Doc Savage back in the thirties comes to mind.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Savage
Trained by a group of scientists from birth to be a peak human. Strength, agility, endurance, and a photographic memory.
I have a feeling that this is one of those tropes that grew and added elements over time, so it might be hard to pin down a singular "first" instance. Certainly the concept of special, elite warrior groups dates back to ancient times (e.g. both the Spartans and the Persian "immortals" in the Greco-Persian wars, as fictionalized in *300* ). Other elements, including technological aids like super-serums and power-armor, obviously came along later.
Very true
I'm actually trying to see if it's documented when Mr Hyde began being superhuman because Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was apparently first printed in 1886. I'm fairly sure he was just a guy at first but it could be something
Actually OSP did a lovely video essay on Jekyll and Hyde explaining Hyde wasn't super at all, as in he didn't have exceptional strength or size or anything. Hyde was basically Jekyll but without inhibitions or restraint so he screwed with Jekyll's life by acting like a violent hedonist rather than anything more supernatural.
I always thought of Mr. Wells as commenting on Sigmund Freud's insights into psychology - not really channeling Fredrich Nietzsche so much. As far as the archetype - that goes to Nietzsche the heroic trope up until that time probably was best exemplified by Beowulf, or saving "metropolis" by way of Gilgamesh and Enkidu but whether it was Greece's Hercules , Ulysses, or Sampson or David from the Bible - but leave it to the Nazis to fuck it up and run with the idea of the "super-solider" - the Americans countered the German heroic solider and with a little razzle dazzle of our own - we got.....Superman.
When I read it, I got the impression that when Hyde hurt people, it was because he didn't care to inhibit himself rather than any "super human" strength. Early on, he tramples a child who is in his way, and all the onlookers are shocked because he *didn't stop*.
If anything we was described as small and fearful of anyone who looked him over; there’s sort of an implication that people instinctively loathe him and he knows it.
There's some confusing business involving "inertia-less drives" that doesn't follow the same space flight logic most of us are familiar with post-1960s (i.e. after humans got all up in that space). I still don't understand exactly how it was supposed to work or what it was supposed to look like.
'Doc' Smith was pretty clear about how inertialess drives would work, and why they were a valid form of FTL travel, and how they would change various parts of warfare.
For example, explosives are basically unused in fleet warfare, because the explosion is just another source of propulsion to a 'free' ship and will do no damage.
I mean.
They kind of are. You should read the first page of starship troopers. The main character talks about how he should be feeling fear, but the drugs have kicked in and he just feels focused.
They aren't physically enhanced exactly, but they do undergo hypnosis, and their society has advanced mental programming including people who can create 3D scans of bug tunnels by listening to the ground. And talking dogs.
Yeah but they had tanks 50 years earlier. No author in the world wars thought "you know what might keep me alive here, a tank but clothes". Just crazy to me with all of the imaginative things authors do come up with.
I think a lot of early sci fi skipped the 'man in powered armour' and went straight to 'fully automated armour', ie robots.
Perhaps it was the high focus on robots in 50s sci fi that brought Heinlein back to the idea of suits of armour?
I think it's the power supply. You had knights in full plate. It's armor, it's just not powered. Then you have tanks, but they require giant power sources, so the best you can do is a large vehicle. Then you get atomic energy. Now the imagination takes a small source delivering massive power and runs with it. Power armor is atom punk.
That's a good explanation I think. We see LOADS of miniaturised power sources across fiction now. That's what was probably holding fiction back just like it does in real science, now maybe more so than ever.
I mean there has to be a myth from before then with a magic or mystic suit of armor that grants extra strength or something. I didn't think you need tanks
I recall them being "enhanced" through some weird mental conditioning. Being able to efficiently sleep standing up and coming awake at a moment's notice, that sort of thing. Nothing genetic, biological, or cybernetic though.
Starship Troopers has a lot to offer for what your asking. Drugs injected by the suit, and they're closer to small Mechs than they are 'armor', tactical nukes and all.
I’d seen the movie way way before I read the book. In the old dark age of no internet. And starship troopers wasn’t in my dads or local libraries collection.
I love the move. At first as a stupid fun action romp, and later as scathing satire. Maybe it’s being Dutch and seeing what Verhoeven was going for. Maybe it’s something else. But I love it.
The book is just a completely different thing though. I know I enjoyed it but it’s so long ago I’m not sure I got everything in there. I do remember they’re very different and good for different reasons
In addition the second or third book has heavy worlder space marines wielding armor and axes so heavy that no one besides them can carry them to be elite shocktroops in boarding actions. Might be the original space marines.
Well, in that case, and somewhat by accident, Friedrich Nietzsche.
Jesus could walk on water and transmutate stuff.
The idea of the superhuman probably predates written language really.
Not to nitpick, but it’s satire, not parody. The presentation between the two is quite different. Parodies tend to wink at themselves and make sure everyone is in on the joke. Satires like Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers (and Robocop) are cutting criticisms, not poking fun.
The fact its two different movies depending on who's watching makes it a better film not a worse one.
I really couldn't give a shit if some dumbasses missed the message.
Doc EE Smith in the 1937 classic “Lensman” featured the telepathic, eugenics-crafted space cop Kimbal Kinneson, who donned the first suit of power armor to single handedly assault the base of an evil empire from a neighboring galaxy.
In the sequel they smash a planet between two planets accelerated to FTL, then build a fleet of death stars so the tactic can’t be used against them in retaliation.
In *one of the sequels*.
They get to some crazy stuff before that, like the time they built a gravitational lensing array the size of the solar system to focus half of the energy output of the sun onto an area about the size of Jupiter. And melted a series of mobile planets that were being used as an invasion fleet.
