/co/ Public Domain-verse Working Document

What's all this then?
---------------------
Ideas and notes from archived threads rolled up into a neat little textfile.

[Resources]
http://pdsh.wikia.com/wiki/Public_Domain_Super_Heroes
http://www.comicvine.com/public-domain-characters/4015-55750/
http://www.comicbookplus.com/
http://www.digitalcomicmuseum.com/
https://archive.moe/co/thread/72850864 - Dumps of PDSH wiki descriptions
https://archive.moe/co/thread/68639378 - Thread where the bulk of this file comes from
https://archive.moe/co/thread/66797573
https://archive.moe/co/thread/66731423
https://archive.moe/co/thread/66671407
https://archive.moe/co/thread/38658964
You can find the Alex Ross Project Superpowers art in nearly all of these threads.

[Setting]

"I think the binding theme of the PD world is the fear and uncertainty that comes with power. Who do you trust to have super powers? Your government? Your neighbor? Yourself? The weird science comes from time travelers like Captain Future. He's fighting a huge temporal war and pieces of machinery falls into our time. He says we aren't evolved enough for it. And that's too bad because the machinery is quickly weaponized into Military 2.0 by the nations of the world to prevent anyone from getting too far ahead in weaponry.

Weird things happen. Like the creation of Hydro. The world becomes an uncertain and scary place. Vigilantes and jungle lords spring up--people that are trying to empower themselves in a world that seems out of control.

A lot of this is started by The Arrow--a grizzled old CIA vet. Expert in survival. He discovered a bunch of back door deals done by the CIA with super science criminals and went off the reservation. He doesn't use technology. Technology is bugged and microchipped like the guns from Metal Gear. He goes after his targets with arrows and knives and man traps. And he teaches others to do the same, creating jungle lords and vigilantes. There is no proof that Captain Future is a time traveler. Sometimes there isn't any proof that the machinery he confiscates is from the future either. At least the government will give you hush money with they take it.

Can't trust The Arrow. Once CIA, always CIA. Hypocrite. He's got more blood on his hands than most super criminals. But you'd never hear that from him. Can you trust your source of that information? "

"Superheroes with a light sprinkling of cyberpunk themes.

Maybe the magic origins of some supers can be traced to super tech from the temporal war falling into the past and becoming magic artifacts from dead civilizations and esoteric teaching. The mental training Phantasmo and Green Lama learned in Tibet allows them to mentally access a buried Atlantean supercomputer the size of Texas stored in the magma layer.

Ties into the theme of mistrust. You can't trust super powers from the past. Atlantis was real and everyone died. You can't trust technology from the future because they're a temporal war going on and the government says Captain Future is really a crazy guy a la 12 Monkeys. And you sure as hell can't trust the technology of the present with soldiers that laugh at nuclear attacks."

">Old man traumatized in war
>Lives his life in an idealistic Plesantville where none of his friends died and he married his high school sweetheart.
>It's all an act to prevent him from thinking bad thoughts while a team of international scientists desperately and vainly try to find the off switch of the super huge Goliath he summoned."

"I like the idea of time-displaced technology from Captain Future's temporal war landing in the past and causing ancient civilizations with ray guns and what not that wiped themselves out. Its a concept that adds to the paranoia and fear of the setting. The ancients have technology. And they blew themselves up with it.

Would also help explain why so many PD heroes have "went to Tibet, got good" as an origin. The Tibetan monks have a secret. Through meditation they can access Shangri-La. Shangri-La is a place, a person, and a state of being. It's a connection to a lost super computer of a race of humans so advanced they deleted themselves (some say transcended themselves) from the timeline, leaving behind this country-sized super computer buried in the magma layer that can hack reality.

But if this super computer is so important to transcendence, why was it left behind by the civilization? For our benefit? Then why can only the most astute and discipline access it? Did something go wrong?

And why doesn't Captain Future know about it?

What's the difference between a gift you don't know everything about and a weapon made for you to hurt yourself with that you aren't supposed to know everything about? Intent. And who can guess the intent of a race that never existed according to time?"

