A YJA Moment - The Brotherhood

The organization known as the Brotherhood is a militant and ofttimes violent metahuman organization.  Its goal is the protection metahumans and the destruction of any governmental or societal constructs that would oppress.

It was originally formed as the Brotherhood of Metahumans during the 1960s by famous Nazi hunter and magnetokinetic Erik Lensherr, who had been tortured by HYRDA and the Ubersoldaten during the war because of his active Meta-Gene.  He originally created the Brotherhood as a mutual support network with other Metahumans, helping them understand and adjust to their newfound powers.  

In this, he was aided by super-intelligent scientist Clifford "The Brain" Carmichael in his endeavor.  Carmichael was instrumental in helping the Brotherhood understand the mega-gene but also helped develop the treatments that would slow Lensherr's aging.  He also rekindled a friendship with telepath Charles Xavier, who was also studying the metahuman genome.

As time went on Lensherr became distressed by reports of known metahumans disappearing.  There were apparently secret organizations that were interested in the collection and elimination of those who expressed meta-gene-related powers.  More disturbing was that many of these individuals had been unknown until the Brotherhood had discovered them.

Eventually, he discovered that Carmichael had been covertly working with the government, securing funding for projects by selling metahuman secrets to Weapons Plus and the Office of National Emergency.  Enraged, he confronted The Brain but Xavier was able to convince him to let him go.  

Carmichael left with his followers and for a time there were two Brotherhoods.  Lensherr's Brotherhood continued in the shadows to protect metahumans but was proving more and more militant.  The Brain's Brotherhood descended into more classic villainy and was a continual foe of the Marvel Family.

Eventually, the two Brotherhoods clashed and despite Charles again asking for mercy, Lensherr and his followers decimated the Brain's organization and left Charmichael for dead.  Disgusted, Xavier walked away from his old friend and used his family inheritance to form the Xavier Academy to continue the good work that he and Lensherr had started.

Charmichael survived his assault but his body was permanently damaged as a result.  After years living as a quadriplegic, the Ultra-Humanite would place his brain in an advanced containment vessel, truly becoming The Brain in the process.

Lensherr and his followers would continue to operate in secret until the aftermath of the Reach invasion.  They anti-metahuman hysteria accompanying the release of the Reach Papers, as well as the increase in metahuman abductions and incarcerations has lead Lensherr to become a more public force against metahuman oppression.

Taking on the derogatory term for metahumans, the group emerged as the Brotherhood of Mutants.  Lensherr, now going by the code-name Magneto, has put the world on notice.  Metahumans will no longer accept shackles and cages and anyone who attempts harm them will have to face the full force of the Brotherhood.

A YJ Moment - The Squadron Supreme

Lex Luthor's attempt to supplant the legacy of the Justice League with Stormwatch hinged on core six members of the team, the so-called Squadron Supreme.

Using the knowledge gained from Superboy and Bizarro, Hyperion was a clone of General Zod, spliced with the DNA of yet-unrevealed metahuman.  The pairing gave him superior physical capabilities along with an ability to manipulate light.  His physiology is missing vital drugs required for his metabolism.  Without regular injections from Stormwatch technicians, Hyperion will die.

Nighthawk was designed to defeat Batman.  He was a trained special forces soldier, augmented with bleeding-edge cybernetics and nanotechnology allowing superior physical abilities and healing.  A tactical computer continually updated his mind with technical data allowing him to devise a winning strategy before the first punch is thrown.  His implants have imposed a directive to follow Luthor's commands.

Glory was the daughter of the Amazonian Demeter and an unnamed demonic entity.  This demon had attempted to infiltrate Paradise Island to raid its relics but both of them were discovered by Diana and defeated.  Having mercy on Demeter, she was exiled and gave birth to an albino she named Glory.  She was uneasy about being the team's Wonder Woman but wanted somewhere to belong.

The Blur was secretly Eobard Thawne the Reverse-Flash.  Using advanced technology from the future he altered his features to appear as the fictional James Sanders.  His speed powers have recently been enhanced by his embracing of the Negative Speed Force.  Thawne's aim was to use Lex Luthor and his team to get at his young self, the newest Flash.

