The Most Basics

[Nemu]

Defenders during the early days of CoH came in 2 basic flavors

The Doctor/Nurse wannabe Empath/"Secondary doesn't matter because you are not taking any attacks to make room for leadership and medicine pool" variety

The emo Darkitty/dark variety because being dark is cool, bonus points if your name starts with Dark, to let people know you are dark. Or is that Goth? Or vampire? Doesn't matter, it's dark.

 

AR/dev blasters are pretty basic during the early days of CoH. Melee=bad and you can haz bombs with devices, and people love guns.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Nemu

[tidge]

10 hours ago, Nemu said:

The emo Darkitty/dark variety because being dark is cool, bonus points if your name starts with Dark, to let people know you are dark. Or is that Goth? Or vampire? Doesn't matter, it's dark.

 I had exactly one "Dark ______" on live, and it was entirely due to the name of my original launch character on one server being taken on another. This seems like a rather petty thing to be annoyed about. Given the (forced) name change I opted to start the character red side. You could make the same point about 'Rad' or 'Frost'.

[Frostbiter]

Can confirm that having Frost in your name makes you lame. Oh well, I was young and the name stuck. 

[Heraclea]

On 10/19/2020 at 1:34 AM, Troo said:

debut of Superman in 1938? the Phantom 1936?

Heroes have been around much, much longer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mythological_objects#Axes

 

but I digress.. Axe could be considered "is the most basic,"

 

Mace is probably more basic than Axe, and that's where the hammer is.  Mace/Electric sounds pretty good, actually. 

[Luminara]

On 10/19/2020 at 1:42 AM, Bill Z Bubba said:

I would have to note that the fist predates humanity. 🙂

 

By several million years.

 

An axe is a combination of two simple machines, the lever and the wedge (which itself is an adaptation of another simple machine, the inclined plane).  It may seem basic when viewed from the perspective of modern culture, but it's not.  The fist is the first and most basic weapon.  Before we learned to use any machine, we learned to use the fist, and we learned that before humans, in any form, evolved from other primates.  Without the fist, we wouldn't have survived long enough to evolve from primates, or develop the six simple machines which formed the foundation of nearly all mechanical devices throughout human history.  Lacking claws or large, sharp canines or cutting molars, we had only our fists and brains to defend ourselves from other predators, or to feed ourselves, and our brains didn't develop until millions of years later.

 

The most basic weapon would be the staff.  Not staves as they're known today, but instead, simple sticks used for crude swinging.  The stick is a lever, the first simple machine we figured out, and by using that lever, we could transmit greater force than we could through sheer muscle power, and extend the range of the blow.

 

Next was the hammer, which, prehistorically, was a knobby stick (club) (the ability to attach a rock to a stick to make a hammer came later, when we had learned how to use materials to make cordage).  This machine transmitted significantly more force than the lever alone, and localized it to the specific area where the target was struck.  It's essentially a fist on a lever.

 

Then the axe came along, when humans realized that a tapered point narrowed the focus of the transmitted force.  It did more work than the hammer, and acted more specifically (it was a better killing instrument), and required less physical strength to perform that work.

 

But if the dispute is about which is the most frequently used or typical example of a comic book superhero, the fist is still the most basic.  Nearly every superhero punches, but I can't think of any who use an axe.  Swords, staves, bows and arrows, hammers, plenty of other weapons, but outside of Conan and similar comics (barbarian or medieval themes), I can't name a single hero who uses an axe.  It's an atypical weapon for heroes, because it's mentally associated with extreme violence and murder.  Axe murders have been surprisingly frequent in the last ~200 years.  Axe-wielding superheroes, not common at all.

 

Yes, I've seen Infinity War and End Game.  No, I don't consider that as sufficient evidence to rank the axe as the most basic anything.

[Bill Z Bubba]

15 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Axe-wielding superheroes, not common at all.

Occasionally fought on the good side, but usually not.

 

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Occasionally fought on the good side, but usually not.