This background elaborates on the world the game was set in, maybe it will inspire someone or be used elsewhere.

In the Marvel Universe there are no fictional cities for the heroes to live in, all of their locales in the United States are real places (they may be the ‘big movie version of…’, but they are based in real cities.) When it comes to foreign countries, this is a different story; for the most part the fictional atlas locations in the Marvel Universe are limited to exotic foreign countries. The history of the Marvel Universe is, for the most part, our history. In 1939 the first of what would become many ‘marvels’ or ‘superheroes’ appeared in the form of the synthetic android ‘Human Torch’, followed in short form by the hybrid mutant Sub-Mariner the prince of Atlantis and nearly a year later by Captain America.
To be sure there were other Marvels that operated in that era of time and when America entered World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the existing Marvels, at the behest of F.D.R., formed two groups ‘The Allies’ to fight the Nazi menace at home and ‘The Invaders’ to combat the Nazi menace abroad. Based out of a building near New York’s Time Square, the Allies (along with spin-off groups ‘The Liberty Legion’, ‘The Crusaders’ and the F.B.I’s own ‘Squad’) took care of the American home front while the Invaders (Along with spin-off groups ‘The Liberators’, and the ‘The Flying Eagles’ (Made up of all the costumed fighter pilots…) fought the axis powers behind enemy lines. World War 2 was fought on the same battle grounds, lost the same lives and took the same toll on the American way of life. Many costumed heroes lost their lives fighting the Nazis, criminals, super villains or whatever else happened to come along. The biggest blow to the American allied forces happened in the early days of 1945, just as the war was winding down.
Baron Zemo, a long time nemesis of Captain America had devised an experimental drone plane that would deploy an early attempt at a gamma bomb that Baron Zemo had developed into the heart of Washington, D.C. Captain America and Bucky infiltrated the base, but were captured by Zemo’s forces. He tortured them before leaving to launch the drone. They escaped and were able to get on the fuselage of the drone plane, the two heroes frantically worked to disarm the plane. Zemo realizing that his plan could possibly be thwarted attempted to detonate the drone and kill Captain America and Bucky. What actually happened was that Bucky was able to remove the explosives surrounding the gamma core; they detonated independent of the fissionable material killing him, destroying the plane and sending Captain America into the icy Atlantic waters where he wouldn’t be recovered for almost 70 years. As fate would have it in a final push into Berlin with the Invaders, the Human Torch and his sidekick Toro were able to get into Hitler’s personal bunker in an attempt to get him to surrender, instead Hitler turned a gun he had planned to commit suicide with on the Torch who flash fried him to keep him from shooting.
The U.S. Government, realizing that the death of Captain America and Bucky would be a devastating blow to the morale of the troops and American’s at home instituted a cover-up to keep the public from learning about what had happened to the real Captain America and Bucky. A successor was chosen from a list of possible candidates, he (and his Bucky) received training before ever getting to meet the public, much less appearing in the costume. A further complication arose in that neither this successor, nor many of those who followed him ever had the super-soldier serum; they were just regular man trying desperately to emulate a good man at the request of their country and government. There was a Captain America (and a Bucky) from the end days of WW2 through the Korean War.
In the aftermath of WW2, most of the costumed heroes who had come out of the woodwork to fight the Nazi forces found that life was a little harder to deal with. The return of a sense of peace to the world brought new challenges as well. Some of the heroes retired back to their alter-egos no longer feeling the need to continue their efforts, some of them continued on only to meet either untimely demises, arrests or some fate worse than death. The war time Invaders were transformed into ‘The All-Winner’s Squad’, allowing them to continue their efforts in the aftermath of the Great War. During this time, the Challenger, a minor costumed hero sent behind enemy lines to infiltrate the Nazis returns home telling the press that he killed Hitler, a fact seemingly confirmed by military intelligence. The Challenger, in his real identity as Carl Miller, parlays this new found fame into being elected as a senator, with aspirations to becoming president. Senator Miller calls on all former mystery-men (Superheroes) to come forth and reveal their identities as a show of unity. The ‘Angel’ joins him and Miller takes ‘Tim’, the young sidekick of ‘Captain Wonder’ and transforms him into the first ‘atomic age’ hero named ‘Atmo-man’.
This is considered to be an age of prosperity for America, a shining example of how things could and should be. Senator Miller wields enough power and is beloved by the American public that those who question the inconsistencies in his stories are either silenced, bought off or vanish into mental hospitals. Men want to be him and women want to be with him…this turns out to be his downfall.
