Opal

It was a global meme 20 years before anyone had said 'meme' in public, and 13 years before the September that never ended.   The only thing that might make more sense than having a perverse kidnapping ring called The Dingoes (either calling themselves that or so dubbed by the press) would be putting them in the 80s, when the event was in full swing (and was, really, very sexist, if I may interject a alternate rage-angle), rather than the present, now that the poor woman's been vindicated.  
 
 
The Hulk is a re-skinning of Jekyl & Hyde, I'll grant you, and I can't keep the Cpt Marvel variation straights, I think that  could be the DC version which, is distinctly western, based on classical mythology, rather than distinctly American.  
 
However, most of the others are distinctly American archetypes (that was the other word I was looking for besides cliche & stereotype!).  The scary-cool Biker on the Open Road.  The genius inventor/self-made millionaire.  The movie star.   The baby-boom generation-gap Teenager.  And, of course, the fully-integrated immigrant fighting for Truth, Justice and the American Way.  
 
Sure, some were pop-culture icons that came & went and may no longer be as resonant as they were at the character's first appearance.
 
 
Cliches are the low-hanging fruit of superhero ideas.  Do them well they're Archetypes and might be called 'iconic,' mediocre, they're stereotypes, done badly, offensive ones.  But superhero comics had been picking American cliches for over 40 years before Champions! even came around, and it's been another 40, the branches are bare and not just the low-hanging ones... and, then, the genre has gone on to spawn many of its own cliches.  
 
 
And the whole attitude Americans have towards patriotism has changed a lot since the Golden Age.   Today we're much more concerned about the threat posed by White  Nationalists, than we are comforted by patriotic flag-waving, for the most recent instance, but it goes back decades.   A flagsuit doesn't mean what it did in 1941.

Non-descript clothing which masked capes and power armour. While onlookers could not make out who was who, those fighting could tell someone who was on the other team as if one lot was wearing an A and the other a B. Only special effects would be visible, energy trails and blasts but not a broomstick or wings. Consider it some form of illusion.
Once the reveal kicked in it was obvious who was who but it took a little time for those fighting to realise what they were doing as adrenaline was up and they were caught up in the fight.
 
And there is no barrier to sex of combatants nor ethnicity.
 
Thanks. I should have made this clearer.
 

I thought RPGs had been an international thing for quite some time?
 
Why do I have that impression...  I'm so often wrong about these things....
 
...I know D&D swam across the pond early on because one of the more famous early D&D modules, the Crystal Cave, was British...
 
... I seem to recall In Nomine was originally French, it came out in the 90s...
 
... there were a few Brazilians, on WoD forums when it was popular, and a noted on-line Mage geek was Anders Sandberg, of Sweden... still 90s...
 
...it doesn't seem that unusual that someone on an RPG forum mentions English isn't their first language... 
On ENWorld.org there's a regular who has written stuff for D&D's on-line thing... DM Guild, I think it's called... 
...MoonSong is her handle.
 
,,,Yeah, OK, my impression's mainly from on-line forums and just a few people formed that impression, that and a couple 90s games.  IDK what the current environment is, nor the market or traslation status of RPG books.

It was a global meme 20 years before anyone had said 'meme' in public, and 13 years before the September that never ended.   The only thing that might make more sense than having a perverse kidnapping ring called The Dingoes (either calling themselves that or so dubbed by the press) would be putting them in the 80s, when the event was in full swing (and was, really, very sexist, if I may interject a alternate rage-angle), rather than the present, now that the poor woman's been vindicated.  
 
 
The Hulk is a re-skinning of Jekyl & Hyde, I'll grant you, and I can't keep the Cpt Marvel variation straights, I think that  could be the DC version which, is distinctly western, based on classical mythology, rather than distinctly American.  
 
However, most of the others are distinctly American archetypes (that was the other word I was looking for besides cliche & stereotype!).  The scary-cool Biker on the Open Road.  The genius inventor/self-made millionaire.  The movie star.   The baby-boom generation-gap Teenager.  And, of course, the fully-integrated immigrant fighting for Truth, Justice and the American Way.  
 
Sure, some were pop-culture icons that came & went and may no longer be as resonant as they were at the character's first appearance.
 
 
Cliches are the low-hanging fruit of superhero ideas.  Do them well they're Archetypes and might be called 'iconic,' mediocre, they're stereotypes, done badly, offensive ones.  But superhero comics had been picking American cliches for over 40 years before Champions! even came around, and it's been another 40, the branches are bare and not just the low-hanging ones... and, then, the genre has gone on to spawn many of its own cliches.  
 
