What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

[Snake Gandhi]

Well, we've all seen a lot of Superman homages, maybe even played a few (raises hand). What are some of the concepts you've used for them, to explain why they had abilities far beyond mortal men. I mean, rip-off's from the comics have stayed with the 'he's an alien' thing (Hyperion), done 'blessed by the Gods' (Captain Marvel), and recently done 'given powers by secret formula' (Sentry) So what have folks here used?

 

My first Superman homage was called Sentinel (and I've re-used the idea and name from time to time). His background was along the same lines as Clark's, but instead of being from a distant world, he was from the far, far future, sent back in time by his parents before entropy destroyed the universe. I just played it as everyone a few million millenium from now could do what he could do, evolution and all.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

I've never actually played a real Superman homage as a character...yet.

 

Closest I've come was a Captain Marvel tribute, "Captain Incredible" for a golden-age game. Granted Incredible Power by a mysterious wizard, transformed by reciting the word "Gamir!" which gave him the strength of Gilgamesh, the power of Anu, wisdom of Marduk, courage of Ishtar, and the somethin or another or Ramman? Don't remember exactly, but Babylonian gods/heroes. Secret ID was a scrawny accountant. He was fun.

 

I've had a villainess, Superia, basically a kryptonian, alien bent on taking over Earth, hung out with JLA-tribute villain team, The Prime.

 

I've had plans on "Dragoness", mystic-powered Chinese-American woman with various amazing powers. Flame-eyes or flamebreath instead of heat vision, "Strength of Seven Mountains", stuff like that, but haven't had the right game to play her yet.

[austenandrews]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

Closest I can remember is Captain Legend, complete with the Legend Family. Granted powers by a mysterious wizard. So yeah, an homage to an homage.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

One made but never played ...

 

Magnus (from the Latin word for 'strong'), an android* with a Kelvarite skeleton. Got the standard Kelvarite-accident strength and movement powers, and then some (the heat vision, etc), but had all the attendant disadvantages to a positively ridiculous degree. I had 45 points in Vulnerabilities and 30 in Susceptibilities ... I didn't even need any Hunteds to balance the Disads, so he got to be so completely wet behind the ears that he hadn't had the chance to tick anybody off yet.

 

*Android defined Marvel style, meaning 'an artificially created organic lifeform that isn't a direct duplicate of another being', as in the original Human Torch.

[assault]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

I've used the Hulk/Captain Atom-style Radiation accident thing. It's big and flashy enough to create a Really Powerful Superbeing.

 

Dr Manhattan's origin is a variation on that theme.

 

Merging with a deceased relative works too. Merging with a relative who became deceased in a nuclear blast works even better!

 

See:

Captain Triumph http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/c/captrium.htm

the Australian Captain Atom http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/c/capatom.htm

and, of course...

3-D Man! http://www.geocities.com/ratmmjess/3dman.html

 

While we're at it:

Blue Beetle http://www.toonopedia.com/beetle2.htm

Molo the Mighty http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/m/molo.htm

[Dino]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

The Superman/girl archetype from my last game got her powers by being at ground zero of the reality altering event that gave everyone else thier powers. (Gotta love those temporal/dimensional drive malfunctions.)

[OddHat]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

You can find my current Superman homage on my web page from the link below, or in the forums here. He's a mix of Hugo Danner and Clark Kent, and serves as First Major Public Superhero and as one source for the increased number of public Supers after WWI. His presence both directly created bloodlines that bore Supers and forced governments to develop technologies to create their own superhumans.

 

Finally, he serves as a background character and source of plot seeds.

 

His power set is not quite the same as that of the Silver Age Superman, but it's close.

[Blue Jogger]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

Demon escaping hell telefragged into a normal human.

 

The resultant being was a humanoid that could fly, regenerate, armor and a multipower of fire bolts out of his hand, strength. He had a Distinctive Feature: Demon but with effort he could shape shift into various human forms.

 

He was fun to play, "Look, if I didn't try to be a superhero, they'd lock me away for being a demon."

 

The most memorable scene was when he developed Full Life Support.

