Need help with a Superhero idea.

[RatRace123]

Alright, here's some backstory on all this: In my free time, I've been thinking about ideas for a potential story to write. I'm very close to starting work on a Super Hero story. I have everything set up, the backstory, the thing that makes the hero super, the villains, the story arc...
There's just one thing that, I'm not really missing, but it's something I'm not 100 percent sure about, the hero's powers.

Spoiler: Setup for the story, if your interested.

I start my story (I'm not sure what form it should take, I'd like to make it a comic, but I'm not that great at drawing, so I'd need to find an artist, but that's another issue) with the hero developing some kind of unidentifiable cancer-like sickness. When he's in the hospital, a private deal is made by the head of this huge medical corporation, to set him up to become the latest test subject.
The sickness he has stems from a treatment both of his parents underwent when the worked for the medical corp, a treatment designed to make humans halthier and stronger against illness. The first generation, including the hero's parents, had no successes and many of the subjects died of the cancerous disease years later. The treatment works on a genetic level which means that if someone who had the treatment reproduces, their child will have it as well.
So, the hero gets an injection, he's not told what it is, a serum that will hopefully unlock the hidden potential of the treatment. He's then forced into extreme radiation, under the pretense of chemo, it knocks him out and nearly kills him.
When he awakens, he finds that the cancerous cells are gone, and he's now superhuman.
While all of this happens, the outside world is going to hell. America (where the story primarily takes place) is at war (I still haven't decided if the war should be the current one, or some unnamed war, in some unspecified place.) The economy is at an all time low. Poverty and starvation are high, and a rash of crime sprees are taking place all over the country. The federal government is losing ground while more and more citizens secure their lot in with the various crimelords who's powers have risen to staggering levels. So, it's obviously a place that needs a hero.

That's the story in a nutshell, if you read it. The thing I need help with is deciding the hero's powers.

Spoiler: The hero's powers, this is the important thing to read.

The one thing that's constant across all superpowered individuals is an increase in strength, speed, stamina and an enhanced immunity to sickness and toxins.
The main power I give the hero is something I call "Bio-Kinetic Energy" He has the power to create spheres which he can project at targets with a force ranging from a simple punch to a freight train collision. He can also enhance his own melee strikes with this way.
On the defense he's capable of dampening kinetic blows directed towards himself, whether it be reducing the force of a punch, reducing the lethality of a gunshot or reducing the impact from a high fall, he can protect himself from a lot of damage with this.
For movement he can increase the height of his jumps and the speed of his running.

Another interesting factor of the Bio-Kinetic powers, is it gives the hero the ability to "grab" other forms of energy, namely fire and electricity. He can the project and manipulate them as he wishes.

The thing is, though I went very in depth with his powers, and I can't really think of any other powers to give him that would make him somewhat unique (I'm sure I stole a few powers from some other Super heroes. I just can't think of any.) I'm wondering if his powers are a bit too complicated, with his ability to grab and disperse other forms of energy. I'm also wondering if I should scrap the whole powerset and try to come up with something else.

So what I'm asking is, what do you think about the powerset? Do you think I should just tweek it? Start over? Have any power suggestions yourself?
Oh and, if you actualy read the basic premise, what did you think of it? Would it be something that would interest you?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Don't give him a power. TBF, he's overpowered enough as it is.

Give him a weakness, a Kryptonite : And make it something he has to work hard to avoid.

If he creates this Bio-K himself, give him a raging appetite.
If he drains it, lose his sense of touch.
Make it an uncontrolled drain, so he has to be careful walking past electrics.

Just screw him up, and the story will write itself.

 

[Gaz6231]

This, basically. The key to any good superhero isn't their powers, it's their weaknesses.

 

[RatRace123]

Don't give him a power. TBF, he's overpowered enough as it is.

Give him a weakness, a Kryptonite : And make it something he has to work hard to avoid.

If he creates this Bio-K himself, give him a raging appetite.
If he drains it, lose his sense of touch.
Make it an uncontrolled drain, so he has to be careful walking past electrics.

Just screw him up, and the story will write itself.

