Dumb Superhero Idea: The Repairer. A character who looks and presents himself like a Punisher-type gritty-murder-vigilante, but focuses on restorative and repairative justice
So you get like, gritty hard-boiled monologues where he goes into inner cities in the dead of night to fill potholes or repair washing machines that the negligent landlord refuses to fucking fix.
"Crime is a disease, and affordable housing is the cure!" he shouts, as he breaks into city hall and shoots copies of his twelve-point model local public housing legislation at all the city council members with a modified repeating T-shirt cannon.
In most hero media people look at clones are horrified or disgusted by them or how they were created. That or it takes a while for them to warm up to them.
So I present you
Asexual hero that really wants a child. that has just been cloned and their immediate response is "fuck yes this is my child now and I didn't even have to have sex and go through childbirth yay! Now honey what your favourite colour? What about food? Do you like..."
Richard Kind is one of those actors who I seem to forget is in so many things. I've seen him in things, I do like him and find him funny, but I didn't realize he was in so many animated projects. Initially, this post wasn't going to talk about this. So I'll try not to stay on him as an actor for too long. Let's talk about how he was on Kim Possible, and he played that criminal whose whole thing was being super cheap. Wikipedia was helpful in reminding me the characters name was Frugal Lucre. Well, um... that's about where the Kim Possible references are gonna end. But I needed to draw attention to this character, because his concept inspired me for the rest of this post.
Namely...I'd kind of love to see more shows or comics riffing on that concept. For a lighter story, I'd love to see what an interpretation on the concept of "the world's cheapest supervillian" would look like. How do you get henchmen and death traps on a budget? Is this "supervillian" even commiting crimes worthy of jail time? There's a lot of different avenues of exploration with a concept this broad, yet this funny. Because there's a lot of rich villians out there (Lex Luthor, Norman Osborn, Doctor Doom), but what about those minor guys who commit felonies on working wages? What about them?
PS: My tags reveal my thoughts that led here, but now I'm wondering if this concept could work as a sitcom or something. I'm not gonna make that show, but I might make a post later exploring that concept. Also, I might want to consider making another post about all those character actors who I forget are in so many things.
You know how superheroes always have to go to great pains to keep their identities secret? Consider:
Someone is going to become a vigilante, but their strategy for keeping hidden is the good 'ol power of DRAG. Like, they dress in drag that's convincing enough that everyone keeps on looking for, say, a man, when really they're just a drag king, and it's ages before someone thinks to look at the rest of the population
(PS, the closest I ever saw to this was Riya in Stretch Armstrong, and she wasn't actually trying to pass as a guy, she just happened to look a little like one in her suit)
Someone please write a superhero story where a character’s main power is that every night they dream ahead of time about the fandom’s reaction to the following week’s material.
The culture of the fandom thus directly impacts the usefulness of the powers.
Laying angrily in bed the next morning: “Damn this conscientious fandom...just post and tag your spoilers so I can find them! I need to know what Doctor Captain Robot Army is planning!”
While asleep and scrolling through next week’s Tumblr in their dreams: “Is that fan art? I hope it’s fan art....”
Groggily upon waking: “I agree with the shippers, those three really should just go on a date together already...”
Still blushing while making breakfast: “Geez. Fine. Okay. I’ll ask them out.”
And the thing is...if an exceptionally skilled writing team is doing this, they will allow the real life fandom’s posts to influence how they write the story. If they can get intimately familiar with the fandom’s reactions, they will be able to predict the fandom’s post themes and bring them into the comic/story/show/whatever.
I just really think this would be super fun to read/watch.
Putting this out there, to see if anyone is interested.
Basically, three stories are happening at roughly the same time, and will cross over once each of the characters are established enough for that. (Names aren’t final, just needed to give them something).
Let me know what you think.
Part 2
Lycan Ryder
The story of a Kamen Rider-esque character with intense energy powers going around helping people in a similar predicament, as well as anyone else he runs into. Later revealed that he got his powers from a forced government experiment, and was one of the few people who didn’t die/lose themself to the immense power forced into them (who are the majority of the people he tries to help). Generally lighthearted and a little campy, with an emphasis on hope and the inherent power of heroism.
Guardian
A man tasked with keeping the peace between the natural and supernatural. Essentially, all sorts of monsters and spirits do exist around the world, gaining power from the stories told about them. Guardians are trained to keep them secret from the rest of the world, and to keep the peace, through either kindness or violence, whichever is appropriate for the situation. A bit darker, but explores how legends are formed, and that appearances aren’t always everything.
Mirage
Bit more complicated backstory, there are a group of rings that give them users power over a specific element of the world (mountains, rivers, ice, etc.), and each seek out users who, in some capacity, embody a core trait of that element (like a mixture of Captain Planet and the DC Lantern Corps). This has happened for generations, leading to the protagonist, who possesses the Desert ring, giving her powers over sand and illusion crafting. She is then accused of harming their leader (something she would never do, but there’s a longstanding stigma against Desert users due to general shadiness), so she has to go on the run, dodging the other ring users and trying to prove her innocence. Superhero mystery story, with interesting fight scenes and a crafty and creative main character.
——————
After they each get around 12-15 issues worth of character buildup, that’s when we start to see them crossing over. A couple of stories that have them team up to tackle threats they couldn’t handle alone, yada yada yada, that’s expected. One of these adventures has pretty immense consequences, a Spiritual Big Bang that leads people around the globe developing superpowers.
This leads to the last story in “Phase 1”, where a Robin pastiche comes to them to help their mentor (a female Captain America pastiche), who joined a government sponsored superhero team, and is starting to become disillusioned with the concept of superheroics (because what do you expect the American government to do with a superpowered strike force?), and needs to be snapped out of it.
Afterwards, the two join with them to create their own superhero team, and starts a recruitment drive (also, the Guardian guy doesn’t officially join up here, mostly because he’s got other priorities at the moment).
