The Coming of the Superheros (RAR!)

[SpottedKitty]

You know, I was thinking about this some more and a thought occurred to me. How many Mutants are there around the world in The X-Men comics? And given that most are just trying to live out their lives in peace rather than joining sides, how many of them would get pulled into our world in this scenario?

There's also the question of how many of them would be at a significant power level? The scale would go all the way from spectacular stuff like the main X-teams, down to (say) the ability to change the colour of the pimple on their nose. Is there a cutoff, and if so, where is it?

[Imperial528]

Basically, you have to go into the actual comics universes to find characters who can destroy planets because they rarely make it into adaptations because they are usually pure wank. Mogo is the only exception, because as GL characters go he's just plain cool, and people can accept that much power in a single character when they are a friggen planet. You don't call in Mogo to stop the Joker on a Tuesday, which is the usual problem with having Batman and Superman 1,000,000 in the same universe. Superman 1,000,000 makes every other characters irrelevant by his mere existence.

However, plenty of characters have the power to destroy cities on a whim. Superman, most Superman clones, Nanoha Takimachi at any age, the Hulk, the Power Rangers and their giant mechs, and probably Zatanna. And probably a few more have "city leveling' levels of power I'm just not remembering off the top of my head. Oh, right! Jean Gray.

Hm.

I was wondering because my knowledge of both DC and Marvel comics is limited, even among their adaptations.

However for this truly epic crossover of superheroes, the one superhero setting I am familiar with, the Wormverse, will get dragged in almost wholesale (including the vast majority of their villains, simply because of how many heroes became heroes in order to fight these villains) on July 3rd or 4th, whichever one of those is 2011, depending on how you add the days. I would link to the wiki, but it's a story I consider good enough that it shouldn't be spoiled, and even the spoiler free pages are loaded with spoilers.

Dragging in the Wormverse, however, means dragging in the Endbringers.

The Endbringers are a trio of colossal beings who for unknown reasons regularly attack and often destroy major cities, especially those that are hot-spots of cape-related conflict. They are capable of immense destructive power, but tend to hold back, preserving their strength for when it is opportune to escalate or if it is necessary to reach their goal. They also follow a general pattern of each attack being more destructive than the last, and react to defeats by coming up with new tactics or even new powers. Usually they have a target that, should they be successful in destroying it, would cause regional or even global disruption. This has ranged from resources such as oil fields, to nuclear power plants, to prisons holding notorious supervillains. All of the Endbringers are extremely durable and are potent regenerators, with no apparent weak spots. I was wondering if any heroes capable of destroying planets would be present, because in order to one-hit kill an Endbringer using brute force, Worm's author stated that you'd need an attack powerful enough to destroy the surface of a planet at least.

Behemoth, the first and largest at over forty-five tall, is a monstrous cyclops capable of wide-range energy manipulation, able to summon fire or lightning at will, and emit levels of radiation that are lethal within minutes. He has a roughly thirty radius killzone where basically anyone who isn't on the high end superhumanly durable will die instantly, as inside this radius he can simply create intense flames inside of a person. His greatest single feat in the story of Worm was the destruction of the entire state of Hawaii, though it is implied he is capable of much more. Behemoth appears by tunneling underneath a location, and often tunnels during a battle in order to move around. If he is defeated or has achieved victory, he tunnels to the Earth's mantle to heal.

Leviathan, the middle child of the Endbringers, is a hydrokinetic serpent that stands at thirty-five feet tall. He is also capable of superspeed that makes his attacks almost impossible to dodge, and when he is submerged in water he can move so fast that he has kept up with teleporters. Most importantly his hydrokinesis can act at a large scale, such that during one attack he sank the entire island of Kyushu by wearing away the continental shelf beneath it. He later used this same tactic to destroy Newfoundland. He usually attacks coastal cities but has gone to the effort of reaching inland cities via waterways. When he finishes his attacks he retreats into the oceans, wandering about.

The Simurgh is the third Endbringer; she resembles an angelic woman with countless wings, some of which make up portions of her human-like body. She's trickier to really explain, as her powerset is more metaphysical. She has the usual suite of extreme durability, super-strength, and regeneration, though she is less durable than her 'brothers' are and is significantly smaller, at about fifteen feet tall. Her primary physical power is telekinesis, powerful enough to rip entire apartment builds out of the ground and throw them around as if they were feathers. That is the least impressive, however. Her main power is a sort of psychic scream which she uses to influence all of the people around her, at a range that she can influence an entire city. Combined with extremely reliable precognition (enough to dodge hundreds of simultaneous attacks), she uses this to turn people into walking potential disasters. For example, her first appearance was in Lausanne, Switzerland. When she was done with the city the entire populace had been turned into amoral psychopaths. These first victims would blend in for days or even months before committing some kind of horrid crime or even terrorist-like attacks, without any remorse or care for what they had done. It was bad enough that the entire city was quarantined and bombed out. Victims of later attacks weren't so reliably, immutable brainwashed, but cities were still quarantined, and persons affected by her tend to set events into motion that destabilize even national-scale organizations. Heroes that respond to the Simurgh's appearances must wear bomb bracelets that detonate if they do not leave her range in time unless it is proven that they are immune to her scream, a measure that was taken after heroes who had fought her started to go crazy as well.

The Simurgh also has a nasty little side power of being able to turn her precognition towards deciphering and reverse-engineering extremely advanced technology such as created by tinkers, Worm's equivalent of tech inventing heroes. She uses this knowledge and her telekinesis to assemble technology she uses for herself, such as weaponry. Generally she only draws knowledge from those who are nearby, but she's been demonstrated to apply the same power to the work of a tinker who was long dead, so presumably she can replicate technology she comes into contact with as well. She likes to retreat to the thermosphere and scheme between her attacks.


So, hopefully the heroes assembled on Superhero Crossover Earth will be able to find a long term solution to the Endbringers. If not, I guess they'll at least have something big to fight.

[Formless]

Basically, you have to go into the actual comics universes to find characters who can destroy planets because they rarely make it into adaptations because they are usually pure wank. Mogo is the only exception, because as GL characters go he's just plain cool, and people can accept that much power in a single character when they are a friggen planet. You don't call in Mogo to stop the Joker on a Tuesday, which is the usual problem with having Batman and Superman 1,000,000 in the same universe. Superman 1,000,000 makes every other characters irrelevant by his mere existence.

However, plenty of characters have the power to destroy cities on a whim. Superman, most Superman clones, Nanoha Takimachi at any age, the Hulk, the Power Rangers and their giant mechs, and probably Zatanna. And probably a few more have "city leveling' levels of power I'm just not remembering off the top of my head. Oh, right! Jean Gray.

Hm.

I was wondering because my knowledge of both DC and Marvel comics is limited, even among their adaptations.

However for this truly epic crossover of superheroes, the one superhero setting I am familiar with, the Wormverse, will get dragged in almost wholesale (including the vast majority of their villains, simply because of how many heroes became heroes in order to fight these villains) on July 3rd or 4th, whichever one of those is 2011, depending on how you add the days. I would link to the wiki, but it's a story I consider good enough that it shouldn't be spoiled, and even the spoiler free pages are loaded with spoilers.

Dragging in the Wormverse, however, means dragging in the Endbringers.

*snip*

So, hopefully the heroes assembled on Superhero Crossover Earth will be able to find a long term solution to the Endbringers. If not, I guess they'll at least have something big to fight.

Uh, dude, villains don't get brought in to this unless they play such an important role in the backstory of some hero that one cannot exist without the other, or unless they are reformed. The Endbringers don't sound like they are even being portrayed as anti-heroes, just plain villains. Heroes turned villains apparently come into existence as their heroic version or not at all. Plus, what you describe goes waaaaay beyond the limits of DCAU Superman into the territory of, well, Cthulu or something. So there are two different reasons that the Endbringers might not actually come through July 3'rd. By the way, from everything I have ever heard about Worm it sounds like edgy grimdark shit, so I don't give a crap about spoilers. I don't plan on reading it anytime soon. So if I'm wrong, feel free to explain why you think these characters count in as much detail as necessary.

But even if they did, its not impossible for other characters to defeat them. Here are six examples of heroes or organizations that are able to take on the Endbringers and how:

1) First, Majin Gojira defined Godzilla as a superhero. Just throwing that out there-- Godzilla is the King of the Monsters, after all.

Presumably, if Godzilla is in, so too is Mothra. Mothra was always depicted as a "heroic" Kaiju.

2) The Power Rangers face Kaiju type threats practically every week. That's what they have the Zords for. And the only reason the various teams don't team up more than once a season is because the Power Grid that the Rangers draw energy from can theoretically be overloaded from having too many rangers of the same color in the same place. Though that didn't stop one episode from having every red ranger ever appear in one episode. Including the Red Ranger who went to space. Also, one Ranger team literally exists in the future and serve as Time cops.

Basically, the only thing that holds the Rangers back is their own credo against escalation. However, they most certainly don't do the "no killing" thing like other superheroes. If their enemies pull guns, they pull guns. If their enemies summon giant monsters, they kill those monsters with a healthy barrage of overkill from their giant robots. Their use of force policies are pretty reasonable that way. Now, one of these teams went to space to save the world, so yeah, they probably have weapons that can do the job. They just don't have many occasions to make use of them.

3) Since many superheroes have a credo against killing, a lot of them have already found ways of imprisoning OP threats in other dimensions and the like. Superman for instance likes to imprison villains of that caliber in the phantom zone, for instance. And yes, Doomsday is pretty similar in power to what you describe, and look how Superman in the DCAU handles him. Throws his ass in a volcano, presumably waits for the rock to cool, and when it turns out that hasn't killed Doomsday, he digs up the rock with Doomsday in it and sends him to the Zone. This is also common practice for characters who use magic, since magical threats often cannot be killed anyway.

Also, I wasn't being random about saying Mogo can throw planets into the Sun to destroy particularly powerful threats. Actually, Hurl It Into The Sun is a named trope on TVTropes and everything. Lots of Comic Book and a few Anime heroes like to do this to destroy objects that require ridiculous energies to destroy. They just get squeamish about doing it to villains because of the usual reasons.

4) I keep bringing up the Nanoha franchise because its just plain cool, honestly, so you know they also have solutions for threats like this. See, Nanoha is the title character, but she doesn't work alone. After the first season, Nanoha famously befriends the antagonist of the first season, Fate, who basically becomes her wife by the third season. Anyway, I said that Nanoha is a City Smasher level character because one of her her signature spells, Starlight Breaker, is veritably nuts. I call your attention again to this clip. Now watch this clip of an 8 kiloton nuclear bomb going off underwater and note the similarities. Now, I don't know how to do the math, but I've been told you can estimate the exact energy of Starlight Breaker from the water displacement (it has to do with the height of the water, using Fate's canonical height as a yardstick) and its quite comparable. The point I am getting at is how ridiculous not only Starlight Breaker is, but how ridiculous Fate is for surviving it. All that happened was that she blacked out. And yeah, she has her own spells like this.

This is considered high level by the standards of mages in the Nanoha universe, and that's what makes her a superhero even after she moves to another planet.

They also have a third friend named Hayate who has a whole book full of Mass Destruction spells, who, in the second season, kinda sorta summoned a monster like the Endbringers called Nachtwal. Its a long story and I'm definitely butchering it in the name of not spoiling the twist. Nachtwal could regenerate at an insane rate similar to what you describe. To take it down, you know what they did? You might think they hit it with three such spells at once... but no. That was just to hurt it enough to teleport it into orbit so that the Navy could hit it with the big guns. Let that sink in. The girls only have spells on par with nuclear weapons. The TSAB Dimensional Navy has weapons so powerful that an Admiral has to have a set of physical keys on hand to unlock them, and they don't like to so much as point it at habitable planets. And that is the kind of weapon they used to destroy Nachtwal. They actually would have blown a hole in Earth just to destroy it, though, if it weren't for the kids knowing spells few individual mages could pull off. That sounds to me like it qualifies as powerful enough to destroy the Endbringers.

