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Ok well the following is essentially a barely skeletal outline of ideas for a comic.
Terminology
Indigo Children: All the primary characters are a rare breed. Indigo Children possess unique, creative, and unpredictable superhuman abilities. Approximately .00001% of the World's population of 7 billion people. are Indigo Children. These abilities have no known scientific explanation and sometimes are completely unexplainable by any sane person as to how they function. Indigo children appear human at the very least. These supermen sprang up from what was thought to be a rare
gene with no known effects four decades ago in an explosive event.

D.A.R.P.A: The primary division of US research. In the year 2056 there is immense conflict over resources. D.A.R.P.A abducts and weaponizes Indigo Children to serve as operatives, and basically biological howitzers.

The Forgotten One: The primary villain of the piece. Born from the "Greatest of the sons of god and the greatest of the daughters of man". The Forgotten one was sealed away in a massive tower in the Dark Continent by unknown parties for unknown reasons. What is known is that he is the source of the Indigo Children and is in excess of 300 million years old. He has recently escaped. For the Forgotten One as a character move down to the Character section.

Scary Monsters: Military term for the strange spawn of the Forgotten One, sealed away with thier father in the tower. They number in the millions and are absolutely terrifying. They are humanoid with clear males and females, but they have pronounced mouths, dramatically more natural musculature, possess inhumanly sharp canines, and mottled and rotten blue skin from their imprisonment, glowing neon blue blood visibly flowing through their body,
and stand 12-16 feet tall. They move in horrifying manners, displaying
innhuman and beastlike agility doing aerial flips, and unfurling their joints to deliver even more force with their blows. Only sustained tank fire can put them down, and they possess strength allowing them to rip military Humvees
to shreds. They have recently escaped along with their father, but they continue to wonder the dark continent.

The Dark Continent: A massive continent sized cave deep beneath the Earth's Crust with massive manmade structures, dwarfing any known manmade structures 5 fold, despite no signs of humanity ever being there. The area is covered in a massive redwood forest. it is damp and hot throughout the day and snows heavily throughout the night and morning.
Discovered in 2030. Marc and Dogma travel to this place to find out more about the seemingly unstoppable Forgotten One. During this time period they are constantly besieged by creatures referred to as Scary Monsters.

The Tower: A massive crystalline spire 15 miles in height where the Scary Monster and the Forgotten one are imprisoned inside. It is of completely unknown origins, and was discovered in the Dark Continent.
Arrows: Normally the only way for someone to possess powers is to be an Indigo Child, but through impaling oneself with the arrows, one can aquire powers. These are of an unknown origin. There are an unknown number of arrows in circulation. What is known is that no two are exactly alike, and they all grant unique powers. Indigo Children can use them on themselves to grant even more abilities.
Characters
Heroes
Marc Wallace: A former powerlifter abducted by DARPA after accounts of his strange feats. He is an indigo Child whose full strength is 225 times what his genetics and musclemass would imply....and these would imply his 1 rep bench max to be 1800 pounds. He does not possess super durability to go along with his godlike full strength, so at first he could only use his full strength for a fraction of a second before his muscles tear themselves apart.
Currently after training for 4 years, he can utilize his full strength for 22 seconds before collapsing. He was reported by his own wife for a small sum of money after he dragged a large car out of a river to save its passengers.
At first he was completely uncooperative with DARPA but when Santos gave him permission to exit the base, he returned to his wife. He found that she sold him out to DARPA, and was already banking on his life insurance.
He returned to DARPA's open arms and seeing as he had nothing but his wife, the agency has become his life.
He will do anything to carry out his objective, but takes loss of lives with the great weight and gravity it deserves. He's not at all serious, providing hilarious commentary at the agency of current events, but is silent when on
missions or fighting. He wears unique gloves that allow his fists to take the punishment they dish out.
Height: 7'2 Weight: 645 lbs

Dogma: Marc's partner and an indigo child raised by DARPA since his discovery. His ability allows him to magnify any force acting between any 2 objects by a factor of 100. This means he can crush normal humans under normally harmless gravity, make his punches and kicks dramatically stronger, pull cars towards people and work in conjuction with Marc for finishing moves with nearly a Megaton of force He has no name and is called Dogma for his support of whatever DARPA is enforcing. He appears normal but seems to be misogynistic due to being trained by predominantly male operatives, with the women in his life seeming weak in comparison.
Height:6'2 Weight: 235 pounds

Santos: Full name unknown. The major at the Indigo Children division of DARPA. An expert at dealing with any kind of people. He can talk abductees into giving their absoulute all for DARPA's causes. He attends all military funerals for DARPA's indigo children and cries manly sobs during all of them.

Villains
The Forgotten One: A 300 million year old enemy of humanity and a literal god. His long imprisonment has made him a literal avatar of hatred and controlled anger. He possesses godlike telekinesis capable of hurling entire redwood forests
like storms of giant spears, creating nigh impenetrable armor, augmenting his already seemingly limitless strength, combusting matter, and with effort creating massive gigaton explosions. He never makes any vocalizations,
and is so spite filled that while fighting Marc and Dogma, while heavily weakened after his rebirth, he would stop to brutally murder innocents, which our "heroes" used to escape. Some autopsies performed on his dormant
form reveal that the sinews in his arms and legs were removed rendering their use normally impossible without his telekinesis, his vocal cords were cut out from his throat, and that his wings were singed off at the shoulder, left as cruel stumps emerging from his
shoulders. Marc and Dogma find out much about him during their journey across the Dark Continent. It's probably best to think of him as the killer in the slasher movie, completely unkowable when he first appears but gradually More about his personality and history is found out as the series goes on. This is all spoilery, and kinda kills the mood the Forgotten One's first appearance tries to create. He is mute and does not talk, but through a little creative artistry emotion shows through his stone helmet and mask. He fights with complete abandon, slapping on telekinetic armor before a martial fight, being his only form of self preservation. He is in no way a trained fist fighter but possesses good instincts. Whenever in the middle of slowly killing innocents he makes a powerful, raspy laugh. He wears a strange full body armor made from a stone like substance, that appears to be skin tight. Attempts to breach the armor have all failed.
Height: 30'8 Weight: 24500 pounds

