It is the year 2018. Heroes and villains, up until six months ago, were considered works of fiction. Captain America was a piece of war propaganda that was turned into comic books, which turned into cartoons, which led to movies. As far as the world knew, there never was an actual Star-Spangled Avenger or a Super Soldier program. No team of Howling Commandos or, more absurdly, a battalion of Cap's closest allies called The Invaders. Never a Bucky Barnes, who fought as the Sentinel of Liberty's kid sidekick on the page. And certainly no Red Skull, the fascist leader of a militant offshoot of the Third Reich. Likewise, The Justice Society of America was considered thought up by a team of writers and artists for National Comics, detailing the exploits of caped and cowled do-gooders looking to fight the evils of immortal madmen looking to take up the mythical The Spear Of Destiny, giant monsters who terrorized innocents abroad and offshore, and colorfully crazed 'supervillains' who utilized the elements to challenge The JSA directly in their war for dominance.
A novelty, everyone thought. Superheroes were a fringe piece of pop culture that had about as much legitimacy to them as vampires and werewolves, magic and unicorns, and science fiction space aliens. That is until one fateful day that would change the course of human history, when social media began circulating a video of a very hotly debated - but very real - public display of power by an individual who could clearly fly. This man would come to be known as the Metropolis Superman. And with his arrival came the questioning of just how fictional those old stories of Gods and Monsters really had been all along.
Colonel Nick Fury of SHIELD and his rival, Amanda Waller of CADMUS, did their best to circumvent any attempt to uncover the documents that would prove that there had really been a Captain Steve Rogers, a Justice Society, and all of the other superhumans that had existed in secret for decades. They even enlisted the help of a man they'd once promised to keep away from, Professor Charles Xavier, to attempt a telekinetic wipe of memories worldwide in an appeal to protect his secret school for what the agencies had called 'mutants'. But it was far too late for that, as The Professor had become too old and dormant to pull off such a feat: the secret was irreparably out the minute that journalist Lois Lane published documents detailing it all in The Daily Planet.
The age of Metahumans was here. And with that revelation came a new world, with new rules. New heroes and villains. In New York, an almost overnight phenomena occurred of superpowered individuals stepping up to either help people or harm them. In Gotham City, the highly corrupt hub of the New Jersey crime scene, perps were beginning to line prison cells claiming that they'd been the victims of a giant Bat. Rumors circulated around Africa that detailed a battle for the long thought lost metal of Vibranium against smugglers and a nation that wasn't officially supposed to have ever existed. And under the ocean, a war between two factions began to rage on in secret, captured in grainy video footage during an expedition that would make scientist and long-held Atlantean truther Stephen Shin world famous.
This was all just the tipping point. Whether it be interstellar warriors from beyond the stars, or from the shores of an island of Amazons, new players in this game of Metahuman Warfare would begin to reveal themselves to the world. And with their arrival came the question raised on everyone's minds: Who would inherit the world? The Gods... or the Monsters?
This game takes place in a reality where the DC and Marvel superheroes exist simultaneously in a shared universe. The world as we know it has existed up until now, and six months have gone by since the major heroes have been revealed. As a player, you can take up the role of any of these heroes in their beginning stages and work to build your own mythology, free of continuity constraints or legacies that have yet to be defined. Major multiplayer events will be handled sporadically by the GM at intervals, but participation is absolutely voluntary. A 'season' will conclude at the end of the third MME, where you'll be allowed a time to wrap up your character's stories for the in-game year.
As such, given the vast amount of hero or anti-hero characters at your disposal, no original characters are to be permitted. And for the time being, pending the game's future, all outright villains are to be NPCs left to the discredition of the hero players. (The player playing Superman has control over his rogues gallery, Spider-Man has the same, ect.) To use one of them, PMing the hero player for permission is required. In absence of one of those, say for a villain who has yet to receive a hero player (perhaps nobody applies for Green Lantern, but you want to use Sinestro), the game's GMs will decide. But be warned, the more central to a major character, the less likely the approval. Creativity is encouraged.
More importantly, be mindful of the setting. This is a 'Year One' style RP. Characters like Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, Captain America, and the like have only been around for a maximum of six months and are still cutting their teeth. This is to build up a universe where it's possible to build friendships and rivalries between characters like Green Arrow and Iron Man from the beginning to make a thriving set of relationships from the start. So characters that you would logically associate in conjuction with a more experienced version of the character, such as Supergirl, Miles Morales' Spider-Man, Robin, and any of the Teen Titans are pretty much a guaranteed no-no for this season. Future seasons, that'll be a different story. But just keep the fact that this is a universe where heroes still have to be established to inspire successors or legacy characters, even if continuity is fluid.
Other than that, pretty much only the standard Casual RP rules apply. You'll have to post once every two weeks to keep your character, otherwise it goes up for grabs. You can interact with anyone at your leisure or travel to anywhere within the multiverse (yes, multiverse), if it's within your character's means to do so. And most importantly, in this game, continuity bends to your will. Don't want to play a Daredevil who's blind? Have your own story worked out for The Man Without Fear? That's acceptable. Just make it good, make it authentic as possible to the spirit of the initial creation, and put effort into how Matt Murdock or anyone in this world would become that character. And remember, the man or woman behind that mask or cape has to be a character from the comics - no workarounds.
Alright. With all of that out of the way, let's see who's in.