Better International Heroes

[Christopher R Taylor]

Although the art is great and some concepts were interesting in European Enemies, it is frankly packed with bad stereotypes and heroes only someone who doesn't live in these nations would have come up with.  Its like someone outside the USA going "Eagle man!  Captain Indian!"

 

So what kind of international heroes can we come up with that are good international types?  Heroes that don't necessarily have to reflect national character but seem right for the setting?

I love the idea of Peregrine for a French hero, for some reason that just appeals to my sense of the nation and a flying battlesuit just works.  But Einherjar for a Norwegian guy, a huge axe wielding warrior might be a bit too on the nose.

[Lord Liaden]

IMHO Champions Worldwide is full of non-cliched concepts for superheroes from all over the globe. Quite a few have full 5E character sheets, and many others are named and very briefly described. Darren and Steve did real research to give the characters names in their native languages, but in most cases those names are not derived from stereotypes, and their powers are designed the same way any other supers would have been.

 

Unfortunately, a lot of the artwork in CW is, well, less than eye-catching.

[csyphrett]

We had  a create a foreign team thread here on the board but it died out. Maybe a search would bring it back up

CES 

[assault]

Australian team:

 

Australia is (still) predominantly white and has a relatively high level of gender segregation in terms of employment (by the standards of developed countries).

 

So, a team of four "mainstream" heroes might consist of three men and one woman.

 

One of the men might not be white. This is probably the only place where you might find an Australian indigenous hero, so that will be his background. To avoid cultural appropriation, his powers are unrelated to indigenous culture, although they might be tacitly related to Australian history. Exactly where he comes from should not be specified, as it may imply kinship with real people. Of course if he grew up in, say, Sydney, the problem can be dodged,

 

Four characters can have a nice range of powers. They don't necessarily need all the "Brick, Energy Blaster, Martial Artist, Mentalist" food groups, but can.

 

Conventional power/special effect naming works fine, with some twists: a fire character might be Bushfire, a storm character Cyclone, etc.

 

Origins should avoid including needless errors. This requires a bit of basic research. For example, if a character is to be deputized by the Mayor of Sydney, you should check to see if the Mayor of Sydney can do that. (No). Likewise if you want to make reference to the "Sydney Police Department", you should see if such an organization exists. (No).

 

Try writing the origin first, and then see if the factual content makes sense.

[Vondy]

I think the only way this really happens is if people from those countries produce the material themselves. And, for the record, if it were written in English, I'd eat that up. Steve and Darren did a great job with Champions Worldwide and took the time to do research and ask people who would know. At the same time, its unfair to expect every creator to completely shed their perceptions, or suddenly become insiders in a gazillion other cultures. Also, while there are certainly bad stereotypes in fiction and games, deftly applied tropes (and even stereotypes) are useful touchstones. For instance, if I'm running Pulp Hero, an ersatz Fu Manchu with the racism filed off will be immediately understood by the players and remains genre appropriate. So would the clever little french detective, Poirot. Or the New Knights of the Round Table. Yes, Arthuriana is hackneyed. But everyone says "Brit!" It can be done well. They key is 1) not to fear the stereotype, and 2) twist it, play with it, and turn it on its head after the desired flash of recognition occurs. And, non-Americans leverage some hackneyed stereotypes about us as well. I tend to forgive them. Unless they've lived here or done extensive research or lived around Americans, they can't know how we really are. Sure, they can research the structural details, but in terms of culture and character? That takes experience.

[Vondy]

One of the men might not be white. This is probably the only place where you might find an Australian indigenous hero, so that will be his background. To avoid cultural appropriation, his powers are unrelated to indigenous culture...

 

You are likely damned if you do and damned if you don't. 

 

(this is something I've been thinking about vis-a-vis my own writing)

 

If you don't include a minority, you are white washing.

 

If you do include a minority but don't leverage their ethnic identity, you are still white washing.

 

If you do leverage their ethnic identity, you are misrepresenting or misappropriating or stereotyping. 

 

This leaves the question: what is your motive for including minorities?

 

Personally, I don't write (or run games) to drive other people's agendas. I write to express myself, and to have fun. Am I imperfect? Yes. Is my expression therefore imperfect? Yes. Is my fun for everyone? No. But, in the end, if I'm going to include a minority in my stories, its going to be for a reason other than being politic.

 

That (doing things because they are politic), in my opinion, is disingenuous and smacks of posturing. Which I do not think you are doing for a minute. My motive could be verisimilitude (a sword that cuts both ways), it could be to spice things up, it could be to give a narrative or thematic counter-point. It could also just be because I've enjoyed having all sorts of people in my life and feel like I can fairly represent (some of) them. 

 

Which brings me to the bottom line: write what you know and what inspires you and flows naturally. Write what is fun for you and your group. If writing a minority character flows naturally for you and you feel you can do them justice, you should do so. But, in the end, it shouldn't be forced. Nor should the starting goal be: "create a character that will prove I'm not a stereotypical white person."

