I usually create a Playlist once I've got specific scenes imagined, or hammered out my takes on essential NPCs like Lois or Lex. For Superman, though, my go-to is always "Invincible" by Muse
Song title twinsies!
Who knows, maybe next we'll find out that our moms have the same name or something.
C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y
_________________________________________________________ Clark Joseph Kent _________________________________________________________ 35 | Married _________________________________________________________ Daily Planet | Kryptonian-born American
N O T A B L E A B I L I T I E S & T O O L S N O T A B L E A B I L I T I E S & T O O L S
A B I L I T I E S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ FLIGHT Superman has total control over his personal gravitational field, allowing him the ability to fly at speeds up to Mach 20, fast enough to circumnavigate the globe in roughly 5 minutes.
◼ SUPER STRENGTH Superman's cells can generate nuclear fusion, creating tremendous energy output. This allows him to lift objects weighing up to 300,000 metric tons, roughly the mass of the Empire State Building. This works in conjunction with his gravitational field, which can extend into any object he touches to prevent collapse. When focused into a physical strike, Superman can deliver punches and kicks with a force roughly equal to an artillery cannon, though with exertion he can deliver a strike of over a hundred kilotons of force.
◼ INVULNERABILITY Superman's immense strength and gravity manipulation can also absorb tremendous impacts. He is impervious to most conventional weapons, with anything short of high-yield explosives being little more than an inconvenience. He can withstand the impact of a 5-megaton nuclead warhead, though doing so would render him unconscious.
◼ SUPER SENSES Superman is capable of seeing the entire electromagnetic spectrum, focusing his vision to a subatomic level, looking through solid objects, and zooming his vision out to several light years. In addition, his senses of hearing, smell, and touch are superhuman, though not to the extent of his vision.
◼ HEAT VISION Superman can emit energy through his eyes in the form of high-powered lasers. These can be focused with surgical precision, or released in a high-yield blast with a maximum output of 50 petawatts from each eye. These beams can easily cut through anything short of Vibranium or Adamantium. Using his Heat Vision drains Superman's energy reserves quickly.
◼ FLARE STATE In desperate circumstances, Superman can burn through all of his energy reserves at once, entering a temporary “Flare State” that amplifies all of his powers exponentially. In this state, he can move the mass of entire planets, move at a significant fraction of the speed of light, and absorb attacks with the power of a large star. However, he can only remain in this state for a few seconds at a time, and doing so leaves him completely drained of his power- every second Superman spends in the Flare State leaves him powerless for an hour afterward.
-
T O O L (S) ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE A massive complex buried beneath the ice near the North Pole, the Fortress was created to be a Kryptonian colony on Earth. With Krypton's destruction, however, its only visitor is Kal-El, who uses it as a headquarters, training ground, information center, and armory. It contains an impossible library of all Kryptonian knowledge, containment units for exotic technology that Superman can't let fall into the wrong hands, and fabricators to create Kryptonian tech in limited amounts, all overseen by the virtual intelligence Kelex. -
W E A K N E S S E S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ KRYPTONITE Irradiated shards of the lost world of Krypton, Kryptonite crystals are inert in their natural state, but when an electrical current is put through them, they emit waves of radiation that are poisonous to Superman. Exposure to Kryptonite radiation causes the power plants of Superman’s cells to melt down, reducing his powers and causing pain and disorientation. The stronger the current is focused through a crystal, the more intense the effects of Kryptonite poisoning can be. In addition, wounds to Superman caused by Kryptonite weapons do not heal, creating permanent weak spots.
◼ SENSORY MANIPULATION Superman's enhanced senses can be used against him. Sound-based attacks can cause him pain, as well as disrupt his equilibrium and make flight near impossible. In addition, light-based attacks can cause him temporary blindness.
◼ NON-PHYSICAL VULNERABILITY While Superman is nearly invulnerable to physical harm, he has no defenses against attacks that are non-physical in nature, such as psychic abilities, magic spells, or manipulation from supernatural entities.
-
L I M I T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ NAIVETE Superman strives to embody both the best values of humanity and the people of Krypton. However, his kindhearted nature and optimism, as wells his tendency to rush to action in an emergency, make him susceptible to manipulation from more cynical and cunning opponents. While he isn't stupid and has gotten wise to the likes of Lex Luthor's tactics, he's still liable to be lured into traps or be distracted from larger schemes.
◼ POWER RESERVES While Superman's peak strength may appear to be limitless, his endurance isn't. Clark's cells can store tremendous amounts of energy, but when that energy is spent, it takes time to replenish. Overuse of his powers or exerting them beyond their threshold can leave Clark severely weakened for a time, and burning through it all to enter his Flare State will leave him completely powerless for hours.
-
T H E S T O R Y S O F A R... T H E S T O R Y S O F A R...