"He just vomitted up his guts."

"But he's ok, right?"

"Well, yeah, but it was fairly disgusting."

 

Occasionally he would shapeshift himself into Christopher Reeves (wearing the Superman outfit) which convinced everyone that Reeves was Superman, this was obviously before his accident. (Acting, Disguise, and Mimicry)

[Karmakaze]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

I never did work out what Incredible Dude's origin was, although he is a flying brick with a secret substance that saps his powers and health. Of course, that substance is grape JELL-0...

 

I always thought of him as sort of a cross between Superman and Groo the Wanderer...

[Emerald Mask]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

My tribute to Superman was an alien who was gene spliced from several races and came to Earth as a refugee .

[Southern Cross]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

My Superman homage is my namesake character.He's the result of an alien mad scientist wondering "Could something like Superman actually exist? I'd better kidnap some silly human and perform some experiments on him".

[Brick]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

SUPERION was raised on a far-off tropical island by a kind professor and his cohorts who created him in a lab with biotechnology to be the ultimate human being. The big guy had Supes' moral code but was way more naive to the cruelties of the world outside.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

In an older Champions campaign for 4E HERO, I used "Captain Atlas," the child of a human woman and a cosmic being who had fallen in love with her. (I borrowed the name from Golden Age Champions, and the origin from that of Captain Australia in HERO System Almanac I.) Captain Atlas was one of a pair of twins; their mother was killed shortly after they were born, and the twins were adopted. The geneticist master villain Malachite kidnapped the girl a few years later - she would eventually become Viperia (4E version). Since Viperia had/has most of the classic Superman powerset, I gave Captain Atlas roughly the same powers.

 

Having bought the current VIPER: Coils Of The Serpent, it hasn't escaped my notice that Viperia is now the daughter of Nama, but that Nama is also supposed to have another unspecified child out there somewhere...

[Haven Walkur]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

Radiation! Our campaign's "Superman" was an Australian heroine called Southern Cross. She was a human mutant with a nuclear reactor inside her, she used heavy metal dietary supplements, and her powers -- she had the whole Superman suite; powers, abilities and senses -- were all radiation based.

 

Yes, she ran the risk of irradiating friends, enemies and the environment by any use of her powers. With great power comes great responsibility; that was absolutely true in her case, since she irradiated things just by existing. But with care and fore-thought -- read "eternal vigilance" on her part -- she could usually avoid any problems. However, neighbouring New Zealand viewed Southern Cross as the equivalent of a nuclear vessel, and would only let her enter under exceptional circumstances, and then only briefly.

 

She was a flagsuit character; in this case, the Australian flag, which has the Union Jack in the upper left corner and shows the Southern Cross -- which I've just remembered has a fifth star on the flag, unlike the NZ flag which only shows four. Her version of kryptonite was graphite, an electron absorber which would "shut down" her metabolic processes if it got into her body.

 

Dr Demonicus (our version of Dr Destroyer, equally gifted in both science and sorcery) took her out of the action once with a shotgun blast-style attack that fired dozens of slender graphite "needles" (think of the lead from a mechanical pencil). That put her in a coma until we could get the graphite extracted.

[Hermit]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

My CU, late 20th century, an energy being known as "Primus" a planet sized energy being that resembled a great sphere with swirling ribbons grasping all around it, had roamed the space ways consuming the comic energy that makes up reality to feed itself for eons. Whole planets were rendered incapable of bearing life. Finally, various heroes of the universe could bear no more and went to make war.

 

One of them, Matthew Manning, was Earth's greatest hero known as "Megaman" a silly name, perhaps, but he came from simpler times.. In the late 1930s, he'd been struck in a field by a strange light from the heavens. He thought at first a meteor, but that would have killed him. Instead, whatever this was filled him with power, and that power would grow. At first he was just stronger than two olympic weight lifters, and could jump very high... but as the years went buy, he grew stronger still. His very matrix was filled with cosmic energy. By the 70s, he was flying through space on his own power... able to smash small moons, and was unaging. It was a troubling thing for a simple man just trying to do what was right. He had been a founding member of "Force 1", called by some the "elite" of super heroes. He'd saved the world more times than he could count... and when the time came for the Universe's greatest heroes to stand against Primus, he could not refuse.

