Leliel
2013-04-15, 03:03 PM
Anyway, I decided to ask this here, since we have a lot of intelligent superhero fans here.
Basically, I am writing a story in which the main protagonists are a bunch of supervillains (Masks, in the world's terminology, while Capes are superheroes). They aren't really evil, in that they don't enjoy causing pain or bloodshed, but they are very much proud of the chaos they cause and are rather selfish, looking to use their power to line their pockets and gain worldwide acclaim (this is also a world where both Masks and Capes are celebrities, and a sufficiently likable, powerful, and intelligent Mask can gather quite the fanclub, especially if they're striking against people the general public dislikes).
Of course, it turns out the Capes who live in Hyperion City, the main setting, have been largely corrupted into nothing more than hypocritical, arrogant, shiny bullies who only get away with it because the public is blinded by the fame. I want to show, however, that there is something to redeem in Hyperion's Capes, and that the spreading rot in the city hasn't killed its better nature yet.
Even better, I plan to initially present him as comic relief-more of an irritation the protagonists, the Midnight Crew, regard as a ferocious puppy-more cute and annoying, than anything, and in fact his cuteness is why the Masks haven't killed him-it feels like kicking a baby.
So, partially reposted from TV Tropes, I give you....BEAGLEMAN!
Beagleman, HOUND OF JUSTICE!!! aka Marion Poindexter
Age: 19
Personality: First, watch Ben 10 and then imagine Ben with Superman's morals. That is Beagleman's personality in a nutshell-he's basically every idealistic "naive fanboy turned superhero" stereotype known to man, and is quite cheerfully mocked by the main characters for that fact. A kind-hearted idiot and fearless fool due to his near-invulnerability (the Fearless Fool bit, the Idiot Hero bit is all him) powers, Beagleman is the living embodiment of Silver Age cheese combined with the archetypal shonen manga protagonist. He is also rather gullible, regularly falling for faked injuries and obvious traps, no matter how many people spring them on him. This is actually one of the reasons he's survived so long and has managed to earn Hyperion City's respect despite being a complete doofus; most Masks, being largely not malevolent outside their jobs, can't bring themselves to really hurt him; it's like kicking a puppy.
Relatively early in the story, however, he becomes infected by Pathos, a substance created from the grudges and anger of the dead seeping into the Nether, the realm of ghosts. This causes him to become progressively Darker and Edgier as it feeds on his own understanding of his failures as a Cape. At the nadir, he becomes a shallow nineties anti-hero character (you know, a two-dimensional badass with nothing really likable about him) with Youngblood's disease (the perpetual squint they often have), and his complete swerve from his previous self freaks out our actual protagonists. Thankfully, Phantasmic and company are also rather honorable and have come to regard him as their favorite enemy, and beat the Pathos out of him, causing him to return to his normal, cheery, personality, after a brief freak out due to the horrific experience of being corrupted. Of course, this goes from heartwarming to annoying when his misunderstand of the story's genre kicks in and immediately assumes that this is a set up for Phantasmic's redemption and begins treating her team like best buds. Whether or not he's right is something I haven't decided.
Abilities: As mentioned by the personality write-up, he's a Flying Brick (super strength with flight) who is nearly impossible to injure, and literally develops new superpowers as the plot demands as one of his abilities (another reason why Masks try to avoid hurting him-fighting him is unpredictable enough to be entertaining). He's also a poster child for not giving up or emotionally breaking par excellence, and can neutralize magic thrown directly at him (very useful ability to have in what is essentially a modern high fantasy setting with a comic book coating and themes). Also, his sense of smell is massively amplified, which is how he got his name.
During his Pathos infection, he also gains no small amount of skill with a gun and some very lethal powers as well, which is part of the reason Pathos!Beagleman calls himself Deathbringer Bloodhound.
That, and he's actually not nearly as stupid as it appears-he's actually quite intelligent and perceptive, it's just that he doesn't really want the fame, he wants to make the world better. Thus, he does a bunch of deliberately dumb actions to make himself seen as the Tick rather than Nanoha, since he realizes he'd be in a rather precarious position if people realized there's a mind behind his sheer power and decided to take him out before he became a threat.
Weaknesses: As mentioned, he's also a complete moron, due to his inability to realize what story he is actually in (one of his first scenes is when he automatically assumes the Big Red Button he found at the end of the long hallway of minion robots is the self-destruct...when it's the escape antigrav, and this is in a verse where you need to show you don't make Bond villain errors in order to be officially accepted as a supervillain, and everybody knows this). He also has no freaking idea of how any of his new powers beyond the normal ones work, and he loses them soon enough (though it could be he forgets they exist), and everybody knows he's immune to direct magic, so they use magic for environmental attacks. His Nigh Invulnerable nature makes it so that a lot of it only stuns him, but he's also weak to his own powers and bad smells. Thus, fighting him is really more of a test to see how long it takes before he develops a power that thrown back at him or is identical to his opponent's own. More than once he's also been knocked out by tricking him into the men's locker room or a sewer.
