A comic book from one of your characters

[MrNotorion]

So, which of your characters would work best as the basis for a new comic book, and why?  Who would be their personal nemesis?  What kind of story arcs would it have?  Who would show up as secondary characters? etc.

[Shinobu]

 

I wrote a ton of short stories about a character that I originally made in the early days of CoH.  His name was Grandpa Anarchy and he was the world's oldest hero -- basically an old man who fought with his fists and whose only real super power was that he'd taken some sort of super soldier serum ages ago and apparently this kept him alive.  But mostly, his advantage was that he'd seen it all before and knew all the tropes.  The stories were mostly silly so they hinged a lot on tropes and how the hero could see them coming.

 

Initially his arch nemesis was a villain named Carnival Act, who was a not-very-cleverly-disguised stand in for a Joker type of villain.  But I wrote a story where Carnival Act finally died, and then the question was:  who is Grandpa Anarchy's true arch nemesis now?  One villain in particular named Kid Calculus was a former sidekick who hated Grandpa Anarchy -- that was pretty much his sole reason for being an antagonist -- and above all, he wanted Grandpa to admit that HE was Grandpa's arch nemesis, but Grandpa was always, "Nah, you're too young to be my arch, try doing this another forty years first."

 

 

 

 

[EggKookoo]

Man, I wish I had time to make a comic based on my main...

[Dynamistress]

To date, there have been two Dynamistress novels, with a third on the way. I'd love to translate these into graphic novels, but lacking a talented artist, I'll just have to live with good ol' words without pics.

 

Dyna's story is not that of a typical character. There is no "nemesis," save perhaps herself. Overall, it's a story of a woman who becomes a "hero" for all the wrong reasons (i.e., fame, etc.) and who, over time, comes to become a "real" hero.

 

Lots of other characters, some adapted from COH characters (with their players' permission), and plenty of originals, too.  Feel free to check out her website. LOTS of art and whatnot, including a comic strip (showing the funny side of a serious character).

 

www.dynamistress.com

[Zumberge]

As contrary as it is to the thread, very few.

 

It's weird because the characters with in-world connections were never made, and the ones that I ported to this from other settings have a ton of history.  Zoe the Outlander has two novella-length stories and a bunch of shorter one-shots which total about 75,000 words and for all intents and purposes CoH is just a side-story.  Fairchild ex Somnium is at least twelve years old and has existed in at least two forms prior in writing practice and fantasy heartbreaker-style projects, and if that chimeric body horror hivemind with a human consciousness mostly along for the ride (Savage/Bio Brute) ever gets off the ground that'll probably be the single oldest character I've made.  To say nothing of all the other ones that I'm like, "I really want to make this guy but there's no Arcane Control/Dual Blades Dominator."

 

Back in Live I had the idea of a last reluctant survivor of a Longbow incursion into Mercy that was cut down by a villain who was in turn killed by a dying Warden.  He took the villain's sword and ditched the uniform in an attempt to defend himself and survive, but when he realized how much of a craphole the Rogue Isles were he ended up becoming a low-level vigilante (Port Oakes was more or less the upper limit) to protect the citizens.  He eventually attracted the attention of a nihilistic low-level villain about his age who clashed with him a few times, who saw what he did and gradually grew obsessed with the question of why he thought anyone was worth saving.  Their final showdown ended with the vigilante defeated and the villain frantically demanding answers, but the vigilante quietly passed away before he could get them.  So he did the only thing he could think of: He took his sword and tried to reproduce what he was doing to see for himself.  It might be a good story, but there's not much demand for a character who caps out at level 12 and couldn't team with 90% of redside.

 

Then there's the origin story of a Peacebringer host who watched too much giant robot anime and their arc where they uncovered a Council plot hinging around their thefts of other factions' technology and the plan to literally build a better Nictus host.  People really aren't eager to read about characters they don't know about or have connections to, and the idea of making a character in a game just so you could write about it is... I dunno, wasteful?  Presumptuous?

[MrAxe]

I lost my creative streak. Back in 06/07 I got so bored at my awful job I ended up writing about 4 pages of Axewrath's (my old main) back story. Havn't even written in game bios yet which is crazy. Will have to give it some thought.

[PSLAnimal]

I would love to produce a comic series on my main (PSLAnimal, obviously) and my wife's main (Mrs. Animal.)  I can write a fair piece but unfortunately have the artistic talent of a grunion.

