum when he sees pictures of captain video (in living black and white) on the television. Their rivalry, one tha really only existed in scripts, is reborn! But that would be his HUNTED and is all aside from the "powers" issue.

[Blue]

Originally posted by Supreme

First of all, let me say what a great origin story that is. This is one of the cooler concepts I'd heard in a long time. Does the actor go back to being infirm when he takes the suit off?

 

Thanks very much! I thought about having him change back to the secret ID he had on the TV show, only still in Black and White. I thought it might be funny to have him walking around pretending like he's a reporter or other professional who thinks nobody know who he is when actually everyone does. But he's not delusional, so I may not do it. I'll leave that to his arch-nemisis, who is an actor who played a villain on the show and who still thinks he's the villain.

Costume

The costume, though quite cool, doesn't really look like the costume you'd see on an old 50s adventure show.

 

Good suggestions. I think I'll do a few more versions of the costume and see what I come up with.

 

Powers

If these powers are based upon the powers he'd had on the 50s TV show, then you should be thinking one thing: cheap special effects.

 

That was my initial thought and I'm still somewhere in that vicinity because of the character's origin. I may wind up making two versions of the character and deciding between them.

[Hermit]

Why not mix and match? make him the typical golden age "Brick" with like three powers: Flight, Super Strength, and some invulnerability.

 

Then start having other powers surprise even him.

 

Have him go desolid at odd moments as he 'ghosts' or 'wavers'.

Megascale teleportation at odd moments, as he always just 'ends up' where a fight is supposed to be.

A forcewall leaps out to protect innocents he can't reach physically, the words We are experiencing technical difficulties, please stand by all over it.

You could start them out as No Concious Control, then buy the limitation off as he gets "the hang of it".

[winterhawk]

Very Cool Character. A friend of mine did something similar with an old TV Cowboy. He based his powers "old TV western physics":

 

"Just a Scratch": Armor, Invisible Effects. TV heroes were never seriously injured. When they got shot, it was always in the arm.

 

"Right as Rain": Healing, All Powers at the Same time, Self Only: TV heroes, when knocked out (Real World requires Level 2 concussion), they wake up a few scenes later.

 

Both of those could be applied to Captain Video. As far as other powers, TV spacemen of the 50s all had rayguns. And goggles. I like the idea of someone having the cape and thinking he is Captain Video. How about his fanclub willing his Arch Enemy ala Ming the Merciless into his existance as well?

 

Have to agree with Supreme on the costume. Cool Design but not 1950s. How about a Silver Lame jumpsuit with a hood and fin?

[Blue]

Originally posted by winterhawk

Very Cool Character. A friend of mine did something similar with an old TV Cowboy. He based his powers "old TV western physics":

Good Suggestions. Turns out getting lots of good suggestions makes this even harder

 

Have to agree with Supreme on the costume. Cool Design but not 1950s. How about a Silver Lame jumpsuit with a hood and fin?

 

Yeh, I'm going to have to work on this a bunch tonight when I get home.

 

Originally posted by Hermit

Why not mix and match? make him the typical golden age "Brick" with like three powers: Flight, Super Strength, and some invulnerability.

 

Then start having other powers surprise even him.

 

Have him go desolid at odd moments as he 'ghosts' or 'wavers'.

Megascale teleportation at odd moments, as he always just 'ends up' where a fight is supposed to be.

A forcewall leaps out to protect innocents he can't reach physically, the words We are experiencing technical difficulties, please stand by all over it.

You could start them out as No Concious Control, then buy the limitation off as he gets "the hang of it".

 

I'm thinking that I can swing some of the extra powers if I say he also used to introduce his adventures by doing little vignettes where he popped out of the television and into someone's living room to tell the kids about the night's episode, then popped back again. Fans might buy that as one of his powers, though not one he used in the show.

 

Great idea about the flickering. Now my head hurts.

 

I'm also working on a few slogans.

Captain Video - Justice is always black and white.