Vlad Petrikov: Brief hero of the prologue. A former DARPA agent and Indigo Child. His powers include a Vampire like physiology including strength to hurl small cars hundreds of yards, durability to take similar blows in return,
regeneration allowing him to rebuild his flesh
faster than fire can consume it, and a heavy weakness to sunlight. He later impales himself with an arrow to gain the ability to stop time for up 9 seconds, while he remains unaffected. The first real villain of the series
he acts as a lord over all illegal activity in Vegas. He is constantly being hunted by DARPA and lives in the lap of luxury. He possesses a charm women can not resist, and this same charm draws men to serve him, and throw away their lives for him. He never shuts up among enemies, constantly making boasts and threats. He is incredibly sadistic tossing matches at Marc and Dogma.Mark and Dogma are sent to deal with him. Props for knowing what this is a reference to.
Height: 6'6 Weight: 285 pounds

Kaine Delsette: a former scientist with the ability to turn into any species of dinosaur, and to infect others with a virus turning them into dinosaurs. He is brutally insane and is taken out by Vlad in the prologue. He seems to have no real drive.
Height: Varies Weight: Varies

Abel Delsette: Son of Abel Delsette, and an arrow user who watched his entire remaining family die in a fire that also took his sight, as a child . He is a powerful psychic and telekine, and requires these abilities to sense his surroundings.
He requires complete concentration to use his abilities and turns hysterical around fire. His father never returned from his visit to the dark continent, and while stumbling around blind in the burnt remnants of his former home, he
came upon an arrow from his father's collection and accidently impaled himself on it.
Height: 5'10 Weight:180 pounds

Thoughts?
Edit: Dakka fethed the spacing up. Fixed

One problem would be the title. Isn't heart of darkness, well, already taken? I mean do you even want to use it as a working title, because if you use it to garner interest in this under the working title before you change to the new title...that could be a problem, no?

Approximately .00001% of the World's population are Indigo Children.

Is this actually a significant number? What I mean is that is this a future where society has shrunk and that only adds to a hundred people or something, or is this a future where there are so many people living on earth that it is actually a really large number, even if not a large number in proportion to the rest of society?

The Dark Continent: A massive continent sized cave deep beneath the Earth's Crust with massive manmade structures, and dinosaurs from all prehistoric periods reimaged and made dramatically stronger after 300 million years of evolution.

Have they actually become intelligent and what not? Or are they just evolved in the sense that they have more spikes/teeth/etc to be better at killing, but are still just beasts.

 motyak wrote:
One problem would be the title. Isn't heart of darkness, well, already taken? I mean do you even want to use it as a working title, because if you use it to garner interest in this under the working title before you change to the new title...that could be a problem, no?

Huhh.......already
Well a working title is a title never meant to actually be used.
For example Godzilla 2014's working title was Nautilus.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 motyak wrote:
One problem would be the title. Isn't heart of darkness, well, already taken? I mean do you even want to use it as a working title, because if you use it to garner interest in this under the working title before you change to the new title...that could be a problem, no?

Approximately .00001% of the World's population are Indigo Children.

Is this actually a significant number? What I mean is that is this a future where society has shrunk and that only adds to a hundred people or something, or is this a future where there are so many people living on earth that it is actually a really large number, even if not a large number in proportion to the rest of society?

The whole point is its not, but the individuals are massively powerful.
About the Dark Continent: The dinosaurs there have evolved to be massively larger than their counterparts known to man. They are relatively intelligent, with the intelligence of a macaw.

Well the question was meant to also get an idea of the scale of your planned society.

 motyak wrote:
Well the question was meant to also get an idea of the scale of your planned society.

There's a lot to chew but I'd appreciate if you read through it.

I came in here expecting to see visual work done, and not just text.

So we have a guy that can bench press 1800 pounds, that doesn't seem all that strong when the world record atm for an equipped bench press is 1076lb. And that is in this year, if we're advancing the timeline 43 years, then it's pretty reasonable that we could set the record bench press at 1,100 pounds. 1800 doesn't seem all that much at that point :-\.

I mean unless this guy is as skinny as a twig, it doesn't seem all that impressive. Also, if he can hulk out if you will for a 22 seconds after training for 4 years, how did he manage enough strength to pull a car out of a river? Cars tend to not move in the best instances, a river most certainly is not the best. Also a car is near 2 tons in weight, sure he could probably pull or drag more than he can bench, but there seems to be a disconnect with his powers.

Dogma sounds like a prick and I know nothing about him, he also sounds like he's your typical 'anime military brat' that has been trained as a weapon, and while he's a prick early on in the story, we'll find out he's not such a bad guy. Also why is his name Dogma? Is it because he is a faithful servant to his 'masters'? Is he more Dog than Dogma?

