Backstory assistance needed

I have a character named C A P E. The concept for this character is that he is a normal human that uses tech based weaponry to take down superpowered beings in an attempt to protect humanity. The character is skilled at taking down superheroes and he collects their capes as trophies of his success. He is ultimately defeated and captured by a rival supergroup. While imprisoned he is sonsulted by members of this rival supergroup to help them determine how to take down super villains. When this rival supergroup is defeated and captured remaining members break him out and he assists them in defeating the villain.

What I need help with is a motive for this character to hate any and all superpowered beings and a desire to protect regular humans. I also need a reason for him to have a change of heart and show remourse for his past crimes and want to help his rival group by doing what he does best.

I love this idea but I just hit a wall trying to figure out his motivations. Any suggestions or ideas will be gratly appreciated. I have a couple of commissions in progress that I will post when finished. Just wanted to get the history and story of the character down first.Thank you!

how about something along the lines of him being rejected by his friends and family who are afraid of him and his powers. He grows up lonely, angry and bitter, despising his powers, himself and anyone like him. His reason for a change of heart could be just that, a girl on the superteam, understands him, accepts him for who he is, he falls for her... awww. Heh.

Hope this helps.

The people who are the most fervent about something are converts and the betrayed. So that's the way I would go.

Alex Talma -- Alex means "defender of the people"; a talma is a cape named after a French actor -- I like to give characters names pertinent to their superhero identity, but non-obvious ones people would have to research in order to "get".

Alex Talma grew up like any little boy in Paragon City: idolizing the heroes who protected the city. Collecting the trading cards, reading Hypertypes Magazine religiously, taping the posters of his favorites to his wall. While his friends idolized Statesman or Positron, Alex had no favorite: he loved them all. He wished fervently that he had powers so he could emulate his heroes. Both his younger brother and sister shared his passion and they spent many nights peering out their window hoping to catch the slightest glimpse of a superhero flying by. They would slip into sleep knowing they were safe from harm as their heroes were always on guard.

The modest cape-style home Alex grew up in was typical of New England towns, and his neighborhood was full of laughter and life, an enviable idyllic childhood. Eastgate was lovely, up until that day in 2000 when the Trolls, in all their drug-addled brutality, placed bombs in the sewers beneath Paragon City's nicest suburb. When the bombs went off, the caves under the neighborhood collapsed and the entire area collapsed in a violent cataclysm now known as "The Hollowing."

From the small park across the street, 13-year-old Alex watched his home fall into the chasm, taking his family with it. He can still hear his sister's screams. He can still feel that moment when they stopped. As the Trolls rampaged through the area, no one came to help. Caught completely off-guard, the city's first responders took more than 20 minutes to get to the scene and were never able to get control of the area. The Outcasts poured into the area after the Trolls, pillaging and wreaking even more havoc. Already traumatized by the colossal destruction, Alex was further terrorized when a gang of Outcasts made sport of him, taunting him for his tears and beating him.

A hero saw the fracas and came to Alex's assistance, but was driven off by the Outcast's superior numbers. When Alex turned 18 and left the orphanage behind, that hero was the first to die at his hands. Love turned to hate, worship betrayed by circumstance, all compounded by the trauma of watching his family die conspired to make Alex reject his former idols. Worse, he wanted to get even with the ones who wronged him by letting his family die, by leaving him to the cruelty of the thugs.

With a single-minded intent, Alex devoted every waking moment -- and more than a fair share of his dreaming moments, as well -- to plotting how to take down these so-called "heroes." All of his idol worship in his earlier life gave him the knowledge of different kinds of powers and abilities, the ways heroes fought. Now he turned his obsession into designing ways to counteract those methods, to neutralize their powers. He would slip out of the orphanage and practice first on the homeless, then he would hunt the bigger game of low-level gang members, until he finally graduated to heroes.

Jimmy Steel, that hero who had left him to the mercies of the Outcasts, was helping clean up in the aftermath of the Rikti War One when Alex took him by surprise. It was Alex's 18th birthday... and the birth of a terrible, misguided spirit of vengeance, C A P E.

I guess a typical motivation would be triggered by some personal affront done by a superbeing because of being super. Such as, collateral damage was inflicted on a family member or other very valuable thing by a super's powers. Turnaround would be if the slight turned out never happened, or if the injured party (mother?) told him it was really okay. To have a super do something right to "right the wrong" would be hard, finding anything that compared to the original slight that led to a life of super-cide.