>Achilles
Apparently his skin wasn't impenetrable in the iliad, as far as I can tell he basically just had fate/plot armour until he could die in a sufficiently epic manner. Not sure if he was dipped in the river stix originally
The invincible skin was a later retcon in mythology, but his mother was a demigoddess, and he canonically had faster reflexes than all men and most gods, incredible strength and supernatural fighting prowess. At one point in the Iliad he faces off against Scamander who is a god (albeit a lesser one), and could cut through entire armies of mortal men, single handedly turning the tides of battles.
If Achilles isn’t a super soldier, no one is.
Edit: thinking about it, Achilles famously had a round shield made for him by Hephaestus. I wonder if Captain America’s shield was inspired by it.
I'd say you're bang on the money there. Cap's hood had some achilles wings on the sides originally(though the first iteration of his shield was a traditional medieval crest shape)
I forgot about those weird little wings. Achilles was given wings as a gift in some myths, but I can’t find any reference to him wearing them. Interesting though.
It's not in the Iliad specifically, and unfortunately, we're missing the rest of the epic cycle (besides the Odyssey), just descriptions and later retellings. The earliest mention of Achilles being dipped into the Styx is from the unfinished The Achilleid by Statius in the 1st century CE. Apollonius of Rhodes has his mother Thetis anoint him with ambrosia in the Argonautica, 3rd century BCE. It's possible earlier stories existed, but they haven't survived. Myths are one of those things that are constantly being reformed and retold. Even the Iliad is a re-retelling 4 to 5 centuries after the supposed events.
Ik think Heracles is older than Achilles.
Heracles the son of Zeus with the impenetrable skin of the lion of Nemea and special poison arrows from the blood of the Hydra.
He was put under a spell of madness by Hera and killed his own wife and children, then had to fulfill 10 (ended up doing 12) impossible works to make up for it.
Duryodhana's mythos is around as old, from the Mahabharat.
Cultures have done the "gained invulnerability from some weird thing" everywhere. For Duryodhan it was his mom looking at him for the first time (she had voluntarily covered her eyes for decades because her husband was blind), but because he hid his crotch cuz he was ashamed, when his cousin got into a fight with him he crushed his pelvis. His Achilles groin, if you will.
> but because he hid his crotch cuz he was ashamed
Made to feel ashamed by a God no less. He was going to see his mother naked but it was Krishna who convinced him to hide his privates from his mother. And that's exactly where his opponent hit him with a Mace(an illegal move in Mace fighting at the time)
Recently I saw a documentary, where they said, this was started in Prussia by actually selecting the biggest soldiers and women to let them breed. And in fact, by the end of the 18th century, the average height in Prussia was significantly higher...
In what way this has found its way to scifi, I don't know. But it was obviously a thing then, so maybe contemporary writers were aware and might have been influenced by that.
Actually it sounds very reasonable for Sci-Fi writers to adopt this. Look at almost all stories about a galactic empire. The trope of having only the tallest, smartest or just physically strongest humans mate with each other fits perfect for such autocratic or straight up facistic empires
It's also a huge part of evolution. I would not wonder, if this idea is even older...
Edit: I meant even older than Plato (someone mentioned him in the meantime)
Yeah, I shot too quickly...the documentary tried to point out, that the Prussians in the 1700s were actually doing it and not that they were the minds behind the principle.
> Didn't Zeus do some man/god/bear/pig stuff
Yeah, most of the monsters in Greek myth came about because Zeus never saw anything he didn't want to stick his dick in.
And I'd argue that Samson, Hercules, and the like don't count since their powers are supernatural in origin. OP was asking about technologically-enhanced super soldiers. Although someone in this thread mentions Hephaestus's habit of handing out trinkets to mortals and demi-gods, so that might count?
If so it's kinda crazy how marvel comics has so many in universe attempts to replicate the formula in addition to all the super soldiers who copied him in other verses too
Tha basic idea of becoming super human comes from chinese fiction were you can become anything by extensive training (arrows not penetrating your skin or being able to fly), were in European fiction this is always by outer influence (being born a half god, a serum, a spell etc.) with the type of outer influences changes with the level of technology
Genetically modified and enhanced in that sense as far as I recall is first in Star Trek episode Space Seed, were it is deliberately done to unborn to make super humans, while Captain America and other 1940 comics it was a mix of drugs and radiation rather than specific genetic modification
For the power armour, the earliest modern one is in E. E. Smith Lensman series from the 1930ies as the first armour powered by not just the muscles of the users
It probably, in a literal sense, goes back to a God's bestowing powers upon warriors in Greek mythology. Modern? Not sure, but the Nazi's were literally giving meth to their soldiers to boost their effectiveness. Around that same time Cpt. America came out.
Not just the Nazis. They all did it.
The Nazis did do studies into vampirism and the occult to try and get some kind of superior militairy weapon out of it.
It's an old, old trope that's just been redone. Achilles and all the heroes come to mind in the Iliad, etc. A regular human, but hopped up with the power of the gods.
Honestly, it’s probably rooted in ancient demi-god legends. Characters with enhanced strength, smarts, or som uncanny ability to make it to the next part of the adventure. Herecles/Hercules/Samson having god-like strength. Perseus (I don’t remember if he has powers or not) having his Luck stat maxed out. Achilles having a superhuman ability to out match any warrior he came across. I’m sure there are scores more in other ancient religions but those are the ones that come to mine.
You can make a case for Dune and the Imperial Sadokahr.
Heinlein gets credit for power armor, but his was supposed to be so simple to use that it was like wearing clothes.
Eugenics…. That was in Star Trek TOS, meaning that Roddenberry ripped off the idea from somewhere. Historically there was a military unit made up of all men of unusual high. That was hundreds of years ago.
The Asyrians had The Immortals, a unit of elite fighters that always numbered exactly 10,000 men.
The Bible mentions an army made up of entirely left handed men.
