massey

His failure wasn't in killing Thanos.  That never entered into it.  It never bothered Thor at all.  Do you think Odin, father of Hela, would be bothered by the idea of his son executing Thanos?
 
Thor's failure was in not killing Thanos in time.
 
 
It wasn't heroic for Thor to kill Thanos as he did.  Not at all.  That was the point of that scene -- they had failed as heroes.  All that was left was to render judgment.  Thanos absolutely deserved it.  Even 2014 Thanos recognized that.

They could get Bill Shatner to play it. He has experience.

Since the evaluation for "worthiness" is a completely plot-driven analytic, not necessarily a logical or internally-consistent one, I would resist the urge to judge the merits of Thor's actions on the basis of What Would Mjolnir Do.

I don't blame Superman for killing Zod.  He didn't have a choice.  I do blame Zack Snyder for making a Superman movie where protecting civilians is not a priority.
 
I said earlier, Marvel's heroes all have a body count.  I mean, dear God, Iron Man gave a teenage kid a suit with an "instant kill" option.  He's definitely got the irresponsible uncle role down.  Tony kills I don't know how many terrorists in the first movie.  Now these are all bad guys who are getting killed, and the heroes all make a dedicated effort to save innocent people.  And the only person who is portrayed as any sort of moral paragon is Cap.  Thor is awesome, but he's not exactly a role model in our modern society.  Captain America is a soldier, and we all accept that killing Nazis in WW2 is okay.  Then in Winter Soldier, he's kind of a James Bond superspy, going on missions for what he thinks is a good cause serving his country.  But Cap goes out of his way in Civil War to avoid killing any of the cops who are going after Bucky.
 
Superman is a different character altogether.  As far as moral symbols, he and Cap are similar.  But Cap has always been willing to kill, if he had to.  His powers are more limited, and often he doesn't have the choice.  Superman's powers mean that he almost always has the option to not kill.  If he had spent the entire movie saving civilians, and then he had to snap Zod's neck at the end, we'd have more sympathy.  As it was, he had just had a brawl where tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of people would have died, and then he's sad because he had to kill the villain?  It didn't feel right.

Let's say that Hero decided to start in that direction.  They could start by publishing a combined rulebook and genre book, like 4th edition Champions.  It gives people Viper agents, a villain team, about a dozen individual villains, and a master villain like Mechanon.  It also gives a starting hero team and some basic ideas on superhero adventures, as well as info on Delta City or something, wherever you've got your campaigns set.  You also publish a Classic Enemies/CKC villain book with like 50 different bad guys to use.  This is your standard Players Handbook/Monster Manual that most people will buy.  It's kind of expected at this point.
 
But then, then let's say you start 3 different adventure modules, based around 3 different teams.  So you've got maybe X-Men, Teen Titans, and Fantastic Four.  The first module gives character sheets for our heroes, and campaign guidelines if players want to use their own.  And each module has like a dozen adventures (one game a week for 3 months) for these characters.  And once every quarter, you release a new module.  You could go for a year, or a year and a half (or however long you want), taking these characters through the equivalent of one writer's time on a comic book.  So it would be sort of like John Byrne's run on Superman, or Walt Simonson's run on Thor.  You've got a certain set of plots and supporting characters that the author likes, and villains who will show up, but it's a defined period of the characters' history.  Each new module shows how the characters have spent their XP and gives updated character sheets.  It also obviously includes new villains and NPCs that will be appearing in the next three months worth of adventures.
 
So you've got like 3 different teams of characters for a new group of players to select from.  And you'll have 3 different storylines that you'll develop over the next year or two.  Then, once you complete one of those stories, you can publish a sourcebook that brings everybody up to date.  So let's say your X-Men analog have been operating in the Pacific Northwest city of Seacouver.  You could make an X-Men sourcebook that details what it's like, who the villains are, and just sort of a general update for people who didn't play through the modules.  It gives character sheets for the heroes that would more or less match up with their final versions from the modules (it doesn't have to be exactly the same -- there's a new writer on that comic now, after all).  And maybe some characters or organizations who were mentioned in the module get fleshed out a little better here.
 