Most people believe that ‘the Superman’ first made his presence known five years ago, intervening in the Reach’s invasion of Earth to turn the tide in humanity’s favor. Those who have been paying closer attention, however, can see traces of his presence reaching back over three decades. In the spring of 1990, the town of Smallville, Kansas, was rocked by a storm unlike anything on record, with buffeting winds and roaring thunder accompanied by reports of strange lights in the sky. While UFO nuts and conspiracy theorists swarmed the town for a few years, curiosity eventually faded, and the people of Smallville were happy to be left alone.
The outside world didn’t need to know about the mysterious metallic object Jon and Martha Kent found in Miller’s Field the next morning. Or the pod they found inside of it…after all, Clark was such a nice boy, even if he was a little peculiar.
Clark Kent’s childhood was something close to idyllic, his parents working hard to make sure their son got the chance to enjoy the last remaining crumbs of American Pie. For the first thirteen years of his life, young Clark’s only worries were those of any boy: trying to make friends and fit in, standing up to the schoolyard bully, working up the courage to steal a first kiss with his sweetheart Lana. Behind it, though, he always felt a certain unease, a disquiet that kept him up at night, a knowledge that he didn’t truly belong.
This was made stronger by recurring dreams, wild visions of a strange and incredible world, filled with people who worked miracles like it was nothing. The more he dreamed of this world, of these amazing people, the less he felt at home in Smallville.
At age ten, the Kents told Clark the truth of how he came into their lives. They explained that the night he came to Smallville, they saw a hole open up in the sky. That hole had been a tunnel of some kind, and on the other side of that tunnel, they saw what looked like a planet, and before the tunnel closed, they saw that planet explode. The incredible world from Clark’s dreams was real…and it was gone.
Over the next few years, Clark began to change. He found he could see things no one else could see, do things no one else could do. At thirteen, the jack slipped out from under his Pa’s tractor while he was working on it, and Clark caught the tractor with one hand. At fourteen, Lana Lang confided in Clark that her father had abused her, and when Clark glared at the man, Mr. Lang’s clothes caught on fire. At fifteen, Clark slipped and fell off the roof of the barn, and he never hit the ground. At seventeen, a flash flood threatened to devastate all of Smallville…until Clark changed the course of the river itself with his bare hands.
At eighteen, Clark left Smallville, determined to find his place in the world. As he traveled, Clark became fascinated with uncovering the truth about things, which led to him taking up journalism as a career. The Kents’ upbringing instilled in him a strong sense of justice, compelling him to use his abilities to help those who were suffering. Like a wandering cowboy, he went from town to town, country to country, fighting warlords and rescuing disaster victims before disappearing off into the sunset in a uniquely American way. Rumors and urban legends sprang up in his wake, and while Clark always kept moving and tried not to draw too much attention to himself, he found himself hounded by government agencies, military intelligence, and a pair of overly enthusiastic truth-seekers: the excitable photographer Jimmy Olsen, and the fearless reporter Lois Lane.
At twenty-five, Clark found the missing pieces to the mysteries of his lost world. Sneaking into a facility owned by the global megacorporation LexCorp, Clark found the pod that had brought him to Smallville, which had been recovered by the government and eventually wound up in the hands of the controversial billionaire Lex Luthor. Absconding with the pod and taking it far up into the Arctic, Clark was able to unlock the strange craft and communicate with the intelligence inside.
Though the craft was damaged and the information was incomplete, he learned about the lost world of Krypton, and his birth name: Kal-El. He learned of the wonders his people had accomplished, and how his birth parents Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van sent him here to escape the doom that had destroyed them. He learned that his father and several generations of his family had been members of the Sons of Krypton, a righteous order of heroes and warriors who fought to uphold the virtues of their world, to shine as a beacon of hope in hopeless times. And he learned his destiny was to bring the best hopes of Krypton to the people of Earth. As the craft transformed into a sprawling underground Fortress, Clark- or Kal- disappeared into its depths to begin his training and master his innate powers.
Five years later, he emerged, not a wandering do-gooder, but an emissary of a lost world. In the time he was gone, Earth had fallen under the control of the Reach, and the struggle against these oppressors seemed hopeless. It was then that Kal made his presence known to the world, defeating the Reach’s elite warriors with ease and turning the war in Earth’s favor. It seemed his destiny, then, would be to change the world as Kal-El, the Last Son of Krypton. That name, however, wouldn’t stick, as Lois Lane, the reporter who had chased him across the globe for years, gave him a name of his own: ‘Superman.’
Sadly, Kal’s celebration of debuting to the world was cut short. The destruction caused by the conflict with the Reach stretched far and wide, and one of the casualties of the war was the complete annihilation of the town of Smallville, including the Kents. While Kal had saved the Earth, he had failed to save the people who mattered most to him. In effect, he had become the sole survivor of two lost worlds, and he swore to honor them both, living both as Kal-El and Clark Kent.
