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Idea for a Transgender superheroine

11 Sep 2018 01:46 #61047 by rednecko
Idea for a Transgender superheroine was created by rednecko
I have this idea that I want to write a story where a normal gentleman who gets dowsed with radioactive formal that is supposed to give him superstrength and superspeed. The twist is it turns him to a Superheroine when he activates it. He finds a way to change back and forth. Tentative name is Speedra for the superheroine. What do people think of this idea for transgender superheroine? It seems like the ultimate alter ego to be a guy who becomes a Superheroine. 

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11 Sep 2018 02:55 #61049 by TwiceOnThursdays
Replied by TwiceOnThursdays on topic Idea for a Transgender superheroine

rednecko wrote: I have this idea that I want to write a story where a normal gentleman who gets dowsed with radioactive formal that is supposed to give him superstrength and superspeed. The twist is it turns him to a Superheroine when he activates it. He finds a way to change back and forth. Tentative name is Speedra for the superheroine. What do people think of this idea for transgender superheroine? It seems like the ultimate alter ego to be a guy who becomes a Superheroine. 


The inverse of this was done in Savage Dragon with Mighty Man.  ( Woman transformed into a male super-hero).

savagedragonwiki.wikispaces.com/Mighty+Man+II

I'm sure that what you've said has been done before, but I can't remember where.  Not that it having been done before by someone else should stop you!  FAR FROM IT.  Do your own thing!

There is also a line of books (that are pretty good) by a transgender writer named April Daniels (Dreadnought and Sovereign).  The main character is a young boy that when the hero Dreadnought dies next to her, she gets his powers and the female body she always wanted.  But this was one way, once she transformed, she was in her new body and quite happy about it.  This makes sense to me since there is a lot of wish fulfillment in the transformation to a super-human.  Men get large muscles, women get super-sexy bodies, etc.  So why shouldn't someone who was born the wrong gender get the body they wanted?  The books very much deal with the issues the new heroine has to deal with (friends, family, etc).  It's also one of the first super books I've read to really deal with stress and mental health.  The books get brutal at certain points, but to the author's credit, actually deals with that too.

(I figure that if you're in for that, you'd be in for this too.)

And another series, that deals with this topic.  Duh, probably what I was thinking of.  Not _quite_ what you are talking about, but sorta.

The Template series by Rodford Edmiston.  The main character has the ability to store someone's form and powers and then change into that.  The world has a backstory of Ability + Power, so often he'll duplicate someone's powers but not at 100% (as he has less "Power" than they do).

After he has a form down, he can sort of mix/match them to create a new body, and mix powers (and can alter at any moment how much power to give to each of them).

So in the book, Supers aren't always well-liked, so when it's partially accidentally and partially to hide his real identity, but he ends up female as his super-hero identity.  He starts out as a woman and spends a lot of time that way.  But he gets to be many different women/men too.  Others in the book have similar change gender, and its very much explored in the books.
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11 Sep 2018 03:56 #61050 by lfan
Replied by lfan on topic Idea for a Transgender superheroine
I can actually think up a couple of other examples of transgendered stories where they actually go from male to super female:

1)  There is a series called Saskia on Amazon -- several books -- which deals with an adult male transforming into a young supergirl.  I've only read one of them but there are several (like 15-20) volumes and sequels.
2)  There is also a recent comic called "Alters" whose main super is a transgendered female in hero mode. 

To answer the OP's question though, I got no issues with it, and like Fats said, I don't think its been done here at SGI.  I'd read it.

ElF

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11 Sep 2018 04:07 #61051 by shadar
Replied by shadar on topic Idea for a Transgender superheroine

TwiceOnThursdays wrote:

rednecko wrote: I have this idea that I want to write a story where a normal gentleman who gets dowsed with radioactive formal that is supposed to give him superstrength and superspeed. The twist is it turns him to a Superheroine when he activates it. He finds a way to change back and forth. Tentative name is Speedra for the superheroine. What do people think of this idea for transgender superheroine? It seems like the ultimate alter ego to be a guy who becomes a Superheroine. 