So we know who the villains are already, well I no longer need to read this because we know how it's going to end. Mark and Dogma will come face to face with their various villains, and either have to train harder to beat them, or will beat them through some ludicrous deus ex machina that will propel Mark and Dogma to the top of the power food chain until the next villain stomps them into the ground.

The reason why motyak asked how large your society is, because it is important to figure out how many people are actually Indigo Children in your world. If the planet has 7 billion people, then .00001% of the population is 70,000 people, which is enough to take notice. If the planet has 300 million people then it's only 3,000 people and might have a better chance of being undiscovered/secreted away. Assuming that the world that this takes place on is similar to earth of 2013, then that means that there are roughly 120 people per square mile on earth's land, that number increases when you get rid of inhospitable places like deserts and mountains, and it gets crazier when you consider that humans live near seaports or freshwater sources. So assuming that there are 120 people in every square mile on earth, that means there are technically 12 Indigo Children in every 1000 sq miles (I think). But if you're looking at population density, that means that cities of 120,000 or more will have at roughly 12 Indigo Children or more. Look at cities like LA or New York. Populations in the millions. NYC alone would have almost 100 Indigo Children.

So instead of a population, I would probably pick a small number, maybe like there are only 100 in the world.

Also, what does the art look like?

I wonder if you're violating copyright in some manner due to the novel Heart of Darkness.

 Frazzled wrote:
I wonder if you're violating copyright in some manner due to the novel Heart of Darkness.

Joseph Conrad has been for quite a long time, so technically his work is in the public domain now. But I agree, Heart of Darkness doesn't really make sense in this case. You should title it Lord Jim.

Well Marc's 1 rep bench max would be 405000 pounds.
Some pencil art will be uploaded tonight. It will include a Forgotten One concept, a Vlad Petrikov concept, some art of the tower, and concepts of a few arrows. It's pretty good but it will take a year of two hours of work a day to finish issue 1, due to the art style.

 ThePrimordial wrote:
Well Marc's 1 rep bench max would be 405000 pounds.
Some pencil art will be uploaded tonight. It will include a Forgotten One concept, a Vlad Petrikov concept, some art of the tower, and concepts of a few arrows. It's pretty good but it will take a year of two hours of work a day to finish issue 1, due to the art style.

405,000 pounds? So this man can bench press 1800 pounds based on his 'genetics' and his 'musclemass' So what you're saying is here already looks like this and then some:


Also 2 years for 1 issue? how long are these issues going to be? O.o

There is a level of realism missing from this. *sigh* This seems like it's just you trying to copy w/e your favorite anime/manga is.

There are no Deus ex machinas. The heroes ca only get stronger through the arrows. And these can only be used once.
The whole point of having a villain like The Forgotten One is so our heroes have to use real world logic and planning to bring him down.
For example Abel is killed in the concept by lighting a fire in the house they're in, rendering him blind because he can't concentrate.

 Alfndrate wrote:

 ThePrimordial wrote:
Well Marc's 1 rep bench max would be 405000 pounds.
Some pencil art will be uploaded tonight. It will include a Forgotten One concept, a Vlad Petrikov concept, some art of the tower, and concepts of a few arrows. It's pretty good but it will take a year of two hours of work a day to finish issue 1, due to the art style.

405,000 pounds? So this man can bench press 1800 pounds based on his 'genetics' and his 'musclemass' So what you're saying is here already looks like this and then some:


Also 2 years for 1 issue? how long are these issues going to be? O.o

There is a level of realism missing from this. *sigh* This seems like it's just you trying to copy w/e your favorite anime/manga is.

There's nothing copied from anywhere. It takes inspiration from JoJo, Castlevania, X men, Real world conspiracy theories, and The more archaic parts of the bible.
Also complete realism in a comic? Get out. You just said that.

I'll put my analysis hat on for this, but I warn you in advance, I am going to be honest and harsh with this piece, but I hope you have the sense to know that I am taking a good chunk of time to analyze this and break it down for your benefit as a writer.

Anyway, going to go straight down through this thing:

Indigo Children - Eh...okay, I understand the need for special people for a superhero-level story, but I'll be honest with you, I hate this part: "These abilities have no known scientific explanation and sometimes are completely unexplainable by any sane person as to how they function." What it is telling me is that you want your super characters to be able to do anything without a functioning system behind it. I'm fine with over the top powers, but I'm not fine with them being just handwaved away. Take the time to build a reason for it, and a system. By having your special characters playing by a certain set of 'rules' (in the writing sense, not actual in-story rules), you create a more workable and believable system than if you just say 'oh they are BEYOND science, I don't need to explain it!' It comes across as handwaving, and leads to in-story power creep as terrible as something like Dragon Ball Z where there is nothing interesting that ever happens, and the solution to any problem is 'well they just hit some NEW super limit with even dumber glowing effects.'

DARPA - Blah. Same thing that EVERY major black ops/government/whatever organization does. It works, but it is just boring. You can do better than this.

The Forgotten One (going to do both parts of him here): This villain seems bizarre to me. First off, a question for you; is this set on something approaching normal Earth? If so, humanity wasn't around for 300 million years, and where is this Dark Continent? I feel like you are trying to have all of the cool stuff from both, without doing anything to really align them to any kind of coherent flow. Likewise, he seems hugely inconsistent, being described so many different ways that I, as a reader, get utterly confused and lose interest.

