The heroes of the mission deck unite! http://theletterspage.libsyn.com/episode-94-disparate-reinforcements
I got my letter ripped up. XD
I don't actually remember what I tagged that one as when I wrote it, but it was definitely done in a rush, so maybe that's why it showed up here. :B Anyway, I can't say no to more answers about awesome characters! :D
Man, and I did not anticipate Chronoist would be capable of such stone-cold badassery. :O No wonder he's one of the best rewards, holy crap!
The Chronoist's world sounds like one heck of a setting, both before and after the apocalypse. Wouldn't mind playing a campaign set there.
I also wonder if Chronoist's Gorgons are what they were like in Universe 1's ancient history and they evolved/mutated over time, or if they always worked differently.
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That’s such a neglected sub-genre that has such awesome potential: mythic-era supers. I love the feel of exploration and grandeur in there; it’s why I’ve tried building in the Lemuria/Atlantis/Thule storylines in my Villains of the Day thread, as well as villains like the Cult of Apophis and Antaeus.
If the SCRPG team ever ends up taking pitches for sourcebooks, I’d gladly throw down 75k words or so to help build out a “Mythic Sentinels” setting.
Admittedly a "Mythic Sentinels" book would probably not be a supers book, per se. The stuff revealed in the LP page over time suggests that the superhero era is pretty recent and ancient history mostly had mages of various stripes and sometimes Virtuosos.
Not that it doesn't still seem like an awesome idea, but it would have more of a White Wolf feel I think.
That's more a convention than an actual rule, though. A supernatural modern-day tale is just what we call the superhero genre. Because it's modern, we need excuses--mutation, radiation, magic, aliens, etc--to explain why people have powers. The same thing in the future is just sci-fi (despite still having mutations and aliens), and the same thing in the past is just fantasy (or wuxia).
I've occasionally seen magic in sci-fi (although they often explain it with science eventually). I don't think I've ever seen typical superhero origins in fantasy, barring deliberate crossovers. There are just heroes with exaggerated strength and skill.
Having the modern era being "the superhero era" also makes it more relatable. It's one thing to pretend the 21st century would be more or less the same if there were superheroes during WWII (although I know some settings don't, like Watchmen). The further back you go, though, the harder it is to believe. I have seen stories in which there was magic during the Colonial era, and things diverge from our history pretty quickly.
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It’s been my opinion for a long while that the greatest strength of the overarching superhero genre is the ability to absorb elements of other genres, providing a unique take on them.
The best of the Marvel Cinematic Universe embraces this wholeheartedly: Captain America: The Winter Soldier was supers by way of 70s spy thriller, a la The Manchurian Candidate; Guardians of the Galaxy was supers by way of Flash Gordon-esque space opera; Ant Man was a supers heist movie; Logan (yes, I know it’s not MCU) was supers by way of post-apocalyptic Western. It was no surprise that the first Thor movie had Kenneth Branaugh as a director; the sections on Asgard are a perfect fit for that level of Shakespearean family drama, a la King Lear, though the latter half of the movie deviates from that strength in a major way. Spider-Man Homecoming was supers by way of a John Hughes movie.
Watchmen worked in no small part because it was, at its core, a detective story. Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth works because its a Batman story turned surreal horror. All of these work because they’re “supers and…”
Yes, you can do superheroes–in a comic or graphic novel, in an rpg campaign, or a card game–on its own as a genre. But in doing so, you sacrifice no small degree of focus. It’s the reason that Dark Watch (not unlike, say Birds of Prey or The Defenders–the Netflix ones) tend towards street-level crime stories or conflicts against cults or serial killers. It’s the reason why the Prime Wardens (not unlike teams like The Annihilators or The Defenders–the one with Hulk and Silver Surfer) end up fighting the literal embodiment of Mother Earth or joining interstellar rebellions on far-off planets. Having thematic focus beyond “spandex and powers” lends these stories strength.
So, yeah–I agree that something like a “Mythic Sentinels” setting would be a deviation. But, it’s not without (highly successful) precedent. Think of things like “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”, which transposes supers into Victorian England. Marvel just recently did a massive storyline about the “Avengers of 1 Million BC”, featuring Odin, Agamotto, and a Ghost Rider who rode a flaming wooley mammoth. Conan and Red Sonja have been seeing an upsurge in popularity (in no small part due to Gail Simone’s run on Red Sonja). Heck, Greg Rucka’s run on Wonder Woman alone proves that a ‘mythic’ type of book can work, to say nothing of actually mythic/historical characters like Hercules, Etrigan, Black Knight or Shining Knight, and Morgan le Fey.