For the past five years, Clark has grown into his role as Superman, which has been a difficult double life. On the one hand, he tries to fulfill his destiny as a Son of Krypton, to help those in need and fight the forces of evil. On the other, he tries to live the happy, meaningful life the Kents always wanted for him. Both his career as a journalist and his crusade against injustice have led him to the bustling city of Metropolis, which has been molded since the Reach invasion into an oppressive technocracy by Lex Luthor and his all-pervasive AI Brainiac. The advent of the metahumans has brought all manner of challenges, allies, and threats. And his personal life has been no less eventful, as his friendly rivalry with Lois Lane eventually became a whirlwind romance, and the two have recently gotten married.
Superman’s life faces no shortage of challenges ahead, both as Kal-El and as Clark. As the Last Son of Krypton, he wields incredible power. As the Last Son of Smallville, he has incredible strength of spirit. And in the times ahead, he’ll need both.
P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S )
It's been a very long time since I've gotten the chance to try on the big red cape, but Superman is the one character I've spent more time and energy thinking about than any other. I've written and rewritten concepts for Clark and his world more times than I'd care to count, and in that time I've cooked up plenty of concepts that can alter Superman's world while not altering the fundamental character. While I fully intend to portray Clark in a classic vein of being a good-hearted, optimistic, slightly corny but always earnest man who just happens to wield absurd amounts of power, I plan on making significant changes to the nature of his powers, his weaknesses, and most radically, his origins.
◼ POWERS AND WEAKNESSES Rather than drawing his powers from the yellow sun, Kryptonians are instead attuned to the fundamental forces of the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. This is partially to address the question of how Superman (in his more insane moments) can pull off universe-level feats if his power source is only a single star, without getting all meta like the comics where he's powered by "the Story of Superman" or whatever.
His powers still manifest in the classical sense, just with a different explanation for them. His flight and lifting strength come from his ability to manipulate his own gravitational field and extend it around anything he touches. His combat strength, durability, and Heat Vision all stem from his cells effectively behaving like microscopic fusion reactors. And his various flavors of super-vision come from being able to sense the entire electromagnetic spectrum, as does his ability to absorb energy like sunlight.
Speaking of absorbing energy, Kryptonite behaves differently as well, as it is effectively inert unless an electromagnetic current is run through it. This is meant to solve how inconsistent Kryptonite is in most media- how sometimes Clark can take a bath in the stuff with barely a headache, and other times a small pebble will put him on his knees. In this take, the more power you put through a Kryptonite crystal, the more damage it can do-- and that damage is permanent. Part of Clark's invulnerability includes a healing factor that will allow him to regenerate from any injury, except injuries caused by Kryptonite, which leave a permanent, de-powered scar. It's going to be an exceedingly rare thing, but the more times Superman or any other Kryptonian is exposed to it, the more permanent weak spots he'll have.
◼ METROPOLIS Following the "fight the power" theme of this game, Lex Luthor has used the devastation of the Reach war to rebuild Metropolis in his image. From the outside, it's a slick, ultra-modern techno-topia, featuring the world's most advanced technology, cutting-edge fashion, and progressive culture. Under the surface, however, it is a brutally oppressive system, with the vast majority of citizens working either directly for LexCorp or its myriad of subsidiary companies, toiling away in soul-crushing jobs for a pittance, taking comfort in empty consumerism and mindless distractions while their personal freedoms and will to resist are slowly eroded. While Luthor looks down on the city from his skyscraper penthouse, his presence is felt in nearly every facet of Metropolis, all of which is monitored and manipulated by his all-pervasive proprietary AI, Brainiac.
Superman's presence isn't just a disruption of Luthor's typical "cause bad things, profit" plan; it's a wake-up call to the city's downtrodden, and the spark of a full-on revolution.
◼ KRYPTON This is the biggest change to the story, one that I'm drawing from the twist-ending of Red Son. Kal-El's capsule that brought him to Smallville wasn't just a spaceship...it was a time machine. In this take, Krypton isn't just a long-lost world of high-tech demigods that happened to look human; it was (or rather, will be) the last surviving outpost of humanity from the distant deep-future. This puts a literal twist to the idea of him being the 'Man of Tomorrow,' as he is not only fighting to save the people he loves here and now, but also to save a future in which the human race thrives and prevent whatever disaster caused its doom. While I don't plan on getting all timey-wimey with it, this also allows for characters like Supergirl or General Zod to hail from other potential Kryptons, which may be better or worse than the one that sent him.
Question for my fellow roleplayers to get some discussion going. Do any of you associate specific songs to your characters? I saw Half Pint also linked to a song on their sheet (glad I wasn't the only one) and it brought the question to mind.
I usually create a Playlist once I've got specific scenes imagined, or hammered out my takes on essential NPCs like Lois or Lex. For Superman, though, my go-to is always "Invincible" by Muse
I imagine a lot of folks have learned the "ignore the blonde" strategy from A Beautiful Mind, and rather than go for roles that usually have a lot of competition and risk disappointment, they find a more obscure character with less chance of someone else gunning for the same spot.
