Not NaNoWriMo: Superheroes World-Building

[tuftears]

I've poked around at a variety of projects and one I would *like* to get back to, but is on the backburner because I just don't "get" it enough, has been the concept of superheroes in space. That is, not 'low Earth orbit' or 'villain has a secret base on the moon' or anything like that, but a story about superheroes out there in the galaxy, visiting different places.

But I really do enjoy superheroes as a literature.

So, a couple of things that need to go together:

One. Superheroes. I can come up with individual heroes, but I'm not sure I adequately understand how to fit them together, or make them work. What are your favorite heroes, what do you like most about them? What do you think your heroes would do, given access to a starship and a map to Local Space?

Two. Galactic science fiction. Once you have cheap and convenient space travel, you usually also have abundant power, resources, and space. The individual power level of your average police-person, soldier, or armed warship goes up correspondingly, to a point where some fellow running around in tights punching people out from the shadows might seem more like a dangerous vigilante than an actual hero.

It feels to me like superheroes and villains might turn into... celebrities, consultants, or maybe they might confine their superpowered deeds to the frontiers where the general power levels are a lot lower.

Is the solution here, make the superpowered people more powerful, lower the generally available 'power level', maybe by way of some kind of apocalypse that forces people to turn to superheroes for help, while supervillains try to provide order "their own way"? Or go with the idea of celebrities, people famous for their own sake, and having powers simply enrolls one into a system where the question is how they use that power? What would *you* want to see?

Distance is also an issue, but one that can be solved with discreet application of technology. Star systems are, relatively speaking, entire states, so one can travel between "cities" -- planets, space stations, asteroid mining bases, that sort of thing, relatively quickly -- but going between systems without a convenient hyperspace gateway in the middle is going to Take Time (tm), in which the hero won't be available to solve crime in their normal beat. Contrariwise, villains probably rely on that same factor to elude pursuit-- things getting too hot in one system? Time to take a long trip!

Three. Superhero stories. This is possibly the biggest stumbling block. I like *reading* them, but I'm way less confident about writing one, especially one that involves multiple superheroes in a given sector of space. Maybe tell me about some of your favorite superhero stories, or things you *do* want to see, and things you *don't* want to see.

The most obvious story is, of course, some grave threat to all existence within a sector, but that's way too heavy-handed to me. I want to write stories that explore life in a galaxy that has some finite number of superheroes and villains, so they need to interact with one another, and existence can't be on the line every time, that just gets old fast. Stopping crime is the next obvious thing, I guess, followed by assisting in the wake of natural disasters. But what else do superheroes get up to?

Anyway, this isn't for a NaNoWriMo *this* year, but it could be for something next year!

Comments

[jordangreywolf]

Also, "power absorption" is a real peeve of mine in certain superhero settings. It totally ruined the "Heroes" TV show for me, from the get-go, when the ultimate OP characters were the "steal others' powers" and "copy others' powers" characters (and of course the limitations on the latter eventually got hand-waved away so he could go super-duper). I feel as if one's ability as a superpowered hero shouldn't only be what power you get, but how well you can learn to control it, AND how wisely you can choose to use it. (Just because you have a hammer doesn't mean everything in the world is a nail.)

But having some guy who just instantly gains powers undermines that. Any character progression, training, development, etc., just goes out the window, because usually for dramatic purposes the Big Bad or the Chosen One has to IMMEDIATELY be able to use that power he just acquired, at full effectiveness.

The other thing is that it feels very video-gamey, and often works at odds with whatever explanation was given for getting the powers in the first place. Was it a genetic mutation that gives you a link to element X? Well, not a very SPECIAL link if Mr. Monkey-See-Monkey-Do over there can just stare at you and copy it, and now is suddenly your match.

I also find it kind of stupid if you have the occasional superhero whose "power" is really more a physical thing rather than an "energy power." E.g., Stronkman is STRONK, and bench-lifts buses every day, with enormous muscles vs. just having a "strength field" that boosts his strength, so it seems kind of cheap to me if "Ms. Copycat" just spends a few seconds glaring at him, and suddenly she's got giant muscles and can punch through walls now. Bonus negative points if he's The Bull, and as part of her power-stealing she's now got horns, too.

My acceptance is improved if:

a) The copycat isn't immediately proficient in the use of any power that requires the least bit of finesse, and it will take training/practice to reach the level of someone who has already been living with that power for a time.

b) There's a limitation on the power(s) to be copied. You can only have one at a time. Maybe it takes TIME to observe and copy, or at least to do it properly. Maybe the power can only be copied for a limited amount of time, and you can't just renew it indefinitely once you find the "best" power. Certain powers can't be copied. Copying FEATURES really shouldn't be a selective thing (either it happens all the time, or never -- it shouldn't just happen when some superhero's power is intrinsically tied to his green skin or claws that pop out his hands or whatever). Copying gizmos is right out.

c) The powers themselves are presented in a way that makes them feel more "copyable." That is, if all superpowers are "pick an element and you can control it," I can sort of buy a universe in which someone could swap that out. If, however, Mr. Copycat copies ... I dunno ... BATMAN? Batarangs and ace detective skills and martial arts and all? That's another level of outright magic.

[tuftears]

Well, I was actually thinking of the various anime/manga where some dude gains the attributes/power absorption from eating monsters/defeating enemies, and they just get more and more powerful-- it's ridiculous. But yeah, outright copying someone's powers right off the bat is verboten. I'm not sure I'd actually include a hero or villain with that ability, it's more an example of powers I straight-up wouldn't allow without severe limits.

[jordangreywolf]

I'm totally with you there! The very nature of it seems to be, the villain who was supposed to be a challenge to you -- well, now you are that powerful AND what you had before. That leads to some pretty crazy escalation. It also depends upon the universe spoon-feeding Our Hero just the right level of adversary to progress, like there's some GM carefully measuring the Challenge Rating of each encounter in a D&D-style level-based game. (Some "amazing coincidence" can be forgiven because, hey, maybe there are several heroes having a rougher time of it, but we're following the story of that one lucky case. But the universe probably can't handle too many people with "absorption" power level without them dominating the scene entirely in short order.)