That is a good idea, and yeah now that I think about it he is too overpowered, and I think that's what I had trouble with. I never really did think about giving him a weakness. That's an aspect I rarely focus on in super heroes.
The only way I could think of to knock him down was to create villains that were just as strong or even stronger.
I did think about the uncontrolled drain thing though, I figure that would make life pretty inconvenient, so in the story I found a way to nerf it. I guess I need to find some weakness, other than the social and psychological ones.

 

[Triangulon]

I know superheroes are not supposed to be realistic, however...
I would find this concept much more interesting if he can only manipulate energy (remember physics - energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred).

Imagine in your example the hero is defending against kinetic attacks, where/how does he disperse said energy? He might have a mixed reputation if his defence ended up causing accidental damage to people/property. In attack how does he gain the energy for his projectiles? Does he cause blackouts etc?

Just my thoughts. Also I agree with the others, the weakness is massively important.

Also, good luck!

 

[RatRace123]

I know superheroes are not supposed to be realistic, however...
I would find this concept much more interesting if he can only manipulate energy (remember physics - energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred).

Imagine in your example the hero is defending against kinetic attacks, where/how does he disperse said energy? He might have a mixed reputation if his defence ended up causing accidental damage to people/property. In attack how does he gain the energy for his projectiles? Does he cause blackouts etc?

Just my thoughts. Also I agree with the others, the weakness is massively important.

Also, good luck!

Thanks, that's really helpful, I can't believe I forgot the concept of energy. I guess in defending against something, the more KE he blocks, the more he stores up and the more he'll have to get rid of. So, the resulting discharge would be more violent and destructive.

I think, I'll include that as an aspect of the powers.

 

[Gentleman_Reptile]

I think the world you've created would be more welcoming to a resentful anti-hero than a heart of gold good guy.

He could wake up from this treatment, into a miserable world, after being (what he perceives to be) tortured by people who killed his parents, with a whole bunch of advantages over people who stand to make a lot of money. Money he could use to get his own petty revenge. He is NOT going to be happy, at least not at first.

I think what would be cool is if you did something similar to the Batman story where Gotham suffers an earthquake and all the villains carve out their own territory and fight for supremacy. I forget the name of it which is infuriating, but seeing this guy work his way up the chain of crime lords, ecountering more powerful and more equipped enemies as he goes along, would be alot of fun to watch. Imagine, for example, if he comes across what he thinks is a simple arms dealer, only to find out that this guy has undergone similar treatment? Maybe an original surviving test subject?

And over the course of him eliminating brutal crimelords, he inadvertantly starts making the country a little better, which gives him hope, gives him courage, gives him a real reason to keep on slugging away.


As far as his power set goes I think its fine the way it is. It's powerful, without making him invincible, which means he can become vunerable, which means he will be more interesting. Superman is almost boring because he is so powerful, but a guy who can suffer broken bones and bloodied noses will be much more relateable, interesting and gritty.

 

[Triangulon]

I know superheroes are not supposed to be realistic, however...
I would find this concept much more interesting if he can only manipulate energy (remember physics - energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred).

Imagine in your example the hero is defending against kinetic attacks, where/how does he disperse said energy? He might have a mixed reputation if his defence ended up causing accidental damage to people/property. In attack how does he gain the energy for his projectiles? Does he cause blackouts etc?

Just my thoughts. Also I agree with the others, the weakness is massively important.

Also, good luck!

Thanks, that's really helpful, I can't believe I forgot the concept of energy. I guess in defending against something, the more KE he blocks, the more he stores up and the more he'll have to get rid of. So, the resulting discharge would be more violent and destructive.

I think, I'll include that as an aspect of the powers.

Awesome! Also, remember that energy can be transferred from kinetic to thermal to electrical to light etc. Which would fit your idea of manipulating fire, electricity and the like.

 

[MetaMop]

The ability to manipulate physics and energy makes him a very powerfull being. He could use his own body as an atom bomb, the way I'm thinking about it. Maybe limit his powers to certain energies or forces, or involve some kind of personal risk that comes with using the powers. And if you continue along the same road with his powers, then he needs a very good characterisation. You can't have an all powerfull godlike badass as your hero, it's boring.
Best of luck.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Thanks, that's really helpful, I can't believe I forgot the concept of energy. I guess in defending against something, the more KE he blocks, the more he stores up and the more he'll have to get rid of. So, the resulting discharge would be more violent and destructive.

I think, I'll include that as an aspect of the powers.

