massey

Saw it again tonight.  Took the wife, as well as my niece and nephew.  They all loved it.  My wife isn't big into superhero movies, but she loved the 90s nostalgia.  And the flerkin.  She totally predicted the cat scratch eye loss.
 
Second time viewing, I think I liked it more.  It solved a problem I had the first time.  Once the Skrulls get to Earth, they think they've got all they need from her.  Thus it's okay for them to shoot at her.

Yup.  To be honest, I kinda thought I'd solved the mystery.  I was like "oh yeah, I think I see where he's going with this.  It was her!"
 
Which goes to show how tough it can be to solve mysteries in games.  Who knows what the player is going to focus in on, or if they'll focus on anything at all.  I once played in a game where these two illusionist villains had seized a museum.  One of them had created this big dome of swirling colors over the building (it was a huge Darkness vs sight group).  The other was blasting sound inside.  They were immune, but nobody else could see or hear anything.  So I fly up, and up, and up.  Until I'm outside the dome.  I can't see or hear anything inside anyway.  Eventually I see some hostages being released, walking out of the color dome with their hands up.  A man and a woman.  I ask the GM "how old are they?"  He says "early twenties".  I think "hey... the villains are a man and a woman in their early twenties..."
 
I decided this was a hint that the GM was giving us.  It had to be.  Did you see the look on his face when he said the word "hostages"?  These have got to be the villains trying to sneak away, now that they've done whatever it is that they were doing.  I'd better shoot them.
 
Yeah, you guessed where this is going.  They were just normal hostages.  The GM's horrified expression told me that, when I said I was spreading my 15D6 EB to hit both of them.  Oops. 
 
Part of the problem is that you end up trying to read the GM's poker face.  You're looking for clues where there may not be any.  You end up second guessing yourself.  Did the GM say that word funny?  Is that supposed to be a hint?  Or maybe the GM doesn't remember that he didn't leave that clue he thought he left.  Some people are visual learners, and have a hard time seeing a scene based only on the GM's description of it.  Some people use the wrong word to describe a scene, or misunderstand a word and think it's something else.  Think of that damn gazebo.
 
--
 
As a result of this, I hate mystery games.  Occasionally I'll be in the mood to play one, but not usually.  I have a demanding job where I have to think a lot during the week.  The last thing I want to do on the weekend is solve somebody's puzzle that they may or may not be ready for me to solve yet.

Perhaps it would help to have some guidelines for a sort of "floating" character writeup for master villains.  So you could have a baseline Dr Destroyer character sheet for the published Champions Universe, and then you could have a section that talks about what stats he should have for your campaign.
 
Something like::
Attacks -- Dr Destroyer's main energy blast should be 4D6 higher than the average attacks of the heroes in your group.  If your group averages 10D6, Dr D should have a 14D6 attack.  If your group averages 15D6, Dr D should have a 19D6 attack.  If one of the heroes has a particularly high attack (15D6 in a 12D6 average), or a particularly low attack (8D6 in a 12D6 average) than Dr D should be at least 2D6 more powerful than the heavy hitter, and you should not include the low outlier in the campaign average.  Dr Destroyer hits very hard.
Defenses -- Dr Destroyer should have PD and ED equal to approximately 3x the average dice of the hero group.  Dr D's Con should be high enough that he will not be Stunned by the average roll of a Pushed Haymaker attack of the average D6 of the group (12D6 pushed and haymakered is 18D6, average roll 63 minus his 35 PD/ED -- he needs at least a 28 Con).
Speed -- Take the number of heroes in your group, or the highest Spd value of any character in your group, and add 1 Spd.  This is Dr Destroyer's Speed value.  He has to fight an entire group by himself, so he needs lots of actions.
Combat Levels -- Dr Destroyer's OCV should allow him to hit the highest DCV character in your group on a 13-.  This does not include bonuses for Dodging, but it does include levels that are normally assigned to DCV.  His base DCV should be equal to the DCV of the highest DCV hero (not including dodging or combat levels).
Endurance -- Dr D should be able to fight for at least 2 Turns before he needs to take a Recovery to restore his Endurance.
Stun -- Dr D should have enough Stun to survive a full Turn assuming each hero hits 50% of the time and rolls average damage.
Special Defenses -- Dr D should have an attack that allows him to affect each hero.  This means he may need an Affects Desolid attack as well as a special sense for invisible characters.  He should also have enough Flash Defense so that those attacks will not inconvenience him for more than a phase.  He should have enough Power Defense that he will only lose single digit points from the average attack.  His Mental Defense should be very high, at least 2x the D6 of the hero's mental attacks.
 
