Clonus

"[it] has never availed to shield crime or give indemnity to the culprit, and it is safe to say that under any code of civilized, not to say Christian, ethics, it never will"

Yes, the kind of experimentation that Tesla did trying to develop broadcast power would create an excellent potential for a classic laboratory accident.

(and villains) OK so here's a question. If all of the real people of the world, past and present lived in a comic book universe...which of them would have an Origin? For example take Charles Lindbergh. He was rich. He was an inventor He had an interest in trying to improve human beings both by eugenics and by implanting electro-mechanical replacement parts in them A family member was the victim of a heinous crime He'd totally turn himself into a cyborg masked aviator in a super plane that could hover and fly silently. He'd be the Phantom Eagle, right?

I had a character named Gossamer Wing who could shrink, fly and move objects by singing at them.

My Little Pony: The Princess Bridle.

This Supergirl isn't just starting out. She's reached the point where she is striking out on her own independent of Superman.

That character is Mister Moleman.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2009/04/07/debunking-web-myths-about-fema-camps/

Oh, I think she's a substantially modified Tilda Johnson. http://marvel.wikia.com/Tilda_Johnson_%28Earth-616%29

Lord Obsidian: Actually an undercover superhero competing under the name Obsidian, the hero was corrupted by winning the "prize" and re-re-dubbed himself "Lord Obsidian". He has the power to generate darkness, and to make darkness solid giving him the Green Lantern by another colour suite.

The Captn is right. Oprah would invite the characters to be interviewed if they want to get their side of the story out.

It isn't really automating when all you've done is make artificial people.

Schwarze Sonne: A nazi superhero in the "Superman" mold with a black and red cape and tights outfit, and the the image of the "black sun" on his chest...until you remove the disguise amulet from his neck and he's revealed to be a draugr in tights, a walking corpse with the power to drain life and superpowers from others. His actual vulnerability is the cursed ring he wears, stolen from a funeral mound. If removed, he becomes inanimate. It will animate any corpse it is touched to, and if worn by a living person it will grant them powers but slowly kill them. Yes. I combined Superman, The Parasite and the Witch King.

Quicksilver Girl, a stretching character who is actually a sapient colony of nanomachines. In her "at rest" form she's looks more or less like like a rule-63 Silver Surfer, but in action she stretches and forms weapons out of her arms like a cross between Reed Richards and the T-1000. Originally made by the noble villainess "Lady Nemesis" to spy on, harass and fight the superhero team Nemesis blames for the killing of her father, she got so interested in her targets that she wound up joining them.

I agree. While the comic book precedent justifies bringing a dead PC back through any number of plot devices if desired, it certainly doesn't make it mandatory much less require every single superheroic NPC to use the revolving door of heaven. Incidentally I just discovered that there was an entire super team in the Marvel Universe, the "First Line" who in a story published in 2001 stopped a Skrull invasion in the 80s. Very few of them came back out of a line-up that included "Nightingale, Flatiron, Reflex, Oxbow, Pixie, Mister Justice, Black Fox, Firefall, Positron, Templar, Effigy, Vulcan, as well as new additions Squire (the son of Templar), Gadfly: the mutant daughter of Hippy and Sunshine, the biologically engineered Atlantean warrior Mako, and the foul mouthed Riot-Act as well as their old foe Nocturne" A couple of them came back because they were just able to survive exploding starships but most of them haven't been seen since, and I wouldn't hold my breath for their resurrection.

Almost all of them are dated by the year the story in which they died was published. That Howard Stark had a career as something of a superhero is a fairly recent retcon but that he was apparently murdered by sabotaged brakes by his enemies was longstanding canon.

Lemme see now, add 'em up, carry the three...roughly one, or three if we're eliminating apparent accidental deaths that have not yet been revealed to be something more. The Outlaw Kid died blowing himself up with dynamite in a very demented last stand. Captain Marvel died from cancer, but he got the cancer in action. Union Jack and Bluebird did die in car accidents after they'd abandoned the mask for what that's worth. Howard Stark died in an apparent accident but was actually murdered by his enemies. The Whizzer was very old when he died, but I can't say he died of natural causes when he ran himself to death trying to save the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. The Two-Gun Kid died of actual old age in 1937 or so, babbling to the Golden Age Angel about his future.