[winterhawk]

How about a little something like this?

[Supreme]

Originally posted by winterhawk

How about a little something like this?

Oh, AWESOME! Just needs more contrast, and drop the goggles. Makes him look too nerdy and actors preferred not to have so much obscurring their faces.

[winterhawk]

Originally posted by Hermit

Have him go desolid at odd moments as he 'ghosts' or 'wavers'. Megascale teleportation at odd moments, as he always just 'ends up' where a fight is supposed to be.

 

The TV Cowboy character had a couple of the same powers.

 

"I go where I'm needed" The megascale Teleport

 

He also had Desolid/Invisible, since he was the Iconic Embodiment of the Old West. He had to make an EGO roll to do it, and took 3d6 per phase while the power was in use. He basically 'willed himself out of existance' and if he did it for too long, he would truly cease to exist.

 

He also had a dependence on the Belief in the Old West Mythos. Not much of a Disad until a villain dropped him on a deserted island and he began to fade away.

[winterhawk]

Originally posted by Supreme

Oh, AWESOME! Just needs more contrast, and drop the goggles. Makes him look too nerdy and actors preferred not to have so much obscurring their faces.

 

Good suggestions.

[Blue]

You guys are just too inventive

 

Those look great. I'm not a big fan of gray so I've been working in the extreme contrasts. But you made gray look good so now I may have to rethink that. I imagine I'm going to be redrawing this for days now until I'm happy.

 

Here are the first 4 I did, side-by-side (or as I now call it, "Acroyear Style").

[winterhawk]

Wow, I really like these. Much better than mine. #4 is the best, maybe the TV goggles with a normal hairline? My idea on the gray was how people look on old b/w TV. Nice job!

[Blue]

Thanks once again.

I've got it down to these two basic designs for now... But I'll probably think of something later after I'm "sure" I'm finished.

[Lord Liaden]

These four are excellent, Blue! Impressive work on short notice. Only where's the poll?

 

If you'd be interested in suggestions: The goggles are great in concept, but I agree with Supreme that they hide too much of the face. The mask is a more classic "mystery man" hero look. Maybe have the goggles as a gadget that he puts on at need, like night-vision lenses. But if you use them, keep the little antennae - they're just so retro.

 

Costume #1 is the most interesting to me, but #3 is the most Flash Gordon-ish. The tv screen belts are a bit precious, though - the belt on #1 looks like a '50's gimmick, they always had stuff with dials. But you absolutely must have the lightning bolts on the gloves and boots!

 

(I'm just old enough to remember some of this stuff.)

[Lord Liaden]

Geez, two more already! I gotta type faster!

 

I'd say number 1, essentially. The new goggles have a sleek look that makes them less distracting from the face than the others, so I think they work pretty well. If the Captain is going to wear them all the time, you can lose the remnant of the black mask underneath them.

 

I reiterate: you'll be truer to the period flavor if you lose the tv belt buckle in favor of dials, and put the lightning bolts back on the gloves and boots. And now that I think of it, he really does need a holster for his raygun.

[Blue]

I put too many dials on the last one I did. I *love* the dials on the belt, but putting them as buttons was too much.

 

So I've got the belt from the first one, the lightning bolts, and the tv-glasses on this one. I think I'm in the home stretch. This is my favorite so far.

[Lord Liaden]

Originally posted by Blue

So I've got the belt from the first one, the lightning bolts, and the tv-glasses on this one. I think I'm in the home stretch. This is my favorite so far.

 

I could quibble about minor things, but those would just be a matter of taste. I can't deny that this last one is pretty sharp, and you have the 1950's flavor coming through really strongly. Slap a ray gun on him, and I'd say you're good to go!

[Blue]

What I'd like is more definition in the hair, but it's a little difficult working in the colors (lack of colors) I've chosen, at this scale and all.

 

Plus now I'm forced to do some actual work.

[Supreme]

Originally posted by Blue

Thanks once again.

