Dec 30 2007
List of Superpowers
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This superpower list will help you write a superhero story or design a superhero. At the end, I also have tips to help distinguish your superheroes from other heroes with similar powers.
Generic Physical Abilities
- Superstrength
- Speed
- Durability
- Agility/reflexes
- Healing/regeneration
- Supersenses
- Sight/hearing/smell/taste/touch
- Sensing danger (spider-sense)
- Sensing other types of events (dishonesty, murder, etc.)
- The ability to remove senses (like inflicting blindness, etc.)
- Longevity/immortality
Forms of Transportation
- Climbing/wall-crawling
- Swimming/water-breathing
- Flight
Time-Based Abilities
- Temporal manipulation (like The Matrix)
- Time travel
- Prophecy
Elemental Control/Manipulation
- Basic elements (fire, electricity, water, earth, wind)
- Light and/or darkness
- Gravity
- Magnetic forces
- Radiation
- Energy
- Sound
- Nature
Generic Mental Abilities
- Skills and/or knowledge
- Popular categories: science, mechanical, computer/electronics, weapons-handling/military, driving, occult/magical.
- Super-intelligence
- Resourcefulness (“I’m never more than a carton of baking soda away from a doomsday device”)
Psychic Abilities
- Telekinesis (moving objects mentally)
- Telepathy (reading minds)
- Mind-to-mind communication
- Mind-control
- Possession (total mental control)
- Memory manipulation (may include creation/alteration/deletion)
- Mentally generated weaponry
- Mindblast
- Ability to locate someone mentally
- Forcefields
Biological Control
- Acid/poison
- Controlling plants and/or animals
- Animal morphing
- Ability to take on someone else’s appearance
Miscellaneous
- Elasticity
- Self-destruction
- Self-liquification
- Gaseous form
- Growth/shrinking
- Self-duplication
- Invisibility
- Absorbing someone else’s powers
- Negating someone else’s powers
- Luck manipulation (good luck for hero and/or bad luck for enemies)
- “Psychometry”– the ability to learn things about the past or future of an object by touching it
- Illusions
WAYS TO DISTINGUISH YOUR SUPERPOWERS
- Your story’s superpowers have some cost to the user.
- Fatigue. Your hero’s powers exhaust him.
- Equal and opposite reaction. Perhaps your supergenius’s brain will overheat unless he lets his mind cool down after a mental stunt.
- Energy. Your hero has a drainable and finite source of power.
- Risk to self (or others). Your hero’s powers, once activated, are hard to control and dangerous.
- Personality shift. Activating your hero’s powers transforms his personality or mindset, like the Hulk or Catastrophe.
- Loss of sanity. Your hero’s transformation makes him considerably less stable, like The Hulk or Niki.
- Your story’s superpowers have a limited duration or accessibility.
- His superpowers only last a certain duration and have to be recharged.
- His superpowers can only be accessed after a certain condition is met or at a certain time of day. For example, Captain Marvel has to say Shazaam first.
- His superpowers are only accessible after he transforms (like the Hulk or American Dragon).
- Superpowers are accessible only through a particular item, usually a magical or technological item (Sailor Moon, power armor).
- Your superpowers have an unusual origin or source.
- Because the hero’s alien or otherwise unhuman (Superman, TMNT)
- Because he’s a modified human (Spiderman, cyborgs)
- Because he has some artifact (power armor)
- Your superpowers have unusual limits
- Physical. Maybe his electricity shorts out in water or he gets really weak when exposed to Kryptonite.
- Time. Hourman’s powers only last (you guessed it) an hour.
Did you find this list useful? If so, please see our list of superhero writing articles.
This site is cool. It is helping me with a short story for school and all that stuff, so keep up the good work, fellas. Time to go save the world!
Let’s not forget “Bop you with this here lollipop.”
Whatever else you can say about Herbie Popnecker, the series definitely had a voice. I can virtually guarantee that the concept of hitting someone with a lollipop is 100% original.
Thanks! Can you add more unique superhero abilities that are not common to other heroes? I’m making my own superhero story, but I have no idea what abilities to give my superhero. I need a unique power for my main character. Your website has helped helped me a lot with some of my other characters. Thanks a lot!
One way which you could try altering these powers is changing their scope in some crazy way. For example, in Read or Die!, the main character has telekinesis that applies only to paper. I mean, if you take a generic power and only allow the superhero to use it on some random category of material, that could probably create a fresh-feeling character.
Also, a few of the characters in Superhero Nation have a few government-themed powers, like being able to telepathically operate government vehicles. (The in-story explanation is filled with jargon and not particularly important). Out of story, I like that parameter because it feels fresh and makes the character about as powerful as everyone else (impressive but stoppable). It’s a problem when characters aren’t on the same power level because the villains that can challenge a strong hero would roll over a weak hero. If one hero is much more powerful than another (Superman vs. Batman), you can usually only have them work together by being inconsistent. For example, in the final episode of Justice League, Batman goes hand-to-hand with Darkseid and somehow survives, even though Darkseid is about as tough as Superman.
I’m writing a novel about a superhero. Is he overpowered like Superman? His main power is elasticity, making him extraordinary even though he’s human. He gained his powers by swallowing a piece of radioactive gum at a college party. He has been taking martial arts since he was 5 years old and has increased strength because his muscles stretch out. He can lift parts of ships, a truck, but NOT planets or skyscrapers. How can elasticity increase speed? Should his powers have limits? What can I use for his weakness? Also, he needs transformations. What could I use with his powers?
Thanks! That is really helpful for a paper I’m writing for English class.
Hello, Chulance.
That’s probably not over-powered. I imagine you’d be able to write some dramatic stories for him that aren’t as silly as pushing a planet out of orbit. Most importantly, I think that you’d probably be able to make an interesting and dramatic fight between him and regular (non-super) criminals.
“He gained his powers by swallowing a piece of radioactive gum at a college party.” I like that origin story.
“How can elasticity increase speed?” He could roll himself into a wheel or pogo-jump himself. I think that either of those would make him pretty fast, particularly if he’s in a hilly city like San Francisco or Washington, DC. Alternatively, if you want to be a little bit more ridiculous, you could try something like making him into a hang-glider or paper airplane (it worked in Paper Mario). There are enough high places (like buildings) in pretty much any city to make that work. Also, most cities will get enough warm air rising off the sun-heated pavement to create thermals that a hang-glider would be able to take advantage of. (Warm air rises, which would enable him to glide longer than he could otherwise).
“Also, he needs transformations. What could I use with his said powers?”
Quick question. When I use the word “transformation,” I’m usually referring to a species-change. So, if your guy is human, he’s probably not transformed. He may be an altered human, like Spiderman. If that’s the case, you have a lot of potential origin stories at your disposal. Mutations, genetic engineering, nanotech, radiation/cosmic rays and cybernetics will be easily understood by most audiences. I have a bit more of an explanation on one of my other comments… see my comment here.
If you’re up for a more scientifically ambitious story, you could try something with quantum mechanics, singularities, or some other distinctly futuristic technology.
The origin stories I’ve listed above are all science-fiction. Alternatively, you might want your story (for whatever reason) to be more of a fantasy. Then you could try magic, artifacts, divine intervention, etc.
wait, so what you’re saying is that MacGyver was a superhero with super-resourcefulness powers?
“You there! Give me that stick of gum. And you - your shoelace, quick! Quick, I said! Aha, I have made a rudimentary flying machine which will save us from this ominously ticking explosive device which is set to blow up the minute that I fly us out of here!”