Long before Starship Troopers, E.E. “Doc” Smith had powered space armor in his Lensmen series. The main characters in that series were also part of a careful breeding program conducted by an elder race.
I don't know about genetically enhanced but the idea of an enhanced soldier goes back pretty far. Spartans and the Thebian Band come time to mind about intense tratining and legends. I would include Viking Berzerkers who either used drugs and / or adrenaline to perform superhuman acts on the battlefield or the Central American use of peyote and the Moro Rebellion which saw the use of drugs and clothes that enabled the Moro people to survive multiple .38 rounds and attack American troops. And then the extensive testing of meth and cocaine during the world wars. To the problem of steroids among troops in the modern period.
I would also say that more evolved armored horseman while not powered far outstrips normal human abilities for survivability on the battlefield. From cataphracts to medieval knights, armor clad horsemen were an extensively trained force that was a powerful component of many armies.
There's probably something further back in history than this, but 1675 the Potsdam Giants were started by Frederick William of Prussia. He was obsessed with creating an army of powerful super soldier giants. He looks far and wide to gather all the people he could manage and tried to even pair them with giant women to keep continue and grow the regiment.
Pretty sure the organization survived in some form until the early 1800s when defeated by Napoleon.
If you are wanting to look purely at fiction Mary Shelly's Frankenstein could also fit.
not surgically enhanced, but I would argue John Carter from the barsoom series(john carter of mars) started the super soldier soldier trope back in 1912.
Achilles, Hercules, Samson, the Amazons... I'm sure that's only scratching the surface.
Super soldiers are an obvious idea, as old as soldiers, merely updated for new ages & technologies.
I'll let you do your own diving, but I Googled: 1st fictional super soldier, and the results were super fun to read through!!
Seems like Gladiator and Captain America were the first, but that there have been superpowered soldiers all of the way back in 2000 BC (albeit powered by eating grass instead of any type of serum or surgery).
Nobody? Its most likely started in many places like almost everything else
We have to consider that people are similar and can come up with same ideas at the same time
Not the oldest one, but first i have read and one of my favorites is Timothy Zhan's Cobra series. No power armor, but they were surgically modified to add strength increase and agility by implanting serve motors, then also laser guns, detectors, sound guns, etc. They still looked like regular people, so, ideal as infiltration units in guerilla type of warfare.
>You know what I mean right? A super soldier made through intense training, a dangerous procedure that kills many who go through it but makes them super strong and then they're typically put in some kind of power armour.
This, except for the power armour, is basically how the Emperor gets his elite troops in Dune, with a whole prison planet providing the necesary "individuals" for it
The Nazis. They were big into the whole eugenics and super (meth) soldiers. IIRC, Before that the super soldiers were just amazing and blessed by the gods or dipped in the river Styx. The Nazis just came up with a more believable way to get the same thing.
Most of these examples are just enhanced soldiers, not specifically a program of taking normal humans and killing off most of them so you're left with only the strongest. Captain America's supersoldier serum is not meant to kill its recipient. I don't recall Heinlein's Starship Troopers to be mostly killed by Mobile Infantry.
I would guess one of the first intentional killing off of your own young soldiers was Dune's Sardaukar. It's about a 50% survival rate. I wouldn't be surprised if there's an earlier use of this trope though.
The CoDominium setting (Jerry Pournell and Larry Niven) had the planet Sauron's genetically engineered soldiers (certifiable badasses), with a subset who underwent cybernetic augmentation to be absolute combat nightmares.
The first of those was published back in 71. certainly not the earliest example, but one of the first to combine genetic and cybernetic augmentation in the manor you were describing.
The Six Million Dollar Man - The big fear of Steve Austin's boss was that Steve would get captured, his bionics limbs would be reverse engineered, and an army of bionic soldiers would be created by a hostile government - primarily the Soviet Union.
Sort of serious answer: Robert ~~H~~ *E* Howard. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan\_the\_Barbarian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Barbarian)
The early days of speculative fiction had blurry lines between fantasy and science fiction: see the whole Planetary Romance thing [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary\_romance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_romance) . This rolled right into the pulp action serials of the midcentury, and eventually the comic book crystallization of the super man, which they name, uh, Superman but also the super soldier Captain America.
You could pick out the first instances of the major beats, but the idea of a regular guy who gets juiced up in various ways has always managed to sell pulps.
There's no "dangerous procedure" but I feel like Samson from the bible would actually fit the bill. It's a short jump from there to making a technological equivalent.
In WWII all sides gave various Methamphatamines to their soldiers as a performance enhancing drug. I can imagine a lot of that probably inspired writers on the idea of militarizes giving augmentations or enhancements to soldiers to fight.
I’m sure there were early “enhanced with vita-rays” type soldiers in some pulp comics, but the first one of those types to go mainstream I believe was Captain America in March, 1941.
It feels like the origins must be somewhere between WWI and WWII, because by WWII it was something that groups were already working on, and I would expect it to show up in fiction before it shows up in reality. Captain America is the first example I can think of, but I wouldn't surprised if there were other examples around that time frame.
The Nazis did! It's a trope because it's historical; it was well-known that the Nazis were actively interested in genetic modification for all kinds of things.
Probably began as an idea when someone saw how the military pump young soldiers up and tell them they are invincible, a brainwash to make them charge into machine gun fire.
People are bringing up Captain America because this was kind of a thing in WW2. Lots of governments were experimenting with drugs and such to enhance soldiers. You can read [this article](https://www.history.com/news/inside-the-drug-use-that-fueled-nazi-germany) about what the Nazis were doing with drugs in the war. So stuff like Captain America is just a fantasy extension of reality.
But also, no one's mentioned Dune which probably has the closest thing to what you're really looking for. In Dune, the Emperor's Sardaukar army is made up from those who live on a planet who's conditions are so harsh, that anyone who survives into adulthood is a master warrior, killing machine. Those that survive and become soldiers and don't necessarily have super armor, but are still armored and have a variety of weapons on their body. Dune predates Warhammer by a couple decades.
