Australian supervillain origins - a brainstorm

[assault]

I've now got four solid female supervillains: Black Opal, the (Black) Swan, Cyclone and the Tigress.

 

I really only want two more for my current conception of the project. I might as well reuse some of my superheroic concepts.

 

OK, so we've got Plastic Lass. Pick any of the horrible "broken spine" images of superheroines, and give them stretching, so they can actually do that, plus another 360 degree spin in the middle.

 

And Iron Maiden. She's a woman whose body was quite literally constructed by men. A brain in a robot. Deeply alienated, and seriously, what kind of drooling nerd designed her body anyway?

 

I think that will do. Now it's time to start on the boys.

[steriaca]

Iron Maiden: A aducted woman who was cybernised against her will by the villian Black Gear, but excaped before she was implanted with the "loyalty program". As a side effect, she has very few memorys of her life before her full cyberization, and believes that the Australian Government was responsible. So, she is on a rampage against the government. (If you want to make things even more... intresting... make her the daughter of a supervillian who got into an accident so severe that going to Black Gear was the only choice).

[steriaca]

In case your wondering, Black Gear is my haven't stated out master villian and the name of his organisation (in the style of the Cyborg 009 villian Black Ghost, and the Giant Robo anime villian Big Fire). His gole is world domination, in order to force cyberization upon the masses. He is so entroled with the idea that he cannot even fantom that anyone would not like to be a cyborg. He even did it to himself.

[steriaca]

Plastic Lass: A real doll, really. She began life as a Barbie doll (or an Australian equivalent) who a little girl lost in the Outback. Then, somehow, it entered Dreamtime and was changed into a full size, 'living' being. She is not really evil. She just has no idea about how society works and has fallen in with the wrong crowd.

[DShomshak]

Barbie is a focus of strange obsessions. It's why I made Barbie one of the stranger menaces in my second Supermage playtest campaign. PC Artifex magically created a living Barbie as housekeeper/ahem, let's not talk about it for his apartment in Babylon. It got very out of hand. He unwittingly created a reality vampire, turning people into living plastic mannikins like herself. And it was contagious. The PCs narrowly averted Barbie's ascension to cosmic entity dimension lord of a new dimension of plastic people.

 

"I'm a Barbie Girl

"In a Barbie Wor-rld.

"Life in plastic:

"It's fantastic!"

 

Dean Shomshak

[The Arc]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beautie

[dmjalund]

Three Dog Knight

[assault]

It's been a while (I got bored), but here are some notes. I notice some of my earlier ideas are missing from here, so I might get around to adding them.

 

Redback. A genius who created a set of spider-themed powered armour.

Swan. A mutant with luck powers.

Captain Moonlight (Midnight?). Has darkness powers.

William ‘Billy’ Lomo. A grateful alien gave him a high-tech head band, which allows him to control his density.

Captain Starlight. Has cosmic powers, including the ability to survive and travel in space.

Black Opal. Discovered a mystic power gem.

Yowie. Has the ability to transform into a giant beast-man.

Scarlet Spectre. Archeologist who found the Ring of Gyges. (See Plato).

Negator. An off-duty police woman discovered that she can temporarily neutralize natural (mutant, etc) superpowers.

??? Can absorb radiation (and drain radiation based powers!) giving him temporary superstrength, invulnerability and flight. (Obviously a nemesis for a specific hero, but could be shaped into a more general threat).

Tasmanian Tigress. Psycho beast woman.

Crimson Cockroach. A Geologist who discovered a lost city in the Libyan desert, and learned how the inhabitants shrunk to tiny size.

Plastic Lass. Exposure to strange chemicals gave her the ability to change her shape and stretch her body to incredible distances.

Kangaroo. Martial artist with incredible leaping abilities.

Grey Nurse. A nurse who swam in a mysterious glowing pool when forced to take stress leave. She gained shark-like powers, naturally.

Psyche. Doctor Sarah Sykes unlocked the secret of her mental abilities, at the expense of her sanity.

Tiger Beetle. A teleporter. One of the world’s fastest people over short distances.

Wombat-Man. Bitten by a radioactive wombat. Possesses claws and the ability to tunnel.

