As for the powers, Iza’s is fine but Katherine’s is problematic. If she can see the future, she can see the outcome of a given battle or ordeal; therefore, there isn’t much to challenge her.

Katherine has telepathy and has sporadic visions of the future but only if they are important to her (ex. she has a dream/vision of where her best friend is buried bcuz her friend went missing). Both her powers are new to her and she cant control them well so they are both random and dont happen excactly when she wants them to.

Iza has telekinesis but can only move the object if she can see it and must be able to move her hands and she has also trained her eye to see fast moving objects in slow motion

Neither of my characters want powers and only use them if necessary…They also wont be using them to fight other super people just average humans but the humans will have weapons(guns and knives)

Are my characters limited enough or too limited???
Im not really sure how long the fight scenes should be either so all advice is welcome

Newton’s laws of motion state quite clearly that ‘to every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction’.

The translation of this is that by using telekinesis, you can impart kinetic force below you, or create something of a kinetic drag away from you, which thus carries you through the air. Thus; flight of a ‘Superman’ style. It’s actually a whole lot more efficient than wings on a scientific basis because the energy requirements for an ordinary human-sized (and, to an extent, shaped) mass to achieve winged flight basically make it rather awkwardly difficult. That isn’t to say that you *can’t* use it, and I’ve personally used winged-humanoid flyers myself in a few areas; if we were letting science get in the way, telekinesis would be right out from the start.

Of course, you can also mix them up. Have it so that the wings obey actual genuine scientific principles, and make it so that most of the *actual* flight is telekinetic, with the wings being used to aid with steering and aerodynamics. My ultimate tip is for you to remember that powers can often open more options than just the ones that are written on the tin.

Hm, somewhat reminiscient of the ‘angels’ in James Patterson’s Maximum Ride. A motley crue of children, previous government experiments, with spliced genes. Part human, part bird. And they also can do martial arts, and I’m sure one of them has mind powers. I haven’t read the series in a long time, but then again, I never liked the series.

I don’t really understand how martial arts, telekinesis, and flying all go together. Care to explain the plot a bit more?

Would you perhaps consider something that isn’t “farm in Kansas”? It sounds a bit cliched and gives a pretty generic initial impression of him being religion. Just a shift in location would do really interesting things, such as…

… farm (plantation) in Alabama with possible implications on religion/discrimination?
… ranch hand from Montana with possible implications on how he became obsessed with eye for an eye (dealing with coyotes, …)?

Or you can change the profession to something different, e.g., mechanic’s son.

Keep in mind that when you say he’s from a farm from Kansas, you suggest quite a bit about his childhood. I suggest that if you think about anything formative that you may want to have had happened in his childhood and build his “x from y” information from there (e.g., preacher’s son who used to be the “good kid” to his troublemaker older brother w/some associated guilt due to parental preference). To be honest, he can gain upper body strength from anywhere, but picking up things like religion, an investigative spirit, an ego, etc. aren’t quite so easy to come by and merit more attention.

I’m thinking his nature is more investigative. A natural science lover, if you will.

In fact, I’ve decided to change his age to 23 to have a more plausible origin story that, in turn, reveals something about his identity. Here’s the origin story that I just came up with:

Christian Bridger, a college student who has an obvious interest in physics, finds himself as one of three student lab assistants to renowned physicist Dr. Maurice Bonifaz.

Dr. Bonifaz is a world famous physicist, loved by the media (mostly due to his insulting brand of comedy (he insults fellow physicists to get laughts)). Consequently, he is hated by his fellow physicists. Colleagues not only hate him for his comedic style, but also for his “ludicrous” idea about the five types (not states) of matter. These, according to Dr. Bonifaz are: regular matter, anti-matter, dark matter, strange matter, and negative matter.

Dr. Bonifaz classifies the kinds of matter based on their reactions to regular matter and to the so-called quantum foam of the universe. Dr. Bonifaz believed he could convert any kind of matter to another simply by bouncing a new kind of particle at any kind of matter.

But Dr. Bonifaz was also extremely careful and was a firm believer in the strange matter apocalypse (a strangelet (strange matter atom) will convert regular matter to strange matter, turning Earth into a strange matter blob if a strangelet was ever let loose). While he believed he could actually convert any kind of matter to any other kind of matter, he didn’t pursue it, due to his superstitiousness.

But Christian Bridger, who was a big fan of Dr. Bonifaz, wanted this theory tested. So one night, Christian stayed late at the lab and worked to try to create such a particle. During one of his attempts, intense radiation was emitted, but Christian had no knowledge of it. He just kept working.

Suddenly, Christian collapsed on the floor of the lab, the particle accelerator glowing.