Like DARPA, this Forgotten One just seems like every godlike superevil thing you can get in any anime or show. I wouldn't say it is a copy, but it is just the blandest mix of uninteresting and uninvolving elements that you can get. And the fact that you made him this unspeaking god only takes away from his interest. Right now, he is just...a black evil cloud in my mind. He has absolutely no personality, no reason for anything other than "EVIL" and nothing to make me want to become invested in this story. This villain is pretty much a force of nature, which is not a bad thing in storytelling (look at any man vs nature story) but in this setting, and for what you have planned for him, there's not much there. What about him makes me want to become interested in him? He's just a pile of very 'safe' cliches. I'm going to encourage you to take more risks, go outside of your comfort zone and make an antagonist that actually has some meat to him, and is not just "super bad guy with power level 90000".

Scary Monsters - Hold on. I thought Indigo Children were like 0.00001% of the population, and now there's millions of them? No no no. As before, you're running into problems with consistency. You want monsters? Fine. Make them that. But if you do not have a clear, defined design mentality going into this, you continually get incoherent inconsistencies that raise larger plot hole questions. If these are Indigo Children, why are they like this and not the others? If they are so freaking terrifying, why is the military trying to weaponize them? (Cliche alert!). I get the sense that you first thought of the cool moves and powers before you created the backstory for these things, which just makes them real neat spectacles, but not anything I'd be interested in reading about.

Dark Continent and the Tower - So there's one question answered. And I'll level with you. This is just silly. I'd scrap this whole concept, as it just feels needlessly tacked on, and adding more goofy monsters and super powers to a setting that is already bursting with them.

Now the characters...

Marc - Eh. Sorry, but this is our hero? I don't really get it. There's nothing remotely interesting about him. He's just 'rar always complete the mission' burly white guy ever. And he can hulk out. Whoopee.

Dogma - Slightly better. At least he has something of a trace of personality, and reasons to grow and change through the story. And his power is more interesting than anything I've seen yet. Good one.

Vlad - Your DARPA is crap at keeping a hold of its agents. And frankly, I don't understand this guy's motivations. He has godlike superpowers...so he runs gangs in Vegas? I get wanting to remain innocuous if he is being hunted, but it doesn't seem like that's the case, so why is he wasting his time?

Kaine and Abel - GET RID OF THESE NAMES IMMEDIATELY, THEY ARE TURBO CLICHE. Seriously. They are doing nothing but adding a really cheap veneer of 'oh this has DEEP meaning', and as their descriptions turn out...this turns out to be meaningless. In all honesty, I'd get rid of them both. They are contributing nothing to your plot as a whole. Looking them over, I just roll my eyes, and that is not a good thing for your story.



Overall, I'm conflicted. You clearly posses some talent for writing, but I think a lot of it is wasted in playing things so terribly safe. Looking at the whole, I see nothing that is really new or breaking any kind of mold. It's just a collection of elements that turn up in video games and anime and anything else that has crappy writing. I also see no consideration towards a theme or an overall narrative structure. It comes across as slapdash an unplanned; instead of writing a STORY, you are writing out a collection of 'cool' scenes and thinking that stringing them together will create a story. It doesn't. All it succeeds in doing is making a large amount of spectacle, but with no actual substance or meaning for your readers to absorb. It's the literary equivalent of jangling keys in someone's face, or junk food. I got nothing against some good spectacle, but it loses its meaning and importance when the story is ONLY spectacle.

My advice? Get out of your comfort zone. It's killing you. Make a plan for your STORY, which involves a lot of outlining and planning out where you want characters to be and what events you want to happen, but most importantly, have something to SAY when those things happen. Stories have meanings, yours right now, is meaningless.

Really? You had to take the name of a very good book. And I agree with what the poster above me posted whole heartdely

 ThePrimordial wrote:
There's nothing copied from anywhere. It takes inspiration from JoJo, Castlevania, X men, Real world conspiracy theories, and The more archaic parts of the bible.
Also complete realism in a comic? Get out. You just said that.

I didn't say complete realism dude, I said a level of realism. Curran said it better than I could have because I was unsure of what exactly to say because there is a lot and nothing at the same time. Look at X-Men, how do they develop their powers? It's a mutation in a set of genes in the Human biology, so there is some science already backing up their powers. Genes mutate all the time in humans and animals, but never to that extreme. So just by basing it in science you're saying, "well it's plausible". There have also been decades dedicated in the comics to the research of x-gene, and how it relates to humans, and the differences between Homo Sapiens Sapiens (regular humans) and Homo Sapiens Superior (mutants). And even then, they have some way to tell the differences between the various mutant power levels. Now compare this to the Pseudoscience that is the Indigo Children (in real life, not in your world). Indigo Children is a thing, I googled it because I could have sworn they used the phrase in the video game Indigo Prophecy, but it's not a real thing and it's not even considered science. Now it's fine if you have in your world this idea that Indigo Children are a thing and develop powers as they do, but use some science to make it believable. Why are only 0.00001% of the world's population Indigo Children? In fact you never answered the size of your world, if it's based on our world, it's likely that the 7 billion number I threw out earlier is in fact too small, and we're closer to 100,000 Indigo Children across the world, that's larger than many mid-market cities. So some things to think about for your children:
1) What caused them (300 million year old dude living in an underworld continent)
2) How? (Genetic shift, magic, being born on a particular day)
2.1) Explain how old dude caused it (did he manipulate human genes over millenia to get it to produce the Indigo Children, magic because magic, were these kids all born on the same day)? If it is the last one, I suggest you stray away from that one, because it has been done before, and it has to be done really well for people to go along with it.
3) What is the downfall of their powers? Marc can shred his muscles, but since he's just a normal human with redonk strength, does this mean that he's got a shorter than average lifespan? Will Marc die by the time he's 30, or whenever. What is the downfall of Dogma's powers? does manipulating force in such a way mean that he can't control force enacted upon him? are his bones brittle, or does he have to follow Newton's laws of physics?