With Sinestro in custody. Luthor took his gift, the Power Prism, one of Krona's ring prototypes and orchestrated the unwitting subject, Jessica Cruz, finding it and wearing it.  The prism can access all of the emotional spectra but using is hazardous to human life.  Jessica is slowly dying but is unable to remove the ring - ensuring her loyalty to Luthor who promises to find a cure for her "condition"

Namor the Sub-Mariner is a half-Atlantean, half-metahuman.  After joining the Allies during World War II he attempted repeatedly to conquer Atlantis but each time was defeated by the armies of Queen Atlanna.  In modern day he was a thorn in the side of both Aquaman and his brother Ocean Master.  Luthor has offered him aid in taking the throne from current monarch Queen Mera, in exchange for his loyalty.

A YJA Moment - Super-Soldier Serum

Long before even concept of the metahuman was in the human consciousness, scientists of the Western world has been focused on creating enhanced individuals. The best example of this was the various incarnations of a drug that is known in the modern day as the Super Soldier Serum.

Its believed that the source of the serum the Wakandan plant known as the Heart-Shaped Herb, Altered by the unique properties of Vibranium, the Herb was a central part of a mystical ritual that imbues each Black Panther with augmented human abilities.

At some point, the Herbs were smuggled out of the African nation and made their way to England, where they were used in the experiments of Doctor Henry Jekyll and Professor Abednego Danner. These experiments with the serum did enhance the body but often caused physical and mental side-effects, such as the atavistic creation of Edward Hyde or the megalomaniacal behavior of "The Gladiator" Hugo Danner.

The greatest success with the Serum was seen by the scientists Abraham Erskine during World War Two. Originally working for the German Ubersoldaten program, Erskine defected to the Allies where he refined his formula in Project: Rebirth and created the first Captain America, Steve Rogers. The secret to the stabilization of the formula was with the exotic radiation he called Vita-Rays. Erskine kept the source of this radiation secret and the only known emitter was destroyed with his assassination.

With the loss of the source of Vita-Rays, successive experiments with the Super Soldier Serum proved unsuccessful. Subjects exposed to the serum continued to suffer physical and mental ailments which limited their usefulness on the battlefield. In fact, many of the issues would ultimately prove fatal.

Rebirth Scientist Rex Tyler would dilute the formula to create Miraclo pills. This drug granted the user the powers of the Super Soldier Serum without any side-effects but only for an hour at a time. Instead of turning over Miraclo to the government, Tyler would use the pills to become the super-hero known as Hourman.

After the war, experimentation with the Super Soldier Serum would continue, with Project: Rebirth's facilities being folded into Weapons Plus, a larger organization focused on metahuman research and exploitation. Work on a new Serum continued with Erskine's assistant Josef Reinstein with little success - all test subjects including "Captain America" William Burnside were driven insane.

Years later Mendel Stromm, a scientist working at Oscorp attempted to reformulate the Serum to negate the need of a stabilizing agent. He would test this on military volunteers, creating the future-mercenary Deathstroke the Terminator in the process. Stromm's boss Norman Osborne would also take the formula, becoming the villain Green Goblin. Like Reinstein's formula, Stromm's Serum had severe mental side-effects.

Doctor Bruce Banner theorized that other forms of radiation might be able to replace Vita-Radiation in stabilizing the formula in the user's body. Refusing to use unwitting or coerced test subjects, Banner insisted on testing his process on himself. Using Gamma Radiation on the Serum, Banner gained super-human abilities but was also grossly mutated in a manner similar to Mr. Hyde. Designated The Hulk, Weapons Plus would attempt to recreate the process to create weapons of mass destruction, creating the Abomination and Damage in the process.

Although no known projects using variants of the Super Soldier Serum are currently operating, it will continue to be an important tool for human enhancement for the foreseeable future.

A YJA Moment - Covert Action Teams

The term Covert Action Team refers to metahuman operatives which operate for governments.  Although the best example of C.A.T. remains with Task Force X, it would be a mistake to believe that they were the first or solitary group to exist.

