Superheroes

How to Explain It

"One person enters with a superhero name and a specific power. The next person enters, names the first hero's problem, and introduces their own power as the solution. We build a team one hero at a time. By the end, all heroes have been introduced and the world has been saved."

Objectives

Superheroes trains creative interpretation under constraint, commitment to absurd premises, and the structural skill of building to a full ensemble and returning to a solo. It also rewards physical and vocal specificity in character: each hero should have a distinct physicality that reflects their power.

Running the Game

Brief performers on the arc before the game starts. Players who don't know the structure will vary the departure sequence or attempt to resolve the crisis as a group rather than in reverse order. The game depends on everyone knowing the mechanic.

Coach the audience or host to offer powers that are specific and strange rather than generic. "Super strength" produces a dull hero; "the power of knowing exactly where everyone left their keys" produces a comic one.

Common Coaching Notes

• "Apply your power. Whatever it is, find a way to use it specifically."
• "Know why you're leaving before you leave."
• "First hero: you resolve this alone. Whatever the team built, it's yours to close."
• "Each hero's power should look different. Find the physical."

The Absurd Power Principle

The game's comic engine is the gap between an absurd power and a genuine application of that power to the crisis. Heroes who ignore their power and simply help with the crisis directly abandon the game. Heroes who cannot find a way to apply their power and stand frozen have lost the game. The sweet spot is the creative, committed, specific application: how does excessive punctuality actually address the asteroid?

The application does not need to be logical. It needs to be committed. The audience accepts any application as long as the performer fully believes in it.

The Reverse Exit

The reverse exit sequence is often overlooked in training. Each exiting hero needs a reason to leave: they completed their task, they are needed elsewhere, their power is used up. The reason should be brief and specific, not vague. Heroes who drift off without a clear exit break the structure.

The Resolution

The first hero's solo resolution should be rapid and surprising. It has the most setup behind it and therefore the highest expectation. Short and committed beats long and explained.

Superheroes is associated with Whose Line Is It Anyway?, the British improvisational panel show (1988-1999) and its American adaptation (1998-2007), where it appeared frequently as an opening game. Judy Leep notes that on Whose Line the game operated as a joke format rather than a scene format.

Asaf Ronen attributes the exercise to Steve Wacker, documenting it as a structured activity used with school-age groups in which children name and then portray original superheroes. This pedagogical version emphasizes identity invention and confidence performance rather than the crisis-resolution arc of the short-form game.

Tom Salinsky documents the game's mechanic in The Improv Handbook as an audience-participation game structured around the escalation of arriving heroes and their reverse departure. The game also appears under alternate names: Bill Lynn references it as "Superheroes or Worst Nightmare" in Improvisation for Actors and Writers. Gay Grasberg documents a version called "Superheroes at the Gym" in Great Group Skits.