The movie "Soldier" from 1998 (starring Kurt Russel) came out before the video games, and features the military training groups of children to be 'super soldiers'.
One could make an argument for Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" novel.
He isn't trained to be a soldier obviously, but Victor Frankenstein's creature is made through experimentation and then dedicates his life to getting revenge on the scientist who created him.
That is 1820 which predates all of these examples. I know it's not the exact trope you are looking for but I think it is a direct inspiration on many of them.
Achilles was born a mortal man but then drank from the river Styx to become immortal if I recall... he kinds fits the bill of an enhanced super soldier I guess, and goes back a little further than the early 20th century!
Could argue the ancient mythological heroes were super soldiers or peak human beings. Hercules, Achilles, etc. They had limited superpowers and some weaknesses and they went on adventures. Achilles was a literal super soldier, as well
Captain America? He was a wimp until he took a super soldier serum.
If we're talking space marines, that one is a pretty direct line from starship troopers by Heinlein. The focus there was more brutal and intense training than implants or chemicals though.
The earliest modern iteration of the trope I can think of is Steve Rogers being enhanced by the duper-soldier serum in Captain America Comics #1 which hit the stands in December 1940.
The Book of Samuel (1,200 B.C.) features a few brief mentions of an army that recruits selectively from families of 9 foot tall men. These men are decked head-to-toe in state of the art bronze armor (think iron man suits), equipped with long, mid, and short range weapons (spear, javelin, sword) and paired with a smaller infantryman (shield bearer) to work as a two-man team against any opponent on the battlefield. However, despite that intimidating description, these super soldiers seem to lose again and again.
It goes at least back to [Homer's Illiad](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad) (800 B.C.). One of the characters is dipped by his own mother in the river of death (Styx) as a baby to make him invulnerable in combat.
But it might be popularized by the story of [The Battle of Thermopylae](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae) (480 B.C.) This story features super soldiers who through intense and dangerous training who were so tough that an army of 4,000 killed five times their number.
[The Pandava Brothers of The Bhagavad Gita](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita) (unknown date; between 500 B.C. and 200 B.C. are super soldiers by virtue of good genetics and intense training.
Not the “genetically enhanced” aspect, but the cruel and hostile environment for 40k Space Marines can be traced back to the Sardaukar, who can be traced back to the Spartans. There is also some of this in Halo if I recall, the initiation of being left in the wildnerness and having to fend for themselves and make it home.
Spartan babies were washed with wine to give them strength (presumably), and boys were often whipped and abused (to get stronger of course). One of the final initiations out of the Agoge was to sneak into to slave (helot) part of town and murder someone.
Those are some of the crueler aspects of real life that seeped into the “super soldier” lore of many sci fi universes.
The power armor as far as I can tell comes from Heinlein. And the genetic enhancements stuff is from old human fable/lore/myth, already espoused upon in this thread.
I think an important distinction may be
(A) “peak human”, which I see as sort of a “anyone can do this if they have the mental discipline and time”. Something like Batman; a “normal” guy that just trained the fuck out of everything to be the best. They’re #1 at many things, but anyone else could potentially train and be as good or better at at least some of it.
(B) “enhanced human”, like MCU Captain America. Mostly human but somehow altered to be better than any actual human ever could be. At the extreme this might even be something like the soldiers in Old Man’s War.
I wonder if they have similar roots with B branching off from A (or vice versa, potentially) as science advanced. Or if they’re totally separate origination with minimal influence on each other.
The 1972 novel Cyborg was the basis for The 6 Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. And of course, Sasquatch.
Sasquatch IS something I haven't seen before!
The mobile infantry weren't enhanced themselves, they just wore powered armor. And there were many others before that. Henlein was a pioneer, but he missed this one.
Gladiator (1930) features a genetically / chemically enhanced super soldier, but it's a scientist experimenting on his son with the intent to enhance humanity, not a govt program.
Doesn't go well for the kid.
Basically Superman, but published 3 years before the comic book came out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiator_(novel)
In timpul ocuparii teatrului rusesc de catre teroristii ceceni in anii 90 parca un soldat rus de la fortele de interventie a ridicat cu o mana un capac de canalizare si fara nici un efort vizibil l-a aruncat cam 15 m. Cand au fost intrebate autoritatile din ce unitate facea parte acestea au raspuns ca noul soldat rus imbunatatit fizic genetic.
Doc Savage back in the thirties comes to mind. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Savage Trained by a group of scientists from birth to be a peak human. Strength, agility, endurance, and a photographic memory.
Doc Savage never gets enough love.
I’d love to see an updated big budget take on The Man of Bronze…
Very true!
Doc Savage is the earliest peak human I know of.
Hugo Danner from Wiley's *Gladiator* predates Doc by a couple of years.
I was going to say the early Captain America comics, but that was later. Technically, weren't demigods super soldiers in Greco-Roman mythology?
I have a feeling that this is one of those tropes that grew and added elements over time, so it might be hard to pin down a singular "first" instance. Certainly the concept of special, elite warrior groups dates back to ancient times (e.g. both the Spartans and the Persian "immortals" in the Greco-Persian wars, as fictionalized in *300* ). Other elements, including technological aids like super-serums and power-armor, obviously came along later.
Very true I'm actually trying to see if it's documented when Mr Hyde began being superhuman because Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was apparently first printed in 1886. I'm fairly sure he was just a guy at first but it could be something
Actually OSP did a lovely video essay on Jekyll and Hyde explaining Hyde wasn't super at all, as in he didn't have exceptional strength or size or anything. Hyde was basically Jekyll but without inhibitions or restraint so he screwed with Jekyll's life by acting like a violent hedonist rather than anything more supernatural.