 

Hundreds of them gathered, the last Golden Hunter of Malva, members of the Star*Guard, Adros the Mystic, The Imperitive, and many he'd never even met before assembled. Their goal was to kill Primus.

 

And that troubled him. He'd always thought his powers placed him on a higher

standard. Soldiers had to kill or be killed. He, on the other hand, could control his might, and was, as they put it "Nigh invulnerable". The excuse that Primus wasn't a 'person' didn't wash with him. He'd made friends of A.Is, chatted with aliens, allied with mystical beings. No, he'd been asked to be an executioner assigned by a universal court. It was not a position he relished at all.

 

Others sensed this, and either out of kindness for him, or disdain for his 'outdated ethics' had him playing back up. That galled as well, but he knew that counting on the squeemish to do a killing stroke was not in their best interest. He would try to make sure no part of Primus survived, but others would deliver the death blow.

 

They charged the great devourer of life energy like an army of ants seeking to take down a rabid lion... but alas, the anology was not perfect. Surely, the ants fared better in their attack against the lion than the heroes did against the intergalatic monster. Dozens died within the first few breaths of battle alone. There was no other choice, and all too soon, the 'reserves' became 'the main force' . Beams of energy, mystic spells, and good old american fists beat a orcestration of noble desperation upon the drum that was Primus' being.

 

More bodies floated by Mega-Man, then... the explosion. Primus was litterally blown apart. But he had to be kept from reforming. Mega-man punched and shattered every shard he could, keeping them from merging again. They had to deplete Primus' energy so it could never again threaten the world. And it worked, shards were knocked away from each other, keeping them apart. One he punched seemed to flicker out of existance...

 

But some continued to travel, through space AND time...

 

One of which, whizzed into the distant past, the late 1930s to be exact... passing into the atmosphere of the third planet of a yellow star.

 

Young Matthew Manning looked up from the field, wondering what that light was.

[OddHat]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

In an older Champions campaign for 4E HERO' date=' I used "Captain Atlas," the child of a human woman and a cosmic being who had fallen in love with her. (I borrowed the name from [i']Golden Age Champions[/i], and the origin from that of Captain Australia in HERO System Almanac I.) Captain Atlas was one of a pair of twins; their mother was killed shortly after they were born, and the twins were adopted. The geneticist master villain Malachite kidnapped the girl a few years later - she would eventually become Viperia (4E version). Since Viperia had/has most of the classic Superman powerset, I gave Captain Atlas roughly the same powers.

 

Having bought the current VIPER: Coils Of The Serpent, it hasn't escaped my notice that Viperia is now the daughter of Nama, but that Nama is also supposed to have another unspecified child out there somewhere...

 

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Lord Liaden again.

 

I really like this idea for an official CU Superman or Captain Marvel.

[Haven Walkur]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

My CU' date=' late 20th century, an energy being known as "Primus" a planet sized energy being that resembled a great sphere with swirling ribbons grasping all around it, had roamed the space ways consuming the comic energy that makes up reality to feed itself for eons. Whole planets were rendered incapable of bearing life. Finally, various heroes of the universe could bear no more and went to make war....[/quote']

 

Hermit, was Primus sentient? Could it be communicated with? Was it in control of its feeding urges? And if it were a sentient being, could the "empowerment" of young Matthew Manning be viewed as the elaborate suicide of a creature no longer willing to destroy life in order to live?

[Kristopher]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

Most powerful character I've ever written up.

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24896&highlight=omega+girl

 

 

My actual Superman "homage" was an moralizing jerk who allowed about 1000 people to die because he absolutely refused to cut loose on a supervillain who had obviously lost it and was about to do something very destructive -- and one of the PCs even warned him it was about to happen.