During his corruption, he becomes a lot more lethal, but he's still just as daft, if not more so due to his real personality fighting back. What's more, Bloodhound can't fly (because honestly, what Nineties Anti-Hero does?), and has a hard time seeing due to his squint. He can also be tricked into a soliloquy on his "tragic past", despite he not actually having one at all, and is in fact normally one of the most chipper and cheerful characters in the story (thus a lot of his "tragic past" involves amnesia; "You think you're a tragedy!? Let me tell you about my...Army buddies? Girlfriend? Parents?....well, thanks to my near death experience that I must have had, I can't even remember what relation they were."
In reality, he's smart, but he's psychologically incapable of breaking his own moral code, and very underconfident in his own abilities due to them backfiring in the worst way during his early years. Thus, he's tried to become a quiet moral example, but he's not very good at getting people to follow his idealism.
Backstory: Marion Poindexter was originally a very normal teenager living in Hyperion City, with Good Parents (I'm not editing this because they are so rare they deserve caps), not particular popularity but not hated, an average amount of friends...statistically speaking, the only think notable about him was the lack of anything notable, not even his grades (he was a B student, in case you were wondering-he's a space cadet, honorable beyond all reason variety of dumb, not a complete idiot incapable of learning even the most basic info). Personality-wise, he was as notable as anyone else-perhaps a bit hyperactive for his own good, perhaps a bit obsessed with the adventures of the various Capes and Masks in his world, but nothing special.
And then he, through a series of events that, to this day, he cannot get straight (the haze of memories involve driving while drunk, a magical idol of Set, a dimensional portal to the Nether, playing fetch with Ammut, and the three-time winner of the Mister Hyperion male beauty contest, and only start getting clear when he woke up next to a very embarrassed Hathor), he found himself becoming the "Dog of Duat", Anubis' hand to enforce justice on Earth. He then immediately went to Anansi to take away his more threatening death powers, on the basis that in fiction and generally in his world, death powers are not associated with Capes, and he wanted to be a Cape (which is why Anubis will not speak to him unless he really has to: nobody likes being snubbed like that). Of course, Anansi, being a trickster archetype obsessed with making interesting (read: hilarious) stories, proceeded to play "exact wording" and grant Marion's wish of "make me more like a classic superhero" by making him exactly like the cheesy aspects. Beagleman, for his part, is okay with this, seeing as how his new Flying Brick powers have saved his bacon on more than one occasion, and made him one of the more popular capes (he doesn't seem to realize that it's because of the sympathy vote and the citizenry find him hilarious).
Of course, there's a rather large difference between "doesn't seem", and "is not", and behind closed doors, he's actually aware of how much of a screw-up he is and how frequently his misreading of the plot and honor beyond all reason gets the better of him. Because he is genuinely that much of a boy scout, however, this never really progresses beyond moments of self-doubt, but unlike the typical moments of superhero self-doubt, Beagleman has some pretty awful friends. See, the larger team of which he is a part, the Peacebringers, has long since succumbed to internal corruption due to arrogance and increasingly insane morals, thanks at least in part to their Batman expy, Noir (basically, imagine what would happen if Crazy Steve-Batman as in he appears in All-Star Batman and Robin-was a secret crime lord on the side, wanted to create a utopia by any means needed and owned a PR Firm). Beagleman has the misfortune of being the sole morally pure who hasn't been blackmailed into playing along, both because he's never made a mistake that, with Noir's propaganda, can be turned into a way to ruin his life and he manifests some pretty unbeatable powers to defeat anybody who threatens his loved ones (and angers him enough so he doesn't play around).
This doesn't sit well with Noir, who, getting increasingly fed up with Beagleman fouling up his false flag ops to take control of Hyperion (the Hyperion police department is neither corrupt or incompetent, and Beagleman is an excellent distraction for them to sneak up and nab supervillains and crooks), so he gets Omegaette (looks like female Robin, thinks like Ender Wiggin thanks to Noir's manipulations) to infect Beagleman with Pathos while the latter has a self-doubt session after the utter failure of one of his missions (sabotaged by Noir, of course). Noir hopes that, as the Pathos slowly causes Beagleman to twist into a dark version of himself, he'll turn into a useful tool.
And after that is where our story begins.
So, any comments? Constructive criticism?
