In the shadow of the City of the Future- Windsor's heroes

[Hermit]

Across from Millennium City is the “relatively peaceful†Canadian city of Windsor. It’s that relative term that has me thinking. Given that MC has more super action than many cities twice its size, Windsor must get at least a little fall out.

 

Besides, while other cities in Canada have super heroes and super hero teams (Comet, Starforce), the official Canadian super team keeps breaking up so maybe it’s just not working for Canada on a national level. It must be awfully annoying to Windsor to have their city overshadowed, in part because it misses out on the super hero action (Remember, this is a comic book universe….if you don’t have super heroes, you might as well be in Iowa ).

 

So, let us begin the construction of a new Superteam, for Canadians, by Canadians, and of Canadians (Okay, maybe ONE American, and an alien or something… that’s it, tops ). Now, before we get going, a few ground rules.

 

1) Please, No “gag†characters. Overall, the Canadians have been great neighbors (to those of us in the US), let’s not saddle them with “Maple Man and the Crimson Canuk!†or any such thing.

2) A lot of characters in “Champions of the North†were great, but don’t simply say “bring back _____†if you want that. Say why, and what changes you’d make. Remember, this is Windsor, so some might not fit as well as they would Vancouver etc.

3) A “token†American might be okay, (see above, and after all, many American teams in comics have members from other nations) but let’s have the team be mostly of Canadians.

 

In addition to members, perhaps a decision on how formal or official this team would theoretically be. Would it be government sponsored? If so, on what level? Would it be a collection of local heroes with a lot of pride? What?

[Zed-F]

I don't have a hero to contribute ATM, but here's some thoughts...

 

A hero team based in Windsor would probably be a local team. Southern Ontario is the most densely populated region in Canada, and certainly has enough population to come up with at least a couple teams. Probably the main Ontario team would be based out of (or near to) Toronto, but there could easily be local teams in other larger population centers such as Windsor or Ottawa.

 

As an aside, if you're looking for hero teams in other parts of the country, Vancouver, Calgary, and Montreal all make strong candidates. You could probably expect local teams in other good-sized urban centers as well; for instance, Edmonton is roughly the same size as Calgary or Ottawa, the only reason it would make a less ideal base for a regional (as opposed to local) hero team is that it's a bit too far out of the way (cross-border raids being a potential major source of villain activity.) Edmonton would make a very good base for supers that regularly have to deal with matters in the far north, however.

 

As far as a national team goes, if there were any connections to or oversight by the government they would probably be based out of Ottawa and considered part of the RCMP. Otherwise it depends on whether their focus is more to protect the whole country evenly, or to protect the areas of greatest population first (Ontario/Quebec) and other regions on a catch-as-catch-can basis, relying on the regional teams to pick up the slack. Regardless, I doubt that a national team would be based out of Windsor.

 

If it were up to me, I'd just concentrate on a local team for southern Ontario in general and Windsor in particular. There seems to me to be more potential for a friendly rivalry to develop with their American counterparts in Millenium City. They might also cover the slack for Toronto when the Ontario team was busy elsewhere, and gloat every time they did it. Probably a lot of attention would be spent on how to deal with stuff like extradition law, international jurisdiction disputes, etc.

 

There's a couple possibilities here for government affiliation. If the team were government-affiliated, it could be at the provincial level, and treated as an auxiliary of the OPP. Alternatively, Windsor itself does have its own police force, so there could be a municipally-sponsored hero team, with some funding provided by the provincial and federal governments but primarily budgeted by the city. In the former case, the team would likely concentrate more on the area around Windsor, in the latter case more on the city itself.

 

 

[mattingly]

Okay, he might be a bit of a gag character, but I normally have a centaur Mountie somewhere in Canada.

[Lord Liaden]

It's worth remembering that Southern Ontario, in addition to being the most densely populated part of Canada, is also the most ethnically diverse. Canada has experienced massive immigration from all over the world over the past thirty years, and this region has gotten the bulk of them. Most cities of S.O. would rival major eastern American population centers in that regard, and Toronto is widely accepted as the most diverse city in the world. Canada is also home to many Native American cultures, some very similar to their cousins to the south (such as the Plains and Woodlands peoples), others quite distinctive like the Inuit to the north.

 

So you can legitimately give any Canadian hero whatever ethnic/cultural background you'd like. And anyone from anywhere can acquire citizenship and be considered a "true" Canadian.