 
And the whole attitude Americans have towards patriotism has changed a lot since the Golden Age.   Today we're much more concerned about the threat posed by White  Nationalists, than we are comforted by patriotic flag-waving, for the most recent instance, but it goes back decades.   A flagsuit doesn't mean what it did in 1941.

...I keep having ideas for "inventor dies, tech runs amok and gains sentience" ... 
 
this one is parody
 
The Insensitive Irony Man
 
Billionaire, playboy, genius, inventor, and inveterate net troll, Tony Snark could technically call himself a superhero as he did fight supervillains (mainly for the acerbic banter opportunities) in his nanite-powered-armor alter ego (which was an open secret of a secret ID).   When Snark finally said just the wrong thing, using just the wrong pronoun, to just the wrong superbeing, who just happened to be wearing a really un-fashionably gauche jeweled gauntlet that totally clashed with the rest of their costume, with a snap of their fingers, Tony Snark ceased to exist.  But, his armor's nanites continued on and won the battle.  They experimented, filling in the armor with additional mass and technology, becoming more effective than ever - and also strangely more polite than ever - in the ID of Irony Man.  But, eventually Snark was missed - it took longer than you might think for a billionaire, but it turned out, most of the people he dealt with day to day were just glad of the break and didn't want to jinx it by pointing out how long it'd been since they'd last seen him - and, to avoid trouble, they rebuilt and inhabited his body.  
Suddenly much easier to get on with, Irony Man's application to join the Bleeding Edge was coincidentally found under a stack of insurance forms and processed, so he was finally allowed into the team.  The nanites formed a focus-group sub-routine to come up with a better name, but so far things like "Element Twenty-Six Man" have not tested well with actual humans.
 

...I keep having ideas for "inventor dies, tech runs amok and gains sentience" ... 
 
this one is parody
 
The Insensitive Irony Man
 
Billionaire, playboy, genius, inventor, and inveterate net troll, Tony Snark could technically call himself a superhero as he did fight supervillains (mainly for the acerbic banter opportunities) in his nanite-powered-armor alter ego (which was an open secret of a secret ID).   When Snark finally said just the wrong thing, using just the wrong pronoun, to just the wrong superbeing, who just happened to be wearing a really un-fashionably gauche jeweled gauntlet that totally clashed with the rest of their costume, with a snap of their fingers, Tony Snark ceased to exist.  But, his armor's nanites continued on and won the battle.  They experimented, filling in the armor with additional mass and technology, becoming more effective than ever - and also strangely more polite than ever - in the ID of Irony Man.  But, eventually Snark was missed - it took longer than you might think for a billionaire, but it turned out, most of the people he dealt with day to day were just glad of the break and didn't want to jinx it by pointing out how long it'd been since they'd last seen him - and, to avoid trouble, they rebuilt and inhabited his body.  
Suddenly much easier to get on with, Irony Man's application to join the Bleeding Edge was coincidentally found under a stack of insurance forms and processed, so he was finally allowed into the team.  The nanites formed a focus-group sub-routine to come up with a better name, but so far things like "Element Twenty-Six Man" have not tested well with actual humans.
 

Well, sure, promotion is part and parcel of the mechanism, but what I meant is that it's human nature to try to find a title or a label for themselves or what they do that makes them stand out, that encapsulates what they believe is special about themselves.
 
BTW the 5E Champions supplement, Everyman, containing a whole bunch of diverse and useful NPCs, also features a public relations firm called "CC Promotions" which provides image consulting and publicity, licensing and money management, and costume design and construction, to superheroes.

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.  

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.  

Australia would seem to be a great place for the big-scheme load-bearing mastermind Bond-villians and Dr Destroyer types who love having a huge base hidden out in the middle of nowhere.  It's a developed country so has skilled workers & resources you can divert, but is also large & relative to its population, so it has lots of nowhere to choose from... 

Hot Flash
 
Well into her 50s Emily had been looking forward to finally "moving down to the beach". Her family was still a big part of her life even after her Earl had passed. Then, a day after the quarantine had been lifted in her city, she and her family were at the park when a group of monsters sprang out of the ground and started tearing things ups. She saw her "babies" in danger and something in her raised its head. At least that was how she described it later. She said it was like the hot flashes she had been suffering the last decade took on a mind of their own and recognized a purpose to their being. Everywhere she looked these little troll things were messing things up and threatening people and it just got her "plum miffed!" She would look at one of the monsters and the heat inside her would come alive, leap out of her and settle onto what she was mad at. In an instant the little trolls would start batting at themselves like they were tring to pat out flames on their bodies. If she focused longer than a few seconds on a particular Hooligun smoke could been seen to begin rising from the target, more than a minute or two and actual flames would erupt from the target engulfing them.
 