One of the lovers that Senator Miller has taken into his bedroom discovers the fact that ‘Carl Miller’ was captured and died during WW2 and that he his brain was transferred out of his body and replaced with the mind of Arnim Zola, a Nazi scientist famed for such feats. Worse yet Not only has Zola managed to find himself a ‘new home’, but has also done the same for Adolf Hitler by placing him into the body of ‘Tim’, giving him atomic powers that make him seemingly invulnerable in the process. The lover is able to get word to the handler of ‘the Squad’ who pulls his former agents back together for one last task. They in turn put the word out to other heroes as to what is going on and confrontation occurs on a cold November day in Washington D.C. between the gathered heroes, Carl Miller and Atmo-Man. In the end they are able to stop Miller and Atmo-man, but at the cost of many heroes. The All-Winner’s Squad disbands in the aftermath of the battle; Miller’s betrayal is covered up. For an eight year span after 1955 Captain America disappeared and the general thought of the public was that he retired having given fifteen years of his life to serving America.
In September of 1963 then President John F. Kennedy appointed former Sergeant Joseph Stone as the first Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. the organization was initially a branch of the C.I.A. but in light of the rise in terrorism and communism, it soon became an autonomous entity. Captain America suddenly reappeared as the leader of a short lived conglomeration of super-heroes named the ‘First Line’; the urban legend goes that President Kennedy was going to use Captain America to end the Viet Nam war. Instead after the death of J.F.K., President Johnson used the ‘First Line’ as a recruiting tool for the Viet Nam war and extended our stay there. In January of 1968 the ‘First Line’ were sent into the Viet Nam conflict, reports as to why are conflicting although many believe that it had to do with a Viet Cong officer named Nguyá»…n Văn Lém who was executed by Nguyá»…n Ngá»c Loan, a South Vietnamese National Police Chief. The event was photographed by Eddie Adams and turned the public against the war.
Once in Viet Nam the ‘First Line’ did their best given the circumstances, the sad fact was that they were not soldiers and the daily grind of combat chewed them up and spat them back out with even Captain America reportedly being slain in the heat of combat in December of ’68. For just over a month the American public read about conflicting reports of Captain America having survived the battle and continuing to fight on behind enemy lines. President Nixon, after having just taken office, announced that Captain America had been found operating with band of Howling American commandos behind enemy lines. This alone allowed President Nixon to keep America in Viet Nam for another four years.
Captain America was officially the last troop to leave Viet Nam, he returned home to find that the American public thought differently of the war than he did. He made an effort fight crime but in the spring of ’73 he faded back into the background of America disappearing once more as President Nixon resigned from office in disgrace over the Watergate scandal. With Captain America having faded into the background and the country having gone through the emotional turmoil of the Watergate scandal and Viet Nam, costumed heroes fell to the wayside.
It would be almost forty years before the public saw the return of costumed super-heroes….
While costumed heroes seemed to be a thing of the past S.H.I.E.L.D. took a role front and center for the defense of the United States as they tried to save hostages taken in Iran, only to fail in their endeavors. Worse yet they would become embroiled in the Iran-Contra affair with Sergeant Joseph Stone himself taking the stand and being publicly flogged for their involvement in the matter. As a result of the scandal Sergeant Joseph Stone was forced into retirement and sentenced to prison with. His convictions were later turned over on appeal from the ACLU. As a further result of the congressional findings S.H.I.E.L.D. was shut down and the agents reassigned to other entities in the government. Then President Ronald Regan who called for the removal of the Berlin wall, only to see his public cry for mercy for the beleaguered people of Germany not only ignored, but viewed as an insult to the Russian leader who kept the wall in place. Premier Gorbachev’s economic plans succeeded allowing for the USSR to save itself from economic collapse. Glasnost and perestroika were seen as a failure and once more the cold war chilled its many participants.
Russia backed Iraq, during the Gulf War, but the results were still the same in the end. During this time race riots broke out in Los Angeles after an amateur video of L.A.P.D. officers beating a mutant during a traffic stop came to light. Around the same time Hydra agents and 3rd world terrorists staged their first attacks on the World Trade Center and failed, Hydra agents were arrested and eventually convicted in the aftermath of the bombing. Stark Munitions made the leap from weapons manufacturing into a diversified, multinational corporation with the purchase of the beleaguered Apple Computer and Microsoft in the aftermath of the Dot.com market collapse.
