"One who does good, having an infinite power to do evil, should have credit not only for the good she does but for the evil from which she refrains."
- Unknown
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There are lots of both. And they're the celebrities of the world. Everyone has their favourites, good and bad, and generally knows a lot about them. (Most of it's likely false, but some of it is truer than they'd think.) In practical terms, the media hounds them, makes demons of them, angels of them - anything for a story. Press conferences tend to be a must, though they can often get ugly. It's far better to explain things to the press than let them make it up.
| American Heroes |
Belonging-identity is the motive force for xenophobia; for the mindless patriotism of "my country, right or wrong"; for the pseudomystical yearning after blood and soil; for the arrogant superiority of the local man over the stranger. It is an attribute which we all finally share, and in doing so contribute to the most dangerous dilemma of our race.
- Adam Curle
Stars and Stripes (leader)
Summary: One of the oldest heroes, he was among the first to market himself (his toy line with Hasbro and associated comic books have made him a millionaire), Stars and Stripes became a rallying point for many people in New York and was the city's first Sanctioned hero. American Flag and Patriot joined him over the next few years and their saving of the president in 2007 led to them becoming Sanctioned - and the presidents personal protectors.
Powers: Entanglement, Flight, Super vision
American Flag (F)
Summary: A dressmaker in New York, she defended her shop from robbers, accidentally choking one to death with lingerie in 2005. She gained fame in a trial which ended in acquittal of murder. Stars and Stripes paid attention to it and saw her potential and asked her to join him. She said yes and is the tactician of the team as well as dealing with all their accounting issues and funding.
Powers: Control clothing (or anything worn)
Glory of God (F)
Summary: A young girl found by the others in the ruins of Boston after the Destroyer incident, Glory (as they named her) has no memory of her past and serves as the team's firepower, kept in careful check by Patriot since they know she's not all together in the head.
Powers: Call lightning, Energy blast (blue/white/red), Flight
Patriot
Summary: The team's diplomat and crowd control, Patriot has been featured on GQ and had a movie ("Defenders of the Free" (2015)) based on his efforts to stop an anti-superhuman riot in L.A.. He's been known to literally make people patriotic by sheer presence alone and tends to avoid press conferences solely because he could accidentally alter the press without even thinking about it.
Powers: Charisma, Control crowds, Enslave
| Focus on the Family |
Love is not blind, it sees more not less;
But because it sees more it chooses to see less.
- Anonymous
This super team isn't heroes as such, but a group of, well, fanatics who serve the Christian group Focus on the Family and are very, very, very fundamentalist and conservative. They defend Traditional Family Values. most of the Focus members have disassociated themselves from this group due to rumours of terrorist activities and the destruction of orphanages and drug treatment centres. They think they're heroes, though, and a lot of a very vocal minority agree with them.
Working Dad (official leader)
Summary: A blue collar construction worker, Working Dad found himself out of a job due to anti-super bias and then his wife left him because he wasn't "human" anymore. He wandered the states a lot, and eventually met kitchen mom and joined Focus on the Family to help defend America. He also married her and they have two children.
Powers: Super strength, Super toughness
Kitchen Mom (F) (real leader)
Summary: A mother who believes in values, she was a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses and kicked out when her powers developed, due to fear and paranoia. She ended up with Focus on the Family and has devoted herself to protecting Americans from evil people, superhuman or not. She is very, very good at it.
Powers: Control household appliances, Voice of command (can literally make people stay at home)
The Nuclear Twins (F & M)
Summary: The children of Working Dad and Kitchen Mom, these loveable tykes can create nuclear explosions by concentrating on it together. They're cute, adorable tykes (currently 8) and can create sizeable explosions alone but lack as much control over them. As they've gotten older, their ability has become more refined and that much more dangerous.
Powers: Cause Big Explosions
| The Misfits |
"If nature puts a burden on man by making him different, it also gives him a power."
- John Lame Deer, Sioux medicine man.
Based out of Canada, this team is a rarity in that none of the members have secret identities yet doesn't work for any government or agency nor get funding from one. They also have no leader, though Crystal is generally the only one who shows up for press conferences. They also tend to cause a lot of property damage and are arch enemies with Focus on the Family for reasons that should become rather obvious.
