# Wanted. Historical figures i can plausibly attribute superpowers too. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 2, 2008, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-historical-figures-i-can-plausibly-attribute-superpowers-too/466195 "2008-10-02T16:54:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-historical-figures-i-can-plausibly-attribute-superpowers-too/466195/121 "2013-11-20T22:57:57Z")
> [@DeptfordX](#): > > … and not to rain on anyones parade. Please feel free to continue, but i feel i ought to point out that the RPG campaign that this thread was set up to mine ideas for, and the spin-off campaign (Plus at least one weekend one-shot) that it spawned (with new characters, the old ones becoming the main villians of the new) ended about 2 years ago. What historical figures did you go with? ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-historical-figures-i-can-plausibly-attribute-superpowers-too/466195/122 "2013-11-20T22:59:38Z")
> [@DeptfordX](#): > > Going on the list. > I like Vassili Zaitsev as well. he’s definitely going to have been a member of the WW2 incarnation of the \*‘Defenders of the Revolution’ \*. The USSR’s homegrown superteam. > > The current line-up incidentally.🙂 > > **Supreme Soviet** , Team leader and exemplar of the New Soviet Man. > > **Cosmos** , He went to the stars, and brought their power back. > > \*\*Red Army \*\* the one man army. > > **Major Ursa** Shapeshifting commisar and guardian of doctrine. > > **Red Banner** Armoured champion of the state. If it is Soviet superheroes you want, the obvious choice is [Stakhanov](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksei_Grigorievich_Stakhanov), who was made into a sort of superhero by the propaganda machine. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-historical-figures-i-can-plausibly-attribute-superpowers-too/466195/123 "2013-11-20T23:48:18Z")
He’s still around but Bill Kazmaier. And then Nikola Tesla. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-historical-figures-i-can-plausibly-attribute-superpowers-too/466195/124 "2013-11-20T23:52:53Z")
The greatest sniper of all time, Simo Hayha. He makes Vassili Zaitzev and Charlie Hathcock look like amateurs. Add to my three so far, top-scoring tank gunner Kurt Knispel and Japanese fighter ace Saburo Sakai. Those five: Kazmaier, Tesla, Hayha, Knispel and Sakai are my prime candidates for the superior race breeding program, if there ever was one. ---
**Author:** ![NiceGuyJack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/niceguyjack/32/3069_2.png) [@NiceGuyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NiceGuyJack)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-historical-figures-i-can-plausibly-attribute-superpowers-too/466195/125 "2013-11-21T01:56:15Z")
> [@DeptfordX](#): > > … and not to rain on anyones parade. Please feel free to continue, but i feel i ought to point out that the RPG campaign that this thread was set up to mine ideas for, and the spin-off campaign (Plus at least one weekend one-shot) that it spawned (with new characters, the old ones becoming the main villians of the new) ended about 2 years ago. Did not realize that the previous poster had pulled this thread out of the past.:smack: Should look at the dates more often. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-historical-figures-i-can-plausibly-attribute-superpowers-too/466195/126 "2013-11-21T16:19:23Z")
Even if it’s a zombie thread, I’d like to suggest John Howland, if for no other reason than that he’s seasonally appropriate. He fell off the Mayflower during a storm, and although he couldn’t swim, he somehow managed to grab a rope trailing in the water and get hauled back on board. He and his wife also had ten children, all of whom (in the 1600’s!) lived to grow up and have children of their own–he had more than eighty grandchildren. Wild luck powers, perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![DeptfordX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DeptfordX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeptfordX)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-historical-figures-i-can-plausibly-attribute-superpowers-too/466195/127 "2013-11-21T20:10:30Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > What historical figures did you go with? Oh almost none, I set up the thread in the very early days of deciding what the game was about. I ended up changing history from WW2 onwards, and ended up with 40 pages of backstory and entire rosters of national superteams. Nb i didn’t make my players wade through this, i also don’t do this for every game. I just started writing and got carried away, it was kind of a NanNoWriMo sort of thing. Few things are more tedious than reading about other peoples RPG games so i’ll spare you the details. One thing amused us all however. One of the major villians in the first campaign were resurgent Nazi supers. The climax was an attack on the Nazi base, a _swastika-shaped base_ hidden on the far side of the moon (they’d shot down Apollo 11 with a hidden Particle Cannon). This was years before the film Iron Sky came out. One of our group rushed in one week and said ‘Fire up Youtube, you have to see this’ and showedus the trailer. There was a collective WTF moment, as the swastika-shaped moon base on the dark side of the moon was revealed. Co-incidence? It seems unlikely. A plot involving CIA orbital mind-control lasers, possibly spun-off from some 1920’s style death-ray seems the likelier explanation. I should never have stopped wearing that tin foil hat. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-historical-figures-i-can-plausibly-attribute-superpowers-too/466195.md?page=6)