Probably about 15 years ago there was a game book published called Omlevex.  It had terrible art and was not a particularly great game system (though I think they had conversions for Champions), but it took the perspective of the writers of an old comic book talking about their fictional characters.  Think Stan Lee in Mallrats.  "Oh yeah, I remember when we created that guy.  The point was we needed a villain to oppose the hero.  And he wore those purple pants because the color got screwed up at the press.  But then he became popular and we had to leave it.  And so the guy had to be tough enough that he could survive the hero's big attack, so that's why we decided to make him a ghost."  It might help to include some pure out of character, out of universe information on why the designers made the character that way.  You wouldn't have to do it from the perspective of a fictional comic book author, but something to help GMs understand what role the author envisioned for this villain, how it is intended to be played.  More info from that angle. 
 
"And so when Dr Destroyer shows up to battle the heroes in Detroit, we knew he had to be more powerful.  So he got a one-time power boost there, an experimental new type of armor that was made with a rare element.  We knew we couldn't let him keep it, but we needed him to be powerful for this one story.  So for a couple of years he's totally unstoppable by normal teams, but then maybe he found out it was causing cancer or something so he had to quit using it.  So the Doctor has returned to the level of stats listed above, but maybe the older he gets the more likely he is to say 'screw it' and put on the experimental suit to go out with a bang."

There is another factor to consider. How long do average PC heroes stay average? As with most RPGs, the underlying premise in Hero is that as PCs gain experience they also increase in power. It won't be long before they outgrow published villains at the level they were when they started, in which case new villains will need to be stronger to compete with them. From that perspective a book of predominantly "average" villains will have less long-term use than a book leaning toward stronger ones.

I just happen to have the old DC Heroes 2nd edition Batman sourcebook.  This would be from about 1989, so just Post-Crisis.  A lot of the character designs are still very Silver Age.
 
Joker, R'as Al Ghul, Catwoman, Two-Face, Hugo Strange,
Penguin, Scarecrow, Riddler, Black Spider (?), Bonecrusher (?),
Cat Man, The Cavalier (?), Clayface 2, Clayface 3, Crazy Quilt,
Deacon Blackfire, Deadshot, Fay "Ma" Gunn (?), KGBeast, Killer Moth,
Mad Hatter, Man Bat, Mister Freeze, Poison Ivy, The Reaper (?),
and Talia Al Ghul
 
26 villains total.  Well, 24 villains and 2 semi-girlfriends.  The 1st edition book included Killer Croc and somebody named Night Slayer, but was missing a lot of these other characters.  So we'll say 26 villains and 2 girlfriends.  Clearly some of these characters did not stand the test of time.  Here's probably how I'd handle it.
 
Batman's first tier opponents (Joker, R'as, Two-Face, Penguin, Riddler) will each come back several times over the course of a campaign.  Each would be played to give Batman a serious threat.  They don't have to be able to physically match him if they've got goons and traps and schemes.  But basically these guys are too resourceful to be captured by regular cops, and they'll escape some months after Batman captures them.  He works to keep them in check, so their appearances will be staggered.
 
His second tier opponents (Mister Freeze, Mad Hatter, Poison Ivy, Man Bat, Scarecrow, Croc, maybe a Clayface (except I know the comic version is different from the animated series version)) will show up maybe twice.  You get a first appearance where they catch him off guard, and then maybe they get a return visit several months later when Batman finally gets to catch them.  Prison/Arkham won't be a revolving door for them, they stay put for a while until somebody breaks them out (i.e., you want them to come back).
 
His love interests are probably never actually captured.  They show up mainly as Batman's complications/disadvantages.  They are roleplaying elements as opposed to actual villains.
 
Then you've got the third tier opponents (probably everybody else).  They range from a single short combat (you can't think of anything else and so you throw together a random character, give him a stupid name, and have him rob a bank) to maybe a long story arc that the player just doesn't respond to.  These guys are never coming back.
 
So a little over half the villains in the list are one-shot characters who will probably never repeat over the course of the campaign.  They are nobodies who will go away forever after they are defeated.  Of the remaining characters, 60% of them will maybe appear twice or so over the course of the story.  Then you've got about 40% of them who will be recurring villains that are heavily identified with that character.  They show up a lot.  They might qualify as a Hunted.
 
