Superguy

The Superguy Mailing List started on February 11, 1989, as forum for humorous superhero fiction. Since then it has exploded in popularity, to the point where it hosts several subtopics, including Superguy itself and its inspiration, Sfstory, which used to be a separate mailing list, before it waned in popularity.

In fact, maybe I should just clear up the various things 'Superguy' can refer to:

1. The Superguy Mailing List.
2. The Superguy Subtopic of the mailing list (other subtopics being Sfstory, Round Robin, Metaworld, and the Author's Altiverse).
3. The Superguy Universe (or 'altiverse'), where most of the stories in the Superguy subtopic take place.
4. Superguy, the greatest hero of the Superguy Universe. Superguy is beyond hyperbole. No one attempts to describe him because no one has even seen him -- he's far too busy doing acts of heroism with his super-speed.
5. Superguy, a noun used to describe either:
   1. Any superhero, powered or not
   2. Anybody with superhuman powers, hero or villain (or random bystander)
   It seems to depend on context. This term was pretty much created in honor of Superguy himself.
   (Note: while 'guy' is usually gender-male, 'superguy' is always gender-neutral.)

All clear now? Good.

As noted above, Superguy began as a parody of superheroes, especially in comic books. Indeed, many heroes in Superguy can be traced to "real" superheroes; e.g. Superguy, Supermøøse, Genericman, Superiorman, !, and Mighty Guy are all parodies of Superman. However, the tone has gotten more serious in recent years, although it retains its humorous core.

I was introduced to Superguy through a crossover between the Superguy series Team M.E.C.H.A. and the LNH series Dvandom Force known as the Grand Tour. This crossover is one of several which are infamous for taking forever to end, and during the wait I decided to read back issues of Team M.E.C.H.A. so I could know who these people were. Well, they had been involved with an immense crossover that, for the sake of any Superguy Authors who may be reading, I will not name. The end result was that I ended up reading a good chunk of the archives -- especially after I found the the Superguy Autocollector, which makes archive browsing easy and fun.

Newcomers to Superguy will no doubt be disoriented by the fact that few of the series are in sync with each other -- indeed, there are currently three or more consecutive crossovers being written simultaneously. I recommend just going with the flow.

Several Superguy authors have web pages. Check out the Other People page for a list.

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