5) Hiro Nakamura from the TV show Heroes literally has time travel as his superpower. Any character that can do this is not to be underestimated, even if they are as clumsy with it as Hiro Nakamura at the start of the show. You can have all the precognitive power you like, and you still lose because its impossible by definition to predict what a time traveler is going to do to take you down.

This also applies if you count The Doctor as a superhero. I'm not inclined to, but others I know are.

6) 2011 was also the year that Puella Magi Madoka Magica came out, and the less I spoil about that show the better because its just that good. Obviously it is also in the Magical Girl genre like Nanoha is, and its even directed by the same guy who directed the first season of Nanoha (so, he knows his stuff). But I don't want to spoil it because it follows a deconstruction-reconstruction format for the genre, and its way to easy to spoil such stories. But the important thing is this: the Endbringers are not the most dangerous thing that appears on July 3'rd of 2017. Kyube, the creature who gives the girls in Madoka their power, is far more dangerous because of his ability to create new Magical Girls, and because every time a girl makes a contract with him she gets to make one wish that has reality-warping properties. Wishes we have seen in the series and larger franchise include: miraculous healing, brainwashing, deliberately erasing another person from history, and even even straight up time travel. I won't spoil who is the time traveler or which spinoff it happened in, because yes there are half a dozen spinoff manga of this show. And in case the part about brainwashing and erasing people from history didn't tip you off, Kyube isn't the careful type who vets the morality of the girls he makes contracts with. I don't want to say what exactly his motive is, but basically, if a girl wanted to wish the Endbringers into the metaphorical cornfield, that kind of thing has been done in the Madoka franchise. And he has his own reasons for protecting humanity from a threat like the Endbringers. And only people with magical potential can even see him. He's more dangerous because he's smart, subtle, and basically only organizations that specialize in the paranormal like the Justice League Dark, the TSAB, and Doctor Strange can even hope to figure him out. Psychic power is cool, but there are ways characters have of protecting themselves against mental attack, and Magical Girls contracted with Kyube are immune by default for... reasons.

[Jub]

We do get a full power DBZ character in the form of Great Saiyaman which brings Gohan into the mix. Given that the Z Fighters, Kais, Korin, Kami, etc. are his support team that brings every major DBZ player into our world. The cap doesn't matter either because the to be a Saiyan is to break any such caps so if anything that simply makes the Z Fighters unequivocally the strongest rather than debatably the strongest. The Dragonballs also come with them too so yeah... You get full strength DBZ coming through and by the rules set forth, there's no denying any of the main players riding in on Gohan's coattails.

[Formless]

I kinda agree with Maijin Gojira, though, that DragonBall's earth clearly isn't our Earth, and that is kind of a problem. Its geography does not match up with the Earth, and the politics are so weird that its like trying to fit Conan the barbarian into our reality. Fitting fictional cities like Gotham in is one thing since its just a part of Jersey, but when Goku lives under a king who is a talking dog just where do you fit that? It just doesn't work very well at all, because DragonBall was a comedy adventure manga before it was doing Superhero shit.

[Imperial528]

Uh, dude, villains don't get brought in to this unless they play such an important role in the backstory of some hero that one cannot exist without the other, or unless they are reformed. The Endbringers don't sound like they are even being portrayed as anti-heroes, just plain villains. Heroes turned villains apparently come into existence as their heroic version or not at all. Plus, what you describe goes waaaaay beyond the limits of DCAU Superman into the territory of, well, Cthulu or something. So there are two different reasons that the Endbringers might not actually come through July 3'rd. By the way, from everything I have ever heard about Worm it sounds like edgy grimdark shit, so I don't give a crap about spoilers. I don't plan on reading it anytime soon. So if I'm wrong, feel free to explain why you think these characters count in as much detail as necessary.

It's really not edgy/grimdark, it is dark, but not for the purpose of being dark. Anyway, if you insist.

The reason the Endbringers show up is that one of the Wormverse's most powerful heroes, Eidolon, subconsciously created them. His power gives him what he needs. This usually takes the form of up to three powers, any three powers, that grow in strength for a time, and then start to fade. Because his power always gives him powers that are the best suited to the situation, he soon found himself to be the second-most powerful being in the world.

After some years of that his power noticed that he needed worthy opponents, and so was the first Endbringer created. From there they took on a life of their own, with new Endbringers appearing in a reactionary manner. Leviathan showed up because the world had started to figure out how to keep Behemoth from wreaking major destruction. The Simurgh showed up because the world started coordinating against the other two en-masse, and so on. There are two subsequent Endbringers, Khonsu (a teleporter and time manipulator) who showed up after Behemoth was killed, and the two twin Endbringers Toho and Bohu, the former of which can manifest the powers of seemingly any three capes, and the latter of which turns into a tower that draws in and compresses the landscape, usually a city, around her. Presumably they are designed to counter the usual tactic of evacuating target cities and delaying the Endbringer until Scion (the most powerful cape in Worm) shows up to actually fight it.

If the original Endbringers don't end up being dragged in, but Eidolon does show up, then I would expect new and different ones to happen eventually. That is unless another universe drags in suitable opponents for Eidolon, or someone notices what's up and figures out a solution for him.

But even if they did, its not impossible for other characters to defeat them. Here are six examples of heroes or organizations that are able to take on the Endbringers and how:

Well, that's good then. It's not something I really doubted, I just don't know the territory all that well.

[Jub]

I kinda agree with Maijin Gojira, though, that DragonBall's earth clearly isn't our Earth, and that is kind of a problem. Its geography does not match up with the Earth, and the politics are so weird that its like trying to fit Conan the barbarian into our reality. Fitting fictional cities like Gotham in is one thing since its just a part of Jersey, but when Goku lives under a king who is a talking dog just where do you fit that? It just doesn't work very well at all, because DragonBall was a comedy adventure manga before it was doing Superhero shit.

Then every comic with President NotARealPresident would also be disqualified. The same goes for Latavria and Wakanda existing, adding tons of new space stations and satellites in orbit, and all the other major issues that come with bringing a comic book world into our world. Yes, DBZ lines up worse than some comics but no worse than the X-Men automatically making some percentage of the world's population start expressing comic book style mutations.

Plus, we can always make Dragonball Evolution good for something and use that version of the world to bring in DBZ characters at their best possible strength. I don't think you can argue that the Evolution world isn't far closer to our own and thus allows for the Z Fighters to come in.

[Majin Gojira]

Uh, dude, villains don't get brought in to this unless they play such an important role in the backstory of some hero that one cannot exist without the other, or unless they are reformed. The Endbringers don't sound like they are even being portrayed as anti-heroes, just plain villains. Heroes turned villains apparently come into existence as their heroic version or not at all.

Though I will add, nothing is stopping them from falling from grace afterward. Or getting better after that.

But even if they did, its not impossible for other characters to defeat them. Here are six examples of heroes or organizations that are able to take on the Endbringers and how:

1) First, Majin Gojira defined Godzilla as a superhero. Just throwing that out there-- Godzilla is the King of the Monsters, after all.

Presumably, if Godzilla is in, so too is Mothra. Mothra was always depicted as a "heroic" Kaiju.

King Caesar, Gamera, Rodan, Minya, Sanda (Garia, and Frankenstein), and many others who aided him such as the army of monsters from Destroy All Monsters.

2) The Power Rangers face Kaiju type threats practically every week. That's what they have the Zords for. And the only reason the various teams don't team up more than once a season is because the Power Grid that the Rangers draw energy from can theoretically be overloaded from having too many rangers of the same color in the same place. Though that didn't stop one episode from having every red ranger ever appear in one episode. Including the Red Ranger who went to space. Also, one Ranger team literally exists in the future and serve as Time cops.

Power Rangers is an odd case because ... Super Sentai, the source material, also qualifies under the limits provided. And they can have hundreds of them active at a single time!

Then you have Ultramen (who have fought and killed Lovecraftian beings before), and a litanny of other super robots from Mazinger and Getter, to GaoGaiGar and Pacific Rim.

6) 2011 was also the year that Puella Magi Madoka Magica came out, and the less I spoil about that show the better because its just that good. Obviously it is also in the Magical Girl genre like Nanoha is, and its even directed by the same guy who directed the first season of Nanoha (so, he knows his stuff). But I don't want to spoil it because it follows a deconstruction-reconstruction format for the genre, and its way to easy to spoil such stories. But the important thing is this: the Endbringers are not the most dangerous thing that appears on July 3'rd of 2017. Kyube, the creature who gives the girls in Madoka their power, is far more dangerous because of his ability to create new Magical Girls, and because every time a girl makes a contract with him she gets to make one wish that has reality-warping properties. Wishes we have seen in the series and larger franchise include: miraculous healing, brainwashing, deliberately erasing another person from history, and even even straight up time travel. I won't spoil who is the time traveler or which spinoff it happened in, because yes there are half a dozen spinoff manga of this show. And in case the part about brainwashing and erasing people from history didn't tip you off, Kyube isn't the careful type who vets the morality of the girls he makes contracts with. I don't want to say what exactly his motive is, but basically, if a girl wanted to wish the Endbringers into the metaphorical cornfield, that kind of thing has been done in the Madoka franchise. And he has his own reasons for protecting humanity from a threat like the Endbringers. And only people with magical potential can even see him. He's more dangerous because he's smart, subtle, and basically only organizations that specialize in the paranormal like the Justice League Dark, the TSAB, and Doctor Strange can even hope to figure him out. Psychic power is cool, but there are ways characters have of protecting themselves against mental attack, and Magical Girls contracted with Kyube are immune by default for... reasons.

Don't oversell Kyubey to much. He also has to contend with the likes of Sailor Moon, the Precures, and other 'classic' magical girls will have already been established, and they all specialize in purification. Not to mention Ultraman 80 who can purify gigantic beings, among other purifier-type heroes.

You know, I was thinking about this some more and a thought occurred to me. How many Mutants are there around the world in The X-Men comics? And given that most are just trying to live out their lives in peace rather than joining sides, how many of them would get pulled into our world in this scenario?

The X-Men by themselves most likely bring the X-Gene Mutation along with them. And there are individuals who bring in specific groups of mutants along with them, such as the Morlocks.

We do get a full power DBZ character in the form of Great Saiyaman which brings Gohan into the mix. Given that the Z Fighters, Kais, Korin, Kami, etc. are his support team that brings every major DBZ player into our world. The cap doesn't matter either because the to be a Saiyan is to break any such caps so if anything that simply makes the Z Fighters unequivocally the strongest rather than debatably the strongest. The Dragonballs also come with them too so yeah... You get full strength DBZ coming through and by the rules set forth, there's no denying any of the main players riding in on Gohan's coattails.

Not full, but extremely limited.

Gohan does meet 3 of the 4 criteria. Powers/Skills, Special Outfit/Secret Identity (as poorly kept as it is), and a proper superhero name.

Darn.

I'm gonna have to figure this out.

Okay: The Who. Since this isn't about Goku's life, but Gohan, this severely curtails who shows up. At the minimum, it cuts Tien, Chaotzu, and Yamcha.

And nothing of value was lost.

As well as the developments from Super onward.