"What we need for the PD universe is a good "in" for each of the main corners. Captain Future makes a good "in" for the super science corner of the universe. He goes around trying to get rid of technology that never should have been and keep the world from imploding under weirdness. Magnet Inc would also be a nice in. It's premise provides a lot of scenarios for exploring the setting. Find a runaway "jungle girl". Who really is the masked vigilante shooting up criminals in the Claw Archipelago? Why are black vans taking these homeless no bodies we were hired to locate away.

The Targeteers provide an in for the Patriot Army 2.0 corner. They have a nice dynamic as reluctant, tragic tools of the government and Tina and The Target make good supporting characters.

We need "ins" for the vigilante corner and the jungle corner. Maybe Lion Man having to deal with fake Tarzans and Janes stomping around his African jungle? Miss Masque could be our "in" to the vigilantes, but she seems more like a side character unless you want to do a realllly cynical story. Arrow would probably be our best bet for that--he's a trainer of vigilantes, and he keeps tabs on them like with Dark Arrow. But I dunno. I think we need someone else for the main "in". Someone trained by Arrow maybe?"

[The Magic Question]
"Sometimes magic is magic. And that is terrifying to everyone who understands the implications. Chemicals can be tracked, radioactive materials can be contained, how do you stop a book that teaches one to kill with a gesture? It's rare, subtle, and phenomenally powerful if you know the right way to use it. And there is usually a price to it all."


[Heroes]

The Arrow/The Archer
--------------------
-Deeply paranoid ex-CIA assassin turned survivalist; trains vigilantes in the ways of tech-free combat.

The Boy King
------------
"The Boy King is a schizophrenic child whose unique brain patterns resonate with the last Atlantean stored somewhere in the South Pacific. Atlanteans are giant energy beings stored in giant suits of armor. He's very fond of the little boy. It's the only creature on Earth that can speak his psychic language, albeit poorly. Eons ago the Atlantean giant was a knight who valiantly served his king (whose body is now the islands of Hawaii). He makes the boy his king so that he can carry out his function again. The Boy King is the Incredible Hulk of the Public Domain world. Leave him alone or his giant is going to utterly wreck you."

Fantomah
--------
"The driving concept of the "Back-to-Nature" movement is that the jungle is free of structure, of rules, of beings so powerful to call them human is farce. The concept is flawed. Of course we've all heard the stories of fanged monsters and living mummies, dismissive rantings of those many who could not withstand the stress of nature. But have you heard of the lost cities that guard entrances to realms fantastical, of vulture-headed gods served by immortal priestesses, and the thousands of other forgotten things that render man little more than animals wallowing in the mud? If there is one thing you must heed about the jungle, it is this: God exists deep in the thickets, and she judges all who step foot within. Her ire is easily provoked, her wrath without mercy or end. This is your warning. Heed it carefully."

Captain Future
--------------
"Magic is something so weird and powerful it scares Captain Future shitless. He's from our Future and even he doesn't know what the hell it is."

">Go back to the past
>Find something that wasn't there before.
>WHERE THE FUCK AM I
That's actually pretty scary."

"Lots of things scare Captain Future. History is wrong. Too many superhumans, too many in the wrong time periods. He'll laugh and say temporal distortions are a hazard of the job, but his ulcer and notebooks full of speculation speak differently. Since when was the America ever called the United States?"

Green Lama
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Hydroman
--------
"Hydro is the result of an experiment to turn water into a super computer brain. Think Ice-9 from Cats Cradle if written by William Gibson. He's a floating "island" of sentient water that drifts around the Pacific. It usually is only preoccupied with itself, but it spawns living water off springs from its self conscious. Each off spring has its own agenda. Hydro happens to be an off spring that really digs humanity and tries to promote piece between humanity and Hydro kind. He's kind of like Aquaman and Wonderwoman-a superhuman diplomat."

Miss Masque
-----------
"A Dynamic Heroine for a New Age! According to media outlets owned by the Adams Media Group, at least. A vigilante who for some reason seems to escape notice by the police, despite her guns being allegedly linked to several murders. Miss Masque's civilian identity is socialite Diana Adams, so I was going with the idea that she's basically a trust fund kid getting her kicks by being a vigilante and using her family's money and connections to avoid any repercussions."

