Halcyon City History

Halcyon City! Shining beacon of heroism and progress! The city of tomorrow!
That’s the tagline, anyway. The truth is always a little more complex. Halcyon City has been around for several centuries, but its real history begins in the 1930s, with the appearance of Maggie MacIntyre, better known as Flying Freedom. Historians know now that there were superhumans before, scattered all throughout history. But, even if there was a large cluster of superhumans in ancient Egypt, Flying Freedom was the first public figure to whom the term “superhero” could reasonably be ascribed. She was cloaked in a pilot’s jacket, cap, and goggles, with the American flag emblazoned on her back, and she could fly. Newsreel footage of the era marveled at how she soared over Halcyon’s tallest towers.
Maggie MacIntyre fought criminals and madmen with flair and heroism. But she wasn’t immortal, and she wasn’t invulnerable. She died saving Halcyon City from her mortal enemy, Captain Coldheart, and his aerial doomcraft, but she’d already inspired new heroes. Champion and the Haunt had taken up herstruggle for heroism, and Halcyon City would never be the same.
Superhumans gravitated toward the city, joining its ever-growing community of metahumans. Some immediately sought out criminal activity; others dove headfirst into heroics; still others just lived their lives. But with all of them together in one place, Halcyon became a hotbed of technological progress. Industries moved headquarters into Halcyon to be closer to the biggest developments in their fields. And with ever greater wealth and success came ever more superpowered insanity.
Halcyon has seen countless superheroes rise and fall. It’s seen super criminals and aliens, warlords and mythical monsters. It’s seen parallel dimensions overlaid on its own streets, and it’s seen time travelers from an endless panoply of possible futures. It’s been invaded, conquered, defended, and freed. And through it all the city perseveres, changing and adjusting and adapting to face whatever threats or challenges come before it.
HALCYON TODAY
The city is huge; over 10 million people live in its many neighborhoods and districts. It’s a city of tremendous variety, from the large island of silver and glass skyscrapers to the waterfront neighborhoods of dark alleys to the strange architecture transposed onto our Halcyon from other worlds. People from an endless panoply of cultures fill its streets, bringing their own beliefs, traditions, and practices into the city’s crucible. The city is far from perfect, with plenty of prejudice even today, but there’s no other place on Earth quite as diverse as Halcyon. And that’s not even getting into the superhuman stuff.
Halcyon is the single greatest confluence of superheroic, metahuman, supernatural, and impossible activity in the entire world. For years scientists and historians have tried to determine the causal relationship between the city and the superpowered madness that goes on there. There’s the obvious—new superheroes and supervillains come to Halcyon because it’s where the action is. But why is Halcyon always the target of alien invasions? Of paranormal transdimensional transpositions? Of apocalyptic events and eldritch monstrosities and whatever else you can think of?
No one’s ever found a definitive answer, and most people in the city don’t worry too much about the why. The city just is what it is. Some cities deal with constant cloud cover or terrible weather. Halcyon has superpeople, monsters, time travel, sorcerers, and whatever else. *Shrug* The city’s never ended so far, and the superheroes generally have a pretty good handle on things. Life goes on.

Flying Freedom was the first public superhero!