Where could I set a superhero story?

That too, thanks

 

I agree. A common writing tip is ‘write what you know’. If there’s a need to exaggerate upon the city you’re familiar with, then do it. Unless there’s a significant reason for the setting to be in a particular city, keep it simple and focus more on the story and characters.

 

You can always make it in the inner city and have one of the problems be crime, poverty, destitution, and pure unfairness. Superpowers aren't easily going to deal with the fact that a mother has to work 3 jobs to stay fed and have a roof, or the homeless guy who's corpse you found who froze to death last night.

 

Superheroes generally don't deal with huge social issues like drug addiction, homelessness, poverty. I mean once in a while the superhero him/her self struggles with drug addiction - Speedy from the Green Arrow comics was a drug addict. Batman is a billionaire in his other identity - when he was introduced, he was a millionaire but the times changed so he became a billionaire and I'm pretty sure that before I drop dead, he will be a trillionaire. Anyways, Gotham still has poverty - even though Bruce Wayne participates in dozens of charities and worthy causes.

A bank robber? Sure, no problem, swoops down and punches the bad guy in the face repeatedly. Ties him up for the cops - all yours!

Poverty? I guess if you consider Robin Hood a superhero, his approach of robbing the rich and giving to the poor was one way to eliminate poverty.

Homelessness? I'm not aware of any superhero that tackled that challenge.

Drug issues, child abuse, lack of opportunities.....I have no clue where to start. If the OP wants his/her character to tackle these issues and raise awareness of them, perhaps propose solutions to them, that would be AWESOME!!! I'd read it!

And back to a few posts back. When I imagine a superhero, I imagine someone who looks like this:



Either guy in the picture. If that's your superhero's identity, it would be very difficult to have a secret identity. I guess you could have the same identifying characteristics but several different - all legit - names so that each of them provides reasonable doubt for the other identity.

 

Those guys would be the tanks. Every superhero team usually has them, the big strong guy who can uproot trees and use them for toothpicks. Like the Hulk or the Thing.

Usually bodybuilders (especially like those guys in the pic, who are all hyped up on human growth hormone etc) are so musclebound so inflexible, and so non-acrobatic they couldn't move like a superhero. Plus how freaking heavy do you think they are? No way are they gonna be flipping off flagpoles and jumping off buildings.

Now Jujimufu on the other hand—for such a huge bodybuilder this guy is serious superhero material!!



But I tend to prefer the more acrobatic super-types (who are also creatures of the night):


They work best if they're lean and athletic.

 

Yah, they're kind of too muscular to really be flexible....though Kai Greene does a good job in this routine.



As for the drug enhancements, well...Captain America has the super-soldier serum, right? I always thought that was a steroid the way it was written. Hour-Man has the miracle pill that gave him an hour's worth of superpowers...

The theory of Batman being a normal man that develops his abilities with intensive training and study, that's relatable because all of us could do that, right? Realistically though, how many professional sports stars (soccer, football, basketball, hockey, gymnastics, whatever) do you see that have a LONG career playing at that level? Can any human really do what Batman does for more than....10 years? Without some type of magic formula or enhancement technology?

As a kid, superhero were where it is at!!

But as an adult, I'm more interested in the pot-bellied, chain smoking detective that can make intuitive leaps and solve crimes that stump everyone else. I kind of wish that type of superhero existed in real life. Be nice to have a resolution to issues like Tamra Keepness and other missing aboriginal children that have disappeared in Canada and North America.

https://thewalrus.ca/little-girl-lost/

https://storiesoftheunsolved.com/2020/02/22/the-disappearance-of-tamra-keepness/

 

This was also my concept of the average superhero. There are some that don’t fall into ‘Hulk/Thor’ stature but I guess I still do expect my heroes to be in good physical condition. As for secret identities, being an international bodybuilder or other athlete makes a good cover.

 

And believe in the 90’s Marvel depicted Captain America’s super serum as a steroid/drug. I believe the point was to address the growing steroid problem then.

True that a real person would have a ten year career (not unlike most physically demanding sports like football) before diminishing their productivity. Fortunately for comics they get reboots every 7-10 years. Can’t get rid of the meal ticket.

 

How would you hide the fact that "The BULK" and John B. Beefcake, international bodybuilder are the same individual? What kind of disguise could he wear to hide from the villains and well meaning cops who want to question him?

As a child, a pair of glasses and a bodysuit worked. As an adult in a world with facial recognition technology.......I think the only way to really hide is if you have the ability to transform your appearance. Like from a human into a werewolf type thing, or with some kind of advanced technology like Iron Man's armour, or mental abilities that colour what people see....

