The (Online) World Will Always Need Heroes!
By Steven Wong

It wasn't too long ago that a majority of people thought that comic books were just for nerds and kids. Then little benchmarks happened along the way that gave both comic books and graphic novels more credibility, like Maus winning the Pulitzer. It turns out all those kids grew up, and they kept the characters, mythology, stories, and fantastic art from their youth close to their hearts. Even people who don't read comic books are subject to their iconic influence. A song mentions Superman, and the audience automatically knows what to imagine. Ask almost anyone to describe Batman and images of a shadowy hero, solemnly watching over the city of Gotham, immediately comes to mind. Whether you wish you had one of Wolverine's adamantium ginsu knives to cut a tough steak, or wished you could beat traffic by web-slinging Spider-Man style, it is clear that the superheroes have made a deep impression on the popular culture's psyche.

The one thing that took a painfully long time to do was penetrate other avenues of entertainment outside of cartoons. It seemed, for a while, that for every Tim Burton directed Batman that moved things forward, three steps were taken back with each increasingly-campy Joel Schumacher sequel. We have now reached an a point where the public and Hollywood have realized that live-action comic book inspired movies can not only be done well, but done seriously and targeted toward teen and adult audiences. Popularity and high-grossing movies like Spider-Man, Sin City, X-Men, and Batman Begins are testaments to that fact. Now comes another challenge for superheroes to overcome: Breaking into video games.

Superhero video games are nothing new. They've been around for almost as long as video game systems have. Good hero games, however, remained elusive and rare. There were so many bad comic book games out there that the term "comic book curse" became part of the gaming culture's lexicon. Just like with the movie industry, superheroes had to go through a long hazing period before noteworthy titles started popping up. In 2004, a game called City of Heroes hit the shelves and brought the superhero-themed game into the realm of MMO's, setting a resounding precedent and letting everyone know that there was a demand for living the crime-fighting life and wearing tights.

In a recent interview with Richard and Robert Garriott (respectively the Executive Producer and President/CEO of NCsoft North America), they stated that the idea for City of Heroes had been around for a long time, but no one would pick it up because it didn't fit into the medieval fantasy mold. NCsoft was the only company to recognize the game's potential and was willing to take a risk on it. Even the creative designer of the game, Jack Emmert, has stated that one of his driving goals in creating the MMO was to break the comic book curse and make a title that "did not suck."

Now that City of Heroes has established itself as a success, both Marvel and DC - the two companies with the biggest superhero licenses - have heard the sound of opportunity knocking and have announced that they were willing to throw their weight behind their own MMO games, featuring characters people readily recognize.

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