Armor
In the heat of a super-battle a lot of stuff gets tossed about. Debris, laser bolts, scathing yo mama jokes. For the invulnerable, the rock monster, the rhinoceros, these things are easy to shrug off. In interviews Rockblock has been known to joke that he often doesn’t notice that the bad guy he was fighting even had a laser pistol until after the battle is over and it comes time to confiscate and catalogue the villain’s equipment. (Apparently Rockblock is specifically made out of laser-resistant rocks for those of you who keep emailing me to ask specifically what kind of rocks he’s made of.) But there are a lot of people who want to do good and who want to save lives but whose bodies aren’t as naturally protected as some of their colleagues. Are these heroes doomed to only being called in when the bad guys are wielding confetti cannons or just aren’t shooting or stabbing anybody for whatever reason? Yes. See you on Tuesday. Send post.
Nah, I’m joking. Go get some armor.
Armor is great because if you’re wearing it you can stroll right into the middle of a firefight and you’ll be totally fine. Plus, everybody in the firefight will be so awed by you and your glorious metal skin that they stop shooting at each other for a second giving you a chance to revel in the moment and strike a pose or something. Or, alternatively, you can take advantage of the brief respite to quickly go and disarm all the bad guys. Armor gives you options.
Assuming you’re not a blacksmith (If you are a blacksmith who wants to fight crime then you don’t really need to read the rest of this post. I feel comfortable deferring to your knowledge on armor on this one. Also, if you read this post I worry that you’ll publicly call me out for being wrong on a lot of the stuff I’m going to say and I do not want that.) or some kind of omni-disciplinary scientist engineer playboy philanthropist you’re going to need to commission somebody to craft your armor for you. There are plenty of notable armorsmiths you can contact, here are the one’s who paid to have their names listed:
Robbie Bobbie: When you want to make bashing a guy’s skull in completely painless, come to Robbie Bobbie’s. All of our armor come with retractable extra fists. (Where they’re located might surprise you!)
Smelton Smith: Smelton Smith’s Smelt&Smithery is the number one place for cutting edge body suits. Our talented armor testers will shoot you with an anti-tank missile on site so you know that our armor is quality tested. If you pay for our extra insurance, you get to keep the armor for free should you die or get horribly maimed during our testing.
Victouria Callouway: Our armour is toup noutch. You’ll never find a moure coumprehensive armour package. Our armours include cup houlders, surround sound sterou, harpououns, proupoulsioun systems, and, of course a tea dispensary. When you need tou proutect yourself, we’re ounly oune call ouway.
Laura Hephaestus: [No relation to the Greek god] when you need to fight hordes of androids or like a handful of confused and lost Spartan warriors, call Hephaestus, it’s not Greek to us.
Sure there are other, possibly better, craftsmen out there (not to mention the actual Hephaestus who actually will agree to build you armor if you can find him and bring him the head of no less than three monsters who he’s leant money to over the past few millennia.) wouldn’t you rather support the kind men and women who support us? I know I would!
When you’re looking to create armor for yourself you need to decide what kind of stuff you want in it. Armor that’s merely for protection is so Middle Ages. We’re better than that now. Our armors can do so much more. The perfect armor will be effective in both defense and combat. It will allow you a certain degree of freedom of movement. You’re no good in a fight if you’re weighed down by too much stuff. Generally speaking, when it comes to power armor, there is an inverse proportion between agility and power. The more powerful a given suit of armor is, the slower it will be and vice versa. So you need to decide what you need more of in a battle. If you’re plenty powerful on your own, or if your combat style relies on your ability to move quickly and fluidly, then you should be fine with compromising your power in favor of sporting a more lightweight suit. Conversely if you’re a completely useless fighter and your strengths lie more in your mind and strategic thinking then you should go for a more powerful suit with a variety of abilities and features that you can use your acute strategist brain to maximize.
Some things that you definitely have in your armor, regardless of how nimble you need to be are some sort of ranged weapon (a blaster, a harpoon launcher, a machine gun, a sling shot), a flight system (jet thrusters, a jetpack, a helicopter propeller that pops out of your helmet), and a built in breathing apparatus (this way you can operate in space and underwater for brief periods of time). Everything also is secondary though by all means, if you can afford it, load that sucker up with all sorts of extras (a sword arm! a drone! launchable tracking devices! magnetic boots! extra limbs! emp blasters! a defibrillator!) if you can imagine it you can do it!
Some armor wearing heroes actually have multiple sets of armor that they can use in different circumstances. This way they’re not weighed down by putting everything they need into a single suit. Plus, having all of those cool suits of armor standing around will make your hideout look absolutely baller. They have armors for fighting bad guys underwater, for flying through space, for winning races, for search and rescue, for fighting monsters, performing first aid, for making documentaries, for Black Friday shopping. If there’s a crisis at hand, you can be sure somebody somewhere has an armor for it.
Amongst different subdivisions of superheroes, armored heroes are among the most creative and innovative. While superhumans and mutants are generally stuck with the powers they started with, only being able to hone and improve the skills and abilities they already have, armored heroes can constantly reinvent themselves and expand their skill sets. There are even (almost definitely) armored hero conventions where shell-sporting-supers get together and swap tips and ideas for more armor advancements. At the last CarapaceCon (that’s what they’re called) Armored Atlas and TK-97 unveiled their latest joint-project, shape-changing mech suits. Past innovations that emerged at CarapaceCons include, collapsible armors, AI that can control armor, and a line of fully modular armors with swappable weapons and pieces. Armored heroes are always innovating and making great strides in both science and the heroic arts.