What’s up, storytellers?
What’s up, storytellers? I’m C. R. Rowenson, the Magic Engineer and it’s time to talk about magic.
This post is part of the “Make it Fresh” series, where I take a standard magic system archetype or trope and see what we can do to turn it on its head and make it into something new and interesting. We’ll look at the core attributes of the trope, explore whether you should change it, and then talk about how to change it.
This time, we’re talking about superpowers and superheroes. So, without further ado, let’s get into it, expose these ideas to dangerous levels of radiation, and see what they mutate into.
Identifying Attributes & Superhero Tropes
When we’re talking about superheroes, these stories most commonly take place in large metropolitan areas. Not only that, but the people with the superpowers are very often embroiled in fighting crime and injustice in their world, specifically to maintain the status quo. They want to keep people from disrupting the balance, and this is actually connected to a trope you can find on TV tropes called “The Status Quo is God.”
We see this a lot because these heroes and these characters are very focused on fighting and stopping anything that would disrupt the system. Even to the point that they will refuse to use their powers or their technologies to change things on a large scale, which can be frustrating when they do have the technology to change the world, but I digress. The important part of this trope is their fight to maintain the status quo.
This also ties into the standard tropes we know as “Capes and Costumes,” and “Alter Egos.” This is a whole thing where the superheroes are always trying to protect their identity in terms of protecting themselves from liability.
They’re technically vigilantes, which is illegal. Oftentimes, they do have some kind of grudging support or relationship with the local law enforcement so they can handle some of the issues that standard law enforcement either can’t or won’t manage. This is another very important aspect of this magic system archetype.
The Rise to Power
When we’re talking about superpowers and superheroes, the flux of the system, the change in prevalence over time is predominantly positive. We start with no magic users, and as the series or world continues to progress and develop, the number of magic users just continues to climb both in terms of heroes and in terms of villains.
This is both good and bad.
It does bring into play the fact that most of these stories and this archetype involve people who are fresh to their power. They go through an experimentation phase and their origin story, which we’re all very familiar with. And that’s another piece of this.
Even though the number of magic users always seems to be on the climb, and the power of the individual magic users rises as people get better at what they’re doing, and they learn new tricks, we never seem to hit critical mass with this archetype.
There’s never a point where it fully switches from low prevalence to medium, and definitely not from medium prevalence to high, with a few exceptions. For example, in the City of Heroes MMORPG, the entire plot behind that suddenly shifted to high prevalence. But, for the most part with this archetype, it usually stays around low to medium-low, even as it ramps up and the prevalence slowly increases over time.
The Nature of Superhero Powers
Next, let’s talk about the nature of the powers in this kind of magic system.
Most often, the powers of an individual magic user are kind of thematic and will hold together under some kind of scrutiny and logic. But it can become very disparate and disjointed when you start looking across multiple magic users.
Examining the Marvel Cinematic Universe
If you’re familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you know exactly what I’m talking about. One hero is going to be very different from another hero. They’re all part of the same system, but they all function independently. The only things that really carry over tend to be high levels of strength and endurance because that’s how we get the epic fight scenes.
If you’re ever wanting an exhaustive list of the types of powers that we see in different superhero systems and stories, you should check out the Superpower Wiki. It’s nothing but pages and pages of these different magical effects and superhero abilities that we see in different stories. It’s a pretty good resource if you want to know more about what has been done and where you might want to start with things.
Superhero Ensembles
A very popular application of this magic system archetype is the generation of ensemble stories. They bring a bunch of different people together to form a team to solve a problem. We see this with X-Men, the Avengers, and with Justice League. We see it all over the place and it makes sense. It’s very satisfying to have these people with unique powers come together and learn how to support each other and enhance each other’s abilities, or in some cases even counter the negative effects of their abilities. Ensembles are very interesting to watch and make for a great playground for character interaction.
Should You Change the Superhero Archetype?
Now that you have a solid understanding of the superhero archetype, should you change it?
On the surface level, this is very simple. You just need to ask the same question that we always ask in this case. How do you feel about the trope, and how do you feel about the archetype? Are you okay with how it is? Do you just want to deliver more of the same? If so, that’s totally fine.
That said, this archetype in particular is a little more complicated because, to a certain extent, you do need to change it. However, that’s more about changing the nature of the magic system rather than changing the archetype itself. You have to change things enough that you don’t have to worry about plagiarism or copyright issues, which tends to be a bigger deal with superpowers than it is with a lot of other magic system archetypes.
