The Next-Gen
The Next-Gen are the academy’s original team and possibly still the best. Despite the age of some, like Miss Kitty, the Next-Gen team has become the de facto campus leaders, thanks to their experiences. The same can also be said of the other supers Duncan Summers has been training at the school for years. This means they either have their fans (and thus, enemies), or they’re sought after for advice and help.
History
When Duncan Summers purchased the failing Claremont Academy in the Bayview area of Freedom City, he had no intention of creating another hero team. The Academy had once been a prestigious private school, but fell on hard times and closed after sustaining damage during the Terminus Invasion. Summers had a somewhat different idea in mind for the school—taking what he’d learned in his superhero career and passing it on to a new generation. There were more young superhumans in the world than before, and they needed someone to teach them how to control their powers and use them constructively. They also needed someone looking out for them to keep them out of the clutches of villains like the Mastermind, Dr. Sin, or SHADOW. Duncan reluctantly trained his daughter Callie to become the second Raven, and was surprised how much he enjoyed teaching.
With his renowned detective skills and contacts throughout the superhuman community, Mr. Summers quickly gathered students, and in fact it took longer to purchase, repair, refurbish, and staff the Academy than it did to find its first class of students. Duncan found out very quickly that working with his new students wasn’t at all like training his daughter. Callie had a rebellious and independent streak, but she still loved him as her father. It took a lot more time to build trust with these new kids and win them over. In the end, they taught Duncan as much as he taught them. Although they complain that “Old Man Summers” is hard on them, they respect him, and all his students would do almost anything for him.
The students at the Academy weren’t intended to be superheroes, at least not until they completed their training. The superhero business isn’t a safe place for amateurs, as far as Summers was concerned. Fate led some Academy students into a battle against various supervillains, simply because “no other heroes were around to fight the bad guys, so we did.” Using their training, the kids prevailed, and the surrounding news cameras caught them in action. Sonic's enthusiastic sound bite to Channel 9’s Amy Feng cemented their name and attitude for the public from the start. She asked, “You’re all so young, and yet obviously capable. Have you worked with the Freedom League?” Beaming broadly into the cameras, Sonic fired back, “Nah they’re old school. We’re the Next-Gen!”
Although he officially discourages “extra-circular activities,” Duncan Summers is secretly proud of his Next-Gen students. But since they insist on being dragged into the heroic world, he gives them heroic levels of additional training and studies to prepare them either for the life they chose or the life that chose them. Becoming a member of the Next-Gen is now a cherished goal among the younger students at the Academy.
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