Death Throw. Throws boomerangs.

[st barbara]

Maybe "Wombat Man" should also be super tough . Stories of cars coming off second best after meeting wombats are legendary !

[st barbara]

Or how about a female plant manipulator named "Lantana". Lantanas are a particularly prickly weed. 

[SteelCold]

Kangaroo is aboriginal for "I don't know." The character is going to wonder why the locals are always laughing at him when he shows up.

[dmjalund]

Kangaroo is aboriginal for "I don't know." The character is going to wonder why the locals are always laughing at him when he shows up.

this is a myth

[assault]

Currently sidetracked on Brisbane in the early 80s.

 

I first played Champions after someone brought back a copy of Champions from Cancon (big games con in Canberra) 1982. That was one of the first copies of Champions available in Australia.

 

Unfortunately my first campaign was horribly munchkin. It came close to making me give up on the game. Fortunately, I borrowed a copy of the rules and realised that it was the campaign that sucked.

 

The result of all that was that I can't just whip up a setting based on the actual games I played in the early 80s. I have to make stuff up from various sources, including what actually happened in Real World Queensland back then.

 

I'm currently working on characters that might have been found in a city of around a million people (Brisbane) in the early 80s. At that time Queensland was sometimes referred to as Australia's "Deep North". But there were a bunch of interesting personalities...

[assault]

I hate writing character origins. Even when I'm basically just ripping off Plato, with a few touches from The Invisible Man.

 

The problem is having to write it out formally. It's easy for me to write: "While excavating the tomb of King Gyges of Lydia, archeologist John Griffin discovered Gyges' legendary ring of invisibility. Corrupted by its power, Griffin became a supervillain named the Scarlet Spectre".

 

That's not good enough. The concept is good - simple, but with classical references - but nailing how to write it is tricky.

 

For once the visual side is easy. His name was inspired by a lame public domain superhero called the Scarlet Phantom. Maybe add a bit of "Hal Jordan as the Spectre, only red".

[assault]

"Once" (if!) I get Scarlet Spectre done, my next trick will be a character called Blue Dynamo.

 

Basically he's a riff on the Guardian - a non-powered police officer turned superhero, maybe even using a shield.

 

The twist is that he is undercover - trying to discover the secret identities of the other heroes.

 

The name Blue Dynamo was one I came up with back in the 80s - inspired by a brand of laundry detergent! It's taken me until now to come up with a good use for the name.

[Ninja-Bear]

Assault I feel your pain. Im the same way. And trying to do something original is painful.

[steriaca]

I'm slightly better than you, Assault, at orgin writing, but not by much. Just look at my latest, Cooper Mason. The orgin as writen up is sound, but it needs a bit of something...

[SteelCold]

this is a myth

so are superheroes and the dream time but that hasn't stopped people from believing in them.

[wcw43921]

"Once" (if!) I get Scarlet Spectre done, my next trick will be a character called Blue Dynamo.

 

-snip-

 

The name Blue Dynamo was one I came up with back in the 80s - inspired by a brand of laundry detergent! It's taken me until now to come up with a good use for the name.

 

Hey--when I was little I saw a TV commercial where two cartoon blackheads were wiped out by the Blue Crusader-- a jar of Noxzema face cream.  I was inspired to create a hero with that name--all-blue costume with cape and mask flares not unlike Hawkeye, but larger.

 

So you're not the only one to be inspired by household items--after all, what do you suppose this artist was thinking when he came up with this guy?

 

[SteelCold]

Frozen green peas. He was drawing just before dinner.

[BoloOfEarth]

I hate writing character origins. Even when I'm basically just ripping off Plato, with a few touches from The Invisible Man.

 

The problem is having to write it out formally. It's easy for me to write: "While excavating the tomb of King Gyges of Lydia, archeologist John Griffin discovered Gyges' legendary ring of invisibility. Corrupted by its power, Griffin became a supervillain named the Scarlet Spectre".

 

That's not good enough. The concept is good - simple, but with classical references - but nailing how to write it is tricky.

 

For once the visual side is easy. His name was inspired by a lame public domain superhero called the Scarlet Phantom. Maybe add a bit of "Hal Jordan as the Spectre, only red".