Then, you start with a new series of modules.  New characters in a different part of the world.  Maybe now you have Hudson City Vigilantes (Batman Family plus Spidey plus Cloak and Dagger), Avengers West Coast (standard adult supers), and a comedy one (🎵Rorschach and Deadpool...🎶).  Sort of different genres within the broader superhero category.  If something became really popular, like say maybe your X-Men adventures sold really well, you could always revisit them a little later with a new adventure module.  Characters don't have to stay static.  Just because Wolverine ended the last module at 537 points, that doesn't mean that he's at least that level in your new module.  Maybe he's been hanging out in bars instead of training, or his powers are fluctuating, or whatever.  In one adventure maybe he traveled into outer space and hung out with aliens, and that character sheet included Language: Klingon and +2 OCV with disintegrators.  That doesn't mean it needs to be on his character sheet now that he's on a mission to rescue mutant POWs from some southeast asian country.
 
I think something like this would let you flesh out your superhero world in an organic and interesting way.  People might actually care when you publish the stats for some superhero team.  The Tiger Squad would be somebody who was introduced in a planned way, and not just like "oh yeah, here are some dudes from China that you might use if you can come up with anything".
 
Anyway, this post was kind of stream of consciousness, but nobody is really doing any kind of real continuity with superhero rpgs.

I don't blame Superman for killing Zod.  He didn't have a choice.  I do blame Zack Snyder for making a Superman movie where protecting civilians is not a priority.
 
I said earlier, Marvel's heroes all have a body count.  I mean, dear God, Iron Man gave a teenage kid a suit with an "instant kill" option.  He's definitely got the irresponsible uncle role down.  Tony kills I don't know how many terrorists in the first movie.  Now these are all bad guys who are getting killed, and the heroes all make a dedicated effort to save innocent people.  And the only person who is portrayed as any sort of moral paragon is Cap.  Thor is awesome, but he's not exactly a role model in our modern society.  Captain America is a soldier, and we all accept that killing Nazis in WW2 is okay.  Then in Winter Soldier, he's kind of a James Bond superspy, going on missions for what he thinks is a good cause serving his country.  But Cap goes out of his way in Civil War to avoid killing any of the cops who are going after Bucky.
 
Superman is a different character altogether.  As far as moral symbols, he and Cap are similar.  But Cap has always been willing to kill, if he had to.  His powers are more limited, and often he doesn't have the choice.  Superman's powers mean that he almost always has the option to not kill.  If he had spent the entire movie saving civilians, and then he had to snap Zod's neck at the end, we'd have more sympathy.  As it was, he had just had a brawl where tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of people would have died, and then he's sad because he had to kill the villain?  It didn't feel right.

This post is going to creep a little bit towards politics, but I'll try to keep it non-controversial.
 
In the first Iron Man movie, Tony Stark is basically Mr Super-Republican.  Remember it's 2008, we're at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and things aren't going great.  Now here comes this billionaire arms-dealer, a walking poster board for the second amendment, who goes overseas and fixes things.  Can't find Osama bin Laden?  Tony Stark can.  He's just going to fly over to Iraqistan and blow away the bad guys.  Yeah he has his awakening where he decides that selling weapons is a bad thing, and dedicates his life to world peace, but he's gonna start that process by killing people we don't like.  That movie really fit the mood of the country, where we just wanted to go over there and smash somebody and make it okay again.
 
John Wayne killed people in his movies.  Most of those were post-WWII and up through early Vietnam.  Yeah, they were cowboy movies, but they were also war movies.  Even if he's playing a cowboy, he's also basically a symbol of mid-20th century America.  Even if he's literally fighting the Comanche, he's also symbolically fighting the Cold War.  After John Wayne died, Schwarzenegger filled that role.  It didn't matter if he was fighting aliens in the jungle or teaching kindergarten, those were basically war movies.
 