[Hermit]

Thanks L.L.

 

Cool, I actually was thinking of a American Indian character who was NOT mystical in nature as being on this hypothetical team

[Tom McCarthy]

Trying to GM a campaign in Ottawa, I see the following issues:

 

Ottawa is a natural centre for a federally funded team. It's the national capital and within quick commute range of Montreal, Quebec City, and most of southern Ontario. For drawbacks, the city's only about 1 million people and light on the potential story hooks from homeless people, drug wars, street crime, etc. The feel of the city is that a hero team would congregate there because it is the capital, but I don't think you can cram a team full of super-origins into Ottawa.

 

Toronto is a natural centre for a provincially affiliated team in Ontario. Toronto is the provincial capital, the largest and most diverse city, and sprawls into adjacent cities. It sometimes seems like half of southern Ontario is one contiguous urban mass connected to Toronto. Sizewise, it's large enough and busy enough to feel like it not only should support a team, but a couple of independents, too. It even feels large enough for all the heroes to be homegrown.

 

Unfortunately, that means small cities like Kingston, Windsor, London, Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton, etc., all fall back into the demographic of having no more than one to three heroes and no formal team per se.

 

Over the broder in Quebec, I see a similar problem with no more than about 7 heroes between Montreal and Quebec City. I imagine maybe 4 or 5 for all the Atlantic provinces, maybe 1 or none for Saskatchewan and Manitoba, maybe 2 to 3 in Calgary and one rival hero in Edmonton, and a smallish team of 5 or 6 based in Vancouver.

 

Anyway, that's some of the logic behind the super-populations in my campaign.

[GestaltBennie]

IIRC. Rod Currie was working on a Canada/Windsor .Hero Plus sourcebook.

 

Mind you, as far as Canadian supers go, they're much like American ones, but nicer (and more creative, and better looking and much more humble...)

 

###

 

I ran into the following while looking up references for a thread on RPG.NET. I once played a character who was the son of Johnny Canuck based on faulty childhood memories of the books; it was interesting to go back and look at the originals in all their Golden Age charm (which, given that they include a lost civilization in the "jungles of Libya" makes fors a rather surreal experience) .

 

http://mackenziemurdock.tripod.com/dimecomicsvol1no1february1942/

 

If one doesn't mind using characters who aren't in the public domain as part of their PCs' backstory, there's something to be used here. (Heck. Byrne used theGolden Age character Nelvanna as Snowbird's mother in Alpha Flight, though he didn't explicitly infringe on the copyright.)

 

Scott Bennie

[Hermit]

Originally posted by GestaltBennie

IIRC. Rod Currie was working on a Canada/Windsor .Hero Plus sourcebook.

 

Is he still? Curious here.

 

Originally posted by GestaltBennie

Mind you, as far as Canadian supers go, they're much like American ones, but nicer (and more creative, and better looking and much more humble...)

 

*G* Canadian Super VPP, 10 pts, Only to excell over American Counterparts ?

[Lord Liaden]

The Gestalted One makes a good point: One of the things that I really appreciated about the old Champions of the North sourcebook was that it contained no cliches remotely like Hermit mentioned at the start of this thread. You could take virtually every one of those characters, change one or two background details, and drop them into a campaign set in the States with no problem.

 

My suggestion for designing a Canadian superteam would be to create characters pretty much as you would for Americans, with a couple of provisos:

 

1) Gun-toting vigilantes will not be well received by the general public here. Canada has no "right to bear arms" - guns have traditionally been used primarily by the authorities, and then rather sparingly. Even the most conservative parts of the country would take a dim view of "heroes" firing off potentially lethal weaponry indisciminately around innocent civilians.

 

2) Canada also has no cult of the loner to the degree that American society has. The country was developed more through collective authority than independent pioneers, and the desire for peace and order is probably stronger than for freedom and independence. Solitary "dark avenger" types may be tolerated depending on how far they work beyond the law, but they're not likely to gain a lot of respect.

 

I would add one point of dispute with Tom McCarthy's analysis: since Millennium City is a hub of superhuman activity, I would expect that Canadian supers would tend to gravitate to Windsor to deal with the "spillover" as Hermit put it. So a hero team based there would be more likely than Windsor's population might otherwise make it. In fact I could see heroes coming there from elsewhere in Canada just to get in on the action.