I've got it down to these two basic designs for now... But I'll probably think of something later after I'm "sure" I'm finished.

The first one definitely! Though I'd ditch the antenna on the belt buckle.

[beauxdeigh]

Some TV Superhero Powers

 

I think the classic bit from the B&W Superman TV show was the "bounce bullets off chest then dodge the thrown gun" maneuver. That would probably be rolled up into some kind of encompassing "TV Hero" psych lim, as opposed to a vulnerability to thrown weapons.

 

If he is an energy projector, whether by blaster or something more internal, it's likely he'd point his 'weapon' and a flash of energy could suddenly appears at the target, knocking them down. I'm not good at the clever names for powers yet, though.

 

As for the image, I like the mask more than the goggles, very Lone Ranger-esque, and the buttons on the one side of the costume you're using really remind me of that character. All very cool though.

 

I wonder if Captain Video had a sidekick...

[William Bushway]

I must admit a preferrence for Winterhawk's first design. I think Winter should keep the goggles, but push them up on the forehead so the hero's spit-curled cowlick can poke out . The "V" on his chest is a little bland, you need to maybe heighten the lightning-ness of it, something like the way Zenith stylizes their "Z" logo. And he definitely needs a rocketpack or rocketbelt.

 

Blue's design doesn't really say 50's for me Branstormer-style jackets (with the buttons up one side) were more from the dawn of the aviation age, pre WW2. The cowl overtop of it seems too reminiscent of of the ST:TNG uniform designs. Finally, for me the whole TV-eyes thing screams "80's" (MTV, Max Headroom associations).

 

As for powers:

How about a disorentation attack based on messing with the "vertical hold" and "horizontal hold?"

 

Likewise, a Flash attack based on increasing his "contrast."

 

I like the teleport idea - I can see the sFX in my head. His body turns into a black 2-d sillhouette with a rapidly collapsing point of light at the center (like when you turn off an old B&W TV).

 

Desolid works too: Cpt. V "de-rezzes" into a cloud of static. In fact, because the 50's heros never seemed to get hurt, rather than showing bullet holes or scorch marks from damage in combat, you can have him flicker and fade (as per bad TV reception) the more injured he gets.

[Blue]

There's definitely nothing wrong with Winterhawk's costume, except that to me it didn't say "hero", and I can't put my finger on why.

 

I tried a couple of completely different things last night but they were not good enough to bother posting. I think I'll stick with the powers issue for a while and worry about the look later when I have a grip on what he can do.

 

At this point I'm leaning toward the following powers:

• Missle Deflection - Aimed toward bullets and small arms projectile fire (Ray guns always seemed to hit in those old tv shows)
  
• Some decent HTH fighting skills (bare handed brawling); Think of the strangely choreographed fist fight scenes of William Shatner on the original Star Trek
  
• Abnormally high STR (More like the STR of 10 men, not Superman STR)
  
• Visual Sensory Powers - X-rays were very impressive sounding back then; maybe a few other visual powers.
  
• Teleportation - Only to Locations that have a TV (that is turned on)
  
• The ability to pass through walls by breaking apart
  
• Create duplicates of himself (Illusions; An easily done special effect in the 50's, where they never put all the duplicates in the same frame)
  

All are subject to further change by me (Seemingly on an hourly basis).

 

I think his belt with the dials is a focus that allows for him to dial-up the effects in question. His goggles give him the vision powers. His cape (Stolen in episode #17) is in the possession of actor James Heller, aka Dr. Meridian, the nefarious arch-villain who was committed years after the show and who upon seeing the revived Captain Video on TV suddenly decided that he WAS Dr. Meridian, and promptly broke out to resume their adversarial relationship.

 

What's more, I think his main weakness is that his eyes are light sensitive, and therefore I think goggles are the best bet; without them he is vulnerable.

 

I've got the real-life Captain Video's origin. Now I need to work on what his origin story was on the TV show. But that's low priority.