Costumed Adventurer

Costumed Adventurers (sometimes called Costumed Vigilantes, Masked Adventurers, Costumed Heroes, Mystery Men or rarely by the more recent term Superheroes) is a collective term for private individuals who fight crime and help out in emergencies using theatrical personas and elaborate costumes, often without permission from legal authority, and (in some cases) deal with crime in violent ways. Inspired by the pulp fiction and comic book heroes of the 1930s, costumed adventurers have had a remarkable influence on American society and have, for better or worse, completely altered the course of history during the tumultuous 20th century.

Practitioners often employ masks, costumes and codenames and may also employ specially-designed and custom-built weapons/technology to aid themselves, as in the case of Nite Owl II, who designed much of this type of weaponry on his own. Those who engage in this type of crime fighting possess a general belief that existing law enforcement either require assistance, or is somehow inadequate or even unwilling, in investigating, locating and/or apprehending criminals.

Although Doctor Manhattan was the only costumed hero with actual superpowers due to his lab accident, many (but not necessarily all) costumed vigilantes took it upon themselves to become extensively and intensively trained in numerous useful skillsets and many varieties of both armed and unarmed combat alongside equally intensive physical conditioning to enable them to carry out their extremely dangerous activities and withstand the toll these actions inevitably took upon the human body. Because of this, vigilantes like The Comedian, Rorschach and Ozymandias (to name but a few) came to possess seemingly (but not actually) superhuman-level physical attributes far exceeding that of regular people such as strength enough to easily punch through solid walls, send a fully-grown man flying across a room with a single kick, catch a bullet fired at them and survive a jump out of a two-story window without any harm.

Although once highly popular with the public during the "Golden Age" of masked vigilantism, their reputation had slowly eroded in recent decades due to several controversies regarding allegations of questionable behavior and ruthless crimefighting (Rorschach in particular), as well as the actions of government sponsored costumed adventurers (such as The Comedian and Doctor Manhattan) while fighting in the Vietnam War. During the Police Strike of 1977, the United States government saw no other choice but to pass the Keene Act, which effectively outlawed all forms of costumed adventurism throughout the country, with the exception of those solely employed by the government.

History

Golden Age: 1938 - 1949

"This Extraordinary Being..."

Masked adventurers make their front page. (New York Gazette, October 14, 1938) Note artist's impression of "The Hooded Vigilante"

In October, 1938, during the twilight years of the Great Depression, the United States was beginning to recover from the decade-long economic crisis, while the world was poised on the brink of World War 2. Amidst the turmoil unfolding elsewhere, people across the county (mainly children) began to amuse themselves with stories of a new type of comic book character: the superhero. Although there had been crimefighters in popular fiction long before the arrival of Superman in the April, 1938 issue of Action Comics such as The Shadow and Doc Savage as well as having a simplistic moralistic view of the world, but as noted by Hollis Mason in his memoir Under The Hood, most of these characters were often at times dark and brooding antiheroes, with an "atmosphere of the horrific and faintly sinister" that hung around them (like The Shadow), and carrying repressed sexual urges everywhere they went as they fought crime. With the arrival of Superman, however, the

List of original costumed adventurers

There are only 3 superhero teams mentioned in the original series - Minutemen, Watchmen, and the extremely short-lived Crimebusters. No superhero is mentioned without a team.

Minutemen

Captain Metropolis (deceased)
The Comedian (deceased)
Hooded Justice (deceased)
Silhouette (deceased)
Nite Owl (deceased)
Silk Spectre
Dollar Bill (deceased)
Mothman