Darn it.

And at Max, it's just his Family, Pan's family, and Piccolo's family.

Which may or may not bring Dragon Balls.

But how strong are they?

Well, not as strong as you think. While symbolically, Goku is meant to "Burst through limits", and symbolically, Superman is meant to be basically limitless "The man who won't fail you."

With a Cap on Superman, we have a Cap on Goku.

And that leaves us with a Goku<Superman.

At least in terms of raw power.

The short of it is Goku would operate on the Wonder Woman tier of "Better fighter, but less raw stats" as it were.

As neasr as I can tell.

I'd put Goku above Viltrumites at least.

"What about planetary Destruction!"

What about it? You can still total a planet without blowing it to smithereens. What makes them so dangerous is that if they do not focus a blast, it can be as bad as a bad asteroid impact (Probably not KT Boundary, but close enough for it to not matter).

And Frieza? Adapted, he would send a ball of energy into the core of a planet, destroy the core, and through that, cause the planet to blow itself apart.

Hell, it better explains what happened on Namek.

And other planet busters would be along those lines.

[Formless]

Though I will add, nothing is stopping them from falling from grace afterward. Or getting better after that.

Okay so... from what I'm reading from you and Imperial528 it sounds like the Endbringers will be a problem down the road, but not from the beginning then? Makes sense.

Power Rangers is an odd case because ... Super Sentai, the source material, also qualifies under the limits provided. And they can have hundreds of them active at a single time!

well, yeah, but its an incredibly weird case because Saban and Disney recast characters but reused footage, props, and costumes, so I thought it was better if you ruled on what heppens when they two come into existence with identical equipment and powers, but different people underneath the suits.

Don't oversell Kyubey to much. He also has to contend with the likes of Sailor Moon, the Precures, and other 'classic' magical girls will have already been established, and they all specialize in purification. Not to mention Ultraman 80 who can purify gigantic beings, among other purifier-type heroes.

True, but as you know Purification is only a temporary solution to the problems Kyube causes. After all, purification is one of the very services he himself provides.

Not saying he's impossible to deal with, as there are many magical superheroes out there, but the issue I see is that he operates on a global scale. We see at the climax of Madoka that he operates on every continent and throughout all of human history-- pretty much anywhere where there is human despair, which could be anywhere. One of the Manga even stars Joan of Arc as a Magical Girl during the Hundred Years War. Meanwhile, most Purifier heroes are based in Japan, and most other superheroes are concentrated in Japan and the States as we talked about earlier. Plus, Kyube is unkillable as far as anyone can tell. Though admittedly, I know there are a few Magical Girl shows from Europe like Winx Club and Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir whose heroines might have similar capabilities as their Japanese counterparts (on account of being inspired by them).

To be fair, I don't know nearly enough about the abilities of the Cures and the Sailor Senshi, as it was Madoka that first convinced me to reconsider the merits of the Magical Girl genre, and Nanoha was the second such show I fell in love with. Sailor Moon just... I still can't get into it I have to admit. Its of a different time.

I'm gonna have to figure this out.

I guess you could give them the Wakanda treatment, since so many of their major fights take place on islands perhaps you could just drop an island near Okanawa, say that's where they live and call it a day?

[Majin Gojira]

Okay so... from what I'm reading from you and Imperial528 it sounds like the Endbringers will be a problem down the road, but not from the beginning then? Makes sense.

Most likely.

But we also have actual Old Ones now sealed on the planet.

well, yeah, but its an incredibly weird case because Saban and Disney recast characters but reused footage, props, and costumes, so I thought it was better if you ruled on what heppens when they two come into existence with identical equipment and powers, but different people underneath the suits.

Fun Fact: Super Sentai mechs are actually shorter (40m or so) than Zords (91m), except for the recent movie. Plus Battlizers and Glitter ... It's not a full match!

True, but as you know Purification is only a temporary solution to the problems Kyube causes. After all, purification is one of the very services he himself provides.

Not saying he's impossible to deal with, as there are many magical superheroes out there, but the issue I see is that he operates on a global scale. We see at the climax of Madoka that he operates on every continent and throughout all of human history-- pretty much anywhere where there is human despair, which could be anywhere. One of the Manga even stars Joan of Arc as a Magical Girl during the Hundred Years War. Meanwhile, most Purifier heroes are based in Japan, and most other superheroes are concentrated in Japan and the States as we talked about earlier. Plus, Kyube is unkillable as far as anyone can tell. Though admittedly, I know there are a few Magical Girl shows from Europe like Winx Club and Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir whose heroines might have similar capabilities as their Japanese counterparts (on account of being inspired by them).

To be fair, I don't know nearly enough about the abilities of the Cures and the Sailor Senshi, as it was Madoka that first convinced me to reconsider the merits of the Magical Girl genre, and Nanoha was the second such show I fell in love with. Sailor Moon just... I still can't get into it I have to admit. Its of a different time.

Most Magical Girl shows are indeed Shojo series and have the trappings/focus of one, so they are hard to get into.

Though Precures started out with super strength/durability at Spider-Man+ Levels and started with a director who cut his chops on Dragon Ball Z.

But it is absolutely shojo through and through.

But think about this: there are now many who can destroy Witches, and without a need to 'hunt' them down, Kyube's entire system breaks down. Especially because it denies him of anything to harvest. It's a real monkey wrench in his system. And I'm sure others (like Zatanna, Dr. Strange, and Doctor Fate) can learn the rituals to purify them once communication between the groups is established.

Or on the nastier side of things: Ghost Rider's Penance Stare. Or just Star Butterfly. Just Star Butterfly (Star vs the Forces of Evil).

Also keep in mind that, it appears, there is only one Kyubey at a time to work on a planet last time I checked (I haven't read the manga spin-offs, and it has been a while since I watched...). And it's not that he's unkillable, it's that killing him isn't a longer-term solution. It's not even a solution for 5 minutes.

Throw in the aforementioned working against it, and competition from legit magical girls, other predators that can absolutely muck things up for them IE: A despairing Madoka Magical Girl is ripe for demonic possession a-la Devilman, what happens when the Magical Girl's soul is shoved aside/destroyed/overtaken by a demon? Or What happens when one is tricked into taking up a Blackened Denarius? Or what happens when one becomes 'friends' with Alexis Kerib from SSSS Gridman who can externalize negative emotions as giant monsters?

The things I worry about more are, again, Devilman's Satan, The Reach (Blue Beetle), Galactus, various invading alien and demonic armies and their robeasts appearing in a row, a few Great Old Ones ...

I guess you could give them the Wakanda treatment, since so many of their major fights take place on islands perhaps you could just drop an island near Okanawa, say that's where they live and call it a day?

Seems the best way to handle it. Though they'd probably be north of Okinawa, to be honest ...

[Formless]

But think about this: there are now many who can destroy Witches, and without a need to 'hunt' them down, Kyube's entire system breaks down. Especially because it denies him of anything to harvest. It's a real monkey wrench in his system. And I'm sure others (like Zatanna, Dr. Strange, and Doctor Fate) can learn the rituals to purify them once communication between the groups is established.

The question is whether you can purify a witch and what happens to it when you do. Remember, even when the Girls kill witches, there is the danger of them regenerating from one of their Familiars. And in the Rebellion when they tried that it led to something even more unpredictable, and what happened was only possible because of the changes Madoka made to reality in the first place. When they tried the same ploy in the series they failed. Repeatedly. And I don't think any of the spinoffs have shown it work either. The emotions of a Witch seem to just be too extreme for anyone to reach them no matter how close they once were, and the witch from Rebellion was an exception because of the specific emotions that were involved.

Okay, I'm being too coy. I would use the spoiler tags, but they apparently don't work, so spoilers for the series and Rebellion:

What I'm basically saying is, even if it works, all that might happen is that a Witch further develops into a Demon, powered not by Hope or Despair but by something else like Love. And that doesn't remove their witch powers, either, since Homura retained her Familiars and created a new barrier around the entire Earth in order to separate Madoka's mortal form from her Divine aspect. Also, she kept her ability to suppress other people's memories, although according to the Manga that was actually one of her new Magical Girl powers in the post Ascension timeline.

So yeah, even if other heroes can "purify" Witches, the fact that their magic is derived from emotions and is influenced so heavily by psychology makes things more complicated than it would be in their own native realities IMO. That's kind of the whole point of Madoka and why Rebellion was so full of Niezchian concepts and themes.

Also keep in mind that, it appears, there is only one Kyubey at a time to work on a planet last time I checked (I haven't read the manga spin-offs, and it has been a while since I watched...). And it's not that he's unkillable, it's that killing him isn't a longer-term solution. It's not even a solution for 5 minutes.

The film definitively shows Kyube using multiple bodies at the same time. Its never been shown where he gets them all from, but it means that saying there is "one" Kyube operating on Earth is rather meaningless. He is one, and many. But still, in one of the crazier spinoffs, Kazume Magica, the girls interact with both Kyube and another of his kind named Jyube. So yes, there are multiple beings of his species operating on Earth.

Throw in the aforementioned working against it, and competition from legit magical girls, other predators that can absolutely muck things up for them IE: A despairing Madoka Magical Girl is ripe for demonic possession a-la Devilman, what happens when the Magical Girl's soul is shoved aside/destroyed/overtaken by a demon? Or What happens when one is tricked into taking up a Blackened Denarius? Or what happens when one becomes 'friends' with Alexis Kerib from SSSS Gridman who can externalize negative emotions as giant monsters?

I don't know. There are a lot of interactions between superheroes that are difficult to predict. I suspect, though, that a Soul Gem makes a girl immune to further magical or psychic attacks against their mind unless its Kyube himself messing with them. That's why Witches' curses don't work on them. Witches, on the other hand, are already basically negative emotions externalized into a monster, albeit a far more eldritch and lovecraftian one than a mere kaiju. Destroying Grief Seeds is probably equivalent to destroying a witch's soul, which is exactly what Kyube apparently does to prevent further contamination from their magical effects.

The things I worry about more are, again, Devilman's Satan, The Reach (Blue Beetle), Galactus, various invading alien and demonic armies and their robeasts appearing in a row, a few Great Old Ones ...

Sure, sure. I don't know about all of those because, well, no one has time to read or watch every story. But most of those forces are cause for short term crises that will train the superheroes and the world how to resist the problems. Kyube, on the other hand, is actually a stabilizing force, for the most part, who works his agenda slowly and makes people think he's their best friend. He's also such a practiced liar that even after watching the show many fans I've talked to have a hard time understanding how his statements even qualify as lies. Since he's so good at taking advantage of other people's naivete and good will its likely it will take a while before anyone realizes he is causing any problems to begin with. After all, he could always trick people into thinking that any one of those other demonic or satanic entities is the cause, and because most superheroes won't have experience with any of that, it'll take a while for anyone to realize it was him all along.

[Majin Gojira]

The question is whether you can purify a witch and what happens to it when you do.

Actually, I was talking priamrily about purifying the soul gems of the magical girls, not the witches. It prevents more from being made, and once the few that are around are taken care of ... The system breaks down completely for the little shit.

Asd to what happens to the Witches when they're hit with purifying attacks, that's easy thing to answer: the creatures completely dissipate. Don't think witches are special or unique within the genre, let alone in fiction. Magic from Emotions is a very common concept.

Hell, Ghostbusters did it with Pink Slime.

Some even revert or restsore the transformed, like in GaoGaiGar. So, it may restore a magical girl turned witch, back to a magical girl (or even back to a human) if the right person gets to it.

But most likely, they just fade into sparkles or disolve into light.