The inverse of this was done in Savage Dragon with Mighty Man.  ( Woman transformed into a male super-hero).

savagedragonwiki.wikispaces.com/Mighty+Man+II

I'm sure that what you've said has been done before, but I can't remember where.  Not that it having been done before by someone else should stop you!  FAR FROM IT.  Do your own thing!

There is also a line of books (that are pretty good) by a transgender writer named April Daniels (Dreadnought and Sovereign).  The main character is a young boy that when the hero Dreadnought dies next to her, she gets his powers and the female body she always wanted.  But this was one way, once she transformed, she was in her new body and quite happy about it.  This makes sense to me since there is a lot of wish fulfillment in the transformation to a super-human.  Men get large muscles, women get super-sexy bodies, etc.  So why shouldn't someone who was born the wrong gender get the body they wanted?  The books very much deal with the issues the new heroine has to deal with (friends, family, etc).  It's also one of the first super books I've read to really deal with stress and mental health.  The books get brutal at certain points, but to the author's credit, actually deals with that too.

(I figure that if you're in for that, you'd be in for this too.)

And another series, that deals with this topic.  Duh, probably what I was thinking of.  Not _quite_ what you are talking about, but sorta.

The Template series by Rodford Edmiston.  The main character has the ability to store someone's form and powers and then change into that.  The world has a backstory of Ability + Power, so often he'll duplicate someone's powers but not at 100% (as he has less "Power" than they do).

After he has a form down, he can sort of mix/match them to create a new body, and mix powers (and can alter at any moment how much power to give to each of them).

So in the book, Supers aren't always well-liked, so when it's partially accidentally and partially to hide his real identity, but he ends up female as his super-hero identity.  He starts out as a woman and spends a lot of time that way.  But he gets to be many different women/men too.  Others in the book have similar change gender, and its very much explored in the books.


I just picked up the Kindle for the April Daniels Dreadnaught book. Read about 30 or so pages. It's not bad at all. Some parts are quite good, although I'm early in the book. A bit of a mind twist for a cis male guy like me, but I like the challenge. Another spin on superheroism. Good suggestion Twice. 

Shadar
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11 Sep 2018 04:27 - 11 Sep 2018 04:52 #61052 by TwiceOnThursdays
Replied by TwiceOnThursdays on topic Idea for a Transgender superheroine

shadar wrote:
I just picked up the Kindle for the April Daniels Dreadnaught book. Read about 30 or so pages. It's not bad at all. Some parts are quite good, although I'm early in the book. A bit of a mind twist for a cis male guy like me, but I like the challenge. Another spin on superheroism. Good suggestion Twice. 

Shadar


Glad you like it so far. I hope you keep liking it.

I had the same cis male guy problem. Part of the reason I started reading it was partially due to that, to read somethng that was NOT my view point.  (And hey, superhero book!)

I initally found the book as the author commissioned some artwork on Deviant Art that I'd liked so I followed her account (and her Twitter) so I could read the book when it came out.  Figured I liked the art so I should give the book a try.  I was pleasantly surprised.  
Last edit: 11 Sep 2018 04:52 by TwiceOnThursdays. Reason: fixed quoting

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11 Sep 2018 04:51 #61053 by TwiceOnThursdays
Replied by TwiceOnThursdays on topic Idea for a Transgender superheroine

lfan wrote:
To answer the OP's question though, I got no issues with it, and like Fats said, I don't think its been done here at SGI.  I'd read it.

ElF


And I should have said that as well. Doh!  Sorry!

Your spin is key.  Tell your story your way.

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11 Sep 2018 08:09 #61057 by TwiceOnThursdays
Replied by TwiceOnThursdays on topic Idea for a Transgender superheroine
I thought of another that fits into this discussion, though again it's a one way transformation.

Seanan McQuire writes a series of books Velveteen vs X.  Velevteen is a former teen hero with the nominal ability to make stuffed animals come to life (there's more to the story).

Its really a great series of short stories with a connecting narrative.  The world has all the tropes (alternative dimensions, time travel, anthropomorphic reperesentations of Holidays, seasons, evil corporations, etc).