 

As evidence I offer a series of self-portraits I did a few years back in an attempt to demonstrate my range of emotional expression.

 

[Misguidance]

To date, there have been two Dynamistress novels, with a third on the way. I'd love to translate these into graphic novels, but lacking a talented artist, I'll just have to live with good ol' words without pics.

 

Dyna's story is not that of a typical character. There is no "nemesis," save perhaps herself. Overall, it's a story of a woman who becomes a "hero" for all the wrong reasons (i.e., fame, etc.) and who, over time, comes to become a "real" hero.

 

Lots of other characters, some adapted from COH characters (with their players' permission), and plenty of originals, too.  Feel free to check out her website. LOTS of art and whatnot, including a comic strip (showing the funny side of a serious character).

 

www.dynamistress.com

 

Ooh, looks like fun!

 

I wrote a (very unpublished) novel about one of my mains, and it's currently getting a massive re-work because I am no longer an angsty teen. ;)  I've been using CoH as a place to play with character ideas, so who knows which of my characters will end up hitting the page.

[Coyotedancer]

As a writer... I'm a damned good editor. (In other words, I stink like a week old gym sock. Those are two very different skill sets. XD)

 

That said, if I *did* have any talent in that direction, I'd build a slice-of-life style anime/manga series for my Oranbegans. It would be 99% humor and shenanigans and minor disasters and the occasional small-scale personal drama... Just with a strange group of fifteen-thousand year-old body-snatching ghosts and their friends trying to deal with a modern, superhero-infested City that most of them don't really "get" quite as well as they think they do.

[Pixie_Knight]

Hmm, probably Arachnid Huntress would be the best one for a comic. It could focus on her transition from being a Super Villain to over time discovering she enjoys actually helping people and recovering her lost past. Her backstory is tragic enough for the best heroes, villains, and villains turned heroes from comics after all.

[Zolgar]

The Phantom Nightmare, a "ghost" revenge story.

Jasmine's mother was a power armored hero during the first Rikti War, she died saving Jasmine. Well, trying to. The damage done to Jasmine's body was extensive, she retreated in to the Dream to escape the pain, when she was found she was for all intents and purposes, comatose. Her father, the designer and builder of her mothers armor, made a deal with Crey to save her life, but when Crey realized the comatose girl they had was a powerful dream weaver, they killed her father and set to studying her and trying to figure out a way to weaponize her powers.

 

After several years the project lost most of its funding and was relegated to a mostly forgotten, out of the way lab with a small crew, aside from the two lead scientists everyone else was sent there for under performing in other areas.

 

More years go by with a revolving door of workers, and finally they make a breakthrough. They develop a device that connects her consciousness to both worlds at once. This does exactly what they want it to do, granting her the power to warp reality in her immediate vicinity, to completely violate everything we know about how the universe works. The part they didn't expect was for her to be fully conscious and aware of everything, including that Crey killed her father, nor did they begin to fathom the strength of her powers. The only thing she couldn't manipulate was her own body.

 

All those loyal to Crey simply ceased to exist. The two lead scientists were allowed to stay, to maintain the machinery that kept her alive, while she seeks her revenge, manifesting herself as a spectral being, capable of traveling far and wide and interacting with the physical world... when she wants to.

 

Her primary nemesis would be Countess Crey, and the entire Crey corporation, but she would be very Punisher-esque, not really very picky about who else she stops along the way.

[Zumberge]

Also, addendum to the prior: Someone commenting on my bio mentioning that it's a welcome change from all the "parents killed, out for revenge" and "catgirl" ones made me remember that at one point I really did have a character whose backstory was "parents killed by catgirl, out for revenge."  Mynx, more specifically, and it would not be the unbounded hilarity that the concept suggests.  To sum the story up, they would've succeed at great cost,  and the denouement would've involved a conversation with Synapse talking about the nature of justice, when it becomes revenge, the cyclical nature thereof.

 

The main problem with the character existing is that the plot would not and could not eever be resolved.  It would just be in potentia forever.

[Flashtoo]

The Hour Thief is already in a text novel, though not yet in any graphic adaptation thereof (I swear it'll happen one day), alongside my SO's character The Devil's Doctor. It's titled The Interminables (author: Paige Orwin, the SO in question) and is part puzzle-box thriller and part buddy cop story set after the magic apocalypse in 2012.