The film definitively shows Kyube using multiple bodies at the same time. Its never been shown where he gets them all from, but it means that saying there is "one" Kyube operating on Earth is rather meaningless. He is one, and many. But still, in one of the crazier spinoffs, Kazume Magica, the girls interact with both Kyube and another of his kind named Jyube. So yes, there are multiple beings of his species operating on Earth.

So hunting them down, or mass banishment is the name of the game.

I don't know. There are a lot of interactions between superheroes that are difficult to predict. I suspect, though, that a Soul Gem makes a girl immune to further magical or psychic attacks against their mind unless its Kyube himself messing with them. That's why Witches' curses don't work on them.

Or it could be many other things about the nature of the Magical Girls in that series that allows them to resist that specific affect. Hell, the Witches' kiss is not explicitly a soul effect last time I checked. Most likely, it's hitting the 'wrong target' as it were.

We have no reason to conclude that the powers to affect souls of others would not be able to affeect a soul jem. From what I recall, smashing them with a hammer is a fully possible thing, so saying they're immunizing is rather silly.

Also, one thing about me is that I hate-hate-hate full immunity concepts unless there is a VERY good explaination. It's a variation of the "No Limits" fallacy, and for this scenario, there are limits.

So even with that, I'm putting my foot down (and I don't like doing that): Soul Gems can be affected by things that affect souls. The only 'resist' applies to Freed Souls (IE: The Vampire Ensoulement Spell from Buffy/Angel couldn't use a Soul Gem'd soul to do such a thing).

Witches, on the other hand, are already basically negative emotions externalized into a monster, albeit a far more eldritch and lovecraftian one than a mere kaiju.

Dude, you're overselling Madoka, and underselling everything else.

Ghatanothoa (with the numbers filed off), a full Great Old One from the Cthulhu Mythos (and a potent one at that) was the final boss monster in Ultraman Tiga.

And in SSSS Gridman, we got THIS bastard. Alexis Kerib is literally an unkillable (as in, he reforms after being killed instantly) creature that goes from world to world doing what Kyubey does for personal power and for the sheer cruel enjoyment of it.

And WAAAY back in the 60s, we had monsters named and designed after art movements (Dada), and whatever the hell insanity Bulton is.

Just because it has some fun animation filter, and look like 'toons' at times doesn't make them any more special than a myriad of other monsters.

Sure, sure. I don't know about all of those because, well, no one has time to read or watch every story. But most of those forces are cause for short term crises that will train the superheroes and the world how to resist the problems.

You're lack of knowledge of the aforementioned is highlighted in your assesment of them.

The armies are large enough to worry, especially since they will be arriving quickly and in rapid succession. And they're armies, they're huge! And some of them are nasty as hell. Killer the Butcher from Zambot 3 lives up to his name because one of his favorite 'games' is turning living humans into bombs.

The Great Old Ones and Galactus are a Long Term, but background problem of Constant Vigilance.

Devilman's Satana and the Reach, well ...

Kyube, on the other hand, is actually a stabilizing force, for the most part, who works his agenda slowly and makes people think he's their best friend. He's also such a practiced liar that even after watching the show many fans I've talked to have a hard time understanding how his statements even qualify as lies. Since he's so good at taking advantage of other people's naivete and good will its likely it will take a while before anyone realizes he is causing any problems to begin with. After all, he could always trick people into thinking that any one of those other demonic or satanic entities is the cause, and because most superheroes won't have experience with any of that, it'll take a while for anyone to realize it was him all along.

Let's put it this way: Satan did what Kyubey did 40 years earlier with a single target in mind before taking the X-Men's "World that Hates and Fears Us" and making sure humanity would destroy itself with only one open showing of power on the demon's part.

And The Reach? Okay, brace for this one. They have a 100-year plan. First, make peaceful, open contact with humanity. Open trade revenues, all the good things first contacts should do. While doing so, they slip a drug into the water to make the drinkers more pliant and amenable, slightly out of phase with reality, so that without dimensional tech, it's undetectable. It's not dumped en mass, but slowly dripped in until it fully affects the globe. Then, fake a magical disaster while legitimately making earth uninhabitable for a while, then offer to help the poor humans with their plight.

Once that is done, you turn to them and say "Now, about your bill..."

Between that and the now docile humanity, the Reach just got themselves a willing slave race.

And this is the Reach's business model. They do this to many worlds and fought the Lanterns to a standstill. And they have hundreds of plans for the worlds they've conquered.

Kyubey is a problem to be sure, but he is not a unique problem, nor is he all that potent. He's an insidious little bastard, with a slow burn body count, but compared to the damage to be wrought from any of the aforementioned, it's midling.

And also, remember the qualifcations: we're not going to be dealing with 'evolved' Homura. Not at first. Or maybe not at all if she can find more 'help'.

[Formless]

Some even revert or restsore the transformed, like in GaoGaiGar. So, it may restore a magical girl turned witch, back to a magical girl (or even back to a human) if the right person gets to it.

But most likely, they just fade into sparkles or disolve into light.

I think you would have to find some way of putting their soul back in their body for them to stop being a Magical Girl entirely. Magical Girls aren't inherently impure, just vulnerable to transformation. Even when Homura turned into a Demon, she still kept her soul in an external container. And at that point, Homura had the ability to arbitrarily rewrite the rules because her Barrier surrounded the entire Earth (if not the whole universe). So she either couldn't return her soul to her body (perhaps the reason we see her swallow her soul gem, only for her to just create another Phylactory anyway), or she no longer wished to despite long feeling as if she was not human because of it.

So hunting them down, or mass banishment is the name of the game.

If you can find where all of his bodies come from, then maybe. But then, he is an alien from another planet, and Earth isn't the only civilization he has preyed upon. In one of the mobile games, there is a witch whose official bio states that she comes from the other side of the galaxy and is on a quest to murder all other Witches and Magical Girls. An alien magical girl. It was sort of implied in the show that Earth isn't his only con-game, but this confirmed it.

Or it could be many other things about the nature of the Magical Girls in that series that allows them to resist that specific affect. Hell, the Witches' kiss is not explicitly a soul effect last time I checked. Most likely, it's hitting the 'wrong target' as it were.

We have no reason to conclude that the powers to affect souls of others would not be able to affeect a soul jem. From what I recall, smashing them with a hammer is a fully possible thing, so saying they're immunizing is rather silly.

Also, one thing about me is that I hate-hate-hate full immunity concepts unless there is a VERY good explaination. It's a variation of the "No Limits" fallacy, and for this scenario, there are limits.

So even with that, I'm putting my foot down (and I don't like doing that): Soul Gems can be affected by things that affect souls. The only 'resist' applies to Freed Souls (IE: The Vampire Ensoulement Spell from Buffy/Angel couldn't use a Soul Gem'd soul to do such a thing).

I said attacks against their mind, not their soul. Those are two different things. Psychic attacks, even in Superhero comics, usually attack the target through their brain. But the reason I think Magical Girls are immune to psionic attacks of this type is that Homura shot herself in the head, and it had no effect whatsoever on her mental faculties. Sayaka also dulls out pain by simply severing the connection between her nervous system and her soul. Kyube talks about there being some minor latency introduced in a Magical Girl's response time as a result of separating the body and soul. Likewise, in one of the spinoff games, which canonically shows one of the previous timelines, Sayaka's Soul Gem was removed from her body for an extended period of time, causing her body to deteriorate in its absence. When it was returned, she was still able to get up despite her body having gone through rigor mortis and back, leaving her looking distinctly like a zombie. This obviously freaked her out, but it again proves that a Magical Girl doesn't use their brain to think anymore. Their body really is nothing more than a meat-puppet piloted by their soul gem. Soul magic may indeed effect them. But I think conventional telepathy wouldn't work against them because its mode of operation is inapplicable to them in most cases. Its not a no limits fallacy, its more like how you can't infect a computer with smallpox, nor a human being with the conficker computer worm, even though both are "viruses."

Now perhaps there is something more specific about Witch's curses since Mami didn't seem to think Sayaka and Madoka were at risk when coming with her, as they were candidates, and there was that time Hitomi was effected while Madoka was not. But it still makes sense that they would be immune to conventional psionic attacks anyway, unless those attacks are directed at the soul rather than the brain.

Dude, you're overselling Madoka, and underselling everything else.

No, I'm just sharing with others my knowledge of a series I have actually watched and enjoyed. I can't undersell something I don't know anything about. I don't pretend to watch live action Japanese television, because the barriers for entry are greater than with Japan's animated works. I know how frustrating that can be, but its still true-- its harder to obtain these works, and then you also have to sit through the obvious budgetary restrictions of Japanese live action. And again, I have limited time to watch stuff, so I prioritize, and the animated version of Ultraman also escaped my notice. So I own up to it: I don't know anything about Ultraman and Kaimen Rider except that they exist as part of the Superhero genre, and everything I know about Super Sentai comes from Power Rangers. Is that such a crime?

As for Kaiju in general, the most well known monsters like Godzilla generally go for a more "antediluvian" look than a Lovecraftian one, at least in general. That's what I was basing that statement off of.

The armies are large enough to worry, especially since they will be arriving quickly and in rapid succession. And they're armies, they're huge! And some of them are nasty as hell. Killer the Butcher from Zambot 3 lives up to his name because one of his favorite 'games' is turning living humans into bombs.

How do they stack up against the armies of the real world and their actual methods of fighting? I know I'm invoking "'Balls', said lt. Mike Wong," but fiction frequently undersells the effectiveness of the real world's militaries in the name of drama. That isn't a controversial thing to say, I think.

Plus, the Avengers and Justice League both literally formed in response to alien invasions and have contingency plans for future invasions. If the JLU has the Watchtower like they do in the DCAU, then they have an orbital weapons platform for that kind of thing.



Before I deconstruct them, how exactly do the Reach get brought into this? Or do they? They appear to just be the villains, so which superhero has a backstory so intimately tied to them that they enter the equation?

And The Reach? Okay, brace for this one. They have a 100-year plan. First, make peaceful, open contact with humanity. Open trade revenues, all the good things first contacts should do. While doing so, they slip a drug into the water to make the drinkers more pliant and amenable, slightly out of phase with reality, so that without dimensional tech, it's undetectable. It's not dumped en mass, but slowly dripped in until it fully affects the globe. Then, fake a magical disaster while legitimately making earth uninhabitable for a while, then offer to help the poor humans with their plight.

Once that is done, you turn to them and say "Now, about your bill..."

Between that and the now docile humanity, the Reach just got themselves a willing slave race.

Or (and I looked up the Reach to be sure that yes, predictably this is a plan with a single point of failure) there are no supervillains the Reach can easily contract to spread the drug like they did in the comics; only villains like Satan who are in competition with them for conquest of the Earth. Lets face it, they won't share. And what would have happened if the drop spot in the Antarctic had been dug up by someone before Typhoon could get to it? It would have been taken away for research or investigation, Typhoon would have found an empty hole in the ice, and the plan would have collapsed like a late game Jenga tower.

Single points of failure are not the sign of a smart and subtle villain. But its predictable that I could find one in this case, because comic book writers all too often mistake complexity of plot for intelligent planning. A plan with 100 steps is no better than a plan with only 5, but at least as many contingencies.

The phase shifting isn't a foolproof thing, either, for protecting a plan like this because some of the factions here can detect that. The TSAB has those kinds of sensors because they use the same trick to contain and minimize damage when high level mages go at it. I bet the Power Rangers and Asgardians have sensors that can reveal the trick as well. Doctor Strange can almost certainly detect them, since his magic draws on other dimensions for power. Things change when multiple universes of heroes are around to cover each other's weaknesses.

