I just had a new idea for a super villain. Kinda.
Ok, so imagine in the spiderman universe, if some character like Dr Strange, started casting spells on people. Except NOT Dr Strange, because he wouldn't do this. But find a character who's able to cast spells and is a villain.
So this spell is just cast on a single random ordinary guy. He had no powers before the spell, but now after the spell he brings disease everywhere he goes. 50 mile radius around this guy. Everybody gets sick. While he himself never gets this illness. He's immune to it.
So whichever villain cast this on him did so and then framed the guy for some terrorist attack. So now this carrier of disease is sent to some max security prison. The idea being that the original villain is using this guy as a trojan horse to kill Kingpin, who's also locked up. Only problem is, due to some mix-up, the guy gets taken to a regular jail instead. All the inmates, and all the guards are dead within a month.
The other part of the spell is that if this guy is killed, the entire universe explodes. So you can't just kill him. But now NYC has this massive prison complex with thousands of cells, and only 1 prisoner. And they can't put any staff or inmates in there, or they'll die. They've been feeding him via remote control drone delivery. But that's a band-aid solution. So instead they build an artificial island off the coast. with a 75 mile restricted water access. On this artificial island they create ways he can grow his own food, and be self reliant.
Problem averted, right? Because now NYC can use it's already existing jail again. But now that the character is established, you can actually develop the character.
So remember, this guy was NOT a criminal. He did NOT have powers. He's just as much a victim in this, as anyone else. But the government treats him as a terrorist because of what happened at the jail. People see him as the cause of death, because nobody is quite sure whats going on. So they just blame him, and that's it.
After so many years on the island in isolation, he finds a way back to the mainland. And why? Because HE doesn't understand how it works either. He just wants to live a normal life, and doesn't understand why everyone around him keeps dying. So he comes to the city, in search of his family.
Then yada yada spiderman somehow finds out that if he reaches the shore, thousands will die. If he gets close to the guy, he'll die. And with that, we have spiderman using help from Tony Stark to use autonomous Ironman suits to essentially swoop him up, bring him back to the island, and then talk to him via video conference. And this is where we find out that he's not a bad guy. He's just frustrated, scared, and alone. Spiderman empathizes with that, and starts being this guys friend with daily chats.
And now, you have set up for the future, a new character that can be used as a weapon against their will to kill an entire city if taken hostage somehow. He's powerful, because you can't get near him to fight him. But also, he's just a guy with the spell swirling AROUND him. All of his thoughts and motivations are NOT death. But death does follow this guy everywhere he goes.
I think it would be best if this guy when we first meet him is timid and weak, and apologetic for everything in life, whether it's his fault or not. And by the end, he can become completely deranged as a result of isolation, but still not a bad person. A tragic story of a life. And then you can use him against his will in the future.
Maybe Green Goblin's glider can go fly to him, and kidnap him. Then he's essentially used as a bomb. God dammit. I want his Super Villain name to be "Bomberman", but that's already a video game. That would get confusing.
You know how comic books are. Eventually he'll be full on evil. Or maybe mind controlled by someone else. Or maybe he has mental health issues. I hate to say it that way, but that's how comic book villains are written. Evil super villain, and then his motivations behind being evil is because he has mental health issues.
Now I wish this were a thing.
4 replies
If it is a 50-mile radius why would he need to go anywhere to sicken Kingpin, much less the lockup? He could be anywhere in manhattan or the surrounding boroughs and the rest of new york is within that radius. I am assuming Kingpin will wind up in a NYC jail due to his extensive NYC crimes. If he winds up anywhere else just drive past on the street or up to the front gate for the same effect.
That's actually a great idea.
Two flaws for putting it into practice, one of which widdershins already brought up. Fifty miles is way bigger than you'd think. Manhattan is only 13ish miles long. So, like widdershins said, he doesn't need to go to jail you sicken everyone inside it, just be in the general vicinity.
Secondly, in terms of actually writing the story for a comic, it being a universe ending spell isn't really going to fly. Not enough room to work, based on stuff the editors and writers have said over the years about threat scaling. Not that universal scale threats aren't a thing, just that it's hard to reuse the character in any meaningful way. It becomes a one-off trick. Not that that's a bad thing overall, but it terms of convincing someone to write it for a major publisher like Marvel, they'd likely want it to be a bit smaller scale, where it "just" unleashes a wave of disease that spreads across earth.
Mind you, I haven't gone to a con and bullshitted with anyone in the industry in ages now, so maybe that's off. I know that Didio in specific would have a similar objection based on stuff he said in conversation.
Legit though, it's a brilliant idea. It's worth maybe plotting out and pitching, if you have the patience for that kind of thing
Assuming I did take the time to flesh this out a bit more, who would I pitch it to? I've never done this before. What would that process look like?
It varies between publishers. The big three have their contact info on their sites somewhere, though I've never submitted anything to them at all, so that's as far as I can help in that regard.
But, in general, you do what you did here. You give a synopsis of your concept, be it a character or story for a specific character, then you polish it a bit for grammar, get it down to as short a length as possible without losing the "vibe". Most publishers of anything want it a few paragraphs, but any less tends to not really carry enough info to matter.
You'll have to submit in writing via the process of the company because you won't make a good impression trying to pitch anyone anything by walking up to them at a con. The times I've seen that happen, you can visibly see people tense up and put on their "business" smile. They get it a lot, and they have tight schedules at those events, so if they're relaxing and having a casual conversation, they need to unwind for a bit. So follow the process to give yourself a realistic chance.
Now, if you're an established writer with an agent, you let them do the hard part of getting the idea in front of someone that can make it happen. But I suspect that's not the case here. And you wouldn't really want to try and get an agent without more than just an idea. Hell, they're harder to get on board than a publisher in some ways. It's why I self publish.
Expect rejection. Even a great idea has to fit the plans of what the head person has planned. Like, if a publisher is doing a big event line-wide, you aren't likely to get a new idea in their heads until the busiest work of that is done.
Also expect that you aren't getting paid much, if anything. You almost certainly won't get hired as a writer at a big publisher. So you'll be handing the idea off to a pro if there's interest. Comic writing is actually pretty specialized, and collaborative. I've only ever done it with one-off stuff at an amateur level as a hobby thing, and it's a challenge. Never saw print, it was just some exchanges online with an artist that wanted to, essentially, practice. Fan-fic level stuff.
There's resources that can help at writer's guilds/associations, so it might be worth looking that kind of thing up as well.
Fwiw, I think it would be worth trying. The idea really is excellent overall, and has aspects that similar concepts that have seen print lack. There's been some sorta-kinda similar Hulk stories, as an example. And there's an X-Men character that has to wear a containment suit that I think had a kidnapping to be weaponized story back decades ago. But the way you set it up, as a victim being used is brilliant. It's something I would absolutely want to pick up if I saw it in a comic shop