The Continuing Adventures of My Super-Boys

Last year, I sat my boys down on the HeroMachine website to let them make their own superheroes.  Since it’s been so long, I decided to let them back on to see how they would make their heroes this time.  As with the last time, I guided them through the setup.  I might have nudged them here or there but the general look and feel of the superheroes was up to them.  For example, I might push to make tops and bottoms match in color, but if they decided to change the color palette, I wouldn’t refuse their superheroic demands.

I also purposefully didn’t show them their superheroes from the previous year.  I didn’t want them to simply recreate their old heroes.  I wanted to see what more recent influences might being to their heroes.

Let’s start with JSL.  Last year, he made this hero:

  

He named his superhero “FireGuy.”  So what did he make this year?

Meet Super Agent JSL Buzz Lightyear.  Breaking down the name first, the “Super” part comes because, to JSL, a superhero must, obviously, be names super-something.  I’m not sure why he thinks that.  Most of the superheroes he knows don’t have names that begin with “Super.”  “Agent” comes from Agent P, from Phineas and Ferb.  We had recently watched the Phineas and Ferb movie so he wanted to be a secret agent.  Buzz Lightyear comes from his favorite Toy Story character.

The shield is based on the one that his favorite superhero, Captain America, has.  The color scheme incorporates his favorite colors.  I’m not sure if there was a particular rhyme or reason behind the rest of the outfit, though.

Next up, was NHL.  Last year, he made Disco Man, so named because he had “disco eyes.”

 

This year, NHL made Toolguy/Mathman/Cordman.  Yes, you read that right.  This superhero has three names.  I tried to get NHL to shorten it, but he was adamant that it needed to be all three and include the slashes.

The name is based off his love of building things, his love of math, and the fact that his superhero has a whip.  The head was based loosely on Hulk.  For the body, NHL insisted that his superhero was part-robot and so it needed to be grey.  In retrospect, I wonder if this comes from Perry the Platyborg from the Phineas and Ferb movie.  It was interesting that NHL picked out the same tail that he chose last year.  He also chose the same eyes at first, but then changed his mind.

Have your kids used HeroMachine?  If so, what kinds of superheroes have they made?