I really love this website! I THINK SPIDERWOMEN IS RIGHT!
I really liked City of Heroes as well. Although the combat was underwhelming compared to World of Warcraft, I liked the CoH character creation process a lot more. Professionally speaking, CoH can be really helpful if you need to visualize what a superhero might look like, particularly if you’re a fan of Golden Age style (Superman, the Flash, etc.)
What do you think about a villain that has the power from the movie Jumper but can only jump through shadows?
Ok. I’m writing a character that has been genetically engineered by a government research program. I’m just having trouble coming up with some powers.
Cool.
But I could have thought of more.
Lilg, if you have any you’d like to offer, we’d be glad to credit you if we use them.
As for our list… when we were brainstorming, our list came out to 70 and included some wacky ones that probably wouldn’t benefit the average reader very much. (Color manipulation! Sonic attack!) We tried to take the ones that we thought would help.
Does anyone have any idea ideas on unique weaknesses? I’ve been thinking about making it more of an allergy like she could grow weaker if she eats say…….. peanut butter or my unfortunate allergy watermelon.
Oof, unique weaknesses. They’re hard to pull off. Let’s say your hero is weak to peanut butter. How would your supervillain find that out? How would your supervillain make use of that? The only solution I can think of is contrivance: your hero just happens to eat peanut butter once and get really sick and then the supervillain finds out somehow.
I’d recommend trying a unique weakness that is caused by one of his strengths. For example, if he has supervision, he might be vulnerable to intense light. If he has superhearing, intense sound might overwhelm him. Two aspects that I like about these are that 1) a supervillain might successfully guess that someone with extraordinary hearing would be vulnerable to loud sounds and 2) these could easily come up as your hero is trying to protect his secret identity. This would give him some obstacles to overcome. Also, a third advantage (over something rare like kryptonite) is that a low-grade villain could more easily use light or sound than kryptonite.
I thought of a really cool superpower for one of my villains. Towards the end, he gets the ability to take full control over a person and their abilities. The most powerful and painful part is that the puppeteer can “grant” his unwilling puppet new abilities that do not exceed his own– for example, he could grant an ice user the ability to shoot fire from his hands but at the cost of severely scorching the ice user’s palms. But doing so would cause the puppet to die after a few times.
I thought this would make an awesome super-evil ability. What do you think?
It would help to devise an excuse to explain how someone could mentally grant someone a new ability. Throwing around some mumbo-jumbo about “mental reconfiguration” might work. If you’re looking for something that feels scientific, It might help to draw in real-life science about external forces stimulating short-term improvements. For example, muscles develop in response to stress (like exercise). And genetic engineering has already created species that have new, unusual capabilities (for example, Iowa State University developed corn that can glow in the dark like jellyfish).
Aside from suspension-of-disbelief issues related to that, I think the power is a reasonably strong way to establish that the villain is truly twisted.
Ok, I have another. My main character has a sketchbook where he draws pictures of weapons, shields, armor, small alien creatures, etc. When he enters his superhero state, he can mentally summon his drawings to aid him, but he is limited by how tiring the process is. For the most part, he is resourceful, hyper and naive like all young heroes but when tested, he pulls through and pulls off powerful summonings such as the Mask of Comedy, which allows him to defend against powerful attacks, and the Mask of Tragedy, which allows him to unleash devastating waves of creative energy. Do you think he’s a cool hero? What should his name be? Also, what should his costume look like?
That sounds a lot like Green Lantern, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, I think that GL’s powers are a bit easier for readers to understand.
@ Ragged Boy: Hmm. Although Cadet Davis is right that your character’s powers share a characteristic with GL’s (both’s powers are largely shaped by their imagination), I don’t think that’s a big problem. I doubt most readers would feel that your powers are derivative or copied from GL. (Copying a popular hero’s powers isn’t usually hackish or illegal, but readers do appreciate heroes that have fresh powers).
So I don’t think that the “what” is a problem here. But I think you might be getting bogged down in the “how.” For example, giving the drawings names (like the Mask of Comedy and Mask of Tragedy) is slightly distracting. I’m not sure that the names really convey what you want the items to accomplish. For example, I don’t think that most readers would think of a “Mask of Comedy” as defensive gear or a “Mask of Tragedy” as a devastating weapon. In contrast, I think that your ideas about using weapons, shields and small alien creatures are dead-on. If your hero sheaths himself in psychically generated armor (which you don’t have to name), readers won’t have any trouble concluding that he’s well-protected. If he summons a screaming monstrosity from another dimension (name optional), they’ll know he has a devastating attacker at his disposal. Incidentally, letting him create living things is an excellent addition to the GL formula.
As for color schemes and visuals… let’s see. The character is largely powered by his imagination and, judging by the fact that he can create alien species, this story is probably more science fiction than fantasy or real-world fiction. If you’re aiming for a younger target audience, I’d recommend a sci-fi costume with bold and bright colors. Maybe blue with white accents or yellow and blue. If you’re aiming at teens and older, I’d recommend black with bright accents (yellow or green, maybe). As for the costume itself, I’d recommend either a sci-fi robe (like a Jedi getup) or power-armor, depending on what you feel more comfortable with. The robe is probably more effective and less distracting. If I’ve misjudged the story and this is actually set on a modern Earth, I’d recommend something like a Ironman powersuit or an exoskeleton. If this kid is at all insecure about being young and/or wants to be older than he is, I’d recommend that he leave little skin showing.
Ok, now that you’ve helped me with my main villain and hero, I need help with the hero’s two partners. The first is a pale and beautiful suicidal/depressed schizophrenic without an evil bone in her body. She has long, blood-red hair that she can fully control (including growing it, shrinking it, using it to lift heavy things and firing hair-made projectiles). Her defining feature is her abnormal resistance to pain and her ability to regenerate from fatal wounds, so her name is Mz. Corpse. Although she can heal, it is extremely tiresome to do so repeatedly. What do you think of her? Also, could you give any help with the costume?
My second is a prince that has rebelled against his uptight family to live a common life. He is handsome, muscular and short. He wields a large regal sword but his main ability is the power to fire spores or beams that create modified emerald crystal. He also has a parameter that allows him to detect someone or something moving. What would you suggest for a name and costume for him?
Finally, I need help with the trio’s name and base. Thanks.
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=93096544&albumID=2013827&imageID=26846965
Erm, you seem to be very dedicated to this project, which is good. To take it to the next level, as you start crafting the story, it would probably really help to get a dedicated proofreader to help handle things like punctuation and grammar. Mechanical issues might make it hard for readers to immerse themselves in the story.
oh i dont know about that
i got a 5.5 on the writing FCAT
im a skilled writer i always proofread
[EDITOR: I'm declining to correct this, not to be a snotty bitch but because I think that the mechanical issues are kind of glaring. It's sort of traditional to use punctuation marks between sentences, place apostrophes in contractions, and capitalize the noun "I." Doing so will increase your odds of getting professionally published.]
Although I’m not familiar with any schizophrenic or suicidal heroes, I like the hair-based powers of Mz. Corpse. I have some issues with her back-from-the-dead ability. It might help if, in addition to it being tiring, it were a long process, long enough to really inconvenience her. Even then, it would take away the drama of wondering whether she will make it out alive, though.
For her costume, I think crimson and/or black are clearly the typical choices for moody heroes, but those colors are damn depressing. What would you think about brown clothes? I’m not too fond of most superheroine costumes. It’s hard to cut a middle ground between distractingly racy and boringly puritanical, but Teen Titan’s Terra had a tank-top/shorts combination that was very effective. Alternatively, if you took Trinity’s clothes from the Matrix and made them a bit looser and less form-fitting, I think that would work nicely.