I could buy a setup like that.  Over the course of what should be Batman's career, there are only a handful that he really needs to face over and over again.  Expanding that to the Champions Universe, I don't see any reason why Eurostar, the Ultimates, VIPER, etc, all need to be active at once.  It can be fun to play around in a static universe where COBRA always has a new plot, every week, and they never run out of money or vehicles or robot troops.  Or where the Legion of Doom comes back each week to challenge the heroes.  But if you want a more "realistic" setting, I don't think it's that hard to do.  Just remember these guys aren't all running around at the same time.

I just happen to have the old DC Heroes 2nd edition Batman sourcebook.  This would be from about 1989, so just Post-Crisis.  A lot of the character designs are still very Silver Age.
 
Joker, R'as Al Ghul, Catwoman, Two-Face, Hugo Strange,
Penguin, Scarecrow, Riddler, Black Spider (?), Bonecrusher (?),
Cat Man, The Cavalier (?), Clayface 2, Clayface 3, Crazy Quilt,
Deacon Blackfire, Deadshot, Fay "Ma" Gunn (?), KGBeast, Killer Moth,
Mad Hatter, Man Bat, Mister Freeze, Poison Ivy, The Reaper (?),
and Talia Al Ghul
 
26 villains total.  Well, 24 villains and 2 semi-girlfriends.  The 1st edition book included Killer Croc and somebody named Night Slayer, but was missing a lot of these other characters.  So we'll say 26 villains and 2 girlfriends.  Clearly some of these characters did not stand the test of time.  Here's probably how I'd handle it.
 
Batman's first tier opponents (Joker, R'as, Two-Face, Penguin, Riddler) will each come back several times over the course of a campaign.  Each would be played to give Batman a serious threat.  They don't have to be able to physically match him if they've got goons and traps and schemes.  But basically these guys are too resourceful to be captured by regular cops, and they'll escape some months after Batman captures them.  He works to keep them in check, so their appearances will be staggered.
 
His second tier opponents (Mister Freeze, Mad Hatter, Poison Ivy, Man Bat, Scarecrow, Croc, maybe a Clayface (except I know the comic version is different from the animated series version)) will show up maybe twice.  You get a first appearance where they catch him off guard, and then maybe they get a return visit several months later when Batman finally gets to catch them.  Prison/Arkham won't be a revolving door for them, they stay put for a while until somebody breaks them out (i.e., you want them to come back).
 
His love interests are probably never actually captured.  They show up mainly as Batman's complications/disadvantages.  They are roleplaying elements as opposed to actual villains.
 
Then you've got the third tier opponents (probably everybody else).  They range from a single short combat (you can't think of anything else and so you throw together a random character, give him a stupid name, and have him rob a bank) to maybe a long story arc that the player just doesn't respond to.  These guys are never coming back.
 
So a little over half the villains in the list are one-shot characters who will probably never repeat over the course of the campaign.  They are nobodies who will go away forever after they are defeated.  Of the remaining characters, 60% of them will maybe appear twice or so over the course of the story.  Then you've got about 40% of them who will be recurring villains that are heavily identified with that character.  They show up a lot.  They might qualify as a Hunted.
 
I could buy a setup like that.  Over the course of what should be Batman's career, there are only a handful that he really needs to face over and over again.  Expanding that to the Champions Universe, I don't see any reason why Eurostar, the Ultimates, VIPER, etc, all need to be active at once.  It can be fun to play around in a static universe where COBRA always has a new plot, every week, and they never run out of money or vehicles or robot troops.  Or where the Legion of Doom comes back each week to challenge the heroes.  But if you want a more "realistic" setting, I don't think it's that hard to do.  Just remember these guys aren't all running around at the same time.

2020 Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg Announces Bold Plan For 2,500-Mile Intercontinental Riverwalk
 
Touting the benefits in tourism and business revenue that such a project had already brought to his hometown, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and South Bend, IN mayor Pete Buttigieg announced Thursday a bold plan for a 2,500-mile intercontinental riverwalk. “At a time when Americans are more divided than ever, what this country needs is a riverwalk that will provide people from all strata of society with continuous strolling, dining, and festival opportunities,” said Buttigieg, gesturing to a watercolor architectural rendering of the Intercontinental Riverwalk that he described as his “core campaign plank,” which would revitalize the country’s heartlands by attracting sorely needed coffee shops, clothing boutiques, and artisanal cocktail bars in riverside locations stretching from coast to coast.

Perhaps it would help to have some guidelines for a sort of "floating" character writeup for master villains.  So you could have a baseline Dr Destroyer character sheet for the published Champions Universe, and then you could have a section that talks about what stats he should have for your campaign.
 
