I'm James, a 25-year-old man who has been writing stories collaboratively through roleplay for about 9 years. I mostly write genre fiction, and today I am eager to write stories about superheroes.
I've been reading a ton of superhero comics from all eras recently, as well as discovering George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards series and watching Venture Bros. I've been digging into some indie superhero universes, revisiting Kirkman and Ottley's Invincible and reading Lemire's Black Hammer for the first time. All that's got me wanting to create a superhero universe. If that sounds like fun to you, I'll lay out the ideas I've been working with below. None of this is set in stone, and I'm happy to change any and all of the following if you have some strong ideas for worldbuilding.
The world will be very similar to ours, with the glaring exception that it has superhumans. I would like to explore the effect this has on global culture, politics, and society. And, of course, make up awesome heroes and villains to populate it. I would like to progress through the decades, telling the stories of individuals, teams, and the greater superhuman community rising, falling, changing, and growing. From a few heroes in the Golden Age fighting smaller threats, to the dark ages of the postwar era, to the epic battles and teams of the booming Silver Age, and on into the grittiness and moral ambiguity of the Bronze Age and beyond, I want to roughly follow the history of superhero comics in feel and function.
Each story or part of a story will constitute an "issue" in a "series". This way, we can keep the storylines of each hero separate. The entire history of the world doesn't have to be written in order, if one time period gets stale we can move forward or back and fill in the blanks later.
I'm thinking the very first superhero will emerge in the United States in the late 1930s. This coincides with the debut of Superman in the real world, and sets up USA as a global powerhouse prior to the beginning of World War II. The original hero will probably be a totally traditional Superman-style hero, pretty face, perfect body, super strength, invulnerability, and flight. I'm leaning towards them being a woman. The city that they are based out of will become a "hub city", which I'm leaning toward being San Francisco. Anywhere but New York City, they've been the hub city in enough superhero stories.
The superhumans begin to have a legitimate impact on the trajectory of global politics and historical events. This is one of the things I'm curious to explore; how history would be different if there were superhumans. Other themes I want to explore are how war is different with superhumans, how they affect social and political movements, fighting for a living wage for their labor, what having a superhuman does to a country's socioeconomic standing, and the intersection between superpowers, gender, race, class, sexuality, and political power. At some point, public sentiment could turn on the heroes because of collateral damage, especially in the hub city.
My favorite character and storyline idea is about a hero with octopus powers who comes from part of the city that isn't patrolled enough by heroes, and becomes their protector once he has powers. He doesn't want to leave for Vietnam, because he fears his will fall into ruins without him. He agrees to go when the homeland heroes swear to take care of it until he's back. When he returns, everything he feared would happen has happened. After that, it isn't just his hero identity who is the neighborhood's protector, but his civilian identity too. He uses the GI bill to go to college and becomes a community leader and organizer. He never leaves his beat, even when receiving offers from big superhero teams. He trains sidekicks who go on to become great heroes as well.
I think that's enough to get started. I'm sure I have other ideas that I'm forgetting, but this is just to give you an idea of what I'm thinking rather than lay out how it has to be. Tell me about what you want to change, the stories you want to tell, the themes you want to explore. I have some worldbuilding notes written if you'd like to look at those. I would love to write this with someone who wants to participate in the creation of the world. It will involve some research, which I love doing, to make things historically accurate. If you like comics, that's a big plus. If you can draw, huge plus. That said, anyone who's excited about making up some superheroes is welcome.
I tend to write between 1000 and 2000 words per post, I think. I can write more or less depending on the situation. I don't like to put hard limits on word count for that reason. I write most weekday evenings and sporadically on weekends.
There will be some gore and violence in these stories, but nothing gratuitous. I'm not opposed to there being sexual scenes occasionally if it feels right, but certainly not as the main focus of the story.
This will not be a fandom roleplay. Every character will be of our own creation, even if they are very similar to existing superheroes.
I've been reading a ton of superhero comics from all eras recently, as well as discovering George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards series and watching Venture Bros. I've been digging into some indie superhero universes, revisiting Kirkman and Ottley's Invincible and reading Lemire's Black Hammer for the first time. All that's got me wanting to create a superhero universe. If that sounds like fun to you, I'll lay out the ideas I've been working with below. None of this is set in stone, and I'm happy to change any and all of the following if you have some strong ideas for worldbuilding.
The world will be very similar to ours, with the glaring exception that it has superhumans. I would like to explore the effect this has on global culture, politics, and society. And, of course, make up awesome heroes and villains to populate it. I would like to progress through the decades, telling the stories of individuals, teams, and the greater superhuman community rising, falling, changing, and growing. From a few heroes in the Golden Age fighting smaller threats, to the dark ages of the postwar era, to the epic battles and teams of the booming Silver Age, and on into the grittiness and moral ambiguity of the Bronze Age and beyond, I want to roughly follow the history of superhero comics in feel and function.
Each story or part of a story will constitute an "issue" in a "series". This way, we can keep the storylines of each hero separate. The entire history of the world doesn't have to be written in order, if one time period gets stale we can move forward or back and fill in the blanks later.
I'm thinking the very first superhero will emerge in the United States in the late 1930s. This coincides with the debut of Superman in the real world, and sets up USA as a global powerhouse prior to the beginning of World War II. The original hero will probably be a totally traditional Superman-style hero, pretty face, perfect body, super strength, invulnerability, and flight. I'm leaning towards them being a woman. The city that they are based out of will become a "hub city", which I'm leaning toward being San Francisco. Anywhere but New York City, they've been the hub city in enough superhero stories.
The superhumans begin to have a legitimate impact on the trajectory of global politics and historical events. This is one of the things I'm curious to explore; how history would be different if there were superhumans. Other themes I want to explore are how war is different with superhumans, how they affect social and political movements, fighting for a living wage for their labor, what having a superhuman does to a country's socioeconomic standing, and the intersection between superpowers, gender, race, class, sexuality, and political power. At some point, public sentiment could turn on the heroes because of collateral damage, especially in the hub city.
My favorite character and storyline idea is about a hero with octopus powers who comes from part of the city that isn't patrolled enough by heroes, and becomes their protector once he has powers. He doesn't want to leave for Vietnam, because he fears his will fall into ruins without him. He agrees to go when the homeland heroes swear to take care of it until he's back. When he returns, everything he feared would happen has happened. After that, it isn't just his hero identity who is the neighborhood's protector, but his civilian identity too. He uses the GI bill to go to college and becomes a community leader and organizer. He never leaves his beat, even when receiving offers from big superhero teams. He trains sidekicks who go on to become great heroes as well.
I think that's enough to get started. I'm sure I have other ideas that I'm forgetting, but this is just to give you an idea of what I'm thinking rather than lay out how it has to be. Tell me about what you want to change, the stories you want to tell, the themes you want to explore. I have some worldbuilding notes written if you'd like to look at those. I would love to write this with someone who wants to participate in the creation of the world. It will involve some research, which I love doing, to make things historically accurate. If you like comics, that's a big plus. If you can draw, huge plus. That said, anyone who's excited about making up some superheroes is welcome.
I tend to write between 1000 and 2000 words per post, I think. I can write more or less depending on the situation. I don't like to put hard limits on word count for that reason. I write most weekday evenings and sporadically on weekends.
There will be some gore and violence in these stories, but nothing gratuitous. I'm not opposed to there being sexual scenes occasionally if it feels right, but certainly not as the main focus of the story.
This will not be a fandom roleplay. Every character will be of our own creation, even if they are very similar to existing superheroes.