Current Events > I know why DC and Marvel steal each other's characters all the time now.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I have a hero who is impervious to psychic attacks, but I want him to fall under mind control and break free with the power of love. I want him to realize his feelings for his crime-fighting partner and they become partners in love..too. He would be about to finish her off, and the she is like I love you. And I-I-I-I-I can't hurt you Aisah. I love you too. So how can I end up at this point. How can I get a guy who eats psychic attacks for lunch, be overpowered by mind control, a villainess who uses pheromones to manipulate people. I named her Queen B. And Guess what that literal character exist. Like not something close to it. That literal character exist. Same name same power, some devotion to EVIL.

cjsdowg posted...

So how can I end up at this point.

This is a tricky question. Not inherently wrong, but if you find it too difficult to put your character in a certain situation, you should ask yourself if you need this situation to happen. Perhaps find another way to have the same desired emotional climax. But...

How can I get a guy who eats psychic attacks for lunch, be overpowered by mind control, a villainess who uses pheromones to manipulate people.

depends on the mechanism for his psychic defenses.

You could go for a brute force approach. The opponent is just much stronger than any psychic the hero has faced before.

You could do some research into real life hypnosis and manipulation. People can actually be put under some scarily powerful states of manipulation, but even then will refuse to do things that go against deep-seated personal values/morality. You could perhaps look into this and see how you can apply it to the hero.

You could also do a technical victory for the villain, who find a way to get around the hero's defenses and attack them when they're vulnerable. (Though how this works depends on the rules you've created for your power/magic system)

Or maybe the hero can't use their powers for whatever reason, and the villain capitalizes on their weakened state.

You could also maybe make the hero willingly give into mind control after being forced into a lose-lose situation. Perhaps they made themselves vulnerable/ a target of the villain specifically to protect someone else who the villain was originally aiming for.

Cool I like the brute force idea. The hero has a lot of self-doubt and being mind controlled with be something that he would beat himself over. He should have been stronger. Because when people with powers like this lose control bad things happen to innocent people. ( Hidden backstory.)

The backstory is he doesn't have powers his abilities are tech based. But once powerful hero lost control and hurt innocent people. And that is why he does what he does. But he knows he can't make the same mistakes.

Part of is that since there are only 2 major companies, many comic writers end up working for both during their career. Historically, some writers made both the original character, and its ripoff

Like, I think the same person made Darkseid and Thanos

Zikten posted...

Part of is that since there are only 2 major companies, many comic writers end up working for both during their career. Historically, some writers made both the original character, and its ripoff

Like, I think the same person made Darkseid and Thanos

Darkseid was Kirby, Thanos was Starlin.

But Vision and Red Tornado were by the same guy.

You could make it so that the hero was mind controlled all along, and that his tech based protection was really a form of control devised by the villain that only makes the hero think he's impervious to mental manipulation despite being under mind control for most of the story.

Perhaps he's only impervious while he's closed off from people. Not sure if that would affect the characterization, but if he starts developing something for and he's suddenly affected it might make a bit of sense.

Or I suppose you don't have to classify pheromones as a psychic ability.

This has been a thing since the golden age across the various iterations of Marvel, DC, EC, etc...

Also, don't forget power creep on some of the more popular heroes, especially Superman and the Hulk.

Im torn between using brute force or pheromones or something like that make my hero succumb to mind control. But the more I think about it, the more I like the brute force idea. It would show that sometimes, no matter how hard you try, no matter how well you train, no matter how smart you are, you can still lose. That would be a harsh but valuable lesson for my hero. It would be more impactful than having him lose because he didnt anticipate something. Being unprepared and losing is bad, but being prepared and still losing is worse. It would really shake up my heros confidence and challenge his character. It would also , take a little control away from the hero. He clearly knowns that he isn't the strongest or the faster person out there. In many ways he is overpowered by some of his "weakest" bad guys. But the one area that he can control, the one area that he was better than everyone else. His own mind. Now isn't a safe place.

Metron the chair guy. Let's rip off someone. You can pick this dude who seat in chair all day or this guy who beats up Superman.

Zikten posted...

Part of is that since there are only 2 major companies, many comic writers end up working for both during their career. Historically, some writers made both the original character, and its ripoff

Even when that isn't the case (or for new writers, isn't the case yet), comic writers do tend to befriend others in the industry and share their ideas as they develop them.

Like, I think the same person made Darkseid and Thanos

That's actually not true. Jack Kirby made Darkseid during his tenure with DC as part of his "New Gods" project following his split from Marvel. Jim Starlin made Thanos, and was originally going to make him a knockoff of Metron (also one of the New Gods, but not as well-known as Darkseid), only to be told by Roy Thomas (then an editor at Marvel) to "Beef him up! If you're going to steal one of the New Gods, at least rip off Darkseid, the really good one!"

Watchmen was originally Alan Moore saying Hey DC, I see that you have bought Charlton Comics so you got a few superheroes that you are not using, why wont you let me make a story where I can kill them off?
DC liked the idea, but they didnt want to kill off their new heroes that they intended to introduce in the upcoming Crisis event, so they asked him to create new heroes, perhaps some that were inspired by already existing ones.

Foppe posted...

Watchmen was originally Alan Moore saying Hey DC, I see that you have bought Charlton Comics so you got a few superheroes that you are not using, why wont you let me make a story where I can kill them off?
DC liked the idea, but they didnt want to kill off their new heroes that they intended to introduce in the upcoming Crisis event, so they asked him to create new heroes, perhaps some that were inspired by already existing ones.

So I am guessing
Rorschach-Is the Question.
Night Owl-Blue Beetle
The Comedian- The only person I can think of is a Marvel.
Dr. Manhattan- The closest person I can see is a Captain Atom body with Firestorms powers.
Specter -Black Canary

cjsdowg posted...

So I am guessing
Rorschach-Is the Question.
Night Owl-Blue Beetle
The Comedian- The only person I can think of is a Marvel.
Dr. Manhattan- The closest person I can see is a Captain Atom body with Firestorms powers.
Specter -Black Canary

Comedian is Peacemaker, Specter is Nightshade, Veidt is Peter Cannon.

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There was a comic some years ago that was filled with that kind of stuff.

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Also the guy who coined the word retcon.

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The story of power girl's breast size gets me every time

Tyranthraxus posted...

The story of power girl's breast size gets me every time

So there is a in story reason that made that aspect of her different then Supergirl?

cjsdowg posted...

So there is a in story reason that made that aspect of her different then Supergirl?

There's an in character story (escape pod malfunction so she aged up during travel to be older than Supergirl) which is dumb but then there's the real life story which is fucking hilarious.

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Yeah, the original meaning where it meant going back and filling in the holes in the story. He did a lot of that back in his All-Star Squadron run, where youd for example get a story explaining why the Wesley Dodds Sandman went from his business suit/gasmask/fedora look to the more generic purple and yellow superhero outfit, or why Fate sometimes wore a smaller helmet that showed his lower face, etc.

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Cant remember.