D&D 5e State of the Gish 2023:
So on the precipice of the Giants Path Barbarian getting an official release and the slow grind of the 2014 flavor of 5e coming to a halt, it's possible we're near the end of this edition regarding official player facing content... So where does the hardest to balance archetype stand? "Gishes" (caster/martial hybrids) are very hard to get right. An imbalance can make them either worthless or aggressively overpowered. However, due to the evolving nature of spell casting, they prove very open to iterations.

Giving some thoughts on Pathfinder classes and how they compare with options in 5e, but first a preamble. My real entry into D&D was 3.5 (though after the actual published material had moved onto 4e) so I quickly became familiar with a metagame that was not just overly mature but long in the tooth. There was a steep power curve and a rigid tier system making certain choices "optimal"

Might as well be thorough while talking about #AstroCity, so let's talk about one of the more unlikely #SupermanAnalogue offerings: Steeljack! As with many characters in the series, we meet Carlie Donewicz years past his glory days. He had a career in his youth as "The Steel Jacketed Man", a Sandman style villain who was part of a Frightful Four style gang of medium power levels. He was their "strong guy".

Where was I? Oh, yes! Another #SupermanAnalogue of #AstroCity! This time it's Supersonic, and while the name may sound like more of a Flash type (though, we've been over this

https://twitter.com/CaseAiken/status/1085714127991918593?s=19

), his adventures 100% call back the Man of Steel's. Dale Enright was an aeronautical engineer who got caught in a turbine explosion and came out with vast might and durability, as well as an incredible flight speed. In flashbacks we see him having a slew of Silver Age Superman style adventures. However, we meet him long past that.

Woo boy... Uh time is meaningless right now. Sorry about that. Anywho, still in #AstroCity, or rather outside of town, so let's talk about Roustabout! He's the answer to a real city mouse missing her urban superheroes. Roustabout was yet another #SupermanAnalogue from the "Local Heroes" collection. The story follows a girl named Cammie who's staying with her cousins in the countryside. She complains that it's not as exciting as Astro City until she finds out there are heroes everywhere!

So "today" (I know it's after midnight) was #NationalSuperheroDay and really it's time I get out of this funk and get back to posting #SupermanAnalogue posts! So let's go back to my favorite city, @KurtBusiek's #AstroCity, and talk about a silver age love letter, Atomicus! Atomicus was a newly born radioactive being taken human form. The text explains not to dwell on the nature of the beings origin, just that he was a new being in the body of an adult. While he was knowledgeable and social, he lacked the experience of an adult to feel comfortable.

Time to get back at it with a weirder example of the #SupermanAnalogue: ULTRA the Multi-Alien! This is another composite character, but with a pump fiction sci-fi bent. In this case, a human swashbuckling hero in a far future who became fused with 4 alien pirates! How did a human become a composite of 4 aliens, you ask? Why they shot him. Yep. Ace Arn encountered a group of alien slavers, each armed with guns that would transform their targets into members of their own species but under their command. Does this make sense? Fuck no!

Let's pick up the spirit of things with a #SupermanAnalogue that is decidedly more lighthearted. Let's talk about Captain Hero from Drawn Together! Voiced by Wakko Warner himself, Jess Harnell, Captain Hero was an archetypal Superman type in a series full of archetypal characters, spoofing early aughts reality tv like #RealWorld, #SurrealLife, or #BigBrother.

So it's been awhile since I posted a #SupermanAnalogue post and that's because my company has been declared an essential service and I've been working more hours than usual. Would have been nice to have some help, like perhaps a feel of robots. Superman certainly thinks so! I mentioned them last time when I was talking about the 50s Power Man. By the time we got to the Silver Age, Superman (and his younger version Superboy) had become a very closely associated with having robot helpers to assist in maintaining their secret identity.

It's been a minute, due mostly to the craziness of the world. However, I've been at work, mostly listening to @LarryTye's book on Superman on audible. So even though this #SupermanAnalogue wasn't brought up, it's a bit of trivia that I've always meant to bring up: Power Man! Power Man appeared in a story where Superman was threatened by Kryptonite, but he didn't want to risk Batman and Robin's lives. Instead, he deployed a robot to act as his surrogate, disguised as a new hero. While he couldn't fly, he was plenty strong and able to handle shit.

How about a whole team full of warriors each in the class to be a #SupermanAnalogue? The Hyperclan were superbeings from outer space who came to fix our world and relieve us of our problems. But what if they're not all they appear to be? What? Even that dreamy Protex? Yup! The Hyperclan actually came to Earth to reclaim a world they saw as theirs, a world they rules when they expanded from Mars. That's right! These are White Martians! As strong and fast as Superman with shape shifting and telepathy.