C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y
_________________________________________________________ Clark Joseph Kent _________________________________________________________ 35 | Married _________________________________________________________ Daily Planet | Kryptonian-born American
N O T A B L E A B I L I T I E S & T O O L S N O T A B L E A B I L I T I E S & T O O L S
A B I L I T I E S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ FLIGHT Superman has total control over his personal gravitational field, allowing him the ability to fly at speeds up to Mach 20, fast enough to circumnavigate the globe in roughly 5 minutes.
◼ SUPER STRENGTH Superman's cells can generate nuclear fusion, creating tremendous energy output. This allows him to lift objects weighing up to 300,000 metric tons, roughly the mass of the Empire State Building. This works in conjunction with his gravitational field, which can extend into any object he touches to prevent collapse. When focused into a physical strike, Superman can deliver punches and kicks with a force roughly equal to an artillery cannon, though with exertion he can deliver a strike of over a hundred kilotons of force.
◼ INVULNERABILITY Superman's immense strength and gravity manipulation can also absorb tremendous impacts. He is impervious to most conventional weapons, with anything short of high-yield explosives being little more than an inconvenience. He can withstand the impact of a 5-megaton nuclead warhead, though doing so would render him unconscious.
◼ SUPER SENSES Superman is capable of seeing the entire electromagnetic spectrum, focusing his vision to a subatomic level, looking through solid objects, and zooming his vision out to several light years. In addition, his senses of hearing, smell, and touch are superhuman, though not to the extent of his vision.
◼ HEAT VISION Superman can emit energy through his eyes in the form of high-powered lasers. These can be focused with surgical precision, or released in a high-yield blast with a maximum output of 50 petawatts from each eye. These beams can easily cut through anything short of Vibranium or Adamantium. Using his Heat Vision drains Superman's energy reserves quickly.
◼ FLARE STATE In desperate circumstances, Superman can burn through all of his energy reserves at once, entering a temporary “Flare State” that amplifies all of his powers exponentially. In this state, he can move the mass of entire planets, move at a significant fraction of the speed of light, and absorb attacks with the power of a large star. However, he can only remain in this state for a few seconds at a time, and doing so leaves him completely drained of his power- every second Superman spends in the Flare State leaves him powerless for an hour afterward. -
T O O L (S) ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE A massive complex buried beneath the ice near the North Pole, the Fortress was created to be a Kryptonian colony on Earth. With Krypton's destruction, however, its only visitor is Kal-El, who uses it as a headquarters, training ground, information center, and armory. It contains an impossible library of all Kryptonian knowledge, containment units for exotic technology that Superman can't let fall into the wrong hands, and fabricators to create Kryptonian tech in limited amounts, all overseen by the virtual intelligence Kelex. -
W E A K N E S S E S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ KRYPTONITE Irradiated shards of the lost world of Krypton, Kryptonite crystals are inert in their natural state, but when an electrical current is put through them, they emit waves of radiation that are poisonous to Superman. Exposure to Kryptonite radiation causes the power plants of Superman’s cells to melt down, reducing his powers and causing pain and disorientation. The stronger the current is focused through a crystal, the more intense the effects of Kryptonite poisoning can be. In addition, wounds to Superman caused by Kryptonite weapons do not heal, creating permanent weak spots.
◼ SENSORY MANIPULATION Superman's enhanced senses can be used against him. Sound-based attacks can cause him pain, as well as disrupt his equilibrium and make flight near impossible. In addition, light-based attacks can cause him temporary blindness.
◼ NON-PHYSICAL VULNERABILITY While Superman is nearly invulnerable to physical harm, he has no defenses against attacks that are non-physical in nature, such as psychic abilities, magic spells, or manipulation from supernatural entities. -
L I M I T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ NAIVETE Superman strives to embody both the best values of humanity and the people of Krypton. However, his kindhearted nature and optimism, as wells his tendency to rush to action in an emergency, make him susceptible to manipulation from more cynical and cunning opponents. While he isn't stupid and has gotten wise to the likes of Lex Luthor's tactics, he's still liable to be lured into traps or be distracted from larger schemes.
◼ POWER RESERVES While Superman's peak strength may appear to be limitless, his endurance isn't. Clark's cells can store tremendous amounts of energy, but when that energy is spent, it takes time to replenish. Overuse of his powers or exerting them beyond their threshold can leave Clark severely weakened for a time, and burning through it all to enter his Flare State will leave him completely powerless for hours. -
T H E S T O R Y S O F A R... T H E S T O R Y S O F A R...
Most people believe that ‘the Superman’ first made his presence known five years ago, intervening in the Reach’s invasion of Earth to turn the tide in humanity’s favor. Those who have been paying closer attention, however, can see traces of his presence reaching back over three decades. In the spring of 1990, the town of Smallville, Kansas, was rocked by a storm unlike anything on record, with buffeting winds and roaring thunder accompanied by reports of strange lights in the sky. While UFO nuts and conspiracy theorists swarmed the town for a few years, curiosity eventually faded, and the people of Smallville were happy to be left alone.
