phydaux

Hard to believe we made it to the second page without anyone mentioning Foxbat. Although my personal favorite among the published villains:

Back in the Champions I - II - III days I had a character named Kaptain Hero that was a Greatest American Hero rip off. He had the standard Superman power set, but all with 11 or less Activation Rolls. He'd go to fly across the battlefield, oops, a 13. Not this action phase. He'd fly into the air to engage the villains, yes, he flies. Next action phase he'd roll to stay in the air. Nope, falling back to earth. Oh no, an NPC is trapped under a car! Roll to activate Super Strength! 12, so sorry. Maybe I'll save you later, citizen. I got a kick out of it, but the other players & the GM absolutely HATED that character.

A hulking, burly male hero and a slimmer male hero, alternately a female hero. One's a Brick and the other is a Martial Artist. Both carry weapons, and their names are Hammer & Sickle.

You HAVE TO have an older male hero with cold-based powers named General Winter. You just HAVE TO. And he has to have a GIANT mustache.

Quasar - Quasar would adjust his Force Field to function as a giant Bug Zapper. That would keep him safe from the bugs. The only problem there is that once it is functioning as a damage shield then it's NOT functioning as a Force Field. So he would be defenseless against everything EXCEPT bugs. But one crisis at a time, right? He would be all over the long wave, hitting up his UNTIL contacts to alert the rest of the world about the bug menace, sharing the design of his Bug Zapper Belt, and brainstorming with the other technology types about potential solutions. He ALSO would be freaking RIGHT OUT over his wife's & daughter's safety. He would probably make Bug Zapper Belts for each of them to keep them safe, too. This would be odd for them, because as far as his wife knows he's just a mild mannered university physics professor. His 12 year-old daughter, however, is well aware of his secret identity as Campaign City's most powerful superhero. So if either of them are infected then BOTH of them are infected, meaning the bugs would use his daughter to set a trap for him. And at 14 Or Less he would fly head first into that trap. So in the long run Quasar is toast. Shadowhunter - "Let's see. Smoke grenades, bolos, grapnel, knock out gas... Damn it! No Deep Woods Off! Maybe I can uppercut a... billion... grasshopper-size bugs... BEFORE one lands on me... Sigh..." Shadowhunter loads up a small plane with supplies and heads for the Gulf Coast. Out in the Gulf he looks for an oil rig at least 20 miles from shore. He'll drop the supplies in water-proof, botany packaging right before he ditches. He'll hole up on the oil rig, living off the supplies he brought with him. Then he'll use short wave radio to organize the global bug resistance. Mystica - Initially she would be convinced that this was all a plot by extra-dimensional insect spirits, along the lines of Bug City from Shadowrun. She would seal herself in a Magic Circle to protect herself from the bugs, and then try to find the chief bug spirit and the insect shaman that's controlling it. They don't exist, of course, because THESE bugs are genetically engineered. But that thought would never occur to Mystica, and she would spend many days trying to find the mystical origin of the plague and to punish the warlocks who brought it about. Once she FINALLY admitted to herself that she had actually encountered a non-magical threat that was so large that she couldn't just ignore and "Leave mess for others to clean" she would be quite flustered, and VERY angry. "Punch-Punch, Boom-Boom heroes, THEY save world from SIMPLE THINGS. Mystica saves world from important, MYSTICAL threats. Now Mystica must do BOTH? Is no good. NO GOOD!" She would then TORTURE her Magic Only VPP until she came up with a 1d6 RKA AOE Megascale, X16 END, only works at exactly midnight on the night of the full moon, only effects creatures blood kin to those currently trapped in the caster's magic circle. etc., etc.. And in one fell swoop she would kill every bug on the planet. And quite possibly herself. And IF she lived, she would spend the next several YEARS reminding every superhero how DISAPPOINTED she was in them, that they couldn't even handle "Few bugs. Feh!"

Well, it looks like the Evil Overlord finally pulled it off. His most recent plan for global domination has actually worked. The genetically engineered insects his minions released have multiplied and spread. Through a combination of low level telepathy and a highly addictive narcotic chemical that is absorbed directly through the skin, every human being that a bug lands on gets drawn into the bug hive mind. While their knowledge, skills and personality remain intact, their will is completely given over to serve the bug hive mind. Getting free of skin contact with a bug severs the link to the hive mind, but the highly addictive nature of the bug's toxin has even the strongest willed heroes looking for a "bug fix" in less than half an hour. But it seems like this plan has worked a little TOO well. Bug swarm clouds have spread all across North America. Every population center is fully infected, including the Evil Overlord and all his minions. The hive mind has police, the military, and every major hero AND villain working together to gather every living human into the hive mind. Non-humans like androids, aliens, and spirit beings are either contained or, if necessary, destroyed. Bug swarm clouds are working their way across Central America, and ships & airliners full of bugs are making their way across the oceans to enslave the other continents. So far you have avoided physical contact with any bugs, although you know that all it will take is skin contact with a single but to enslave you. Meanwhile you have to come up with a plan to get humanity free of bug control. How do you stay free from bug enslavement? What is your plan to save humanity? (BTW - The above is basically the first half of the first chapter of Confessions of a D-List Supervillain by Jim Bernheimer. I recommend it highly).

