META-4 is more of a Planetary/Authority universe, with a touch of the Silver Age Marvel thrown in, rather than the DC side.

This would be because of a couple things:

1) We already knew that Steve’s Freedom City was going to go full out, no punches pulled, Silver Age homage. No reason to duplicate what Steve was already doing a fantastic job with.

2) Erik loves Planetary and Authority, Kyle loves early-80s DC (as does Erik) and comics like The Amazing Screw-On Head and Preacher. I love Silver Age Marvel, stuff like Gen 13, Astro City, and Fantastic Four. It seemed natural to us to mash that all up into something we could agree on (easier said than done). Please note that Erik, Kyle, and myself have far more varied tastes than what is listed above, but those are some of the big influences on what we created.

3) As we came up with ideas, we knew our META-4 universe would be darker, more political, and maybe a little snarky. The further we went, the more it strayed from our influences and just became this… thing. We liked where it went. Even as we wrote Crooks! it became apparent that we had really created a full universe, that although it had some wildly differing characters in it (take Nihilist and Dr. Dungeon for instance) it worked, it became internally consistent, and everything pointed to the same direction.

We’re so glad you guys like META-4. It’s very rewarding to see folks enjoy something you spent so much time to create (I know Steve feels the same way about Freedom City).

Forward | Courage Unlimited | A Note on Notes | Thematic Influence | The Luciferian | Roll Call | Knock-Off | Gimmick | Twist | Cyclone | The Pugilist | Minotaur, ANTAG and Bestiary | Iraq Discoveries | The Reserve | The Front

All content within the “Super Unicorn Unbridled” is owned by the respective authors. All the content was granted generously by members of Super Unicorn: Sean Glenn, Erik Mona, or Kyle Hunter on the Mutants and Masterminds Atomic Think Tank messageboard. ECORE and XEI do not claim ownership of any content. This series was put together to organize information about the META-4 setting and its characters.

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