She became the 1st member and Mother/Grandmother to the team. 

The Spitalfields Slasher
 
The Slasher did not draw great attention, only a few of his victims died, and all of them were rough men of violence, themselves, eliciting little sympathy even if they did come forward to report being attacked.  None the less his unique description - a powerfully-built man of no great height, but profusely hairy and downright bestial in appearance - led to his apprehension.  He was shot several times, presumed dead, and partially dissected.  The long deadly claws that gave him his name proved to be natural, retractable, appendages, like those of a cat, rather than an exotic weapon, like the Indian bagh nakh as originally assumed.  Before a more thorough autopsy could be performed the body mysteriously vanished in the night.  

Back in the "what should change for 6e" days, I suggested unbundling Charges so they would have a higher limitation but cost END by default.
 
"But that would be unrealistic - guns would cost END for their bullets without an extra advantage!" won that battle.
 
Well, it would sure work well for Wizards who can cast spells a certain number of times per day, and it is tiring to cast them.  Or for an archer who has a limited quiver, and has to draw the bow.  But intuitive firearms were more important.  I blame the Harbinger of Justice!
 
 

Rogue always seemed like such a stumper, "mimic pool?"  Really?
 
IDK how Rogue was generally portrayed in the comics, I think she was after the brief period I read the X-men, but I do recall thinking of building the version of her portrayed in one of the 90s animated TV shows.
 
That version, at least, had an interesting side-effect to absorbing powers, she also absorbed some of the emotional state/personality of the subject, and it would sometimes overwhelm her.  Also, it seemed like no one ever attacked or did much of anything with the unconscious enemies she'd just power-absorbed. 
 
That made me think:  Mind Control.
 
It's an MC that has to be established by touch, commands are 'telepathic' & something akin to 'leaves body behind,' but, the fun part, the mind controller stops taking actions, themselves, but all damage acrued to the target happens to the controller (& vice-versa, sorta), and, when the control ends, they swap places. 
 
No, really.
 
I know GMs vary in how much exp they give out, but a couple hundred could be years of play.  
Anyway, one thing you could do is combine the two, with the most significantly different form or few with the more comprehensive MF, and other forms & partial transformations covered with the more efficient MP.

As the title says, do you have silly adventures occasionally for the players? In the campaign I'm in, definitely yes. I'll tell you some of them:
 
- If you've seen the silly movie 'Inframan', the PC's had to fight various monster baddies eventually ending up fighting Princess Dragon Mom.  Yeah, that name is horrible.
- I doubt you've ever seen the very old cartoon series 'Clutch Cargo' where just the lips moved, I had Foxbat make a cartoon series with himself in that style. The heroes (and players) joked about that for a couple of weeks.
- If you've ever seen the old tacky series 'The Banana Splits', Foxbat had 4 supersuits make to look like the four, um, characters... and he was the fifth! "The Foxbat Splits!"
- The old Thundercats cartoon series was used: the heroes went to a different dimension and fought Mumm-Ra, defeating him with finality.
- He-Man's Skeletor has shown up a couple times; got trashed both times. The last time, I suddenly ended up having in midgame to beef up his PD, ED & Stun but it didn't make him last much longer; the heroes were just on a roll.
 
Those are just a few. I often use Foxbat for fun episodes because now & then, the players need something like it.
 

Oh, yes. Sometimes even on purpose. Other times the players made it so through their choices. And sometimes it was just the dice.
 
There's a reason my Supermage playtest campaigns ended up dubbed "The Keystone Konjurors." One PC reducing Power cost with Actiovation and Side Effects is, hm, risky. Three of them doing so practically guarantees adventures going off the rails. Frequently. Well, it helped me develop my skills at improvisation. "Oops, I rolled another 18 on my Control Roll to EDM the group. Where did we end up this time?"
 
Dean Shomshak

Dr Hunger
 
He was one of the last to appear and he claims it was the Irish potato famine of the late 1840s that brought him into existence. He was able to cause hunger in others or make them believe that they were still hungry. Thus he could make someone either die of starvation or make them die of overeating. He was not taken seriously to begin with as dying from hunger was nothing new but when it began to happen to people who were well fed both doctors and the police started looking for him. After he was caught and started making people hungry someone took the decision to eliminate him and he was shot dead, His bofy was then taken away for medical examination. His brain or what is left of it was supposed to be held in one of the major London training hopitals.