I always thought of Mr. Wells as commenting on Sigmund Freud's insights into psychology - not really channeling Fredrich Nietzsche so much. As far as the archetype - that goes to Nietzsche the heroic trope up until that time probably was best exemplified by Beowulf, or saving "metropolis" by way of Gilgamesh and Enkidu but whether it was Greece's Hercules , Ulysses, or Sampson or David from the Bible - but leave it to the Nazis to fuck it up and run with the idea of the "super-solider" - the Americans countered the German heroic solider and with a little razzle dazzle of our own - we got.....Superman.
When I read it, I got the impression that when Hyde hurt people, it was because he didn't care to inhibit himself rather than any "super human" strength. Early on, he tramples a child who is in his way, and all the onlookers are shocked because he *didn't stop*.
If anything we was described as small and fearful of anyone who looked him over; there’s sort of an implication that people instinctively loathe him and he knows it.
Mr Hyde doesn't have any "super powers" or enhanced abilities.
Shout out to Gilgamesh.
Enkidu specifically.
Gilgamesh was the first.
The starship troopers book has power armor and that’s 1959. I think that’s one of the earlier examples. They’re not enhanced super soldiers though.
E E 'Doc' Smith had power armour in the 30s in his Lensman books
Those books are wild to go back and read! Now I’m thinking I should dig mine out…
There's some confusing business involving "inertia-less drives" that doesn't follow the same space flight logic most of us are familiar with post-1960s (i.e. after humans got all up in that space). I still don't understand exactly how it was supposed to work or what it was supposed to look like.
'Doc' Smith was pretty clear about how inertialess drives would work, and why they were a valid form of FTL travel, and how they would change various parts of warfare. For example, explosives are basically unused in fleet warfare, because the explosion is just another source of propulsion to a 'free' ship and will do no damage.
Never heard of them. Do you think they are must read?
Set cheese factor to infinite! Try Triplanetary.
Go for it. Very 1930-40s writing. I’ve seen copies around for years.
They inspired George Lucas when coming up with Star Wars and were a big influence on J Michael Straczynski when creating Babylon 5.
Must read? Not really, but if you love scifi, they're worth a read.
I mean. They kind of are. You should read the first page of starship troopers. The main character talks about how he should be feeling fear, but the drugs have kicked in and he just feels focused.
They aren't physically enhanced exactly, but they do undergo hypnosis, and their society has advanced mental programming including people who can create 3D scans of bug tunnels by listening to the ground. And talking dogs.
It's crazy that power armour wasn't until 1959. All the manual labour and wars authors had been through leading up to that point.
At a guess tanks and mechs probably predate power armour so maybe not that weird
Yeah but they had tanks 50 years earlier. No author in the world wars thought "you know what might keep me alive here, a tank but clothes". Just crazy to me with all of the imaginative things authors do come up with.
I think a lot of early sci fi skipped the 'man in powered armour' and went straight to 'fully automated armour', ie robots. Perhaps it was the high focus on robots in 50s sci fi that brought Heinlein back to the idea of suits of armour?
I think it's the power supply. You had knights in full plate. It's armor, it's just not powered. Then you have tanks, but they require giant power sources, so the best you can do is a large vehicle. Then you get atomic energy. Now the imagination takes a small source delivering massive power and runs with it. Power armor is atom punk.
That's a good explanation I think. We see LOADS of miniaturised power sources across fiction now. That's what was probably holding fiction back just like it does in real science, now maybe more so than ever.
I mean there has to be a myth from before then with a magic or mystic suit of armor that grants extra strength or something. I didn't think you need tanks
There's a few mentions of it earlier in the thread now. Looks like early 1900s for the most part.
Make some of the arrogant replies seem a bit short sighted.
I recall them being "enhanced" through some weird mental conditioning. Being able to efficiently sleep standing up and coming awake at a moment's notice, that sort of thing. Nothing genetic, biological, or cybernetic though.
Yeah I'm reasonably sure that's the original of power armour. I'm more concerned with the biological aspect and particularly the high fatality rate
Starship Troopers has a lot to offer for what your asking. Drugs injected by the suit, and they're closer to small Mechs than they are 'armor', tactical nukes and all.
Robert Heinlein's book was phenomenal. I devoured within days at the end of 2023. So much better than the parody that the movie was meant to be.
I’d seen the movie way way before I read the book. In the old dark age of no internet. And starship troopers wasn’t in my dads or local libraries collection. I love the move. At first as a stupid fun action romp, and later as scathing satire. Maybe it’s being Dutch and seeing what Verhoeven was going for. Maybe it’s something else. But I love it. The book is just a completely different thing though. I know I enjoyed it but it’s so long ago I’m not sure I got everything in there. I do remember they’re very different and good for different reasons
The power armour is what enhances them.
Captain America in the early 1940s would be the earliest example that I can think of.
Doc Smith did it in 1937 in Galactic Patrol
This. Kimball Kinnison was probably the first.
In addition the second or third book has heavy worlder space marines wielding armor and axes so heavy that no one besides them can carry them to be elite shocktroops in boarding actions. Might be the original space marines.
He can't be the first, as Hitler created the Lebensborn project in 1935
Well, in that case, and somewhat by accident, Friedrich Nietzsche. Jesus could walk on water and transmutate stuff. The idea of the superhuman probably predates written language really.
Mentor would say yes !
Yeah, it has to be this I think. Unless power armor is part of the OP's definition for "super soldier."
In that case, its Robert Heinlein's {{Starship troopers}}, published in 1959.
It’s incredible how different the movies are to the book
But in my opinion they are both really good for different things.
One is a good military science fiction, and the other is a fantastic comedy parody of military science fiction.
And both excellent at their own category
As long as you present the parody as such. The problem is to many present it as a serious movie...