As to realism, sci-fi and fantasy only work if they're grounded in reality at some point. Dragzon Ball Z doesn't really work too well until you consider and accept the idea that you can draw in life force from the world around you in order to power up your ability to fight. The power levels in DBZ are very strict (if a little out of control near the end of the series). A person of power level 10,000 will have little to no trouble beating someone of power level 5,000 in a fair fight, but speed, strength, technique, etc... can influence a person's power level in the DBZ world. But in your world we have magic, sci-fi, fantasy, and tropes that one can find in anime, but nothing to root it into reality. Work on that.

Also, you most certainly have deus ex machina. You even said it yourself, "The heroes ca[n] only get stronger through the arrows." So if our 'heroes' are fighting the Forgotten One, and they're getting their butts kicked, and they need to get stronger. 1 of 2 things happen, either hey get their arrow which becomes "a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object." So this arrow grants them new abilities, powers, etc... and they're able to beat the Forgotten One. Or, they get their butts handed to them, run away with their tail between their legs and go in search of several of these arrows which in turns makes the characters stronger. Which at that point you have to be careful not to turn the arrows into a maguffin, or else you're just ruined the entire reason as to why they're in the story.

Again, I think you're pulling too much from your favorite media, so we're going to get things like JoJo, Guts from Berserk, ludicrious things that just serve as nothing more than a person's "leik omg look at my totes 'homage' to this story"

Well footprints identical to modern humans have been found which are tens- hundreds of millions of years old.
Like I said it takes inspiration from conspiracy theories.
The Forgotten One isn't a typical villain to say the least. Doesn't talk, has no known goals besides genocide, and is completely unknown in every aspect.
He's heavily based on the biblical nephilim.
Keep in mind with the unknown to science stuff that they all carry blood from the forgotten one who is in no way human and supernatural.
I'll make scary monsters demons by another name, and remove the sillier aspects of the dark continent though.
Thank you for the comment.

 ThePrimordial wrote:
Well footprints identical to modern humans have been found which are tens- hundreds of millions of years old.

That is extremely incorrect, in fact the oldest footprints found are 1.5 million years old with homo sapiens themselves only being 2.5 million years old. Lucy, the remains of one of humans earliest ancestors is 3.2 million years old. But a 'human' that long ago would have had a different gait and stride to modern humans (hell even very different to their 1.5 million year old counterpart). This all has to do with the fact that mammals didn't exist until 256 million years ago.

Like I said it takes inspiration from conspiracy theories.

This is fine, but you still have to base these things in reality in some respect.

Keep in mind with the unknown to science stuff that they all carry blood from the forgotten one who is in no way human and supernatura

Blood can be studied, anything that is in their blood that isn't in normal blood would be picked up during testing. This is assuming you mean literal blood. If you mean they are born of/from the Forgotten One, then again genetics. What makes them different from a regular human. From everything we know they are exactly like a person except for the fact they have Forgotten One blood in them. If they were supernatural and beyond the scope of human understanding, Marc probably wouldn't rip himself to shreds when he hulks out for more than 22 seconds.

The Forgotten One isn't a typical villain to say the least. Doesn't talk, has no known goals besides genocide, and is completely unknown in every aspect.
He's heavily based on the biblical nephilim.

So why make him a villain? Genocide isn't interesting to read about, it's not a compelling motivator for a villain, it's just mindless slaughter. He no better than a rabid animal.

 Alfndrate wrote:

 ThePrimordial wrote:
Well footprints identical to modern humans have been found which are tens- hundreds of millions of years old.

That is extremely incorrect, in fact the oldest footprints found are 1.5 million years old with homo sapiens themselves only being 2.5 million years old. Lucy, the remains of one of humans earliest ancestors is 3.2 million years old. But a 'human' that long ago would have had a different gait and stride to modern humans (hell even very different to their 1.5 million year old counterpart). This all has to do with the fact that mammals didn't exist until 256 million years ago.

Like I said it takes inspiration from conspiracy theories.

This is fine, but you still have to base these things in reality in some respect.

Keep in mind with the unknown to science stuff that they all carry blood from the forgotten one who is in no way human and supernatura

Blood can be studied, anything that is in their blood that isn't in normal blood would be picked up during testing. This is assuming you mean literal blood. If you mean they are born of/from the Forgotten One, then again genetics. What makes them different from a regular human. From everything we know they are exactly like a person except for the fact they have Forgotten One blood in them. If they were supernatural and beyond the scope of human understanding, Marc probably wouldn't rip himself to shreds when he hulks out for more than 22 seconds.

The Forgotten One isn't a typical villain to say the least. Doesn't talk, has no known goals besides genocide, and is completely unknown in every aspect.
He's heavily based on the biblical nephilim.

So why make him a villain? Genocide isn't interesting to read about, it's not a compelling motivator for a villain, it's just mindless slaughter. He no better than a rabid animal.

Well as to the footprint http://banoosh.com/blog/2012/12/10/290-million-year-old-footprint-found-in-new-mexico/
BTW not everything has to be exactly correct to fit in reality.
I guess I'll edit the above. It was late at night when I posted this and I was using month old notes.