The prince’s powers seem a bit more grab-baggy. Firing spores and sensing movement don’t seem very intuitive to me for a swordfighter. For his costume, I’d recommend something really plain and comfortable. If he’s rebelling against an uptight family, it stands to reason that he’d be a laid-back guy. If this story were set on Earth, you might consider something like ripped jeans, surfer shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, a t-shirt, baggy pants, etc. I suspect that blue would be a good primary color because it will offset the more somber Mz. Corpse nicely. I’m having trouble coming up with a name… what are some of his defining characteristics besides being a swordsman? (You could do something like Cavalier, Swordsman, Cutter, Epee, Paladin, etc. but I suspect that those don’t convey right the right tone).
Ouch, you just dissed my powers. Well, excuse me for trying to be creative. I may alter Mz. Corpse because of what you said about her survival doubt-factor.
As for my swordsman, I don’t want his swordsmanship to be his defining ability. I’m trying to come up with a creative power that will help him in battle, but not something boring like super strength or speed.
Other than that, I pretty much understand what you’re saying.
Oh, and in case you didn’t know, Crazy Jane of Doom Patrol was deeply depressed and borderline-suicidal.
My character has a mental blast type ability, and I have chosen a few weaknesses to go with it. If he uses his ability once or twice, he suffers no effects. However, if he uses it many times/builds up a big blast/uses it for a prolonged period, he gets these in this order: dehydration, dizziness, migraines, exhaustion, aching joints and if he really overdoes it, he could pass out. If he gets to the stage where his joints ache, he will wake up the following morning feeling sick to his stomach and so be unable (or at least reluctant) to go out and kick bad-guy butt.
Could you offer an opinion on his weaknesses? Are there any alternatives to them that would be better, or might be more mental than physical? I can’t really have him going insane because of his pyscho-blasts, but I need something which would hurt or make him grumpy.
Also, I asked about a title on “Your Title is Bad, But You Can Fix It (Part 7)”. Is there some word which would be a good alternative to “origins”? I have a question about costume, too, but I’ll ask that on “9 Easy-to-Fix Problems with Superhero Design”.
Thanks!
So it sounds like you have a fatigue parameter– the limit on his powers is how much energy he has. I think that’s interesting, especially if you have a fight where he’s mostly out of juice and has to improvise.
As for mental weaknesses, you’re right that it’s typically not viable to have the main hero go crazy (like the Hulk or Nikki). You could try something like amnesia– when he overuses his powers, his brain tries to make room by deleting memories. Depending on what mood you’d like to build, you could make the memory-deletion either temporary or permanent. Just don’t let the story lean too much towards emo angst (”life’s so hard for me, boohoohoo”).
If you go with the amnesia angle, I’d recommend trying to focus on him trying to live his life despite sometimes forgetting important details (”what time was my date with Mary?” or “Who is Mary?”). For added drama, you might consider how amnesia would affect his ability to keep his alternate-identity secret. I think friends and family would ask a lot of questions if someone who had been young and healthy started to exhibit serious memory-lapses.
Another approach you could try is how much concentration is required for him to use his powers. I imagine that one of his weaknesses would be that he’d have to concentrate greatly to use his powers. That would be a weakness because he might start “missing” with his powers, or having accidents if he was too distracted by, say, the stress of combat, lack of sleep, stressful incidents that had happened recently, loud noises, etc. I’d recommend seeing this article on unique weaknesses for superheroes.
Yours.
J.M.
I had an idea for a villain that I thought would be awesome.
He is a serial killer that had only ever loved one woman, and discovered on the night of their honeymoon that she was having sex with another man. As soon as he died, he was met by the Exchanger of Souls who made him a deal that in exchange for continuing to kill people that he would receive the ability to possess people along with other abilities. The villain agreed.
He became The Possessor and possessed his cheating wife, forcing her to kill her secret lover and now he is a villain, possessing his wife and using her to kill. He can alter her appearance, have her fire black bolts, have her seduce men into traps, and gives her increased speed and inability to feel pain but her body does later die and he continues to possess her dead body
I think he’s a cool villain. What do you think?
I made up a trio of heros that periodically help my main heroes in my comic. They are called Trioz. They consist of Dazan, Lori and Huggo.
Dazan can manipulate gravity and can teleport short distances.
Lori fires spores that explode either instantly or latently. She’s also a skilled fighter.
Huggo can manipulate many kinds of waves and change wave attributes to attack and disable his opponents. He mostly uses disruptor waves to create a vorpal sword.
What do you think?
A wife cheating on her husband on the night of their honeymoon? I think it sounds a little bit contrived. It may help to flesh out their relationship a bit more and show how her dissatisfaction with him leads to her seeking other lovers.
I didn’t know how deep to go into a villain’s origin story. I thought the surface of his story would do.
Okay, thanks! I really love this website!
Oh, another thing to do with my hero’s powers. His blast ability wouldn’t have the desired effect if he was in a small room with reinforced walls and ceiling which had no windows. He could improvise to bust down the door, but if the room is quite little, the blast would bounce back and hurt him. He also has to learn to fine tune his power to minimize or maximize the radius of the blast. How could I use this in an interesting way, and how could I show his powers developing over time? Thanks.
So the issue seems to be that his attack isn’t really precise and tends to bounce around a bit, right? If that’s the case, then it probably wouldn’t lend itself well to situations where you really need to be right on. For example, if a criminal has a gun to a hostage’s head, using his power directly against the criminal would probably endanger the hostage.
If using his powers directly won’t work, he can try a different approach. For example, psi-blasting the floor would probably cause the criminal and hostage to fall down without getting injured. The hostage would probably use the distraction to get away, and then it would just be the hero against the criminal.
Alternately, you might want to just say that there’s no way for him to use his power against the hostage-taker without jeopardizing the hostage. Then he’d have to improvise without using his powers. That’d be interesting, too… maybe more interesting, because he’d have to think through the problem in a more protracted way and deal with it in a more human way.
You could show his powers developing over time because his powers gradually get slightly more precise. For example, a completely inexperienced psychic might spread so much psychic damage around that he ends up breaking windows and furniture wherever he fights. As he gets more experienced, I imagine that his powers would become more precise and the amount of collateral damage to scenery will go down. (Also, you might consider what the city thinks of him. If he causes a lot of damage, they’ll be afraid to be near him, but as he gets more precise, they’ll probably get more comfortable with him).
He might also try to aim his powers more directly as his powers get better. For example, as a beginner he might try unsuccessfully to aim his psi-blast at a doorframe. As he gets better, he might try aiming specifically at the door’s hinges, which are a small target but much easier to blow off. It’s kind of similar to shooting a door down with a pistol. You might be able to shoot the door off by shooting the hinges, but you definitely won’t succeed by just shooting the frame.
One way in which I would recommend not having his power grow too much is the blast radius or force. Those would probably lead the character to get overpowered.
Okay, thanks! What should be his maximum range and radius then, so that he’s not too strong? I was thinking that it should fade out as it goes farther, and so be a bit ineffective for long distances or wide ranges. But he does use the same power to fly, by firing behind and below himself fast enough to stay off the ground. If used for too long, he will suffer the ill effects of exhaustion as I mentioned above. Also, another weakness of his is that if he can’t breathe properly (like if he was underwater for some reason) he wouldn’t be able to use his power either. So he’d get less oxygen to his brain and be unable to concentrate.