[Hermit]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

Hermit' date=' was Primus sentient? Could it be communicated with? Was it in control of its feeding urges? And if it were a sentient being, could the "empowerment" of young Matthew Manning be viewed as the elaborate suicide of a creature no longer willing to destroy life in order to live?[/quote']

 

It was sentient in one of those 'comsic entity beyond our full comprehension' kind of ways. And that's an interesting take on it.

 

Ironically, some of the other shards 'evolved' into humanoid shaped beings. One player of mine used this as an origin story for her own cosmic character.

 

Finding out she was a 'seed' of Primus caused a lot of distrust among the heroes.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

Deja-vu all over again :

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36397

[Lord Liaden]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Lord Liaden again.

 

I really like this idea for an official CU Superman or Captain Marvel.

 

Thanks. It does seem like it would be a ready fit.

 

Mind you, I still have hope for the eventual return of Vanguard.

[Wombatman]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

and the somethin or another or Ramman?

 

 

Noodles?

 

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

I've always wanted to play a Superman of the Neitzchean/Shavian variety: a person who is naturally talented and skilled that he has trancended most human social constructs. A man who is very, very good at everything he attempts, to the point that he is beyond the reach of most forms of authority and can live life by whatever set of moral ideals he wishes.

 

He wouldn't wear a costume or consider himself a superhero, but he would be more than a match for most supervillains in spite of it.

[assault]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

Oops! I forgot one I've used: the Hidden Lands type. A New God, an Eternal, an Inhuman, or, in CU terms, an Empyrean. I've used a couple of such, of varying degrees of seriousness. The less serious ones tend to come from the moons of Uranus.

[dbsousa]

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'?

 

My Superman homage, the Ambassador, was created by an artifact placed by unknown aliens at the dawn of human existence. They buried an indestructable gestation chamber, at the furthest point from the birthplace of homo sapiens. If this young race of sentients could extend their reach around the globe, and unearth the chamber, then they would be worthy of contact.

400,000 years later, a farming couple in Kansas found the chamber while plowing the family farm. Believing this buried child to be a sign from God, they raised him as their own. This child, born in 1910 became Earth's most powerful superhero. By this time the race that had left him behind had long died out, leaving little trace of their world, and the Ambassador was left to find his own meaning. He is completely human, down to the molecular level, but is enveloped in an energy matrix, invisible to the naked eye, that will protect him from most forms of damage, and give him powers unimaginable in his day. His first appearance as a super hero was in 1929,when he flew into the air to prevent a man from jumping out of the Chicago Board of Trade Building. This man, Maxwell Masterson, vowed vengeance upon the Ambassador for robbing him of his dignity, becoming the first of many Rogues to challenge the Ambassador throughout his career.

 

As his list of enemies grew so did his list of allies.

 

• Sasquatch, his Neanderthal counterpart, raised by the last Neanderthals in the Himilayas.
  
• Galatea, a female robot created by Professor Pygmalion to destroy the Ambassador, who instead fell in love with him.
  
• Red Mantis, a crime fighter from New York, imbued with the spirit of Rhadmanthus, judge of the underworld.
  
• The Arcane Family, a grandmother, mother, and daughter who are part of an unbroken line of Supreme Sorceresses from prehistoric times.
  

 

This hero became exponentially more powerful in 1945, when Dr. Destroyer launched Operation Spoilsport, a retaliatory nuclear strike from the ashes of the Third Reich. Bomber drones aimed at five Allied cities were launched from a secret facility in the Black Forest. the Ambassador intercepted the New York missile in the Atlantic Ocean and fought of waves of Destroids before reaching the H-Bomb in the belly of the drone. unable to disarm the device in time, he willed his energy matrix to envelop both his body and the bomb absorbing all of the radiation and most of the concussive force of the bomb.

After disappearing for twenty years, he reappeared in a flash of light and heat at the sight of the original explosion. His energy matrix, previously invisible, now glowed brightly. He was ultimately unable to control the energies that coursed through him, and eventually left the planet for the far reaches of space. Where he is now is anyone's guess, but Ambassadorr sightings are more common than Elvis, Jesus, and Virgin Mary sightings combined...