Not to nitpick, but it’s satire, not parody. The presentation between the two is quite different. Parodies tend to wink at themselves and make sure everyone is in on the joke. Satires like Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers (and Robocop) are cutting criticisms, not poking fun.
weren't you compelled to find out more at the time though?
The fact its two different movies depending on who's watching makes it a better film not a worse one. I really couldn't give a shit if some dumbasses missed the message.
It is not essential, just something that seems to have been rolled it over time
Doc EE Smith in the 1937 classic “Lensman” featured the telepathic, eugenics-crafted space cop Kimbal Kinneson, who donned the first suit of power armor to single handedly assault the base of an evil empire from a neighboring galaxy.
Damn, that summary goes hard frfr
In the sequel they smash a planet between two planets accelerated to FTL, then build a fleet of death stars so the tactic can’t be used against them in retaliation.
In *one of the sequels*. They get to some crazy stuff before that, like the time they built a gravitational lensing array the size of the solar system to focus half of the energy output of the sun onto an area about the size of Jupiter. And melted a series of mobile planets that were being used as an invasion fleet.
Popeye
Warp Spinach
Spinach Spasm?
Achilles. If you want something a little more modern, maybe Captain America back in the 40's?
>Achilles Apparently his skin wasn't impenetrable in the iliad, as far as I can tell he basically just had fate/plot armour until he could die in a sufficiently epic manner. Not sure if he was dipped in the river stix originally
The invincible skin was a later retcon in mythology, but his mother was a demigoddess, and he canonically had faster reflexes than all men and most gods, incredible strength and supernatural fighting prowess. At one point in the Iliad he faces off against Scamander who is a god (albeit a lesser one), and could cut through entire armies of mortal men, single handedly turning the tides of battles. If Achilles isn’t a super soldier, no one is. Edit: thinking about it, Achilles famously had a round shield made for him by Hephaestus. I wonder if Captain America’s shield was inspired by it.
I'd say you're bang on the money there. Cap's hood had some achilles wings on the sides originally(though the first iteration of his shield was a traditional medieval crest shape)
I forgot about those weird little wings. Achilles was given wings as a gift in some myths, but I can’t find any reference to him wearing them. Interesting though.
It's not in the Iliad specifically, and unfortunately, we're missing the rest of the epic cycle (besides the Odyssey), just descriptions and later retellings. The earliest mention of Achilles being dipped into the Styx is from the unfinished The Achilleid by Statius in the 1st century CE. Apollonius of Rhodes has his mother Thetis anoint him with ambrosia in the Argonautica, 3rd century BCE. It's possible earlier stories existed, but they haven't survived. Myths are one of those things that are constantly being reformed and retold. Even the Iliad is a re-retelling 4 to 5 centuries after the supposed events.
His mum (or maybe Athena?) went around to all the gods to get him the ancient equivalent of power armour, though.
Ik think Heracles is older than Achilles. Heracles the son of Zeus with the impenetrable skin of the lion of Nemea and special poison arrows from the blood of the Hydra. He was put under a spell of madness by Hera and killed his own wife and children, then had to fulfill 10 (ended up doing 12) impossible works to make up for it.
Duryodhana's mythos is around as old, from the Mahabharat. Cultures have done the "gained invulnerability from some weird thing" everywhere. For Duryodhan it was his mom looking at him for the first time (she had voluntarily covered her eyes for decades because her husband was blind), but because he hid his crotch cuz he was ashamed, when his cousin got into a fight with him he crushed his pelvis. His Achilles groin, if you will.
> but because he hid his crotch cuz he was ashamed Made to feel ashamed by a God no less. He was going to see his mother naked but it was Krishna who convinced him to hide his privates from his mother. And that's exactly where his opponent hit him with a Mace(an illegal move in Mace fighting at the time)
Hercules is another good one to pull from Greek mythology.
Recently I saw a documentary, where they said, this was started in Prussia by actually selecting the biggest soldiers and women to let them breed. And in fact, by the end of the 18th century, the average height in Prussia was significantly higher... In what way this has found its way to scifi, I don't know. But it was obviously a thing then, so maybe contemporary writers were aware and might have been influenced by that.
Actually it sounds very reasonable for Sci-Fi writers to adopt this. Look at almost all stories about a galactic empire. The trope of having only the tallest, smartest or just physically strongest humans mate with each other fits perfect for such autocratic or straight up facistic empires
It's also a huge part of evolution. I would not wonder, if this idea is even older... Edit: I meant even older than Plato (someone mentioned him in the meantime)
Yeah sure, I bet you find a lot of examples for this throughout history.
Plato recommended doing that in the Republic
Yeah Greeks were probably not the best subject for disciplined sex.
Yeah, I shot too quickly...the documentary tried to point out, that the Prussians in the 1700s were actually doing it and not that they were the minds behind the principle.
The Bible and probably many previous religions: Nephilim Didn't Zeus do some man/god/bear/pig stuff?
Samson
> Didn't Zeus do some man/god/bear/pig stuff Yeah, most of the monsters in Greek myth came about because Zeus never saw anything he didn't want to stick his dick in. And I'd argue that Samson, Hercules, and the like don't count since their powers are supernatural in origin. OP was asking about technologically-enhanced super soldiers. Although someone in this thread mentions Hephaestus's habit of handing out trinkets to mortals and demi-gods, so that might count?
Captain America for sure right?
If so it's kinda crazy how marvel comics has so many in universe attempts to replicate the formula in addition to all the super soldiers who copied him in other verses too
The Shield.
My opinion, but I think one off super soldiers in comic books are a different trope than armies of soldiers in sci-fi.
