Anti Hero characters

[Warhawk8492]

Will this game include Anti Hero type characters like The Punisher as playable characters? Playing as someone like The Punisher would be just awesome.

[mike b]

Yes it is in the developers journal.

The types are
Hero
Anti hero
Villain
Wild card: A wild card is a person who sometimes acts like a villain sometimes a goodguy. Think Dr.Doom or Lex Luther even Magneto.

[OctoberRaven]

When I think of wild card, I don't think of Doom or Luther. Magneto... maybe, because he will work with the X-Men to a common purpose.

Catwoman IMO is the purrfect example of Wild Card. She's the Kane of comic books.

[mike b]

When I think of wild card, I don't think of Doom or Luther. Magneto... maybe, because he will work with the X-Men to a common purpose.

Catwoman IMO is the purrfect example of Wild Card. She's the Kane of comic books.

So has Luther and Doom. Both (specially Luther) have sided with hero's when they have faced a common foe.

In the final of Justice league unlimited it was Luther who dies to save the earth when Dark Seid invaded.

[OctoberRaven]

I suppose, but Doom and Luthor are clearly megalomaniacs who want to conquer all they survey. Magneto is a conqueror as well, but has a purpose greater than his personal glory: He wants Mutantkind to prosper and rule, and is thusfore MUCH more likely to work with the X-Men in a temporary truce, where Doom and Lex would pretty much do it to ensure that there's a world to conquer. I wouldn't classify any of them as Wild Cards however, as in the end their alliances with heroes are inevitably to further their own villainy.

Catwoman OTOH has been a genuine crimefighter at times... even if her reasons are not always entirely altruistic, and while she's never a truly full-blown hero (at best an anti-hero). But she switches between this and her usual role as a burglaress seemingly on a whim.

Doom may side with Richards to defeat Galactus. Luthor may side with the JLA to defeat Darkseid. This is self-defense; they have no choice or they and their world will be destroyed.

Catwoman OTOH may team with Batman to fight Penguin. She might be doing it out of charity. More likely, she's doing it to steal from Penguin. But she's choosing to do it instead of having her hand forced, and that's what makes a wildcard a wildcard.

[mike b]

I suppose, but Doom and Luthor are clearly megalomaniacs who want to conquer all they survey. Magneto is a conqueror as well, but has a purpose greater than his personal glory: He wants Mutantkind to prosper and rule, and is thusfore MUCH more likely to work with the X-Men in a temporary truce, where Doom and Lex would pretty much do it to ensure that there's a world to conquer. I wouldn't classify any of them as Wild Cards however, as in the end their alliances with heroes are inevitably to further their own villainy.


But that is the purpose of a wild card in my eyes. Even if there goals are to overall further themselves they still pass themselves off as being good.

And maybe in this game that will be allowed also. Were a wild card though overal still a villain will help us at times. So in that sense and i hope you understand were i am coming from in a mod if a villain like Magneto or Doom or Luther is in it they should and thats the mod makers choice be classified as a wildcard.

[crayon]

I thought Wild Card was for a character who is much closer to a 50/50 split of hero and villain. As it says, someone who you really have no clue what they're going to be doing month after month.

Whereas take characters such as Magneto, or Doom. Sure, they've all had a turn here and there, but the majority of the time you would expect them to be a villain

[VTial]

I think everyone is just over-thinking wild cards.

The characters are not going to be free will-ers. And that goes for the wild cards.

The game is most likely going to be a more complicated and well calculated version of black and white morality.

Good -> Yes = Hero
Evil -> Yes = Villain
Good -> Yes Evil -> No Advantageous -> Yes = Anti-hero
Advantageous -> Yes Evil -> Yes Good -> Yes = Wild card

In pro-wrestling terms, Wild Cards are pretty much tweeners. Their decisions are most likely going to be reactions to your decisions. They are less going to be 50/50 as they are going to be Wheel of Fortune type of characters. It's just which branch they aren't allowed to consider. You could probably trick a hero into becoming a villain if your definition and Adam's calculation of what good is don't match up. I.E. the prototypical this is not what a hero is about:

http://superdickery.com/images/stories/dick/1296_4_099.jpg

[mike b]

Yes come to look at it you both are right.