Crystal (F)
Summary: Crystal Klines is a young girl who, prior to her powers developing, was an aspiring opera singer. Her powers and her initial lack of control over them caused her to change her mind rather quickly. Aside from that, she is a item with Whisper and the team's spokesperson, mostly because most of the other members won't speak to the press, at all.
Powers: Turn things into glass
Doll (F, technically)
Summary: A mannequin brought to life as an evil experiment by Dr. Filth, she left him and eventually wound up in Canada where she joined Crystal and Whisper, who had just recruited Superior. It was she who coined the name Misfits for the group. Doll isn't human, despite her appearance, and tends to hate crowds or being oggled at. The fact that scientists keep wanting to examine her and horny super human teenagers fall in love with her generally keeps her in a foul mood.
Powers: Invulnerable (attacks that could hurt her pass through her), Super strength
Fade Out
Summary: Nathan Walters was a normal mutant kid with a mostly uncontrollable power that rarely worked when he was an accidental bystander in a fight between the Misfits and some bank robbers. He was shot by one robber and fell down a flight of stairs, breaking his back, and was about to likely hit the bottom and break his neck when his power triggered itself so he fell through them. Floating up through the metal, he found the bank robber and stuck his hands in the man's head, causing the man to suffer a minor heart attack in shock. His family disowned him for being a mutant and the Misfits found him and offered a membership. He accepted and eventually he and Superior were really glad he had.
Powers: Phase, Alter Density (Latter only works when phasing; allows him to float/fly so he can leave his wheelchair).
Superior
Summary: Registered with the government since birth, Kris Cotanoy was examined by a lot of doctors for a lot of his life and became horribly afraid of having to appear in public and show off his powers. Developing an almost crippling stutter when younger made matters worse and he's almost terminally shy how, rarely showing up at press conferences, except one following a clash with Focus on the Family, for which a Toronto Sun photographer won a Pulitzer for capturing the look of naked rage on his face when Fade Out told the press "We left the battle to save lives, next time ....well, let's hope there isn't one." He and Fade Out are lovers.
Powers: Super Toughness, Super Strength, Flight
Whisper (F)
Summary: Barbara Heywood, like Superior, spent most of her youth with scientists. Unlike him, she was silent by choice since when she speaks, entire buildings can be destroyed and people's heads explode. Over the years she gained control of her talent, to the point where she can speak in a loud whisper without breaking things, or people. She met crystal at a dinner party and they became lovers, then crystal revealed her powers and Whisper realised they'd work well together, but they'd need other people if they wanted to fight crime, and the rest is history.
Powers: Devastating Scream
| The PeaceMakers |
Yes, we love peace, but we are not willing to take wounds for it, as we are for war.
- John Andrew Holmes, Wisdom in Small Doses
As the first super hero team, the PeaceMakers are legends, despite the fact that none of the original group remains with the current one. They remain the most reviled and at the same time most popular group of super humans and have had a lot of applications for membership lately, even disregarding the controversy around Lucky Jim's death.
| Bolt II: | 14% |
| Breaker: | 13% |
| Cloud: | 15% |
| Diamondskin: | 10% |
| Mindwipe: | 1% |
| Teek: | 26% |
| Previous Member: | 18% |
| Don't know/ Don't care/ Refused to answer: | 2% |
| This poll of 7,632 citizens has a 2% margin of error and may not add up to 100% due to rounding. | |
Diamondskin (Leader)
Summary: Diamondskin took over from Lucky Jim and is a very blunt, ruthless and tactless leader in his early 40s. Under his leadership the PeaceMakers have taken on a hard, nasty edge in dealing with super villains and many of their harshest critics are silent - some, it is rumoured, permanently. He doesn't do press conferences, simply because he's sort of the Dan Quayle of super heroes and tends to say the wrong things at the wrong times, such as comparing Starchild to Sappho, Nancy Reagan, Laura Bush and Maragaret Thatcher as lesbians (and managing to include Sigourney Weaver, Angelina Jolie and Pamela Anderson in a confusion over the term thespian in the same interview).
