Opal

See, that's why I brought up Replaceable.   I don't think there's any precedent, for, say, starting with a mundane piece of gear and 'adding points to it.'
Replaceable was a -1/2 limitation in the original Star Hero, it was to recognize that in a setting where, say, anyone could pick up a 2dRKAe laser pistol, an alien with 2dRKAe laser-eye-beams was not really getting a whole lot for his 30 pts (I believe that was an example, it's been a few... decades).  
 
It was a cool idea and I don't recall it ever being used again.
 
Fantasy Hero, previously, had introduced "Independent" which was another way of dealing with the D&D-esque fantasy bit of "magic items."

Fair 'nuff.  By the same token, newcomers are also out of the running. Anything added in the 4th to 5th crossover or later can't be iconic.  To really be iconic,  character would have to both date back to the early flurry that established the game in the first three editions, and still be prominent, today.
 
So, does that narrow the field to nothing?  For Heroes it may well, there were  never that many heroes published - the players are supposed to provide those.  
 
For villains, is Mechanon still around?  Sounds like Dr. Destroyer is.  
 
 

Rando Calrissian?
 
Weird in the archaic sense might just work.  Or Wyrd, if you like.

I think we have to make a distinction between "iconic" in terms of the history of Champions the game, and "iconic" in relation to any of the official incarnations of the setting. There are a few characters in that first category with the high profile and longevity to be considered icons, most already mentioned on this thread; but few of them are heroes, and fewer are women. OTOH there are no few villains and heroes who are very much icons within one continuity, but not across all editions of Champions. For example, Lung Hung from VOICE of Doom is a major villain in the history of the game, and one of the most notable women villains ever published for Champs; but she and her origin concept haven't been even mentioned since 4E. In the current official continuity Vanguard was the Superman analogue in power and universal respect, but he's dead. Ushas of India is an avatar of the Hindu goddess of the same name, and considered one of the most powerful heroes in the world, but she's never been written up. Black Mask is a woman and the latest in a line of masked heroes stretching back to the American Revolutionary War; but she was created for 5E Champions and has no earlier history with the game. Many other Champions characters could be considered icons depending on the standard you measure them by.

So, villains should all be male, because it's wrong to hit the weaker sex?
 
Villains are villains, and heroes punch, energy-blast, move-through, and generally try to stop them, not because of who they are, what they look like, or where they fall in some Venn diagram of demographics, but because they're doing something wrong, generally involving immediate threat to innocents.
 
We don't need more villains in the dragonlady, femme fatale, and certainly not in the seductress mode, but female master-minds and heavy-hitters, sure, women are human beings, human beings are capable of wielding extreme power and of depths of violence and evil, as well as heights of nobility and heroism.
 
So.  Female iconic Champions! Universe heroes, you'd nominate?   

and thinking about Africa The short Iklawa version of the assegai spear used by Shaka Zulu would be ideal cuts stabs can be thrown in a pinch more useable in a tight space than even a gladius style short sword with a bit more range you could even add combined with the heavy club and the small buckler style of Nguni shield used in traditional stick fighting you've got a pretty solid selection of tools for any dungeon fight. https://www.militaria-history.co.uk/articles/weapons-of-the-zulu.
 
Roman Legionary gear which was similar in concept could work too while a full size Scutum is going to be unwieldy in together dungeons it would be an excellent defense in a tighter space or the smaller 3ft circumference Parma would be more a maneuverable but reduce coverage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parma_(shield). the gladius is idea short enough to use anywhere robust and useable both for stabbing and chopping the Plumbatae (lead weighted throwing darts) carried attached to the shield area simple range weapon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parma_(shield) and Lorica armor is a good compromise in terms of mobility and defense.
 
 

The menace known as Zabo moved along the Thames menacing anyone who got in his way. He was often spotted at night, wandering the alleys and docks. he was shot during a confrontation with the Bow Street Runners, but his body was never recovered from the river.
CES  

Jill the Bat
Thought to be one of several people responsible for the Spring-Heeled Jack urban legend, she was one of the only terrors who was identified. She could fly short distances like a bat with the wings she had which were part of her. So how she grew up without being put on display as a specimen is unknown. She could also breath out flames in blue or white. Most of her attacks and activity were at range so that she could not be fully identified. She was brought down in late 1842 and was certainly dead by the time of the last Spring-heeled Jack attack in 1904.

Giant.
 
Bear with me, here; I can explain.  
 
No; actually I can't.  But everything from his brown and yellow costume to the lack of a signture crest or logo....  I dont really have the words for it, but to someone featured in a roleplaying game of "make anything you want, how you want," I was positively in love with just how uninteresting he was.   
 
no; I really mean that.   I thiught it was just wonderful.

