Opal

Sin-eater
 
When Dylan Scurlock's wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer he tried to stay brave for her. As her physical and mental health deteriorated she expressed deep fear of her soul being tainted by her sins. She was inconsolable and Dylan in desperation vowed to her that he would utilize the ritual of eating her sins to save her soul. When she passed, he felt obligated to follow through with his promise. However the ritual changed him. He could feel the sin eating away at him. He knew he was damned by his actions. He also hungered for more as it seemed to grant him strength and a dark animal cunning. He began killing victims and consuming their sins, not to save them, but to temporarily sate his appetite. He uses the group to help provide him with victims, but he also views them as bodies ripe with sin that he will someday harvest.

The Green Woman
 
there are plenty of legends of the Green Man representing nature, so why not a woman ? Trudy Jenkins is a woman who was thrown into a huge compost pile to die by a homophobic mob after she tried to intervene and stop a beating. She came out changed and brought all the mob to justice as birds, insects, animals and vegetation aided her. Of all the group she is the most conservatively dressed and the most chaste.

The Mourners are a group of five individuals who each suffered personal tragedy, and as a result want to inflict pain on others in return.  They're not good at teamwork, but misery loves company, and they're determined to create as much company as they can.  Each should have powers or a gimmick based on a mourning custom.

Giants were opponents of the Gods in both Norse and Greek (the Titanomachy) mythologies, so those are places to look for inspiration.
 
In one setting I used, giants were an "elder race," slowly vanishing from the world, leaving behind ruins and cryptic monuments, and represented in the present by isolated individuals wielding strange powers that might be magic or technology, holding onto ancient fears, grudges, ambitions, or just habits, with tired monomaniacal zeal.

I like to keep my normals normal - 0 pts + maybe a minor psych lim or something, a few points moved around.
A (one, singular) professional skill is enough to be a professional and have an ordinary career.
 
I guess that's kinda old-school.  But it means a background or secret id concept doesn't need to eat up a lot of points, so you can be what you want without being less super.

Or maybe he got an endorsement deal with an off-brand roomba(tm) clone.

Or maybe he got an endorsement deal with an off-brand roomba(tm) clone.

Giants were opponents of the Gods in both Norse and Greek (the Titanomachy) mythologies, so those are places to look for inspiration.
 
In one setting I used, giants were an "elder race," slowly vanishing from the world, leaving behind ruins and cryptic monuments, and represented in the present by isolated individuals wielding strange powers that might be magic or technology, holding onto ancient fears, grudges, ambitions, or just habits, with tired monomaniacal zeal.

LoneWolf & Grailknight - thank you for sharing your thoughts and making the suggestions.  I truly appreciate discussing and better understanding the rules. 
 
I had not considered Move Through previously.  My reason was that the PC was not expecting to "hit a wall".  I would think that when executing a Move Through, the PC would be like a Linebacker who KNEW s/he was about to hit something.  In this situation it would be unexpected.  My real life experience is that when I hit something unexpectedly - it seems to "hurt more".  However, your feedback has me reconsidering this line of thinking.
 
Applying Casual Strength is also a great idea.  The PC may not have "meant" to do it - but it might be a reasonable application in this instance.
 
BTW - I know 4th Edition is a little out of date - however I had the materials and started an online game due to the pandemic (thinking it would only last 6-8 sessions).  The crazy part is that the players are having a blast and wanna keep going - and I don't wanna switch systems on them.
 
Again, thank you.  Please share any other thoughts on the matter if they occur to you.

Giants were opponents of the Gods in both Norse and Greek (the Titanomachy) mythologies, so those are places to look for inspiration.
 
In one setting I used, giants were an "elder race," slowly vanishing from the world, leaving behind ruins and cryptic monuments, and represented in the present by isolated individuals wielding strange powers that might be magic or technology, holding onto ancient fears, grudges, ambitions, or just habits, with tired monomaniacal zeal.

