From Chaosium’s Worlds of Wonder in 1982 came the Superworld box set, by Steve Perrin, in 1983. Before I go on, let us glory in that most excellent smirking robot dude featured in Michael Dooney’s cover art.

Done? OK, now, I should mention Superworld is the only thing to come out of the Worlds of Wonder box set (some of the spellcasting systems in MagicWorld kind of got absorbed back into RuneQuest, but I don’t count that). Despite the fact that I love the look of Superworld’s crisp and clean design as well as it’s not-very-great interior art (wait, is that a shoggoth?), I don’t understand why the system exists, as it mostly seems like a Champions knock-off. A separate volume, the Superworld Companion, even provides rules to convert to and from Champions and Villains and Vigilantes.

Who am I to judge, though? George R. R. Martin apparently ran a long-term Superworld campaign for a group of sci-fi writers that eventually turned into the Wild Cards shared universe anthologies (co-edited by Melinda Snodgrass). I reckon that cements Superworld’s reputation in nerd history.

And, if I am being completely honest, the wackiness first Superworld supplement, Bad Medicine for Dr. Drugs, completely justifies the existence of the box set, but that is a post for another time…

Bonus: how great is Radioman?