Powers: Invulnerable to conventional damage, Fast healing/tough, Super strength, Super jumping.
Bolt II (F)
Summary: One of the youngest PeaceMakers at 21, she joined in 2011 at the ripe age of 11 (which now would be illegal). She is rather arrogant and brash, but is at the same time good at following orders and has learned a lot in 9 years. She tends to be a competent battle commander but is often underestimated due to her age. She's read enough about the Destroyer incident to never, ever want to go through something like it.
Powers: Super speed, Flight, Toughness
Cloud
Summary: The first of the new recruits, cloud was 15 when he joined in 2007, on the run from some people who had somehow managed to tick of a "end of the world" cult and was new to his powers and fleeing for his life. The PeaceMakers taught him how to use them and in return he got his arms and legs broken by Destroyer a year later. He barely survived the Destroyer incident even with the help of healers and remains in a lot of pain to this day from the injuries he took.
Powers: Wind Manipulation, Air shield, Create winds
Breaker
Summary: Joining the PeaceMakers in 2015, Breaker is currently the youngest member (20) and is still rather awed at being a PeaceMaker five years later. He tends to show off and tries to prove himself the equal of the others in combat, which tends to lead to a lot of hospital visits.
Powers: Super strength, Cause things to break, Flight
Mindwipe (F)
Summary: Mindwipe joined the team when Diamondskin did and seems to have a history with him. Some even speculate they were married once, but no one can prove it. She tends to be very distant and remote and likes to ensure super villains aren't a threat to anyone ever again by melting all the synapses in their brains. She's rather good at it and most of her team mates are a little afraid of her.
Powers: Telepathy, Rearrange your brain ("This is your brain on drugs. You like?")
Teek (F)
Summary: The brother of Psycho, Teek joined the PeaceMakers in 2013 when she managed to help stop his killing spree in Boston. She is extremely pretty and the most photogenic and popular of the current PeaceMakers. Perhaps coincidentally she also has the highest record for saved bystanders (4,231 and counting). She is widely believed to be the most powerful large scale telekinetic in the world.
Powers: Telekinsis, Telekinisis and, well, Telekinisis.
| The Sentinels |
And maybe a watchman had seen civilisation with the skin ripped off one time too many, stopped acting like a watchman and starting acting like a human being and realised that the click of a crossbow or the sweep of a sword would make the world so clean.
- Terry Pratchett, "Feet of Clay"
The unofficial protectors of Haven, the three Sentinels are largely a mystery. They first appeared in 2004, saving a man construction worker falling off a building and have protected Haven ever since. No one is sure what they are, but the Iron sentinel died fighting Destroyer and was seen again a week later, so there is little to go on besides rumours.
Gold
Known Powers: Invulnerable (mental), Energy Blast, Telekinisis
Iron
Known Powers: Invulnerable (physical), Super Strength, Flight
Silver
Known Powers: Invulnerable (energy), Phasing, Teleportation
| Eugenics |
What expression shall we see in our own eyes, if we see evil and do nothing, or do evil and see ourselves?
- Wilhemina Baird, "Chaos Come Again"
The Society for the Furtheration of Humanity through the Selective Destruction of Hindrances to Social and Physical Evolution.
And also the first super villain team on record, but they don't think of themselves as villains.
Number One (F)
Summary: A semi-retired Elementary School Teacher, Number One (formerly Anne Jacobs of England, now in her late 70's) is frighteningly intelligent and utterly ruthless. She’s also insane and wishes to rule the world. (Anne's no sure why, it's just a goal she has.) Her children are alive and married and her husband passed away twenty one years ago, perhaps not entirely by choice, but his children believe that living with Anne would have driven anyone to the nuthouse. Number One is a fat, loving grandmother with grey hair and a kind, charming smile. At least, until you look into her cold, brown eyes. (Making brown eyes look evil takes work. She has it down pat.) She is wearing a simple old fashioned dress.