Not disappointed at all; new-to-me is as good as any other sort of new.   
 
 
 
 
It wasn't for me, either.  I bought it, though, if only in the hopes of supporting the company so they would be around long enough to produce something I am interested in. 
 
6 wasnt for me, but then niether were 5, 4, or 3.   It's,all,good though; backwards compatibility is a high mark for Champions /HERO, so I pop in for a year or two now and again.
 
 

I know this is the opposite of what LoneWolf just said, but it's not really disagreement.
 
There are really very few character concepts that /can/ be done in any game system, in a way that's playable, let alone grasps that elusive holy grail of balance.  You won't be able to get all the abilities the concept should have, those you can get will likely come packaged with others you don't, foundational abilities it should have always had end up waiting to later, or abilities that should be rarely-used at a high price are just always there, and on and on.  
 
D&D, especially 5e - or 1e or 2e - is egregious, of course, combining limited choice with profound imbalance - though it's notoriously Tolkien-inspired, the Fellowship isn't a viable party, for instance.  Aragorn, not yet a lord or ranger-lord at the start, can't be more than 8th, Boromir, likewise, Gimli & Legolas face single-digit level limits, while Gandalf is an angelic god-being arch-mage, and Merry, Pippin, Samwise & Frodo are just regular folks who've never adventured before.  It doesn't even really work in LotR without profound author force, for that matter, so I guess that's a tad unfair.
But even in Hero you'll find campaign guidelines that hamper a concept, and system necessities that tempt you to compromise it for the sake of playability.
 
Finally, virtually all RPGs, are designed around or team or party - the player:GM ratio is just too high, and the players double as audience - so the 'lone wolf' and 'reluctant hero' archetypes are non-starters, regardless of powers, abilities, or more specific concepts, and other archetypes - the Jimmy Olsen or Steve Trevor in constant need of rescue, but still having meaning in the story - are necessarily relegated to NPCs.
 
 

I know this is the opposite of what LoneWolf just said, but it's not really disagreement.
 
There are really very few character concepts that /can/ be done in any game system, in a way that's playable, let alone grasps that elusive holy grail of balance.  You won't be able to get all the abilities the concept should have, those you can get will likely come packaged with others you don't, foundational abilities it should have always had end up waiting to later, or abilities that should be rarely-used at a high price are just always there, and on and on.  
 
D&D, especially 5e - or 1e or 2e - is egregious, of course, combining limited choice with profound imbalance - though it's notoriously Tolkien-inspired, the Fellowship isn't a viable party, for instance.  Aragorn, not yet a lord or ranger-lord at the start, can't be more than 8th, Boromir, likewise, Gimli & Legolas face single-digit level limits, while Gandalf is an angelic god-being arch-mage, and Merry, Pippin, Samwise & Frodo are just regular folks who've never adventured before.  It doesn't even really work in LotR without profound author force, for that matter, so I guess that's a tad unfair.
But even in Hero you'll find campaign guidelines that hamper a concept, and system necessities that tempt you to compromise it for the sake of playability.
 
Finally, virtually all RPGs, are designed around or team or party - the player:GM ratio is just too high, and the players double as audience - so the 'lone wolf' and 'reluctant hero' archetypes are non-starters, regardless of powers, abilities, or more specific concepts, and other archetypes - the Jimmy Olsen or Steve Trevor in constant need of rescue, but still having meaning in the story - are necessarily relegated to NPCs.
 
 

I heard an interview with the book's author, and he straight-up said The Magicians was a hate letter to Narnia. Well, to all Fantasy, but he seemed to think the Narnia series was paradigmatic of the entire genre. So... Fantasy by someone who claims to hate Fantasy and not to know much about it. Hmm.
 
I did try to read the book, but gave up after the first 5 pages. I can't judge the TV series because it started at a time in my life I couldn't make time to watch it, and I've never had a chance to catch up.
 
Dean Shomshak

Foxbat has featured in a number of silly adventures in past Champions campaigns of mine.
 
There's the one where he decided to kidnap Adam West and Burt Ward at a mall opening, and had his group (the Foxbat Five) dress up as various villains from the 1960s Batman TV show.  He also had the Photonic Optiocal Waveform (POW) hologram generator to produce visual sound effects (POW!  BAM!  CRASH!) throughout the fight.  Before even running into the Foxbat Five, the heroes had decided to ALSO dress up as Batman foes, and managed to pick the exact same 5 characters.
 