 

True, hiding facial feature and even tattoos or possibly scars (a la Batman/Daredevil), but masks like Mexican Mucho Libre wrestlers covers facial issues. Full body covering hides other features such as race and scars. There are enough large bodybuilders to give someone enough cover, but few superheroes have that bulk to be of concern (until you go back to the 90s artwork of super steroid frames). Even Superman isn’t much larger than the average healthy male, which he supposedly hides with larger clothing. With today’s health craze, being the owner or even avid user of a gym provides a reasonable cover for well-chiseled physiques.

 

With a good tailor you couldn't exactly hide, but you could certainly pass with nothing more than a wave of admiring glances.

 

When Walt Simonson started writing and drawing Thor in the 80's (and completely revamped it) he did away with the whole secret identity thing:



Funniest part—on the next page Thor bumps into a guy who looks exactly like Clark Kent in the hallway and knocks him down.

I don't remember very well, but I think it's because he came from Asgard, so he had no loved ones or friends here—a villain couldn't kidnap them and use them against him. Of course they could track him down and attack while he's sleeping or something, but then when you're a demigod I don't think you need to worry about things like that.

Originally Thor would tap his hammer twice on the ground, it would turn into a cane and he would turn into a skinny crippled guy named Donald Blake. And all he had to do was a quick double-tap of the cane and lightning struck and he's Thor again. No facial recognition would identify him, unless he was caught on camera doing the presto-change-o.

But honestly, in a world that includes superheroes I don't think you can get too realistic or the whole thing just breaks down.

 

Awesome examples. Imagine any of these guys in their current lifestyles, who were actually superheroes. Would we not expect an action hero actor not to be as buff as these guys? And yet, behind the scenes they are ‘The Corsair’, ‘Atomic Knight’, and ‘Bedlam’s (all character names are fictional and any resemblance to..., well, you get it).

 

I remember that run by Walt. It was fun to tread his take on the old thunder god and ‘modern life’. His presto-chango is/was the same as Shazam’s. I agree that there are limits to realism that breaks down the comic experience. For me comics are my quickest form of escapism reading, but I’m not 12 sonI want a writer that takes my intelligence into consideration but leaves my imagination in tack. Warren Ellis, Mark Guggenheim, and Mark Millar do that for me. Challenging both my intelligence and creative mind.

 

If you set it in a real city, I guess you could also deal with current affairs happening in the city in real life, this can be both a good thing and a bad thing, it depends on what you want to do with it, for example if you mention corruption in your story does the city in real life have this problem with corruption?

 

Sorry, but for the OP, is this for a text based story or is it a comic/graphic novel?

They both have their strong points.

I can't remember which sub-forum it is in but when I joined about a year back, I remember participating in a thread where we were discussing - IF MEMORY SERVES - whether some superheroes like Spider-Man worked in text? Because of his powers, you know? When he's in a comic book you can SHOW him web swinging all over the place, shooting strands of webbing at the baddies to capture them, webbing his camera into place to capture action shots of himself in action that he could sell to the Daily Bugle newspaper, and tying up the bad guys with his webbing, leaving them for the cops. Writing out the same scene(s) in text, I think loses some of the impact of that action because it takes too long, especially when your audience might not know who Spider-Man is or what his powers are.

Some powers like extreme deductive reasoning a la Sherlock Holmes can be worked out in text better - how do you show a "thought" in drawing? (yes, I know, thought bubbles) - and the reader can be led along as Sherlock makes his initiative leaps and deductions. But physically based powers such as Spider-Man's or Cyclops?

I think that element should be taken into consideration when you write your story. It will make the story more plausible. Not that people won't find something to complain about - Newton's 3rd law of physics says that's impossible!!! Supreme Ruler of All She Surveys has decreed that NO male being shall ever understand the female being! Whatever.....at least they're buying the book and reading it, right?

 

@Xoic, @Dalantri - Mod hat on here: If you'd like your last few posts about favourite comic book authors moved to the Book Discussion forum, under the thread title "Favourite Comic books and authors" I'd be happy to attempt it. It might attract more attention there, and it's a good topic. Let me know, on this thread.

Right, I've just created a new thread https://www.writingforums.org/threads/favourite-comic-books-graphic-novels-and-their-authors.166409/

...and moved the relevant posts from this thread over there. I hope the discussion takes off.

 

You could try to make a new type of city altogether, from the most likely to the least likely way humans could organize in a "city". For example a most likely way ( compared to reality ) would be a huge city where there are no big buildings, only houses and office building that do not exceed 2 or 3 floors, as for the least likely example, would be a city where people instead of buidling up, they started to build down in the earth the big buildings (like the "Hive" in Resident Evil) and have them connected via tunnels.