Supernames Explained

 

Supernames are a grand and colorful tradition that goes all the way back to our founding in 1948. 

 

The first half of the 20th century was a time of great social upheaval, not only because of the Great War in the Air that occurred alongside the Borderland Crisis in 1912, not only because of the Worlds War of the 1940’s, but because the 1930’s saw a dramatic shift in the public perception of superhumans. The 30’s saw America evolve from a country with very strict superhuman legislation into a country whose citizens came to be trusted with the freedom to use their gifts how they wanted, when they wanted, and where they wanted. And by the time it was all over, they could even name themselves after their superpowers without anyone batting an eye.

 

In 1932, the nigh-omnipotent Gold Star decided he wasn’t doing enough to “save” the world. He was a man of the people. He walked across America in disguise, erupting like a bright star in times of peril to right wrongs and save lives. But he had seen evils that couldn’t be solved by overpowering them–miners paid in scrip as they suffered from black lung, child laborers crushed between the wheels of machinery, and women burned to death inside locked factories. Trusting in democracy, and unwilling to turn himself into a demagogue, he instead gave his public support to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 

 

FDR created the National Recovery Administration to equalize American enterprise. It set a minimum wage, set maximum work hours, abolished child laborer, and set up an oppressive, unconstitutional bureaucracy to combat “unfair and destructive competition,” and they considered superhumans to stand at the top of the list of “unfair and destructive competition.” If a man ironing shirts at pennies lest than his competition warranted fines and imprisonment, a man constructing buildings single-handedly was going to draw considerable ire down on his head.

 

FDR’s NRA, with Gold Star providing the necessary muscle, forced superhumans to either use their powers as prescribed under the NRA’s rules or face imprisonment in the Grindhouse, the world’s first superhuman prison built in West Feliciana, Louisiana. To work around the NRA, superhumans took to the shadows, and often adopted costumes and codenames–the first supernames. Not all of these “shadow men” and “mystery men” were superhuman vigilantes. Some were simply men and women who plied their powers to dig mines, plow fields, and raise buildings while the government’s eye wasn’t on them. Martin’s own Urban Ranger provides an example of a 1930’s shadowman, and though many think he’s either a descendent of Bass Reeves or maybe even the man himself, no one truly knows him as anything but Urban Ranger, the man who came from the Western plains to fight the greater violence of the Eastern cities.

 

Gold Star eventually turned against the NRA and FDR. He put too many superhumans behind bars, too many heroes who only wanted to help people as he helped them, and in 1936 he threw his support behind Alf Landon, carrying him to overwhelming victory just as he carried FDR four years ago. Under Landon, the NRA was abolished.

 

The NRA was gone, but supernames and secret identities remained. Part of the reason was that recently released superhumans were skeptical that the government and Gold Star had truly changed. Another part was that Dr. Stone’s Princes of Dawn stated that a supername could help a superhuman navigate through the “challenge of duty” caused by tension between the liberating freedom and crushing sense of responsibility being superhuman entailed. Dr. Stone believed that having two identities solved for the challenge of duty. One identity would embody the liberation and action that came with free use of superhuman power while the other would embody restraint and yielding to societal norms. One identity would have a name and the other a supername.

 

Though inaccurate in some respects (Dr. Stone predicted that double identities would grow to become the norm for superhumans while in real life they are rarely used nowadays), Princes of Dawn was hugely influential when it was first released and influenced many superhumans to adopt a supername. When the Statesmen began collecting names for their directory of superhumans in 1938, they got three times as many supernames as names.

 

The practice of supernames continued on through the war years and the feats of superhumans on the battlefield elevated supernames to the level of deity epithets. The Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel, Agent Republic–names of legend attached to legendary battles and mythological feats.

 

Though our school was rushed into assembly for the purpose of getting as many young superhumans away from the battlefield as possible, our kids, especially the boys, naturally idolized the superheroes they saw battling the Axis on newsreels. Just as today, many of our students back then wanted to be superheroes. And with so many “Captain X’s” and “Super Y’s” running around our school, the non-superhero kids soon asked if they could be let in on the act. Who were we to say no? And so, the tradition was born, with the first student to take a supername being Jenny Calvin, Incandescent.

 

Students aren’t required to pick a supername, but they’re encouraged to. A supername serves several purposes. It can be aspirational, something to represent a goal a student strives towards. It can be self-encouragement, something to represent a student’s pride and confidence. And sometimes it serves the purpose of a secret identity, though secret identities become more and more an “old person” thing each year. Songbird gives us an example of a student using a supername to mask his identity.

 

 It’s often interesting to see what kind of names they pick, sometimes they can tell you a lot about the student. Gunnar Cropsey’s supername is 100% a symbol of his aspirations. He wants to protect people and he wants to be as much like a traditional superhero. “Captain Protector” shows both those aspirations. August “Auggie” Mars’ supername is an example of a supername used as self-encouragement. “Ampire” is a tongue-in-check way to refer to Auggie’s Brown syndrome. He’s a vampire. And he can turn into a thundercloud. Get it?“Ampire” shows that Auggie is very comfortable being who he is and that he’s unaffected by the stigma that usually surrounds Brown syndrome. And some students pick their supernames for reasons outside the usual. Kimberly Adam picked “Darkheart” because she wanted a name that would make people stay away from her. Tommy Taylor chose “Rock and Roll” to show his disdain against the entire concept of a supername. Matthew Roy wanted to become The Coat because he wanted something that would contrast to his childhood as Blanket Boy. And Kalani Sakata and Martina Morelli both have legacy supernames.

Names are important, especially when you’re an educator. The first thing they teach you in training is to memorize all your student’s names. Even if you have a couple hundred students (some of our teachers at Martin’s see that many and more) you have to know their names. It’s imperative. “Hey you.” is always alienating. But you don’t have to worry about memorizing two names for each student–much to the contrary, studies have shown that supernames increase teacher retention for both names of their students. Apparently, supernames serve as a mnemonic device, and in this way give our school one last advantage. You might not remember Lindsay Childs, but everyone remembers Jigsaw Judy. She’s even won awards for her supername.