Friday Worldbuilding Fun: Supers Appear in Different Eras and/or Settings


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I recall several What If. and Dark Knights where they did this. Supers as knights in medieval times and Superman landing in Germany instead of America.

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Is that Wayne Reynolds art? Awesome.

I think Kenneth Hite did a few of these. I quite liked the Marvel Roman one (the Pythagoreans - the Fantastic Four, representing the four Pythagorean elements - as well as the Etruscan thunder god Tiwaz and of course Centurion Roma) and the early Islam one (the heroes all bear one of the 99 names of Allah such as Al-Aziz, the Mighty One; could be done as a Legion of Superheroes riff).
 

Something popped into my head: The Marvel Literary Universe. Imagine classic literary fiction, but with supers.

Emily Brontë: Wolverine Heights
Mr Earnshaw: Here’s a feral orphan I picked up in the woods on my business trip, children. Please make him feel at home.

Children: Put him back put him back oh god

Heathcliff: (SNIKT) Too late.
 

Herman Melville: Morbius Dick
“Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering vamp; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then go to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned vamp! Thus, I give up the stake! IT’S MORBIN’ TIME!”

~ Ahab
 

Kidding (mostly) aside, considering the legendary attributes and achievements of ancient Greek heroes in general, a low-powered supers campaign set during the siege of Troy, the Odyssey, or the journey of Jason & the Argonauts could be VERY entertaining.
 

Some more from the MLU:

Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Witch’s Letter

Leonard Tolstoy: War Machine and Peace

Miguel Cervantes: Doom Quixote

George Eliott: Silas Sub-Mariner

Thomas Pynchon: Graviton’s Rainbow

Herman Melville: Morbius Dick

Louis L'Amour: The Quicksilver and the Dead

Ursula Le Guin - The Left hand of Darkseid
Victor HugoL Les Hulk Miserables
Edgar Alan Poe: Fall of the House of M
Tolkien: Lord of the 10 Rings
Virginia Wolf: To the Lanternhouse
 


A weird west American expansion era supers game could be good, assuming you don’t have high power levels.

Gunslingers with super speed or super accuracy, John Henry dialed up to 11, a scaled down version of Paul Bunyan & Babe, would be just beyond the western’s traditional norms. And don’t leave the First Nations people (and blacks, Chinese rail workers, and others) without their own supers.
 

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