 ThePrimordial wrote:
Well as to the footprint http://banoosh.com/blog/2012/12/10/290-million-year-old-footprint-found-in-new-mexico/
BTW not everything has to be exactly correct to fit in reality.
I guess I'll edit the above. It was late at night when I posted this and I was using month old notes.

http://paleo.cc/paluxy/zapata.htm
Debunked, sorry bro. Though it's not like you can't use that to justify things from that far ago, you'll just have people going, "um... wtf?"

I would love to see some panels and lettering or just storyboards. I gotta say i was disappointed to see just text in the thread.

I am not 100% behind the name, using an existing title can come off as overly provocative. Not to mention it shackles you to reader expectations derived from the original title.

 ThePrimordial wrote:
Well footprints identical to modern humans have been found which are tens- hundreds of millions of years old.

I could argue that, and your link. But that is off-topic. Suffice to say, that footprint is far too 'perfect' to be anything more than a hoax, imo. Especially when compared to known human footprint fossils.

Edit: Thanks Alfndrate for the link! I'm no paleontology buff, but that photo raised all kinds of red flags to me, glad you found some more info.

Like I said it takes inspiration from conspiracy theories.

Again, as I said before, that's boring, well-trod ground. Which conspiracy theories? What are you going to do with conspiracy theories that are remotely new or interesting? You're falling into the same trap as the rest of your content in that you are aping the exteriors of media you like, without any consideration for substantive writing. Saying 'it's inspired by conspiracy theories' means nothing to me as a reader because it is a bloodless, toothless statement. Do something creative. You don't need to completely shatter the molds, but right now, you're not saying anything.

The Forgotten One isn't a typical villain to say the least. Doesn't talk, has no known goals besides genocide, and is completely unknown in every aspect.
He's heavily based on the biblical nephilim.

Exceptionally boring. You might as well have the villain be a tornado, or a particularly vicious rock, then. There's nothing particularly engaging about this kind of villain for a reader, and as a writer, I have to ask you why are you so afraid of adding more to your story? Again, saying 'it's based on Nephilim' (which parts, if I might ask, and what source are you using) means nothing, as the character is just a cardboard cutout. Putting a post-it note that says 'oh he has all this basis' doesn't change that fact. All this thing really is, right now, is a punching bag for your hero to wail on and to thwart. This is a bad Saturday morning action cartoon at this point.

Keep in mind with the unknown to science stuff that they all carry blood from the forgotten one who is in no way human and supernatural.

More handwaving. What does any of that even MEAN? Are you even sure of that yourself? Right now, it just sounds like you wanted to make something that sounded cool, and put no thought into how that is going to make an interesting narrative. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that, in your plans there are scenes where our heroes turn all demonic, right? Or somehow get evil power? Yeah. This is nothing interesting, it's all so predictable.

 curran12 wrote:

 ThePrimordial wrote:
Well footprints identical to modern humans have been found which are tens- hundreds of millions of years old.

I could argue that, and your link. But that is off-topic. Suffice to say, that footprint is far too 'perfect' to be anything more than a hoax, imo. Especially when compared to known human footprint fossils.

Edit: Thanks Alfndrate for the link! I'm no paleontology buff, but that photo raised all kinds of red flags to me, glad you found some more info.

Like I said it takes inspiration from conspiracy theories.

Again, as I said before, that's boring, well-trod ground. Which conspiracy theories? What are you going to do with conspiracy theories that are remotely new or interesting? You're falling into the same trap as the rest of your content in that you are aping the exteriors of media you like, without any consideration for substantive writing. Saying 'it's inspired by conspiracy theories' means nothing to me as a reader because it is a bloodless, toothless statement. Do something creative. You don't need to completely shatter the molds, but right now, you're not saying anything.

The Forgotten One isn't a typical villain to say the least. Doesn't talk, has no known goals besides genocide, and is completely unknown in every aspect.
He's heavily based on the biblical nephilim.

Exceptionally boring. You might as well have the villain be a tornado, or a particularly vicious rock, then. There's nothing particularly engaging about this kind of villain for a reader, and as a writer, I have to ask you why are you so afraid of adding more to your story? Again, saying 'it's based on Nephilim' (which parts, if I might ask, and what source are you using) means nothing, as the character is just a cardboard cutout. Putting a post-it note that says 'oh he has all this basis' doesn't change that fact. All this thing really is, right now, is a punching bag for your hero to wail on and to thwart. This is a bad Saturday morning action cartoon at this point.

Keep in mind with the unknown to science stuff that they all carry blood from the forgotten one who is in no way human and supernatural.

More handwaving. What does any of that even MEAN? Are you even sure of that yourself? Right now, it just sounds like you wanted to make something that sounded cool, and put no thought into how that is going to make an interesting narrative. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that, in your plans there are scenes where our heroes turn all demonic, right? Or somehow get evil power? Yeah. This is nothing interesting, it's all so predictable.

No such scenes. If you base your assumptions off of copying off anime, and books your gonna end up wrong constantly. Again the whole point of having a villain on a whole different level to the heroes is that they have to apply real logic, their environment, traps, and some pretty impressive plans to beat them. This is typical of JoJo.
I mentioned I was using month old notes and have updated the characters with my new notes.
Stuff based on biblical conspiracy theories is NEW ground bud. At least know what you're saying.
Also ever heard of Lovecraft? Another basis for the villain. If you find that boring I just cant help you.