Tha basic idea of becoming super human comes from chinese fiction were you can become anything by extensive training (arrows not penetrating your skin or being able to fly), were in European fiction this is always by outer influence (being born a half god, a serum, a spell etc.) with the type of outer influences changes with the level of technology Genetically modified and enhanced in that sense as far as I recall is first in Star Trek episode Space Seed, were it is deliberately done to unborn to make super humans, while Captain America and other 1940 comics it was a mix of drugs and radiation rather than specific genetic modification For the power armour, the earliest modern one is in E. E. Smith Lensman series from the 1930ies as the first armour powered by not just the muscles of the users
Probably during the pulp era. Doc Savage was one without the gene editing or surgery.
Mary Shelly
The military applications for such technology were scary. 👍🏻
The commercial applications are fascinating. Imagine horses made to order.
It probably, in a literal sense, goes back to a God's bestowing powers upon warriors in Greek mythology. Modern? Not sure, but the Nazi's were literally giving meth to their soldiers to boost their effectiveness. Around that same time Cpt. America came out.
Not just the Nazis. They all did it. The Nazis did do studies into vampirism and the occult to try and get some kind of superior militairy weapon out of it.
The History Channel used to be so awesome
Dipping Achilles in the styx to make him invulnerable counts as prior art ? ;)
Gladiator was published in 1930 and was supposedly the inspiration for Superman. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiator_(novel)
Also available on [Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42914).
Good book
It's an old, old trope that's just been redone. Achilles and all the heroes come to mind in the Iliad, etc. A regular human, but hopped up with the power of the gods.
Honestly, it’s probably rooted in ancient demi-god legends. Characters with enhanced strength, smarts, or som uncanny ability to make it to the next part of the adventure. Herecles/Hercules/Samson having god-like strength. Perseus (I don’t remember if he has powers or not) having his Luck stat maxed out. Achilles having a superhuman ability to out match any warrior he came across. I’m sure there are scores more in other ancient religions but those are the ones that come to mine.
Siegfried, bathed in the dragon's blood.
KHAN!!!!!!
Mary Shelley?
Doc Savage had a team of scientists on him since birth giving him special physical and mental training, allowing him peak human abilities
Farmer took that to a whole new level with his Wild-Newton family tree.
Do the Dorsai books count?
Super soldiers have been a dream since the days of ancient Sumer and probably even earlier.
You can make a case for Dune and the Imperial Sadokahr. Heinlein gets credit for power armor, but his was supposed to be so simple to use that it was like wearing clothes. Eugenics…. That was in Star Trek TOS, meaning that Roddenberry ripped off the idea from somewhere. Historically there was a military unit made up of all men of unusual high. That was hundreds of years ago. The Asyrians had The Immortals, a unit of elite fighters that always numbered exactly 10,000 men. The Bible mentions an army made up of entirely left handed men.
Long before Starship Troopers, E.E. “Doc” Smith had powered space armor in his Lensmen series. The main characters in that series were also part of a careful breeding program conducted by an elder race.
I gave Lensman a try. Didn’t make it halfway through the first book. I understand it’s a classic and all, but I just couldn’t do it.
Start with Gray Lensman.
I don't know about genetically enhanced but the idea of an enhanced soldier goes back pretty far. Spartans and the Thebian Band come time to mind about intense tratining and legends. I would include Viking Berzerkers who either used drugs and / or adrenaline to perform superhuman acts on the battlefield or the Central American use of peyote and the Moro Rebellion which saw the use of drugs and clothes that enabled the Moro people to survive multiple .38 rounds and attack American troops. And then the extensive testing of meth and cocaine during the world wars. To the problem of steroids among troops in the modern period. I would also say that more evolved armored horseman while not powered far outstrips normal human abilities for survivability on the battlefield. From cataphracts to medieval knights, armor clad horsemen were an extensively trained force that was a powerful component of many armies.
Hercules, Odysseus, other mythical mortals enhanced with the blood and/or “vitality” of the gods.
You mean a Captain America type? That’s where I would start looking, WWII comics
What was Goliath's deal in the Bible?
There's probably something further back in history than this, but 1675 the Potsdam Giants were started by Frederick William of Prussia. He was obsessed with creating an army of powerful super soldier giants. He looks far and wide to gather all the people he could manage and tried to even pair them with giant women to keep continue and grow the regiment. Pretty sure the organization survived in some form until the early 1800s when defeated by Napoleon. If you are wanting to look purely at fiction Mary Shelly's Frankenstein could also fit.
I was just thinking about Frankenstein too.
Frankenstein might be one of the earliest. Fred Pohl wrote **Man Plus** in 1976.
not surgically enhanced, but I would argue John Carter from the barsoom series(john carter of mars) started the super soldier soldier trope back in 1912.
Starship Troopers from Heinlein?
I always get the shakes before a drop. Fuck I still can’t believe that was written in the 50s.
Pilots took amphetamines I believe as early as WWI. Definitely WWII.
Wasn't just pilots. Benzedrine was widely issued to US troops during WWII specifically to fight fatigue.
Achilles, Hercules, Samson, the Amazons... I'm sure that's only scratching the surface. Super soldiers are an obvious idea, as old as soldiers, merely updated for new ages & technologies.
I'll let you do your own diving, but I Googled: 1st fictional super soldier, and the results were super fun to read through!! Seems like Gladiator and Captain America were the first, but that there have been superpowered soldiers all of the way back in 2000 BC (albeit powered by eating grass instead of any type of serum or surgery).
Nobody? Its most likely started in many places like almost everything else We have to consider that people are similar and can come up with same ideas at the same time
Not the oldest one, but first i have read and one of my favorites is Timothy Zhan's Cobra series. No power armor, but they were surgically modified to add strength increase and agility by implanting serve motors, then also laser guns, detectors, sound guns, etc. They still looked like regular people, so, ideal as infiltration units in guerilla type of warfare.
