#058 Choosing a Team
Some heroes are highly sought after by multiple teams and don’t have to engage in any almost-villain-like scheming and scamming. Which is great. If you’re going to be a hero, you should always strive to do things in ways that don’t require any almost-villain-like scheming and scamming. These guys are essentially showered with invitations from the most glamorous superhero teams on the planet and beyond. Sometimes even teams from other universes will pop in to try to snag them. Sometimes teams will travel through time from the future just to invite them onto their team. These guys are so beloved. It’s gross. They’re taken out to fancy meals, taken to intergalactic sporting events, even given a company invisible jet to fly around for a bit. But then how does one finally choose a team to join?
Well the first thing you have to decide is whether you even really want to join a team at all. When you join a team you’re submitting yourself to play by somebody else’s rules (some teams have rules like “any weird rocks you find on the ground are automatically the property of the whole team” and that’s not a rule I can get behind). You’re suddenly on somebody else’s schedule and other people are depending on you to hold up your end of the deal. It’s kind of like a group project for school. If you don’t do what you’re supposed to do the whole group will fail except in this case the whole group failing really means that the whole world is destroyed. So if you’re not willing or able to function as a member of a team it’s probably best that you don’t join one for a while.
If you do decide to join a team you have to take a careful look at each team that’s extending an invitation. Some important questions to ask of yourself and of the teams are as follows.
Where is the team stationed? If the team is stationed far away such as in the middle of Antarctica or a moon, that might disrupt your secret identity life. You’ll have to be able to explain away long absences and why you never seem to have any cellphone reception. Some teams are located in really nice, in-demand spots like Hawaii (though if you’re going to join a team just for the Hawaii location you should know that superheroes in Hawaii are America’s first defense against any giant kaiju monsters that escape from Japan). If you not thrilled about having such a long commute, try seeing if there are any superhero teams located closer to home (you will have more luck finding a superhero team in your town if you live in an especially crime-ridden city or if your city is frequently invaded by aliens and nobody knows why).
Does the team have teleporter access? This ties in to the issue above, if a team has teleporters then the commute is no longer a problem. Plus, you can probably use them even when you’re not working which is a sick perk. Just make sure that you remember that your entire body needs to be within the teleport chamber before you hit the teleport button for the machine to function properly. Always remember that. You don’t want to end up like Half-Face McGee.
Do you have any friends on the team? Now, obviously you shouldn’t pick your team solely based on where all your friends are. Sometimes what’s right for your friend isn’t necessarily what’s right for you. Still, having a friend with you can make joining a team a little less scary and a friend is often somebody who you’ve already fought alongside and have good chemistry with. This is a huge asset because it will make both of you more effective in the field. You can probably even use this to convince whichever team to extend an invitation to one of your friends as well.
How many Omega Class Threats has this team antagonized? Omega Class Threats are the planet eaters and the alien warlords and the time traveling conquerors and such, the bad guys who trigger major worldwide team-ups and who even the regular bad guys think are a bit much. Often these bad guys will remember who caused their downfall and when they come back they’ll be specifically gunning for those people. So you’re going to want to avoid joining any teams with a history of pissing off Omega Classers (or as I like to call them, Omegsters), that’s just opening yourself up to major risk.
Does this team provide room for growth? Obviously you’re going to be entering this team on the ground floor. You’ll be the rookie, people will call you things like “newbie’ or “the kid” or just straight up get your name wrong (sometimes people will even do this on purpose to put you in your place, rude). But all of that will be worth it if you can eventually climb up the ranks of the team until you become a respected member and even a trainer or mentor for newer, younger members. You’ll have to look at each team’s roster history to see which teams provide opportunities for promotion and which teams have a low turnover of administrative staff. (And which teams have a high mortality rate for leaders.)
Is the team actually secretly a bunch of supervillains who are only disguised as heroes as part of some sort of nefarious plot? Some superhero teams are actually fronts for evil organizations who seek only to cause chaos and harm to an unsuspecting populace. You’ll need to make sure the team you’re joining is not one of these. Or, if you discover that they are, you can go undercover and become a superhero pretending to be a supervillain pretending to be a superhero and then destroy the evil team from within. A good way to check if a team is actually full of secret supervillains is to tell a funny joke at your interview. One that’s sure to make everybody laugh. You can always tell if somebody is a supervillain by their laugh.
Is there a documentary crew that follows around all the members of the team hoping to catch them in candid moments? If so, you’d better start working on those snappy one liners. And you should definitely practice deflecting questions during talking head interviews. A lot of superhero knowledge is either classified or shouldn’t be revealed to the public in a talking head interview for a college film class assignment.
Does the team do random drug tests? Some superheroes use steroids, super-serums, spinach or other performance enhancing drugs in order to perform feats of heroism (remember, you can’t spell “hey there’s a superhero in here who’s ready to save the day” without “heroin”). It’s important to know a team’s policy towards these kinds of heroes before joining up. (See we could’ve just said “superheroine” but we don’t go for the easy jokes here at Howtohero. We’re real dedicated over here. You’re goddamn welcome!)
Will one of the people on the team devise a convoluted way to kill you in case you ever turn evil? Some teams have a resident dude whose job is to plan for every single possible scenario and these guys love coming up with incredibly over the top ways to kill their teammates. You should try to avoid joining these teams. Because what if that guy turns evil? Then he (or she!) just gets to kill you? That seems unfair. Or what if their plans get stolen? Then anybody just gets to kill you? Or what if you decide to become evil one day? Now somebody just gets to kill you??? Nah, best to avoid all that.
Even if none of the teams who have thus far invited you to join conform to all of your needs or desires you can leverage the invitations of other teams to try to get an invitation out of the one you really want. Play the field. Scheme and scam a little bit to get the exact team you want. But not in the nigh-villainous ways we outlined a few weeks ago. Scheme and scam heroically. For the betterment of mankind. Yeah.