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Hi, I'm Kate Bishop, and I'm a superhero. [There's a pause before she goes on.] There's a chance that doesn't mean much to many of you. There may even be some of you questioning the legality of vigilantes, but I'm not the type that goes too far. There's a reason why we kind of prefer "superhero" over "vigilante" anyway. For those of you who do know them, I'm an Avenger. But that's meaningless here. And I'm not really here to ... brag, either.

[Her voice is warm either way. There's a reason why she's here.]

Back home, I've got a like-minded group that tends to go on missions like the ones here. I was hoping to form something like that. It won't be the same, but I've got a couple teammates and not the whole set. We'd do pretty well for ourselves, but we need a couple more helping hands. So that's why I'm here. Well, partly.

[There is a question she has about this whole alternate earth business, but she'll get to it. She really wants a cohesive unit working together, as that seems to be the best way to proceed forward.]

The other goal I'd like for our group is to mobilize and help people in need. I can do this myself, and I'm planning on it, but more hands at the deck might help out. We don't just need this in missions, and from what I've read, we don't know what's gonna come next. I know it's risky to put together a group like this with how people come and go, but I'm prepared to deal with that. Plus, I don't just back down from something. I'm kind of stubborn that way.

If you've already got something like this going and wouldn't mind a few more people, I'd love to chat with you. I'm an archer mostly, but I have other gifts. One member is a ... [a trickster? How does one even sell Loki?] ... well, I'm sure he's good at something. And the final is an alien with advanced knowledge of technology that he might share. He's also got bug DNA and is extremely flexible. [That last bit. She really had to add that last bit.] So let me know.

The other question is: in the annals of this world, have people of Earth found evidence that they existed? Back home, alternate Earths like this usually mean ... alternate versions of us, which can either be a good thing, or a very, very bad thing. I'm thinking bad, considering the state of things. I was just wondering.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Probably depends on the world. Some heroes like to keep it hidden, others don't. My costume doesn't exactly leave a lot of room for "that's not Kate Bishop because see, she's wearing sunglasses."

[It's something she considered when she set up her new costume, but this one is better for her, and why hide it? Plus, no one really hides it. Sometimes it's weak denial, but ...]

But I'm wondering how that managed to work out. Like if someone went along and snuffed the beginning of the superhero trend out. ... Scary to think of, really.

To be fair, a lot of costumes don't leave room for "that isn't X because see, Y" and that doesn't stop people pretending. [See every Robin and domino mask ever.] Why is that scary? If I'm understanding the logic behind them, secret identities exist to protect somebody's loved ones. But if Utraman or whoever doesn't have anybody to protect, it wouldn't matter to him if everybody knows his government name and social security number. In fact, that actually protects other people more because they can't fall under suspicion. What I want to know is when vigilantism became an accepted (or celebrated, depending on who you are) behavior. I mean, technically it's still illegal. In my world, anyway.

[She stares at his answer for a moment.]

You want the short answer or the long one? Before I get going.

Short answers don't really do it for me.

All right, here's some world history for you. From what I understand, there have been super beings for a while. Some of that makes it into my world's history books, but sometimes they try to keep things on the DL. The big and important bit is that during World War II, a man named Steve Rogers got injected with the super soldier serum, thus becoming Captain America. In a bit of bad luck, he ended up frozen for a very long time.

[There's more to that, but she doesn't go into it. A lot of the details involve Bucky, and that's not her story to tell. It might be common knowledge, it might be "in history books," but this world, and other worlds it seems, don't have the same history books.]

Eventually, Cap came back. They found him, freed him from the ice, and he ended up joining a more modern day group of heroes called the Avengers. But by this point, a "superhero," and Cap hadn't exactly been one of the only ones back in WWII, was pretty standard and accepted. Some of them have worked for the government, while others have generally avoided that. Whether they should be regulated ended up being a big ... thing. A bad thing, actually. Lots of heroes went into hiding, including myself, and it turned out that aliens were actually manipulating the heroes to fight each other. Regulation got dropped, those manipulated kind of admitted their wrongs, and some heroes still work for the government, while others don't.

Still, the legality of it all came into question then. Really came into question. Since then, things have changed. As long as you're not the Punisher and you're making it so people can actually be prosecuted for their crimes, they let it happen.

Heroes are as normal as anything in NYC. There are groups elsewhere. They've tried things in California from to time, and I've heard there's an organized thing in Michigan. Plus, the Asgardians are in Oklahoma, but that's more Loki's story to tell than mine. (If his Asgardians are also in Oklahoma. I think he's from an alternate timeline.)

Getting back to the first question, it's scary to think of my world without Captain America. Without heroes. We (the general superhero community) have caused a lot of problems, but we stop a lot of bad stuff from happening, too. People try the chicken or the egg question with supervillains, but I'm obviously on the side of do-gooding in a costume with a bow in my hands.

Steve wasn't the first. Jim and Namor were. With the war in Europe and all that fire in the streets, things would've gone mad if the government hadn't done something.

They got real lucky with Steve.

What the hell kind of name is "Namor".

It's the type of name you really don't ask about when you know who it's referring to.

So he's an alien.

[Aliens are allowed to have weird names.]

Not quite. Just a different civilization altogether.

Edited 2013-12-26 00:29 (UTC)

So "alien" as in the classical definition of it. Not the post-Galaga one.

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