Idea for the triptych one-on-one campaign

I have not felt creative in weeks, but the other day I decided to revisit the idea of a single-player superhero game but with the person playing three different heroes...a “hero family” if you will.

Now, the actual fact is I asked a friend if he wanted to try it, and he said yes, and offered me a Mutants and Masterminds character as the nucleus. I don't have his permission to name him or the character, so I'll be a little evasive. For now, we'll call them the Solo family, but suffice it to say that they're all insect themed.

The original character is a transformed hero (actually transformed by the Silver Storm, I believe, in an abortive campaign that collapsed after two episodes). This hero is PL10 and I am helpfully informed that the character is consciously a legacy hero, named after an in-game hero from the 1970s.

So after thinking a bit, here's what I came up with.

Remember that the core idea is three characters, and in the M&M game system it makes sense for the characters to be different power levels. I picked PL10, PL12, and PL8.

The 1970s is like forty or fifty years ago, now, but it makes sense for the OG hero to have had a sidekick who is now grown up. I don't actually want to deal with an ex-hero, so my choices here are someone who ages slowly, some kind of construct or person with the sidekick's memories, or maybe an armored hero, where the armor handles the natural degradation due to age. (I'm sure there are other possibilities: the child of the OG hero, for instance, or the OG hero and some kind of time travel.)

What I proposed is a grown-up sidekick, some kind of mutant who ages slowly (she's now in her fifties and finally looks twenty; I imagine the antagathic effect kicked in at puberty and it has taken her 45 years to get from 12 to 20 in appearance. She has sidekick to a number of heroes (well, sometimes leading from behind. "Uh, that skylight's a pretty obvious trap, Green Alpaca. Maybe going through the window?") and is ready to strike out on her own. (And face it, having to ride the storms of adolescence for forty years is kinda painful.) She inherited the OG hero's wealth, so she has a place that, while not ostentatious, is large enough and well-situated.

But...PL8 makes me think of mystery men and high school students, so I went with the time travel aspect and mystery men. The PL8 hero I'm thinking of is some 1930s mystery man (or woman; we're assuming a full body costume) who has been caught in a Groundhog Day thing for nearly a hundred years. The hero has a good right hook, insect venom weaponized in a number of ways (sleep! paralysis! Death! Binding! Whatever!) and a cavalier attitude about what should happen to "the guilty."

And it makes sense for the sidekick to have taken that character in during the adjustment. In fact, the house might be a revolving door for various down-on-their-luck heroes.

Now, supporting cast.

The house needs a staff, and one that can be trusted. So there's a cook and a cleaning person and probably a maintenance person. Haven't but a lot of thought into them, but they need to be there.

The Golden Age mystery man needs a descendent of some kind, or the child of someone who was important to them back in the day. That person will be ancient because they're just normal.

The current hero has been defined as homeless, so I figure the plot of Annie will come up at some point.

That's what I've proposed. Once I have those nailed down, we can create arch- and recurring foes.