In the MCU, that role is shared by Iron Man and Captain America.  Tony Stark represents America's might, and Cap represents America's ideals.  And just like John Wayne's movies or Schwarzenegger's movies, most of the MCU films are symbolically still about war and America's place in the world.  They're about responsible use of power and what happens when we screw up.  There's a whole big layer of meaning to the MCU, and I'm not sure it was 100% intentional.  Maybe partially intentional and mostly it's just a factor of how good movies reflect the times in which they were made.  Captain America is a superhero, but he's also the Navy sniper who shot those pirates who had seized that boat (exactly what I thought of in that Winter Soldier scene).  Iron Man is a superhero, but he's also the pilot who drops a smart bomb, or the SEAL team who fly in a stealth helicopter and kill bin Laden.
 
Superman isn't any of those things. Superman is, as zslane said, a Jesus metaphor.  He's ultra powerful, he's really really nice, and he watches over us.  And we don't really like the idea of Jesus snapping people's necks.

Let's say that Hero decided to start in that direction.  They could start by publishing a combined rulebook and genre book, like 4th edition Champions.  It gives people Viper agents, a villain team, about a dozen individual villains, and a master villain like Mechanon.  It also gives a starting hero team and some basic ideas on superhero adventures, as well as info on Delta City or something, wherever you've got your campaigns set.  You also publish a Classic Enemies/CKC villain book with like 50 different bad guys to use.  This is your standard Players Handbook/Monster Manual that most people will buy.  It's kind of expected at this point.
 
But then, then let's say you start 3 different adventure modules, based around 3 different teams.  So you've got maybe X-Men, Teen Titans, and Fantastic Four.  The first module gives character sheets for our heroes, and campaign guidelines if players want to use their own.  And each module has like a dozen adventures (one game a week for 3 months) for these characters.  And once every quarter, you release a new module.  You could go for a year, or a year and a half (or however long you want), taking these characters through the equivalent of one writer's time on a comic book.  So it would be sort of like John Byrne's run on Superman, or Walt Simonson's run on Thor.  You've got a certain set of plots and supporting characters that the author likes, and villains who will show up, but it's a defined period of the characters' history.  Each new module shows how the characters have spent their XP and gives updated character sheets.  It also obviously includes new villains and NPCs that will be appearing in the next three months worth of adventures.
 
So you've got like 3 different teams of characters for a new group of players to select from.  And you'll have 3 different storylines that you'll develop over the next year or two.  Then, once you complete one of those stories, you can publish a sourcebook that brings everybody up to date.  So let's say your X-Men analog have been operating in the Pacific Northwest city of Seacouver.  You could make an X-Men sourcebook that details what it's like, who the villains are, and just sort of a general update for people who didn't play through the modules.  It gives character sheets for the heroes that would more or less match up with their final versions from the modules (it doesn't have to be exactly the same -- there's a new writer on that comic now, after all).  And maybe some characters or organizations who were mentioned in the module get fleshed out a little better here.
 
Then, you start with a new series of modules.  New characters in a different part of the world.  Maybe now you have Hudson City Vigilantes (Batman Family plus Spidey plus Cloak and Dagger), Avengers West Coast (standard adult supers), and a comedy one (🎵Rorschach and Deadpool...🎶).  Sort of different genres within the broader superhero category.  If something became really popular, like say maybe your X-Men adventures sold really well, you could always revisit them a little later with a new adventure module.  Characters don't have to stay static.  Just because Wolverine ended the last module at 537 points, that doesn't mean that he's at least that level in your new module.  Maybe he's been hanging out in bars instead of training, or his powers are fluctuating, or whatever.  In one adventure maybe he traveled into outer space and hung out with aliens, and that character sheet included Language: Klingon and +2 OCV with disintegrators.  That doesn't mean it needs to be on his character sheet now that he's on a mission to rescue mutant POWs from some southeast asian country.
 
I think something like this would let you flesh out your superhero world in an organic and interesting way.  People might actually care when you publish the stats for some superhero team.  The Tiger Squad would be somebody who was introduced in a planned way, and not just like "oh yeah, here are some dudes from China that you might use if you can come up with anything".
 
Anyway, this post was kind of stream of consciousness, but nobody is really doing any kind of real continuity with superhero rpgs.

This post is going to creep a little bit towards politics, but I'll try to keep it non-controversial.
 