The outside world didn’t need to know about the mysterious metallic object Jon and Martha Kent found in Miller’s Field the next morning. Or the pod they found inside of it…after all, Clark was such a nice boy, even if he was a little peculiar.
Clark Kent’s childhood was something close to idyllic, his parents working hard to make sure their son got the chance to enjoy the last remaining crumbs of American Pie. For the first thirteen years of his life, young Clark’s only worries were those of any boy: trying to make friends and fit in, standing up to the schoolyard bully, working up the courage to steal a first kiss with his sweetheart Lana. Behind it, though, he always felt a certain unease, a disquiet that kept him up at night, a knowledge that he didn’t truly belong.
This was made stronger by recurring dreams, wild visions of a strange and incredible world, filled with people who worked miracles like it was nothing. The more he dreamed of this world, of these amazing people, the less he felt at home in Smallville.
At age ten, the Kents told Clark the truth of how he came into their lives. They explained that the night he came to Smallville, they saw a hole open up in the sky. That hole had been a tunnel of some kind, and on the other side of that tunnel, they saw what looked like a planet, and before the tunnel closed, they saw that planet explode. The incredible world from Clark’s dreams was real…and it was gone.
Over the next few years, Clark began to change. He found he could see things no one else could see, do things no one else could do. At thirteen, the jack slipped out from under his Pa’s tractor while he was working on it, and Clark caught the tractor with one hand. At fourteen, Lana Lang confided in Clark that her father had abused her, and when Clark glared at the man, Mr. Lang’s clothes caught on fire. At fifteen, Clark slipped and fell off the roof of the barn, and he never hit the ground. At seventeen, a flash flood threatened to devastate all of Smallville…until Clark changed the course of the river itself with his bare hands.
At eighteen, Clark left Smallville, determined to find his place in the world. As he traveled, Clark became fascinated with uncovering the truth about things, which led to him taking up journalism as a career. The Kents’ upbringing instilled in him a strong sense of justice, compelling him to use his abilities to help those who were suffering. Like a wandering cowboy, he went from town to town, country to country, fighting warlords and rescuing disaster victims before disappearing off into the sunset in a uniquely American way. Rumors and urban legends sprang up in his wake, and while Clark always kept moving and tried not to draw too much attention to himself, he found himself hounded by government agencies, military intelligence, and a pair of overly enthusiastic truth-seekers: the excitable photographer Jimmy Olsen, and the fearless reporter Lois Lane.
At twenty-five, Clark found the missing pieces to the mysteries of his lost world. Sneaking into a facility owned by the global megacorporation LexCorp, Clark found the pod that had brought him to Smallville, which had been recovered by the government and eventually wound up in the hands of the controversial billionaire Lex Luthor. Absconding with the pod and taking it far up into the Arctic, Clark was able to unlock the strange craft and communicate with the intelligence inside.
Though the craft was damaged and the information was incomplete, he learned about the lost world of Krypton, and his birth name: Kal-El. He learned of the wonders his people had accomplished, and how his birth parents Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van sent him here to escape the doom that had destroyed them. He learned that his father and several generations of his family had been members of the Sons of Krypton, a righteous order of heroes and warriors who fought to uphold the virtues of their world, to shine as a beacon of hope in hopeless times. And he learned his destiny was to bring the best hopes of Krypton to the people of Earth. As the craft transformed into a sprawling underground Fortress, Clark- or Kal- disappeared into its depths to begin his training and master his innate powers.
Five years later, he emerged, not a wandering do-gooder, but an emissary of a lost world. In the time he was gone, Earth had fallen under the control of the Reach, and the struggle against these oppressors seemed hopeless. It was then that Kal made his presence known to the world, defeating the Reach’s elite warriors with ease and turning the war in Earth’s favor. It seemed his destiny, then, would be to change the world as Kal-El, the Last Son of Krypton. That name, however, wouldn’t stick, as Lois Lane, the reporter who had chased him across the globe for years, gave him a name of his own: ‘Superman.’
Sadly, Kal’s celebration of debuting to the world was cut short. The destruction caused by the conflict with the Reach stretched far and wide, and one of the casualties of the war was the complete annihilation of the town of Smallville, including the Kents. While Kal had saved the Earth, he had failed to save the people who mattered most to him. In effect, he had become the sole survivor of two lost worlds, and he swore to honor them both, living both as Kal-El and Clark Kent.
For the past five years, Clark has grown into his role as Superman, which has been a difficult double life. On the one hand, he tries to fulfill his destiny as a Son of Krypton, to help those in need and fight the forces of evil. On the other, he tries to live the happy, meaningful life the Kents always wanted for him. Both his career as a journalist and his crusade against injustice have led him to the bustling city of Metropolis, which has been molded since the Reach invasion into an oppressive technocracy by Lex Luthor and his all-pervasive AI Brainiac. The advent of the metahumans has brought all manner of challenges, allies, and threats. And his personal life has been no less eventful, as his friendly rivalry with Lois Lane eventually became a whirlwind romance, and the two have recently gotten married.