Something like::
Attacks -- Dr Destroyer's main energy blast should be 4D6 higher than the average attacks of the heroes in your group.  If your group averages 10D6, Dr D should have a 14D6 attack.  If your group averages 15D6, Dr D should have a 19D6 attack.  If one of the heroes has a particularly high attack (15D6 in a 12D6 average), or a particularly low attack (8D6 in a 12D6 average) than Dr D should be at least 2D6 more powerful than the heavy hitter, and you should not include the low outlier in the campaign average.  Dr Destroyer hits very hard.
Defenses -- Dr Destroyer should have PD and ED equal to approximately 3x the average dice of the hero group.  Dr D's Con should be high enough that he will not be Stunned by the average roll of a Pushed Haymaker attack of the average D6 of the group (12D6 pushed and haymakered is 18D6, average roll 63 minus his 35 PD/ED -- he needs at least a 28 Con).
Speed -- Take the number of heroes in your group, or the highest Spd value of any character in your group, and add 1 Spd.  This is Dr Destroyer's Speed value.  He has to fight an entire group by himself, so he needs lots of actions.
Combat Levels -- Dr Destroyer's OCV should allow him to hit the highest DCV character in your group on a 13-.  This does not include bonuses for Dodging, but it does include levels that are normally assigned to DCV.  His base DCV should be equal to the DCV of the highest DCV hero (not including dodging or combat levels).
Endurance -- Dr D should be able to fight for at least 2 Turns before he needs to take a Recovery to restore his Endurance.
Stun -- Dr D should have enough Stun to survive a full Turn assuming each hero hits 50% of the time and rolls average damage.
Special Defenses -- Dr D should have an attack that allows him to affect each hero.  This means he may need an Affects Desolid attack as well as a special sense for invisible characters.  He should also have enough Flash Defense so that those attacks will not inconvenience him for more than a phase.  He should have enough Power Defense that he will only lose single digit points from the average attack.  His Mental Defense should be very high, at least 2x the D6 of the hero's mental attacks.
 
Probably about 15 years ago there was a game book published called Omlevex.  It had terrible art and was not a particularly great game system (though I think they had conversions for Champions), but it took the perspective of the writers of an old comic book talking about their fictional characters.  Think Stan Lee in Mallrats.  "Oh yeah, I remember when we created that guy.  The point was we needed a villain to oppose the hero.  And he wore those purple pants because the color got screwed up at the press.  But then he became popular and we had to leave it.  And so the guy had to be tough enough that he could survive the hero's big attack, so that's why we decided to make him a ghost."  It might help to include some pure out of character, out of universe information on why the designers made the character that way.  You wouldn't have to do it from the perspective of a fictional comic book author, but something to help GMs understand what role the author envisioned for this villain, how it is intended to be played.  More info from that angle. 
 
"And so when Dr Destroyer shows up to battle the heroes in Detroit, we knew he had to be more powerful.  So he got a one-time power boost there, an experimental new type of armor that was made with a rare element.  We knew we couldn't let him keep it, but we needed him to be powerful for this one story.  So for a couple of years he's totally unstoppable by normal teams, but then maybe he found out it was causing cancer or something so he had to quit using it.  So the Doctor has returned to the level of stats listed above, but maybe the older he gets the more likely he is to say 'screw it' and put on the experimental suit to go out with a bang."

That's excellent suggestions from Massey. The "Campaign Use" section in 6e character write-ups is a start -- notably, suggestions on ramping a character's power level up or down -- but for major, campaign-defining villains there could be more.
 
The CU's villains have certainly seen power creep. It isn't just the dice of attacks, either: The character sheets have bloated. Much of this is to assure that a villain has an attack versus every possible defense, and a defense against every possible attack, and every possible skill that might be used. I admit I did it too when I invented Skarn. But my experience in actual play is that villains with Swiss Army Knife power options usually end up using just 3-4 attack modes. There's rarely a more effective choice than Just Do Damage. (Which goes for the heroes, too.)
 
Listing all of Doctor Destroyer's Knowledge Skills (for instance) may make a statement about what a genius is, but OTOH paper costs money and column inches cost reader attention. Better perhaps just to follow the example for his Bases/Followers/Vehicles, etc. and just say he has whatever Skill he needs to make a story work. Or if it's a significant weakness for a master villain that he/she-it doesn't have particular skills, that's probably more important to spell out than to list a bunch of skills and hope readers notice the omission.
 
Dean Shomshak

Perhaps it would help to have some guidelines for a sort of "floating" character writeup for master villains.  So you could have a baseline Dr Destroyer character sheet for the published Champions Universe, and then you could have a section that talks about what stats he should have for your campaign.
 
