Steampunk Supers

Contrary to what Classic: Steampunk says Supers are not antichronistic to the period (though calling them that would be). 
The first "super" can be argued to be Spring-heeled Jack who was mainly seen from 1837The supposed 1809 letter that appeared in Sheffield Times is problematic as there seem to have been papers called "Sheffield Times" before "The Sheffield Times" that ran from 1846 to 1879 so tracking down this letter is a long trip to nowhere. to the late 1870s (the last report is in 1904). Public speculation ran riot with suggestion it was simply a man with gimmicks to Spring Healed Jack being supernatural in origin. One picture looks very much like the much later Batman character.The Mysterious London Attacker Who May Have Inspired Batman | Answers With Joe
Near the end of the Steampunk era (1912) the first story about a man from another world who could jump huge distances and lift heavy objects with ease due to his native world having heavier gravity appeared. Set in the 19th century this was the famous Barsoom series involving John Carter.
Furthermore there were the Penny Dreadfuls and Dime-novels - effectively the comic-books of their day. As the names suggest the quality wasn't that good with Varney the Vampire the poster child of just how bad it could get. The reason it is so bad is author was paid by the typeset line.Skal David J (1996) V is for Vampire Plume pg 210-212 As a result the author took every attempt to increase the verbiage with Varney pausing at regular intervals before putting the bite on a victim as well as long descriptions of the setting. This rambling went on for 207 weeks, with Varney getting repeatedly killed and raised by moonlight and several other means until the author had Varney chuck himself into Mount Vesuvius. In 1847 the work was put into book form. The result was an 876 double-columned page monstrosity divided into 232 chapters.Due to numerous errors in the chapter numbering thanks to a confusion with the Roman numbers the first edition lists the last chapter as "CCXX" (220), 12 less then it should have been. - Skal David J (1996) V is for Vampire Plume pg 210-212
==Additional Information==
*Nick Carter the c. 1900 bloodhood named after a fictional detective who had first appeared in 1886 and by 1949 had appeared in 4,000+ novels, comic strips, films, and radio shows.
==Notes==
== References ==
* GURPS Steampunk pg 126
Category:Steampunk Genre
Category:Supers