Powers: Once more unto the breech (without any dear friends) (This power allows Anne to make one of anything she can imagine happen. It lasts an amount of time equal to her percentage in this power and then the world snaps back to normal. However, the memory of what she did remains with people. For example, she could have someone’s leg rot. It would be better in a bit, but you'd still have the memory of it rotting with you. She is limited to visual range for the most part, but can cause effects over an area she can envision as well. She can also only call up one specific thing once a day (sometimes once a week or month for bigger effects). However, she can get around that by calling up hemp rope, then silk later on etc.), Lord, what fools these mortals be! (Super Intelligence), You shall more command with years than with your weapons (She can make people cringe like any really good teacher, with a glare that can curdle milk and a voice that can stop people in their tracks. It also prevents her arthritis from acting up - part power, part just her)
The Queen of the North (F)
Summary: The teams assassin, the queen of the north can't be killed. For some reason, she always rises from the dead. But each time unhinges her mind a little bit more so she's not the most stable of personalities
Powers: Make it Snow, Ice sculptures
Brute
Summary: Brute (his actual name - parents aren't obliged to love their children) is a big, hulking and very, very ugly fellow who's immense strength seemed to suit him perfectly. (His own mother said he was the kind of baby bags over the head were made for - preferably plastic ones.) He likes to beat the crap out of people and is essentially a bully at heart. He was always really tough and tends to try and kill anyone who makes fun of him for his looks or the fact that he has a mild stutter. He joined the Eugenics because they told him he'd be able to hurt a lot of people. Like Number One, he likes hurting kids, but he also likes hurting everyone else - and their little doggies, too.
Powers: Super Strength, Super Strength, Toughness
The other members of Eugenics are more transitory (one of the 3 big ones kills them, or they die putting down rebellions).
| Evil, Incorporated |
It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
- H L Mencken
No, it's not a joke. They're a real corporation.
CEO (F)
The Chief Evil officer of Evil, Inc., Amanda Hudson possesses the power to make people believe things. It's rumoured she was once a short lived villain called Demagogue but after 3 successful lawsuits no one brings it up any more.
CFO
Patrick McKenna is a superhuman with the power to cloud men's minds, confusing them about what's real and blurring the line between fact and fiction. Even more dangerous is his rumoured power to foresee the stock market and act on it.
COO
The Operations Officer of Evil, Inc., Randall Jenkins is said to be a former Black Op and is basically a very, very ruthless and dangerous man. He rarely uses whatever powers he has, but no one has survived their use.
The other members (from recruits to vice presidents) have changed a lot over the years, but Evil. Inc. lives on as a truly successful business, and a nasty group of people. The PeaceMakers tried to take them down, once, and ended up in litigation for five years over it. However, they do tend to leave big players alone, just because they dislike publicity.
| The Weather Channel |
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?
- Kelvin Throop III
The weather channel is a shifting group of villains whose goal is to rule a city entirely by virtue of controlling it's weather patterns. The membership and goals of the group change regularly, as does the city (there have even been two groups in different cities claiming the name on occasion).
Lightning Lord
The current leader of the weather channel, if only because everyone else is afraid of him. He's from Haven and wants to take over the city just because someone dared him to once in a game of poker he lost (or won, the stories differ).
Cold Front
An odd super, cold front makes people cold inside, deadening their emotions and making them do things without a conscience and just because they can. He can also compel them to do certain things.
Demolition Dude
He makes earthquakes. Nuff said.
Dust Devil (F)
You want sand, sugar? You got it. Lots and lots of it. Enough to bury you, even. Mrs. Sandman brings fatal dreams, kiddies.
Hostile Takeover (F)
A former honest-to-god weather forecaster, Pamela Landsbury has the ability to take over TV (and radio) signals and broadcast something else. She can actually "replace" someone on a screen and give information of her choosing before the network in question shuts the show down. Rumours claim she has left the team for work with ABC, though.
| The Movers |
Pray as if everything depended on God. Work as if everything depends on you.
- Patricia Levins
The movers are a moving company, nothing more or less. They don't do superhuman stuff while working and rarely do it in their off time.
