Let's take the discussions now to m_u_bullpen, which is the OOC community for marvel_universe. If we've already approved you for your character, build a journal and come on over to both. We won't launch yet, but we can discuss more setup there now!

We're getting closer to launch! Woo!

Charaacters!

Let's see who we've got, and who we still need to fill!

Mr. Fantastic Psy has expressed interest.
Invisible Girl (or Woman?) Tal has expressed an interest in Sue.
Human Torch Michelle is willing to cover him, but if someone else wants him, she's open to handing him over.
The Thing Jeff has said that he can temp Ben, but if someone else wants him, the character's available.
Hulk Both Michelle and Dylan have mentioned some mild interest, but nothing specific.
Rick Jones
Ant-Man Anna has mentioned some interest here.
Wasp Amit has mentioned interest here.
Thor Jeff is taking on the Thunder God.
Iron Man Michelle is interested in continuing with Tony.
Captain America I'll take Steve.
Spider-Man Allen has interest in Spidey
Daredevil Psy has said he's up for Matt.
Dr. Strange Matt has expressed interest in Strange.
Nick Fury Stacy is interested in Fury.
Cyclops Dylan is interested in "Slim".
Iceman Amy has expressed interest for Iceman.
Angel Amit has expressed interest for Angel.
Beast Zippy has said that she'd be willing to try Beast.
Marvel Girl Dk is interested in Jean.
Professor X Lex has expressed interest in Chuckles.
Quicksilver Jo is interested in Quicksilver.
Scarlet Witch Thanks, Anna!
Hawkeye Eric has said he's interested in playing Clint again.
Black Widow Stacy's interested in returning to this character.

Namor would be nice, but not yet required.

Other characters are also available:

SHIELD agents (such as Jimmy Woo, Dum Dum Dugan, Contessa Val, etcetera)
Villains, particularly Baron Zemo, Magneto, and Dr. Doom, or even some of the Masters of Evil.
Other heroes such as Ka-Zar, Hercules, Dr. Druid, Ulysses Bloodstone (yes, he didn't appear until later comics, but he'd be active in this era), Namor, etc.
The Inhumans. If we get enough players, we could even get a mod for this group.

Now, as for teams:

Avengers: Dylan has agreed to help mod this team.
SHIELD/Government: Stacy has agreed to mod this team.
Fantastic Four: I've agreed to mod this team.
X-Men: EDIT Anna has agreed to help cover this team.
Head mod/individual heroes: Michelle is handing the individual solo heroes, as well as heading up the mod team. (Yes, I'm putting up a lot of stuff here, but that's because M's swamped, and I am around to help her out.)

Does anyone have any interest in running the X-Men at all? If not... well, the FF is a small team, and I suppose I could pull double-duty. But I'd prefer not, if we could avoid it.

The following events occurred in Marvel comics between 1962-1965, in roughly this order. This is not to say that ANY of these events occur specifically in our game... just when what wave they would take place, if we chose to include them. So if someone were playing Mar-Vell, they wouldn't have to kill him off in the fifth wave, but we'll address whether or not it will happen when we get to that fifth wave. I figure about a year and a half will pass between each wave, so when Wave 2 begins, it'll be about 18 months since the FF gained their powers.

Please feel free to discuss this in the comments.

( The waves, rough draft: )

So... what do we call this new community?

So. After some discussion, I think this idea has been appealing to the most amount of people.

Starting over completely from scratch. We start with the beginning of the modern age. (People like Namor and Cap will need to discuss WWII details, but I don't want to start back then, so we'll likely establish that most of those events with the Invaders, etc, occurred.)

