Infinite Supers

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Lessee, for an "Official" supers world - i.e. one with a worldbook published by SJG or under the "Powered by GURPS" whatever - there are only three options:

One - Redo GURPS International Super Teams for 4e, including updating the world background if necessary.

Two - Create a new Super-Hero world from scratch. (This is the most popular option, since almost everybody with a superhero game does it.)

Three - License an existing line of comics and do a GURPS version of their superheroes. (Not likely - the Big Players already have their own super-RPGs out, and have a controlling share in most of the smaller ones. Personally, I'd like to see an America's Best Comics RPG ...)

Four - Dive into the Mists of History and use public domain super-heroes. (Possible, but most of the public domain heroes like the Nedor heroes haven't seen print since the 1940's or earlier and tend to be rather dated. No prblem if it's a Supers/Pulp thing, or even Supers/Cliffhangers, but that doesn't appeal to everyone.)

Does anyone know if such a project is underway? I think it would be most likely another company using the GURPS System under license.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2

One - Redo GURPS International Super Teams for 4e, including updating the world background if necessary.

Been wishing for this one for more than ten years :\

Also waiting for Miracleman and The Elementals to re-appear *sigh*

[Irioth]

Originally Posted by scimon

The original Time Travel book mentioned it (pg 98) saying the IST had not found it. Powers goes on to say that Inifinty either hasn't discovered any or is keeping them secret, then gives some ideas on what to do (pg 229).

IMO the by far most likely outcome is that whenever found IST gets treated just the same way Merlin's US does. Very cautious exploration and infiltration. So far, Infinity is far too paranoid to trust even benevolent outtime organizations w/h potential access to world-jumping powers, with the secret.

Along with IST, Merlin's America is the best potential ally of Infinity in the alternate worlds against the likes of Reich-5 and Centrum (Homeline allying with either of them could easily wipe out Reich-5), and they are keeping them at a very long pole's end. However, I'm pretty much persuaded that if Homeline hasn't found them yet, the IST knows of them, at some level. Ditto for any world with widespread psionic/magical worldjumpers.

Besides the worlds with classical "cape and spandex" supers (which should at least as frequent as fantasy lines), the Infinity Worlds settings is rather rife with psionic powers, so there are bound to be several worlds with powerful, widespread psionic powers, a la Darkover or Julian May's Intervention series. And powerful psi is pretty much indistinguishable from superpowers, even if you don't don a cape to wield it.

[vitruvian]

Four - Dive into the Mists of History and use public domain super-heroes. (Possible, but most of the public domain heroes like the Nedor heroes haven't seen print since the 1940's or earlier and tend to be rather dated. No prblem if it's a Supers/Pulp thing, or even Supers/Cliffhangers, but that doesn't appeal to everyone.)

The characters in Alan Moore/ABC's Terra Obscura title are in fact public domain. Just don't use Moore's particular ideas for updating them to the current day, and they should be good to go.

On the other hand, making up new supers is just not that hard. Making a world whose pieces fit together is the hard part.

[Irioth]

Originally Posted by vitruvian

On the other hand, making up new supers is just not that hard.

Nor, for that part, is to redo the classics, and keep steer of blatant plagiarism and copyright infringement, as long as you change names and minor details. Blatant "homages" are the accepted norm in the comic industry as long as you keep it fair (i.e. no Batman clones having an underage male prostitute habit). Just check the number of times obvious clones and variants of Superman, the JLA, and the FF have been done in the comics AND in published, non-licensed superhero RPG settings. Case in point: Green Ronin's Freedom City setting. Obvious DC/Marvel homages with serial numbers barely removed, from beginning to end.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Originally Posted by vitruvian

On the other hand, making up new supers is just not that hard. Making a world whose pieces fit together is the hard part.

That's the thing about public domain supers - they do have a world whose pieces all fit together. The only problem is that it's the pulp hero milieu of Cliffhangers and possibly WWII. I like the concept, but it doesn't appeal to everyone.

[fredrik_nilsson]

Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2

Four - Dive into the Mists of History and use public domain super-heroes. (Possible, but most of the public domain heroes like the Nedor heroes haven't seen print since the 1940's or earlier and tend to be rather dated. No prblem if it's a Supers/Pulp thing, or even Supers/Cliffhangers, but that doesn't appeal to everyone.)

Does anyone know if such a project is underway? I think it would be most likely another company using the GURPS System under license.

Does anyone know how this works? How long does it take for a character to become public domain (as in SJG could use it for free)?

[Captain-Captain]

Depends on whether the copyright owner renewed. Prior to about 1976 or so, Copyright lasted 28 years with the owner having a short grace period to renew it for another 28 whereupon the copyright expired.

The revised copyright law made a pretty good hash of things in many ways.

(For example it's been argued that very little of Lovecraft or Howard is still under copyright.)

Many comic book companies folded and never renewed copyrights. Others were absorbed or sold their properties to rivals and may still be under copyright protection.

Some were disputable. Quality Comics hired Eisner-Eiger studios to create some characters for them (as did many of their competitors Will Eisner and his people were VERY busy back in the late 30s and early 40s_. One of them, Phantom Lady, (yellow costume) was canceled. Eisner believed he had the rights to the character and leased her to another company where they changed her costume to purple.

Both versions of this character have been floating around modern comics. DC got the Quality rights and published Phantom Lady as part of their Freedom Fighters team book. AC comics FemForce included the purple costumed version though she's been renamed.

And a lot of old names have been recycled, Womder Man, Yellowjacket, Daredevil, The Vision etc. New characters old names.

Finding characters who a) have definitely lapsed their copyright and b) don't have names presently trademarked by other characters found in current comics is not going to be easy. Likely very expensive to get lawyers to ok the company's using this or that character.

[fredrik_nilsson]

As previously stated in this thread the Nedor heroes are in public domain. That Terra Obscura is still in print (without a law-suit) is a proof as good as any.

I'm not certain, but didn't Malibu use Centaur Publications' character as public domain characters without a law-suit?

How about Lev Gleason's characters?

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Originally Posted by fredrik_nilsson

As previously stated in this thread the Nedor heroes are in public domain. That Terra Obscura is still in print (without a law-suit) is a proof as good as any.

I'm not certain, but didn't Malibu use Centaur Publications' character as public domain characters without a law-suit?

How about Lev Gleason's characters?

Centaur and Lev Geason are both Public Domain. As a general rule, a character published by a defunct company before 1956 is usually public domain (except Timely and Fawcett - don't touch those).