In the first Iron Man movie, Tony Stark is basically Mr Super-Republican.  Remember it's 2008, we're at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and things aren't going great.  Now here comes this billionaire arms-dealer, a walking poster board for the second amendment, who goes overseas and fixes things.  Can't find Osama bin Laden?  Tony Stark can.  He's just going to fly over to Iraqistan and blow away the bad guys.  Yeah he has his awakening where he decides that selling weapons is a bad thing, and dedicates his life to world peace, but he's gonna start that process by killing people we don't like.  That movie really fit the mood of the country, where we just wanted to go over there and smash somebody and make it okay again.
 
John Wayne killed people in his movies.  Most of those were post-WWII and up through early Vietnam.  Yeah, they were cowboy movies, but they were also war movies.  Even if he's playing a cowboy, he's also basically a symbol of mid-20th century America.  Even if he's literally fighting the Comanche, he's also symbolically fighting the Cold War.  After John Wayne died, Schwarzenegger filled that role.  It didn't matter if he was fighting aliens in the jungle or teaching kindergarten, those were basically war movies.
 
In the MCU, that role is shared by Iron Man and Captain America.  Tony Stark represents America's might, and Cap represents America's ideals.  And just like John Wayne's movies or Schwarzenegger's movies, most of the MCU films are symbolically still about war and America's place in the world.  They're about responsible use of power and what happens when we screw up.  There's a whole big layer of meaning to the MCU, and I'm not sure it was 100% intentional.  Maybe partially intentional and mostly it's just a factor of how good movies reflect the times in which they were made.  Captain America is a superhero, but he's also the Navy sniper who shot those pirates who had seized that boat (exactly what I thought of in that Winter Soldier scene).  Iron Man is a superhero, but he's also the pilot who drops a smart bomb, or the SEAL team who fly in a stealth helicopter and kill bin Laden.
 
Superman isn't any of those things. Superman is, as zslane said, a Jesus metaphor.  He's ultra powerful, he's really really nice, and he watches over us.  And we don't really like the idea of Jesus snapping people's necks.

This post is going to creep a little bit towards politics, but I'll try to keep it non-controversial.
 
In the first Iron Man movie, Tony Stark is basically Mr Super-Republican.  Remember it's 2008, we're at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and things aren't going great.  Now here comes this billionaire arms-dealer, a walking poster board for the second amendment, who goes overseas and fixes things.  Can't find Osama bin Laden?  Tony Stark can.  He's just going to fly over to Iraqistan and blow away the bad guys.  Yeah he has his awakening where he decides that selling weapons is a bad thing, and dedicates his life to world peace, but he's gonna start that process by killing people we don't like.  That movie really fit the mood of the country, where we just wanted to go over there and smash somebody and make it okay again.
 
John Wayne killed people in his movies.  Most of those were post-WWII and up through early Vietnam.  Yeah, they were cowboy movies, but they were also war movies.  Even if he's playing a cowboy, he's also basically a symbol of mid-20th century America.  Even if he's literally fighting the Comanche, he's also symbolically fighting the Cold War.  After John Wayne died, Schwarzenegger filled that role.  It didn't matter if he was fighting aliens in the jungle or teaching kindergarten, those were basically war movies.
 
In the MCU, that role is shared by Iron Man and Captain America.  Tony Stark represents America's might, and Cap represents America's ideals.  And just like John Wayne's movies or Schwarzenegger's movies, most of the MCU films are symbolically still about war and America's place in the world.  They're about responsible use of power and what happens when we screw up.  There's a whole big layer of meaning to the MCU, and I'm not sure it was 100% intentional.  Maybe partially intentional and mostly it's just a factor of how good movies reflect the times in which they were made.  Captain America is a superhero, but he's also the Navy sniper who shot those pirates who had seized that boat (exactly what I thought of in that Winter Soldier scene).  Iron Man is a superhero, but he's also the pilot who drops a smart bomb, or the SEAL team who fly in a stealth helicopter and kill bin Laden.
 
Superman isn't any of those things. Superman is, as zslane said, a Jesus metaphor.  He's ultra powerful, he's really really nice, and he watches over us.  And we don't really like the idea of Jesus snapping people's necks.

I'm quoting this simply because it's so quotable.

This post is going to creep a little bit towards politics, but I'll try to keep it non-controversial.
 
