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🕑 Added 2026-01-05 02:59:16 +0000 UTCEdit: Alright! I've gotten the list I'm using sorted out for now! Thanks for all the help, folks. Don't hesitate to keep suggesting people I might not think of, though ;-). There will be future recruiting beyond the initial dossiers, as well as the need for encounters with other heroes in general!
Hey all! I need your brains ;-). No, I'm not going to eat them, promise! I'm working on Why Was There No Truck!? and running headfirst into a problem. Specifically, male characters. I've wanted to add at least one or two male characters to the Overwatch team, to avoid it steering into Harem territory. But I'm legitimately having difficulty rounding up possibly compatible individuals from various superhero media. In example, I just finished trawling through the various X-men teams and found like...10 secondary female characters I could use. In turn I found two male characters that seemed vaguely compatible. I'm going to keep looking through Marvel, along with the other universes in the Amalgam, but I realized it was taking forever and...well...a lot of you have consumed just as much or more superhero media as I have ;-). So I figured I'd outsource for some brainstorming.
So, setting some qualifications here:
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1) No MAJOR characters. Alyssa is putting together a team of largely secondary or inexperienced characters. If they have their own comic run? Or were the leader of a team? They probably don't qualify. No Robins, Wolverines, or Armsmasters, in other words. People like Spyke (Evan Daniels - X-men Evolution) or Cyborg (Teen Titans) are fine. But Robin from Teen Titans or Cyclops from X-men Evolution would be too 'major.' Essentially, no truly 'core' characters. Even Cyborg is honestly pushing it and is only viable since the Titans have already been semi-established as not actively existing.
2) No ridiculously overpowered characters. They already have Alyssa as a power house, and Gotham doesn't really need raw power most of the time. Younger versions of characters that could BECOME powerhouses are fine.
3) No ego cases. This is actually what caused the vast majority of the viable male X-men to be nixed. Many were in leadership roles and thus nixed, but a lot more of them were/are serious ego-cases that neither I nor Alyssa want to try and deal with regularly. Examples: Bobby Drake, Pyro, Alex Summers, Gambit. Seriously, a lot of the male X-men seem to have ego problems, now that I'm looking through them T-T.
4) It needs to be reasonable for them to actually be in the United States. This, unfortunately, eliminates most of the male MHA cast.
5) Team players are a must. Most versions of Spiderman, for example, is absolute ass at being a team player despite actively trying at times. He just seems to be genuinely terrible at it. Though he'd fall afoul of the 'Major Character' issue too.
Addendum: I've established that not everyone is on the same Hero/Villain side as their canon selves are, so minor villains who could have gone a different way are also possible options.
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Get your suggestions in! If any of them fit, they might appear. Either as an outright recruit, or at least on the list of those that the original trio considered for recruitment...
Comments
Keht Jelicho
I had a thought. Both marvel and DC have vampires I think (I know Blade is Marvel at the least) why not also includes Hellsing and/or other such organizations (B.R.P.D. from Hellboy franchise?) dealing with a "hidden" aspect of the world. You could probably find some people from various organizations that regularly confront Vampires and/or demons that you might be able to write in a reason/way for them to be in Gotham or get recruited for Overwatch instead. They'd likely have training to work in/with teams, and the dark aspects of Gotham wouldn't necessarily be that off putting to them in comparison.
Captain2003Rex
I haven’t read through all of the comments here and your replies to them, but I was wondering about Ghost Rider (either Robbie Ryes or OC for extra inexperience) and the Hunter from the game Marvel: Midnight Suns. In that game, Robbie, Nico, Magik, and Blade are all part of the core team. And the Hunter is the self insert character that the player plays as in the game, so you’d not only be able to freely choose their sex but also you’d have a fair bit more leeway to give them whatever personality you want. I’d also suggest Magik, but 1) she’s female and the thought of them being male instead just feels weird to me lol, and 2) I did see below that you were hesitant to add her. (Personally I’d be in favor of her but I’m biased haha) I’m also throwing out there Wally West from Young Justice (altho I can see that being too much, not to mention that the team already exists lol), and Beast Boy from Teen Titans. Funnily enough, alternate versions of both characters actually show up in each other’s show lol. Also, if you just want sheer quantity of potential candidates to slog your way through for elimination, the season finale of Teen Titans where Beast Boy ends up leading a massive counterattack on the villains’ base had an absolute metric shit ton of characters show up for the final fight lol. (Actually I’m almost certain that that was the finale for the entire show, but it’s been a VERY long time haha) Hope this helps for future recruitment!