One thing to be careful of:

Dazzler, Havok, Cyclops (Marvel) all use a similar form of energy capacitance/change, so try and veer away from how they present it.

 

[RatRace123]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'm still trying to retool the powers a bit.

Things I've got so far: The hero has the ability to manipulate kinetic energy, in doing so it drains him a bit until he becomes to weak to fight. Extreme use of us powers would essentially burn him out and kill him. This counts for use of his defense too, he needs to expend energy in small bursts, a large burst could kill him and destroy a good portion of the surrounding landscape too. Essentially he has the power to level mountains and destroy multiple cities, if he's not careful.
To combat the draining effect, he either needs to rest, or he injects himself with a streamlined, concentrated version of the serum, which he could develop an addiction to. That carries with it, some unknown side effects.

Dazzler, Havok, Cyclops (Marvel) all use a similar form of energy capacitance/change, so try and veer away from how they present it.

Right, Cyclops was one of the hero's I was thinking of, thanks for reminding me.

 

[MetaMop]

The 'addiction' thing is definietly the right way to go. As others have said, heroes are defined by their weaknessess. Maybe he himself is toxic, considering that he could use a fart like a rocket launcher. There's some good isolation stuff to put in your hero there.
I once wrote a comic book script and it involved a cliche super-speed hero who murdered his lover by...loving too fast. He screwed her over.

 

[RatRace123]

The 'addiction' thing is definietly the right way to go. As others have said, heroes are defined by their weaknessess. Maybe he himself is toxic, considering that he could use a fart like a rocket launcher. There's some good isolation stuff to put in your hero there.
I once wrote a comic book script and it involved a cliche super-speed hero who murdered his lover by...loving too fast. He screwed her over.

Ha ha.
The isolation is something I wanted to touch up on, I've had trouble with the powers of my hero, but another large aspect of the whatever this ends up being, is the psychological effects that being superpowered would have on this guy. One of his major character flaws is that he considers himself to be the only one who can actually be heroic in this world, and considering many of the people he meets who get super powers use them for crime, he turns out to be somewhat justified. But his attitude ends up creating several villains that he could've stopped, adding to a sense of guilt.

Still, I'm not sure I'll be able to put something as awesomely tragic as death by super-speed sex.

 

[MetaMop]

You can put some very good ambiguity in a character who feels he's the only on who can solve problems. Just look at Rorschach or Batman. And I think that war you mentioned should take place on American ground; turn the place into absolute chaos where there is no right or wrong anymore. Ambiguity is lovely.

 

[John the Gamer]

Give the powes a weakness. like he can use the powers with his right hand, but if he looks at his hand wilst using his powers, they backfire.
or his one hand uses powers and his other hand negates them(can only use one hand at a time - weakness in combat)

 

[RatRace123]

Thanks again for all the suggestions, in little over an hour I've actually gained a lot of new ideas, more than I came up with over the course of a few months.
However, I realized I'm missing two more crucial elements. The hero has a civilian name, but he needs a super hero code name, and I haven't thought up a good title for my story yet.
Yeah, it turns out I can work out a lot of details, except naming things.

 

[MetaMop]

Well, what's the main form of his power that he uses? Or some distinct feature about his appearance?

 

[Big-T]

i would set the timeline for the story about now. or just a bit into the future. like for the testing and everything, it could have been part of the gulf war and now the main character is 20something dealing with society and everything that common people have to deal with (makes it easy to connect with him)

everyone's already said the weakness thing and i agree. maybe you could go off his toxin power and he may be using the toxin power but little does he know that its slowly killing him. (addiction idea works too) but definitely needs a super-badguy. my opinion is to use a brother. maybe hes obtained powers like his sibling but the radation had a profound impact on him and hes off his rocker and believes that he can create a "radiation-utopia" or is more the terrorist type. good brother faced with moral questions, family issues, powers, regular life, etc. it could have alot of potential.

just ideas.

 

[MetaMop]

A battle of siblings is a good idea. Especially when they could just spit at each other and cause atomic explosions. That would be epic.
And a message to the creator himself: what kind of world were you planning for this story? If there is a massive war going on involving a world superpower, I'd imagine things were pretty messed up. It would help to focus your character if you knew what the world was and what it has become, and the hero's reaction to it.