But perhaps more important than all that is, even if no one else foils the plan, you know who can foil the plan? The Blue Beetle and Guy Gardner, because they did foil the plan in the original comic story. That makes the Reach less impressive by default. The truly dangerous villains are the ones who few or no one knows how to handle, regardless of how unique they are or aren't. For instance, the whole premise of Justice League Dark is that the regular Justice League don't know how to handle supernatural threats, so John Constantine, Zatanna, and Batman gather together a group of heroes who specialize in it. Anyone (with a tough stomach that is) can deal with the Joker. Fewer people can deal with Mephisto or a Kaiju.

Kyubey is a problem to be sure, but he is not a unique problem, nor is he all that potent. He's an insidious little bastard, with a slow burn body count, but compared to the damage to be wrought from any of the aforementioned, it's midling.

Not when you factor in the existence of Walpurgisnacht, a witch that non-magic users literally percieve as a typhoon or hurricane. And while Walpurgis may not come into our reality, the point is rather that Walpurgis existed because of Kyube's actions, and shows that leaving him unchecked is a terrible idea. Especially because, unlike the previous examples, the only heroes who know how to end his system for good don't come into our world with that knowledge because of the constraints of the RAR. If Homura lacks her Demon state, it follows that Madoka would likely lack her God Aspect as well. Which puts them smack in the middle of Homura's journey rather than in the final timeline.

This means the only people who can deal with Kyube are the other superheroes of the Earth... and first they have to figure out that he exists, how his system works, what his goals are, and devise a way of getting rid of him for good. All without Homura's help, in all likelihood, because in her experience no one ever believes what she has to say anyway. After all, there are other Magical Girls from other universes that these superheroes can see and use as a reference point... only of course, they aren't comparable, but only Homura and perhaps a handful of other characters know this.

You see what I mean when I say that the worst enemies are the ones no one knows how to deal with, no matter how unremarkable they would otherwise be? There is no single point of failure in Kyube's system (at least, short of becoming a God and rewriting the system, AKA the thing that isn't happening unless Homura gets to do more time travel). Its potentially world-ending given enough time. He's patient enough to have been doing this since the time of the Pharaohs at least. And in the meantime, he lets girls think they are heroes protecting the Earth from threats like those you mentioned, so he looks like the hero at first glance as well. The only tools he has that no longer work are his obvious lies, like the lie that he was responsible for uplifting humans out of the stone age. Of course, that was always an obvious lie that he said in desperation to try and keep some kind of emotional hook in Madoka. It would never have worked on, say, Nanoha, Steven Strange, Raven, or any of the other adults with magic. But since he's willing to lie, and since you almost have to listen to his lies in order to investigate him (you can't shut him up because its pointless to shoot him), progress will be slow, especially when they are distracted by other problems like Kaiju and Endbringers and all the Satans you can shake a stick at. Who, I remind you, he looks nothing like despite having almost the exact same MO as Mephistopheles.

That's why I rate him so highly in terms of the danger he poses. Its not that the other villains aren't major problems. Its not that other heroes can't deal with Witches on a case-by-case basis. Its precisely because there are other pressing problems that must be dealt with quickly, and that that's what most superheroes are used to dealing with. Crises. Not institutions. Ironically, given that, the X-Men are probably the most qualified to deal with Kyube... if only they could perceive him.

[Majin Gojira]

I think you would have to find some way of putting their soul back in their body for them to stop being a Magical Girl entirely. Magical Girls aren't inherently impure, just vulnerable to transformation.

And that's what I'm generally talking about. The purification of a proper magical girl can, more than likely, remove the 'corruption'/darkness/despair from a soul gem as well as or better than a Grief Seed.

Others might have different effects and may affect Witches differently.

If you can find where all of his bodies come from, then maybe. But then, he is an alien from another planet, and Earth isn't the only civilization he has preyed upon. In one of the mobile games, there is a witch whose official bio states that she comes from the other side of the galaxy and is on a quest to murder all other Witches and Magical Girls. An alien magical girl. It was sort of implied in the show that Earth isn't his only con-game, but this confirmed it.

Sounds to me like his species may have a beef with other galactic powers like the Novas, Lantern corps, New Gods, etc.

I said attacks against their mind, not their soul.

Sorry, where you placed it had the implication of doing so.

But the reason I think Magical Girls are immune to psionic attacks of this type is that Homura shot herself in the head, and it had no effect whatsoever on her mental faculties.

Sounds more like an extension of the whole "Your body is basically a videogame avatar at this point, but full of goo" effect of having a soul gem in the first place, and that her consciousness is in the jewel now.

Soul magic may indeed effect them. But I think conventional telepathy wouldn't work against them because its mode of operation is inapplicable to them in most cases.

Seems to me to be more of a finding the right target for that to work. People would go for the head when the crystal is the target.

But I can see doodads being needed to 'convert' the signal.

I can't undersell something I don't know anything about.

But you can casually dismiss. Which you did.

People do that with Kaiju a lot, but I still find it frustrating. Sorry if I went off to hard on that.

I know how frustrating that can be, but its still true-- its harder to obtain these works, and then you also have to sit through the obvious budgetary restrictions of Japanese live action.

Dude, preaching to the choir on that, but that is why I'm telling you about these.

And again, I have limited time to watch stuff, so I prioritize, and the animated version of Ultraman also escaped my notice.

Well, if you do find the time, so far, the Netflix Anime Ultraman (which is more Iron Man like) is pretty decent, and there is SSSS.Gridman is well worth a watch because it's animated by Studio Trigger -- the guys behind Kill la Kill and Little Witch Academia. So, if nothing else, it's pretty.

But as another person who likes Madoka, I think you may enjoy that one for some similar themes.

Also, it's only 12 eps.

How do they stack up against the armies of the real world and their actual methods of fighting? I know I'm invoking "'Balls', said lt. Mike Wong," but fiction frequently undersells the effectiveness of the real world's militaries in the name of drama. That isn't a controversial thing to say, I think.

No, that's legit. I rag a lot on the Galra in Netflix Voltron because they have almost no ground vehicles.

Just to use a few examples:

The Mikene Empire from the Mazinger franchise is primarily composed of Infantry with a few types of ships used largely for support and transport. Said infantry is made up of 20m+ tall horrors with multiple faces, and armed with a wide array of missiles, energy weapons, close combat weapons, and are made of extremely durable materials. They are able to shred conventional armor like paper. A lot of their troops are remote drones.

The Demon Empire from Brave Raideen has footsoldiers, 15m long flying drones, giant support craft, and "Fossil Beasts" but because they are mystically conjured, they cannot produce many quickly and have that wonderful "Send one at a time" philosophy to work with. They are mystical and live inside the earth, making them a little harder to locate.

The Jamatai Kingdom from Steel Jeeg and Steel God Jeeg has space-fairing battleship/aircraft carrier combo ships with fighter support, ground troops, and fossil monsters as 'tanks'. The reason the human mech here can stand a chance against them is that it's powered by one of their own Battleship engines. Yeah, the humans found a battleship engine and put it in a giant robot.

Voltes V has an armada from the Boazanians. They are smart enough initially to coordinate global attacks with their 50m tall "Beast Fighters" -- so imagine kaiju attacks all over the world at once. Once they face actual resistance, they focus on it to stamp it out. Sadly, giving other places time to recover. Battleship with fighter support, and ground troops on top of that.

And Megas XLR has a single Glorft battleship, its footsoldiers being 24m tall cthulhu-faced cyborgs. But let's be frank here, the pilot of the Megas is going to cause more damage than anything else.

Most Sentai series have 'secret group sending single monster' which ranges from earthly, to alien, to magical in origin. However, The Machine Empire of Baranoia from Ohranger (Power Rangers Zeo) has fighters, tanks, footsoldiers, ground support and the general standard layout in addition to their robot monsters. They are rarely used as the mechs there outclass the conventional stuff too widely, but they are still there.

This doesn't count the secret armies that have infiltrated/subverted modern world militaries from Babel II, Guyver, Full Metal Panic, and the like. Nor does it count the Zonder (which corrupt humans into monsters to eventually be able to make a factory that spits out the metal that makes humans into monsters on a mass scale) from GaoGaiGar, or other things which basically cause 'monster' attacks to occur at regular intervals.

And god help us all, looking through things, I think Gunbuster might fit the criteria. Which means an army of sun-devouring horrors with an armada measured in AUs!

The only things I'd rate above that as threats are Galactus and Darkseid.

Damn you, Barda and Orion!

Before I deconstruct them, how exactly do the Reach get brought into this?

Jaime Reyes, the third Blue Beetle, is a superhero. However, his armor-granting Scarab is a damaged Reech Infiltrator unit, design to help pave the path for them and earn people's trust through heroics.

Or (and I looked up the Reach to be sure that yes, predictably this is a plan with a single point of failure)

Snail Mail!

only villains like Satan who are in competition with them for conquest of the Earth.

Satan doesn't want to conquer the world, not in the conventional sense. He wants to exterminate humanity.

Lets face it, they won't share. And what would have happened if the drop spot in the Antarctic had been dug up by someone before Typhoon could get to it? It would have been taken away for research or investigation, Typhoon would have found an empty hole in the ice, and the plan would have collapsed like a late game Jenga tower.

The Reech have literally thousands of plans of conquest and tailor them to the planet they are facing. They are precise, intricate, and patient. The only reason they hesitate is that they've never faced a rogue scarab infiltrator before and are not sure what to do. \

But, they are too reliant on their plans a bit too much.

The phase shifting isn't a foolproof thing, either, for protecting a plan like this because some of the factions here can detect that. The TSAB has those kinds of sensors because they use the same trick to contain and minimize damage when high level mages go at it. I bet the Power Rangers and Asgardians have sensors that can reveal the trick as well. Doctor Strange can almost certainly detect them, since his magic draws on other dimensions for power. Things change when multiple universes of heroes are around to cover each other's weaknesses.

They hid it from the Lanterns, and that's usually the sort of thing you have to look for activities in order to truly detect.

As for facing the heroes who thwarted them, since the scenario would force them to use a different plan, and with many distractions ...

Yeah, they'd still likely be stopped. But because they make nice with governments quickly, it becomes harder to deal with.

Not when you factor in the existence of Walpurgisnacht, a witch that non-magic users literally percieve as a typhoon or hurricane. And while Walpurgis may not come into our reality, the point is rather that Walpurgis existed because of Kyube's actions, and shows that leaving him unchecked is a terrible idea.

I like how SF Debris described the relationship between Homura, Kyubey, and Walpurgisnacht in clock-winding terms. For me, it solidifies that Homura can't cleanly defeat Walpurgisnacht, but someone else can. Time traveler causality is a bitch.

That's why I rate him so highly in terms of the danger he poses. It is not that the other villains aren't major problems. It is not that other heroes can't deal with Witches on a case-by-case basis. Its precisely because there are other pressing problems that must be dealt with quickly, and that that's what most superheroes are used to dealing with. Crises. Not institutions.

The same can be said for Satan and the Reech, really. And Darkseid, when he wants to.

But honestly, this requires entities like the Vishanti and Lords of Order to not, at least eventually, notice the little shit. Especially once Witches start to generate. Or a temporally aware character not noticing when Homura does her thing.

Though come to think of it, all the chaos created could help him make contracts more readily!

Though I think you're overestimating Homura's inability to gather allies/warn people about Kyubey. Since she has magical folk who aren't tied to Kyubey to call on, that really changes the formula.