Could you help me? My question is above Anonymous’ but you never answered it.
Hello, Ragged Boy. Here are some random comments…
–It may help to change the group’s name from Trioz. Is there a more evocative detail you could use about the group than that they are a trio?
–The names strike me as a little bit odd.
–It might be hard working in a group of heroes as off-and-on sidekicks. If they saved the heroes at a clutch moment, they’d probably feel like a deus ex machina.
I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand what you mean when you say “I just agree with them (imaginary friends)”.
I appreciate that you want to create a fuller universe. That’s certainly a worthwhile goal. However, there’s a fine line between a name that sounds alien and a name that doesn’t quite work. This is what Jacob wrote down for Common Mistake #15.
“Please do not give aliens “exotic” names like Qwe’rty-Uiop. Strange strings of letters are more likely to feel goofy than exotic. A better way to create exotic-sounding alien names is by taking familiar sounds and then stringing them together. For example, Brad and Darian are familiar to your readers, and together they make Bradarian. If that’s not alien enough, you could cut off a few letters to make Bradar.”
Particularly with Huggo and Trioz, I feel that the names are distracting.
I’ve kinda done my own thing for as long as I can remember. It’s kind of hard for me to change my way of thinking, seeing as that’s what got me through, but I respect your advice.
Yeah, advice is all it is. We’ve brought up most of the issues that will stick out to an editor. If you offer a compelling reason you’d like not to make the changes, you can probably convince him to let you go on a few of them.
Changes to what, exactly? Be brutal.
We just sent you an e-mail outlining some of the issues. Please let me know if it doesn’t arrive.
Oh, I understand now, I’ve been planning this story out for some time now and I needed a professional opinion. I agree with your comments about the names I’ve come up with. They are a little extravagant, but I need to keep Aadrello and Jornai. I love those names too much to give them up. I will work on my punctuational as well as grammatical skills. I’m currently coming up with character design and costumes right now.
First, I thought the name “Sketch” would be a good name for my main character’s alter ego, it shows his artistic prowess while sounding somewhat youthful like the character. I was thinking of a costume that I thought would be cool, try to visualize this, a skin-tight black full-body suit, with orange and white trim and beige cargo shorts, sinched just below the knees to make his look his own.
Next, “Mz.Corpse” I was thinking Crimson and Black as the colors but as for the design I’m stumped, I want it to be sexy but not outrageous, something that Irabella would wear so it would probably be a little emo.
Finally, “Emerald’s” costume would have to have green, obviously. Since he is a prince and he still honors his family’s name, despite separating himself from them, something along the lines of a suit of light armor with green pieces of cloth hanging from it, such as a scarf or sash and his sword with an emerald-embedded hilt.
What do you think?
(I took the time to check my grammar. [EDITOR: I noticed. It's gotten considerably better!]
This may be a double-post. I think I commented on the original here.
Being an interplanetary surgeon would be the hardest job ever. Having to remember parts and organs of every species as well as the diseases they suffer…
Sort of like being a vet, except that your patients could sue you. :)
Or eat you.
Now, does it take the same process to get a comic published as it does to get a novel published? I’m planning on publishing my story as a comic.
Also, I posted a comment to “How to Write Origin Stories.” Could you check that out? Thanks.
I’ve never published a comic. My guess is that it’s very different than writing novels. But the first step– writing a pitch (or a query) to the publisher– seems fairly similar. For example, let’s say that you were interested in publishing your comic book with an independent outlet like Image Comics. According to its Submissions Page, Image says that you should write a proposal that contains the following information. (With some paraphrasing).
1) A typewritten cover letter with your contact information. Introduce yourself and any publishing experience you have.
2) A single page synopsis of the overall story. “We do not want a single-issue synopsis– we want a synopsis of the ENTIRE series or story arc.” Avoid posing plot-points as questions. Since you’re writing this to the publisher, rather than the audience, you shouldn’t try to leave them hanging. Tell them what happens. “You can tell us whether you see it as a full color or a black and white book, a mini or on-going series, a Prestige book or an Original Graphic Novel. There are times, however, when we may have a better idea what might fly so don’t get married to any one format but we’d like to know what you have in mind. Tell us what sets it apart from other comics and who the target audience is (’Everyone’ is NOT realistic — there’s no single book on the market today that everybody buys).
3) “Send photocopies of fully INKED and LETTERED pages (any size). DO NOT SEND ORIGINAL ART! We’d like to see AT LEAST five pages that are fully inked and lettered. If you have MORE than five finished pages, swell! Bring ‘em on! Five is the MINIMUM we want to see, not a maximum. We want to READ it. If the lettering sucks we may suggest a different letterer for the final comic book. The important thing here is that we can SEE that you know what you’re doing, that you understand where to place copy and how to tell a story.”
4) “Color is OPTIONAL. If you have a colorist and can provide color pages, great! This means you CAN send in colored pages, but you do not have to. (Although, if you want a color book, it would be advisable). We DO reserve the right to approve colorists as a poor one can ruin a decent book.”
5) “Include a cover mock-up — this lets us know whether or not you understand the market and gives us a good barometer on your design sense. A good logo can be EASILY read from across the room. We DO make people change their logos OFTEN. Don’t be fancy or artistic — be CLEAR. You can send character sketches and or bios, but not in lieu of storytelling pages — we still need to see five finished pages of sequential storytelling, lettered and inked. DO NOT send script pages — DO NOT send unlettered pages accompanied by a script and expect us to follow along.”
For an Image proposal, you would need an artist and letterer to do 5+ pages before submitting. I suspect the final price would run about $200-$400 for the inks and perhaps another $150 if you wanted it in color. If those amounts are in your ballpark, I could provide contacts for a few reputable freelancers that we have worked with before. Alternately, I could provide advice on how to seek freelancers on open DeviantArt forums, but getting defrauded is possible.
As for lettering the five pages, I’d be willing to donate that service as a general gift from the Superhero Nation community, but I can only letter the first five pages and do not have the time to provide any more script input than “this won’t fit in the bubbles– please make the bubbles larger or cut some words.”
You guys rock. I know I’m a good drawer, but I’m not ready to draw for a comic book yet. That probably won’t be for a long time, based on the complexity and level of skill I’ve seen in most comics, although an issue of Teen Titans was drawn in a style sort of similar to mine. Anyhow, I’ll need to get my story together now because I do want to make comics and be a cartoonist, if i don’t become famous in modeling and acting.
Thanks. I’ll be back if I need any help (it’ll be soon– aha).
What’s a good weakness for someone with super speed?
Superfast heroes rely on good footing and would probably need a lot of space to do things like turns. (For a real-life analogy, drivers take turns slowly). The villain could take advantage of that by building his lair so that there’s relatively little room for someone to dodge bullets and lasers. He could also make the floor slippery, so that the hero will lose his footing.
If you’d like to get more technical, speedy heroes would create a tremendous amount of friction when they ran. Friction creates heat with the ground. The villain might slick the floor with flammable oil so that the hero would set himself or bystanders on fire if he moved too quickly. If your villain is very technically savvy, he could play around with gravity. It’s extremely difficult to move around in a no-gravity environment and a high-gravity environment would also be very tricky.
Finally, you could look at what the hero is actually able to do when he’s superfast. For example, what he could he do against someone in a suit of armor? Probably not that much. If he tries punching the armor, he’s more likely to injure himself than his enemy. Generally, a superfast hero is only powerful when the enemy has exposed vulnerabilities. The villain should try to remove any vulnerabilities he has, probably with armor or something similar. Then the hero has to improvise, which could be interesting and dramatic.
