Last week I wrote up my review of The Marvel Universe RPG, along with the play report of Andy's and my Daredevil session. I have ranted and raved to my family and friends about this game, probably to a rather unhealthy degree, but such is life. An entire campaign centered around Daredevil popped into my head over the weekend, which I immediately pitched to Andy. Hopefully we'll get to play even a fraction of what I had in mind at some point. As I worked through my campaign idea, filled with themes, characters, and plot hooks, I realized that I had a particular way of thinking of the Marvel Universe, one which modern Marvel runs counter to, so I thought I'd put it up here. I am quite aware that what I'm writing is my opinion and really have no illusions about it. I'm sure anyone who's a lover of cosmic Marvel or the Avengers could answer me, point for point. Marvel is decades older than I, and I truly cannot pretend to have read it all, even in the default 616 universe.
The Marvel Universe Should be Local
Once upon a time Marvel was about what would happen if super-powers occurred in our world. I would argue they abandoned that concept, opting to insert magical realms, aliens, multiple realities, and other things that completely invalidate that concept, in favor of fan-service feel-good nonsense. Gone are the days when the Marvel Universe felt like the real world, and one could argue that they abandoned that feel rather quickly. Books like Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man should have been the norm, not an exception, in Marvel's history. If I do so much as leave Hell's Kitchen in the Daredevil run I'm planning then I have done something wrong. This means that my version of Hell's Kitchen will be worked out in pain-staking detail. It is its own world and will be so full of life that even going a block away from it will feel like going to another planet.The Marvel Universe Should be Weird
Early Marvel tales were cautionary fables about messing with nuclear power and scientific concepts that challenged the nature of reality itself. Super-powers were just as often heavy burdens or outright curses as they were incredible boons to the people who possessed them. The themes of the best early Marvel stories were adapting to sudden and (at times) horrific change, the moral limits of science, and the thoughts of the common man on the nature of the world. This means that my version of Hell's Kitchen will have all sorts of weird things happening to its inhabitants as the result of new super-sciences. Gang wars will end because some kid can exhibit calming pheromones... only for one of gang leaders to kidnap the child to use on potential victims. Mutations should be a common thing, especially after exposure to toxic waste, nuclear power, and really any sort of freak accident, even if it's as simple as getting struck by lightning.
The (Real) X-Men are the Backbone of the Marvel Universe
Up until about a decade ago the X-Men, and the little guys' reaction to them, was the Marvel Universe default: the vast majority of the super beings in the Marvel Universe were hated, feared, and vastly misunderstood, with the mutants making the heroic decision to protect those that hated them, regardless of the consequences. The Avengers, up until about ten years ago, while they had many a good run, were hardly A-listers, and not even C-listers. This is because, a lot of the time, characters like Iron Man and Captain America were thematically incompatible with characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men. The world of the Avengers is a vast and magical place, filled with gods, vast alien civilizations that may actually be helpful, and cosmic beings that are just as wondrous as they are terrifying. The X-Men's world always seemed to have a creepy science vibe, from aliens like The Brood to space pirates that were as liable to kidnap you as you were to find out they were your father. And that's before we get into The Phoenix Saga, which shows the lengths the X-Men were willing struggle even against their own selves, in the form of Dark Phoenix and Cyclops. The point always seemed to revolve around doing the right thing, even if it meant your own life being sacrificed in the process. I never seemed to get that vibe from the Avengers, or not as much at any rate. Sure, characters like Hawkeye and Black Widow are amazing, and Iron Man's foibles pushed him to greatness a number of times, but the emphasis seemed to be on a more "heroic" fantasy, which always struck me as wrong, considering Marvel's origins in weird science gone wrong. The theme of the X-Men was so evocative, so good, so selfless, that it could not help but be popular, regardless of political under (and over!) tones.
What Should Be vs. What Is
For me, Marvel has always been about the friction between the human and superhuman, ideal and need, personal and communal. This struggle is universal; I don't know of a single person who doesn't connect with the concept of wanting to do the right thing and not being able to, or finding the right thing repulsive. The point is not to look at any one hero and say "They represent me!", but to say "Boy, I get what they're feeling". If anything the point would be to connect with others that you are not like because the both of you see something in a character that you communally admire, even if you admire them for differing reasons.
And I think that a Marvel RPG would take this as far as it can go. You take on a character that you like, without the intent of putting yourself into the character but to play out the character as you understand them, while allowing them to develop and to change to their own internal logic, as you understand it. RPGs in general attempt to do this, but a Marvel Campaign would have to do it more explicitly. "Would I gut that dude? No, but Wolverine would, because they're in his way, and Wolverine has a very short fuse on things like that", even though the action might be something you actively don't want Wolverine, a well known comic book character, to do. And that objectivity is an important thing when playing a well-established character. Wolverine isn't going to bring flowers to someone he loves, as healthy of an action that would be. No, he's probably going to shut her out and make sure she gets as far away from him as possible!
And sure, during a person's playtime, the character will change; your Wolverine may eventually bring flowers to a woman that he loves, it's totally possible! You are putting your own spin on it, after all. But, no matter what happens, that character is still a character that you did not make. That's part of the fun: you are putting your own spin on something that others will as well, in their own time. As dumb as an interconnected multiverse is in Marvel it is attempting to answer a need we all have to see ourselves in modern day mythological archetypes.
Marvel is Tragic
Marvel is, at its core, about failure. Science fails people. People fail each other individually and corporately. The people of the world fail to appreciate the X-Men. Spider-Man failed his Uncle, Gwen Stacy, and literally everyone else in his life. The Avengers fail each other. Bruce Banner fails to find peace with "The Big Guy". All of the great Marvel stories feature this element of tragedy. For all their power the characters of Marvel are powerless to stop the fundamental issues of humanity: heartbreak, loneliness, and death.
Conclusion
Anything I do in the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game will feature grounded settings, weird science, with super-powered people consistently hated and rejected, constant friction between what is desired and what is, and heart-wrenching tragedy. Superpowers can only fix so much, and sometimes not even that. I don't know if anyone else sees the Marvel Universe this way, but when its firing on all cylinders this is what I see Marvel doing. It's awesome. And I'm sure as hell not going to leave it.
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