Long story short, I think there’s plenty of room for a mythic setting within the Sentinels universe. With extant setting elements like Atlantis, the ancient Virtuosos, the relics of the Ennead, and more, it’s just a matter of seeing where the pieces fit.
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Of course, and I feel a little confused that people seem to have spent so much time essaying in support of the idea when I already like the idea. I apologize for my apparently not being clear on my like of the idea. 
I just know not everyone is obssessive about following lore stuff, so I simply wanted to remind that Sentinels history is more about, as MW touched upon, people who dabble in magic of various stripes and magical societies, rather than resembling superheroes versus supervillains, and so would require that different approach.
The unclarity, at least in my part, came specifically from your first and last sentences:
"Admittedly a "Mythic Sentinels" book would probably not be a supers book, per se."
"Not that it doesn't still seem like an awesome idea, but it would have more of a White Wolf feel I think."
I appreciate the fact that you like the idea, but my intent was to show that there's definitely room for this sort of storytelling in both comics in general and in a potential SCRPG game setting. There's tons of precendent within the "Big 2" publishers and the seeds for a mythic history in "Universe-1" are already there.
Maybe I'm misinterpreting your words--I don't think I am--but I got the impression that you feel that it'd be a fine concept for a game, but doesn't fit in the Sentinels universe. If that's not what you're saying, that's fine, please further expound on it so we can understand; if it is an accurate assessment of your opinion, then it's one I disagree with.
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Essentially, I was addressing how you wanted to make a “mythic-era supers” book.
To which I felt like it was worth bringing up, Mythic Sentinels would be an interesting idea (and I think the part that was unclear was that I typically like interesting things), but based on the details of Sentinels history, it probably wouldn’t be a mythic-era supers book, it would more be a mythic era mages and magic intrigue book. Even with the Virtuosos, I remember an episode where they said up until Argent came along, people didn’t think of Virtuosos as local superheroes, but perhaps as the local shaman or holy person or so on if they knew of them at all. And since AFAIK White Wolf is the most famous example of RPGs specifically oriented around mages and magical beings, I used that as a shorthand for the concept.
And, I mean, that’s fine with me personally, I don’t have a problem with things that aren’t strictly superhero based but still are set firmly in the Sentinels universe. I’m also not the one who formally decides what is and isn’t OK for the Sentinels universe, so I can’t weigh in more deeply than that on that particular aspect.
I definitely agree that within the established Sentinels timeline, only a few of the standard power sources would be consistent--Training, Higher Power, many of the magical ones, and maybe some of the cosmic ones if they kept it on the down-low. But there are ways around that. Disparation, for one (and I'd bet at some point they ran an "age of Conan"-style Disparation in the canon metaverse). Marvel and D.C. have also played around with the idea that ancient myths were actually about people who'd be considered superheroes/supervillains in the modern age (I'm thinking about Apocalypse and Hawkman off the top of my head). It's really only after the Dark Ages that it would be tricky to explain.
I very much read The Chronoist’s world as something right along those lines. Nests of gorgons? Bigger than life heroes? That’s right in the wheelhouse.
And, within other supers rpgs, that’s been pretty much par for the course. Mutants and Masterminds, for one, uses that exact sort of formula: “No one really called them superheroes, but there were heroes with weird powers, there were villains with weird powers, but they became mythical/legendary figures instead of superheroes.”
Yeah, Chronoist's world, and a lot of Greek Mythology in general, were definitely superheroes-and-villains-just-called-other-things.
But stuff like Ignazio Gallo, or Atlantis, or the ancient Virtuosos, were definitely magical and holy intrigue type stuff.
Which I actually find equally interesting, but also different as it's often less punchy and more political/social.
I want to find out even more about all of these different Disparate heroes after listening in, but the one I'm most interested is the Everyman. He's got such an interesting variation of the 'duplication' powerset, and I really hope we see more of him in the future!
This post was a really good read. Thanks for the interesting and thoughtful analysis!
I really want Banneret.
Chronoist wants to give OblivAeon “the little death” lol.
I like that Dr. Magic’s question was “is there a Freedom Five team in Everyman’s universe, and if not, is he on it?”
At one point it was said that Nightmist created gates to other Nightmists; some of the disparate heroes work better if you imagine a Nightmist was there, and others work less well (looking at you, Arataki and Terror Bird).