Indeed the origins of Covert Action Teams begins with World War Two and the team known as the Howling Commandos.  Lead by Jack Fury, the Commandos were the elite unit in the United States military tasked with undertaking the most dangerous and classified missions.  They were so secret that the few people who were aware of them referred to them simply Team Zero.

After 1950, the United States was without a national super-team.  The Justice Society had disbanded after refusing to comply with the House Un-American Activities Committee and the government propaganda machine and turned the public against costumed super-heroics.

Yet the country still needed protection from so-called super-villains and the looming threat of enhanced Communist agents.  So drawing from the example of Team Zero, they created the concept of Covert Action Teams.

Team One was the first Covert Action Team that the government-sanctioned.  Composed of both government-created operatives and former costumed heroes who had sworn loyalty oaths, the short-lived Team One was first tasked in fighting a Dire Wraith incursion in the 1960s.  

This was followed up by a host of successive teams, created for various projects. Though originally asked with protecting the nation, they soon became opportunities to field test the latest government attempts at creating enhanced individuals.  The most successful of these early teams, Team Seven, was created during the Vietnam War and continued until the early 2000s.

However, the most infamous Covert Action Team in existence is Team Ten, also known as Task Force X.  Sanctioned by the shadowy Weapon Plus, Task Force X had originally served as a testing ground for soldier-enhancement projects, not unlike Team Seven.  When using military personnel became problematic, the project turned to the incarcerated as test subjects.  Eventually, Task Force X was offering super-villains pardons in exchange for conducting black operations for the government.

Years before the debut of the Avengers, the Office of National Emergency had fielded their own Covert Action Team.  Code-named The Sword, this team helped protect the nation from the shadows.  When Director Nick Fury debuted The Shield as the national super-team, The Sword was folded into the organization, become Avengers Team Omega also known as the Secret Avengers.

A YJA Moment - Metahumans

The term Metahuman was originally coined by the Strategic Science Reserve in World War Two to denote individuals with extraordinary abilities.  Individuals like Captain America Steve Rogers, Jim Hammond the original Human Torch, and Namor McKenzie the Sub-Mariner all were defined as metahumans despite the disparate origins of their abilities.  

It wasn't until after the war ended that research into the human genome that metahuman came to be defined as those who possessed the "meta-gene" sequence responsible for giving individuals powers.

The origins of the meta-gene are largely unknown but it's not believed to have been the result of natural evolution.  There are many ancient species who could easily have altered the genetic structure of humanity, including the ancient and mysterious beings known as the Celestials.

Metahuman abilities have no single triggering mechanism.  For most, developing their powers comes with the physical and biochemical changes in puberty.  However, the adrenaline from internal trauma or external influences such as various frequencies of radiation can also be responsible.  

For instance, in an attempt to create weapons in their endless war against the Skrulls, the Kree developed the compound Terragen which kick-started the meta-gene but often caused more severe mutations as a result.  A spike in metahumans was also reported after the Particle Accelerator accident in Central City.

Although metahumans have been around for most of the modern era, the public has never really considered the ramifications of their existence.  As long as these individuals were relatively rare and fought crime in bright costumes, society at large was content.

With the release of the Reach Papers and the realization that those with latent or expressed meta-genes could number in the tens of thousands, there has been some hysteria amongst the fringes of society.  

Groups like the Friends of Humanity have condemned metahumans as freaks, while the militant Brotherhood heralds them as the next step in evolution.  Throughout the world, metahumans have earned a new derogatory nickname...mutants.

Young Justice: Avengers Canon

I love mashups.  I've always enjoyed trying to figure out how one property relates to another, finding commonalities and relationships that can be exploited.  With Young Justice: Avengers, I wanted to take the best cartoon ever written for DC characters, Young Justice, and expand it to include Marvel,  "The Distinguished Competition"

That begs the question, what is canon in this setting?  I usually work on a grandfather principle:  Instead of just throwing everything into a blender I need to start from a base.  One setting has to be the truest and everything must build around that.

