6.4 KiB
A neat idea (I think) for a superhero gimmick/ AKA what would a combination of Heroes and Mythbusters directed by Joss Whedon be like?
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Author: u/OrzBrain Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3puj07/a_neat_idea_i_think_for_a_superhero_gimmick_aka/
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Score: 13
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Created: 2015-10-23T01:04:52
Post:
This idea came to me after watching several episodes of Heroes in a row. After I woke up, and while I was waiting for my brain to make connections around the new areas of dead cells so that I could walk or talk, I wondered "What would this show have been like if it was Joss Whedon's?"
First of all I figured that Claire (the blond girl that heals fast) would probably be the main character. And there would probably be a lot less side characters. But just having a hero that healed real fast would be boring. Wolverine kinda covered the badass angle, while Heroes definitely covered the "Too dumb to figure out how to weaponize a power that enables one to hold a grenade in one's hand while it goes off and walk away a few moments later without a scratch," angle.
I mean, how would one even get to show her power working lots? Heroes got so bad that Claire couldn't walk down the street without someone accidentally bumping into her and causing her neck to snap. How could one. . .oh. Oh.
I'm having a problem figuring out how to get a character injured lots in an action movie/superhero setting? That brain damage was worse than I thought.
The answer is simple. Take away the action movie/rule of cool physics dispensation. Make the main character's only super power be healing really fast, and have her be absolutely brutally subject otherwise to real life physics. For added laughs, have our poor, poor girl trying to be Batman, trying to get Batman-esq tools to work in getting around and beating up thugs.
So, our heroine, named, um, Whoops, Splat! (working name), besides healing is also a bit of a tinker at heart. Or, perhaps one day an old fellow named Alfred shows up at her door to let her know that she's the unknown daughter of a reclusive billionaire who recently died in a tragic accident involving a cape-like hang glider. Whatever the case, she thinks that she's a gadget superhero like Batman. And she also thinks that the things she sees in movies involving cars and guns and explosions and such will work in real life. And since she can walk away from all the times she should have died horribly, she will eventually get some of them to work. And since she's rather smart, besides being nuts, when the chips are down and she has to go into the crime lord's den to rescue someone or other, she will do it wearing a vest made out of claymore mines and incendiaries.
For added angst (superheroes need angst) Whoops, Splat! will also suffer from certain drawbacks related to overly realistic regeneration. Every time she has sex will be the first time. If she gets pregnant her body will heal the "health problem" instantly. Cutting off her head will have. . . interesting multiplicative effects.
What do you think?
Comments:
u/nicholaslaux [+9] (2 hours later)
For the last section you're treading into the area of "how does her power know what 'heal' means"?
If it's any changes to her physically, then she's unable to grow our develop new memories.
If it's some subjective trigger, you risk someone finding out what that trigger is and killing her without setting it off.
If it's a magic dwim spell, then she doesn't rebecome a virgin (unless wog declares it so, which is unfulfilling) and will likely end up being crazy overpowered.
u/diraniola [+5] (3 hours later)
Healing like that sounds terrifying. Either your brain heals, which means you don't really have a memory, or your brain doesn't heal and you end up a vegetable after a few bouts of brain damage.
u/ZeroNihilist [+4] (8 hours later)
It's plausible that the power magically recognises what constitutes a "normal" change and heals to the last known good configuration only after an "abnormal" change.
Then you'd still be able to form new memories without falling victim to brain damage.
That'd fall into the last category of /u/nicholaslaux's list, which would indeed be extremely broken.
u/Faust91x [+4] Iteration X (18 hours later)
Maybe her brain could work like a versioning system that stores the last neural synapses she gets while she's living, recognizes drastic changes in the brain structure/programming and automatically 'restores' the system to a previous version if the change was deemed too drastic.
It'd be interesting to ponder where it stores such data for recovery though and what would happen if someone were to 'tamper' with it. Also it may prevent her from feeling drastic emotions or delete traumatic memories so she wouldn't learn from them.
git checkout brain file/memories/trauma.txt
Man that's amazing!
u/narfanator [+3] (4 hours later)
For probably the absolute best "take out the healer" play, see the Milk episode of the BBC's "Misfits'.
Misfits is basically the BBC's Heroes, except the main characters are a bunch of juvenile delinquents. Getting super powers does NOT change this.
u/OrzBrain [+2] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (3 hours later)
Didn't think of the memory problem. Hmm.
u/None [+3] (11 hours later)
The thing about its being a Joss Whedon show is that I know two things going in:
There will be one-liners.
The most likeable character will be killed-off "for drama".
u/eaglejarl [+1] (a day later)
Okay, in it and on Angel it was Who are you thinking of as most likable-and-dead on Buffy?
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Fuck, I only watched Buffy up until Season 3. I don't know.