In the first Iron Man movie, Tony Stark is basically Mr Super-Republican.  Remember it's 2008, we're at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and things aren't going great.  Now here comes this billionaire arms-dealer, a walking poster board for the second amendment, who goes overseas and fixes things.  Can't find Osama bin Laden?  Tony Stark can.  He's just going to fly over to Iraqistan and blow away the bad guys.  Yeah he has his awakening where he decides that selling weapons is a bad thing, and dedicates his life to world peace, but he's gonna start that process by killing people we don't like.  That movie really fit the mood of the country, where we just wanted to go over there and smash somebody and make it okay again.
 
John Wayne killed people in his movies.  Most of those were post-WWII and up through early Vietnam.  Yeah, they were cowboy movies, but they were also war movies.  Even if he's playing a cowboy, he's also basically a symbol of mid-20th century America.  Even if he's literally fighting the Comanche, he's also symbolically fighting the Cold War.  After John Wayne died, Schwarzenegger filled that role.  It didn't matter if he was fighting aliens in the jungle or teaching kindergarten, those were basically war movies.
 
In the MCU, that role is shared by Iron Man and Captain America.  Tony Stark represents America's might, and Cap represents America's ideals.  And just like John Wayne's movies or Schwarzenegger's movies, most of the MCU films are symbolically still about war and America's place in the world.  They're about responsible use of power and what happens when we screw up.  There's a whole big layer of meaning to the MCU, and I'm not sure it was 100% intentional.  Maybe partially intentional and mostly it's just a factor of how good movies reflect the times in which they were made.  Captain America is a superhero, but he's also the Navy sniper who shot those pirates who had seized that boat (exactly what I thought of in that Winter Soldier scene).  Iron Man is a superhero, but he's also the pilot who drops a smart bomb, or the SEAL team who fly in a stealth helicopter and kill bin Laden.
 
Superman isn't any of those things. Superman is, as zslane said, a Jesus metaphor.  He's ultra powerful, he's really really nice, and he watches over us.  And we don't really like the idea of Jesus snapping people's necks.

I don't blame Superman for killing Zod.  He didn't have a choice.  I do blame Zack Snyder for making a Superman movie where protecting civilians is not a priority.
 
I said earlier, Marvel's heroes all have a body count.  I mean, dear God, Iron Man gave a teenage kid a suit with an "instant kill" option.  He's definitely got the irresponsible uncle role down.  Tony kills I don't know how many terrorists in the first movie.  Now these are all bad guys who are getting killed, and the heroes all make a dedicated effort to save innocent people.  And the only person who is portrayed as any sort of moral paragon is Cap.  Thor is awesome, but he's not exactly a role model in our modern society.  Captain America is a soldier, and we all accept that killing Nazis in WW2 is okay.  Then in Winter Soldier, he's kind of a James Bond superspy, going on missions for what he thinks is a good cause serving his country.  But Cap goes out of his way in Civil War to avoid killing any of the cops who are going after Bucky.
 
Superman is a different character altogether.  As far as moral symbols, he and Cap are similar.  But Cap has always been willing to kill, if he had to.  His powers are more limited, and often he doesn't have the choice.  Superman's powers mean that he almost always has the option to not kill.  If he had spent the entire movie saving civilians, and then he had to snap Zod's neck at the end, we'd have more sympathy.  As it was, he had just had a brawl where tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of people would have died, and then he's sad because he had to kill the villain?  It didn't feel right.

I would also point out that Thor is, more or less, a warrior god, not a walking metaphor for Jesus. He is accustomed to killing his enemies, and I doubt he ever faced an enemy so daunting and so deserving of death (in his eyes) than Thanos. MCU Thor is quite a bit more nuanced than classic 616 Silver Age Thor. Killing Thanos was not out of character in my view, and if doing so shocked audiences it is probably because they were projecting a kinder, gentler version of Thor--the Thor they wanted him to be rather than the Thor he actually was--onto the character. Thor: Ragnarok may have added a much-needed facet of humor to the character, but it did not turn him into a cuddly teddy bear incapable of ruthless, vengeful action.

I don't blame Superman for killing Zod.  He didn't have a choice.  I do blame Zack Snyder for making a Superman movie where protecting civilians is not a priority.
 