"A vigilante with keen knowledge of modern media eh? For better or worse turns herself into a trending media star. Her successes are put on twitter and her mistakes are defended by legions of fans. Some vigilantes see her as a glory hound. Others are glad she's taking the heat and attention off of them. Being so popular is a double edged sword however--she becomes a prime target for frame jobs and copy cats."

Phantasmo
---------

Pyroman
-------
"Dick Martin was given the death penalty after being wrongly accused of killing his girlfriend. He opted to go out in style and through a legal loophole managed to get himself the chair (still available on request in some states). While in jail he found Jesus and wanted the publicity surrounding his execution to draw attention to his innocence.

A miracle happened. God sent down an angel in the form of lightning. Instead of dying Dick Martin was transformed into Pyroman and using his powers caught the real murderer. He sees his powers as an answer to his prayer and goes full Bible Man. His energy powers are according to him actually a manifestation of the Archangel Gabriel.

Captain Future isn't sure what to make of him. The whole thing smells like a part of some elaborate plot. Everything is just TOO convenient. But damn it, he just can't figure it out. One minute Martin is normal and the next he's Bible Man Electro.

Maybe that is the point-to create an odd puzzle to stall Captain Future."

Sparkman
--------
"Maybe Captain Future can find an answer in Sparkman, the second electric based hero. A staunch atheist, Sparkman got his powers the same way Pyroman did by being struck by electricity (which sets off suicide cults that try to eletrocute themselves to attract angels).

He says he's seeing Angels like Pryoman--large, comforting angels that he learned about in Sunday School telling him to do good and do God's work. But he doesn't believe their angels.

He's not sure what the hell they are or what they're plan is. Unlike Pyroman who welcomes his "angel" Sparkman only feels violated by them. Apparently electrical beings are starting to posses people and appear to them as strong, calming, supernatural authority figures.

Are these "angels" good or evil? Who created them? Why are they just now showing up?

Captain Future must find the cause."

Stardust
--------
"Stardust The Super-Wizard: mightiest human in existence, taken from Earth as a child and uplifted to near Godhood by The Orderly Brotherhood of Super-Wizards, a group of beings who have mastered all aspects of Science, Magic, and Imagination, who chose Stardust to represent his world among the Stars, to pave the road for Mankind to one day join him, however recent events on Earth have worried the Super-Wizards so they have sent Stardust back to his homeworld to bring law and order to it. Stardust has nearly unlimited powers, and is incredibly vicious with them by Earth standards, the scary thing is that he is very much needed, as evidenced by the first crime group he stopped who almost succeeded in blowing up Washington DC, and again when another group almost caused gravity to stop functioning so everyone would be flung into space, so yeah these are pretty scary times. Captain Future is especially freaked out about this."

The Targeteers
--------------
"Military superhuman strike team. Minor cybernetic enhancements coupled with hyperfibre power suits. In addition to the techno-telepathy given by their cybernetic implants, the suits allow them to fly while enhancing their durability and strength. Stealth and EW suites combined with their superior maneuverability compliment their primary tasks of air power interdiction and SEAD. Use of techno-telepathy is slowly eroding their individuality."

"I got an idea for a one off story. One of the Targeteers gets damaged and while he's recovering starts to remember a girl he left back home. A girl that would always wait for him. So he declines having the busted implant that wires him to his "brothers" fixed (after much arguing and drama) and goes to find this girl. He does, but it ends tragically as he learns that the girl didn't love him. She loved one of the other targeteers. The memory just got stuck in his head when wounded. So with a heavy heart he goes back to the one place he feels he belongs: The Targeteers."

"The original Targeteer was a prototype for the Targeteers. The original plan was to wire an entire squad to one squad leader. Rather then the incorporated design of the Targeteers the Targeteer system put the squad leader in charge of the minds of his squad. They would obey his orders without question--even to the death. He could see through their eyes. He could turn off their pain sensors. It was a top-down system. It failed spectacularly. In a classified mission against a classified threat the Targeteer and his squad all died. Or so it was thought. The Targeteer lived--with the voices of his squad still in his mind.