[Formless]

So here's something cool I found: a more complete timeline of Superhero debuts. It does appear to be mostly focused on American superheroes, though. I guess that shouldn't be surprising.

For ease of reading, some might be interested in this Wikipedia article focusing exclusively on Marvel Superheroe debuts.

I think I'll write up a timeline of non-western and non-mainstream characters that show up in this RAR and try to correlate the years to the dates for anyone else who wants to play along. Unfortunately, I can't find any comprehensive histories that are as neat and tidy as the ones for the American Comic Book industry.

And that's what I'm generally talking about. The purification of a proper magical girl can, more than likely, remove the 'corruption'/darkness/despair from a soul gem as well as or better than a Grief Seed.

Others might have different effects and may affect Witches differently.

I'll grant that. Its still a temporary solution, though, and unless purification magic/rituals can be taught, there is still the problem that there are thousands if not more Magical Girls all around the world and that Kyube will start making more as quickly as he can identify candidates. The heroes' best bet is ultimately finding a way of driving him away from Earth-- which is difficult when he has such tempting targets here...

Sounds to me like his species may have a beef with other galactic powers like the Novas, Lantern corps, New Gods, etc.

Probably. But for all we know he has enemies in his home universe as well-- in fact, you can almost count on it given his presence around the galaxy. But then, he's harvesting all this energy to power his civilization, so he's probably no pushover there either. Who knows where Grief Seeds go after he's eaten them...

Sounds more like an extension of the whole "Your body is basically a videogame avatar at this point, but full of goo" effect of having a soul gem in the first place, and that her consciousness is in the jewel now.

[...]

Seems to me to be more of a finding the right target for that to work. People would go for the head when the crystal is the target.

But I can see doodads being needed to 'convert' the signal.

Yeah, exactly. Most natural telepaths instinctively reach out to other people's brains because that is the seat of consciousness normally. Some exceptions might exist, but soul gems would throw conventional telepaths for a loop without technological adaptations like, say, Cerebro (with possible modification).

Mages that can perform telepathy can almost certainly do so with a Magical Girl, given that Mami could telepathically contact Madoka and Sayaka when they hadn't made any contracts with Kyube yet. Personally, I always assume that Magical Telepathy is a variation of Soul Magic anyway, unless its specifically stated otherwise like Jace's telepathy in Magic: the Gathering. Though I doubt Planeswalkers are allowed here, on account of coming from a High Fantasy setting.

But you can casually dismiss. Which you did.

People do that with Kaiju a lot, but I still find it frustrating. Sorry if I went off to hard on that.

Well, in fairness, its hard to do Lovecraftian horror in live action because, seriously, how would you adapt something like the Color Out of Space? That's my favorite kind of Lovecraftian entity, the kind that seems like it doesn't belong in our reality. Things that break our notions of stuff as basic as math and logic. The Witches manage that beautifully because they are animated in a completely different style from everything else, which is jarring and that's actually the point. And the design work capitalizes on that artistic decision as well. On the other hand, even the most bizarre Kaiju still look like they are made of foam and rubber, because they are made of foam and rubber. Unless they're animated, obviously. Its just the relative merits of each medium. I'm not saying anything is bad about Kaiju, just that I know what I like.

But as another person who likes Madoka, I think you may enjoy that one for some similar themes.

Also, it's only 12 eps.

Noted.

Satan doesn't want to conquer the world, not in the conventional sense. He wants to exterminate humanity.

Eh, same difference. If the Reech want to conquer humanity in order to have a slave race, Satan isn't their friend.

Yeah, they'd still likely be stopped. But because they make nice with governments quickly, it becomes harder to deal with.

I actually don't think they would find easy friends on Earth, not in this scenario. The issue I see is that all of this is so new to the governments of our Earth that they would be significantly more paranoid about alien factions making such gestures. At least the Mid-Childans/TSAB are human, so its easier to understand their motives and way of thinking. The only difference between us and them is they have more mages. But an alien could think in radically different terms (hence, Kyube). Our governments would most likely turn to the scientific community for advice, and that's what they would be told. Quarantine them; screen for pathogens; don't trust them on their word; listen to other galactic powers before committing to anything (like the Green Lanterns and Asguardians); having a plan for backing out; if possible create defense initiatives that could defend our planet (probably a long term goal, obviously, since they start with the technological advantage); get the Superhero community involved in negotiations, since they know more about this kind of thing than we do (given many of them are benevolent aliens); build up our space infrastructure so we won't always be dependant on other powers. And so on. This is one area where Trump becomes a wild card, since if anything he may go full retard with the xenophobia, and the opposite extreme is obviously not helpful either.

But honestly, this requires entities like the Vishanti and Lords of Order to not, at least eventually, notice the little shit. Especially once Witches start to generate. Or a temporally aware character not noticing when Homura does her thing.

Though that does bring up one oddity here, and that's that PMMM takes place from March 25'th to the end of April (assuming Walpurgisnacht shows up on the holiday of its namesake-- alternative theories place the attack in May, June, or even early July because of the weather), while this scenario introduces them on July 3'rd. Normally, when Homura turns back the clock it brings her back to March 25 (as shown on her calendar in the hospital). Does this scenario change that to July 3'rd, 2017?

Though come to think of it, all the chaos created could help him make contracts more readily!

Exactly. Kyube thrives off of crisis and conflict. He's like Nuclear Winter: a bad thing on top of a really Bad Thing.

Though I think you're overestimating Homura's inability to gather allies/warn people about Kyubey. Since she has magical folk who aren't tied to Kyubey to call on, that really changes the formula.

Sadly, you can change the game but you can't change the player. Homura's primary concern is always protecting Madoka, especially in any timeline where she makes the contract, and Madoka and her friends also remain eternally skeptical of Homura's claims and sometimes motives. Now, instead of protecting Madoka from Walpurgis, Homura's got demons, aliens, kaiju, and god knows what else to protect her from. Plus all her other friends, who despite her obsession she does care about, even after becoming a Demon herself (given Homura makes the world as pleasant for all of them as she can manage). With all that to destract her, about the only reason she would bother with other heroes is if she learned about Purification magic and sought out someone to help them with that problem, no matter how temporary the fix is. But she doesn't usually target Kyube himself to solve the problem-- not until she attained Demon powers, because until then he appeared untouchable to her.

Still, I can just imagine the scene-- after rigorous investigation, someone else comes to her for answers. Maybe she's been busy dodging the Justice League Dark on the assumption that they see her as dangerous, only to walk right into the hands of the TSAB. They just want to talk, and she's too worried that they will recruit Madoka into fighting some war for them that she's desperately tried to keep them out of. Nanoha gets called in to try and sort things out, and we get to see how well Homura's stolen cache of military hardware stacks up against the Pink Laser of Friendship.

That seems like the more likely way it would play out, given Homura's attitude.

[Majin Gojira]

So here's something cool I found: a more complete timeline of Superhero debuts. It does appear to be mostly focused on American superheroes, though. I guess that shouldn't be surprising.

For ease of reading, some might be interested in this Wikipedia article focusing exclusively on Marvel Superheroe debuts.

Sadly, to get the equivalent for DC, you got to go to their wikia, which has categories of "Characters by Debut year" which is much harder to navigate.

And the first link is more in-universe chronological than debut . THough there is osme of the latter mixed in.

I think I'll write up a timeline of non-western and non-mainstream characters that show up in this RAR and try to correlate the years to the dates for anyone else who wants to play along. Unfortunately, I can't find any comprehensive histories that are as neat and tidy as the ones for the American Comic Book industry.

The language barrier is often the hardest part.

Internationalhero.co.uk is a good place to get things started. But for Japan, things get far trickier.

Super Robots, Super Sentai, Ultraman, Tokusatsu as a whole is something you may need to find dedicated wikis for.

Probably. But for all we know he has enemies in his home universe as well-- in fact, you can almost count on it given his presence around the galaxy. But then, he's harvesting all this energy to power his civilization, so he's probably no pushover there either. Who knows where Grief Seeds go after he's eaten them...

Sounds like we have the making of a space war.

Well, in fairness, its hard to do Lovecraftian horror in live action because, seriously, how would you adapt something like the Color Out of Space?

Honestly, that one has been adapted more often than most. Heck, one of the first had Boris Karloff, Die, Monster, Die! (1965). Then there's The Curse (1987) with Wil Wheaton, Colour from the Dark (2008), and The Color (2010) from Germany.

And the spiritual adaptation from 2014 Annihilation.

That's my favorite kind of Lovecraftian entity, the kind that seems like it doesn't belong in our reality. Things that break our notions of stuff as basic as math and logic. The Witches manage that beautifully because they are animated in a completely different style from everything else, which is jarring and that's actually the point. And the design work capitalizes on that artistic decision as well. On the other hand, even the most bizarre Kaiju still look like they are made of foam and rubber, because they are made of foam and rubber. Unless they're animated, obviously. Its just the relative merits of each medium. I'm not saying anything is bad about Kaiju, just that I know what I like.

I think that might be why I like the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's two movies, and The Lone Animator's using stop motion for Lovecraftian monsters as it lends that unnatural air to them.

But I can suspend my disbelief for foam and rubber, and for clay, foam rubber, and wire.

Then again, with things like Digimon Tamers (from a noted Lovecraft fan), Evangelion, LILY C.A.T. and other films, animation can do more for lovecraftian beings than live action can, IMO. A change in style is icing on the cake.

Still, I can just imagine the scene-- after rigorous investigation, someone else comes to her for answers. Maybe she's been busy dodging the Justice League Dark on the assumption that they see her as dangerous, only to walk right into the hands of the TSAB. They just want to talk, and she's too worried that they will recruit Madoka into fighting some war for them that she's desperately tried to keep them out of. Nanoha gets called in to try and sort things out, and we get to see how well Homura's stolen cache of military hardware stacks up against the Pink Laser of Friendship.

That seems like the more likely way it would play out, given Homura's attitude.

Nanoha: Making Friends By Beating People Up.

[Formless]

Internationalhero.co.uk is a good place to get things started. But for Japan, things get far trickier.

Oh thank god for that link. I was beginning to think this was futile, because my only other resort was TVTropes, and oh my god I almost hit the event horizon, so many webserials, so many self published novels...

I knew I would be making my life a living hell trying to look into the genre as it exists in Webcomics, but I had no idea there were so many other online stories besides. I had heard of Worm, but it turns out that's just the tip of the iceberg! I'm also surprised to find that there are very few superheroes from video games-- oh, there are superhero video games alright, but most of them are adaptations of DC and Marvel properties, not so much original characters. Though there are probably a lot of video game characters that would meet your criteria anyway, its surprisingly hard to make a judgement call when lists tend to include Mega Man of all characters.

Sure, maybe, but that's more than 20 minutes into the future, so no. Maybe the Overwatch crew, but that's also more than twenty years into the future. Gordan Freeman, maybe?

So I think when I post the timeline, its got to be prioritized, for my sanity's sake, by events rather than individual heroes. There are so many characters that may count, but won't make much of a splash when you get down to it. What will make a difference are characters who either bring a villain with them, a major faction with them, or bring with them some kind of macguffin that can or will create new supers, both of the heroic and unheroic kind. That'll make it so much easier for me.

Sounds like we have the making of a space war.

Probably-- after all, a lot of superheroes are aliens themselves or have alien macguffins, so this shouldn't be much of a surprise if you think about it. It again gets back to my point from before about Trump-- compared to all of the stuff happening globally and in space he goes from being one of the most important people on the planet to a minor villain and at best a wildcard in various events.

Nanoha: Making Friends By Beating People Up.

