In a Heroic World

Originally, this was for a Mutants and Masterminds setting, and I had it lying around.

Even in the Old West there had been heroes. Heroes like The Golden Ranger with his native riding buddy Toro; and Raymond Curse, the scarred bounty hunter and honourary Apache warrior. There was the Masked Rider, Calisto Buenaventura, better known as La Cuervo

They were few and far between, but then, at the turn of the century, there came the Masks. They were men like The Shade, a man in a mask and fedora, knowing what evil lurked in the hearts of men; They started out as little more than detectives, vigilantes looking to write the wrongs and protect the innocent. Many of them were rich, and a style was created of a masked man and his valet working together to stop crime. One of the more famous ones, The Blue Wasp, was actually one of the great, great grandchildren of The Golden Ranger.

And then it came in the 1930s that the "Golden Age" began. It started with the "brass boyscout", Captain Miracle. In March of 1933, he made his debut during the attack on the city by a robot created by a mad scientist. He kept a runaway bullet train from derailing, catching it before it could reach a missing section of the track. Soon there came others, like Super Woman, the Amazonian princess Artemis. There were also more of the men who really wore masks. The hero-detectives, like The Mothman, who stopped crime wherever it dwelled, and worked with--and sometimes against--the police to stop the new breed of criminals grew in number. Soon heroes were everywhere.

The Golden Age lasted through the Second World War, with heroes like the United States Ultra Soldier Project creating Sergeant Columbia, who faced off against his German counterpart, The Scarlet Skeleton. Captain Miracle, Super Woman, and The Mothman were the first heroes to band together, creating the Justice Organization of America--Stan Reynolds, the Sergeant, was thought lost in combat.

The Golden Age ended in the mid-50s, with the rise of the House UnAmerican Committees, and accusations of Communism. Mothman especially was hit hard, being blacklisted by MacCarthy.

For a few years, there were no heroes.

Then began what would come to be known as the Silver Age. Captain Miracle had retreated to his Citadel of Solace far beneath Antarctica, and SuperWoman returned to the Amazonian Isle. But fortune would have it that there were others.

The chief among them, and some would say the first of the new breed of heroes, was Eddie East, Mercury, the lightning man, struck by a bolt of electricity in an experiment and gifted with the power to move faster than sound. Soon there would be others. The Fabulous Five--the Rock, Doctor Elastic, Lady Ghost, The Flaming Man, and Hydroman. Gifted--and cursed--with strength and a rocklike carapace, the ability to stretch to amazing lengths and morph skin, become invisible and intangible, to turn into fire, and to become like water.

Less fortunate was grey monster of science, Doctor David Danvers, who exposed himself to radiation in the hopes of curing illnesses, only to become Gamma, a giant mass of muscle fueled by rage.

But together, these new heroes fought against the likes of The Gorilla, Professor Chaos, and Wendigo.

With the likes of Baldr--who may or may not be the son of Odin--and Red Demon, they stood up for the innocent.

They brought back the good name of heroes everywhere. It was the Mothman II that tried once again to create the JOA. And for a while, it worked.

But soon, things changed once again.

The Silver Age died with Tracy Guenevere. That is what the historians agree. The end began with Annie Stands, girlfriend, and soon to be fiancee, of Spectra. Until he came home and found her body stuffed into the refrigerator, superheroes had been seen as untouchable. They had laughed off the bullets of the Nazis, and faced the monsters of the Atom Bomb with fearlessness. That act, on it's own, may have been nothing. But a few weeks later, The Mothman II's ward, Bluebird II, was killed in an explosion by The Jester. Finally, the last straw was had when the Gremlin made Bug-man choose between Tracy and a metro car full of innocent people.

Bad things come in threes.

But soon, a few years later, new heroes emerged. And they became more human. They had problems. Gear, the billionare Antony Rokkos, struggled heavily with alcoholism. Spectrum Lad, son of Silver Age villain Spectrum, was homosexual. Groups of mutants banded together, calling themselves Outcastes and struggling with being different. Public perception of heroes had changed from heroes and villains, to only villains. The Family rose up, taking in the outcastes among the Outcastes, those who were too 'evil' or hideous to fit in among society. They didn't look for acceptance, seeing themselves not as equals with humanity but lords over them.

This was a time of heroes that were tarnished, but still heroic. Their villains were social constructs as much as they were criminals. Congressmen were looking to keep tabs on the so-called 'mutants' and metahumans, and prejudices against superheroes who were anything more than gadgeteers and the well trained. Aliens were often between the two categories.

While the Golden Age ended with resignation and the retirement of the great heroes, and the Silver Age died when they realized they weren't untouchable, the Bronze Age died with a universal catastrophe.

Two omnipotent beings, calling themselves The Black Guardian and The White Guardian, had spent eternity playing a game with reality. There were rules to their 'game', and though the White struggled to work within the rules and get his 'pieces' up to snuff, the Black was still more powerful. Hero and villain alike came together to stop the erasure of reality, and together they managed it, though the year 1985 would be erased from history, becoming "The Year that Never Was".

Many of the heroes involved in it died. And even in dealing with more 'mundane' threats--as mundane as they get for a superhero--heroes were being shown they weren't invincible in ways not seen in the last Age. It began with the then-elderly Mothman II having his back broken by Poison, a scientist born in a prison and powered by a serum of powerful muscle stimulants. It was then that heroes began to believe that they needed to be tougher.

It began with The Avenger, a soldier of the Gulf War who came home to find his family was caught in the crossfire between two gangs. And others followed. There was an unspoken belief among the heroes that heroes that they needed to be tougher. Some heroes became more willing to kill. Others clung to their technical pacifism, but were willing to lead villains into situations in which they would kill themselves, or break bones.

Some say that the Iron Age never ended. Others say that a new Age began when Captain Miracle returned after fifty years of solitude. Once again, the citizens of Centrolopolis were saved from a runaway metro car by the city's favoured son.

Or when Artemis stopped the legions of Tartarus from marching on Washington.

When Sergeant Columbia was unthawed from a block of ice, coming into the new century to see what his country had become.

There was a return to the sensibilities of before. The Iron had become tempered with something more dignified. The grit was brushed away, and Diamonds were found. Together, Superwoman, Captain Miracle, and Mothman II--who wouldn't let something like a broken back stop him for long--recreated the Justice Organization, this time no longer limiting themselves to America.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Columbia, Gear, and the still living David Danvers became the government backed organization known as the Defenders. Teams of heroes began to spring up, banding together to defeat the villains, darker than ever, but now facing a shining legion of justice and hope.

The heroes of the last decade have seen a lot. They've seen dark reflections of the Spectrum Ring bringing the dead back to life. They've seen heroes taking sides against each other over politics. The heroes of this so called Diamond Age have faced their pasts and questioned their futures. Many of them have made hard choices, such as when Sergeant Columbia stood against the government he loves in defense of it's ideals, and Arachnid revealed his identity on national television. Torches have been passed, such as when Columbia was murdered on the steps of the Capitol, and when Mothman II was killed in the line of duty, and Owl--formerly Bluebird III--became the third Mothman as well.

It's a harrowing time, with darkness everywhere, and a few shining beacons.

And it's up to you to decide how it turns out.