There's also the time he broke into the Federal Reserve - not to rob it so much as to replace the money inside with bundles of FoxbatCash with his face, and the faces of his Foxbat Force teammates, replacing the presidents.  Another "update" included the replacement saying "In Foxbat We Trust".
 
Had a non-Foxbat adventure where a group of vampires were trying to steal something that would have made them very powerful.  For the minion vampires, I included one who had been an Elvis impersonator before getting bit.  I rewrote the lyrics to a number of Elvis songs - Don't Step on My Blood Red Shoes, Undead Hotel, etc. and sang one of on each of his Phases.  Keeping in mind this was a minion, not the big bad or even one of her major minions... but half the hero team ganged up on Vampire Elvis just to shut him up. 

I do too.  There's no central popular and beloved magazine or website for gaming any more.  There's nowhere to go to show off your ideas except each little niche around the internet and there's scores of them around, Hundreds.  Reddits and discords and twitter feeds and facebook groups and forums and individual websites and on and on.

OK. This thread reminded me of the old Replaceable Limitation from the original Star Hero.  (As opposed to the indiependent limitation f/Fantasy Hero)
 
It'd be a way of recognizing a 'power' that wasn't that super anymore, because of commonplace technology making it somewhat redundant.  
 
Anything like that make it into 6th?

Foxbat is kidnapping cosplayers to try out his new fashion line, that or he's doing a miss Foxbat contest - rather they want to participate or not.

One thing I learned is that police often used secure communication devices, and sometimes agencies have problems coordinating using the same technology.

Sorry to disappoint, I'm an old returning Champions! fan.  I was on Red October when it was still a BBS, then Hero-L, then some other forum that preceded this one (I think, c2000? it was pretty clunky as I recall).  I found & joined this forum in 2008 when my last (so far, last, haven't found anyone else interested since) Champions! campaign wrapped.  I was participating on here as 6th came up, and discussions  left me convinced it wasn't for me.  What little I saw of it once it came out didn't catch my interest.  
Anyway, a few weeks ago, this forum came up on a google search and I found myself sucked back in.  IDK how long that'll last.

Air MARTA
 
Claire Sullivan fights crime in Atlanta. But she rarely if ever makes the news because (a) it is Atlanta and (b) she is white. She is one of that rare breed of paranormal who does not wear a mask. With her cape, thigh length high heeled boots and a quasi afro-hair style she was quite noticeable. She fired concussion blasts bringing both arms together and firing straight ahead at a target.
Her name comes from the rapid transit system as she was found in Peachtree Center Station and she tried to fly away down the route of the rail system.
Unusually of those that can recall the Air War she has a lot of memory of what happened. She was in Newark, New Jersey to speak to the FBI about an ongoing investigation. Then there us a 24 hour gap.
She was teamed with 9 others for whom she was devoted and they fought their enemies around the Empire State Building, through Central Park and over and through the Brooklyn Bridge, Williamsburg Bridge, George Washington Bridge and Verrazano Narrows Bridge. She even recalls chasing targets down Broadway and around Wall Street.
She suffered a headache and had to slow down and stop in mid air to shake the pain in her head when those she was fighting with and against resolved themselves in to heroes and villains she recognised if not by name then by sight. She was stunned. She had been fighting side by side with villains against a hero. What on earth ?
It was at this point that she was hit by a blast and sent hurtling into the Hudson River. From then on she was a spectator and corroborated Silver Sentinel's version of events in the latter stages. She saw Fortress America as he fell earthward but not who shot him and why.
After questioning by Federal Authorities  she returned to Atlanta and has resumed fighting crime.
 
Fortress America was a bigoted villain who was shot down and killed during the fighting but no-one is sure who did it. 
 

Tankhunter (Thợ săn xe tăng)
 
Tankhunter was confused. One minute he was engaging American armour just south of the DMZ, the next he's in the largest city he's ever seen, even larger than Hanoi. And there are flying people all over the place, firing blasts at each other or fighting!
And he had blood on his hands.
Tankhunter wasn't squeamish - war is war after all - but he did what he could to be a civilized man. The idea of having harmed someone and not even knowing it was repulsive.
He started to drop towards the ground when one of the multi-coloured suited figures suddenly charged at him (only later would he learn the villain's name was Warmonger) yelling something about Vietnam in English - a language Tankhunter knew little of. The attacker was clearly a much better flyer than Tankhunter was, and managed to hit with a couple of bullets - but these bounced off the flying brick's skin. Fearing his attacker would use a more powerful attack, Tankhunter cut loose with his "Bunkerbuster Punch" - which sent Warmonger, stunned and reeling, into the nearby river. Tankbuster was pleased to see the semi-conscious superbeing dragged out by a colourful rescue craft.
Flying away from the madness, he soon found new clothes, and was first worried about "How do I get back to Vietnam?"
Shortly thereafter came the question "How do I get back to 1968?"