 

For origin / background, I've found several different forms I typically follow.

 

There's the third-person descriptive -- basically, explaining what happened from completely outside the character's POV.  This seems to be one of the most common forms used.  It doesn't have to be the same-old-same-old -- it could take the form of an UNTIL report on the origin incident and events that followed, or a colleague (or minion) revealing the character's background.

 

Then there's the first-person narrative -- the villain himself tells the story.  I kinda like this, because in addition to learning his background, you also get a feel for the character - personality, voice, etc.  The downside is it's tough to reveal info that the character himself/herself isn't privy to.

 

Another form is laying out a specific scene.  Since it doesn't have to be told from the character's POV, you can put secret stuff in there too.  You can even put a succession of scenes together -- Hermit did a great job with this in his background for Stalker (of the Millennium City 8) in Digital Hero #13.  The hard part is getting everything into a scene (or a few scenes) without thing feeling forced-in.

 

Forms can be combined (such as laying out an origin scene, then switching to third-person descriptive afterward to fill in other info). 

 

Different ones work better for different characters.  For me, the hardest part is finding the right form for a character background, followed closely by shoehorning in everything I want in there.

 

Here's an odd idea for Scarlet Spectre.  Spell it out from the ring's POV over several scenes.  Maybe it's an intelligent item that worked at Griffin's subconscious, corrupting him without Griffin realizing he was being influenced.  Start with it sitting in the dark tomb, reflecting back on King Gyges and how the ring helped him come to power, but lamenting how long it's now sat unused.  Then John Griffin arrives and is tempted to put the ring it on, and is hooked.  Next scene is Griffin telling off his colleagues, who (the ring whispers) never respected his abilities, ending with him leaving academia.  Then a scene (or two) of him committing crimes, maybe mentioning other crimes to illustrate his slow but steady corruption by the ring.

 

Another idea could be a third-person descriptive with  a "grizzled veteran" minion filling in a new guy on "the Boss."  ("Believe it or not, I've been with the boss-man since before he was Scarlet Spectre.  I was a gofer on Dr. Griffin's dig in Lydia, looking for the tomb of ol' King Gyges.  We found it just as a sandstorm was kicking up...")

 

Anyway, just a few ideas to hopefully get the creative juices flowing.

[BoloOfEarth]

"Once" (if!) I get Scarlet Spectre done, my next trick will be a character called Blue Dynamo.

 

Basically he's a riff on the Guardian - a non-powered police officer turned superhero, maybe even using a shield.

 

The twist is that he is undercover - trying to discover the secret identities of the other heroes.

 

The name Blue Dynamo was one I came up with back in the 80s - inspired by a brand of laundry detergent! It's taken me until now to come up with a good use for the name.

 

"Hey, Harp, looks like your boy Dynamo was at it again last night!"

 

Jack Simon listened idly as two other officers poked fun at the rookie cop.  Even though Detective Simon couldn't see Rick Harper's face, he could imagine it turning red.  Maybe a few years on the beat would cure him of that.  If he survived.

 

"He took down four gangbangers, single handed." Harper sounded proud of his hero, despite the ribbing.  "That's, what, four more than you brought in, isn't it, Donaldson?"

 

This defiant reply was met with a chorus of "ooooos!" and guffaws from other officers around the room.  Simon chuckled.  Donaldson was a bit of a loud-mouthed jerk and deserved to be cut down to size every now and then, but he wasn't about to go down quietly.

 

"You may think the Blue Dynamo's a hotshot, Harper, but he's just one more vigilante hiding behind a mask."

 

Harper shook his head.  "I wouldn't be so sure of that.  In fact, I think he might be a cop."

 

That got some shocked silence from the other officers, as well as Det. Simon's full attention.  Does he know...?  Simon slowly swiveled around in his chair to look at the rookie.  "What makes you say that, Officer Harper?"

 

"Look at how he operates," Harper replied.  "He doesn't just beat up the bad guys, he leaves photos and recordings and other evidence behind so we can nail 'em in court."  A few of the other officers were nodding slightly.  Det. Simon was trying to figure out how to derail this train of thought when the rookie gave him the perfect lead-in.  "Besides, he's a boy in blue, just like us."