 

Because, in the end, that would be playing into a stereotype.

[assault]

If I were to assume that one in a million Australians had superpowers, that would be around 23 supers in the whole country (heroes, villians and whatever), distributed across age groups. If they were randomly selected from the population, probability suggests none of those are likely to be indigenous. There's a fair chance a couple of them wouldn't be from mainly European backgrounds. They could be immigrants, or they could be Australian born. Their ethnic backgrounds could be chosen essentially randomly. One or more of them *could* be indigenous, but that would be an accident.

 

That's just demographics/statistics.

 

But the distribution of superbeings, especially when the sample is so small, is hardly likely to be random. At that point it becomes selection by the writer/GM.

 

There are, however, genre expectations. That's the real reason why I would include an indigenous character, rather than, say, someone from Africa or South America.

 

Heck, I might even include someone who throws boomerangs, just for laughs. And an Australian ninja, because.

[wcw43921]

I remember for Fourth Edition there was a hero called Captain Australia--two heroes, actually.  The first was a male who was crippled in action, and the second was the female who took his place.  Both were quite powerful, as I recall.

 

Most of us here are quite likely familiar with this site--The International Superheroes Catalogue.  If you're looking for inspiration to create authentic supers from lands other than the United States, there's the place to start, to my mind.

 

Hope that helps.

[assault]

The biggest limitation the International Superheroes site has is that it is, by definition, focused on heroes. It's not as useful if you are looking for villains.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Which brings me to the bottom line: write what you know and what inspires you and flows naturally. Write what is fun for you and your group.

 

 

Yeah, make an interesting character that works well and is creative and ignore potential "eek offense!" hyper sensitive jackwagons.

[assault]

Offending people is fine. You just have to choose who to offend.

 

I personally try to avoid offending people who live with Real World racism etc on a daily basis.

 

One thing I am not bothered by is worrying about diversity amongst maniacs and criminals. Supervillains can all be heterosexual white males as far as I'm concerned.

 

I prefer a more subtle approach to heroes.

[Vondy]

 

One thing I am not bothered by is worrying about diversity amongst maniacs and criminals. Supervillains can all be heterosexual white males as far as I'm concerned.

 

Two wrongs don't make a right.

 

Justice for all really does mean justice for all.

 

If you are going to take justice into account, do it for everyone.

 

Else, its not so much justice as hypocrisy.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think some countries need better heroes (and villains) more than others.  England actually does okay, for example, but Saudi Arabia not so much.

[Lord Liaden]

Champions Worldwide includes an interesting costumed crime fighter based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, called Caracal (a native desert cat). Darren and Steve did a nice job in developing Caracal's background to balance Middle Eastern and Western cultural influences, to create a hero rooted in Saudi traditions while holding values compatible enough with those of Western heroes to work with them when appropriate.

[Ninja-Bear]

So Assault how do you view us Yanks?

[Redmenace]

 Suprheroica isn't always limited to the US mmedia.  Kuwait has a huge superteam, the 99.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_99

 

http://comicvine.gamespot.com/the-99/4050-22548/characters/

 

http://www.the99kids.com/

 

 

There should be plenty of minable ideas there.

[TheQuestionMan]

Marvel ( or DC) comics database - search by - country - look up -

Residents

[massey]

I think the only way this really happens is if people from those countries produce the material themselves. And, for the record, if it were written in English, I'd eat that up. Steve and Darren did a great job with Champions Worldwide and took the time to do research and ask people who would know. At the same time, its unfair to expect every creator to completely shed their perceptions, or suddenly become insiders in a gazillion other cultures. Also, while there are certainly bad stereotypes in fiction and games, deftly applied tropes (and even stereotypes) are useful touchstones. For instance, if I'm running Pulp Hero, an ersatz Fu Manchu with the racism filed off will be immediately understood by the players and remains genre appropriate. So would the clever little french detective, Poirot. Or the New Knights of the Round Table. Yes, Arthuriana is hackneyed. But everyone says "Brit!" It can be done well. They key is 1) not to fear the stereotype, and 2) twist it, play with it, and turn it on its head after the desired flash of recognition occurs. And, non-Americans leverage some hackneyed stereotypes about us as well. I tend to forgive them. Unless they've lived here or done extensive research or

lived around Americans, they can't know how we really are. Sure, they can research the structural details, but in terms of culture and character? That takes experience.

 

 

It's hard to do international heroes well, because nobody does international heroes well.

 

Comic books are primarily an American medium.  Sure there are superhero comics from other countries, but not that many good ones.  And not all the ones that exist are really genre appropriate for American four color comic books.  Yeah, Japan has manga, but (from what I've seen) most manga heroes don't really translate properly.  They don't feel like they belong in the same world as Superman or Spider-Man.  So there's really not a lot of stuff that you can just rip off and duplicate.