With the diversification well underway Howard Stark and his wife are killed in a car accident leaving their son the inheritor of the newly christened Stark International. The war on terror came about when agents of Hydra cooperated with 3rd world terror cells in a second series of terrorist strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A little over a month later the President signs into law the Patriot Act, this was the beginning of the reformation of S.H.I.E.L.D. (The Supreme Headquarters for International Espionage Law-Enforcement Division) at the hands of WW2 (Korean and Viet Nam) veteran General Nicholas J. Fury as, other than Captain America; he had the most dealings with Hydra having encountered them time and time again during WW2. There was some talk of attempting to recreate Project Rebirth, but ultimately the Government decided against it investing its efforts in the arming of S.H.I.E.L.D. using weapons created by Howard Stark and his engineers at Stark International as a stick against terrorists.
The newly recreated S.H.I.E.L.D. ran into a couple of minor problems, the first being that a Daily Globe journalist leaked the name of an undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, the second is that they weren’t fast enough in getting much needed supplies to the beleaguered people of New Orleans in the face of Hurricane Katrina. But managed to bring in a huge win for the administration when not only were they able to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and within two years they were able to capture Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, as well as Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker, field marshal of all Hydra forces. With the back of Hydra broken, S.H.I.E.L.D. was able to round up and arrest undercover agents of who had managed to infiltrate various levels of government in their zeal for power.
After the reelection of the standing President the rights of Mutants, which had always been a question for many years, suddenly came to the forefront of everyone’s mind when a small Maryland county issued a marriage for a mutant couple, which a judge then invalidated by striking down the law that allowed it. Protests over the matter began in small amounts across the country, but quickly gained speed when the movement surged across the internet with mutant couples ‘getting married’ across the country in protest on the matter. ‘Proposition X’ is authored by two young congressmen from California attempting to define marriage as a social union or legal contract between two humans ; the matter is savaged in the press when a U.S. District Court Judge strikes down the proposition when proponents of the constitutional amendment argued that exclusively marriage was "an essential institution of society", that leaving the constitution unchanged would "result in public schools teaching our kids that mutant marriage is okay", and that mutants "do not have the right to redefine marriage for everyone else." Opponents argued that "the freedom to marry is fundamental to our society", that the California constitution "should guarantee the same freedom and rights to everyone", and that the proposition "mandates one set of rules for human and another set for everyone else." They also argued that "equality under the law is a fundamental constitutional guarantee".
The matter is tabled when police in Suffolk county Massachusetts end up battling a young mutant, in the end the mutant is slain the battle with the police, but not before killing three police officers and five civilians in the ensuing battle. With this altercation making the national news, talks of a mutant registration bill are banded about with Massachusetts Senator Robert Kelly going so far as to author the Mutant Registration Act of Massachusetts which would require all mutants to reveal and register themselves with the Massachusetts state government. Normal people fearing for their safety and hating a whole class of people that they are either unknowingly aware of in their midst, perceived on television or in print while minorities of all shape and size castigate them under the thought that ‘As bad as things are for me, at least I ain’t a mutant…’
The act is eventually passed into law, other states begin to adopt the law or similar versions therein, and by the time that Magneto and the brotherhood make their first appearance a couple of years later the law is being seriously discussed on a national level with Senator Robert Kelly leading the charge.
With a newly elected President in office the American public finds themselves hard pressed through an economic recession, a collapsing housing market, the subject of mutant rights and politicians using their personal power to further their political gain. Stark International buys out two major automotive companies after they default to the banks on loans they can’t repay, just as things are beginning to look their worst, Reed Richards and his friends are exposed to cosmic radiation turning them into the Fantastic Four…