I feel that the power of liquifaction and water-control are vastly underrated. Not only is it extremely powerful, but it’s very easy to innovate like how I make up the ability of mixing liquifaction and self-vaporization to create a way of short-distance teleportation. If I weren’t writing a story with Sketch, I would definitely have a protaganist with water abilities.
I think Avatar did an excellent job of showing water powers’ adaptability. They made something of a mini-theme of it. Excellent point. I will actually have Alex fight a girl with water/liquid based powers. It will prove a challenge because his powers are, yep, fire-based. He must either get creative, or call for help. Maybe both.
Water is the reason I gave Aadrello gills on his face.
I’m writing a story about a superhero that can fly. He is superstrong, superfast and can shoot lightning from his body. He and his brother got his powers from a crashed meteor. What are some weaknesses I could use for him?
If he can shoot lightning from his body, it seems kind of plausible that water would cause his body to short.
A weakness for your superhero could be if some guys holding a piece of the meteor that gave your superhero the powers, the powers that your superhero got from the meteor would leave him and go to the guy that was holding the meteor.
What are the Hulk’s superpowers?
Strength and endurance. Depending on how generously you define superpowers, you could possibly also say that Bruce Banner is a ridiculously skilled scientist.
I need heaps of facts about Hulk.
I’m not much of a Hulk expert. I’d recommend these pages instead: one and two.
Does Hulk have an archenemy?
The Hulk possesses an incredible level of superhuman physical ability. His capacity for physical strength is potentially limitless due to the fact that the Hulk’s strength increases proportionally with his level of great emotional stress, anger in particular. The Hulk uses his superhumanly strong leg muscles to leap great distances. The Hulk has been known to cover hundreds of miles in a single bound and once leaped almost into orbit around the Earth. The Hulk has shown a high resistance to physical damage nearly regardless of the cause, and has also shown resistance to extreme temperatures, poisons, and diseases in addition to regeneration of damaged or destroyed areas of tissue at an amazing rate.
The Hulk’s body also has a gland that makes an “oxygenated per fluorocarbon emulsion”, which creates pressure in the Hulk’s lungs and effectively lets him breathe underwater and move quickly between varying depths without concerns about decompression or nitrogen narcosis.
Abilities
Dr. Bruce Banner is a genius nuclear physicist. When Banner is the Hulk, Banner’s consciousness is buried within the Hulk’s, and can influence the Hulk’s behavior only to a very limited extent.
That’s what I found.
What happened to Spiderman’s parents?
And what is this website?
Spiderman’s parents were supposedly superspies that died in the line of duty, but I’d prefer to believe that never happened.
This website is a writing advice site with an emphasis on superhero-related stories, but we also offer advice and resources for the authors of fantasy and sci-fi novels as well.
Who’s your favourite superhero?
I’ll go with Spiderman. If I had to be pressed to come up with something more creative, I’d say The Hood or maybe Martian Manhunter.
Hey I need heaps of questions and stuff about the hulk a.s.a.p because I have an assignment on it.
Heart, I’d recommend Wikipedia. You may have already tried it, but there is a lot of helpful information if you look hard enough.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulk_(comics)
Yeah. Wikipedia will work fine for what you need. I don’t really know what kind of assignment you’re doing and, frankly, I can’t provide raw data nearly as well as Wikipedia. However, if you have any questions about information you found on Wikipedia or elsewhere, please ask away. But I suspect that won’t be necessary. I’m visualizing your assignment as one that’s pretty basic (for junior high or high school, maybe?), so I’d recommend not overthinking this too much.
I wonder who the world’s youngest author is.
I wonder who is youngest here.
Rub it in my face why don’t you, you tyranno thesaurus-rexes. You’re the youngest duhhh!
When I look at my comments from when I first found this site, I was an obnoxious bitch with bad grammar.
I don’t know about that. Heart, who keeps asking about the Hulk, might be younger. She says it’s for a school project, so there’s a good chance it’s for primary school, year eight or nine (that’s seven and eight by your standards) (I think).
You should see the crap I used to write! Haha. My grammar was supercallafragilisticexpealATROCIOUS!
Oh, I thought you meant out of the veterans when you said age. We need more steady repliers, it’s more fun that way.
I think our levels of audience participation are fairly consistent with the “powers of ten” model of website participation. On a typical day, we have 300-350 readers, which includes 30 regular readers and 3-4 regular commenters writing around 25 comments.
If we surmise that our ratio of daily visitors to regular commenters will always be around 100:1, we can project how many regular commenters we will have with monthly growth rates. For the last four months, our site-traffic has grown about 30% from one month to the next. If we could sustain that rate of growth, in a year our website would receive (each day) 7000 visitors, 70 commenters and 450-475 comments.
It’s not a problem yet, but as site-traffic grows I suspect that it will prove increasingly difficult for me to read (let alone edit or respond to) every comment and question. I respond to most of our 25 comments within a day. On the other hand, if we got 100 or 200 comments a day, something will have to give: either the time I put into each response or the number of comments I respond to. I’d also have to cut back on the time I spend editing and formatting comments. I can take on a volunteer/intern when the editing and formatting tasks get out of hand, but I would feel uncomfortable taking on anyone to help respond to comments. (IE: what if it turns out that they’re actually clueless? It’s a lot harder to gauge someone’s writing instincts than their ability to proofread a brief comment).
That was mean, then again Power of Ten is pretty boring.
What? Do you mean the game show with Drew Carey? I was referring to a participation model that goes something like this.
lol u guys r like imature for ur age. ur like nerds doing this website
[EDITOR: I'm not touching this one. For God's sake, if you'd like to call someone immature, don't use the word "like" as an adverb.]
Superhero stories aren’t inherently less mature than most other fantasy or sci-fi or (worst) romance stories. So, if helping fantasy or sci-fi authors is a worthy professional endeavor, then I think that providing resources for the authors of superhero stories is also worthwhile.
Heart, youthfulness makes the world go round. I’m no nerd, I’m a cannibal.
I think it’s pretty funny that she called us immature immediately after a post where B.M. was discussing business school models. Well, no hard feelings. If she were in town, we’d buy her a drink… if we could! See us in another 10 years, maybe.
Well, if the work load ever gets too hectic… TRW, Brett, and I can take some responsibility off your hands, but I doubt we’re as seasoned as you, especially me.
I appreciate the offer. I’ll let you know if I ever start looking for someone.
Haha, I’m putting responsibility in other people’s hands that always makes for good TV.
Newflash:
I just recently mailed in my modeling/acting contract on priority shipping, so within 3-5 days I can start booking jobs. Yays *jumps up and down*
Immature? Well, I’m a teenager. It’s pretty much a rule that I have to be immature. Haha. I can’t even try to get my driver’s license yet.
Good luck, R.B!
I’ve got my learners, I get my driver’s in May. I’ll be 17 by then.
I haven’t even got my learners.
Heck, I’m still too young to do the test to get my learners!
I hate Superman. He’s so boring.
What would you change about Superman to make him more interesting?
Superman is too God-like, that’s why he’s boring.
I’d probably give him a time limit on his powers so he can only use it about an hour each day. That’ll make things more interesting.
I like your hour-long restriction, Moriras.
Another solution I’d consider is weakening his endurance and his speed. If a bullet to the eye could actually hurt him, a fight with thugs might be remotely dramatic. As it is, Superman can only have an interesting fight with a bona fide supervillain. Unfortunately, Superman rarely runs into any actual supervillains. (Lex Luthor, really? Again?)