I see this as the perfect opportunity for good role-playing and character growth.  You get the Rainbow Warriors fighting along side the Christian Crusaders to take on Dr. Mega-Villain.  Some of the interactions is going to be snarky of course (which are fun in their own right), but some of the PCs and NPCs might learn something from each other.  How does that affect the individual and group dynamics?   How will they treat each other when it comes down to the wire?  Some characters are going to become more hard-line in their views, some will come to appreciate their comrades-in-arms even if they don't see eye-to-eye on everything.  And if some of the characters change their viewpoints, make new friends possibly at the cost of old ones, it is a good way to keep the campaign from getting stale.

Oh yes, I'm quite familiar, and thought I'd wade into it, once again, since I hadn't recalled seeing it brought up as a way of discouraging actions (often, as in D&D, it's a way of avoiding a bad rule to keep the game playable, sometimes, even in games like Hero, it's a way of shaving points by not paying for "things we'll just RP through anyway") - and since it was easier and more on topic to address.  
 
Punishing a player for straying into undesirable actions by changing resolution from rules/description/imagination/tokens to live-action calculated to make him distinctly uncomfortable has problems on other levels to.
Not that players pushing the campaign out of it's intended thematic range is any better, in the first place.  ;(  
That's my feeling - and has been my experience from both sides of the screen - and it goes further than that, IMHO, because for the whole range of character concepts and actions, at least on the TT side of the hobby, resolution can be handled abstractly, with rules, descriptions, imagination, with nothing more concrete than moving a painted mini on a play surface, some gesticulation, a little onomatopoeia. 
 
That means we can play characters very different from ourselves, which I think is one of the great things about our hobby, we get to live in other times, places, bodies, and, well, roles.   

D&D Stone and Iron golems were prettymuch that, magical robots.   Flesh Golems had some sort of vestige of consciousness, and clay golems maybe an animating spirt or something? - they could go berserk, anyway.
 
The original golem of legend was more of a knock-off human, made of clay, like Adam was, and animated by a magic word (either inscribed on it, or written on paper placed in its mouth), it started out obedient but became rebellious and murderous.
 

So, by leveraging the players' presumed homophobia?
 
....
 
OK, keeping my nerd hat on, and not trying to peel that onion, I'll move on to amature RPG design theory, and ask, why would seduction - or any other PRE skill - go to live-action resolution?  If you don't want the player fighting a certain DNPC, do you pull out the rattan & duct tape?  
 
It seems dreadfully common, even in comparatively complete systems, like Hero, to just toss the resolution mechanics when it comes to social scenes.  It's always bothered me.
 

In Duke's Defense, You just walked on a bit of a hot button between some GM's and players, basically the whole "Role  Play vs. Roll Play" argument. A lot of GMs aggressively encourage  Role play, rather than allowing a player to simply roll social skills on a sheet. I take the opposite tack, and why I smile on Role play, I also realize that I may have otherwise very good players that lack in social skills due to various factors that are uncomfortable, or incapable of  performing social scenes other than a few mumbled lines, backing up those who can. Games in General, most GMs would allow a player to roll a seduction roll, then describe the results in what ever detail a consensus of the table agrees upon. I agree with you about tossing the resolution system, when it was fine a few minutes earlier when using "Streetwise" to find the tavern in the first place. I know a lot of GMs can be disappointed in a player insisting that he is going to roll for persuasion, conversation, or Seduction, rather than role play it out. But comfort around the table is important to maintain trust there.

So, by leveraging the players' presumed homophobia?
 
....
 
OK, keeping my nerd hat on, and not trying to peel that onion, I'll move on to amature RPG design theory, and ask, why would seduction - or any other PRE skill - go to live-action resolution?  If you don't want the player fighting a certain DNPC, do you pull out the rattan & duct tape?  
 
It seems dreadfully common, even in comparatively complete systems, like Hero, to just toss the resolution mechanics when it comes to social scenes.  It's always bothered me.
 

So, by leveraging the players' presumed homophobia?
 
....
 
OK, keeping my nerd hat on, and not trying to peel that onion, I'll move on to amature RPG design theory, and ask, why would seduction - or any other PRE skill - go to live-action resolution?  If you don't want the player fighting a certain DNPC, do you pull out the rattan & duct tape?  
 
It seems dreadfully common, even in comparatively complete systems, like Hero, to just toss the resolution mechanics when it comes to social scenes.  It's always bothered me.
 