 

You can't make all the characters stereotypes.  But without a little bit of stereotype, it's not always clear they're from a different country.  Stick too close to stereotypes and you get Apache Chief.  But then what point is it having a Kenyan superhero be a white dude with Superman powers? (hey, there are white guys in Kenya)  If you look at American comics, not everybody is Captain America.  In fact, most characters aren't that closely identified with where they come from.  Mr. Fantastic has stretching powers, but I don't really connect those with the US or NYC.  Most of the X-Men have powers that have nothing to do with where they come from or their nationalities.

 

So you're left with trying to create characters who are from other countries, who feel like genuine representatives of their countries, but aren't necessarily too closely identified with those countries, who represent the values and beliefs of their homelands (but not too closely), and are also viewed acceptably through a Western-values colored lens.  That's hard to do.

 

Honestly, I think the best way to do it is to just have regular superheroes, and do a bit of a palette-swap on them.  Spider-Man could swing through the streets of Hong Kong just as easily as he does Manhattan.  I'm not saying steal Spider-Man, but take a normal character and give him a different ethnicity and secret ID and you should be covered.  You could have a group of heroes from Saudi Arabia, and there's no reason they shouldn't be as diverse as the X-Men.  It's not like Cyclops' optic blast screams "USA".

[Vondy]

Champions Worldwide includes an interesting costumed crime fighter based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, called Caracal (a native desert cat). Darren and Steve did a nice job in developing Caracal's background to balance Middle Eastern and Western cultural influences, to create a hero rooted in Saudi traditions while holding values compatible enough with those of Western heroes to work with them when appropriate.

 

Steve emailed me about Israel and the Israeli character's names when he was writing CW because I was living there at the time. I felt he really wanted to do everyone as much justice as was possible based on his deadline.

[Lord Liaden]

Most of the X-Men have powers that have nothing to do with where they come from or their nationalities.

 

Having started reading comics in the early 1960s, I remember the original X-Men team were yet another group of white American males with a token female, although with a different origin than others. But the re-launch of the team in the 1970s was eye-opening, bringing three members of the original team together with with a Native American super, and heroes from Canada, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, and Russia. I'd never seen that in mainstream comics before

[Lord Liaden]

Steve emailed me about Israel and the Israeli character's names when he was writing CW because I was living there at the time. I felt he really wanted to do everyone as much justice as was possible based on his deadline.

 

I once corresponded with a Champions player in Hong Kong who complimented the name of a CU hero based in that city mentioned in CW, for being a perfect rendition of the English version of his name into Mandarin. However, he noted that most people from Hong Kong speak Cantonese, so that sounded abnormal to him.

 

I happened to mention that to Steve Long not long ago, and he replied that he was aware of the local language at the time, but when he was writing his part of CW he had an excellent English-Mandarin dictionary which used the Western alphabet for both, but no comparable source for Cantonese. This was before online translators, or at least before he'd heard of them. So he got as close as he could.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I agree with the X-Men approach as a good profile; most of them have powers separate from their background and usually names that are different as well (Thunderbird being an exception, and possibly Banshee).  DC has been less good at this, with The Knight and Beefeater as UK heroes, for example.  But I agree with Massey, some stereotype or well-known types are welcome.  Having The Minuteman or American Eagle for the USA is fun, or a viking from Norway could be.  Nothing that makes eyes roll, but stuff that gives a little grin and a chuckle or a knowing nod.

[CaptnStrawberry]

It's kind of a parallel track - you started to see less stereotypical international heroes around the time you saw more ethnic/racial diversity - although early Power Man and Shang-Chi can be an uncomfortable read.

 

Seems Marvel tried to sideskirt the issue with Black Panther - make him monarch of a fictional African country, and furthermore make that country even more technologically advanced than the US!

 

I kinda like the idea of a near future in which there is at least a prototype global government, and country of origin isn't really a defining trait anymore.

[Cassandra]

Darna ia an actual superheroine from the Philippines created in 1949.  Narda is a young woman who when she swallows a magic stone becomes Darna, a superstrong bullet catching flying superheroine.  She has been the star of a comic book, several movies, and a couple of TV shows.

[Lord Liaden]

Seems Marvel tried to sideskirt the issue with Black Panther - make him monarch of a fictional African country, and furthermore make that country even more technologically advanced than the US!

 

I agree that the Panther's background takes him out of a lot of the messy stereotypes and legacy of conflict that many other black characters rooted in real-world societies are saddled with. Although in the character's early history he also suffered from a bit of the "noble savage" stereotype, even though, as you say, Wakanda is in many ways ultra-modern.

 

But Wakanda's distinctive history seems to be a big part of what makes the Black Panther such a popular and significant figure, especially to black people. Wakanda was never conquered or colonized by Europeans, has no slavery in its heritage, retains and lives by its native culture, yet competes with the rest of the industrialized world on an even, or even superior, footing. T'challa isn't just a superhero, he's a king and descendant of kings, but also a modern man of the world.