No such scenes. If you base your assumptions off of copying off anime, and books your gonna end up wrong constantly. Again the whole point of having a villain on a whole different level to the heroes is that they have to apply real logic, their environment, traps, and some pretty impressive plans to beat them. This is typical of JoJo.

See most alien movies. Alien, Aliens, Predator and plenty others spring to mind that match your description. And traps? When did traps enter the equation? Your superhero superpower story just took on a survivalist trap-making aspect as well? I'm confused.

Stuff based on biblical conspiracy theories is NEW ground bud. At least know what you're saying.

Yes, because getting an attitude at me for trying to help is very useful. Sorry, but Biblical stories and conspiracies are not really that new. Can you tell me which ones you are thinking of going with specifically? Maybe that will help me see your position a little better.

Also ever heard of Lovecraft? Another basis for the villain. If you find that boring I just cant help you.

Lovecraft is good. But he is vastly, vastly overdone, primarily in video games. So it's a Cthulu sort of thing, and? You keep spouting names out at me, and asking me if those are good enough, but you're missing my point. My question to you is what are you going to do with those ideas, which have been done a lot by others, to distinguish your work from the rest?

 curran12 wrote:

No such scenes. If you base your assumptions off of copying off anime, and books your gonna end up wrong constantly. Again the whole point of having a villain on a whole different level to the heroes is that they have to apply real logic, their environment, traps, and some pretty impressive plans to beat them. This is typical of JoJo.

See most alien movies. Alien, Aliens, Predator and plenty others spring to mind that match your description. And traps? When did traps enter the equation? Your superhero superpower story just took on a survivalist trap-making aspect as well? I'm confused.

Stuff based on biblical conspiracy theories is NEW ground bud. At least know what you're saying.

Yes, because getting an attitude at me for trying to help is very useful. Sorry, but Biblical stories and conspiracies are not really that new. Can you tell me which ones you are thinking of going with specifically? Maybe that will help me see your position a little better.

Also ever heard of Lovecraft? Another basis for the villain. If you find that boring I just cant help you.

Lovecraft is good. But he is vastly, vastly overdone, primarily in video games. So it's a Cthulu sort of thing, and? You keep spouting names out at me, and asking me if those are good enough, but you're missing my point. My question to you is what are you going to do with those ideas, which have been done a lot by others, to distinguish your work from the rest?

Well yeah biblical stories coming true is nothing new but flat out conspiracies like incorporating interpretations of the nephilim from the vague wording of the old testament is mostly untrodden ground.
Predator has nothing to do with this (the concept is similar at it's core: man vs powerful monster). Survivalist traps? Someone is grasping at straws. A trap is simply any area set up to gain an advantage over a more physically imposing enemy. Like say they lead a villain into the tower and collapse it on top of them. I really more or less meant plans involving the environment.
I've already kinda shown what. An unstoppable villain with horror implications, based on biblical conspiracies. Far more creative powers. Battles that play out like actual fights utilizing the environment, plans, and psychology to help deal with much more powerful opposition. And a much more colorful background compared to normal superhero stories (in normal superhero stories :IE This is a city. This is a forest.) And a lore to hold it all together.

Jesus Christ I cant get my camera to work.
I have all my concepts on physical paper, so I need to take photos of them and upload them.
The concepts will be up before Thanksgiving in the first post.

ThePrimordial wrote:No such scenes. If you base your assumptions off of copying off anime, and books your gonna end up wrong constantly. Again the whole point of having a villain on a whole different level to the heroes is that they have to apply real logic, their environment, traps, and some pretty impressive plans to beat them. This is typical of JoJo.
I mentioned I was using month old notes and have updated the characters with my new notes.
Stuff based on biblical conspiracy theories is NEW ground bud. At least know what you're saying.
Also ever heard of Lovecraft? Another basis for the villain. If you find that boring I just cant help you.

So you're not copying things from an anime, but you're saying the heroes have to do some "pretty impressive plans to beat them," which is fine, I'm all for grandiose schemes! But then you say, "This is typical of JoJo" so you're pulling inspiration from an anime, cool, that sounds terribly exciting. Using biblical conspiracy theories is not new ground dude, A seemingly unknown author named Dan Brown has dabbled in biblical conspiracy theories, in fact it's probably one of the most use tropes in literature and film. Sure there are lesser known whacky things in the Good Book, but biblical conspiracies are nothing new. And Lovecraft's Mythos didn't just have gods that wanted Genocide, the mere mention of their names instill madness. These are beings so alien to us as humans that their existence drives beings mad, seeing a Great Old One destroys the mind, cripples the soul, and maims the body. The reason why the Elder Gods are as terrifying as they are is because we can see how just the mention of their name, the depiction of their image can drive men to the brink. These are beings that do not give a fat frog's ass about us because in their mind we are no better than an ant crawling through a kitchen. Your villain doesn't talk, doesn't have any goals (known to us), and just kills people. Cthulhu and the Elder Gods are so much genocidal maniacs are they beings that rip the fabric of reality just by existing. To wake them is to destroy everything we know in an instant.

ThePrimordial wrote:Well yeah biblical stories coming true is nothing new but flat out conspiracies like incorporating interpretations of the nephilim from the vague wording of the old testament is mostly untrodden ground.
Predator has nothing to do with this (the concept is similar at it's core: man vs powerful monster). Survivalist traps? Someone is grasping at straws. A trap is simply any area set up to gain an advantage over a more physically imposing enemy. Like say they lead a villain into the tower and collapse it on top of them. I really more or less meant plans involving the environment.
I've already kinda shown what. An unstoppable villain with horror implications, based on biblical conspiracies. Far more creative powers. Battles that play out like actual fights utilizing the environment, plans, and psychology to help deal with much more powerful opposition. And a much more colorful background compared to normal superhero stories (in normal superhero stories :IE This is a city. This is a forest.) And a lore to hold it all together.