I said earlier, Marvel's heroes all have a body count.  I mean, dear God, Iron Man gave a teenage kid a suit with an "instant kill" option.  He's definitely got the irresponsible uncle role down.  Tony kills I don't know how many terrorists in the first movie.  Now these are all bad guys who are getting killed, and the heroes all make a dedicated effort to save innocent people.  And the only person who is portrayed as any sort of moral paragon is Cap.  Thor is awesome, but he's not exactly a role model in our modern society.  Captain America is a soldier, and we all accept that killing Nazis in WW2 is okay.  Then in Winter Soldier, he's kind of a James Bond superspy, going on missions for what he thinks is a good cause serving his country.  But Cap goes out of his way in Civil War to avoid killing any of the cops who are going after Bucky.
 
Superman is a different character altogether.  As far as moral symbols, he and Cap are similar.  But Cap has always been willing to kill, if he had to.  His powers are more limited, and often he doesn't have the choice.  Superman's powers mean that he almost always has the option to not kill.  If he had spent the entire movie saving civilians, and then he had to snap Zod's neck at the end, we'd have more sympathy.  As it was, he had just had a brawl where tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of people would have died, and then he's sad because he had to kill the villain?  It didn't feel right.

I don't blame Superman for killing Zod.  He didn't have a choice.  I do blame Zack Snyder for making a Superman movie where protecting civilians is not a priority.
 
I said earlier, Marvel's heroes all have a body count.  I mean, dear God, Iron Man gave a teenage kid a suit with an "instant kill" option.  He's definitely got the irresponsible uncle role down.  Tony kills I don't know how many terrorists in the first movie.  Now these are all bad guys who are getting killed, and the heroes all make a dedicated effort to save innocent people.  And the only person who is portrayed as any sort of moral paragon is Cap.  Thor is awesome, but he's not exactly a role model in our modern society.  Captain America is a soldier, and we all accept that killing Nazis in WW2 is okay.  Then in Winter Soldier, he's kind of a James Bond superspy, going on missions for what he thinks is a good cause serving his country.  But Cap goes out of his way in Civil War to avoid killing any of the cops who are going after Bucky.
 
Superman is a different character altogether.  As far as moral symbols, he and Cap are similar.  But Cap has always been willing to kill, if he had to.  His powers are more limited, and often he doesn't have the choice.  Superman's powers mean that he almost always has the option to not kill.  If he had spent the entire movie saving civilians, and then he had to snap Zod's neck at the end, we'd have more sympathy.  As it was, he had just had a brawl where tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of people would have died, and then he's sad because he had to kill the villain?  It didn't feel right.

I don't blame Superman for killing Zod.  He didn't have a choice.  I do blame Zack Snyder for making a Superman movie where protecting civilians is not a priority.
 
I said earlier, Marvel's heroes all have a body count.  I mean, dear God, Iron Man gave a teenage kid a suit with an "instant kill" option.  He's definitely got the irresponsible uncle role down.  Tony kills I don't know how many terrorists in the first movie.  Now these are all bad guys who are getting killed, and the heroes all make a dedicated effort to save innocent people.  And the only person who is portrayed as any sort of moral paragon is Cap.  Thor is awesome, but he's not exactly a role model in our modern society.  Captain America is a soldier, and we all accept that killing Nazis in WW2 is okay.  Then in Winter Soldier, he's kind of a James Bond superspy, going on missions for what he thinks is a good cause serving his country.  But Cap goes out of his way in Civil War to avoid killing any of the cops who are going after Bucky.
 
Superman is a different character altogether.  As far as moral symbols, he and Cap are similar.  But Cap has always been willing to kill, if he had to.  His powers are more limited, and often he doesn't have the choice.  Superman's powers mean that he almost always has the option to not kill.  If he had spent the entire movie saving civilians, and then he had to snap Zod's neck at the end, we'd have more sympathy.  As it was, he had just had a brawl where tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of people would have died, and then he's sad because he had to kill the villain?  It didn't feel right.

Let's be fair here, Man of Steel has a heart-warming scene where Supes saves millions of acres of cornfields and dirt by deliberately dragging the battle into the center of Smallville.

