Many of the characters in the attached image represent a new/different character archetype. The X-Men from the past – as teens – where brought forward to the present. They are silver age heroes out of step with their own generation, but they are not of the current generation who are their peers. Also, Jean and Scott have to deal with their adult versions having gone pretty dark and hurt people – something they haven’t done yet and might never do (temporal mechanics and all).
Maybe “The Returned” would be a good name for the archetype. They are like Legacies in that they have history to confront, but they are their own Legacy! They are like Outsiders, but they are from Earth (at least an Earth). I think the interaction between the generations for this archetype could be very interesting too. They are still teens, but practically from a different world than their teammates.
Other possible examples of the archetype could be…
– The Jean Grey story where she was in stasis while the Phoenix pretended to be her for years (if she had been a younger when she entered stasis)
– Bucky Barnes as the Winter Soldier after the brain washing and if he had been a teen instead of an adult (he was frozen as an early teen in the comic, don’t know why he was an adult when he came back)
– The new Superboy while Superman was dead (he didn’t have the memories, but close enough)
So let me restate and add to the possible backstory ideas. For all of these we start with a Gold or Silver age hero…
…that went bad/dark and then a version of them as a teen is brought to the present day (from the past or an alternate reality)
…was frozen in time as a teen hero, replaced by a doppelganger, and only unfrozen after the doppelganger was killed
…dies but is cloned; the clone has all the memories of the hero as a teen
…dies but someone has raised their secret child in a detailed simulation of their early years in order to replace them
…that was brain scanned as a teen and the scan is used to make an android with all of their memories and real emotions
Or, a Gold or Silver age villain that is taken from the past or an alternate universe before they turned evil, taught to be a hero instead, and is now in present day Halcyon City.
You get the idea now. They are teens in the wrong era that need to live down or live up to or break away from preconceived ideas of who they are. They are a bridge to a previous generation (but never bronze – too recent).
This seems ripe for a playbook to me. It feels pretty different from the standard playbooks and like it would have opportunities for unique interactions inside and outside the team. But I’ve only played the game once and don’t feel like I’m ready to make a playbook.
Also I think this might become a trope in comics as we have so many generations and legacies to play with – we love nostalgia!
So if you have any ideas on this one or know where there is already a playbook that does this, please reply!
The Innocent is pretty much exactly this (at least Jean and Scott as you describe them).
The Innocent is from a past generation and has come to the present, where their future self has gone down a dark path. Their whole shtick is fighting against becoming that dark self, and there’s a bit of those generational differences too. It’s super cool.
It’s one of the Halcyon City Herald Collection playbooks, so it won’t be available to non backers until the book comes out later this year.
James Etheridge Ah, very cool! Thanks!