There is a backdrop that the psychic energy of people beliving in things can bring it to life.

One of the characters is Princess, essentially the incarnation of a Disney Princess.  We learn as the story goes on that Princess is really transgender, and IIRC, at the moment that the Princess was picked was the person who most wanted to be Princess, so transformed into her. She also happens to be one of the most powerfull people in that world with a huge grab-bag of abilities.  The more kids who believe in her, the more power she has.

The stories are fun, dark, sarcastic, and do some great examination of super hero tropes.  The stories do layer upon themselves and build to an end, but are written as short stories. (each titled things like "Velveteen vs the blind date").   Really, they're all pretty good, and I found them the perfect thing to read on vacation.   I love the background of the world, it's system of Power Classification, and the dark background of Marketing and the Teen Heroes.  Plus Velveteen is a great character.

She's always been a comic book geek writing Sci Fi/Fantasty with several series under her belt along with "Mira Grant" one of her aliases. She's just got the gig of writing Ghost Spider for Marvel (the new Spider-Gwen comic), and wrote one of the last X-Men annuals.

Princess is an important character, but her being transgender is just one of the facts revealed in the stories (it's not unimportatnt, but it's not the focus either).  I wouldn't read these for that, the other stuff is the main draw which is why I didn't think about it first.  (IIRC you have to read pretty far along before it's explictly stated, but I think there are clues all along the way.)


Hm... in Velveteen vs. the Multiverse she crosses over with Astra from M.G. Harmon's Wearing the Cape.  There's also a shape changer in those books who switches gender back and forth (later in the series, I won't talk about them as it's too much of a later spoiler in the books).  Those are ok too.  Wouldn't read them for the gender changeing part esp since it's several books down the line, but they're also pretty good with some examination of super-hero tropes (how to get powers, use of Super-Strength, etc). The books cover Astra's learning curve as she's an Atlas (flight/invulnerability/strength) character, and do a pretty good job of trying to address the problems with that in a normal super-hero world w/o getting too bogged down in it.

So, not QUITE books that are directly about gender changing heroes, but they contain them.  They are some of the better long fiction super hero novels though.

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11 Sep 2018 10:27 #61059 by Woodclaw
Replied by Woodclaw on topic Idea for a Transgender superheroine

lfan wrote: I can actually think up a couple of other examples of transgendered stories where they actually go from male to super female:

1)  There is a series called Saskia on Amazon -- several books -- which deals with an adult male transforming into a young supergirl.  I've only read one of them but there are several (like 15-20) volumes and sequels.
2)  There is also a recent comic called "Alters" whose main super is a transgendered female in hero mode. 

To answer the OP's question though, I got no issues with it, and like Fats said, I don't think its been done here at SGI.  I'd read it.

ElF


Actually it has been done, although it was not published on SGI or SWM. AK wrote a short series called "A Different Kind of Supergirl", where the protagonist was a guy -- Patrick -- who inherited a ring that transformed him in a supergirl. The interesting twist was that as soon as he started identifying his alter-ego by name, she started developing a separated personality.
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16 Sep 2018 02:31 #61154 by Grif
Replied by Grif on topic Idea for a Transgender superheroine
Another example that is similar to your idea is the anime, Birdy the Mighty. Superheroine from another planet travels to Earth, but something bad happens. She(Birdy) ends up sharing the body of a Japanese teenager. They work together to good, solve mysteries, etc. While sharing the same body, they also transform between the 2 character's physical formsm as well. 

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16 Sep 2018 03:50 #61156 by Jabbrwock
Replied by Jabbrwock on topic Idea for a Transgender superheroine
This is the theme of the entire Legacy universe by an author whose web-name is Morpheus. You can read his stories, in that and several other universes, at  BigCloset Topshelf , a website devoted to transgender fiction. I tend to prefer the superheroine theme stories, which were more popular in the past. Still, there's plenty there if you look in the archives.

The start of the Legacy universe is the story  The Miracle Legacy . It may be to your taste.
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