He also gained their skills, knowledge, and regrets. He spent a few years keeping a low profile. He went around the country consoling and meeting with the families of his dead squad mates--giving them closure. Now he's learned that the Targeteer program has been reworked into the Targeteers. He considers the Targeteers the closest thing he'll ever have to sons and wants to protect them. I think his introduction will be like Proto Man. The Targetters are getting BTFO by some threat and them he shows up and saves their bacon before leaving. Tina does some research later and learns about his history after pulling some strings to get a look at the "disavowed" file."

"Tina, their handler. Imagine having to live with and manage three men who sleep and wake at the same time, who eat and drink the same things in the same amount, who dream the same dreams...
Imagine developing feelings for them.
She doesn't love any single Targeteer. She loves them all. She loves the singular collective of the Targetter.
She has no idea what to do with these feelings. She isn't even sure if she should tell anyone.
There's no guidebook to human-post human relationships."

Yank and Doodle
---------------
"You don't want to fuck with Yank and Doodle man. They're the original prototypes of the Targeteer program, made even before the Targeteer.

You won't find many people that know about project Yankee Doodle. And you won't find anyone that'll admit to its existence. Before project Targeteer the idea was to just get telepathy to work. It was a downsized offshoot of a failed project to recreate Magnet Inc.'s people finder device. The goal was to simply get two people in a mental rapport with one another.

It went gloriously, horribly wrong.

Imagine a psychopath that can share the crazy with your mind.

Imagine a viciousness so acute two entire minds can barely contain it.

Imagine the best kept secret of the US Military's Army 2.0 program occasionally leased out to the CIA for wetwork and kept on a short chain of timed sub-dermal micro bombs and designer drugs.

Imagine Project Yankee Doodle.

The only reason someone doesn't put a bullet through both its heads is and put it out of its misery is that Yankee Doodle is the countries best anti-telepath defense system. Linking minds with it is like being a fly on the back of a airplane. The military is scared that any day now there might actually be something that'll justify keeping Yankee Doodle alive."

[Factions]

The Great Church of the Holy Electric Union
-------------------------------------------
Ultimately the whole Pyroman/Sparkman thing turns out to be a plot by Dr. Bertoff to create a "real" religion. He plans to trick people into being good by giving certain people energy beings. The Great Church of the Holy Electric Union.

The sad part is that the church teaches good stuff. Love. Tolerate. Be good to the weak and less powerful. It's good stuff told through a cynical lie.

They're tools of the puppet master. He sees the world coming apart at the seams and things religion is the best way to fix things. The people he gave the electric angels to were supposed to be his prophets. Sparkman was supposed to have a "Paul on the road to Damascus" experience.

Pyroman was to get people's attention. Sparkman was to be lightning rod (teehee). Phase two was seeding the mid-east, sub-saharan Africa, and other extremist hotspots with electric angels in an attempt to get radical Islam under control.

Phase three would be the Vatican. Phase four would be the final phase where political and business leaders become prophets."

">Abdul Akbar gets electric ghost
>Brothers chill out! My angel buddy tells me we got to love the infidels!
>HE'S POSSESSED BY A WESTERN DEMON KILL HIM
The potential for backfire is incredible."

">Pyroman has a crisis of faith when he realizes everything has been a lie
>Some Electric Angels develop the idea that they don't want to be angels but real people.
>Military 2.0 thinks its a great idea--but they should be the ones in charge. Just in case.
So many way to develop this... "

Jungle People
-------------
 "A universe with such a crazy amount of jungle girls is going to be interesting. Perhaps we can change some of them to actually be from Africa/South America. Turns out most of them are just bandwagoning on a "jungle lifestyle" fad to the ire of the jungle girls who are trying to get away from society."

"Maybe some women hear about these badass jungle babes and it becomes a kind of fad. "If she can do it. I can do it to!". And the legit jungle girls have to prevent the pretenders from getting themselves killed. Maybe there's a big "back to nature' push with all the weird science going on that'll explain all the jungle lords and ladies. It's not hard to see how guys from the future and death rays could encourage people to say fuck it to modern life in general. Reality TV shows and celebrity trends espousing a back-to-basics lifestyle, all while carefully hiding the incredibly structured nature of their presentation while downplaying and minimizing the actual jungle girls. Imagine living alone in a jungle for all your life then have a bunch of goons try to throw you out so some c-list has been can run around in a fake fur bikini when she's not holed up in her trailer."