So, in this case, this setting is first two Young Justice cartoons - Young Justice and Young Justice: Invasion.  They are the backbone which this campaign is built around.  Because the game started before Young Justice: Outsiders had completed, I made a conscious decision not to treat that as canon material. 

Young Justice: Outsiders and the various video games and comic books are not canon for our game, but I will mine it for whatever cool lore and incorporate that into the background of our game.  Frankly, I am going in a different direction than Outsiders so its best just to ignore it.

Adding to that is Marvel and I am drawing from everything from the cartoons and animated features to comic books.  Again, because the Marvel content has to add and not rewrite Young Justice Canon, I have chosen to focus on New York and areas not normally detailed by the YJ cartoon.

Though I have not really used it in-game, I have stated that any cartoon or comic produced by DC or Marvel is fair game.  This includes Wildstorm (and by extension Image), Transformers, G.I. Joe, etc.  I might even sneak in Star Trek and Star Wars references because I am a huge dork.

A YJA Moment - China

Despite the modern hysteria and questions surrounding super-heroics, most people in the world do not question the need for superheroes to protect the planet.  This extended even into countries like China, which feared the effects of western heroes would have if they were given full access to the country.  Compromised metahumans could foment unrest and even topple the government.

The Ministry of Self-Reliance was intended to deal with this issue by forming its own team of super-functionaries known as the Great Ten.  Composed of the Accomplished Perfect Physician, August General in Iron, Celestial Archer, Ghost Fox Killer, Five Patriotic Brothers, Immortal Man in Darkness, Mother of Champions, Radiant Guardsman, Shaolin Robot and Thundermind.

Most of the Great Ten were either born from mythic legends in Chinese territory or had been created using alien technology in their Great Wall facility.  The Five Patriotic Brothers and the Radiant Guardsman, known as the Collective Man and Radioactive Man in the West added knowledge of American and European superheroes, should that information be necessary.  August General in Iron, the leader of the Great Ten, once served on the United Nations Global Guardians, which added additional credibility to the Great Ten.

Their deaths in the Watchtower left the country vulnerable, but the Ministry had already had plans in motion that would deal with this crisis.  There had been plans to increase the Great Ten to the Great Twenty, adding ten new super-functionaries to the line-up.  Now a plan was put into place to use individuals to form a new Justice League of China, a group of world protectors headquartered in Asia.

The first of these super-functionaries have been unveiled - Super-Man, infused with Kryptonian DNA, Bat-Man, graduate from the mysterious Academy of the Bat, Dragonson the Aqua-Man, North Korean imbued with Atlantean magic; Flash, empowered by a freak Speed Force storm; The Lantern Corp, using reverse-engineered Oan technology; and Wonder-Woman, the mythical "green snake" from Chinese myth.

A YJ Moment - Advanced Materials

In the realm of super-heroics there are two materials which are widely sought after.  Both adamantium and vibranium are both alien materials, having come to Earth in meteorites many millennia ago.   

The most plentiful of this material is vibranium - a huge deposit of this material lies under Mount Bashenga in the center of the African nation of Wakanda.  Vibranium has the ability to absorb various types of energy, storing it and then transmuting them into waves of vibratory force.  The tribesmen of Wakanda were able to tap vibranium to develop advanced technologies that prevented them from being conquered and colonized by foreign powers.  It also remains the sole source of the metal - any samples outside the nation have either been gifted or stolen over the years.

Adamantium is a much rarer element, with all known sources of the metal already exploited.  When properly prepared and cured, the metal becomes incredibly hard.  So hard, that it's practically indestructible to any known force.  The process to make adamantium metal was a closely guarded secret with its creator, Japenese scientist  Dr. Omo Kurokaze being the only modern individual to contain that knowledge.  

Because both adamantium and vibranium are both so rare, it was natural that various governments would try to synthesize alternatives.  During the cold war, the Americans created promethium and the Soviet Union invented carbonadium, two ultra-dense metals that were intended to replace adamantium in their secret projects.  

