Generations

Over the course of 80 or so years of superheroes, Halcyon City has seen three relatively distinct generations of superheroes rise and fall. These three generations are known colloquially as the Gold Generation, the Silver Generation, and the Bronze Generation.

Supers have been around publicly for over half a century, starting with the first folks to put on the mask in the late ’30’s. Supers may have been around for much longer than that, but it’s only since they came forward and became a dominant force in the city that meta-historians, sociologists, and suprologists have tried to classify them by generation.

Gold Generation (Heroes born from '20s-'40s)
The first real, codified superheroic generation. There were definitely superhumans and supernatural events going on for eons before Halcyon City ever arose, but the Gold Generation was the first with publicly recorded superhumans acting in their own personas. Flying Freedom started it all, but she was far from the last of her generation. Champion, the Haunt, Golden Girl, Bryce Brilliant- they all came out of the woodwork in this era. None of them were spectacularly powerful, but each of them was great, strong-willed, and more than capable of fighting the good fight.

This generation pulled America out of the Depression, and in particular reinvigorated Halcyon City with new inventions and a new drive for progress. This generation sent supers into World War II, where they battled their counterparts on the other side of the lines. This generation created for itself the notion of the modern superhero, complete with colorful costume and colorful code name. Sometimes they fought aliens or robots, but the villainous opponents of the Golden Generation were often just powerful criminals, unscrupulous corporate fatcats, or corrupt politicians. These heroes had a direct and real effect on the city’s mundane existence.

The remaining heroes of the Golden Generation often lament that theirs was the last generation of heroes to really fight both the superhuman and the all-too-human threats. The stakes were different for heroes in those days. Periodically there’d be a monster like the Gorgomoth, a gigantic minotaur creature that stomped down Halcyon’s streets, or an evil genius gone mad like Captain Coldheart. These threats posed real danger to the city, but they were rare.

There were countless costumed criminals, stealing priceless artifacts and jewels or playing pranks on public officials, but they weren’t interested in hurting anyone. The city as a whole wasn’t under as much threat, let alone the rest of the world. The culture of Halcyon City often presents the Golden Generation as a simpler era of superheroics—a time of obvious and easy conflicts—but there’s a stronger and stronger impulse to deconstruct that narrative. The Golden Generation had real battles to fight, real struggles. Women and minority heroes were often laughed at, degraded, insulted, and ignored—they had to fight for every single ounce of respect they could get. The entire city was filled with the prejudice and bigoted ideas of that era.

While the conflict between Champion and the pugilistic Deadly Devil might have been simpler than those faced by later generations, Champion’s struggle as a homosexual man and public figure in the 1940s was far from simple. For all the flaws of the generation and the people within it, the heroes of the Golden Generation are credited with starting everything, and you can find monuments to their victories and their sacrifices all over Halcyon City. Today, most of them are either gone, having passed away or given everything in their struggles, or they’re retired.

Most from this generation who are still active are either trying to reclaim their lost glory or success—the Scarlet Songbird wants nothing more than to be a relevant supercriminal again—or they’re the most powerful, most impressive, and most enduring members of this whole generation. Aquaria, Brass Brilliant, and the Lady Faust might be from an older era, but they survived into today for a reason, and they’re not to be trifled with.

Silver Generation ('50s-'60s)
There was a sea change in the superheroic scene of Halcyon City during the ‘50’s. For reasons unknown, superpowers became more powerful, and with their increased powers came ever greater threats. Many suprologists consider the first hero of the Silver Generation to be the Silver Savior—a hero covered in silvery metal, capable of flight faster than ever seen before, nigh-invulnerable, as strong as Champion if not stronger, wielder of the Silver Spark and all its powers.

Sam Tolman was a mathematician and physicist, working for United States’ aeronautical research division, before he inadvertently summoned the Silver Spark to him with an experimental new engine. With its powers, he became the first widely acknowledged representative of a new kind of superhuman. Silver Savior was bright, shining, and powerful. Silver Savior didn’t contend with costumed thieves. Instead, he fought Doctor Infinity, the all-powerful time-altering android. He clashed against the Jabberwock, a monster risen from fiction itself to convert all of our reality 19 into words on a page.

The battles he fought, while still mostly centered around Halcyon City, were often struggles over the fate of the entire world. These powerful, impressive, explosive abilities and these incredible fights against enormous foes characterized this generation. Nucleon fought against the Demonicator. Starbolt clashed against Sablestar. The battles at their worst leveled whole city blocks, or changed the color of the sky for days, or left a scent of ozone and smoke pervading the entire city—but Halcyon became more adept than ever at repairing the damage and restoring itself to “normalcy” with incredible speed.

Teams were more important to the Silver Generation than they’d ever been to the Gold Generation. Such incredible threats meant these new heroes sought aid from each other. The Exemplars, the Silver Saviors, the Amazing Eight—all saw their origins in this generation. And as the heroes banded together into new super teams, so too did the villains form their own alliances against the heroes. The Silver Generation was a constant cycle of escalation, with all sides growing in power and support for ever more epic clashes.

Toward the beginning of their rise to prominence, the Silver Generation made great strides on mundane struggles. There was a major public push by the Silver Generation for equal rights among all the people of Halcyon and indeed America. Some even took on overtly political roles. But over the course of their time in power, the Silver Generation largely abandoned struggles against social issues, and even against criminals or corrupt politicians. There were always exceptions, but by and large as their power grew, their focus shifted ever upward, to greater and greater threats, planet enders and dimension destroyers and the like.