Most importantly, I’d cut his speed. That would add to the dramatic potential. For example, if a superfast Superman had to free a few hostages, there’s no drama because he can zoom in and take down the criminals before they could kill the hostages. That’s unsatisfying. In contrast, someone without superspeed must rely on his stealth or wits, which is far more interesting. Superspeed also tends to make the character hard to challenge. For example, if the hero is chasing the villain early in your story, you probably want the crook to get away (otherwise, the story would end too quickly). But how does Superman fail to catch anybody? He’s way too fast to let someone get away.
Finally, I’d consider giving him a weakness that’s more likely to come up often than Kryptonite.
Maybe if he had a weakness that didn’t have a physical impact on his body, but more like a mental or psychological weakness, like every time he heard a church bell ring he would be paralyzed with fear. Well, maybe that’s not so dramatic, but you know what I mean.
One thing I like about Superman is that he’s one of the few superheroes that is undeniably sane and decent. Many other heroes are so gratuitously violent and so utterly indifferent to inflicting pain that they seem psychopathic (Wolverine, Batman, Rorschach, etc).
Unfortunately, his personality is very bland. It’s as though the writers picked his personality so that he would be the most perfect hero conceivable. Ick. He’s the prototypical Mary Sue.
To make his personality more interesting without compromising his refreshing normality, I’d give him a minor mental flaw or two. Here are a few candidates I’d consider: sheltered, smug, overconfident, hypocritical, old-fashioned*, and dishonest. I don’t think those would seriously compromise his likability, but they should give him more dramatic potential.
*Just don’t make him sound like Thor. Ick.
Superman is stupid. If I had to change something it would be very hard for I would have to change everything!
OK, if you were starting from scratch, what sort of hero would you write?
There’s something about Spiderman that annoys me. He’s all “with great power comes great responsibility”, but whenever someone directly threatens his family, he doesn’t care! In Spidey 3 when he’s battling the Sandman and thinks he’s killed him, since when does that become acceptable? I mean, it’s a human life, isn’t it? And he just kills him! Also, straight after he sees his Uncle Ben die, he goes after the man who he thinks has shot him and scares him so much that he falls out a window. He doesn’t even seem bothered by it later!
OK, please take this with a huge grain of salt because I’m a hardcore Spiderman apologist… I have been known to concoct elaborate excuses for One More Day as well as (when sufficiently inebriated) The Clone Saga and Eight-Armed Spiderman.
When Spiderman tries to kill Sandman, he’s under the influence of a sinister alien, so he’s not fully responsible for that. But even if Spiderman were fully himself, it would have been OK to kill Sandman. Killing a superpowered criminal (even a soft-edged one like Sandman) seems more acceptable to me than Wolverine’s cold-blooded copkillings in X2. Even if Sandman has benevolent goals now (like providing for his daughter), it stands to reason that he will eventually turn into a meglomaniac supervillain if allowed to live. In the Spiderman universe portrayed in the movies, there is an uncomfortably strong correlation between getting superpowers and turning into a remorseless killing machine.
One thing about Spiderman that does annoy me is that, like Superman, his villains tend to kill themselves off. For example, the Green Goblin managed to kill himself at the end of Spidey 1, thereby absolving Spiderman of any guilt in the matter. Likewise, the criminal that kills Uncle Ben falls to his own death without much help from Spiderman. Ditto Dr. Octopus, I think. It’s a great way for writers to wrap up loose ends and resolve the plot without introducing moral complexities about who killed whom, but after a while it gets a bit ridiculous. (In the Superman universe, virtually everyone that learns Superman’s secret identity dies or loses his memory suddenly thereafter).
I’d like to ask you two moral questions about Spiderman and Superman.
1: Is Peter Parker morally obliged to tell M.J. he’s Spiderman, or is his secrecy justified by “loose lips sink ships?”
2: Is it ethical for Clark Kent to work as a journalist? Or is he doing Metropolis a huge disservice by embroiling two of its most prominent journalists (him and Lois) in a huge conflict of interest by giving them a personal stake in Metropolis’ biggest story (Superman)?
I suggest you watch Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. Their characterization was excellent, Superman included. They foiled him with Batman by portraying him as overconfident, overtrusting, and slightly naive. Later though, he became disillusioned and slightly paranoid with Lex Luthor’s presidential campaign, and started struggling with his “take the high road” mentality. At one point, BATMAN had to tell him to calm down. Superman can be a great character. You just need to get Bruce Timm to do it.
As for Peter Parker, he is morally obliged to tell Mary Jane that he’s Spiderman. If he doesn’t tell MJ, it will lead to drama “Why are you always leaving? Where do you go? There’s another woman, isn’t there?!?” His only choices are to break it off or be open, even though his secrecy is justifiable and makes sense.
As for Superman, personally, that’s just a one down for him. If he is a talented journalist who loves his work, he would have to follow “his dream”. If anything I think being Superman would hurt his journalism career, his personal stake is a not beneficial (the only thing he can do is look more heroic). It is detrimental to his career because his presence on the scene and his perspective on the event would be obscure, he could only tell the story from Superman’s perspective (giveaway to secret identity).
Justice League used Batman and a few other characters to develop Superman. That worked out pretty well. Superman was also solid in The New Adventures of Lois and Clark, which was the first time (at least that I’m aware of) that Lois was really a co-star to Clark/Superman rather than just a prop. There are a few characters that are interesting enough to survive without major relationships (James Bond, Indiana Jones, most variations of Batman) but I’ve concluded that strong characters generally need interesting relationships. But Superman has so rarely had them.
What do you think?
If I had to rank Superman, Batman and Spiderman for awesomeness, it would go:
1. Batman (Good movies, but I find some of the seriousness taken out by putting “bat” at the beginning of everything. “Batarang”, “Batpod” etc)
2. Spiderman (I liked the movies but there were a few issues. Is everyone at his high school really stupid enough not to notice that he accidentally drags a tray out of the lunchroom with his webbing? Or defeats a guy twice his size with acrobatic movements that he was previously incapable of?)
3. Superman (What is achieved by him being invincible? Nothing. It’s boring because he can’t be injured or lose any fights except to supervillains, who get their heads kicked in later on. Plus he has superflight and strength, when it would work better for him to have one or the other.)
Superman may be the first proper superhero, but that doesn’t mean that he has to be such a Gary Stu. He needs another weakness. Fatigue or the inability to go near people with a certain personality. Like:
“Kent! You have to interview Polly Hitton today!”
“Will do!”
(Gets knocked back because he can’t go near her personality type)
I know you guys are getting tired of me (frankly, I’m quite tired of myself). This is the last time, I’m going to change my story, I SWEAR. Actually, it’s not as much a changing of the story as it is changing some major aspects. I don’t want to deal with the confusing aspect of overly-diverse magic, I’m going to change it like this instead each mage has only one type of power (i.e. one mage with ice powers, one mage with superstrength) and that mage takes a group of children and trains them as part of the contest (like my earlier idea). Their powers are still considered magic though. Thusly, Jiminy will be a water mage and Adrian will be one of his pupils, upon reaching a far enough status (as in not getting eliminated) they gain the ability to morph, although this may bring about the aspect of a “part-time dragon etc” changing when convenient. So I’m making it so that they have to transform at least a little to utilize their powers.