What makes you think they haven't come back from the dead? Or won't? That being said, here's a non-comprehensive list of Earth-616 superheros who haven't come back from the dead after five years or more. Aegis (Trey Rollins): Died 2009 Agatha Harkness: Died 2004 The Ancient One: Died 1974 Apex: Died 2012 Arabian Knight (Abdul Qamar): Died 2001 Black Marvel (Daniel Lyons): Died 1999 Bloke (Mickey Tork) Died 2001 Bluebird (Sally Avril) Died in a 1996 issue but actually farther back than that. Box (Roger Bochs) Died 1987 Caiera: Died 2007 Captain Marvel (Genis-Vall): Died 2006\ Captain Marvel (Mar-Vall): Died 1982 Changeling (Kevin Sydney): Died 1968! Dead Girl (Moonbeam): Died 2004 Dinah Soar: Died 2005 Doc Samson (Leonard Samson): Died 2010 Doctor Druid (Anthony Druid): Died 1995 Dryad (Callie Betts): Died 2006 El Guapo (Robbie Rodriguez): Died 2004 Feral (Maria Callasantos): Died 2007 Gertrude Yorkes: Died 2006 Grasshopper: Died 2005 Gremlin (Kondrati Yurivich Topolov): Died 1988 Hornet (Eddie McDonagh): Died 2004 Howard Stark: Died before 1970 Jackpot (Alana Jobson): Died 2008 John the Skrull: 2008 Madame Web: 2010 Major Mapleleaf (Louis Sadler Junior): 2006 Mister M: 2006 Miss America (Madeline Joyce): 1974 Mister Sensitive (Guy Smith): 2004 Night Thrasher ((Dwayne Michael Taylor): 2006 Nomad (Jack Monroe): 2005 Nova (Richard Rider): 2010 Omega the Unknown: 1979 Onyxx (Sidney Green): 2010 Outlaw Kid: Died before 2000. A long time before Phyla-Vell: 2010 Puck (Zuzha Yu): 2006 Quill (Maxwell Jordan): 2006 Risque (Gloria Dolores Muñoz): 2010 Rubbermaid (Andrea Margulies): 2006 Firefist (Rusty Collins): 1995 Scarlet Spider (Ben Reilly) 1996 Silver Fox (Kayla Silverfox) 1992 Skin (Angelo Espinosa) 2003 Spider-Woman (Mattie Franklin): 2010 Starshine (Landra): 1982 Stepford Cuckoos: 2003 Stick: 1982 Stonewall (Louis Hamilton): 1989 Super Sabre (Martin Fletcher): 1991 Synch (Everett Thomas): 2000 Thunderbird (John Proudstar): 1975 Thunderstrike (Eric Masterson): 1995 Torpedo: 1981 Two Gun Kid: Long before 2009 Union Jack (Brian Falsworth): 1953 Union Jack (James Montgomery Falsworth): 1981 Wallflower (Laurie Collins): 2006 Washout (John Lopez): 2003 Whizzer (Robert Frank): 1982

Character concepts are a separate issue. For example Porcupine is dead and will stay dead because other guys picked up the identity. There's no reason to bring the original back. Same with Union Jack. I've got a setting I'm writing in where Lady Nemesis comments that while there are genuine returns from the dead, there aren't nearly as many as the media think because they don't know when someone else picked up the identity or the Clone Arranger created a copy or a parallel universe version paid a visit and she, herself built a robot version of her deceased father to mess with his killers. That being said does the Champions Universe timeline really have all that many deaths in it anyway?

I don't think the flex-time of the major comic book companies is an element of the genre that is worth preserving in RPGs. Campaigns just don't last that long.

For the baseball guy keep it simple. Mister Baseball. Baseball is after all, an American patriotic symbol in itself.

Guinan in the episode claimed that humanity wouldn't have had to deal with the Borg for centuries had it not been for Q drawing their attention to humanity. Given that it was apparently the Borg who grabbed the Neutral Zone border colonies and it was definitely the Borg who took Seven, it's not that they were unaware of humanity that was keeping us safe.

If I was going to run something like that, I'd run Green Viper Liberator.

They aren't really that driven. If they were, they would have borged the whole galaxy bar a few super advanced energy being cultures by now. They only assimilate a species if they judge them to be "ripe". They'd already sampled humans and decided we weren't worth assimilating. The only reason they changed their mind is because humans apparently demonstrated a capability they didn't understand (Q teleporting them in and out).

I don't realize anything of the kind. Back in the 70s it actually seemed reasonable that the speed of light was just something that we'd inevitably beat with the boundless potential of SCIENCE!. These days, I kind of expect that three centuries from now, not only will we not be building an interstellar empire, we won't even be doing all that much with the solar system. The past 40 years have taught me that reality is actually pretty darn likely to fall short of science fiction. As for computers and robots, well the obvious problem is that if you automate everything, then there's nothing for the PCs to do. So making humans obsolete is a bad idea.