[Zed-F]

I'd further add that IMHO, Tom is short-changing the prairie provinces to some degree. Calgary is a major and quickly-growing commercial center which is also close to several significant tourist attractions and would attract more heroes than its natural population would necessarily account for. Additionally, any hero from the Arctic who wanted more than a solo hero experience would naturally gravitate to Edmonton for association, and it's quite likely that even if there were only a few heroes based there permanently, they would have a significant number of solo hero contacts that live out in the more remote northern regions of the country.

[Zed-F]

Re: Thanks L.L.

 

Originally posted by Hermit

Cool, I actually was thinking of a American Indian character who was NOT mystical in nature as being on this hypothetical team

 

Definitely a possibility. He wouldn't even have to be overly tribal-oriented, though you could always fall back on that.

 

Like in the US, there's been lots of history of tension between the government and the first peoples over self-governance, past wrongs, and so forth, if you care to look it up. In general the conflict has been less violent than in the US, but there have been exceptions (see the Oka crisis for a modern example.) Could make for some good background bits.

[Broblawsky]

Canada has fairly strict gun control laws, doesn't it? Much more so than the US, I think. If you wanted a more stereotype-busting super, how about...

Arsenal (or Firepower, or nearly anything sort-of associated with guns, really...)

Johnathan Murray is one of Canada's oldest living superhumans: he participated in (and just barely survived) the disastrous raid at Dieppe in World War II, and, though you wouldn't know it to look at him, is a good 80 years old. After being seriously wounded in action, Murray volunteered for one of the first cyborg programs in recorded history, and was not only healed in the process, but was equipped with some very powerful weapons in the process. Over the years, Murray has continued to upgrade his cybernetics, and anything in his body is comparable to the most powerful technology Viper or ARGENT could put out, thankfully. Despite his cyborg status, Murray isn't full of the self-loathing that many cyborgs are - he volunteered for the conversion process and dutifully and gladly pays the price to be able to protect the free world. Murray is also a well-known conservative in Canada - he has vigorously opposed Canada's high taxes, welfare programs and (in particular) gun control programs, and is a good friend of Charles Heston - he is roughly comparable to an American moderate Republican on most areas, and is less conservative on some social issues like gay marriage and abortion. He has openly and strongly denounced recent initiatives to reduce criminal penalties for marijuana-related crimes. His strong and unconventional political views have, however, earned him the ire of many politically motivated liberal supervillains and even a handful of superheroes, and they have also put his status as one of Canada's state-sanction superheroes in jeopardy.

 

Powers: Arsenal should probably be an artillery-style blaster - he's screaming for a big multipower full of attack powers like gun-hands, Summon-homing-missle legs, and so forth and so on - probably shouldn't be TOO lethal or cause too much property damage, as he IS a superhero. He should also have subdermal armor and similar powers.

 

Campaign Use: Arsenal's political views make as good a story hook as any - at the very least, he might get into an argument with highly liberal PCs, especially if their views are well-known. Arsenal should still be a team-player, though - he probably has more experience at it than any of the PCs, too.

[Hermit]

Another thought

 

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

I would add one point of dispute with Tom McCarthy's analysis: since Millennium City is a hub of superhuman activity, I would expect that Canadian supers would tend to gravitate to Windsor to deal with the "spillover" as Hermit put it. So a hero team based there would be more likely than Windsor's population might otherwise make it. In fact I could see heroes coming there from elsewhere in Canada just to get in on the action.

 

I forget (And need to dig for my Champions Universe book) but is the CU Canada more or less strict on requiring 'registration' of super heroes? If less, Canada could have some formerly American super heroes who left the US rather than comply with that act.

[Hermit]

And nice concept Broblawsky

[assault]

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

My suggestion for designing a Canadian superteam would be to create characters pretty much as you would for Americans, with a couple of provisos:

 

1) Gun-toting vigilantes will not be well received by the general public here.

 

...

 

These suggestions would work for designing Australian supers too, incidentally.

 

In fact I could see heroes coming there from elsewhere in Canada just to get in on the action.

 

This seems likely to me. I suspect that many supers would be inclined to seek the company of their peers, and living "just up the road" from one of the main super population centres would be a viable option for Canadian supers.

 

Hmm. It's fairly likely that at least some Australian supers would gravitate to MC, New York, and all the other major super-cities. Thank goodness Seeker doesn't exist in the current universe!