I stand corrected.

[crayon]

I think everyone is just over-thinking wild cards.

The characters are not going to be free will-ers. And that goes for the wild cards.

The game is most likely going to be a more complicated and well calculated version of black and white morality.

Good -> Yes = Hero
Evil -> Yes = Villain
Good -> Yes Evil -> No Advantageous -> Yes = Anti-hero
Advantageous -> Yes Evil -> Yes Good -> Yes = Wild card

In pro-wrestling terms, Wild Cards are pretty much tweeners. Their decisions are most likely going to be reactions to your decisions. They are less going to be 50/50 as they are going to be Wheel of Fortune type of characters. It's just which branch they aren't allowed to consider. You could probably trick a hero into becoming a villain if your definition and Adam's calculation of what good is don't match up. I.E. the prototypical this is not what a hero is about:

That seems like one heck of a conclusion to come to, if you're simply going off of Adam's original post about Wild Cards:

Anti-Hero works the same as a regular Hero but with slightly different behaviour, for example they are less likely to team with regular Heroes and may be viewed with some distrust. Wild Cards essentially have no alignment, and so sometimes behave as Heroes, sometimes as Villains. Civilians don't get involved in combat or adventures, but can be interacted with during the game in other ways.

[VTial]

Oh I wasn't going by any of his more detailed comments.

I think by using anything Adam's saying right now, it's like trying to come up with something out of something vague and Adam himself has said prior to this in many of the topics that we should wait for the game and details to become more specific.

That's why instead, everything from my suggestions to my guesses, all right now is based on a static concept of what Adam says the game is and what Adam's games have been prior to this instead of how Adam says the game is going to be.

That comment for example, it deals specifically with game world interaction. There's no way to address that without knowing exactly how the game world works.

Anti-heroes and wild cards though are just like heroes and villains. They transcend a specific game or a specific comic. If we can already shape in our head the possibilities of heroes and villains in a game that hasn't been released yet, then only our specific biases to the term "anti-hero" and "wild card", keep us from treating it with the same general simplicity. Biases mind you that we have picked up from other mediums like comics and televisions and certain ways mainstream/non-mainstream portray characters such as Doom. Detailed biases that may or may not have any connection to how the game world actually works outside of this being a game about superheroes.

[OctoberRaven]

Ah, Civilians. I forgot about those. I'll have a lot of fun with those.

Former pro wrestler turned politician and public face of New Los Angeles, Mayor Mark "The Mayor" Majors!

[praguepride]

I think Catwoman is a good example of a Wild Card because it isn't necessarily in her best interest to fight crime when she does, she does it as part of deeper personal mechanics which if you abstract it, you might as well just flip a coin every time you see her in a story later on whether she will be pro- or an- on the -tagonist scale.

Dr. Doom and Lex Luthor HAVE sided on the side of good, but it's always been in a self-serving "oh crap, if we don't join forces I won't have a world to rule" sort of way. I would hope that would be a plotline that could develop where a hero and his archnemisis are forced to join forces but there isn't really a long-term question about whether Luthor or Doom are going to join forces with the side of good.


A mercenary character like Lobo would be another "wild card" if they are purely mercenary, each time they crop up it could be for good or for evil...just depends on who's paying the bill.

[Vladamire Dracos]

Two other Wild Card characters would be the Man-Thing (driven by animal instinct rather than a sense of right and wrong, if it knows fear it burns at the touch of the Man-Thing!) and the classic green Hulk (whose simple-mindedness and/or misdirected rage caused many conflicts with heroes and resulted in a lot of property damage).
Anti-Heroes probably include the likes of Blind Justice (http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/blindjus.htm), Night Raven (http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/nhtraven.htm), and Sangre (http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/sangreth.htm), whose style of doing things, like the Punisher, push the sensibilities of traditional super heroes and likely break more laws than most are comfortable with.

[Phantom Stranger]

Classic-era Hulk wasn't a hero. Bruce Banner was, maybe, but Hulk was a monster.

[praguepride]

True, but nobody would ever tell Hulk that to his face...