Something like::
Attacks -- Dr Destroyer's main energy blast should be 4D6 higher than the average attacks of the heroes in your group.  If your group averages 10D6, Dr D should have a 14D6 attack.  If your group averages 15D6, Dr D should have a 19D6 attack.  If one of the heroes has a particularly high attack (15D6 in a 12D6 average), or a particularly low attack (8D6 in a 12D6 average) than Dr D should be at least 2D6 more powerful than the heavy hitter, and you should not include the low outlier in the campaign average.  Dr Destroyer hits very hard.
Defenses -- Dr Destroyer should have PD and ED equal to approximately 3x the average dice of the hero group.  Dr D's Con should be high enough that he will not be Stunned by the average roll of a Pushed Haymaker attack of the average D6 of the group (12D6 pushed and haymakered is 18D6, average roll 63 minus his 35 PD/ED -- he needs at least a 28 Con).
Speed -- Take the number of heroes in your group, or the highest Spd value of any character in your group, and add 1 Spd.  This is Dr Destroyer's Speed value.  He has to fight an entire group by himself, so he needs lots of actions.
Combat Levels -- Dr Destroyer's OCV should allow him to hit the highest DCV character in your group on a 13-.  This does not include bonuses for Dodging, but it does include levels that are normally assigned to DCV.  His base DCV should be equal to the DCV of the highest DCV hero (not including dodging or combat levels).
Endurance -- Dr D should be able to fight for at least 2 Turns before he needs to take a Recovery to restore his Endurance.
Stun -- Dr D should have enough Stun to survive a full Turn assuming each hero hits 50% of the time and rolls average damage.
Special Defenses -- Dr D should have an attack that allows him to affect each hero.  This means he may need an Affects Desolid attack as well as a special sense for invisible characters.  He should also have enough Flash Defense so that those attacks will not inconvenience him for more than a phase.  He should have enough Power Defense that he will only lose single digit points from the average attack.  His Mental Defense should be very high, at least 2x the D6 of the hero's mental attacks.
 
Probably about 15 years ago there was a game book published called Omlevex.  It had terrible art and was not a particularly great game system (though I think they had conversions for Champions), but it took the perspective of the writers of an old comic book talking about their fictional characters.  Think Stan Lee in Mallrats.  "Oh yeah, I remember when we created that guy.  The point was we needed a villain to oppose the hero.  And he wore those purple pants because the color got screwed up at the press.  But then he became popular and we had to leave it.  And so the guy had to be tough enough that he could survive the hero's big attack, so that's why we decided to make him a ghost."  It might help to include some pure out of character, out of universe information on why the designers made the character that way.  You wouldn't have to do it from the perspective of a fictional comic book author, but something to help GMs understand what role the author envisioned for this villain, how it is intended to be played.  More info from that angle. 
 
"And so when Dr Destroyer shows up to battle the heroes in Detroit, we knew he had to be more powerful.  So he got a one-time power boost there, an experimental new type of armor that was made with a rare element.  We knew we couldn't let him keep it, but we needed him to be powerful for this one story.  So for a couple of years he's totally unstoppable by normal teams, but then maybe he found out it was causing cancer or something so he had to quit using it.  So the Doctor has returned to the level of stats listed above, but maybe the older he gets the more likely he is to say 'screw it' and put on the experimental suit to go out with a bang."

Don't know how close it comes to Hellboy.  At one point Bubba is sent to investigate the outbreak of a succubus at a nursing home, resulting in much wrinkled & saggy hilarity.   

Dr. Destroyer, Takofanes, Mechanon, are supposed to be in the upper rank of the setting's villains. Nobody is telling Marvel to get rid of Thanos or Magneto because they're too powerful. If you don't want to use those Champs villains in your games for that reason, maybe Kinematik, or Holocaust, or the Warlord, or Necrull, or King Cobra, etc. would be more suitable.
 
For my part, given my druthers I prefer a high-powered superhero game. Just as in my comics, I like my supers to be super. I respect the range of published villain power levels that Hero currently supports, but I'm happy there's a nice variety that fit my play style. I'm sorry if other gamers feel there isn't as much support for their styles as they want; however, I don't consider a published character's default power level to be, in itself, an objective measure of whether said character is "good" or "bad."

SOme of the designs and concepts of the master villains in the CHampions Universe are interesting but as built they are ridiculously, insanely overpowered.  Its like having fifteen Galactuses walking around the world.  One almost gets the idea that the designers felt like they were in some kind of arms race: oh yeah?  "Well you're not gonna beat my Dr Destroyer!!!!"

