Seeking heroes for a different kind of war
In October 1938, just after the signing of the Treaty of Munich, a celestial event lit up the skies of the Earth from far beyond the borders of our own galaxy. A number of meteors streaked across the skies and crashed to earth, scattered across continents. The shower lasted three days and spread cross every corner of the planet. The meteorites found afterward were made up of unusual materials that no scientist on Earth had seen before, elements from other stars, other galaxies... maybe other dimensions. And perhaps more extraordinarily, something about the strange radiation signature of the meteor shower brought out incredible powers in a small percentage of the Earth's population.
These superpowered humans became one of the focal points of World War II as Axis and Allies alike each sought to recruit and train the most powerful among them to fight for their side. World War II played out very similarly to the real historical record, except that with every key battle, Hitler's Ubermenschen clashed with the superhero corps from the US, Russia and Britain. Pearl Harbor was carried out by a small but dreaded team of Japanese powered humans. And because this new kind of human weaponry, the American mainland was at greater risk than it would otherwise have been.
But, the Allies won their victory and wrapped themselves in glory and after the trials had passed and the dust has settled, the world has arrived at the Cold War. Countries around the world are working as fast as they can to recruit the most powerful of the superpowered beings, tempting them with luxurious lifestyles, big paychecks and even fame, The teams of supers for different countries are as much propaganda as power, though it's widely recognized that superpowers are the weapons of the future.
There are, though, people within government who recognize the potential for great danger to traditional (all-white, all-male) power structures around the world since the powers brought on by the meteor shower were distributed far more democratically than the people in power would have liked. The Guardians, the U.S. main team, has members of different ethnicity, but they tend to put the superhumans of color in the more dangerous and tougher work and the whiter more "all American" (to their standards) heroes wind up in front of the television cameras. This is true in many countries.
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The game is about superheroes during the Silver Age, but it is a deconstruction of the genre, pulling back the curtain to look at what lies behind some of he patriotism and prosperity of the era as well as breaking down some of the typical tropes of the media during that period. The players are superpowered beings being pulled through the world by all of these forces.