 

Alan

[bcholmes]

Re: In the shadow of the City of the Future- Windsor's heroes

 

Originally posted by Hermit

Across from Millennium City is the “relatively peaceful†Canadian city of Windsor. It’s that relative term that has me thinking. Given that MC has more super action than many cities twice its size, Windsor must get at least a little fall out.

 

Plus you've got all those chemical plants just a bit north in Sarnia... it's practically an origin story waiting to happen.

 

Some thoughts:

 

- The child of one of the Avro Arrow designers finally perfects the flight armour that dad was working on back in the 50s and 60s.

 

- Canada has, I believe, the largest population of Chinese outside of China -- I'm thinking a were-Dragon character might an interesting member

 

- The Red Ensign -- daughter of the WWII flag-suited hero. Sure, our flag has changed since WWII, but people still fondly remember the original Red Ensign.

[bcholmes]

Re: Thanks L.L.

 

Originally posted by Hermit

Cool, I actually was thinking of a American Indian character who was NOT mystical in nature as being on this hypothetical team

 

"American" Indian?

[Barton]

Americans on the team

 

What about the idea of US goverment teams and Canadian goverment teams doing an exchange program? Say one super spends a year in each others team. Great excuse for US in a Canadian team and vice versa.

[bcholmes]

Originally posted by Tom McCarthy

Ottawa is a natural centre for a federally funded team. It's the national capital and within quick commute range of Montreal, Quebec City, and most of southern Ontario. For drawbacks, the city's only about 1 million people and light on the potential story hooks from homeless people, drug wars, street crime, etc. The feel of the city is that a hero team would congregate there because it is the capital, but I don't think you can cram a team full of super-origins into Ottawa.

 

In my campaign, the members of COMET (from Champions Universe) have a common origin. They've salvaged alien technology from a UFO in the Ottawa river. Before they were a super-team, they worked for Carleton University (COMET = Carleton Office of Metahuman and Extraterrestial Technology). They're much more a "Challengers of the Unknown"-ish team of adventurers than a bunch of costumed heroes.

[bcholmes]

Gunfight at the Oka Corral

 

Originally posted by Zed-F

(see the Oka crisis for a modern example.) Could make for some good background bits.

 

*nod* That'd be an interesting piece of backstory to put into a character's history.

 

I remember when Alpha Flight essentially said that Northstar had belonged to the FLQ. That was an interesting backstory item.

[Hermit]

Re: Re: Thanks L.L.

 

Originally posted by bcholmes

"American" Indian?

 

What continent do you think they're on? Very well, "North American Indian" if we're splitting hairs.

[Hermit]

Originally posted by bcholmes

In my campaign, the members of COMET (from Champions Universe) have a common origin. They've salvaged alien technology from a UFO in the Ottawa river. Before they were a super-team, they worked for Carleton University (COMET = Carleton Office of Metahuman and Extraterrestial Technology). They're much more a "Challengers of the Unknown"-ish team of adventurers than a bunch of costumed heroes.

 

That's an interesting take on it. Possible connections could be made with the War Machine in CKC if it's a Hzeel ship.

[Lord Liaden]

If there were American super-criminals crossing over the border from Millennium City, I could see Borealis becoming extremely ticked off over the "importation of American crime" into Canada. If he could trace some of those activities to criminals based in MC, like PSI or Jade Phoenix, he might launch preemptive attacks against them. Since Borealis is very powerful but not very subtle, the MC heroes could find themselves in the ironic position of having to protect their native supervillains from a Canadian invader.

 

And if Borealis were backed up by members of his own team, "Destiny," stopping him may require a joint American/Canadian hero-team effort.

[Hermit]

I can see a scenerio like the one Lord Liaden proposes leading to an annual event like the one Barton proposes.

 

Nice input

[Lord Liaden]

FWIW, I've always been pretty satisfied with the way Champions of the North treated the Canadian super scene. When I need Canadian NPC heroes for my campaign I intend to give those character writeups an extra 100 base Character Points to bring them in line with 5E Champs standards. That would put most of them between 365 and 400 points.

 

BTW, the notion from CU that Canada's "official" super team keeps falling apart struck me as mildly insulting. Not that I think Steve Long and Darren Watts intended that, but I do wonder what the rationale for that decision was.