The first confirmed SH MU* sighting, as I define the idea of a SH MU*, was Superhero MUX, also known as SHMUX. I played Charles Xavier, stoic leader of the X-Men, and Vincent Guerra, malevolent White King of the Hellfire Club, on the original SHMUX. SHMUX was a mux where players could log on and create their chars, and, more importantly, their characters could be from any comic book, television, radio show, whatever. Batman just managing to foil the Mandarin’s latest plot, or Captain America wail on the Super Nazi, were both common sights on SHMUX. SHMUX, in its early days, was a great place to RP.The roleplay was plentiful and very dynamic and spontaneous – you got the sense that it was a real story being told, just made up as it went alone. But at the same time there were many, many problems with SHMUX. Most of the problems arose from the fact that the SHMUX policy concerning a good deal of things was simply non-existent, something which usually happens with a MU* that delves into a whole new, original theme. But because of many factors, players, staff, OOC feelings, miscommunication and the lack of communication, the problems on SHMUX got worse instead of better. Eventually SHMUX would be destroyed when the owner of the site and maintainer of the database, the wizard known as Paul, simply took down the site and erased the database, figuring that it simply wasn’t worth it anymore. Of course this sucked, but it happens.
Since SHMUX there have been many new SH MU*s. The old SHMUX veterans started MetaMux, the old admin from SHMUX started Project Infinity, other SHMUX veterans started Heroes and Villains, where I currently RP/TP Wiz, and others started MiB MUX. All of these new SH MU*s are all fine and dandy, I like some better than others, but all of them fall short in capturing the former glory of SHMUX or coming close to what I feel would be the ideal Superhero MUX. This is where CBZ steps in. CBZ is what I feel the ideal SH MU* should be like. To create this MUX, I’ve basically started from scratch, burrowing ideas from here and there, but mostly coming up with my own policy. Whether any of this would ever actually work … I’m not sure. I think it’d would. Perhaps one day, when I find a site and the time, I’ll be able to make CBZ into a reality.