To be clear, if you don’t want to change the superhero archetype, you don’t have to. Saying no and keeping it the way that it is, is actually the simplest way to move forward. So, if you really enjoy the superhero setup, that’s no different than pulling from the standard fantasy setup or a standard sci-fi setting. It’s something regularly accepted and can actually be a shortcut to introducing your readers and your audience to a variety of common concepts and problems.
Not only that, but this is also a solid way forward if you want to replicate the feeling of a specific era or time period. If you wanted to harken back to the days of classic Marvel, or anything like that, you’re going to have to stick closer to the trope and change fewer things. And, just like with any other archetype that we have gone over or will go over, it’s a framework. It’s a starting place and can save you a lot of time and effort in terms of building things up in your story.
Making Changes to Keep Superheroes Fresh
In my personal opinion, as Clark, I think you should change some things from the superpowers archetype.
There are some things that are built into the superhero archetype that are just better if we let them go.
This might be a bit of a sensitive area for some people, I know. There are some social issues that need to be considered when you’re picking up the superpower archetype.
The most common issue is the blank girl moniker. We need to stop that. Supergirl, Batgirl, Wonder Girl, any of those, we need to step back on those. It’s a product of the time, it’s part of our history, and it’s something that can’t be ignored, even if there was no ill intent by it. Now, it can come across as a bit demeaning. So, if you’re going to have ‘girl’ as a moniker, you definitely need to have some people that have ‘boy’ as a moniker.
I think it is probably better if we can just step back and get rid of the man-woman-boy-girl altogether and come up with some more interesting superhero names.
Building Better Superheroes
If you follow me at all, you know that I love Brandon Sanderson. The Reckoners series has some great examples of superhero and supervillain names.
Steelheart is an awesome supervillain name. Firefight and Murkwood completely bypass the naming issue, and you can too.
And, while the naming conventions are an integrated part of the superhero archetype, it’s one piece that I think we can leave behind.
Superheroes and Representation
This leads us to another, even more sensitive point. The tendency to use superpowers to negate disabilities and challenges for characters.
If somebody can’t walk, we give them a flying superpower or a telekinetic superpower. If somebody is blind, they have additional senses that let them see. I don’t pretend to know how all of this factors into all of the situations, but it’s something to consider and something you should research on your own.
Doing this isn’t actually a representation of those people and can be hurtful in some ways. I don’t want to get into more than that because I am still learning about this myself, but it is something to bear in mind. Try not to pull a ‘Daredevil’ where you make him go blind and then immediately give him a power that gives him a different version of sight so that his true power is just “vision plus.” Try to avoid that and do your own research and see how you’re feeling.
You’re the only one who can draw the line. This is something that we need to explore and probably need to leave behind us, in terms of superhero archetypes.
The last reason I think you should twist this archetype in particular is because of how much it’s used. I don’t want to say that it’s overdone, but it is well-worn, and it’s very important in this archetype more than any other that you do come up with some new and creative take on it, either in terms of powers or application. I don’t just want to see a repeat of the X-Men or I would just go read more X-Men. So, I think you probably should change it, which leads us into our next segment where we’ll talk about ways that you can.
Ways to Change the Superhero Archetype
Change the Setting
One of the big factors with this archetype is the setting. It’s usually a modern-day metropolis setting. So, change it.
It would be very interesting to see more superhero-type stories and systems in different settings. You could put it in historical settings. In fact, there is a graphic novel, Marvel 1602, which is very fascinating and takes place in the Elizabethan era. You could also put it in a sci-fi setting or even a horror setting.
There’s a land of possibilities for you to explore.
X-Men in space? I’d read that. X-Men in a haunted house? I’d read that. X-Men in an insane asylum where they are being experimented on? I believe that was a movie that was coming out and then I just never heard of it again so I can’t even tell you what the mane is, but I would have eaten that up.
Superhero Genre Mash-ups
Change the Genre
Setting and genre often go hand-in-hand, right?
You could do it in an Elizabethan or Victorian setting and use that to go from standard crime fighting to actually tell more of a romance plot, which would be interesting.
Just because you have the power to punch through the sun, it doesn’t make dating any easier. In fact, it would probably make it harder, which would make for some very interesting and unique conflict for you to add to your story. And, beyond just the crime fighting, shift what it is they’re rallying against even if you change nothing else.