Nah, punching people to make friends is more her daughter's style.

[Formless]

I hope this gives some idea of just what I did to my own sanity; I'll try to keep it in list form to make it easy to follow along. First, though, lets appreciate the timeline. The first day is April 1, and the last day is July 9. I also noticed in the research for this that some weirdness goes on with early superheroes because many have entered the public domain, so its hard to conclude what their "best" form is; fortunately, I'm less interested in individual heroes and more interested in those days where a hero pops into existence with massive implications. So expect to see only a handful of entrees that are just an individual hero, and mostly for the amusement /trivia factor.

• April 1: Not a lot of heroes appear, but a few do, mostly in Britain of all places (see the Invisible Man for example). Hugo Hurcules, published in 1902, is our first super-strong hero. But Spring-heeled Jack is perhaps the most interesting hero to appear in terms of sheer WTF (it is, after all, April Fools).
• April 13'th: the first Japanese superhero appears, Ogon Bat! Also one of the earliest "classical" styled superheroes. Interestingly, he's supposedly from Atlantis...
• April 17: Mandrake the Magician appears, the first (but hardly last) superhero to use magic.
• April 18: Doctor Occult appears, the second superhero to use magic. I'm just listing them because I mentioned them earlier, honestly.
• April 21'st: many of the "classic" heroes like Superman appear all in rapid succession. This includes Zatarra, Zatanna's father. Arguably, this means Zatanna should also appear even though its 26 days before the corresponding year she debuted herself, because Zatarra is more often treated as a side character for her in modern portrayals.
• April 22: Batman shows up, obviously. This brings Wayne Enterprises into the picture. But perhaps just as importantly, Wesley Dodds, AKA The Sandman, appears. This is important, because Dodds has the power of prophetic dreams which, later in real comics history, would be retroactively explained as a connection to Dream of the Endless. This makes this the earliest date where the Endless might appear in our world, even though we would not notice them. This also marks the earliest date any comic book deities might appear in our world.
  A weird thing about April 22 is that the original Blue Beetle shows up... but its a completely different character from Jamie Reyes. Since only a character's "Best" form shows up, does the original show up or Jamie Reyes? If Jamie shows up, then this marks the first interstellar faction to arise as well. Oh, and a really cool public domain superhero called Stardust the Super Wizard, although despite his name he isn't actually a magic user. Again, though, as a public domain figure its hard to know what his "best" adaptation is, but its clear in any form he's a pretty powerful superhero with space technology and related superpowers.
• April 23: ...followed up quickly by the original Green Lantern, Alan Scott, along presumably with the rest of the Green Lantern Corps. Although its again weird because Alan Scott made his own ring and its considered magic. However, after Hal Jordan was created in comic books, they retroactively said that Alan Scott's ring is still based off the same power source as Hal Jordan's ring and the other GL characters. So presumably, this means the Corps come into existence on this day anyway, and the Emotional Spectrum might actually be a magical phenomenon? Or is it just Alan Scott's ring? Someone help me with this, I'm confused.
  This also marks the appearance of Dr. Fate, probably the most powerful spellcaster in DC's world and if I recall, he also brings with him a pantheon of deities.
• April 27: GODZILLA APPEARS. That is all. Well, okay, I haven't seen Destroy All Monsters, so its possible King Kong has been around for a while by this point. Ask Maijin Gojira.
• May 3: The Justice League formed in comics on 1960, so presumably it also forms on this day, and I assume many of its accessories such as the Watchtower come into existence as well, since the Team's most iconic version is probably the JLU cartoon.
• May 5: Thor and the Asgardians arrive.
• May 6: If you allow The Doctor as a superhero then this is the day he would first arrive. It is also the day Doctor Strange arrives, Iron Man with Stark Industries, the X-Men, and the Avengers form for the first time.
• May 8: Does S.H.I.E.L.D. appear or not? I mean, its weird, because they are a government organization and all...
• May 9: SILVER SURFER AND GALACTUS. That is all.
• May 12: the Guardians of the Galaxy arrive.
• May 14: Kaimen Rider first appears, as do the New Gods.
• May 15: Ghost Rider and Mephisto arrive, as do Devilman and Satan. Lots of demons on this day, apparently.
• May 20: The Voltes V Team arrive, and along with them.... their villains. I admit I don't know much about them, ask Maijin Gojira.
• May 25: Jhon Constantine. Yet more possibilities for demonic contracts! Also, one of his ancestors worked for Dream of the Endless. Told you the Endless would be relevant.
• May 27: Things start getting really interesting thanks to George R.R. Martin (go figure) and his Wild Cards series. What is important is the backstory: there is an alien race that decided for reasons to drop a bioweapon on humanity as a test run, and it turned out that anyone it didn't kill got mutations a-la The X-Men. Not everyone gets superpowers, though, some people just become latent carriers of the virus.
• June 2: The Sailor Moon characters appear.
• June 3: Harley Quinn arrives with the Joker. They aren't a couple because this is anti-hero Harley Quinn, but its interesting to note just how far appart Batman's appearance is from his arch-nemesis in this RAR.
• June 7: Alucard from Hellsing appears. Motherfucking what. Yes, please, all of the vampires become real, that's neat. Now we need Buffy.
• June 9: White Wolf's Aberrant Role Playing Game was published in 1999, and if its allowed then not only does that introduce all of its factions, but also another reliable method of creating new superheroes: apparently, a space station exploded and radiation from that causes some people to be able to harness quantum mechanical technobabble.
• June 10: I honestly forgot about Triangle Heart 3, but Nanoha's siblings both qualify as superheroes on their own merits. This makes this the earliest date that characters from the Nanoha franchise could start appearing; and with them, the TSAB and Mid-Childans.
  This is also when Mutant X was aired, and it was basically a Marvel sanctioned ripoff of their own X-Men franchise. The only difference is that, just like in Wild Cards, the heroes get their powers from a virus. So yet another repeateable superhero creating macguffin! Well, other than cybernetics, but I've glossed over that. Actually, there was some kind of cyborg in the pre-1917 days but I skipped him.
• June 11: W.I.T.C.H. appears, establishing some of the first Magical Girls outside of Japan.
• June 14: Both the Pretty Cure characters start appearing as do the Winx Club characters and magic schools. The Fate/Stay Night characters might also qualify as superheroes I'm told, so this would be their date as well, and apparently the Nasuverse also has schools for magic. Its complicate, and my head is starting to hurt.
• June 16: Heroes (the TV series) tied all the character's superpowers into an evil corporation doing genetic experiments (apparently-- I missed my chance to watch Heroes). So yet another way to consistently make superhumans-- and its in the hands of some corporation. Damn.
• July 3 is one hell of a crazy day, but people probably won't notice at first. We talked about Kyube appearing. We talked about Worm and the Endbringers. But apparently, the H.E.R.O. series also started on 2011, and like with White Wolf's Aberrant, people there get their superpowers from a meteor shower that shows up periodically. And yes, the meteors emit radiation, why do you ask? Of course they do. This is the Superhero genre, we don't have to be original. By now it should be obvious that our own Earth will have plenty of ways of either creating its own superhumans, or teaching people magic. And we probably need all the advantages we can get against the Galactic and Infernal powers that be.
• July 7: coming on the home stretch, this was the date that Magical Girl Spec Ops Asuka first appeared in print. I haven't gotten to watch or read it yet, but apparently, the girls got their powers by making contracts with spirits (sound familiar?) in order to repel an invasion by aliens from another dimension. I have heard nothing to indicate the spirits here have malevolent intentions, since the story instead focuses on the idea "what if magical girls were treated as regular soldiers?" Anyway, its apparently possible in that universe for future girls to gain magic as well, which is notable because that gives Kyube a plausible cover story. Hey, he allowed Tart (aka Joan of Arc) to believe he was a fairy in Tart Magica, so that's totally the kind of thing he would do.
• July 9: in theory, this is the last day for new superheroes to show up. In practice, as far as I can tell no new characters were actually first published or aired in 2017, unless it was in some obscure manga or webcomic somewhere. Its kind of appropriate, in a way, since if anyone had been published that year, there would be the possibility of them being published after the month of April, which in this context would just be... weird.

And there you have it. My timeline of what might be the most important events and the days they happen on. Hope this was interesting!

[FaxModem1]

Parody or critique superheroes are going to emerge as well.

August 28th- One notable example is Thom from the gay youth novel Hero, along with every member of The League, and the non-League members like Thom's love interest the Dark Hero/Goran, and former league members such as his parents. The fact that the Superman expy is an utter psychotic who wants to destroy the world with his doomsday plan so that he can go home will be thrown into utter chaos, as the League being mind controlled will be a more minor event when there's already hundreds of other non-affiliated heroes who are just as powerful if not more powerful to step in to fight him and the brainwashed League.

[Imperial528]

Worm's sequel, Ward, started in 2017. Given the serial nature of it, if we're going by first appearance, Worm would filter in piecemeal a bit over the 3rd-5th. Ward would start on the 9th and keep going to the day that matches to the present, as new characters get introduced, up until it ends (probably late 2019 or even 2020.)

Though fitting Ward into a shared crossover including Worm would probably be reality breaking, simply due to how vastly different the world of Worm was at the end of the story and how some heroes owe their existence to those significant events.

[Majin Gojira]

Just going to make a few addendum/additions/clarifications here.

• April 1: Not a lot of heroes appear, but a few do, mostly in Britain of all places (see the Invisible Man for example). Hugo Hurcules, published in 1902, is our first super-strong hero. But Spring-heeled Jack is perhaps the most interesting hero to appear in terms of sheer WTF (it is, after all, April Fools).

There are a few early pulp characters to add to this, some of which are well known. Namely, Tarzan and Sherlock Holmes.

[*] April 13'th: the first Japanese superhero appears, Ogon Bat! Also one of the earliest "classical" styled superheroes. Interestingly, he's supposedly from Atlantis...

Most likely thing to happen is that we have two 'types' of Atlantis. The pre-sunken, and the water-adapted form. He would be from the former. Aquaman would be from the later.

[*] April 21'st: many of the "classic" heroes like Superman appear all in rapid succession. This includes Zatarra, Zatanna's father. Arguably, this means Zatanna should also appear even though its 26 days before the corresponding year she debuted herself, because Zatarra is more often treated as a side character for her in modern portrayals.

The most elegant way to handle it is that Zatanna is there but does not debut as a super-heroine until her proper 'day'.

A weird thing about April 22 is that the original Blue Beetle shows up... but its a completely different character from Jamie Reyes. Since only a character's "Best" form shows up, does the original show up or Jamie Reyes? If Jamie shows up, then this marks the first interstellar faction to arise as well.

The thing about Jaime is that he understands and utilizes Legacy. So, we have Dan Garret show up on this date, then later, he passes away and Ted Kord takes up the mantel on his 'debut' date. Since Ted's Death is not necessary required for Jaime to get the Scarab (though it does tend to happen), Jaime would get it later on. The way it has been reconnected over time is that Dan partially activated the Scarab, Ted couldn't get it to work, but Jaime got the near total package (with the character Peacemaker getting the 'instructions').

Something missed here is Namor the Sub-Marriner. This guy ... He's temperamental. Aquaman with an Attitude. He may be subordinate to Arthur, but Namor came first. And given the Ocean's current state, he is not going to be happy.

[*] April 23: ...followed up quickly by the original Green Lantern, Alan Scott, along presumably with the rest of the Green Lantern Corps. Although its again weird because Alan Scott made his own ring and its considered magic. However, after Hal Jordan was created in comic books, they retroactively said that Alan Scott's ring is still based off the same power source as Hal Jordan's ring and the other GL characters. So presumably, this means the Corps come into existence on this day anyway, and the Emotional Spectrum might actually be a magical phenomenon? Or is it just Alan Scott's ring? Someone help me with this, I'm confused.

