My DCHeroes games have been using a superhero called Neutron since 1990. I make him team recruiter and coordinator, not unlike the Martian Manhunter or Mr. Terrific on Justice League Unlimited. He's a device to get the "party" into action and bail them out of all the boring stuff (i.e. contacting the police, getting stuff analyzed). He's a cross between Reed Richards and Maxwell Lord (but without the useless wife, nosebleeds or killing your teammates elements).
But 1990 wasn't his first appearance, and digging through my various piles of crap has unearthed some of his origins. I actually gave birth to Neutron in 1983, during boring 7th-grade classes. I was just discovering superhero comics proper, and I created dozens of characters, one of which was Neutron.
Basically a guy who's the center of a gigantic atom, he can use those electrons to stop bullets, kick you in the face, and according to my original sketch, destroy helicopters (since retconned out). By 9th grade, I was really deep in the Chris Claremont's X-Men, so Neutron was a mutant. In fact, he was a member of the Mutant Misfits, a one-shot comic I drew myself but that has since been lost to the ages. In '87, he was still a mutant and apparently his alter ego was ME:
Yep, that's the old registration card from Marvel's Fall of the Mutants crossover. Yeah. I registered. Let's just say my politics have since changed.
Cue role-playing games. In 1989, my friend Rob Tam and I were fighting the dearth of RPGs on sale in our area by attempting to create our own superhero RPG. Like all our homemade games (fantasy and SF), it was a mishmash of various other games' stats we'd gotten out of old Dragon magazines and was totally unbalanced. Neutron was revamped (first appearance of the first picture in this post) as a scientist called Michael Stern (after Roger) who got shrunk into a black hole-making machine which transformed him into the hero we now know. I had this whole supporting cast for him, which Rob promptly killed off in the first "issue". That was just the way he rolled.
I think Neutron was much better off as an NPC in the DCH games that followed (and that continue to this day), though I did try to give him a go as a PC after buying GURPS Supers in '91.
Like 75% of role-playing projects, it just never happened, and this 250-point version of Neutron never saw the light of day. No problem though, he's still active and I guess my longest-running character (now on his fourth player group). Missile Man, Jello Woman and Super-E.T. can't say that.
But 1990 wasn't his first appearance, and digging through my various piles of crap has unearthed some of his origins. I actually gave birth to Neutron in 1983, during boring 7th-grade classes. I was just discovering superhero comics proper, and I created dozens of characters, one of which was Neutron.
Basically a guy who's the center of a gigantic atom, he can use those electrons to stop bullets, kick you in the face, and according to my original sketch, destroy helicopters (since retconned out). By 9th grade, I was really deep in the Chris Claremont's X-Men, so Neutron was a mutant. In fact, he was a member of the Mutant Misfits, a one-shot comic I drew myself but that has since been lost to the ages. In '87, he was still a mutant and apparently his alter ego was ME:
Yep, that's the old registration card from Marvel's Fall of the Mutants crossover. Yeah. I registered. Let's just say my politics have since changed.Cue role-playing games. In 1989, my friend Rob Tam and I were fighting the dearth of RPGs on sale in our area by attempting to create our own superhero RPG. Like all our homemade games (fantasy and SF), it was a mishmash of various other games' stats we'd gotten out of old Dragon magazines and was totally unbalanced. Neutron was revamped (first appearance of the first picture in this post) as a scientist called Michael Stern (after Roger) who got shrunk into a black hole-making machine which transformed him into the hero we now know. I had this whole supporting cast for him, which Rob promptly killed off in the first "issue". That was just the way he rolled.
I think Neutron was much better off as an NPC in the DCH games that followed (and that continue to this day), though I did try to give him a go as a PC after buying GURPS Supers in '91.
Like 75% of role-playing projects, it just never happened, and this 250-point version of Neutron never saw the light of day. No problem though, he's still active and I guess my longest-running character (now on his fourth player group). Missile Man, Jello Woman and Super-E.T. can't say that.
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