Superman’s life faces no shortage of challenges ahead, both as Kal-El and as Clark. As the Last Son of Krypton, he wields incredible power. As the Last Son of Smallville, he has incredible strength of spirit. And in the times ahead, he’ll need both.
P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S )
It's been a very long time since I've gotten the chance to try on the big red cape, but Superman is the one character I've spent more time and energy thinking about than any other. I've written and rewritten concepts for Clark and his world more times than I'd care to count, and in that time I've cooked up plenty of concepts that can alter Superman's world while not altering the fundamental character. While I fully intend to portray Clark in a classic vein of being a good-hearted, optimistic, slightly corny but always earnest man who just happens to wield absurd amounts of power, I plan on making significant changes to the nature of his powers, his weaknesses, and most radically, his origins.
◼ POWERS AND WEAKNESSES Rather than drawing his powers from the yellow sun, Kryptonians are instead attuned to the fundamental forces of the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. This is partially to address the question of how Superman (in his more insane moments) can pull off universe-level feats if his power source is only a single star, without getting all meta like the comics where he's powered by "the Story of Superman" or whatever.
His powers still manifest in the classical sense, just with a different explanation for them. His flight and lifting strength come from his ability to manipulate his own gravitational field and extend it around anything he touches. His combat strength, durability, and Heat Vision all stem from his cells effectively behaving like microscopic fusion reactors. And his various flavors of super-vision come from being able to sense the entire electromagnetic spectrum, as does his ability to absorb energy like sunlight.
Speaking of absorbing energy, Kryptonite behaves differently as well, as it is effectively inert unless an electromagnetic current is run through it. This is meant to solve how inconsistent Kryptonite is in most media- how sometimes Clark can take a bath in the stuff with barely a headache, and other times a small pebble will put him on his knees. In this take, the more power you put through a Kryptonite crystal, the more damage it can do-- and that damage is permanent. Part of Clark's invulnerability includes a healing factor that will allow him to regenerate from any injury, except injuries caused by Kryptonite, which leave a permanent, de-powered scar. It's going to be an exceedingly rare thing, but the more times Superman or any other Kryptonian is exposed to it, the more permanent weak spots he'll have.
◼ METROPOLIS Following the "fight the power" theme of this game, Lex Luthor has used the devastation of the Reach war to rebuild Metropolis in his image. From the outside, it's a slick, ultra-modern techno-topia, featuring the world's most advanced technology, cutting-edge fashion, and progressive culture. Under the surface, however, it is a brutally oppressive system, with the vast majority of citizens working either directly for LexCorp or its myriad of subsidiary companies, toiling away in soul-crushing jobs for a pittance, taking comfort in empty consumerism and mindless distractions while their personal freedoms and will to resist are slowly eroded. While Luthor looks down on the city from his skyscraper penthouse, his presence is felt in nearly every facet of Metropolis, all of which is monitored and manipulated by his all-pervasive proprietary AI, Brainiac.
Superman's presence isn't just a disruption of Luthor's typical "cause bad things, profit" plan; it's a wake-up call to the city's downtrodden, and the spark of a full-on revolution.
◼ KRYPTON This is the biggest change to the story, one that I'm drawing from the twist-ending of Red Son. Kal-El's capsule that brought him to Smallville wasn't just a spaceship...it was a time machine. In this take, Krypton isn't just a long-lost world of high-tech demigods that happened to look human; it was (or rather, will be) the last surviving outpost of humanity from the distant deep-future. This puts a literal twist to the idea of him being the 'Man of Tomorrow,' as he is not only fighting to save the people he loves here and now, but also to save a future in which the human race thrives and prevent whatever disaster caused its doom. While I don't plan on getting all timey-wimey with it, this also allows for characters like Supergirl or General Zod to hail from other potential Kryptons, which may be better or worse than the one that sent him.
C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y
_________________________________________________________ Clark Joseph Kent _________________________________________________________ 35 | Married _________________________________________________________ Daily Planet | Kryptonian-born American
N O T A B L E A B I L I T I E S & T O O L S N O T A B L E A B I L I T I E S & T O O L S
A B I L I T I E S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ ABILITY Abilities, or Superpowers are characteristics that your character possesses which are considered extraordinary when compared to a standard human. -
T O O L (S) ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ TOOL Tools are weapons or objects employed by your character to fight, defend, or otherwise augment their natural abilities. -
N O T A B L E S K I L L S & T A L E N T S N O T A B L E S K I L L S & T A L E N T S
S K I L L (S) ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ SKILL A skill is a trained expertise or capability. This is something that your character has been to taught to recall or perform such as martial prowess or technological proficiency. -
T A L E N T (S) ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ TALENT A talent is a gift that comes from natural aptitude such as perfect pitch or natural athleticism. This is a boon a character has not had to develop necessarily in the same way others might have. -
T H E S T O R Y S O F A R... T H E S T O R Y S O F A R...