That (not for the first time) makes me wonder "who thinks of these goofy supers' names, anyway?"  I mean, obviously, comic book writers and Champions! nerds, but /in the imagined world/, who gets fire powers and decides to fight crime as "The Flamer" or gets modest teleport powers and organizes a kidnapping ring called "The Dingoes?"   And if someone does take offense?  Well you probably can cancel a superhero, just shame them into never fighting crime again, but villains likely keep on villaining...
 
...I suppose it does get back to campaign tone, too.  

I don't mind the classic shirtless martial artist look. A lot of guys who look ripped want to show it off, particularly if they're showboats.
 
How tough is it for one of the studs on the bandolier to be Life Support vs Heat/Cold as an IAF and another as an IIF to provide him with some invisible resistant defenses?
 
Do that, give him some Combat Luck, and he'll be right as rain.

All by itself, Mexico would offer quite sufficient scope for a Champions supplement.
 
Trust me on this. No, I'm not Mexican, or have even been to Mexico. But I ended up writing a large chunk of Mexico City by Night for White Wolf (Vampire: the Masquerade). In a mere few months of research and writing I learned that Mexico City is, all by itself in the real world, more gigantic and fantastical than I could possibly do justice to. I did my best given the time allotted, but the vampire-specific material was less beautiful and horrible and strange than what I got from tourist guidebooks. If Mexico City were in a Fantasy novel, people would say it was too over the top. And anyone who thinks they've "got it" in just a few months of research is flipping insane.
 
Viva Champions could be a great supplement, but wow, it would be a challenge to do justice to the country.
 
Dean Shomshak

Hematite froze as the Yoshida-Fairchild security team passed beneath her position, her composite ceramic dermal plating drank in the light, leaving precious little for the human eye to see, but even cheap security had enhanced optics - and YF wasn't cheap - active cammo might have been better for that purpose, but by relying on old-fashioned stealth she'd freed up enough processing power to tackle their corporate-grade ECM, not many 'runners could do that, not that many would try.  An isolated system was the safest place for data, you'd need a 'runner to crack it, but a team of solos fight your way in and out, Hematite was unique, physically able to fight her way out of a tricky situation, adept enough to crack a system that thought it was safely disconnected.
But, this run turned out differently, the chamber where the device was kept was big, featureless, brightly lit - bizzarely wasteful where the real estate was a mega-nuyen a square meter - spoofing the the cameras as best she could, she extended the dataprobe from her forearm and tapped into it... 
...it wasn't a high-security data-core, at all, it was an old-school single-function hardwired machine.  Non-programmable, not disconnected from the network but unable to even interface with it.  No one had made anything like that in over 20 years, not since the freak'n 20th century.  WTF do you do?
Up to that point she'd thought the physical security excessive, now, she realized, it had been light for what it guarded.  Then the real security poured into the chamber.  It was fight your way out time, and it was going to be very, very difficult.  For the distraction value, she triggered the device - they wouldn't be crowding in here like that if it was a bomb, and a bomb, even a nuke, wouldn't have been designed like this anyway - 
 
- an instant later she found herself in the sunny lobby of a very quaint building, something right out of the 20th century she'd just thought of in passing.  Like gramma telling you about dropping acid at Woodstock quaint, sedate, charming.  Everyone was wearing a mask, though, that at least was normal, you never knew when the next pharmacorp had released another designer virus.  
 
Hematite was transported to our world (which she calls "a goody-two-shoes old-fashioned comic-book world") from a dystopian cyberpunk version of 2021.   With her tech, advanced even for her world, and attitude - mercenary even by her timeline's amoral standards - she would have quickly become a supervillain.  Fortunately the Bleeding Edge Brigade noted her arrival and recruited her, very persuasively.  Hematite gets her street name (now superhero name) from the lustrous grey-black appearance of her full-body plating, which looks, to the normal-timeline eye, like a cross between power armor and fetish gear, designed by HR Geiger.  But it doesn't come off, at least, not outside a properly equipped cyber-surgery suite.  Her cybernetic enhancements allow her to interface with any sort of digital technology, most of which is no match for her skills & on-board processing power, fool all manner of sensors, and even become virtually invisible and give her superhuman speed & agility, unlimited endurance, trans-human strength and durability just about adequate to survive in a world where night watchmen pack the punch of anti-tank weapons.