I’m also taking away the weapons again, unless that’s someone’s powers. Hmm, I’m more of a sci-fi fan, so maybe instead of magic the “mage” (or genetic engineer) would infuse higher status competitors with alien DNA so they could transform, up until them they had to use some sort of alien technology for their powers. I like the sci-fi alien based powers as opposed to magic. So instead of different fields of magic, I would have different breeds of aliens that do different things. I would set it on modern Earth, and have alien existence an unknown to human until the story kicks off. I would need to do a little more alteration to the core story, but I like the sci-fi revamp. Good thing I haven’t got to the powers yet.
–Don’t worry about having to change your story. It happens to everyone… a lot.
–If each student has a different kind of power (like superstrength vs. ice powers), that might make the idea of a mentor slightly more complicated. I don’t anticipate it’ll be a real problem, but it may take more time to explain what/how a mentor would teach to a student with different powers.
–I think this story could work as sci-fi or fantasy, but just make sure you pick one. If it’s sci-fi, please don’t mix in fantasy words like magic/mage/wizard, etc.
–The morphing may cause part-time dragon problems, but as long as you’re aware of those it should be OK.
As soon as Adrian made it far enough, he would be infused with an aquatic alien’s DNA, giving him an aquatic form, control over water, and in his aquatic form he can create ample amounts of water from his lungs and pores. He can also breath underwater and swim excellently in his aquatic form. In additon, he can sense clean water and humidity in the air. His body can also filter salt water into clean water. I’m still wish-washy over giving him advanced powers like liquifaction and aquaportation. Up until getting genetically altered, he uses technology to have control over water, upon getting him new DNA he is forced to give up the tech.
Weaknesses:
When in human form, he can only control water when properly hydrated and even then he can’t control vast amounts or perform very skillful acts with it. At first, he has poor control over transformation, often partially changing when inconvenient or not being able to change when needed. He often sweats profusely (like me) and/or his body leaks. He can only control particularly clean freshwater and salt water. It is difficult for his body to produce water, so he often looks for external sources. His powers are also greatly affected by the Moon, strongest during Full Moon time including daytime, no powers during New Moon, his powers are pretty constant on the in-between phases.
Of course, I’ll have to rework his origin story, but that will be relatively simple to do.
Suggestions? Opinions?
Liquifaction (the ability to turn into a liquid) sounds workable, although it kind of depends on what sort of villains you have in mind. If his villains could hit him when he was watery, that’d probably be fine. If it’s essentially a get out of danger free card, I think it would be undramatic. Likewise, I recommend against “aquaportation.”
Being affected by the moon is a nifty idea (kind of like tides how are affected by the moon?) but it may be hard for readers to remember which phase of the moon corresponds to which effect. Also, it might be hard for remembers to determine/remember which phase of the moon the story is in. I suspect that Adrian will frequently narrate details like “Oh no! Not the New Moon again!” However, I love that his powers don’t work during the New Moon. Time to improvise!
I suggest you watch Avatar. If you have watched Avatar, watch it again. Pay close attention to the waterbenders. Also, I’m glad you settled on a definitive story. Once you have everything set up, I look forward to an Alex vs. Adrian type-as-you-go rpg battle. (haha, they both have “a” names.) You powers setup looks pretty solid. However, I would reccommend a side-affect to them being genetically altered (Scientifically speaking, there should be consequences. Stylistically speaking, it’s a good idea. Practically speaking, your hero needs a weakness). Also, ringtails aren’t associated with water, so I’d reccommend another animal. A good idea would be an Osprey. It’s powerful, water-associated, and yet not totally useless outside of water like, say, a dolphin or killer whale. Good luck!
I love Avatars rendition of waterbenders, but that it’s spiritually based, which is more on the fantasy side and I wanted to avoid that. I did use the aspect of the Moon like Avatar did and I am considering using some other things altering water viscocity and letting him control vapor. He has some early one weaknesses and one recurring weakness (Moon, but that is also a benefactor). He isn’t totally helpless out of water, if he was my story would suffer greatly. I’ll try to come up with a definitive weakness.
I’m probably going to take out the animal nicknames.
I, too, look forward to that RPG battle.
Thanks (B.Mac, what about you, what’s your opinion?)
I agree that ringtails aren’t really associated with water. But if the character literally turns into another animal, an aquatic animal like dolphins or orcas would probably be unworkable. If you didn’t like ospreys, you could try an amphibian like a frog, boa, alligator or crocodile. If you’re really stretching, you could try something like a hippopotamus, which is actually quite ferocious despite being thought of as completely weak and helpless.
Making him prone to dehydration would be a good weakness. maybe heat sensitivity or sensitivity to electricity. I’ll think on it.
Yeah, I’m going to use all three, maybe in his aquatic form he is more susceptible to physical damage because his skin/scales are soft.
Scales are harder than skin actually. But he could be susceptible to sound waves.
(e.g. tapping on the fishbowl disorients the fish inside. Thus the “do not tap” rule at aquariums)
you could call it the “fishbowl effect”
I still tapped on my fish tank, but I’m pretty sadistic. I know scales are harder than skin, I’m just trying to come up with something. I like the fishbowl effect.
So, I think I have some good weaknesses, maybe too many though:
Sound
Electricity
Heat
Dehydration
Moon (but can also benefit)
Lack of control (until he gets used to his new self)
B.Mac should be here soon. It’s almost 9 p.m.
Yeah, I think that’s a lot of weaknesses.
A temporary lack of control/learning curve is pretty self-explanatory, so readers won’t have to worry about remembering that at all.
The moon is something they will have to remember. If they remember that dehydration is a problem (which sounds pretty simple), then heat is a self-explanatory problem. Electricity being the scourge of water elements is a staple of many superhero and anime stories (”Pikachu rips Squirtle a new one with Thunder! It’s gruesomely effective!”), so I don’t think that will be hard to remember.
The sound one is a bit more problematic, I think. It’s more a function of the fishbowl and the water than the fish actually being vulnerable to sound and vibrations.
So I’d recommend making his main weaknesses dehydration (and anything that can cause dehydration, like heat/electricity), the New Moon and his temporary lack of control. I think that will give you enough to work with but not so much that readers will struggle to remember what’s going on.
For my story, I want my characters who have powers to get drained by them. IE, the stronger powers is like the equivalent of running a mile, the lessers are like a short sprint. That keeps even the stronger characters in a check as not being ultimate.
Now, I read in other articles that “immortality” is looked down upon. Well, in my story there are is a parallel world next to ours. In that world, there are 2 races of superbeings (well, super to humans anyways). They can only be killed in one way, but I’m still thinking on ideas of what way that should be, so any ideas would be nice. They do age at a slower pace than humans, but age nonetheless in their world. One of the races was banished from the world and live in the human world in hiding. They then stopped aging on our plane.
I want their main weakness to be the one way they can get killed. But, I do want them to be able to be weakened in battle by using their powers so they can’t always rely on them. Thanks for the input!
Ok, a fatigue parameter is usually an effective weakness, so that’s good. My main concern, is that the two races of superbeings seem like Homo-Superiors, which could be problematic later on. To balance this you should probably change an aspect of the two races to be more humanly relatable.
As for a main weakness for your races, I would recommend something that doesn’t completely cripple your character i.e. Kryptonite is to Superman as water is to fire. Maybe, their powers work on a time and/or fatigue basis, if they overuse their powers or use them for too long they become powerless mortals temporarily, making them vunerable. I’m guessing this is more of a sci-fi story, but I’m not sure, maybe some form of technology is their weakness. Conversely, if this is a fantasy story maybe a certain type of magic is their weakness.