EDIT: Edited out the jargon I could and defined the stuff I couldn't without making it unwieldy.
Basically, I am writing a story in which the main protagonists are a bunch of supervillains (Masks, in the world's terminology, while Capes are superheroes). They aren't really evil, in that they don't enjoy causing pain or bloodshed, but they are very much proud of the chaos they cause and are rather selfish, looking to use their power to line their pockets and gain worldwide acclaim (this is also a world where both Masks and Capes are celebrities, and a sufficiently likable, powerful, and intelligent Mask can gather quite the fanclub, especially if they're striking against people the general public dislikes).
Of course, it turns out the Capes who live in Hyperion City, the main setting, have been largely corrupted into nothing more than hypocritical, arrogant, shiny bullies who only get away with it because the public is blinded by the fame. I want to show, however, that there is something to redeem in Hyperion's Capes, and that the spreading rot in the city hasn't killed its better nature yet.
Even better, I plan to initially present him as comic relief-more of an irritation the protagonists, the Midnight Crew, regard as a ferocious puppy-more cute and annoying, than anything, and in fact his cuteness is why the Masks haven't killed him-it feels like kicking a baby.
So, partially reposted from TV Tropes, I give you....BEAGLEMAN!
Beagleman, HOUND OF JUSTICE!!! aka Marion Poindexter
Age: 19
Personality: First, watch Ben 10 and then imagine Ben with Superman's morals. That is Beagleman's personality in a nutshell-he's basically every idealistic "naive fanboy turned superhero" stereotype known to man, and is quite cheerfully mocked by the main characters for that fact. A kind-hearted idiot and fearless fool due to his near-invulnerability (the Fearless Fool bit, the Idiot Hero bit is all him) powers, Beagleman is the living embodiment of Silver Age cheese combined with the archetypal shonen manga protagonist. He is also rather gullible, regularly falling for faked injuries and obvious traps, no matter how many people spring them on him. This is actually one of the reasons he's survived so long and has managed to earn Hyperion City's respect despite being a complete doofus; most Masks, being largely not malevolent outside their jobs, can't bring themselves to really hurt him; it's like kicking a puppy.
Relatively early in the story, however, he becomes infected by Pathos, a substance created from the grudges and anger of the dead seeping into the Nether, the realm of ghosts. This causes him to become progressively Darker and Edgier as it feeds on his own understanding of his failures as a Cape. At the nadir, he becomes a shallow nineties anti-hero character (you know, a two-dimensional badass with nothing really likable about him) with Youngblood's disease (the perpetual squint they often have), and his complete swerve from his previous self freaks out our actual protagonists. Thankfully, Phantasmic and company are also rather honorable and have come to regard him as their favorite enemy, and beat the Pathos out of him, causing him to return to his normal, cheery, personality, after a brief freak out due to the horrific experience of being corrupted. Of course, this goes from heartwarming to annoying when his misunderstand of the story's genre kicks in and immediately assumes that this is a set up for Phantasmic's redemption and begins treating her team like best buds. Whether or not he's right is something I haven't decided.
Abilities: As mentioned by the personality write-up, he's a Flying Brick (super strength with flight) who is nearly impossible to injure, and literally develops new superpowers as the plot demands as one of his abilities (another reason why Masks try to avoid hurting him-fighting him is unpredictable enough to be entertaining). He's also a poster child for not giving up or emotionally breaking par excellence, and can neutralize magic thrown directly at him (very useful ability to have in what is essentially a modern high fantasy setting with a comic book coating and themes). Also, his sense of smell is massively amplified, which is how he got his name.
During his Pathos infection, he also gains no small amount of skill with a gun and some very lethal powers as well, which is part of the reason Pathos!Beagleman calls himself Deathbringer Bloodhound.
That, and he's actually not nearly as stupid as it appears-he's actually quite intelligent and perceptive, it's just that he doesn't really want the fame, he wants to make the world better. Thus, he does a bunch of deliberately dumb actions to make himself seen as the Tick rather than Nanoha, since he realizes he'd be in a rather precarious position if people realized there's a mind behind his sheer power and decided to take him out before he became a threat.
Weaknesses: As mentioned, he's also a complete moron, due to his inability to realize what story he is actually in (one of his first scenes is when he automatically assumes the Big Red Button he found at the end of the long hallway of minion robots is the self-destruct...when it's the escape antigrav, and this is in a verse where you need to show you don't make Bond villain errors in order to be officially accepted as a supervillain, and everybody knows this). He also has no freaking idea of how any of his new powers beyond the normal ones work, and he loses them soon enough (though it could be he forgets they exist), and everybody knows he's immune to direct magic, so they use magic for environmental attacks. His Nigh Invulnerable nature makes it so that a lot of it only stuns him, but he's also weak to his own powers and bad smells. Thus, fighting him is really more of a test to see how long it takes before he develops a power that thrown back at him or is identical to his opponent's own. More than once he's also been knocked out by tricking him into the men's locker room or a sewer.