 

Simon chuckled.  "So maybe we should ask Superguy and Spiderdude for their badges?  They wear blue, too."  That got more laughter from the other officers, and they began to drift off to their own desks or headed out on patrol.  Simon breathed a inner sigh of relief as Harper headed his way.

 

"Detective Simon, seriously, what if Blue Dynamo is a cop?  I saw him fight once -- some of those moves are what they taught us at the Academy."

 

"They also teach them at self-defense classes all over the city," Simon said.  "Listen, kid, I agree, those capes sometimes do good, but that doesn't make what they do right.  There's laws for a reason."

 

"And what about when criminals skate by on loopholes?  When the laws don't work?  Look at the guy that shot your partner, what, two years ago?"

Simon's voice was almost a whisper.  "Three."  You're preaching to the choir, kid, you just don't know it.

 

"That was one of Dynamo's early cases.  Everybody knew he'd done it, but nobody could prove it.  Then Dynamo got to him.  Sure, his confession got thrown out because it was coerced, but it told us where to find the ***head's gun.  And that nailed him."

 

"So the end justifies the means?"  Simon looked the younger officer in the eye.  Don't go down this path, kid.  It's not a good one.  Trust me. "Look at this guy."  He flipped the file around so Harper could read it.  "We just got a tip that this Randall Blaine guy is actually Vigilance.  You know, the guy who brands criminals' foreheads with a 'V'.  Kneecaps people and then dangles 'em off rooftops to get 'em to talk.  Most of 'em are bad, he hardly ever cripples an innocent guy, but y'know, you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.  Or legs, as the case may be.  Think we should give him a pass?"

 

"No, but..."  Harper looked increasingly uncomfortable.  "Blue Dynamo doesn't go that far."

 

"Yet.  He's skating a very fine line, kid, and one of these days he's going to screw up and go over it."  That's why I had to get Blaine's trust and find out his name, because he crossed that line more than once.  And I live in constant fear that one day I'll cross that line, and then what will I do?  Det. Simon closed the file and patted the officer on the arm.  "Listen, kid, I get where you're coming from.  Really, I do.  But don't let hero worship blind you."  He leaned close and lowered his voice.  "I'm guessing you're passing him info every now and then."  He didn't need the rookie's embarrassed flush to know he was right.  "You really want to help him, you'll make sure he stays on the right side of the line.  Warn him off when he looks like he's getting too hot under the collar."  He chuckled good-naturedly.  "Besides, you look like you'd make a good Jiminy Cricket."

 

As the rookie cop left the station-house to go on patrol, Det. Simon sat back and thought long and hard about his shields -- both the one he wore as a detective, and the one he carried as a cape.  He wondered if either one was really going to protect him in the end.

[assault]

Cool story, Bolo.

 

My version is a bit darker.

 

As a result of political pressure on the Police Commissioner, an officer was chosen to infiltrate the underground scene of so-called "superheroes". His mission: to identify their true identities, gather evidence on their activities (crimes), and bring an end to the threat they pose to the local establishment.

 

Needless to say this is a very corrupt environment. This was one of the characters that came out of my sidetrack into early 80s Brisbane, which was a time and place where a notoriously corrupt police force were acting as enforcers for a particularly vindictive and repressive conservative government. This was a situation where superheroes would probably have been seen as a threat.

[assault]

Another one of my early 80s Brisbane characters is a riff on the Martian Manhunter, influenced by this song and the band that played it. I haven't nailed down his details yet.

[assault]

There's a difference between character concepts and full origin stories.

 

I'm pretty good at the first, not so good at the second.

 

Early edition published character writeups tended more to the concept side of things. Later editions favour the full story approach.

 

This seems vaguely consistent with the general tendency towards increasing granularity and verbosity in both the system and characters produced by it.

 

I'm strongly tempted to consciously go with an old school approach. Unfortunately, that works best alongside art (a picture is worth...), and I can't draw to save my life.

 

Actually, the ideal character origin would be a two page comic. Beyond my abilities, alas.