Novus Peregrine
Good thoughts :-p. I went with a similar 'role approach' with who they ACTUALLY recruit from the list of a dozen that Alyssa had dossiers on. But I went with filling the role of a Magic user and a dedicated Tech type. Alyssa honestly has INCREDIBLY good coverage of the information side, given who her skillset is from. So removing some of the 'hats' she was less focused on was how I approached it. While her powers have some magic-adjacent aspects, she doesn't have the traditional local magical education to deal with magic (and Gotham has a LOT of magic users and magical issues). Likewise, her mastery of tech is only accidental, with the Major Kusangi skillset having given her a lot of advanced knowledge and blueprints...but not a specific focus developing NEW tech. Freeing her up from being their primary expert on tech and magic lets her handle the information stuff pretty easily. With that and leadership of the team honestly being a good combination, since she has all the information to make decisions that way. As for who has representation, there will be a Worm character appearing on the team, and two Worm villains showing up in the upcoming chapters ;-). MHA I'm having a bit more trouble with, since few of the existing characters have a reason to be anywhere but Japan. Eventually, I'll likely use Pony and possibly Skycrawler, and make some OCs with Quriks...
Sequal
I'm a bit late to the party, but rather than characters, I approached this from the perspective of roles in the group. The two big things that jumped out at me were some type of Cloner/Summoner to get more boots on the ground for dealing with large numbers of mooks, and someone specialized in Information Gathering/Investigation. MC somewhat has the second covered, but she is wearing a LOT of hats right now. I also noted that so far you have Marvel and DC characters on the team, while Worm and MHA have minimal representation in story yet so I am going to focus on them. MHA gives both Ectoplasm and Twice as cloners. Worm has Crusader summoning his ghosts. None of them have a lot of characterization though, which can be both good and bad. For Investigators, we have more options. MHA: Shin Nemoto with is Confession quirk/Tsukauchi Naomasa with lie detector. Koda Koji with animal scouts. Sasaki Mirai with Foresight. Lots of options here, even if Nighteye is an ass with an ego, he did start out as a sidekick to an overpowered brick so he has done this before. Worm is a bit lighter on possibilities because most of the options for this are female and you were specifically asking about guys. From later in the story than most fanfics get, there is Aiden Tate, the bird controller with a bud off of Taylor's shard. Victor the skill thief could also fit this role. Anyway, that's my two bits, looking forward to whatever you end up choosing!
Michael
If you wanted he could also fit a bit of a not quite mentor role like Talia is but with different focuses since he’s been involved in some heavy crap but and hit some pitfalls but isn’t experienced enough to risk being the “grizzled veteran keeping these dumb kids from killing themselves”. Sort of a moderately older sibling that’s more “this is how I screwed up so don’t do this” rather than “here’s how to do this right for sure”. Honestly the best fit term is probably Senpai
Michael
**MANGA SPOILER WARNING FOR MHA VIGILANTES LITERALLY ALL OF IT TO THE EPILOGUE** Well if you want to get an MHA character on the team might I suggest Koichi Haimawari aka The Crawler aka The Skycrawler the protagonist of the Vigilantes spin off? I know that on the surface he seems to violate several rules, but while he’s the protagonist of his source material that source material is a spin off showing a much smaller stage and he’s arguably not even the leader of his team (of a couple neighborhood vigilantes in over their heads so definitely not major in the grand scheme of things) even if he is the heart (so definitely not an ego case) Also, at the end of the Vigilantes story to avoid going to jail and become a hero he becomes a sidekick to Captain Celebrity, an American hero, and moves to the US where he goes from being The Crawler to The Skycrawler which gets him at least near Gotham. Could easily have him be looking to spread his wings a little bit after a couple of years with Captain Celebrity since even at the epilogue of MHA like 10 years after the Vigilantes epilogue he’s still only 33. Plus depending on how long he’s been in America in your take it could make for interesting character interactions since he’s still learning English so Alyssa would reliably be able to speak fluently with him (Tamaranean language transfer OP) but probably not anyone else. And while he’s a pretty skilled combatant with good mobility and decent hitting power he’s still quite vulnerable to a dude with a gun or some of the heavier hitters in Gotham so he’d be able to do good work because of his skill and tenacity without just stat checking the Rogues’ Gallery into jail
Novus Peregrine
Hmm, I've got the list sorted by now, but those two sound like great encounters or recruits for later. Particularly Derek if he's from Gotham.