I figure it will work like this. We'll start with only characters who were introduced from 1965 or before, or who were retconned to have been active in that time. (Wolverine, for example, would be playable in that time, because he was active as a hero during that era.) We use the comics for a general guideline, and take what we want, and RP out what we want. So, for example, if Michelle wanted to RP out Iron Man's origin, and make it less Silver-Age, she'd be free to do that. She could RP out Iron Man's first encounter with Black Widow, or with Hawkeye, etc. We'd have a pretty good idea as to the plots we'd want, so plots should be able to move quickly. If anyone was stuck, we could always just grab one of the comics from that era and steal the plot, or we could come up with our own if we preferred.

After we were done playing in that time period, we'd move on to the next wave, of characters introduced from 1965-1970. And on and on. Whenever we jumped into the next era, we could state "X number of years have passed," which would allow for character aging, so characters like Cassie Lang could start out being 8, and get to be 14 and superheroing, without needing 6 years of ongoing RP first.

How close will we stick to canon? That's... really up to the players. We'll take it an age at a time. "What are the major story beats for your character over this 5-year period? What do you want to keep, and what do you want to dump, and what do you want to RP out on your own to make your own? How will this work together?" In a lot of ways, it'll kinda be like the concept behind the Ultimates, but actually executed well (and I'd personally like to see people actually being the characters they're apping for, as opposed to totally different characters that happen to share the same name. Ultimates Cap is NOT Captain America.)

As far as organization goes, I'm thinking that we'll handle it like this: each team gets its own dedicated mod. They help organize the plots, and help facilitate RP for that team... kinda the same way an editor for a comic helps guide that specific title. Over all the mods, there's a head mod: sort of like the editor-in-chief. The head mod will also handle the solo heroes and miscellaneous baddies. This will help keep teams organized and give the feel of a small team-based game, while allowing a lot of expansion if there's the player base to support it. The head mod would not be me, even though I'm kinda helping organize this at the moment. And each of the team-mods would still be part of a mod team -- they would just be ultimately answerable to a single person in charge. That person will be Michelle.

These are the teams that would need mods, at least to start. As the timeline continued, we could add more, depending on the teams we added (we could get a Defenders mod, for example).

The Fantastic Four. I volunteer for this gig. If anyone else wants it badly, I don't mind shifting around to a different team.
The Avengers.
The X-Men.
SHIELD and the government.

These are the characters I see as important to the starting era:

Mr. Fantastic
Invisible Girl (or Woman?)
Human Torch
The Thing
Hulk
Ant-Man
Wasp
Thor
Iron Man
Captain America
Spider-Man
Daredevil
Dr. Strange
Nick Fury
Cyclops
Iceman
Angel
Beast
Marvel Girl
Professor X

There are other characters playable, of course, but those are the characters I'd really like to see filled before we move into the next era.

SO. That leads to the next questions.

Is anyone willing to take modding of a single team? If so, which team?

Is anyone willing to take any of these important characters?

Are there other characters from this era (either published history or retconned history) that you'd like to play?

Okay, so people have been asking me about a new Marvel game. It'd be set over here on Scribbld for a couple of reasons.

But we have a couple possibilities, and I'd like some player feedback.

1) We could start fresh with new continuity. I'm actually not all that interested in maintaining Mansion canon, I'm afraid, though if there was strong player request to do so, I'd consider it. If we did that, I have an idea for how to handle it, though the cutoff would be just before Avengers Disassembled... with a plot that would allow us to alter history before that point for anything we didn't like. That would mean the Young Avengers would need to reform again from scratch, but that could easily be done.

2) Another possibility that I've thought about was a combined DC/Marvel universe. Where their histories have been intertwined. That opens up a lot of story possibilities, and telling flashbacks of major stories and how they'd be different could be fun. (Imagine, for example, telling the story of Secret Wars, but with some DC villains and heroes present instead.)

3) One player suggested that we keep the game small -- focus on just one team, such as, say, the Avengers. If we get enough interest for a second team, they get their own community, but it'd be a neighboring community, and occasional crossovers would be possible. Kinda like comic titles.

What do people think? What interests you the most? And what do you think is a bad idea? What will you play, and what won't you? And what would you enjoy the most?