Retcons are confusing as hell. My own take to streamline it is that he is simply the Green Lantern of the 40s, with the standard powers and weaknesses of the corps later members. Because the second Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) was originally a sci-fi take on a magical concept. Since that is the better known, we probably can fold Alan into that mold.

Though he probably keeps his insane costume.

Also: April 25th has Wonder Woman, which brings in ... Multiple Pantheons. I think it's fair to say that every deity in every major religion has some truth to it or representative by the time day 100 reaches around.

Wonder Woman is also explicitly an ambassador, so she is the first truly heroic foreign dignitary.

[*] April 27: GODZILLA APPEARS. That is all. Well, okay, I haven't seen Destroy All Monsters, so its possible King Kong has been around for a while by this point. Ask Maijin Gojira.

This should be on Day 37 (1954), or May 4th rather than April 27th.

[*] May 3: The Justice League formed in comics on 1960, so presumably it also forms on this day, and I assume many of its accessories such as the Watchtower come into existence as well, since the Team's most iconic version is probably the JLU cartoon.

Unless characters appear integral with the team's formation, the 'team' forms more casually, so no need to worry about those events as deeply.

[*] May 8: Does S.H.I.E.L.D. appear or not? I mean, its weird, because they are a government organization and all...

The characters who need it as a function of their supporting cast would bring it in.

[*] May 12: the Guardians of the Galaxy arrive.

Sadly, no. The original Guardians were in the distant future. The "Present Day" team doesn't show up until day 91, June 30th. And each individual character shows up before then at their proper debut time. So, Groot shows up on day 43. Adam Warlock on day 52. Drax on Day 56. Gamora on Day 58. Star Lord and Rocket on Day 59. Phyla-Vell on Day 87. And so on for other members.

Though I think Yondu does show up on this day, though movie and comic one are quite different.

[*] May 14: Kaimen Rider first appears, as do the New Gods.

Which is our first big 'AW FUCK!" accidentally generated.

[*] May 20: The Voltes V Team arrive, and along with them.... their villains. I admit I don't know much about them, ask Maijin Gojira.

I think I may have to go over Super Robots separately. There are a lot, and they are quite dangerous.

[*] May 27: Things start getting really interesting thanks to George R.R. Martin (go figure) and his Wild Cards series. What is important is the backstory: there is an alien race that decided for reasons to drop a bioweapon on humanity as a test run, and it turned out that anyone it didn't kill got mutations a-la The X-Men. Not everyone gets superpowers, though, some people just become latent carriers of the virus.

So far, at this point, we have the X-Gene, the Meta-Gene, Devilman syndrome (moral people who demons attempted to possess instead gaining their powers), cybernetics, powered armor, the genes for Magic, unlocking Ki, and now the Wild Card virus all as a random empowering element.

[*]June 7: Alucard from Hellsing appears. Motherfucking what. Yes, please, all of the vampires become real, that's neat. Now we need Buffy.

Vampires and Dracula himself would be already entered at the very least by May 26th with the appearance of Blade, and possibly earlier. But how do we account for so many Draculas?

Easy: The Soul Clone theory. Basically, there's a "Real" Dracula out there in Transylvania, a powerful vampire sorcerer, and the others are constructs he made that went on their own after a while (as the Will of Dracula is quite potent, even in his copies).

[*]June 9: White Wolf's Aberrant Role Playing Game was published in 1999, and if its allowed then not only does that introduce all of its factions, but also another reliable method of creating new superheroes: apparently, a space station exploded and radiation from that causes some people to be able to harness quantum mechanical technobabble.

For sanity's sake, let's stick to concrete stories rather than roleplaying game fluff.

This is also when Mutant X was aired, and it was basically a Marvel sanctioned ripoff of their own X-Men franchise. The only difference is that, just like in Wild Cards, the heroes get their powers from a virus. So yet another repeateable superhero creating macguffin! Well, other than cybernetics, but I've glossed over that. Actually, there was some kind of cyborg in the pre-1917 days but I skipped him.

Lots of sapient robots too. Can't forget the robots.

So that's two more methods of super creation.

The Fate/Stay Night characters might also qualify as superheroes I'm told, so this would be their date as well, and apparently the Nasuverse also has schools for magic. Its complicate, and my head is starting to hurt.

Nasuverse has that effect. This is probably the only time I'll say it, but feel free to ignore this. Even if we didn't, all we'd get is the Servants anyway, since they are not tied to specific people.

[*]June 16: Heroes (the TV series) tied all the character's superpowers into an evil corporation doing genetic experiments (apparently-- I missed my chance to watch Heroes). So yet another way to consistently make superhumans-- and its in the hands of some corporation. Damn.

And another method.

[*] July 3 is one hell of a crazy day, but people probably won't notice at first. We talked about Kyube appearing. We talked about Worm and the Endbringers. But apparently, the H.E.R.O. series also started on 2011, and like with White Wolf's Aberrant, people there get their superpowers from a meteor shower that shows up periodically. And yes, the meteors emit radiation, why do you ask? Of course they do. This is the Superhero genre, we don't have to be original. By now it should be obvious that our own Earth will have plenty of ways of either creating its own superhumans, or teaching people magic. And we probably need all the advantages we can get against the Galactic and Infernal powers that be.

Won't be the last of those either (or the first, the hero American Eagle and villain/father of heroes Vandal Savage are both empowered by radioactive meteors).

With so many methods of making heroes, how long before governments attempt mass production in their military?

I don't think it will take that long ...

[Majin Gojira]

Ah, crap, I forgot to add the pulps of note.

We got The Shadow on day 13, Doc Savage, The Spider (a proto Punisher type in a spooky costume), The Moon Man (a thief of thieves), and G-8 (a mystery pilot with advanced weaponry) on Day 16, The Avenger on day 22, and the Green Lama (a super powered Buddhist) on day 23.

There are a LOT of Pulp heroes, but those I think are the most notable/longest running ones.

[Formless]

Also: April 25th has Wonder Woman, which brings in ... Multiple Pantheons. I think it's fair to say that every deity in every major religion has some truth to it or representative by the time day 100 reaches around.

Luckily this works out just fine in the Sandman mythos: gods are ultimately born of dreams, and only the Presence and his angels (like Lucifer) are more powerful than the Endless-- and possibly only in the sense that the Endless can die, and are deferential to the Presence as creator of the Universe. And the Presence isn't essential to the Sandman mythos so much as it is one of the few legacy elements of the DC universe that Neil Gaiman kept around after the first story arc. Otherwise, each Endless is omnipotent within their own domain, as long as they follow the cosmic rules that govern the Endless (which are very few in the case of Death because no one can actually kill her-- she's Death). So every God basically answers to Dream in some manner or another, since they return to his realm to die just as they were born. Gods that aren't worshipped also start to lose power, as fewer and fewer people dream of them anymore. When dreams define reality, all myths can be true without contradiction-- but not all are equally powerful.

This should be on Day 37 (1954), or May 4th rather than April 27th.

Oh, right, I forgot there are two Godzillas.

I think I may have to go over Super Robots separately. There are a lot, and they are quite dangerous.

Honestly, I think most Super Robots just shouldn't qualify, because the while the genre originates in superhero comics (the earlist predicate being in the 30's, with the more well known predicates being Gigantor, Iron Man, and Astro Boy), the genre conventions quickly became so different that they ceased to be recognizable as a spinoff genre. Its sort of the opposite path that the Magical Girl genre took, where over time they became more like superheroes. The problem with even a series like Mazinger Z is that the main protagonist is not truly a superhero in his own right-- he doesn't have superpowers, he had nothing to do with Mazinger's creation, and all his heroics are inside the cockpit. Moreover, while Iron Man has giant suits like the Hulkbuster at his disposal, most of the time Iron Man does heroics at the small scale while wearing a human sized suit. The same can be said of the Sentia squads/Power Rangers because they spend just as much time fighting goons on foot as they do in the Zords. And Mazinger Z itself might have a special name, but its still just a piece of hardware rather than a character like Astro Boy.

So some Super Robots end up in our world, but arguably most of them subtly fail two or even all of the tests for qualifying as a superhero. The characters who pilot the mechs usually don't have a double life-- piloting a mech is their job. They also don't usually have a superhero name of their own-- instead the robot has the special title, and the robot isn't sentient, its just a piece of elaborate hardware. They sometimes have special skills, but many times their only skill is being able to pilot (and in Shinji's case, he sucks at that, too). Whereas Tony Stark is a genius engineer who invented the Iron Man suit, most Super Robot protagonists get their suit from either someone else, or its some kind of lost relic. And finally, many, many shows take place far in the future (like Gundam) or in alternate histories that are too different from our own to really qualify as "contemporary" (like in Code Geass where the Americans lost the Revolutionary War-- some amount of alternate history is fine, but that's so major it crosses some kind of line IMO).

Granted, a few classic super robots make the cut. For instance, the Netflix incarnation of Voltron seems to qualify: the protagonists fight on foot like a Sentai squad, their show seems to be 20 minutes into the future or less allowing them to make the grace period, and they have a distinctive "look" and form of heroics. They might even qualify as having double lives since, in context, they can only enter Galra controlled space ports if they leave behind anything that could identify them as the Paladins. This would mean the Galra Empire enters the equation since Emperor Zarkon was one of the original Paladins.

Lets see... other Super Robots that might make the cut include Giant Robo, the Transformers (it crossed my mind before, but thinking about it more, their tagline is "more than meets the eye" after all ), Voltes V (it seems to be similar to my Voltron example), Star Driver, and MechX4 on account that the characters have an actual superpower that's required to use their Mech, just to name a few. This probably is your territory more than it is mine, though. I can already tell from checking TVTropes and Wikipedia that this is a subject too big for me to double check all of them for whether they qualify.

Nasuverse has that effect.

Yeah, I didn't need to know about the sex magic stuff. That's the kind of nonsense that gives visual novels their reputation for just being porn.

Ah, crap, I forgot to add the pulps of note.

We got The Shadow on day 13, Doc Savage, The Spider (a proto Punisher type in a spooky costume), The Moon Man (a thief of thieves), and G-8 (a mystery pilot with advanced weaponry) on Day 16, The Avenger on day 22, and the Green Lama (a super powered Buddhist) on day 23.

There are a LOT of Pulp heroes, but those I think are the most notable/longest running ones.

Yeah, but by their very nature, the Pulp characters won't create much of a splash like the Kaiju and occult characters will. Wesley Dodds' Sandman is the sole exception due to his connection to, well, The Sandman. Those are the kinds of major events I wanted to focus on, becase there was just no practical way to list all lesser known heroes while also including a complete list of important events. Dr Who has far greater implications than The Shadow, for instance, by virtue of bringing the Galifreyans into the mix. Among other things. I'm not really a fan of Dr. Who.

[Tribble]

We also get the Superhuman Samurai Cyber Squad for computer security, which is pretty neat.Why bother having Norton when instead you can just send in a bunch of teens to literally fight the viruses and blow them up?

[Majin Gojira]

We also get the Superhuman Samurai Cyber Squad for computer security, which is pretty neat.Why bother having Norton when instead you can just send in a bunch of teens to literally fight the viruses and blow them up?

And it's source: GRIDMAN!

Though strangely, it's adapted rather closely. To the point where the sequel anime is called SSSS.Gridman as a callback to that.