Of the two metals carbonadium was marginally easier and cheaper to create, so much so that after the cold war ended, the West made it a priority to obtain the secrets of its construction.  In the forges of Weapons Plus, carbonadium continues to be the metal of choice, until new sources of raw adamantium can be found.

A YJA Moment - Weapons Plus

Namor the Sub-Mariner was the first known metahuman.  Although he was part Atlantean, he exhibited powers that were beyond those of the sea-dwellers.  During World War II, individuals emerged that possessed extraordinary abilities that were seeming tied to their genetics.  Both the Allies and the Axis rushed to develop ways of creating and harnessing the abilities of metahumans as weapons.

Though America is best known for Project: Rebirth and its creation of the metahuman Captain America, the deep-science division of Germany known as HYDRA had developed some sinister technologies of its own.  Knowledge of the Nazi weird-science was captured by the Allies after the end of the war, divided between American, British and Russian forces.

With the formation of the cold war, the Western powers suddenly realized that the U.S.S.R. was in possession of technology that would allow them to create their own enhanced individuals.  In addition to the nuclear arms race, the globe was looking at a more secret race - a metahuman arms race.

Spurred on by the fear of the Soviet weapons program, the United States took the remnants of Project: Rebirth and formed its own advanced research organization which it called Weapons Plus.  Because of the "red scare", Weapons Plus was created under the utmost secrecy, its funding, and existence under the highest classification level.

Weapons Plus obtained an untold number of metahumans for its research. They underwent experimentation to learn the secrets of their origins and they were brainwashed to serve as operatives for so-called Covert Action Teams.  Their secrecy allowed them to operate above any moral, ethical, or legal concerns and the horrors within Weapons Plus facilities were indescribable. 

At the end of the cold war, the American government no longer needed to spend billions on a clandestine metahuman experimentation program.  The actions of some metahuman groups against Weapons Plus had also threatened to reveal the government's role in their extremely illegal activities.  So the decision was made to end the Weapons Plus program and cut all funding.

However, Weapons Plus had learned its lessons well.  It decentralized most of its operations, allowing the various projects to operate almost completely independently of each other.  These laboratories were focused on their own missions and were purposely unaware of other parts of the organization.  This prevented any adversaries from tracing the 

It also secured its own funding, selling some of its technologies to governments and super-villains on the black market.  They also had their own operations divisions, developing the covert action team Task Force X and the intelligence-gathering Checkmate.

Utilizing blackmail and the promise of weapons to defeat their enemies, Weapons Plus has continued to operate as a rogue entity within the United States government.  Under the leadership of biokinetic director John Sublime, the agency is poised to be the new kingmaker in a renewed metahuman arms race.

A YJA moment - Synthetics

Synthetics is the science of creating artificial beings composed of inorganic material which completely and almost-totally replicate the functions of living creatures.

The first synthetic man was being known as the original Human Torch. Unveiled by the then-famous scientist Professor Horton, who claimed to have been his creator. Recent information unearthed by the Fantastic Four has led us to believe that the "Jim Hammond" was likely found by Horton rather than created.

The Human Torch made his debut in 1939, fighting the renegade Atlantean Namor the Sub-Mariner in the streets of New York. He would later be recruited into the Justice Society of America, where he joined Captain America's "Invaders" group conducting covert operations behind enemy lines in France and Nazi Germany.

After the War, Hammond and his synthetic functions were closely studied by various organizations, such as Stark Industries, in order to replicate the technology. However, it was deemed impossible - whatever made the Human Torch was far beyond the understanding and capability of any pre-war scientist.

Ironically it would take another machine to solve the puzzle of synthetics. The rogue android Ultron, created by Dr. Hank Pym, sought to upgrade his metallic body. He downloaded information on Hammond contained in various databases, compiling the information and reverse-engineering the process. Stealing vibranium from the African nation of Wakanda, he created a form which he called "His Vision"

Luckily for the world, the American covert action team known as The Sword were able to defeat Ultron before he could download his mind into the new body. Hank Pym and Tony Stark were able to instead create a new personality for The Vision, created from the memory engrams of the late operative Simon Willams, who had perished at the hands of Ultron in the final battle.