Supergirl had a Supercat There was also a Supermonkey...

Fawsett Comics' Captain Marvel had: Captain Marvel Jr. Mary Marvel Tall Billy, Fat Billy, and Hillbilly Marvel Uncle Marvel and Hoppy the Marvel Bunny

Everyone looks the other way when the superhero hooks up with the female supervillain. When the reverse happens, people assume it is mind control. They are almost always wrong *, but they assume it is so. * Even girls with superpowers love a bad boy.

I miss City of Heroes

"The secret compartment of my ring I fill with an Underdog Super Energy Pill."

I was playing in a supers game. My character was a a reformed supervillain who wore power armor. The character had a Deep Cover identity of his old Villain ID, and he paid 5 points to have an extra set of power armor still painted in his villain color scheme. Every now and then he'd put on his old villain armor and blow stuff up that he couldn't in his superhero persona.

Correct. I skip that step. If the player wants the chance for extra Stun or Body then they can accept the To Hit penalty.

In my campaigns all attacks are assumed to be "Called Shot to the Center of Mass" unless otherwise stated by the player.

In order to have a super heroic campaign the characters must have a reason to hang out together out of costume. That's why Teen Super Academy is such a popular campaign setting, while Home Town Heroes never really works out..

OK, I can't believe I spaced on this for this long, but Confessions of a D-List Supervillain is very good. The prequel, Origins of a of a D-List Supervillain, is OK. The sequel, Secrets of a D-List Supervillain, is drivel and a transparent attempt by the author to milk an idea. The most recent title in the series, Rise of a D-List Supervillain, well, I'll let you know in a few weeks. I've got a few other books ahead of it on my reading list.

Quasar - As creator & operator of the most powerful technological battlesuit on Earth, Quasar would fly under the Skyship, engage thrusts, disengage all safety interlocks, boost thruster power output BEYOND maximum power, and singlehandedly keep the Skyship in the air long enough for the technicians to repair the antigrav unit. Because saving the day is just what you do when you're a superhero. Mystica - "Skyship crashes, so many people will die. Is sad. For them. Mystica will not die. Mystica can fly. What kind of idiot gets into big fight high up in sky, but no can fly? BIG idiots. Soon, fewer idiots. Is good." Shadowhunter - "Great! All these years fighting drug smugglers and hit men, and now I'm going to die in the sky. What am I even DOING up here? I can't fly. I must be an idiot! May as well put my last few minuets on Earth to good use. Let's see.... There's Mystica. She's always been a stuck up Russian bitch. Say, this might be my big chance. If we're all gonna die anyway, I wonder if I could tap that ass hard enough to knock the stick out of it? That's probably all she needs, a good... Oh HELL, she's looking at me. She's probably reading my mind right now. That's all I need. The last guy who pissed her off, they buried in an Altiods tin. That's it. I'm punching Vanguard."

Normally I'd be all over this, but I just can't get past the transexual elements. If you're looking for YA I'll toss out another series - Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain.

Silver Age would be Batman '66, Super Friends, and the 1968 Spiderman/Captain America/Hulk/Iron Man animated series. I seem to recall a Hawkman animated series from around that same time frame.

You REALLY need to watch Young Justice.

Guys, this isn't hard. Golden Age was anything before the Comics Code. After the Comics code it was Silver Age up until the death of Gwen Stacy for Marvel and Speedy's heroine addiction for DC. Bronze Age was from those two events until the late 80s when heroes weren't cool anymore. Call it Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns. Iron Age came with the advent of the small indy publishers like Dark Horse.

Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman was OK. I like the Wearing the Cape series by M. G. Harmon. Six books in the series so far. A little too teen romance for me sometimes, though. West Pacific Supers series by K. M. Johnson-Weider is very good. Plus the author says on his web site that he borrows greatly from his home Champions campaign. I wish the author would write more.

I have only ever played in 12 DC campaigns, so naturally I made 12 DC characters. Lately I've been experimenting with playing 8 DC characters in a 12 DC campaign, just because I'm messed up like that.

Quasar - His secret identity is fabulously wealth. He would donate generously to the relief effort. He wouldn't volinteer to go help in person, but if asked by PRIMUS then he would respond immediately, using his amplified strength, flight, and advanced sensors any way he could.. Shadowhunter - An emergency there does not mean a lack of needs here. There is always someone who thinks they are above the law. Those someones eventually meet the Famous Fists of the Shadowhunter! Mystica - "Ah! I am glad you ask. I have looked into this. I can say without doubt that the storms were NOT caused by mystical powers. This is good, yes? Yes. Now, please go. I have shipment of artifacts, maybe cursed, maybe not. Better you not here when I find out."