In the morning, Christian awoke and the particle accelerator had stopped working in the middle of the night. Christian deamed the experiment a failure, and failed to let Dr. Bonifaz in on his late-night experimentation.

The experiment isn’t really a failure though. As Christian soon finds out.

Due to that age change (to 23), I’m thinking of just going for the 18-30 year old demographic.

Something else to mention: Christian can’t use these powers at the same time. So he can’t “ghost” while he’s invisible or teleport while he is invisible.

“Ghosting” (I assume that’s what you call phasing) is his most unlimited ability. It’s only limited in that he can’t phase through lead.

Invisibility is limited in that he can’t conceal his heat signature and that someone could still bump into him, revealing his invisibility. And he can only remain invisible for twenty minutes every two hours. So he could turn invisible at 3:00 p.m., would become visible at 3:20, and not become invisible again until 5:00 p.m..

His teleportation (which I may or may not keep) only works on himself. For example, he can’t grab a hold of a criminal and teleport him to prison. He can only teleport himself (that includes his uniform, but not anything he’s holding).

One of his best friends, named Will Marshel, works as an intern for the local newspaper (Christian goes to Hapsburg University (fictional) in Manhatten (real)), so that’s how he get the interesting leads to investigate.

His girlfriend, Hanna Carly, is studying to be a forensic specialist, her whole family being big on anti-crime. She is the first person Christian confronts about the accident, and she is also the first (and only) person who knows that Christian has these powers, besides Christian himself. In fact, Hanna is actually the person who came up Christian’s superhero name: Phase.

It was largely due to Hanna’s urgings that Christian had decided to become a superhero. Though Christian had never considered becoming a villain anyway (Christian is (and this is not the reason his name is Christian) a devout Christrian, so he’s got a religious motivation for avoiding criminal activity and going for heroic activity. Hanna was just the extra nudge that pushed him to become a hero).

So, a few words about Christian/Phase’s personality:
- He is quite religious
- He is a man of science, and sometimes religion and science clash in his mind (he’s a firm believer of evolution, but he also believes in God, so sometimes he’s got massive debates in his head). Sort of a dual personality
- He is extremely investigative, sometimes to the point of irrationality
- He is obsessed with the saying “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. Sometimes, because of this mentality, his girlfriend has to confront him about the double-edged sword of justice (not only do villains need to be brought to justice, heros may need to be brought to justice as well)
- He has a large ego, believing he can do things no one else can. This is what caused him to try the experiment which gave him his powers
- He does have a soft spot for people who can’t defend themselves, which, to his ego, is almost everyone
- He is quite intelligent, able to understand difficult concepts and think logically, though he can think creatively
-He is about six feet tall, thin, but has good upper body strength, due to spending most of his life on a farm in Kansas

Does that help? Are there still any problems or things you’re in the dark about?

I’d be happy to tell you or tweak my hero based on constructive criticism.

Anyway, a few nights ago, I had a dream that I could suddenly turn invisible, “ghost” (walk through walls), and teleport at will. When I woke, I really wanted to do a story about a character who has the same powers.

Here are his powers (the secret identity’s name is Christian Bridger):
1. able to turn himself invisible to the eye (he bends light, which means that he still emits heat)

2. able to “ghost” (basically, he can excite his atomic structure in such a way that he moves through the wall. Though the wall can’t be made out of dense materials (such as lead))

3. able to teleport (not sure how this is accomplished, though I’m thinking it has something to do with the ability for his atoms to interact with the quantum pore structure of the universe, allowing him to teleport from point A to point B almost instantaneously)

Some limitations I’ve thought up:
- his powers don’t work in lead, being ultra-dense and being well-know to block out particles (so if he were locked in a lead-walled room, he’d be effectively powerless)
- when he’s invisible, he can still be detected by heat sensor
- in order to teleport, he has to see the place first (sort of like “Jumper”, only Christian Bridger can just look at a detailed picture and teleport to that place)

So what I need your help with is:
- Can anyone (who is scientifically minded) help be think of a plausible origin story?
- Can anyone help me think of a good superhero name for this guy?
- Are there limitations I haven’t accounted for or just didn’t include?
- If anyone is interested, I need help fleshing out an archnemesis for this guy.
- Is there any information I need to include that I’ve forgot?

BTW, this guy is about sixteen, maybe a year older. Sort of like Spiderman in that sense. And I’m planning on aiming it at a teenage/twenty-something year old audience.

I also have a character who can see the future – however, she can’t control what she sees or when she sees it, and the clarity of her visions varies (at one point, she can only hear what’s going on). She can see things connected directly to her, her own future, or even random things which have nothing to do with her. This ability causes her to be thought insane by everyone with the exception of her sister.

Tell us about your character. What are they like?

- Wings