Unfortunately, the technology was used by Ultron to create the Vision became the property of the government. Checkmate, the operations division of Weapons Plus obtained the knowledge to make synthetic tissue and passed the information on the process to Trask Industries.

The Young Avengers were confronted by the first iteration of Weapons Plus' synthetic weapons program when they assaulted the Trask Industries compound outside Washington D.C. Code-named Bastion, the synthetic combatant was enhanced with carbonadium lacing, having failed to obtain any more vibranium from Wakanda. While the Avengers were able to defeat Bastion and escape, he remains online and a continued threat to metahumans.

A YJA moment - The Skrulls

The Skrulls are an empire of shape-shifting aliens originating from a planet known as Skrullos. For until centuries they have been engaged in hostilities against the heavy-worlder Kree, a similarly aggressive race of expansionists who have been their greatest rivals.

Throughout their conflict, both sides have sought ways of out-classing their adversaries in both technological and biological ways. The Kree sought a technological means of enhancement, their beliefs forbidding manipulating their genetic code. The Skrulls had no such aversion and ruthlessly manipulated their DNA.

The so-called Super-Skrull program was largely a failure - the species genetics tended to resist manipulation, granting on a few usable operatives. If the Skrulls are to be believed, however, the project would lay the foundations for the Martian species.

With Earth in free-space within striking distance of both Empires, it was inevitable that the planet would become an occasional battleground. Groups like the Justice League and the Fantastic Four have clashed with combatants from both sides over the years and the Office of National Emergency believes that the Skrulls have infiltrated the planet to an unknown degree.

The end of the Skrull Empire would only occur many years in the future with the destruction of Skrullos by the world devourer Galactus. The lost of the Empress left the Skrulls with a power vacuum - the twin Princesses Veranke and Durla each attempted to crown themselves the new rules of the Skrulls. The resulting chaos left the Empire weakened, allowing the Kree to defeat and conquer the ancient enemy.

Those under the banner of Durla, made peace with the Kree and the rest of the known universe, settling on a world they named after their leader. Few people in the 30th Century, where the Durlans are a productive member of intergalactic society, know that these shape-shifters were once the feared and hated Skrulls.

A YJA moment - The Light

The Light was the name attributed to a group of world-class super-villains who gathered together for mutual benefit. Much of the intel on this organization was obtained in an information sharing agreement between the Office of National Emergency and the Justice League, who are thanked for their cooperation.

It has not been revealed when the Light first joined together, but its first major endeavor was working with the alien empire known as The Reach.  The Reach were invaders who conquered worlds to exploit their natural resources and populations. The Light made a deal with the Reach, aiding their takeover in exchange for being allowed to become administrators.

The Light, in truth, had no intention of being slaves themselves and worked behind the scenes to undermine the Reach.  Lead by the immortal villain Vandal Savage, the original members of the Light included Black Manta, the Brain, Deathstroke, Klarion, Ra’s Al Ghul.  Based on the testimony of the late Aqualad, Lex Luthor and Queen Bee were also members, but the evidence is insufficient for prosecution.

The Young Justice team used the mutual distrust between the Reach and Light to ultimately defeat them. I, in the final three-way battle, most of the Light were captured.  Ra’s Al Ghul was fatally wounded by Black Beetle and neither Luthor or Queen Bee were in attendance.

Only Vandal Savage managed to escape, reportedly taking Warworld out of the solar system and disappearing into to places unknown.  It was erroneously believed that the Light had been defeated, but recent intelligence from Amanda Waller, former director or Task Force X, has suddenly put that into doubt.

Currently, the leadership of this new Light is believed to been assumed by current UN Secretary-General Lex Luthor.  While Waller did not discover the full membership list, she did discover that Checkmate director Maxwell Lord, new Task Force X director Henry Peter Gyrich, Weapon X director John Sublime, mercenary Deathstroke the Terminator, and media mogul G. Gordon Godfrey are members. The status of Vandal Savage and Queen Bee have not been determined.