Magnet
------
"Here's an interesting character: http://pdsh.wikia.com/wiki/Magnet
His gimmick is one of those naively charming ideas that would be horrifying in reality. He has a device that can find anyone he wants--anyone. Let's say an idealistic MIT guy manages to build this device out of some future tech. He's woefully naive and good natured. He wants to use the device to find all the missing persons of the world. Maybe he manages to recruit a little crew of people to help him. "Magnet Inc". They want to find the lost. Conflict comes from finding all the sick black ops cyborg camps that kidnap hobos and turn them into prototypes. Maybe they get hired to locate some billionaire's daughter that decided to run off and play Jungle Girl?

One day they find interference on their Magnet machine. Someone else has a find-anyone device. And they're using it non stop."

"There's also lots of potential for tender heated scenes. A scared runaway is comforted. A husband reunites with his wife after they were separated by a war zone. A son finds out what became of his abusive father after so many decades of silence and makes his peace.

If there's going to be a ray of hope in the PD universe it'll probably come from Magnet.

They don't want to fight anyone. They want to help people. What they have is a creepy device with great potential for misuse but it's also a thing that can make the world a truly better place. The core of the book's message is that people need people. We need to be together, not apart.

We're Magnet. We Find the Lost."

Military 2.0
-------------
"Just about the entire mess of super patriot heroes can be umbrella'ed under the desire to create an army of the future. Small, cost efficient, no retirement. Super humans raised not only to be the military but to love being the military. Then we can start to diffy out character traits and distinctions among the super army. You have your gung-ho true believer. You have your cynic that hates that he was created just to fight other people's battles. You have the grizzled old prototype kept functional with cybernetics. You have the stoic warrior poet resigned to his fate with dignity."

Vigilantes
----------
"Not really organized but frequently form ad-hoc groups. Run the gamut of motivation from civic-mindedness, vigilantes, class warfare, violent reactionaries, boredom, even a few black book government types. There are also some powered non-government types, mostly corporate legbreakers or rich guys playing around."

Weird Science
-------------

[Villains]
- "There are a fuckton of public domain villains. Also, considering the ever present use of gangsters and spies in the Golden Age comics, you could easily create corporate villains along with various foreign government antagonists. The idea that there are a ton of patriotic heroes from other countries makes for an interesting universe."

Dark Arrow/Dark Archer
----------------------
Someone for Archer to fight besides his old CIA spook buddies.

He trained Dark Archer who was his most devoted and skilled pupil--a true believer in the survivalist ethos. There was always something off about him. Guy had no friends, mentioned no family. A total loner and liked it that way. Archer rolled with it. It wasn't like he himself was 100 percent normal either.

Something has sent Dark Archer over the edge. Too much weird science in the news perhaps? Now he's killing anyone involved in his newspaper-clippings-on-the-wall conspiracy map from politicians to hack TV pundits.

People think Archer is doing these killings. The CIA is going into overdrive to bring him in. The kid gloves are off. Any friends he had left in the CIA have washed their hands of Archer.

Archer, the only friend Dark Archer ever had has to be the one to find him and put him down like a mad dog before he kills again and before the CIA task force of super heroes including the Targeteer program catch up with him."

Dr. Bertoff
-----------
"And here we have the puppet master. Skilled super-electrician Dr Bertoff.

I have some interesting ideas for Bertoff, his super science city of Deltos, and his super hero creation the Blue Bolt. But for this early in the Captain Future title he's just the guy making electric angels.

The other stuff comes later as the story develops. And hopefully it will add two or three interesting niches to the PD universe that tie ideas closer together."


The Claw
--------
"The Claw, God of Hate, various other ominous titles, etc. is taking a few decades off. He's got international terrorists using his imagery, various cults operating in his name, superhumans and weird science chipping away at the foundations of civilization, and he's just going to sit back for a bit and see how it plays out. He's spending his days disguised as a human, running a bar in a decaying city on a South Pacific island, doling out harmful advice to patrons and instigating petty tragedies for his amusement.

