supers and the source
Mar. 25th, 2023 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliWhere do you get your powers from, when you get them?
This is perhaps one of the greatest questions of super world-building. It can influence or even determine politics. It can implicate metaphysics. It can raise grave questions in ethics. It can box in theme.
AND it has to be multiple, or else very loose.
Because if your characters are all the wearers of powersuits from a megacorporation, or all extremely powerful wizards, or all aliens, you aren't writing about supers, however powerful the characters are, and however much they fight crime. Despite Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and Superman, you are writing, respectively, mecha, urban fantasy, or SF. (All right, maybe superheroes if you hit all the other superhero defining tropes on the head. But probably not.)
The behemoths, of course, have had decades of stuff to build up multifarious origins, down to and including buying out other companies' super IP. And there are those who complain about it when they come to it cold, as in a Spiderman move.
A metaorigin can create some unity in universe, preventing it from seeming too random. It can also be rather loose, allowing for the diversity of superheroes.
But its relationship to powers is complex. If everyone has a steampunkish sort of origin, you can have people with winged flight, and firethrowers, and suits like fish to swim, but it's unlikely that invisibility can be made plausible.
Two or more metaorigins start to make things messy though. There can be oddballs around the edges, particularly if unexplained, but two metaorigins ought to be thematically related. Suppose you have a pseudo-19th century setting, and there are superheroes whose powers are derived from papyri graecae magicae, who appear to be Greek gods, and who, of course, are uppercrust for the study of Greek. And middle-class steampunk heroes. And lower-class heroes who acquired powers in a traveling show from a doctor who sells patent medicines. Your theme is bound to be class conflict, but it works.
Supposing, on the other hand, that the powers are given to the characters by beings of vast powers. This raises questions about their character and motives. And judgment in choosing who to give them to. And their nature, whether Ancient Aliens or more magical-oriented creatures.
If the powers can only be generated by something that a large organization can make, it would be deeply influential in politics. Government, corporations, secret vast conspiracies duke it out while the little people scamper for cover. Supers that go rogue are extremely dangerous in that they raise the specter of the elite no longer disputing among themselves. Supers that appear spontaneously are worse.
This is perhaps one of the greatest questions of super world-building. It can influence or even determine politics. It can implicate metaphysics. It can raise grave questions in ethics. It can box in theme.
AND it has to be multiple, or else very loose.
Because if your characters are all the wearers of powersuits from a megacorporation, or all extremely powerful wizards, or all aliens, you aren't writing about supers, however powerful the characters are, and however much they fight crime. Despite Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and Superman, you are writing, respectively, mecha, urban fantasy, or SF. (All right, maybe superheroes if you hit all the other superhero defining tropes on the head. But probably not.)
The behemoths, of course, have had decades of stuff to build up multifarious origins, down to and including buying out other companies' super IP. And there are those who complain about it when they come to it cold, as in a Spiderman move.
A metaorigin can create some unity in universe, preventing it from seeming too random. It can also be rather loose, allowing for the diversity of superheroes.
But its relationship to powers is complex. If everyone has a steampunkish sort of origin, you can have people with winged flight, and firethrowers, and suits like fish to swim, but it's unlikely that invisibility can be made plausible.
Two or more metaorigins start to make things messy though. There can be oddballs around the edges, particularly if unexplained, but two metaorigins ought to be thematically related. Suppose you have a pseudo-19th century setting, and there are superheroes whose powers are derived from papyri graecae magicae, who appear to be Greek gods, and who, of course, are uppercrust for the study of Greek. And middle-class steampunk heroes. And lower-class heroes who acquired powers in a traveling show from a doctor who sells patent medicines. Your theme is bound to be class conflict, but it works.
Supposing, on the other hand, that the powers are given to the characters by beings of vast powers. This raises questions about their character and motives. And judgment in choosing who to give them to. And their nature, whether Ancient Aliens or more magical-oriented creatures.
If the powers can only be generated by something that a large organization can make, it would be deeply influential in politics. Government, corporations, secret vast conspiracies duke it out while the little people scamper for cover. Supers that go rogue are extremely dangerous in that they raise the specter of the elite no longer disputing among themselves. Supers that appear spontaneously are worse.