Most people believe that ‘the Superman’ first made his presence known five years ago, intervening in the Reach’s invasion of Earth to turn the tide in humanity’s favor. Those who have been paying closer attention, however, can see traces of his presence reaching back over three decades. In the spring of 1990, the town of Smallville, Kansas, was rocked by a storm unlike anything on record, with buffeting winds and roaring thunder accompanied by reports of strange lights in the sky. While UFO nuts and conspiracy theorists swarmed the town for a few years, curiosity eventually faded, and the people of Smallville were happy to be left alone.
The outside world didn’t need to know about the mysterious metallic object Jon and Martha Kent found in Miller’s Field the next morning. Or the pod they found inside of it…after all, Clark was such a nice boy, even if he was a little peculiar.
Clark Kent’s childhood was something close to idyllic, his parents working hard to make sure their son got the chance to enjoy the last remaining crumbs of American Pie. For the first thirteen years of his life, young Clark’s only worries were those of any boy: trying to make friends and fit in, standing up to the schoolyard bully, working up the courage to steal a first kiss with his sweetheart Lana. Behind it, though, he always felt a certain unease, a disquiet that kept him up at night, a knowledge that he didn’t truly belong.
This was made stronger by recurring dreams, wild visions of a strange and incredible world, filled with people who worked miracles like it was nothing. The more he dreamed of this world, of these amazing people, the less he felt at home in Smallville.
At age ten, the Kents told Clark the truth of how he came into their lives. They explained that the night he came to Smallville, they saw a hole open up in the sky. That hole had been a tunnel of some kind, and on the other side of that tunnel, they saw what looked like a planet, and before the tunnel closed, they saw that planet explode. The incredible world from Clark’s dreams was real…and it was gone.
Over the next few years, Clark began to change. He found he could see things no one else could see, do things no one else could do. At thirteen, the jack slipped out from under his Pa’s tractor while he was working on it, and Clark caught the tractor with one hand. At fourteen, Lana Lang confided in Clark that her father had abused her, and when Clark glared at the man, Mr. Lang’s clothes caught on fire. At fifteen, Clark slipped and fell off the roof of the barn, and he never hit the ground. At seventeen, a flash flood threatened to devastate all of Smallville…until Clark changed the course of the river itself with his bare hands.
At eighteen, Clark left Smallville, determined to find his place in the world. As he traveled, Clark became fascinated with uncovering the truth about things, which led to him taking up journalism as a career. The Kents’ upbringing instilled in him a strong sense of justice, compelling him to use his abilities to help those who were suffering. Like a wandering cowboy, he went from town to town, country to country, fighting warlords and rescuing disaster victims before disappearing off into the sunset in a uniquely American way. Rumors and urban legends sprang up in his wake, and while Clark always kept moving and tried not to draw too much attention to himself, he found himself hounded by government agencies, military intelligence, and a pair of overly enthusiastic truth-seekers: the excitable photographer Jimmy Olsen, and the fearless reporter Lois Lane.
At twenty-five, Clark found the missing pieces to the mysteries of his lost world. Sneaking into a facility owned by the global megacorporation LexCorp, Clark found the pod that had brought him to Smallville, which had been recovered by the government and eventually wound up in the hands of the controversial billionaire Lex Luthor. Absconding with the pod and taking it far up into the Arctic, Clark was able to unlock the strange craft and communicate with the intelligence inside.
Though the craft was damaged and the information was incomplete, he learned about the lost world of Krypton, and his birth name: Kal-El. He learned of the wonders his people had accomplished, and how his birth parents Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van sent him here to escape the doom that had destroyed them. He learned that his father and several generations of his family had been members of the Sons of Krypton, a righteous order of heroes and warriors who fought to uphold the virtues of their world, to shine as a beacon of hope in hopeless times. And he learned his destiny was to bring the best hopes of Krypton to the people of Earth. As the craft transformed into a sprawling underground Fortress, Clark- or Kal- disappeared into its depths to begin his training and master his innate powers.
Five years later, he emerged, not a wandering do-gooder, but an emissary of a lost world. In the time he was gone, Earth had fallen under the control of the Reach, and the struggle against these oppressors seemed hopeless. It was then that Kal made his presence known to the world, defeating the Reach’s elite warriors with ease and turning the war in Earth’s favor. It seemed his destiny, then, would be to change the world as Kal-El, the Last Son of Krypton. That name, however, wouldn’t stick, as Lois Lane, the reporter who had chased him across the globe for years, gave him a name of his own: ‘Superman.’
Sadly, Kal’s celebration of debuting to the world was cut short. The destruction caused by the conflict with the Reach stretched far and wide, and one of the casualties of the war was the complete annihilation of the town of Smallville, including the Kents. While Kal had saved the Earth, he had failed to save the people who mattered most to him. In effect, he had become the sole survivor of two lost worlds, and he swore to honor them both, living both as Kal-El and Clark Kent.