I'm imagining the bar being something like midway between rough dive and normal watering hole. It's nice enough that you can drink there with no issues, but you still need to watch yourself around certain people or you'll wind up bleeding out in the back alley. A few slot machines on the wall, some card games running in the backroom, and girls on stage every night, 8 to 2. It's not a huge place, small enough that the bartender will strike up a conversation with you when its slow, but big enough that you can make a business deal in a corner booth without anyone noticing."

"Maybe there's the real Claw in the dive bar and a fake imposter Claw that thinks he's the real Claw and operates more upscale. The real Claw is perfectly willing to let the fake Claw hog the spotlight and absorb all that pesky attention.

The fake Claw is a cross between Doctor Doom and the Kingpin. He empowers extremist and terrorist groups with super tech for the sake of social experimentation. He figures that if mankind is to survive the technology dropping from the temporal war it better have a few quick short shocks to its system. "What does not kill me makes me stronger" and all that.

Fake Claw operates a little island nation like Monaco or Mauritius built on tourism and gambling. It's a very clean, Disney like island with a low crime rate and happy tourists. All the seedy stuff happens above board and behind closed doors."

"It's set on a small archipelago. The main island is the glitzy, glamorous city full of expensive homes, high rises, tourists, casinos, you name it. No poverty there, they shipped all the poor and destitute to the other islands. The Fake Claw, the current one anyway - a new one crops up every few years, runs his gaming empire from there, hobnobbing with the rich and famous safe in his little fiefdom.

The real Claw runs his bar on another island, in the blighted city of tomorrow that used to be. A glitzy, glamorous city of expensive homes, high rises, tourists, and casinos long since rotted from years of recession. Where The Claw sits behind his bar surrounded by the desperate, the destitute, the lost, and the damned.

The general idea is that the main island is Macau as run by supervillain gangsters, while the rest of the archipelago is a cross between Roanapur and early 90s Russia. It also develops the relationship between fake and real Claw beyond fake Claw being a smokescreen. Fake Claw drives the poor and unfortunate to Real Claw's island where he gets to devour the tasty, tasty despair.

Fake Claw makes misfortune. Real Claw makes despair."

Gunmaster
---------
"You think the modern day is bad with weapons of mass destruction? Try the weapons of the ancient global super civilization. Never heard of them? That's because they blew themselves up so bad no trace of them is left.

Well, almost no trace.

Gunmaster would prefer it if you called him his proper title--Weaponmaster. The ancient civilization invented and perfected weapons technology. Eden was well armed. Eden had a bloody history of reunification. Eden had civil wars.

In a perfect utopia you still have very imperfect, very flawed humans.

The Tibetan supercomputer contains the data image of a group of beings that call themselves weapon masters. According to them the supercomputer is a kind of punishment for certain souls of the lost global civilization. Those thought too "base" to transcend time with the rest of humanity were left behind. This included the weapon makers--the weapon masters.

Whether they're telling the truth, a lie, or the best they can make of the truth is anyone's guess. Adding to the confusion, they believe the whole world outside the super computer is simply another super computer. Everyone on Earth is being "punished" by life until they become wise enough to transcend the Earth illusion and join the ancient civilization in Nirvana.

As part of their penance the weapon masters have been recruiting a champion from the human race, only picking another once the previous dies.

The champion's mission is simple: destroy all weapons. It doesn't mater who has the weapon. If they have it it goes. Each weapon master has a super natural affinity for weapons. Not only are they experts, but weapons seem to obey them. They aren't immortal, so you can shoot them--providing you can find a gun willing to do the deed. Their accuracy with firearms and ability to cause guns aimed at them to jam has earned them the name "gun master" in the public eye.

The current gun master has his work cut out for him. He'll be tested to his moral limits when the line between man and weapon blurs. Do people like the Targeteers deserve to die for being living weapons?

The gun master's control over weapons isn't perfect. His powers function on a bell curve. Guns jam up easily. He doesn't even need to tell them to. Bows and arrows need to be told. Rocks need to be shouted at--several times. It works in the other direction. He can't just tell the Targeeters to fuck off and die. He can make them sick and dizzy, but the rest of the battle he'll have to do with his own formidable skills."

[Other Anecdotes]