Here's a weird question . What do people like to see in boards that draw from comic books as source material? And how do you feel about the idea of a board that draws on iconic superhero characters but while reworking them to keep the core mythos and iconography of the characters and their roles but remove the actual concept of a 'superhero' and their superhero identity?
You might need to be more specific. In general, I expect the same things from comic book boards as I do any other board drawing upon some source material: respect for the source material, a solid concept and world, and maybe a new idea or two. The second parts sounds like maybe this should have gone into interest check. Are you thinking of something like Watchmen only using mainstream superheros? If so, that'd be an awesome idea. If you're asking about making a superhero board with no superheros you're going to have to explain further. Are the superheros all dead or something and it's only normal people left? Or do you have a board you can show as an example?
It could also be a case of where there were never any superheros to begin with. Just normal people who happened to be heroic in some way. Paul Bunyan wasn't a giant, and his ox wasn't really blue. He was an above average lumberjack who was dedicated and hard working. Sure, he was a pretty fantastic guy, just not to the extent others made it seem to be. Just that after many years, people who told tall tales of him kept being progressively exaggerated until he became a legend. (As House says, people love to lie.) You could potentially see Hercules, the Greek Superman of old, in this light as well.
Do you mean people still have powers, but the idea of 'superheroes' is not a commonplace concept? If so, Birthright has that. ^_^
Do you mean that the board is definitely a fandom board, based on a tweaked AU version of the original canon, or did you mean just 'borrowing' the concept and looks of the original canon but using it for your own devices? The former is okay, but the latter isn't. I'd rather play in a completely original world than one that was 98% the same as the fandom but still claims to be original and is in no way associated with that canon.
You mean a site that's all secret identity, no heroics? Sorry not my cup of tea. I mean as much as I love Clark Kent and Peter Parker, it's only half of who they are and in the case of people like Bruce Wayne, it's not even really who they are. If your idea was for a Nolanverse site with "vigilantes and terrorists" rather than "heroes and villains", I'd say you'd have a shot, but otherwise it does sound a little dull. Because let's face it, although people like to do the personal plots like Spider-man and MJ and the playboy adventures of Tony Stark, they're going to want their alter egos too.
Eep! I'm so late with this! Okay, this is going to be a ridiculous post because I want to reply to everyone who took the time to offer their thoughts on it. I was thinking an original setting with plenty of original characters, canons and places, but also with some things re-imagined and reworked from mainstream comics to fit the setting, but while crediting what they belong to. I was thinking things along these lines. The setting has had characters with powers for a while now who basically carry out heroics after a fashion, but then for a while I was pondering integrating aspects from mainstream comics also. They wouldn't have the superhero identities, the costumes and the like, but they would still have the people threatening people's safety, the structure of society, and abusing power toward their own ends, and the people who would oppose it. But the concept of a 'superhero' isn't really a thing. Like ??? mentioned, they have the concept of, like, altruistic defenders, and even champions, but not really superheroes.
I don't mind. What I don't like is when people twist and tweak the canons to the extent where it's not even canon anymore, it's totally their character. If you were going to "mess" up the canon so much, why not just make a character based off of the said canon? I'm all for adding a touch of your taste to the canon, but not to the point where you have other people going "so-so would NEVER do that" =/
To answer your question, I don't mind. In fact, I prefer it. If you keep the core of the character but change them, that's perfectly fine. A lot of characters differ from how they are portrayed in each comic book, so there are many versions of Bruce Wayne and many versions of the Joker depending on the writer, artist, atmosphere, etc. Each have their own spark of creativity and through this, role-players can also have more creative licence with the characters. It wouldn't hurt to create your own versions, no? It's going to be their character either way. I think what you mean is when they're not even canon any more that they're hardly recognisable as who they originally are (or were), right? Edit: I do agree though that if you tweak them too much, they may become hardly recognisable. Like for someone like Batman, his identity, his symbol of the bat, and superhero persona are a huge parts of who he is, etc. So that's something important to consider.
So say you have Superman as a canon. He'd be Kal-El and not Superman or Clark Kent? Since Clark was just as much an alter ego as Kal-El is his real name.
Yea, I mean what you said Jared where it's hardly recognizable as a character from the series anymore.