Daniel Chambers
Summary: Daniel founded "The Movers" after discovering his power and finding The Truck and deciding that a moving company would always be fun to run. Not that there haven't been troubles. A girl with telekinisis who joined last year (Betty Roberts) was almost killed on her way to work by union workers for another company and people are always trying to shut him down, or sick villains on him. He just wants to make some money, run his business, and retire, but they're making that difficult. He tends to laugh at people who ask him to be a hero.
Powers: Super Strength
The Truck
Summary: A moving truck that can change colour and logo at will. It seems to be sentient as well.
Powers: Bigger on the inside, Telepathy, Flight
Charles Windrider
Summary: A Native American kid, Charles joined the Movers because he needed a job to pay off some gambling debts. He tends to waste a lot of money but Daniel calmly invests some of his paycheque into mutual funds each week and waits for the day when Charles grows up. Charles has never come to work high or drunk, simply because of what Daniel promised to do to him if he did.
Powers: Teleport other; Teleport self
Angela Lainsburg (F)
Summary: Angela had a fun job waiting tables at super speed before she accidentally tripped and 5 customers were killed by glass travelling at mach 1. She joined the movers to earn enough money to pay for her legal fees and likes Daniel, a lot, but he refuses to get involved with a co-worker. She also does a lot of the accounting for The Movers.
Powers: Super Speed
| Deathwake (F) |
You know, its strange. People who can tell you in a minute what they would kill for can't tell you what they would die for; and the people who know what they would die for can't tell you what they are living for. And its weird because they're all the same thing. When you know what you'll kill for then unless you're a sociopath you have to know what you'll die for; a life equals a life. And we're all going to die someday, so whatever you spend your life doing, that is what you died for.
- Daniel Keys Moran, "The Last Dancer"
Summary: The guardian and ruler of Cuba, Deathwake enforces it's laws as a superhuman vacation spot ruthlessly and will kill anyone who fights another super human there without just cause. She has yet to face a foe she couldn't kill and is considered one of the most dangerous people in the world due to her knowledge of death and the many ways to kill other people. What's surprising is that she's a very efficient ruler as well and, despite American claims of brutality and "living in fear", the lifestyle of many Cubans has increased and Deathwake has put a lot of the profits from her idea of Cuba into education. She is also an unapologetic dictator and hides it from no one. Her ability to survive assassination attempts is legendary.
Powers: Deathwake, Adaptation, Power theft, Power absorption
| Gunshot |
"Idealists always forget that the power they fight is the same power they themselves hunger for."
- David C Smith, "Sorrowing Vengeance"
Summary: One of the most famous vigilantes, Gunshot makes it a point to kill criminals, super or otherwise. He's wanted for multiple counts of Murder One and wanted for questioning regarding scores of other murders. Despite efforts by the authorities he has yet to be brought to justice and continues to mete out his own brand on criminals anywhere. He avoids killing known super heroes unless he has no choice and refuses to kill any police officers, for reasons known only to him.
Powers: Create (summon?) weapons, Super speed, Super strength, Teleport
| Silent But Deadly |
Nothing is ever done until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.
- George Bernard Shaw
Summary: Assassin for hire.
Really. That's about all anyone knows about him (and they're not even sure Silent is a him). You want to find Silent, you put the world out and eventually someone might work out terms, and the target is dead. It's as simple as that. Silent but Deadly generally refuses to kill good super humans no matter what they pay, and has categorically refused to take any assignment to kill Deathwake - so far. He (or she) has killed other superhumans and humans and never failed. Or, at least, no client has survived to tell others Silent But Deadly failed.
Powers: Unknown
| Zero Tolerance |
“There’s law,” I said slowly, “and there’s justice. and then there’s the human beings who have to manipulate those abstractions.”
- Melissa Scott, “The Kindly Ones”
Summary: The magical community (which is rare, and seldom spoken of) knows him, but they tell no one, for fear invoking his name will bring death to them. For Zero Tolerance is the police of magic in the world, the judge, jury, and often executioner of those who use their talents for evil ends. Very little is known of him save that he likely knows some magic and seems to be very lucky - and very feared.
Powers: None known, probably magic
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