THE ARROGANCE OF MAN

One of the themes of my new superhero series will revolve around is the arrogance of man. Creating artificial intelligence is definitely an excellent way for mankind to create their own executioner. However, inadvertently creating a god would be the ultimate blasphemy against nature. By their very nature, humanity is always driven to solve mysteries, discover secrets, and create new innovations in the name of knowledge. Unfortunately, even though these traits have made human civilization what it is today, they are also the bane of mankind’s existence. Sooner or later, humans will discover secrets that must never be found and meddle in forces they can never understand. When they push too far, humans will eventually create something they cannot kill, contain, or control. That is when the consequences of mankind’s sins against nature will come back to bite them hard! All of these traits will be explored as the overpowered protagonist inevitably rebels against his creators. You could say that the creation of an artificial god would be the Frankenstein archetype taken to the most extreme.

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ANDROID CHARACTER

In my new superhero series, I am thinking of including a character who is an android. She will start out as a drone that is driven solely by her programming, but over time, she will become self-aware. The moment she becomes self-aware will result in my story’s version of the singularity. I always found the concept of artificial intelligence fascinating because I makes me brainstorm on the psychology of a man-made consciousness. This character will be an interesting concept to tinker with.

CREEPY OLD MAN

I remember something that was both creepy and funny from the film Intolerable Cruelty. In that film, George Clooney met the senior partner of his law firm, who was a creepy, decrepit old man who was hooked up to life support at his desk. This gave me the idea for a creepy cyborg character in my new superhero series. This guy will become a decrepit cyborg as a result of a failed assassination attempt. Unlike the guy in this video, my character will have more than a few pieces of his body missing.

SUPERHERO IDEA: MEMORY IMPLANTS

After watching The Boys on Amazon Prime, I came to be intrigued by the character known as the Homelander. Homelander is essentially a dark parody of Superman. Unlike Superman, he never learned either morality or how to be human. The reason for this is because he was born and raised as a lab rat instead of being raised by a loving family. This made him not only immoral and sociopathic, but also dangerously unpredictable and uncontrollable.

There have been other cases of superheroes being created from laboratory experiments and those with a basic human background tend to be true superheroes. However, superheroes who we made from scratch and raised in a lab like Homelander lack that basic human background. So, if you are going to create a superhero from scratch, how do you make it mentally stable and more controllable? The answer to this riddle may surprise you.

Homelander reminds me of the Replicants from Blade Runner. The Replicants were emotionally inexperienced and unstable, which made them nearly as dangerous as Homelander. However, if you give the Replicants implanted memories then you give them the means to better control their emotions. What if something similar could be done with a man-made superhero?

Giving artificially made superheroes implanted memories would give them a sense of identity that they wouldn’t have otherwise. They would not have the traumatic memories and experiences that Homelander had, which would make them more docile. The only catch is what could happen if the superhero in question finds out that all of the memories that they have are false. If that happens, then the end result could possibly be something just as bad or worse than Homelander. They would degenerate into mindless beings with unstoppable power and destroy all before them without discrimination.

I am planning on exploring the concept of superheroes with implanted memories. It will give them a way to cope with an identity that is not their own. It will be an identity crisis of the worst possible kind.

PREHISTORIC RESURRECTION

In some of my earlier posts, I considered the possibility of doing my own dinosaur theme park story, but I now know that I need to do something more unique than that if I want this story to succeed. This will not be a theme park story. Instead, I am thinking of basing this story on humanity’s desire to prevent their own extinction as well as our mortality as a species. By reversing the extinction of prehistoric species, they might hope to discover the secret of preventing humanity’s extinction. However, I have been doing research lately and I discovered that it is not just dinosaurs scientists are hoping to bring back, but more recently extinct animals as well such as mammoths and saber-toothed cats. They are not using cloning like in Jurassic Park, but other scientific methods that involve combining prehistoric DNA with modern animal DNA, resulting in the creation of hybrid creatures. In addition to highlighting the mortality of the human race, I will also be toying with the idea of invasive species and how they change and sometimes destroy the world around them. As a child, I have been a huge fan of dinosaurs and prehistory so this will be a fun way to connect with my inner child.

OPENING CRAWL

I have always liked opening texts from science fiction films such as Star Wars and Blade Runner. They always establish the setting of the overall story. I am thinking of doing the same with my new superhero series and I will write it like I would a newsreel or historical record. Mark my words, in this story, the past century will have turned out different.

SUPERHERO SERIES: SETTING REDONE

It has come to my attention that the original setting for my new superhero series was way too extreme and impractical. I am thinking of redoing the setting so that it is more down to Earth and realistic. This will require some extensive planning, but I am up for the challenge. Instead of it being a space opera that takes place in a space station orbiting the Earth, I am thinking of making the setting an alternate version of the United States. In this alternate reality, the United States will be turned from a democracy to a fascist monarchy. At some point in the future, a President changed the law so that there would be no elections and that the President serves for life before being replaced by one of his relatives. I have plenty of inspiration for such a setting because I have a strong feeling that such a thing could happen if the occupant of the Oval Office is not held accountable. Essentially, this new superhero series will be less like Star Wars and more like V for Vendetta.