DC has their own race of #SupermanAnalogue aliens out there (aside from the Kryptonians)! Several actually! And they can be used for a variety of stories as needed, villains, observers, or occasionally as heroes. So let's talk about the cousins of Kryptonians, the Daxamites! The most famous member is of course Lar Gand/Mon-El/Valor/M'Onel, aka Superboy's big brother! This guy is a silver age alien that young Clark Kent found, adopted as kin, then poisoned him like a petty bitch and imprisoned in a hell designed by his father. Wait...

I guess that any look works when the person wearing it is young and in shape, even skin tight white with gold and red accents! I guess that's why no one in the Supremacy has any issues. It's a whole heaven for #SupermanAnalogue characters who've been retconned out of existence! I covered Supreme a long time ago, but the nutshell is early Image expy of Superman who was vain and violent, with a shifting origin. Then Alan Moore came in and rebooted the character (Ha! Classic Moore!) And did so by having him actually meet all of his past iterations.

An all white body suit is hard to pull off, but what about a species of #SupermanAnalogue examples that rock the look? That's right, since we're definitely in the endgame for this series, it's time we talk about the big race of heavy hitters in the Invincible universe. So this is a race that's hard to talk about without spoiling good chunks of the series and I really don't want to do that because this is a book that I think is really worth reading from start to finish. I'm going to avoid big ones, but there is an early one that I have to note.

It has been awhile since I've done as blatant a #SupermanAnalogue. I've been saving this one, too. Today, I want to talk about "The American" from Cla$$War. A Superman for a Bush era commentary. Cla$$War was not... subtle. The series began in 2002 with Authority style hyper violence and even angrier politics. It featured the Superman of the Justice League expy group called "The Enola Gay" going AWOL when he realized that his actions were in the name of American hegemony.

How about a #SupermanAnalogue that was a man of mystery, despite being a powerhouse on a VERY mighty Justice League roster (Superman, Maxima, Yellow Ring Guy Gardner, Booster Gold). Today, I want to talk about Bloodwynd! Wait, who? That's the question we were all asking when he first showed up. But with powers like his, Bloodwynd was able to stand out. This guy was even present in the fight against Doomsday and did ok until exposed to his weakness.

How about a Starman who better for the #SupermanAnalogue when he was a Starboy? Thomas Kallor, formerly of the Legion of Superheroes a thousand years in the future, he travelled back in time to be the eighth Starman. So Starboy is mostly known for having the power to increase the mass of an object, making them super heavy. I guess it's a gravitational pull of a star thing. He was an old school Legionnaire, dating back to the early days.

Continuing with Starmen for my #SupermanAnalogue series, let's move on to Mikaal Tomas. As with most Starmen, I know the character mostly from the James Robinson series from the 90s, but this one dates back to the 70s... Obviously. The short version is that Mikaal is DC's version of Mar-Vell: he's an alien warrior, sent to infiltrate Earth, then discovers that he's cool with Earth and sides with humanity. He's powered by a star amulet which he at first wore around his neck before it was fused into his chest

Starman is a name borne by several DCU characters, but only some of them have been examples of the #SupermanAnalogue. The original was definitively not and the one I'm most familiar with, the 90s incarnation, also wasn't, so let's start with one that REALLY was: Will Payton. Uh...Will Payton is a character who I only have limited experience with. He was discussed a lot in the 90s book (which dwelled on the history of the name) and I remember characters like Wally West making cracks about him being one of the big guns. Never read the series, sadly.

Alright, let's talk about a character who was once described as "Superman meets Green Lantern" as this #SupermanAnalogue: Star Brand, the Mightiest hero of Marvel's New Universe, and has since been reimagined several times. Kenneth Connel originally, Kevin Conner when reimagined So, the Star Brand is a cosmic energy mark that channels vast power through a representative individual. Whomever bears it has access to vast energies, granting any number of abilities. The base abilities are physical, but it extends to flight, energy, and potential...

Let's take a trip back to the WildC.A.T.S. for the team's original #SupermanAnalogue the Spartan series robot called Hadrian! Spartan was part of the original roster introduced when the book was launched. He was the "balanced" one with a broad range of abilities rather than a specialist. Unlike most of the team, he was not an alien or human/alien hybrid, but rather a bodyguard robot... Or so we thought.