Oh, and obviously neither like the Scarecrow and his Strawmen. However, they have different ideas of how to deal with them.

D&D Stone and Iron golems were prettymuch that, magical robots.   Flesh Golems had some sort of vestige of consciousness, and clay golems maybe an animating spirt or something? - they could go berserk, anyway.
 
The original golem of legend was more of a knock-off human, made of clay, like Adam was, and animated by a magic word (either inscribed on it, or written on paper placed in its mouth), it started out obedient but became rebellious and murderous.
 

I don't want to do any spoilers, but that was the entire concept of the Thunderbolts: an entire team of villains pretending to be a new hero team.  But... in the doing of heroic deeds and being a hero some of them changed their ways for real.

Buy officially sanctioned t-shirts, caps, and other paraphernalia of the team you support naturally.
 
According to Wolverine, if you're drowning, it does matter who is throwing you the rope.

Kinetic Dad
 
Using a black & neon-green battlesuit covered in reconfigurable advanced carbon composite leaf springs, Kinetic Dad is able to move, impact, and recoil as a near-perfectly-elastic object.  As such he is virtually immune to normal physical damage.  Though he gets knocked around like a pinball in the process, he can often control his careening enough to redirect the kinetic energy of attacks into his foes. 
But Kinetic Dad is less in The Legion of Progress for advanced carbon composite leaf springs, and more to promote social change, specifically the acceptance of single parents and the importance of fatherhood (earning him some unwelcome MRA fans). His superhero banter tends to extra-lame "Dad jokes," and fatherly advice.
 
 

C2-Shining-C
 
A gold-tone art deco robotoid reminiscent of Metropolis (and thus C3PO, who was notoriously inspired by the robot therefrom), who speaks with a rich, cultured, but metallic voice, like Sidney Poitier reciting Shakespeare with a bucket on his head, C2-Shining-C was created by a very elderly 'mad' ("but I have tenure!") scientist, with programming to match his retro-aesthetic, as a legacy that would carry on the highest ideals of Manifest Destiny,  Patriotism and Progress, and donated by said scientist to the Legion of Progress.   
C2SC is literally colorblind - his photoreceptors register only the presence or absence of light in the visible spectrum, he uses radar for targeting and hearing (voice recognition) & touch (fingerprints) to identify individuals - and is programmed to acknowledge only current citizenship as a valid way to classify different groups of human beings.   Similarly, his moral and ethical programming is strictly black & white, persons are either law-breaking or law-abiding, either moral or immoral, patriotic or un-American.   Or, at least, the way he expresses it is.  When confusing shades of grey come up, he seems to ignore them, yet still make a fair judgement, sometimes just by choosing the order in which he processes the pros and cons of their behavior, similarly, when Patriotism comes up, he falls back on his own version of the "No True American" fallacy, thus he has judged noble-intentioned refugees 'True Americans' and vindictive flag-suited hyper-nationalists 'un-American.'  Likewise, his idea of "Progress" seems very old-fashioned - industrialization and growth is progress - yet he always seems to rationalize, with a little old-fashioned conservationist rhetoric, respect for the environment.   Whether he's overcome his programming, or it was always that nuanced is an open question.  
C2SCs powers include robotic super-strength, self-repair regeneration (from the tiniest scrap, apparently), rocket-assisted flight, and EM energy projection, including both blasts and force-fields, as well as electromagnetic TK.   His systems are entirely analog, rendering him unable to interface with modern computers & technology - and quite immune to hacking attempts - but giving him a mind so human-like it can be contacted telepathically - in fact, some who have done so are convinced he is a cyborg, a human brain in a robot body, and his old-timey-robot manner is either an act or a matter of how his sub-systems were designed.  
 
 
 

I suppose he could take the place of Freddy Fosgood as that universe's Foxbat.
 
...or...
 
 

Certainly.  The practice was endemic to every historical civilization, so virtually every source of inspiration for pre-modern fantasy cultures.  Besides, slavers make great villains - they're like fantasy Nazis, that way.  And, it gives the stereotypical barbarian hero - who is uncivilized, so maybe comes from a culture with no such institutions -  a little moral high ground, from which, with some irony, to project our post-modern de rigueur abhorrence.