Rebel Crazy Heroes
If the world won't give us justice, we shall give justice to the world
Rebel Crazy Heroes (temporary title, maybe?) is an interconnected, large scale, writing project following the lives of several super human individuals all around the world, fighting to save the planet from total annihilation as they struggle with their past, their present and their future in a world were all superhumans are feared and persecuted by the law.
We're on planet earth, some thirty years into an alternative future, a tomorrow that could have been if things in the present were just a little bit different. Science and technology have advanced at an incredible pace, giving birth to a brand-new world of steel and light. But despite the good looks on the outside, many of the problems of today still haunt humanity.
While some things have been tackled more or less effectively, like global warming for example, things like inequality, segregation and violence continue to rise as the second half of the XXI century begins. Massive tech corporations compete to dominate the market in the global north, while the south is ravaged by dangerous gangs of criminals now armed with this very tech. While the nations of the global south battle to sustain their stability, the nations of the north, unbeknown to the average people, are engrossed in a secret arms race; the Third Cold War as it is known. As the great nations of the north continue to prepare for war, some of them conduct terrible experiments on humans or develop powerful technology that surpasses the limits of what's possible. This is where our characters come into focus.
Some of them were just "lucky" enough to end up obtaining a piece of prototype tech that grants them incredible powers, like Condor or Catrina. Others were "lucky" enough to have been surviving test subjects for some of the human experiments I mentioned earlier and escaped only to discover they now have powers, like Kartika or Neon Samurai. And others maybe end up discovering things never meant for the eyes of humanity to see, and end up becoming... something more, like Pele or Nur Alá.
And then there's the ones who took a darker path, people that were so hurt they broke and turned into a twisted reflection of who they used to be.
Whatever the origins of our heroes might be, they all have three things in common:
- All of them were wronged in some way.
2. All of them are kind of insane.
3. They're the only ones that can stop the world from coming to an end.
Heroes against the world
Despite the fact that many of these characters involved in these stories have some really and strange powers, like the literal power of music in the case of Band Man, the treatment of the world is more inclined towards realism.
Crazy Rebel Heroes’ world is, essentially, our world (with a few key artistic differences), that includes its people and its politics. And as far as I'm concerned, being a vigilante (which almost every superhero technically is) is quite illegal everywhere. Because of that, despite being on the side of justice, most if not all the super powered characters of the world are wanted fugitives by the nations of the world, either because they consider them criminals, a threat to established power or simply a mistake they seek to dug beneath the rug. Because of this, these characters are hardly seen or called heroes by any official channels, and a ton of propaganda is made against them. Think like if J.Jonah Jameson was president of every country and hated every superhero.
At the same time, many of this characters are the result of broken systems ignoring people in need or the victims of the abuse of mighty organizations that couldn't care less for the lives of the common people, and as such, many of these characters have a personal grudge to settle with the people in charge of many important things (business, corporations, governments, etc.). And because of this, many of them engage in activities that could be considered as acts of terrorism. But under an oppressive regime where the big crush the small between their claws, anyone who dares to fight back is a terrorist.
And so, our heroes are in constant battle against the government. Are they good? Are they bad? It’s more of a grey scale, and it is up to the people to decide who's in the right. Some see these characters as dangerous terrorists, capable of incredible feats of destruction and fear like nothing the worlds ever seen. Others see in them a beacon of hope, mighty heroes and champions of the oppressed, capable of wondrous acts of justice against the forces of oppression. And even then, some characters that you would think are villains are considered heroes by others. Real life is complicated and so is this world, were good and bad lies in the eyes of the beholder and the heroes not always do what's right.
Something special about super powers
The cast of characters of Crazy Rebel Heroes is quite large, but despite this, there's just a handful of them that possesses any actual superpowers. While most of them can fly, possess super strength and bullets just bounce of them, all this is usually achieved because of high tech, surgical interventions or drugs of some kind. People with real, legit, superpowers are the exception, not the rule, in this world. So why is that?
When Superman appeared on the scene in 1938, the world hadn't seen anything like it since the epic tales of old. No one had even imagined that a man could lift a car over his head, jump over buildings or move faster than a speeding bullet. Now a days all those powers have become generic; if you have a character that does all that stuff, it’s considered generic and boring even. In a world where there's like 75 different characters with the power of flight, the magic of lifting yourself from the ground and soar the skies like a bird loses most of its magic.
I want superpowers to feel like something really special, something that could only happen once in history. Because of that, only a handful of my characters have powers like speed, strength or flight. Quoting Syndrome from The Incredibles "When everyone's super, no one will".
All I've said before is kind of a lie. Yes, I want superpowers to be unique and rare, but technically speaking, most of the important characters have some form of superpowers, just not in a conventional way. For example, would you call a person with an extremely high tolerance to pain superhuman? That’s realm of powers I'm tackling here. The characters have powers; they're just small scale when compared with people who can fly. I'm talking about a sharp sense of sight, the ability to interface better with prosthetic technology, have incredible reflexes or even see the future in dreams. Thus, you have your conventional, superhero powers (which are rare) and then you have the more common (although still special) regular human kind of powers.
Alternative history
Although Earth 978 (the story’s' world) is almost 40 years ahead of the time of Earth I (our world), several of the events that occurred in its history happened differently than they will (and have) occur in the last one. Some important people are alive, others dead. Certain events ended in totally different ways and things that never happened in one world did happen in the other. Because of this, the events and setting in the present of Earth 978 are radically different from what will one day be those of Earth I.
These changes begin to differentiate both worlds starting at 2014 C.E.