Novus Peregrine
He might well show up at some point, but I'm trying not to load the team too heavily with Gotham characters, since that isn't a very good representation of the Amalgam nature of the story.
Novus Peregrine
Gwen is operating as a Main Avengers Team core member under 'Ghost Spider.' The others aren't around. I actually did end up using a member of the Runaways, as one option they have in mind. But I wanted Nico from that that group, for magical coverage ;-). Magik is...complicated. Mostly because we don't actually know how her mutant ability works if she hasn't been kidnapped and raised in a hell dimension. Her portals latched onto it as the dimension they went through because it was the first dimension she went too...
Chaos Dude
Cypher I think... he learns allllll the languages. But he got stuck mentally and couldn't figure out stuff like BODY language for martial arts and magic being a kind of coding
Cathbel
From the New 52 Teen Titans : Miguel Barraguan, AKA Bunker. A green lantern-like character, except his construct are made of bricks and purple. Also, Derek James, AKA Sideways. He’s got his own comics, but he also joined the Young Justice. Both are team players, and Derek is based out of Gotham.
xrunarx1
Jason Todd. Since he wasn't/isn't a Robin you cloud maybe do a story about him growing up in the ghetto. Serving as a local but small time vigilante/protector that first gets a camio, then later gets recruted when the team is looking to expand later after they are recognized as official hero's?
Matthew Robar
Are any of the spiders (spider-Gwen, miles, Kane, Ben Reilly) available? They’re generally good as mid-tier distractions and disruption in group fights, most of them have worked on teams okay, it’s just Parker who is a pain There’s cloak and dagger, or the members of the runaways Magik from the xmen could be used if she isn’t already established, she can only really use portals without risking corruption
Novus Peregrine
Beast is already established as a member of the main Avenger's team, and Nightcrawler is both a core X-Men in this and Talia (Nocturne's) father. So that would be awkward :-p.
Novus Peregrine
*snaps fingers* Thanks for reminding me of Douglas Ramsey's name. I wasn't finding him anywhere, and it was bothering me. I actually have a use for him in the long run, Alyssa wants to recruit him for not-directly-team-related reasons. I won't spoil why :-p.
Robert Lemanski
Here's some American mutants that could be interesting: * Xmen's Leech: an AOE power canceller (that affects mutations and alien DNA and magic and everything in between), looks like a chameleon boy, was raised underground in a visible mutations mutant outcast group so plenty of story potential, started out with self-confidence issues due to being abandoned as a child but overtime became a brave and confident team player, and interestingly enough speaks in the third person. * Douglas Ramsey aka Cypher: the ability to understand and fluently speak all languages (codes, computer programming, alien languages, dead languages, demon languages, body language, sign language, etc) with telepathic immunity due to thinking in his own invented complex language, the son of an affluent lawyer, intelligent quiet and amiable personality. * Armando Muñoz aka Darwin: the ability to situationally evolve to theoretically survive any situation (even things beyond his power's ability to outright defeat- his power's answer to an angry Hulk was to instantly develop the ability to teleport then NOPE him to the opposite side of the planet), a really interesting power to write with in fics due to how creative the evolutions can get and some of them can last for a while while others can go away once the danger is passed (plus some evolutions remove him from combat which can make things worse for allies if they are not careful), potentially immortal, a Latino African American basically abandoned/disowned by his parents due to being born with a visible mutation, awoke his mutant power to make himself a genius in order to earn his mother's love by doing well on a test, has a calm thoughtful and observant heroic personality with dry humor added in but is a bit of a people pleaser due to fear of abandonment. Anyway, those are three X-men I think meet your requirements that could be pretty interesting to read (and write) about.
Aragorn93
From the Xmen, I think Beast and nightcrawler meet your criteria. A lot of people are mentioning Forge as well. I should also say that I actually haven't read any of this story yet. I've been more interested in your other stories. However, I'm at the point where I think i should start reading it. With that being said, if there's already someone similar to Beast or Nightcrawler, then I guess you can ignore most of what I've written.