If it were important for the Champions universe to make sense (sort of an ecology of superheroes and villains), I think they'd have to structure their books differently.  Now I'm not really sure that it is important.  I've always seen the game world as more a mix-and-match setting where you take what you want and leave the rest.  Just because Dr Destroyer is in the game book doesn't mean that he has to be in your game.  The villains in the book don't have to be out there until you need them there.  What if half the villains in the book are in prison already, or haven't had their origins yet?  Heroes stick around for a while, villains show up and get defeated.  This is the sort of thing the Champions genre book should address.
 
If I were writing it, and I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted, I might try something like this (5th edition costs here).
 
--Have two versions of the example superhero group.  You've got the Champions as example starting characters at 350 points.  Then you've got the "real" Champions who are at 450 or 500 or something.  4th edition Champions had these, and they were far tougher.  It's presumed that the higher level versions of the heroes are the ones that are really out there saving the day.
--Rein in the Dr Destroyer/Takofanes types so that they can be successfully opposed by the high tier Champions (plus friends maybe).
--Publish some higher point, but not necessarily higher damage class, solo heroes who are on their own.  Spidey might be a 700 point character, but he still might not hit for more than 12D6.  The rest of his points make him viable as a solo character.
--Publish some Rogue's Galleries of villains who are designed to lose to the solo heroes.  They can be tough and have cool powers, but you'll see why, on average, they lose to the solo hero.  They could be threatening to a group though (but don't have to be).
--Have some really high powered solo characters who are pretty much tied down by their villains.  Dr Enigma the World Wizard doesn't have time to mess with you, because he's keeping Tyrannon at bay.  Plus he might not hold up so well if Grond wanders into his house.
--I'd have general tiers of how powerful certain things are, and I'd stick to them.  A good agent may have a 5 OCV, an average super has an 8, an average martial artist hero gets a 10, and a best in the world guy has a 13.  And I'd stick to it.
--Most of all, I'd think about the role that these characters play within the game, and the game world.  They need to live and function well within their niche, but they sort of balance each other out.
 
So let's say you decide that Gothic City is patrolled by Night Man.  He's a 632 point detective/gadgeteer/martial artist.  Occasionally he joins up with a team, but most of the time he just keeps his city safe from the strange and weird villains who call it home.  So Night Man is a best in the world martial artist type, so let's give him a 13 OCV.  27 Dex, with 4 levels in hand to hand, and like 8 different martial art maneuvers.  We'll also give him a 7 Speed because he's on his own (might have a sidekick, might not) and so he'll have to abort to dodge a lot.  But most of the time he's not fighting against characters with lots of defense, so his actual HTH damage doesn't need to be that high.  Maybe he can do an 11D6 Offensive Strike, so he hits a little below the average hero.
 
In addition, Night Man has vehicles, a base, contacts within the city, plenty of skills, etc.  He's geared to fight his own villains.  Now you look at publishing the Gothic City Sourcebook, which will have like 40 villains in there, most of whom hate Night Man.  They are built so that it makes sense that Night Man can keep them under control.  Madame Catburglar isn't much of a combatant, she's on the lower end of the scale for damage and defenses (nobody is shooting at her with 5D6 RKAs, so she doesn't need to defend against it, and she only needs to be damaging enough to fight martial artist types).  But she's got great burglar skills.  If it wasn't for Night Man's skill set of Criminology 17-, and Deduction 17-, she'd be really hard to catch.  This gives you a great villain without making people wonder why she isn't out taking over the world.  Set it up so that of the 40 villains listed in the book, maybe only 5 or 6 of them are out there active at any one time.  Some are in prison, some are licking their wounds or planning their next job, some are presumed dead ("no one could survive that fall..."), and some haven't had their origins yet.
 
Night Man himself isn't going to overwhelm any of the PCs.  He's specialized.  His points are spent efficiently... for his own campaign.  He doesn't need more than 11D6 to be effective in Gothic City.  He doesn't need more than 23 Defense -- his villains are on the lower end of the damage scale.  He does need a 40 Presence though, and his 7 Speed.  His 15- Contact with Commissioner Grayson is very useful.  In a generic Champions game he might seem a bit unbalanced, but he's perfect for his Night Man solo game.  A lot of his villains are only 350 points, but they're kind of unbalanced themselves.  Alligator Man is just an okay brick, not that durable.  60 Str, 30 Con, 5 Spd, 28 PD and 20 ED.  But he's got a 10 OCV and a decent stealth roll.  You can see why he's dangerous for Night Man, a real threat even though he's only about half the points.  Night Man will still win a close fight (especially with some attacks vs ED in his gadget belt), but it's dangerous for him.  But against a superhero team?  Alligator Man is dead meat.  A couple of 12D6 blasts from Fire Lad and he's toast.
 
