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Olav Bakken
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 15 June 2014
Posts: 241
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| Posted: 17 October 2018 at 1:21pm | IP Logged | 1
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A superhero universe can deal with space opera, magic and monsters, all at once (but usually not in the same comic or issue). I say universe since it includes literally the whole universe in the reality created on the pages.
One way to describe it is that literally everything is potenatially possible, and everything can potentially exist. Like an omnipotent god gave away all his powers, and told everyone to help themselves. The only restrictions are that each individual is only allowed to pick just a tiny fraction of what is available. Some are obvioulsy much more powerful than others, but few are so powerful it becomes boring to read.
That's the starting point, but are superpowers enough to make it as superhero universe in the traditional sense? Some have tried to do everything that comes after differently. Sometimes with success, and sometimes not. But personally wouldn't call TV-shows like Heroes a show about superheroes, just ordinary people with extraordinary abilities. Or Misfits, which is on an even smaller scale, and have individual with useless powers, like a girl who can make other people bald if they piss her off, or a guy with lactokinesis, telekinesis that only work on milk products. But it is not meant to be taken serioulsy, and is supposed to be fun and funny.
Powers, types of powers and how to get them are other classic ingredients. Instead of just a single source, like a shower of meteors hitting earth, each superhero usually have an individual origin. A lab accident, a gamma bomb, chemicals, technology, half demon, a mythological god, an education in magic, and so on. If I remember correctly, even mutants were explained by having parents who were exposed to radiation or something. Magic and occult beings existing next to aliens and mutants is not a problem.
And the abilities have traditionally made sense. Superpowers that are useless are not really interesting. A mutation that just gives you yellow eyes and nothing else is not interesting either.
Costumes. Speaks for itself. A superhero comic wouldn't be the same if there were no uniforms of any kind. Even if Fantastic Four tried the approach the first couple of issues or so. In live action you usually have to tone it down a little, but in comics there are very few limits.
The world. It is supposed to be our world. A future world as in the original Guardians of the Galaxy can be an intresting addition, or even a parallel one with its own nations and history, but the main scene is usually this world. And in the real world there are no superpowers. If it was, it would change to something unrecognizable. Which is why the society in the comics looks exactly like ours, with people living just like us, despite their cities being populated by teams and individuals with superhuman abilities and appearences. The approach "what would happen if this was real", is a natural one to ask, and can work in a whole now world just created by a new comic publisher, but when it happens in DC or Marvel, where the costs of a demlished building after the fight with an extraterrestrial invasion is brought up, it seems a bit out of place.
And the comics didn't make that much attempts explain everything in every detail either. I know it has been mentioned here a lot, but one explanation only relocates the questions and break the illusion (if the energy of Scott Summers' energy blasts from his eyes comes from another dimension, then how is he able to connect to this dimension, how does his eyes tap the energy and resist being destroyed by it? The explanation only opens up for several new questions, and each new answer just makes you sink deeper in the quicksand. Not addressing topics like energy and mass at all is usually the best solution).
Using a different approach or exclude some of the elements when creating something new should work fine as well, I just hope the old way of doing things isn't completely forgotten.
(Personally, if I in some parallel dimension had ended up as an editor for a newly started publisher and given free hands to do whatever I wanted, I would probably design two separate worlds; one that is completely old school, and another where superpowers can only be created with a team of scientists and technicians, like in the Captain Marvel movie, probably not magic and where the square cube law and laws of mass and energy put some restrictions on what is possible.)
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6103
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| Posted: 17 October 2018 at 1:45pm | IP Logged | 2
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A Superhero "universe" as we've come to know it seems more defined by what's NOT in it than by what IS.
Once, Reed Richards set up shop in NYC and that was the real city, right now. Then Spider-Man started swinging around in it. Then he met Superman there. Everything just kind of was here, in our universe. But, one could assume, Archie and Jughead did not live there.
The urge to define it all brought more and more decisions about how this works. Actually Superman is NOT in Reed Richards' "universe" either, etc.
So, in my estimation, "What defines a superhero universe?" starts with a superhero and ends at the decisions about what CAN'T be in his/her universe.
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Olav Bakken
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 15 June 2014
Posts: 241
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| Posted: 17 October 2018 at 2:17pm | IP Logged | 3
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Not sure what you mean. The title is just the introduction. It's what follows that explains what the topic is about.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 17 October 2018 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | 4
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Best way to play it is that it’s exactly like our universe, except it has people in it with super powers.
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