I may be able to help you more if you elaborate on the discrepancies between the races.
Oh, if you don’t know what a homo-superior is, there is an article on this site about them under “Improve your Writing” just go to “50 more writing articles” and scroll down it’s near the top.
(B.Mac or Brett, how do you post links without them being a URL?)
Just post the URL and I can change it into a real link later. I think Wordpress prevents guest commenters from using most kinds of HTML coding.
Okay, well. One race is called the Pyrians, tentatively for now. They are a spartan-like race. Predominately war bound people. As a whole, they’re an unlikeable race and that’s the way I want it. There are a few characters who play major roles but aren’t like the other Pyrians. The king is the main “villain” in my story. He is set on dominating Earth so that he can stop aging. He’s very vain, not to mention he’s power hungry and wants to be the ultimate power. (If he stops aging, he can be king forever).
The “wanderers” again, tentatively named, are the other race. They’re a more peaceful, close to human race since they’ve lived among humans for a hundred years or so. My main characters are from this race. They were banished from the other world by the Pyrians in a war a long time ago. Since the Pyrians are more battle-oriented, they had the upper hand in battle, but the wanderers have the ability to teleport between the two worlds. Pyrians can’t.
My MC is a Pyrian/wanderer hybrid. She was raised by her wanderer mother on Earth so she feels more inclined to the humans and Earth. I still have to work out her story line as far as that goes, but I plan on her knowing fairly early about who her dad is.
it’s totally fantasy, no sci-fi elements to it. I think I have the main points of the races down.
Thanks for the comments! Definitely something to think about.
At the end of The Incredibles, what happens to Syndrome?
The villain? Doesn’t he get sucked into a jet-engine? (I’m still astonished that The Incredibles was only rated PG. At certain points, the movie got distinctly creepy).
I love the Incredibles. I was a little surprised that it wasn’t rated higher, because I wouldn’t think that the guy at the start who tries to kill himself and Helen’s suspicion that Bob is cheating would be quite appropriate for younger audiences. Not to mention all the violence, while animated and un-gory, being pretty brutal. Plus, something rarely seen in animated movies, people actually die. Like the henchman who crashed into the cliff.
Also, the idea of systematically killing off the superheroes is a little bit creepy even BEFORE they found the skeletons. I was also unnerved by how they handled the death of the villain: death by jet-engine? Eww. That sounds like something out of a gulag.
However, there was a lot about the Incredibles that I really liked. Samuel L. Jackson’s character was remarkably funny and I thought that the movie (although too stilted) was still reasonably intelligent.
I loved baby Jack’s powers, but I wasn’t a big fan of everyone else’s abilities. Incredibles was awesome.
Are you guys like up until 2 a.m. typing, that’s when I need to be on then.
I find that it’s best for me to be on from about four PM to nine PM. That’s about when commenting shuts down for the night. I won’t expect any of my comments to be answered until tomorrow, because it’s 9:20.
Today, I was on from about 11 PM to 5 AM. I don’t think that will be typical.
TRW, I think you’re in a different time zone than me and B.Mac, what time zone do you live in?
Australia, perhaps? That would explain the massive time-zone difference and Dr. Who references. :)
Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and free!
I’m not at all like the stereotyped Australians, though. I don’t really watch sports, I don’t like barbecues and I don’t live in the desert. Haha.
That is so frickin awesome, austrailians used to be my favorite type of people, but now is brazilians, I’m part portuguese. Do you have an accent?
Ok, I saw your posts, I agree there are many weaknesses, but the ones you said ought to work perfectly. What I didn’t explain was that each mentor is the alien that their student will, possibly, become. For example, Jimelly (formerly Jiminy, get it “Timilly”) is an aquatic alien, thusly he will infuse his student that make it far enough with his own DNA. So Adrian will become the same race as Jimelly so he can be taught about that alien’s abilities. Each mentor is a different type of alien, so that’s how there is power diversity. It will definitely be a sci-fi story, I just used mage as an example name.
As for the part-time dragon problems, This is worked out because he really can’t do much or go along with the story as a human, so his need for morphing into aquatic form is justified. There will be time where it may be convenient, though, like if was surrounded by a gang or need to swim across a pond to get somewhere.
No, I don’t really have an accent. Maybe a little.
I hate The Incredibles, but I liked Jack Jack Attack. And I love Frozone.
I had an idea for a character, sort of based on a “balance” idea. Her right hand heals but her left hand withers/injures (I’m not really sure how to describe it). The idea is that she can’t use her healing on herself (so, no regeneration) because it’s always counterbalanced by her other powers. And these powers are always “switched on”, so if she grabs hold of somebody with her left hand she could seriously hurt them or even kill them if she held on for long enough - except the person was also in contact with her right hand, which goes back to the whole balance thingy.
To mix things up slightly, I was thinking of making it so she’s left-handed, and therefore whenever she automatically goes to touch somebody or do something with her left hand she has to check herself and make sure she’s not going to cause injury.
I can’t really think of any other limits/problems to this apart from exhaustion, but that’s a pretty abvious one. Is this enough, or do I need to come up with some? Any suggestions?
When you say her right hand hurts people, how do you mean? Does it drain them, poision them, weaken them or just cause them pain until they die?
I essentially like the power, the balance idea is very fresh. She has no control over her powers, so that would hurt you or. Do her powers come with a side-effect and can they be controlled/halted by wearing gloves. Can her destructive or healing powers be manifested into anything, like a ball oh healing energy?
I think a good factor that she has is that she is essentially human with a superboost, this could lots of improvised scenes where she has to think on her feet, but this can also be bad, what if the villian is cross town and she doesn’t have any mode of super transportation to get to him?
I meant “When you say her LEFT hurts people”.
As for her left-handedness, this could be problematic because people aren’t usually checking themselves for what hand they are using when they, say, pat their friend on the back or are playing a game with friends. So even though she is cautious, I doubt she would realize every time she is about to use her left hand.
You raise some very good points. I was thinking that her powers could be controlled by wearing gloves, because otherwise I could see her developing into this angsty character who says “woe!” a lot. Organic material only.
I’m still not sure about the left hand, but the idea is in general that it hurts (uh, yeah >>;).
Draining has potential, because that could give her a boost by stealing their energy and ultimately make her feel stronger. I detect potential angst, though. The idea i had in mind was sort of like aging - I suppose weakening with an unhealthy dose of pain for good measure would be the best thing. And easy to describe.
I didn’t want her powers to be used without touch - so no healing-ball-of-energy, no destructive-blast. On the other hand, she was supposed to fill a semi-support role so I don’t think this is a massive problem.
Your point about the villain on the other side of town is a good one, but that’s part of the fun/challenge. ;) Also, the idea I have in my head places her as part of a team.
Good point about the left-handedness. I may leave that out - or even make her ambidextrous, lol.
Oh, okay if she’s part of a team I’m sure someone can give her a ride. Maybe you could make her “bad” hand controllable to an extent. For example, instead of just hurting them, she can weaken, poison, drain, and with prolonged touch cause death. That way she can switch between a small resevoir of abilities.
That’s an idea - that could be good to as in as the story evolves and the characters get more powerful (this isn’t just random, by the way, it has to do with my origin story).
But I want to stick with the balance idea, so ideally the weakening etc. should have some sort of counter-balance. Healing is an obvious one and giving strength/energy too. Can you think of anything else?
This is a big help. Thanks!
Maybe invigoration, giving whomever she touches a temporary boost in their powers as well as energy and strength, that could add to her support factor as a team member. <