--
 
If I were designing a Champions universe, I'd fill it out with characters like that.  A lot of villains would have a defined role, something they were really good at.  As it is, we've got a ton of villains who have a 60 point Multipower, 25-30 Def, 5-6 Spd, 8-9 OCV, and 35-45 Stun.  They're basically interchangeable, they're reasonably combat effective, and they make nice little brute squads together.  Villains go up in power from there, with some high earners throwing 15 or 20D6, and then there's Dr Darkseid and Professor Thanos chucking 30D6 or more.  Those last guys are built to take on those handful of top tier PC teams where everybody is in the 20D6+ range, and they're pretty good at that.  But if those teams don't exist in your game, you don't need those villains at all.
 
There's a temptation to put in Superion, or Major Marvelous, somebody with 150 Str and an 11 Spd, 50 Defense with 50% Reduction, 120 Stun and 80" of Flight with a 15 OCV.  But he'd just be a counter to the very very high end villains, and then you've got to explain why he doesn't just fix every problem.  I think more thought needs to be put into the highest end villains, and not just about what else can be fit on their character sheet.  Otherwise you've got to either include a Superman, or a Justice Society with 25 different heroes to stop those guys.  The JSA might be better, because they'd only come together in full to stop the biggest threats.

Maybe the Healing Halls have a dreamlike quality to them?  The injured guy is losing consciousness, and he sees the Preacher above him just as everything goes dark.  He wakes up (?) in a beautiful countryside that's half rural England, and half people wearing togas and eating fruit.  There's a babbling brook, and rolling hills, and you fall asleep on bales of hay.  Pretty ladies tend your wounds (which are still there but don't seem to hurt nearly as much).  You can't quite remember how you got there or where exactly this is (or how long you've been there), but you don't seem to care that much either.  Characters have to make an Ego roll if they want to remember any details beyond the present -- it just doesn't seem that important.  Maybe they take a penalty to the Ego roll equal to however much Body they are down (a guy reduced from 10 Body to -2 gets a -12 to his roll, as he heals up the penalty drops).  There's a church there, and people are encouraged to pray and reflect.  If you consciously search for a way out, maybe there's a door in the church that you never noticed before.  It goes outside, to the real outside.  Whenever you finally leave, you wake up outside that church, now old and abandoned.  Your memory of where you were before is hazy and dreamlike.  How did you get here?  You aren't sure.  Inside the church it kinda looks like your dream, but not exactly.

I don't think you understand how little interest I had in the Captain Marvel character to begin with.
 
I saw a headline.  An actress I'd never heard of made a potentially inflammatory statement.  She was starring in a movie I already had no desire to see.  Now I'm supposed to go out of my way to verify it?  No, sorry, I'm not going to do that.

How is that worse than actual Detroit?

Yeah, the initial blow with Stormbreaker did appear to Stun Thanos, who spent his next Phase coming out of Stun. Thor spent his next Phase pushing the axe further in for extra damage, you know, just for good measure, which ended his Phase. When Thanos said, "You should have gone for the head," he was basically monologuing and it was still his Phase, not Thor's. Remember, it takes zero time to deliver dramatic dialogue during your Phase. Thanos could have gloated for much longer and still been allowed to snap his fingers to end his Phase.

In this case it should be "Avengers Reassemble!"

I have played or GM'd in campaigns where the PCs were experienced enough, or built powerful enough to take on the likes of Dr. Destroyer or Mechanon in direct combat. I know other Champions gamers who've also played in games at that level. I remember one of our forum colleagues posting here that he ran his team of veteran Justice League-level heroes against the 5E version of Destroyer as printed in Conquerors, Killers, And Crooks, and killed him -- killed him -- in less than two Turns of combat.
 
Mind you, I didn't necessarily use the most OP rendition of those villains in my own games. One thing I like about the "Book Of..." approach to different official villains, is that those books provide alternate versions of the villain at higher or lower power levels, or with different styles, to more easily fit them into a given campaign. Then there are the "master villains" who are purely behind-the-scenes manipulators, not designed for a stand-up fight with teams of heroes; the likes of Dr. Moreau, or Franklin Stone, or the latest Supreme Serpent of VIPER. Even Istvatha V'han is far from the toughest of opponents. Her threat derives from her limitless resources (see below).
 