Back in the day I ran the 3E/BBB equivalent, 'cosmic' level, for a number of years.   Also the other end of the spectrum, 'street' level.   The group was mixed, from serious Hero mavins to relatively casual players.  Both extremes worked well.
 
One thing I noticed was that even with lots of XP, low-power heroes wouldn't cross over to become like their higher-power equivalents.  
 

I empathize, but I think I get what the 6e experts are trying to explain to us.
 
We're used to "you can't put a limitation on the pool" meaning just that.
Now, though, you can limit the pool, you aren't required to, and you don't call it that, but you can.
 
If you put a limitation on the control, you can go ahead and buy just enough enough points in the pool to hold one power with that limitation.  It's not a limitation on the pool, per se, but it's exactly the same real points as if you did slap that limitation on it.
 
In fact, if I'm following, you can just leave the pool, itself at 50.
 
The control cost would be purchased to allow 50 Apts+50 Apts OAF-1.  That's 37 Rpts for the up to 100 Apt control, plus the 50 Rpt reserve, for 87 pts.  With that, without the staff you can put a 10d EB, no limitations, in the pool.  With the staff, you could change that to a 20d EB, OAF, because that's also 50 Rpts.
 
IDK how 6e handles shifting pts in a VPP while a limitation is making a power in it unavailable, though.

His Lordship
 
Born of aristocratic family, His Lordship was disgusted by the state of affairs of London, and blamed the increasing power of the common man. After all the higher classes were bred and trained to rule - what good could come of letting the unlettered masses have any control of things?
 
He was aided in this belief by his actual superiority. He was a mutant, stronger, smarter and swifter than any normal man. He started taking out people who he saw as paragons of the new order - nouveau riche businessmen, union organizers, soldiers who had risen through the ranks on ability rather than wealth or influence.
 
However, he soon found he was not bulletproof, and ended up sprawled in an alley, shot six times by a petty thief with a revolver.

The Grey Midwife
 
The life expectancy of a person during the Victorian era grew as the person grew. Infant mortality was a huge factor in average life expectancy during this time. Many historians will point toward disease and hygiene as the most likely and widespread cause for this effect. What they don't know is that in England and more specifically London there lived a woman, a midwife by trade, named Agatha. She had the rather unique ability to draw the life force from another human to augment her own. Since children have their whole lives ahead of them she targeted the children born in poor conditions so that she could draw off their life and add those years to her own. As medicine and hygiene improved and stories grew about babies dying while in the arms of a particular midwife, Agatha's ability to find suitable "meals" waned and she was force to move to less advanced societies where births in a hospital were less likely.
 
Today the stories of infants and newborns mysteriously and suddenly dying come from all around the world leading one to believe Agatha is still out there. In fact when one looks at the date and locations of these more modern stories it easy to see that she is perhaps no longer alone in this world.

The Ledgerman
 
The Ledgerman was Henry James Agallon, a mutant with extendable arms who abducted street orphans and young women. He believed himself the first of a new breed of humans he called The Superiors, and he believed that they should rule over mankind. 
 
The local papers started to refer to this mysterious abductor as The Ledgerman because it sounds good. Eventually Scotland Yard caught up with him, and he was supposed to be hung until dead...eyewitness started that all it did was stretch out his neck. His current whereabouts are not known.
 
 

Sorry to pile on, but my experience, not just in Hero, is that GMs & players alike are more blythely accepting of 'magic can do it' than 'tech can do it' (and a lot more accepting of both those than 'skill,' darring-do, courage and the like).  
 
In particular, I've often had GMs balk or at least look askance at a gadget granting Power Defense, so I was quite surprised by that example.
 
That said, and perhaps for that reason, many GMs might be more willing to allow a gadgeteer PC than a mage PC in the first place, precisely because they feel they can keep a tighter leash on the former.

Opal,
 
When you are doing the post you have the option for Bold, Italics etc. You also have what looks like an eye after the speech marks. That is The Spoiler.
 
The Great Stink Beast
 
Although active before then it was The Great Stink  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink) that gave this villain their final name and it was during this time that they were brought to book. It was theorised that it came from the buried River Fleet from whence it appeared as a Spectre to terrorise the city preceded by a horrible smell. It was chased to the Thames in August of 1858 and it was shot and disappeared into the river. The corpse came ashore in September and was set on fire as no-one could or would go near it.

They no longer support Spoiler tags.
 
You got the next team Opal.