There’s something I need to tell you all, dear readers, and it may be a bitter pill to swallow. Superhero comics are just soap operas with spandex and punching. This also goes for professional wrestling, but that’s a topic for someone whose knowledge on the subject is more up to date than about 2003.
Don’t get me wrong, I like seeing superpeeps thrashing seven shades of superpoop out of each other as much as the next person, but the real reason people keep coming back to the ol’ funnybooks is the drama. Sure, Batman is cool, but would he still be popular after all these years if all he ever did was fight? Of course not! If that were the case, we’d be celebrating the 90s as a New Golden Age instead of quietly pretending they didn’t happen while making jokes about pouches and feet.
Unfortunately, the superbiffing is the easiest part of the whole thing to translate to video games, so that’s generally what we get. Occasionally a developer will remember that Batman is the World’s Greatest Detective, or that web-swinging is clearly the most fun part of being Spider-Man, but it’s usually in service to the fighty parts. Telltale’s Batman stands out as one of the few examples of something a little different.
Instead of going straight for action genres, or even something more strategic like the venerable Freedom Force or the forthcoming Midnight Suns, I reckon the best starting point for a great superhero game is actually The Sims.
No, no come back. Hear me out. It’s good, I promise.
Picture a game with the X-Men, the Teen Titans, or a generic cohabiting superteam if your imagination can’t afford a license. You build your own base of operations, stuff it full of Danger Rooms, living quarters and an insufficient quantity of loos, then let your supersquad loose within its confines.