During his corruption, he becomes a lot more lethal, but he's still just as daft, if not more so due to his real personality fighting back. What's more, Bloodhound can't fly (because honestly, what Nineties Anti-Hero does?), and has a hard time seeing due to his squint. He can also be tricked into a soliloquy on his "tragic past", despite he not actually having one at all, and is in fact normally one of the most chipper and cheerful characters in the story (thus a lot of his "tragic past" involves amnesia; "You think you're a tragedy!? Let me tell you about my...Army buddies? Girlfriend? Parents?....well, thanks to my near death experience that I must have had, I can't even remember what relation they were."
In reality, he's smart, but he's psychologically incapable of breaking his own moral code, and very underconfident in his own abilities due to them backfiring in the worst way during his early years. Thus, he's tried to become a quiet moral example, but he's not very good at getting people to follow his idealism.
Backstory: Marion Poindexter was originally a very normal teenager living in Hyperion City, with Good Parents (I'm not editing this because they are so rare they deserve caps), not particular popularity but not hated, an average amount of friends...statistically speaking, the only think notable about him was the lack of anything notable, not even his grades (he was a B student, in case you were wondering-he's a space cadet, honorable beyond all reason variety of dumb, not a complete idiot incapable of learning even the most basic info). Personality-wise, he was as notable as anyone else-perhaps a bit hyperactive for his own good, perhaps a bit obsessed with the adventures of the various Capes and Masks in his world, but nothing special.
And then he, through a series of events that, to this day, he cannot get straight (the haze of memories involve driving while drunk, a magical idol of Set, a dimensional portal to the Nether, playing fetch with Ammut, and the three-time winner of the Mister Hyperion male beauty contest, and only start getting clear when he woke up next to a very embarrassed Hathor), he found himself becoming the "Dog of Duat", Anubis' hand to enforce justice on Earth. He then immediately went to Anansi to take away his more threatening death powers, on the basis that in fiction and generally in his world, death powers are not associated with Capes, and he wanted to be a Cape (which is why Anubis will not speak to him unless he really has to: nobody likes being snubbed like that). Of course, Anansi, being a trickster archetype obsessed with making interesting (read: hilarious) stories, proceeded to play "exact wording" and grant Marion's wish of "make me more like a classic superhero" by making him exactly like the cheesy aspects. Beagleman, for his part, is okay with this, seeing as how his new Flying Brick powers have saved his bacon on more than one occasion, and made him one of the more popular capes (he doesn't seem to realize that it's because of the sympathy vote and the citizenry find him hilarious).
Of course, there's a rather large difference between "doesn't seem", and "is not", and behind closed doors, he's actually aware of how much of a screw-up he is and how frequently his misreading of the plot and honor beyond all reason gets the better of him. Because he is genuinely that much of a boy scout, however, this never really progresses beyond moments of self-doubt, but unlike the typical moments of superhero self-doubt, Beagleman has some pretty awful friends. See, the larger team of which he is a part, the Peacebringers, has long since succumbed to internal corruption due to arrogance and increasingly insane morals, thanks at least in part to their Batman expy, Noir (basically, imagine what would happen if Crazy Steve-Batman as in he appears in All-Star Batman and Robin-was a secret crime lord on the side, wanted to create a utopia by any means needed and owned a PR Firm). Beagleman has the misfortune of being the sole morally pure who hasn't been blackmailed into playing along, both because he's never made a mistake that, with Noir's propaganda, can be turned into a way to ruin his life and he manifests some pretty unbeatable powers to defeat anybody who threatens his loved ones (and angers him enough so he doesn't play around).
This doesn't sit well with Noir, who, getting increasingly fed up with Beagleman fouling up his false flag ops to take control of Hyperion (the Hyperion police department is neither corrupt or incompetent, and Beagleman is an excellent distraction for them to sneak up and nab supervillains and crooks), so he gets Omegaette (looks like female Robin, thinks like Ender Wiggin thanks to Noir's manipulations) to infect Beagleman with Pathos while the latter has a self-doubt session after the utter failure of one of his missions (sabotaged by Noir, of course). Noir hopes that, as the Pathos slowly causes Beagleman to twist into a dark version of himself, he'll turn into a useful tool.
And after that is where our story begins.
So, any comments? Constructive criticism?
EDIT: Edited out the jargon I could and defined the stuff I couldn't without making it unwieldy.