While the fight against such enormous threats was clearly important, those who criticize the Silver Generation often focus on the fights that they let lie fallow...the changes they didn’t push for. The Silver Generation is still largely around and in power today. They’re reaching the end of their time, however, and many are looking into retirement of some kind. They’ve fought for many, many years to keep the city and the world safe, and they’re well due their rest, but...it’s hard to see figures who’ve been so prominent and dominant for so many years easily abandoning their control. Many of the Silver Generation would love nothing more than to find successors they can shape directly into new versions of themselves, to ensure that things continue exactly as they have so far.

Bronze Generation ('70s-'80s)
Most superologists, historians, and sociologists agree on a single defining moment as the transition point from the Silver Generation and their ethos to something new, something more complicated and ambiguous: the Bronze Generation. Quintessence, a younger hero acting within the style of the Silver Generation, was under threat by his greatest foe, a telepath known as Psilence. Psilence targeted Quintessence in his real life as Niall Collins, publicly abducting and threatening Niall’s best friend, a young man named Sam Reed.

Quintessence attacked Psilence directly and angrily, and Psilence responded with cold glee at having truly hurt her old foe. And when Psilence knocked Sam from the top of the Colossus Building in downtown Halcyon, Quintessence responded with fear and desperation, rocketing down the side of the building after his friend in a last ditch effort to save Sam. The medical examiners couldn’t say with confidence what caused Sam’s death. It’s possible he was dead before Psilence cast him off the building or perhaps he struck the building on his way down, but it’s equally possible (and a much darker interpretation of events) that he died from the force of Quintessence striking him in mid-air in an attempt to arrest his descent.

Regardless, the fact remained: Sam Reed died for being friends with Niall Collins. Quintessence failed to save him. Psilence had changed the game. The ripples touched the new generation of heroes growing up in Halcyon City. Most of them had started out clearly under the Silver Generation, acting in their style and idiom. But the death of Sam Reed started a wave of introspection among the younger generation, forcing them to take a harder look at the failures of their parents and mentors. They saw that the Silver Generation’s methods never seemed to solve the problems in their entirety. The Silver Generation often seemed more focused on grand gestures than real change. What’s more, the Silver Generation still clung to power, held their positions of dominance over the city and the world, and this new generation had little to no room to call their own.

Young heroes changed their identities and their ideas. They shifted away from their ties to the Silver Generation, doing everything in their power to differentiate themselves and find whatever places were left to them. New heroes rose up, touting new ideas and methods. Some, such as the swordwielding and murderous vigilante Guillotine, pursued unremitting violence against criminals. Some, such as the patriotic Blue Eagle, became political figures, trying to change the system from within. Some, like super-scientist Dr. Sheila Supreme, left Halcyon City and even this world entirely to explore 21 brand new realms of possibility. Some, like Agent Caldwell Wing, aka Soar, became government operatives, working from the shadows to do what was necessary for good or ill.

The Bronze Generation defined itself in the cracks left for them by the Silver Generation. And they were the first generation to truly doubt the entire idea of superheroism as it had existed so far. They opened doors to exploring different ways of being heroes, even if many of those doors led to dark places. They took on social issues their parents and mentors had left alone. And they carved out their own place as a darker, more exploratory, more cynical generation than the ones that had come before. The Bronze Generation is very much present and active today. Though members of the Silver Generation still sit in positions of power over most of the city and throughout the superheroic society, the Bronze Generation have found their own places and their own sources of power. They may not be as openly in charge as the Silver Generation, but the members of the Bronze Generation are still positioned as people of import, and they’re ready to seize the reins as more of the Silver Generation moves into obsolescence and retirement.

New Generation
The newest generation of superheroes, most of them still quite young, comes from a unique place. They live in a world well-used to the idea of superhuman individuals. Dinosaurs stomping down Main Street is just a thing that happens sometimes; invading aliens and escaped products of mad science are treated as somewhere between average problems of the city and tourist attractions. As the latest superheroes to arrive on the scene, they have a stronger, more innate grasp of superhuman issues than any other generation—though that’s not always a good thing.

They don’t have a name yet, really—the name “Modern Generation” is a tentative placeholder, used right alongside “The New Generation,” “The Young Generation,” and other names. They haven’t yet made their mark on the world, nor have they developed as strong an identity as those who have come before. Halcyon City doesn’t know what it will become as they grow up and rise to greater and greater power. Some members of the Modern Generation have made splashes, especially in the realm of celebrity and the internet, like teen pop-star turned villain Cygnus.

Some have apprenticed themselves to older heroes, earning their names in the city at large as scions of the powers that be, like the Silver Ace, wielder of a portion of the Silver Spark. Most are aware of fame and popularity, of the voices of everyone around them, more than those of other generations. And they all feel the eyes of the older generations on them. So far, they’ve proved themselves a generation of greater hope and greater skepticism, somehow, than any other generation. They’re aware of both the triumphs and the failings of those who came before them, in a way no other generation has been. They see the Gold Generation’s nobility, and all-tooeasy oversight; the Silver Generation’s power and success, and domineering attitudes; the Bronze Generation’s frustration and search for new alternatives, and ultimate failure to change anything significantly.

All of that history weighs on them, as they try to determine who they want to be, and what they can do. Maybe they want to change the world; maybe they give up the fight and go for fame instead. Maybe they think the whole system needs fixing; maybe they try to work within the rules. In all cases, they’re still finding their way, deciding exactly what they’re going to be, and what world they’re going to make. The world awaits with trepidation and excitement to see what they will finally become.