The Origins of Average Joe Hero

In a world of superheroes—spandex-clad, tank-throwing, faster than rockets, immune to everything but the deadliest weapons heroes — I was Joe.

Just plain ol' Joe.

And time and again, I almost died.

In high school my friends and I used to play a superhero-themed role-playing game called Champions. We built gods out of paper and imagination. One guy maximized raw damage with his fists. Another reveled in how deep his claws could cut into flesh. Another was too fast to hit with anything.

I played along, but something about it felt... boring. Then, flipping through the rulebook, seeking inspiration for a character, I saw it.

Luck.

I pitched my idea. My GM smirked. "Fine, but no powers. Just Luck."

And so, Joe was born.

Joe Herovsky wasn’t a hero—he was just a normal guy who seemed to defy death.

A firefighter who saved lives the way others filed folders, Joe had already made the news for pulling a couple from their burning house just before it collapsed. But when the real superheroes arrived—muscle-bound titans with godlike abilities—Joe was just another bystander.

Except he wasn’t. He was cursed. The universe had decided he had to be a hero, whether he wanted to or not.

Despite growing accolades from an adoring public, Joe’s luck was a prison.

The universe had made its choice—Joe would survive. No matter the cost.

Fire. Bullets. Falling from a rocket in low orbit. Somehow, somehow, he’d always walk away.

But when he tried to stop? That’s when things got worse.

His girlfriend begged him to stop. He did. Then his best friend was turned into a pancake by a runaway roll of plate steel.

He refused to save a stranger from a fatal accident. That night, his father died —mysteriously.

Joe wasn’t just lucky. He was cursed—forced to play hero, whether he wanted to or not.

For a group of dice-chucking, anime-watching, arcade-loving, 80s nerds, Joe was something different.

We didn’t measure him in damage per punch thrown, or how many dice I got to roll. He was measured in how absurdly, unfairly, hilariously lucky he was.

'You’re not surviving this fall,' SpiritStar would say.

‘Yur totally gonna Gruber it, and take the kids with ya” snickered The Fist.

Three babies in my arms. Thirty stories up. No ropes, no nets, nothing.

'I'll roll my Luck.' Eight dice hit the table.

And just then—a wind djinni, mid-bank heist, appeared beneath me.

Because that’s how Joe rolled.

My friends groaned. 'Of course Joe saves the day.'

That was the moment. Not when I rolled the dice, but when they laughed and shook their heads. Joe wasn’t just a hero. He was Average Joe Hero.

The idea that a normal person, not the prototypical superhero, was the one that always saved the day was novel to us. So long as Joe was there, everyone in the city knew there was a chance, as much as it shredded any peace he had in his life.

I've always found the ultimate vulnerability of being "normal" in an extreme situation as an amazing place to find stories. Not the kinds of stories that always inspire us, not about exceptional people doing incredible things. Stories about underdogs, about the forgotten, the ignored, the lost.

So, I created Average Joe Hero to tell some of those stories, but never in the usual way.

What happens to the people standing just outside the spotlight?

No superheroes. No royalty or politicians. No superstars and no influencers. Just folks, and the weird and wonderful things that happen to them.

My goal?

To honor Joe’s story. To tell the tales of ordinary people in extraordinary moments.

Because in the end, all of us are the average joe heroes of our own stories...and I think  that's amazing.