great... no... AWESOME stuff!

Thanks for the kind words, here are the notes for the various Captain America's through the years...

Steve Rogers (1940-1945, found frozen circa 2011...)
William Nasland (1945-1946, died saving a young JFK)
Jeffery Mace (1946-1950, retires from injuries)
William Burnside (1950-55, is taken out of service when he goes nuts. Frozen in suspended animation.)
James Harper (1963-1968, beat cop friend of JFK turned costumed patriotic hero after given the F.L.A.G. formula by S.H.I.E.L.D., dies in Vietnam.)
Joe Higgins (1969-73, solider who through a field promotion became the new Captain America, retired in the face of the Watergate scandal.)

I never dealt with John Walker as I was never fond of the character, although had the game continued that would have been an alias that William Burnside would have been resurrected into having.... It should be noted that James Harper is DC Comics 'Guardian' and Joe Higgins is Archie (and Impact) Comics 'Shield', i just used the names for filler purposes...

I enjoyed this game, I just had people who just weren't into it...Sad really.

Keith

bob it stinks when you feel really good about something you wrote and others are like na, or wonder off.it was interesting.

I like your background story very much.
Did you all play through that or is that the history your using to get things rolling in your world?
So where are you guys at now?
I'd like to read more about your world.

On a related note, I started up a game where my players are very new at their powers and have not ventured out into the world of superheroics.
Its a 1920 game and I wanted my players to have a chance to become the heroes of pulp comics. Since its before the birth of Batman and Superman, my players will have a chance to establish themselves as these future titans and grandfathers of modern superheores.

I'm following your ideas of real world cities and politics, starting off in January 1920 and using all the real world events as elements in my story. My players are not heroes yet, but will be shaped into them. Their base city is New York City and I'm going to milk all the fun I can out of gangsters, prohibition, and politics of that time. I still need to include all the fun weirdness story themes of H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Steven King, Michael Crichton, Philip K. Dick, and Warren Ellis.

The first adventure was to save a girlfriend who turns out to be dating a different guy. The boyfriend is a rookie cop who is working on the case to recover his missing girlfriend with a private detective. Like all players they changed some of the elements so I have to adapt and was not able to go through with the original plan to kill the girlfriend, but that is ok I came up with a better hook that will blow their minds later, so it worked out in the end. The "other guy" she is dating a successful scientist working for an up and coming corporation called ROXXON Chemicals, they are going to revolutionize oil refining. The kidnappers are using the girl to get to the scientist to get his work at ROXXON. This seems like a simple case of corporate espionage or extortion, but it was something so much more. I can't reveal the truth just yet in case my players read this post and figure out my screen name. The one thing that was a reoccurring clue was the Ouroboros. They are still not sure how this ties into the girl, the scientist, the company, or the kidnappers, and that is the theme for this series adventures.

I only have two players at the moment, one magic user who is modeling himself as a black sheep detective like Jim Butcher's Dresden, and the other is a mutant who is born with some very powerful gifts: time manipulation and teleporation. I'm having them start off small in power level, learning to use their abilities. They both hate the fact they they can just jump into to full power mode, but I want them to appreciate where they are coming from and where they will go with it.

Anyways, I just wanted to jump in and say your ideas are very interesting and I'm hoping you and others will contribute more when you all get a chance.

I like your background story very much.

Thank you for the kind words.

Did you all play through that or is that the history your using to get things rolling in your world?

Nope, I just wrote a couple of pages as a background piece for the game.

So where are you guys at now?

The game fell apart after about 3-4 sessions. I have a LOT of trouble getting players to show up on a consistent basis.

I'd like to read more about your world.

Unfortunately what you're seeing here is all there is to it. The next game I run will be set in the aftermath of the Secret Wars with the conceit that those who were snatched away from earth to fight in the war, never made it home alive and the rest of the Marvel Universe B and C list characters have to step-up and fill the void.

Keith