Superhero help (suburban/small town superhero)

[Steel Accord 6,660]

Me again. So we're all familiar with the superhero genre by now (yay!) and another fortunate "by now" happenstance is the mainstream examples of the superhero genre actually being more akin to a meta-genre that can be broken up into different styles depending on the focus character and their exploits. That being said there are some hard and fast rules that tend to be more prevalent than others. One such rule is that superheros protect cities, usually big metropolitan ones such as New York, London, or Tokyo. Even if the individual or team's reach and scale is global, a large portion of the action will still be in these big cities.

 

Some of my characters will be in defiance of this rule. One tends to travel to suburban or even rural towns and she may be share that with another of mine. So tell me, friends, what would make a superhero of a smaller community different from one who patrols and protects major city centers?

[Snow 7,988]

yis ^-^ i like tanks so i have a concept for the most unconventional hero ever (a tanker, amazing am i right?) XP thing is tanks don't like urban warfare much but city's? forget it.
at least you can defend a town by staying at the edge of it and shoot out over the horizon ^-^

[Steel Accord 6,660]

yis ^-^ i like tanks so i have a concept for the most unconventional hero ever (a tanker, amazing am i right?) XP thing is tanks don't like urban warfare much but city's? forget it.

at least you can defend a town by staying at the edge of it and shoot out over the horizon ^-^

 

Superhero who uses tank is not a bad idea but I already have a couple of characters created. I just need to get setting specific details.

Edited November 9, 2016 by Steel Accord

[Snow 7,988]

must have misread the thread XP i was working off 

 

would make a superhero of a smaller community different from one who patrols and protects major city centers?

XD for setting.. maybe suburbia close to the city for setting? what is the date you have in mind? what settings are you thinking of?
if its near a city have reason for more bad guys being there. like.. they would escape the domain of the super hero and flee into a neighbourhood that is protected by a... sub hero? that nobody really knows about XD

[Steel Accord 6,660]

@@JU88snow,

 

Time period is modern day. Specifics it's not even a suburb always but an otherwise isolated rural town. The "bad guy lays low from one superhero just to run into another" really isn't an option for me simply because there are no other known superheroes outside of town. He could be hiding just from the law though.

[Light of Night 332]

A superhero of a smaller community may be familiar with more people than in a city, and thus might be more personally invested in ensuring their well-being.  If they have an identity to keep secret though, it may be harder because of said familiarity.

 

Another thing to consider; Is this town surrounded by some sort of wilderness?  Farmland?  If so, I don't think it would be entirely out of place for at least a handful of inhabitants to have some skill with guns.

Edited November 9, 2016 by Light of Night

[Steel Accord 6,660]

A superhero of a smaller community may be familiar with more people than in a city, and thus might be more personally invested in ensuring their well-being.  If they have an identity to keep secret though, it may be harder because of said familiarity.

 

Another thing to consider; Is this town surrounded by some sort of wilderness?  Farmland?  If so, I don't think it would be entirely out of place for at least a handful of inhabitants to have some skill with guns.

 

Right now I'm just kind of brainstorming the concept but yeah, wilderness/farmlands was kind of what I was thinking. You are right in that said hero, secret identity or no, would be more like a "town hero" or "folk hero." Someone everyone knows that they can call on and depend upon. There was a comic book I was reading called Huck and it kind of had a similar setup now that I think about it.

 

As for the second point, well in comic books, not every threat can be dealt with a gun.

[Light of Night 332]

 

 

not every threat can be dealt with a gun.

 

I'm pretty aware of that, but it could probably make dealing with a threat easier.  I should've elaborated more, but I was trying to say that some might be more able to help out the hero.

[Steel Accord 6,660]

I'm pretty aware of that, but it could probably make dealing with a threat easier.  I should've elaborated more, but I was trying to say that some might be more able to help out the hero.

 

You're right, or at least they'd be willing to help out a la like the people of New York did in the first Spider Man film. Sure lobbing trash at the Green Goblin probably wasn't going to take care of the threat, but it bought Spidey time and showed the sense of solidarity of the community in support of the hero.

 

This does bring up another point though, what kinds of villains or threats would enough that they require a superhero to deal with but not so huge that the national guard doesn't get called in? (At least not until it's too late for them to do anything.) What do you think?