If your villain was truly an unstoppable villain with horror implications combat between him and the heroes would never be a thing, the fact that you're even implying that the Forgotten One can be stopped (if he is indeed as powerful as you seem to be implying), then he should take one look at your heroes and eviscerate them without a thought. If you wish to create horror, you have to build tension, a genocidal creature doesn't instill tension or horror, especially when it's something that can be beaten. Jason isn't a scary horror movie character anymore because we've seen how he can be killed, we know he's killable. Just because he keeps coming back doesn't make him scarier, it just means that someone thinks they can do his story better then someone else.

ThePrimordial wrote:Jesus Christ I cant get my camera to work.
I have all my concepts on physical paper, so I need to take photos of them and upload them.
The concepts will be up before Thanksgiving in the first post.

Go to a library, borrow a scanner...


With all of that said, I think you have a lot to work out with your story... but it doesn't seem like you're willing to take too much criticism...

 Alfndrate wrote:

ThePrimordial wrote:No such scenes. If you base your assumptions off of copying off anime, and books your gonna end up wrong constantly. Again the whole point of having a villain on a whole different level to the heroes is that they have to apply real logic, their environment, traps, and some pretty impressive plans to beat them. This is typical of JoJo.
I mentioned I was using month old notes and have updated the characters with my new notes.
Stuff based on biblical conspiracy theories is NEW ground bud. At least know what you're saying.
Also ever heard of Lovecraft? Another basis for the villain. If you find that boring I just cant help you.

So you're not copying things from an anime, but you're saying the heroes have to do some "pretty impressive plans to beat them," which is fine, I'm all for grandiose schemes! But then you say, "This is typical of JoJo" so you're pulling inspiration from an anime, cool, that sounds terribly exciting. Using biblical conspiracy theories is not new ground dude, A seemingly unknown author named Dan Brown has dabbled in biblical conspiracy theories, in fact it's probably one of the most use tropes in literature and film. Sure there are lesser known whacky things in the Good Book, but biblical conspiracies are nothing new. And Lovecraft's Mythos didn't just have gods that wanted Genocide, the mere mention of their names instill madness. These are beings so alien to us as humans that their existence drives beings mad, seeing a Great Old One destroys the mind, cripples the soul, and maims the body. The reason why the Elder Gods are as terrifying as they are is because we can see how just the mention of their name, the depiction of their image can drive men to the brink. These are beings that do not give a fat frog's ass about us because in their mind we are no better than an ant crawling through a kitchen. Your villain doesn't talk, doesn't have any goals (known to us), and just kills people. Cthulhu and the Elder Gods are so much genocidal maniacs are they beings that rip the fabric of reality just by existing. To wake them is to destroy everything we know in an instant.

ThePrimordial wrote:Well yeah biblical stories coming true is nothing new but flat out conspiracies like incorporating interpretations of the nephilim from the vague wording of the old testament is mostly untrodden ground.
Predator has nothing to do with this (the concept is similar at it's core: man vs powerful monster). Survivalist traps? Someone is grasping at straws. A trap is simply any area set up to gain an advantage over a more physically imposing enemy. Like say they lead a villain into the tower and collapse it on top of them. I really more or less meant plans involving the environment.
I've already kinda shown what. An unstoppable villain with horror implications, based on biblical conspiracies. Far more creative powers. Battles that play out like actual fights utilizing the environment, plans, and psychology to help deal with much more powerful opposition. And a much more colorful background compared to normal superhero stories (in normal superhero stories :IE This is a city. This is a forest.) And a lore to hold it all together.

If your villain was truly an unstoppable villain with horror implications combat between him and the heroes would never be a thing, the fact that you're even implying that the Forgotten One can be stopped (if he is indeed as powerful as you seem to be implying), then he should take one look at your heroes and eviscerate them without a thought. If you wish to create horror, you have to build tension, a genocidal creature doesn't instill tension or horror, especially when it's something that can be beaten. Jason isn't a scary horror movie character anymore because we've seen how he can be killed, we know he's killable. Just because he keeps coming back doesn't make him scarier, it just means that someone thinks they can do his story better then someone else.

ThePrimordial wrote:Jesus Christ I cant get my camera to work.
I have all my concepts on physical paper, so I need to take photos of them and upload them.
The concepts will be up before Thanksgiving in the first post.

Go to a library, borrow a scanner...


With all of that said, I think you have a lot to work out with your story... but it doesn't seem like you're willing to take too much criticism...

Well technically I've been taking criticism to heart. I dramatically changed the nature of the Scary Monster and The Dark Continent. Don't know if you noticed that.
What do you mean? Well its obvious you cant have an aspect of hatred, anger, and spite who ENJOYS doing what he's doing win. Didn't I go over this with my edits? Well basically what I said is that after waking up half dead he seems unstoppable and emotionless (IE like a horror villain). But again gradually more is learned about him and his more "humanized" (kinda the point of the character, the other villains act human, creating a stark contrast) portrayal by the pen is explained by heroes having precursory knowledge of him.
So one other writer you know of (google searched to even gather up some retorts). Is this supposed to make something not "mostly untread ground"?

To answer a question the first issue will be over 50 pages. I have 12 done.