Perhaps simple jealousy. That could be reversed by a super (like the natural Manticore) pointing out that the hyperassassin was essentially a superhero. If the jealousy is about having fans, then the fans appear. Of course, that's a morally ambiguous situation as it might even stimulate further supermassacres.

Perhaps someone stole his security blanket, and his childhood was bleak after that (probably pure coincidence). He sees capes as security blankets for heroes, and so he wears the capes of his kills. He knows, on some psychosis level, that a security blanket is only good for a little while (his own obviously ran out of "security power", since it got stolen) so he is constantly seeking new capes. He comes good when he wins an all-you-can-wear shopping spree at "Manscape", the cape warehouse. At least, til the magic of his collection wears off... or perhaps he simply suffocated under a mountain of billowing fabric.

I like that last one, personally.

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What Airhead said, that's pretty good.

Also possibly: he's a spy/bounty hunter type. He's actually working FOR someone to begin with, but something goes wrong or he discovers something behind the scenes that sours him on the deal, and realizes the need to take down these 'supers' to save everyone from their madness.

Prejudice doesn't need to be justified, sometimes people are just afraid of the "different" and let that fear take over their actions...

But if you want some reasons then you could always go with the idea of a million different tiny ones. If the character is originally from Paragon City then capes are all over the place and his hatred could have started early: As a child he was next in line to get Statesman's autograph but the jerk flew off without giving him one. A year or so later Positron literally scared the pee out of him when he burst out of a sewer drain, causing other kids to point and stare. Another time Manticore called him "pal" and he bragged to classmates that they were friends... But Manticore never answered any of his letters... Throw in a instance or two of "real" reasons like someone flying by overhead and ignoring the fact that he was being mugged or someone getting hit by a stray power beam and the hero not seeming to care... And finally he decides that they're a menace.


For turning himself around I would tend to go for that touching after school special moment... A situation where he realizes that in hunting down capes he has caused the same kind of emotional scars to others. Perhaps he sees a little kid getting picked on for claiming he knows the fearless super hunter or something...

Thanks for the posts everyone. Some great ideas you guys have here. I think I have a direction for my backstory. I won't post it yet. Once the recent art I commissioned is finished I will post the story with the art. Thanks for helping/inspiring me to get past the wall I hit writing my character's story.

Lets see. I tried to envision your character Hybrid.
A hunter.. a hunter of capes. Captured... oh the humiliation. He gets breaked out and used to take down a super villain.

For your goal (hate all superpowered beings). Lets see. I'd go with the "i'm better with you" approach. After all strip a super powered being of their power and what do they have?.. nothing. Whilst you have your skills.
Also your character has excelled enough (and has the teck) to defeat super powered beings.
You could use a "protect the little guy". Power corrupts, total power corrupts all. Better if everyone was non-powered. After all a superpowered being with no skills will get better treatment then a normal person with skills.

In the beginning he could have been bypassed by someone who showed themselves with a uncompetable talent. Someone who outclassed him in everything (well it was the superpowers that did it, not the beings skills) (grumble grumble )

This guy has alot of potencial for being full of resentment of super powered beings, always seeing their faults, not their good side. All their deeds put in a bad light (oh yes the person used a wall to save himself (and the humans trapped).. but all that public damage!).. aka Jonah Jameson vs Spiderman.

I think maybe superiority complex would be a good way to go. I'm better then you in every way, I can beat you even if you got powers! (Go go vice Pride)

Tried not to look on the other suggestions. I guess it is a bit late, but I hope you get a good backstory.

Lady Arete - Thanks for the post. I have the backstory for Cape already drawn up. But he is the main antagonist in my mission architect story with an army known as the Collectors. The Collectors are all humans who us advanced tech weapons and body armor to take down superheroes. Cape for example uses a vanguard katana and his suit has a cloaking device that makes him virtually invisible. I have another character that might fit your description though. I have a female character in my mission architect story named Vixen (martial arts and demon summoning whip only), who could be a former superpower who lost her powers and hates heroes out of jealousy. She is psychotic so the loss of her powers could have pushed her over the edge. Great stuff and thanks for the post!