How do I make a powerarmored superhero PC without seeming like an Iron Man, Blue Beetle, or Venom knockoff?

The idea I had for an armored superhero was simply to have the armor be distinct, separate pieces instead of a whole suit that's effectively one piece. Kind of like an armored gadgeteer. Flight pack connected to a chest piece, gauntlets with built in blasters, jump boots, underwrist grappler, etc. So instead of being a tank, you have to be agile and clever.

Of course there's also nothing really wrong with emulating something, so long as you make it fun. It's not like your character is going to be some published, copyrighted entity. I'm still waiting for a chance to play my Spider-Man/ Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle ripoff, Scarab.

Maybe go the samurai route where the armor is a family heirloom
Your family is tasked with protecting your little home bohemian hometown.
Base your power armor after the jewish golem.

...

Make an empowered rip off instead

The suit is made up of magic

>summon spell is learned
>can change magical properties
>makes PC start each fight with less mana or something
>is ethereal

Could make it a Bubblegum Crisis knockoff, and have it as 80s as you want. Floof hair and leotards and biker aesthetic, or just the power armor and bikes.

Garo!

How about a a play on the concept?
Your character is actually paraplegic or quadraplegic, but his spine is replaced by a cybernetic prosthetic that allows him mobility and also “plugs into” his power armor in addition to having other augmentations through his body to circumvent degenerative diseases.
The armor is used to increase his offensive and defensive capabilities as well as give him greater strength then he could accomplish without removing literally every organic part of his body.

Basically make him look like an Iron Man type guy, but he’s not so much a regular guy in a metal suit that gives him powers but a cyborg in a metal suit that lets him utilize his cybernetics to their full potential.

Be the bio-boosted hero instead

What is a Bubblegum Crisis and is it as awesome as that picture would lead me to believe?

8-episode OVA about cyberpunk power-armor mercenary cops fighting Terminator-Replicants, with lots of 80s aesthetic.

It's a classic.

Do you like Blade Runner, Terminator, superhero shows, cyberpunk, power armor vigilantes, and 80’s pop music?

If yes, then you pretty much need to see Bubblegum Crisis

But then he's just a Steel ripoff.

Op is just being a faggot and disqualifying the most obvious solution and saying the suit can't be alive in some way.

Be possessed, since nothing about the suit can be interesting or unique, be abstract about the suit. Also eat shit.

Well, I know what I'm doing when I get home tonight

Make it a Megaman knockoff

Back in the 3rd ed Champions days, I had a character called Technomancer that everyone thought was a power armor hero, when actually the armor was a robotic shell/drone he remotely piloted from his batman-like lair.

A femanon player in a different campaign had what was effectively a power armor character who was a princess from a fantasy dimension trapped here. She had a magical suit of plate mail with enchanted gems that gave the armor a variety of different powers, but of course her greatest strength was the power of love.,

Box from alpha Flight was a bit different. The armor was like a big pile of nanotech the operator phased into. The suit could change shape, size, and weaponry at will be shifting the configuration of the nanotech.

One could also try a softsuit that uses a variety of projected forcefields or solid holograms instead of the standard hard armor type thing.

>Jewish samurai power armor
DAI-YOROI?
desuarchive.org/m/thread/15215676/#15217205

Like Crysis
>organic
>also mechanical
>alien
>also human
>you don't need it to live
>but now you do need it to live
As for powers, just extremely heightened human speed and strength plus heavy armour and invisibility.

Read Starship troopers.

Be a walking tank with jump jets, grenades, a flame thrower and a shoulder mounted nuclear missile launcher.

>Iron Man, Blue Beetle, or Venom knockoff
Don't have their colour schemes to start with.
Don't have rocket-boots and palm-cannon.
Don't have the most iconic of what-ever-the-fuck Blue Beetle has.
Don't go running around in liquid armour with nothing but claws and jaws.

SOLVED!

That would logically make you Rocket Red, STRIPE or Big Guy sans Rusty.

Steel built his suit tho

user might be thinking of War Machine.

Make it part of an Order, something like Knights, or maybe family related like the Silver Samurai from Marvel, but with your family adding more and more tech to the armor.

I actually did this. Totems and what not. You could have totems that added to your defense and projected a magic armor like barrier, additional arms could be add, weaponry could be modded in, like the summoned sword and what not. Anyone could wear these since they were items with magical properties.

Check metal heroes from tokusatsu.

Many of these are space cops or special cops. So you could make them something like Green Lanter Corps, or a special division of Law Enforcement/Military.

Your superhero is not power-armored, he is the power armor.

I had an unpowered armor PC once. Basically a huge and ridiculously strong sentient slime that filled up the inside of a large diving suit and brute forced it to move like a person would. The functions of the suit were ruined but it was still holding together when it was all over.

I ran a Hero System game that had a villain that everyone thought was a power armor hero. The heros defeated him, took his armor, and put him in a regular jail,,

Which he immediately escaped because actually he was a superpowered guy, The armor buffed his powers and provided better armor.

Surprise!

>Bubblegum Crisis
>is it as awesome as that picture would lead me to believe?

It is indeed.

Make sure you get the original version with the Japanese soundtrack. The version on iTunes replaces all that awesome music with watered-down English studio crap. Trying to enjoy BGC without Kinuko Oomori's slammin' vocals in the background is like groovin' on William Shatner's cover of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" without realizing that The Beatles' version came first.

If you feel you're missing some resolution after episode 8, "Scoop Chase", check out the follow-up three-episode series Bubblegum Crash. It's not nearly as good, but it will give you answers to a lot of the questions some of the earlier episodes (especially 3, 5, and 6) raise.

Also, be aware that there is a reboot series that takes place several years later. It misses the point of the original, if you ask me.

Steal identifiable elements from everybody, but only take like the third thing people remember about each source.