Exactly this.  Even though the Marvel universe has always been grayer than DC, the MCU films stressed the importance of protecting innocents to the point where it was literally the central catalyst for at least two of the films (AoU and Civil War).  Whereas the Snyderverse took one character who is consistently written as protecting innocents and made him seem indifferent at best to the collateral damage he caused, and took another who specifically refuses to use guns and won't even blow up ducks and turned him into a machinegun-wielding hardcore vigilante. 
 
In fact off the top of my head:  
 
Avengers I: During the Battle of New York, Cap's entire focus is protecting bystanders from collateral damage.  Iron Man risks his life to save the city from a nuke fired by Hydra. Avengers AoU: Stark creates a suit whose entire purpose is to stop Hulk from rampaging in a city.  Hawkeye directs the evacuation onto the helicarrier and sacrifices himself to save Sokovian citizens from machine gun fire.  Stark and Thor risk their lives to blow up Sokovia preventing it from killing uncounted civilians. Avengers IW: Quill lets his own anger get in the way of saving the universe, and audiences hate him for it. Thor: Thor finally gets motivation when he sees Destroyer defeat the Warriors Three and come for the diner and its mortal occupants. Thor Ragnarok: The last half of this film is Thor & Co. saving Asgardian civilians from Hela. Captain America: Cap deliberately crashes the Hydra plane to prevent its weapons from being used against American cities. Iron Man 2: Stark refuses to sell suits to the DoD. Spider Man: Homecoming: Washington Monument, Staten Island ferry. Doctor Strange: Protecting Earth is literally his entire job. Black Panther: By the end of the film T'Challa has saved the world from the Wakandan military and has taken a more active role in protecting civilians worldwide.  
Tl;dr: The protection of civilians is a constant thread throughout the MCU.  In the DCEU prior to WW, it's... not a priority.

Another thing that might be interesting--I've noticed a few fantasy RPG supplements that basically pitch an entire campaign, from beginner through the highest levels, in one book.  You could do this in Hero system as well:
--Champions--from street heroes to cosmic protectors
--Fantasy Hero--from green adventurers to legendary questers
etc.

Well, it's quite possible that adventure modules are sort of a "loss leader" for RPGs.  They may not sell great, but you really only need one guy to buy the adventure, and then the four or five people in his gaming group end up purchasing the rulebook.  And it's possible that they are sort of a prerequisite to having a successful game.  If you don't make them, people don't pick up your system.
 
A series of adventure modules, kind of like Paizo's adventure paths, that told a story like a comic book would be interesting.  The first module could introduce a hero team, and then you run them through the equivalent of like a 50 issue story arc.  Think the New Teen Titans from the early 80s.  Each module could cover like the equivalent of 7 or 8 issues, complete with DNPC story hooks, intro of new villains, power complication subplots, newly revealed backstory, new villain character sheets, etc.  You could have four or five different storylines, with different hero groups, going at the same time.  Perhaps fleshing out the universe that way instead of just focusing on sourcebooks would be a better idea.

If one of those $5-10 books then proceeds to sell four or five $40 books, with the longer term potential for 16 more... what's the profit margin on that?
 
Adventures should not be product.  They should be marketing.

This is good advice, where possible keep the mechanics simple.
 
I would say that you buy a compound power 6D6 area effect+8D6 area effect (11 or less activation, max of 10 targets). 
 
Anyone in the area rolls 3D6, on 11 or less they face 14D6 damage, otherwise they face 6D6 damage. Only ten people can be affected by the higher damage.
 
The 11 or less reflects the chance of being hit be the random secondary explosions.
 
Doc

Thanks, Amigo.
 
Yes indeed.  #2 is unnecessary, unless you just want to be able to bounce of sheets of glad wrap or something like that.

I agree, on the whole, but I have always kinda felt that the extra effort Joss Whedon went to to show the Avengers protecting civilians in Sokovia while it was being ravaged by Ultron was a direct commentary on Superman's complete disregard for civilian casualties in Man of Steel. It was as if Feige and Whedon very much wanted you to know that their heroes cared about civilians in a way that Snyder's god-hero did not.