There’s a variety of different things that you could deal with. For one, it could be an invasion. And I’m not talking about an alien invasion. Alien invasion gets done a lot. Instead, an invasion by other superheroes, or maybe a cadre of war heroes who are trying to stave off an invasion from another country, especially if they have superheroes of their own. That would be interesting to me for sure.
You can also change their focus to be the eradication of a threat. For example, if there are monsters wandering around that are wreaking havoc, or if it’s these people who are trying to help humanity survive on a new world. Any of these kinds of things would be interesting and, even as I say it, I realize I’m kind of just rehashing parts of He Who Fights with Monsters. So, I think the short version is, give me more of He Who Fights with Monsters and I’ll be happy.
Shaking Up Superhero Identities
Change the Identity
Then there’s the aspect of the alter ego and the costumes, right? Change that up. For one, you can make it so the person’s identity is actually part of their brand, like we see in One Punch Man. There are a lot of people where their superhero identity is them, and that is an important part of how they sell themselves and go through the ranks of the superhero institute.
You could even make it so superheroes go corporate like in “The Boys,” where superheroes are part of a larger organization and their identities are protected by the organization and not necessarily by themselves. They’re still known at a certain level, just not to everybody.
You could even use the power to constantly change the identity of the person themselves. We see this a little bit in Wu Assassins, where he was able to change his face and look like a completely different person. You could exacerbate that, so they actually become different people over time.
The Wild Cards Anthology was very interesting. There was a character who was continually rewritten. Their body changed, their powers changed, and every time that they went to sleep, everything changed on them. And that’s why they ended up being known as The Sleeper, which is something I thought was very cool and very unique.
Pushing Power to the Limit
Change the Flux
We can also change the flux and the process of gaining the powers, and even the stage in which people are experiencing their powers.
Rather than always going from nothing to new and growing experience, you could start with somebody who is more grizzled and well-worn with their powers.
Another option is to change the flux so that it is more positive, and things are rapidly growing out of control. We see that in a couple of stories here and there. You could even make it negative where maybe superheroes have been around for a long time and they’re starting to die off and the world doesn’t know how to handle it anymore. It’s this force of change and control that is just starting to fade into the background. Or you could even keep it neutral where superheroes are either entering the world and replacing an old magic system, or a new magic system is replacing the magic system of superpowers with something that is more industrialized and universal.
You could even change it so each superhero has a mantle of power that has to be passed on. So, there is a static number of superheroes and it just gets handed off from one person to the next.
All of those are just a couple of ways you could play with the flux and how people gain powers. Each of these would be, I think, pretty interesting to explore.
Creating New Connections
Change How It’s All Connected
One of the biggest things about superheroes and superpowers is how every magic user is different. They all have their unique powers, their unique themes.
One way you could change this would be to add a common theme or common threads through all of them.
Maybe it doesn’t matter what your powers are. Every power can be interrupted or contained by a salt circle. Or every power relates to a very specific decision that everybody has to make. Or even all of it. All of it centers around a specific concept in the world. For example, if everybody’s powers were animal related, or everybody’s powers were plant related, or they had the same strength or the same limitations.
You could try to find a way to connect all of them to make them feel like a single tapestry, a single tie-dye tapestry with splashes of color here and there that are very different, but still one cohesive whole would be quite interesting. And, as we’ve been going through this, I have been trying to give examples of stories where some of this has already been done. And, if you’re well-versed in the archetype and you love superheroes, you’re probably thinking of a bunch that I’m not even aware of.
Closing
All of this brings me to my final point.
More than any other archetype, the superhero archetype has been well-used and heavily explored. Which means that most of these changes on the surface level have already been done in one place or another. And some of these have even become tropes of their own.
That’s not a bad thing. Tropes are very useful and very powerful. If the trope exists, that means somebody has already done the work and made it function and made it enjoyable for somebody. And, distinction is in the details, so even if there is someone who has done superheroes in space with salt circle limitations, you can still do it in your own unique way.
Don’t retreat from something just because you feel like it has been done before.
A lot of these are sub-specializations like Urban Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, or Space Opera. Just be aware of what you’re working with and then lean into it and find the places we’ve talked about here where you can tweak it and make it your own. As always, keep writing and stay awesome.
