A superteam begins to take shape....

I was prepping the other day to play a game of Supersystem and I decided I wanted to use familar heroes/villains with a themed force but there wasn't 1 particular team (X-Men, Thunderbolts, Avengers, etc) that I was particularly drawn to that particular day.  Instead I picked through my recently painted and touched-up Heroclix models looking for some inspiration.  I also thought back to my blog posts about my DC Adventures game and came up with my new superteam; The Secret Society Of The 52.

The idea which was drawn from my RPG idea of recycling characters that have found themselves in limbo following DC's New 52 reboot would let me build a team of characters many of whom are somewhat morally 'grey' (like the Secret Six or the Thunderbolts) and wouldn't feel out of place no matter who they were fighting (again  like the Secret Six or Thunderbolts).

For starters I needed a reason why these characters would still exist but not be known by the world at large in the comics universes.  Maybe if people had been 'pushed' to forget them (comic fans will get that one).  To that end I actually formed my team around the first Heroclix model I had ever repainted (for Gamma World originally) Max Lord.  Max would serve as both my backstory and justification for how the team that doesn't exist could exist.  After deciding on that I picked out 2 other models I had already done to fight alongside Max, Knockout and Raven.  The only hitch with that was that Raven has actually appeared in New 52 so she no longer felt like the right choice.  I had a bunch of other characters who have not yet appeared in New 52 but none of them felt quite right so I decided to haul out the box of Heroclix and see who wanted to volunteer to join the team, enter Magog.

Magog first rose to prominence in the Kingdom Come limited series as the catalyst for 2 key events in that story; the retirement of Superman and the event (I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it) that triggers Superman's eventual return.  He's a great fit because like Max Lord he's fought on the sides of both right and wrong so he's easy to root for and against.

While I was digging out Magog I also came across yet another member of The Secret Six I had never gotten around to fixing up; Ragdoll.  Ragdoll is a neat character because through most of the run of Secret Six he comes across as twisted but signficantly less evil or malicious than the other members of the team, frequently he's actually the comic foil,  but when you finally get the reminder that you had to be a villain in the first place to end up on the team you suddenly realize it's like you've spent a bunch of time thinking "gee that Joker guy isn't so bad, just misunderstood really".

Back to the B-Team this afternoon!

-Jay