So, would the Innocent be something along the lines of Iron Lad from Young Avengers?
So, would the Innocent be something along the lines of Iron Lad from Young Avengers?
So, would the Innocent be something along the lines of Iron Lad from Young Avengers?
Not familiar with IL. I felt the time traveling young Cyclops example given was right on point.
There’s another playbook a lot more like Iron Lad coming down the line… Stay tuned!
It’s more like impulse from young justice unless I’m off the mark.
Here are a few choice examples to show what the Innocent is—
Imagine if young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) from X-Men: First Class traveled forward in time to see the world of the original X-Men movie, and met the older Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart). Young Charles Xavier is the Innocent.
In All-New X-Men, all the original X-Men travel forward to the present, where they get to see the modern day versions of themselves. Cyclops in particular is thrown by it—he thought he would be a hero, and instead he finds himself to be labeled a terrorist by many. This isn’t the man he thought he’d grow up to be. Young Cyclops—the one who traveled forward in time—is the Innocent. (And here’s a sample set of panels to show a bit of this: https://p.dreamwidth.org/ca26746f142a/-/www.abload.de/img/all-newx-men010-014m9b5e.jpg)
The Innocent is the young person who is show exactly what they will become as an adult…and who is then given a chance to be something different. It’s something like a Jason Todd who got to see himself as the Red Hood, or a young and more optimistic Lex Luthor who comes to a future where he’s one of the worst super-villains in the world, or a Jean Grey who gets to come forward and see herself as the Dark Phoenix.
Brendan Conway But isn’t that what happened with Iron Lad? It’s been a while since I read it, but iirc he finds out who he will become and decides he’s having none of it.
Christopher Sniezak
I have thoughts about Bart! But no, the Innocent could be the title of a playbook based on Impulse but the themes the little paragraph write-up brings up aren’t really Bart’s themes in either the comics or the cartoon.
Comics Bart’s main thing in his solo series was fitting into an alien world, our world, with super-ADHD on top of that. In his team books, he was The Kid, an impulsive goof who could push people’s buttons and had to learn some lessons about his own limitations as a person who has to deal with consequences.
In the animated series, he’s all about the act — putting on a face and carrying out his secret mission. But meanwhile he’s finding a place in a legacy that he doesn’t quite belong in as a time traveler.
Either would be pretty good fodder for a playbook, I think.
Hah! Robert Ruthven, you’re right! I didn’t think of it that way, because time travel is confusing! I think of Iron Lad as coming from the future, and knowing the future—he’s trying to avert what actually happened. He does know that in his future he becomes Kang the Conqueror, but he also knows the general future of everything—which is why he formed the Young Avengers. The Innocent comes from the past, and isn’t trying to avert the course of events that led to the present…but is trying to make a new present for themselves, here and now. All of which is to say…Iron Lad is a tough example!
(Boy, typing some of those sentences made me feel the nerdiest I ever have.)
I have a feeling that, as June Shores is pointing out, a few characters could fit a couple different playbooks, depending upon how you look at them. And that’s just how I want it!
It really depends on what you want to focus on in play and how well that matches up with any given playbook.
I could see Damian Wayne/Robin V as either The Protege or The Bull, for example.
The Golden Generation has also been very sexist and racist if you want to play with that. The young Captain Cosmic that everyone remembers fondly now appears and has to team up with a bunch of Womenfolk and can’t deal with that.
Without looking at it, it might also be possible to play Captain America with this. Not really brought forward from the past but frozen in the meantime. We will see.
Captain America would definitely fit in as an Innocent type. The second Cap movie plays with that and does it very well and a “Man out of Time” arc is very fitting for an Innocent.