For the past five years, Clark has grown into his role as Superman, which has been a difficult double life. On the one hand, he tries to fulfill his destiny as a Son of Krypton, to help those in need and fight the forces of evil. On the other, he tries to live the happy, meaningful life the Kents always wanted for him. Both his career as a journalist and his crusade against injustice have led him to the bustling city of Metropolis, which has been molded since the Reach invasion into an oppressive technocracy by Lex Luthor and his all-pervasive AI Brainiac. The advent of the metahumans has brought all manner of challenges, allies, and threats. And his personal life has been no less eventful, as his friendly rivalry with Lois Lane eventually became a whirlwind romance, and the two have recently gotten married.
Superman’s life faces no shortage of challenges ahead, both as Kal-El and as Clark. As the Last Son of Krypton, he wields incredible power. As the Last Son of Smallville, he has incredible strength of spirit. And in the times ahead, he’ll need both.
P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S )
It's been a very long time since I've gotten the chance to try on the big red cape, but Superman is the one character I've spent more time and energy thinking about than any other. I've written and rewritten concepts for Clark and his world more times than I'd care to count, and in that time I've cooked up plenty of concepts that can alter Superman's world while not altering the fundamental character. While I fully intend to portray Clark in a classic vein of being a good-hearted, optimistic, slightly corny but always earnest man who just happens to wield absurd amounts of power, I plan on making significant changes to the nature of his powers, his weaknesses, and most radically, his origins.
◼ POWERS AND WEAKNESSES Rather than drawing his powers from the yellow sun, Kryptonians are instead attuned to the fundamental forces of the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. This is partially to address the question of how Superman (in his more insane moments) can pull off universe-level feats if his power source is only a single star, without getting all meta like the comics where he's powered by "the Story of Superman" or whatever.
His powers still manifest in the classical sense, just with a different explanation for them. His flight and lifting strength come from his ability to manipulate his own gravitational field and extend it around anything he touches. His combat strength, durability, and Heat Vision all stem from his cells effectively behaving like microscopic fusion reactors. And his various flavors of super-vision come from being able to sense the entire electromagnetic spectrum, as does his ability to absorb energy like sunlight.
Speaking of absorbing energy, Kryptonite behaves differently as well, as it is effectively inert unless an electromagnetic current is run through it. This is meant to solve how inconsistent Kryptonite is in most media- how sometimes Clark can take a bath in the stuff with barely a headache, and other times a small pebble will put him on his knees. In this take, the more power you put through a Kryptonite crystal, the more damage it can do-- and that damage is permanent. Part of Clark's invulnerability includes a healing factor that will allow him to regenerate from any injury, except injuries caused by Kryptonite, which leave a permanent, de-powered scar. It's going to be an exceedingly rare thing, but the more times Superman or any other Kryptonian is exposed to it, the more permanent weak spots he'll have.
◼ METROPOLIS Following the "fight the power" theme of this game, Lex Luthor has used the devastation of the Reach war to rebuild Metropolis in his image. From the outside, it's a slick, ultra-modern techno-topia, featuring the world's most advanced technology, cutting-edge fashion, and progressive culture. Under the surface, however, it is a brutally oppressive system, with the vast majority of citizens working either directly for LexCorp or its myriad of subsidiary companies, toiling away in soul-crushing jobs for a pittance, taking comfort in empty consumerism and mindless distractions while their personal freedoms and will to resist are slowly eroded. While Luthor looks down on the city from his skyscraper penthouse, his presence is felt in nearly every facet of Metropolis, all of which is monitored and manipulated by his all-pervasive proprietary AI, Brainiac.
Superman's presence isn't just a disruption of Luthor's typical "cause bad things, profit" plan; it's a wake-up call to the city's downtrodden, and the spark of a full-on revolution.
◼ KRYPTON This is the biggest change to the story, one that I'm drawing from the twist-ending of Red Son. Kal-El's capsule that brought him to Smallville wasn't just a spaceship...it was a time machine. In this take, Krypton isn't just a long-lost world of high-tech demigods that happened to look human; it was (or rather, will be) the last surviving outpost of humanity from the distant deep-future. This puts a literal twist to the idea of him being the 'Man of Tomorrow,' as he is not only fighting to save the people he loves here and now, but also to save a future in which the human race thrives and prevent whatever disaster caused its doom. While I don't plan on getting all timey-wimey with it, this also allows for characters like Supergirl or General Zod to hail from other potential Kryptons, which may be better or worse than the one that sent him.
What's everyone's favorite MCU movie or series? Mine's Captain America: The First Avenger.
If we're sticking strictly to the MCU, I'd say probably Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the first two seasons of Daredevil.
My favorite Marvel stuff, though, is outside the MCU. Spectacular Spider-Man, Avengers EMH, the Raimi movies (1 and 2 anyway), and plenty of various runs from the comics, particularly the late 70s through early 90s.
6slyboy6,
TokyoPewPew,
Cyberlad,
Captain Uni,
Neziul,
Supermaxx,
Byrd Man,
King Kindred,
Half Pint,
LadyAmber