In any case, IMHO the epic master villains are best used as the climax of a campaign, after the PCs have worked through their schemes and lesser forces. Another thing I really appreciate in the Books Of... are all the included followers of the master villain, opponents who can be part of any of the master's schemes, so that lesser-powered PCs can thwart those schemes without having to face the master him/herself. At the moment I'm developing a number of followers for the cosmic tyrant Xarriel, from Champions Beyond, who's clearly too powerful for all but the mightiest hero teams to battle face-to-face. Hopefully I'll be able to share them with you all one day.

He's quite vain so...lifts in his boots?

It might be helpful if some villains had a more defined role, as far as how they operated.  These would just be examples of course, for illustrative purposes.  Characters would not have to fall wholly into one category, it's really just a suggestion for how GMs might want to use them
 
--Thieves are there to steal stuff.  Their superpowers are focused on getting away.  They can't stand up to the heroes in combat, so the challenge is in preventing them from escaping.  Teleport, Desolidification, and Invisibility are common powers.  Example: GRAB.
--Planners use traps, gadgets, and minions to oppose the hero.  The challenge lies in getting to the villain, not in beating him up.  Followers, Bases, and Gadget Pools are common.  Example:  Arcade (X-Men) and many Bat-villains.
--A Nemesis is designed to fight one particular hero.  He's an even match for his chosen foe, whether it's because his powers are exactly the same, exactly the opposite, or maybe even just a philosophical opposition.  Against other heroes, he may be completely out of his element (alternatively, an unprepared hero may find himself completely outclassed by what he assumed would be a "weak" opponent).  Example: Joker, Metallo, Lex Luthor, Red Skull.
--A Rogue's Galley Member is not quite a Nemesis.  These guys are built to fight an individual hero, give him a tough fight, and lose.  In many ways, they're the ideal Champions villain (and what I think the OP is talking about in this thread).  Example: many Spidey-villains.
--Villain Teams are designed to match up to the heroes as a group.  Individually they can have strengths and weaknesses, but ultimately they are supposed to take on a number of heroes at once.  Example: Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Wrecking Crew, Injustice League, Eurostar, Ultimates.
--Master Villains are designed to take on a group of heroes, and potentially win.  They will have serious stat-inflation, often with a 7 or 8 Speed, Damage Reduction, and 80+ Stun.  But they normally enter battle by themselves, as the final opponent for the heroes.  They didn't become master villains by losing, so they'll often bug out as soon as the fight starts to turn against them (say, when they get to half Stun, or if their latest giant gadget is destroyed).  Example:  Dr Doom, Magneto, Thanos.

I think its a mistake to over think the reality and world of superheroes.  You're better off just winging it and having fun than trying to come up with the ultimate "this makes the most sense" because in the end it won't make sense and will give you ulcers trying to jam that star shaped piece through the round hole.
 
I mean you can make things make sense in the short run or in the immediate context, but don't sweat the overall picture.  The comics don't, or at least the best ones didn't.  Just have fun and make it work for everyone except mister "akshually" in the corner who keeps saying that this doesn't make sense scientifically.  He's not there to have fun anyway.

Part of the problem lies in the very idea of building a Universe to begin with.
 
For an actual game, rather than a book, I'd consider building an example super team (rivals and/or allies as required) and maybe a handful of solo heroes who specialize in particular fields (magic is a good example), or who can be met when the PCs go to particular places (Gothic City).
 
That would be about it. 10 or a dozen or so NPC heroes. Effectively, in the entire world.
 
I'd then build villains to oppose the PCs, more or less as required, or with an eye to using them in the future. The key characters would those specified in the PC's write ups, whether as Hunteds or in some other role. I would add some related to the backgrounds of the NPC heroes, because, naturally, when you meet Night Man, you will also meet Mad Clown.
 
All other villains would be stock characters for use in future scenarios.
 
So, if there are, say, four PCs, with two villains specified in each of their write ups, and a dozen NPC heroes with a villain specified for each, you would need about 20 villains, plus maybe another ten or so in the stock/reserve pile, making roughly 30 all up.
 
In practical terms, that would be pretty much all the villains in the world, at least to begin with. Implicitly, the NPC heroes would have other opponents, but they wouldn't be relevant to the game.
 
Not counting the implicit villains, that's roughly two villains for every hero, not the comparatively restrained one and a half the CU suggests. A problem? Not really, since they are integrated into an ecology of play. If you really want, you could add some other heroes who theoretically exist, but will only appear if the PCs go looking for them. (I wouldn't).

I just find it interesting that right now, there are two movies in the theaters based on a character named Captain Marvel.