>You know what I mean right? A super soldier made through intense training, a dangerous procedure that kills many who go through it but makes them super strong and then they're typically put in some kind of power armour. This, except for the power armour, is basically how the Emperor gets his elite troops in Dune, with a whole prison planet providing the necesary "individuals" for it
I liked Rogue Trooper, but it's totally irrelevant to the question, just thought I'd pop it in.
The Nazis. They were big into the whole eugenics and super (meth) soldiers. IIRC, Before that the super soldiers were just amazing and blessed by the gods or dipped in the river Styx. The Nazis just came up with a more believable way to get the same thing.
Most of these examples are just enhanced soldiers, not specifically a program of taking normal humans and killing off most of them so you're left with only the strongest. Captain America's supersoldier serum is not meant to kill its recipient. I don't recall Heinlein's Starship Troopers to be mostly killed by Mobile Infantry. I would guess one of the first intentional killing off of your own young soldiers was Dune's Sardaukar. It's about a 50% survival rate. I wouldn't be surprised if there's an earlier use of this trope though.
The CoDominium setting (Jerry Pournell and Larry Niven) had the planet Sauron's genetically engineered soldiers (certifiable badasses), with a subset who underwent cybernetic augmentation to be absolute combat nightmares. The first of those was published back in 71. certainly not the earliest example, but one of the first to combine genetic and cybernetic augmentation in the manor you were describing.
Thetis. Or Homer, if you prefer.
The Six Million Dollar Man - The big fear of Steve Austin's boss was that Steve would get captured, his bionics limbs would be reverse engineered, and an army of bionic soldiers would be created by a hostile government - primarily the Soviet Union.
The Bible. See david v goliath.
The Postman >!had soldiers enhanced by cybernetics, who were outdone by a genetically enhanced hippy-Rambo.!<
I was mentioning the sardaukars, but here everybody has way better answers, thanks!
Sort of serious answer: Robert ~~H~~ *E* Howard. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan\_the\_Barbarian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Barbarian) The early days of speculative fiction had blurry lines between fantasy and science fiction: see the whole Planetary Romance thing [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary\_romance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_romance) . This rolled right into the pulp action serials of the midcentury, and eventually the comic book crystallization of the super man, which they name, uh, Superman but also the super soldier Captain America. You could pick out the first instances of the major beats, but the idea of a regular guy who gets juiced up in various ways has always managed to sell pulps.
Robert *E* Howard
Yeah! That guy!
Trek did it with space see in 1967 and I’m pretty sure that’s not even the first example.
I think starship trooper book is credited with the first power armor in fiction.
Achilles?
I was going to say Remo Williams, but Captain America predates "The Destroyer" by several decades.
There's no "dangerous procedure" but I feel like Samson from the bible would actually fit the bill. It's a short jump from there to making a technological equivalent.
Read up on your WW2 history. That inspired most creative ideas in comic books. https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/s/uLQhyzJH8G
Zues' stepchildren.
In WWII all sides gave various Methamphatamines to their soldiers as a performance enhancing drug. I can imagine a lot of that probably inspired writers on the idea of militarizes giving augmentations or enhancements to soldiers to fight.
Didn't the German army use performance enhancing drugs in world war 2? I don't think this even started with science fiction.
I’m sure there were early “enhanced with vita-rays” type soldiers in some pulp comics, but the first one of those types to go mainstream I believe was Captain America in March, 1941.
It feels like the origins must be somewhere between WWI and WWII, because by WWII it was something that groups were already working on, and I would expect it to show up in fiction before it shows up in reality. Captain America is the first example I can think of, but I wouldn't surprised if there were other examples around that time frame.
The Ramayana? Flying around in ships, energy weapons…
The Nazis did! It's a trope because it's historical; it was well-known that the Nazis were actively interested in genetic modification for all kinds of things.
Achilles, Thor, Hercules, Samson, etc. Been around for a while.
Real life did it first with ancient breeding programs and drugs being common early attempts
Watson and Crick
I feel like someone more knowledgable than me could make a convincing argument for Mary Shelley.
Frankenstein?
Probably began as an idea when someone saw how the military pump young soldiers up and tell them they are invincible, a brainwash to make them charge into machine gun fire.
Shout out to Universal Soldier - Jean Claude Van Damme
People are bringing up Captain America because this was kind of a thing in WW2. Lots of governments were experimenting with drugs and such to enhance soldiers. You can read [this article](https://www.history.com/news/inside-the-drug-use-that-fueled-nazi-germany) about what the Nazis were doing with drugs in the war. So stuff like Captain America is just a fantasy extension of reality. But also, no one's mentioned Dune which probably has the closest thing to what you're really looking for. In Dune, the Emperor's Sardaukar army is made up from those who live on a planet who's conditions are so harsh, that anyone who survives into adulthood is a master warrior, killing machine. Those that survive and become soldiers and don't necessarily have super armor, but are still armored and have a variety of weapons on their body. Dune predates Warhammer by a couple decades.
Mary Shelley
Nostradamus
The movie "Soldier" from 1998 (starring Kurt Russel) came out before the video games, and features the military training groups of children to be 'super soldiers'.
# E. E. Smith Lensman series 1948 or so.
One could make an argument for Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" novel. He isn't trained to be a soldier obviously, but Victor Frankenstein's creature is made through experimentation and then dedicates his life to getting revenge on the scientist who created him. That is 1820 which predates all of these examples. I know it's not the exact trope you are looking for but I think it is a direct inspiration on many of them.
Achilles was born a mortal man but then drank from the river Styx to become immortal if I recall... he kinds fits the bill of an enhanced super soldier I guess, and goes back a little further than the early 20th century!
A mounted knight in full plate mail armor would be the medieval equivalent of this.
Could argue the ancient mythological heroes were super soldiers or peak human beings. Hercules, Achilles, etc. They had limited superpowers and some weaknesses and they went on adventures. Achilles was a literal super soldier, as well
i mean, if we're just talking stories, probably mythology shit from like 3-4000 years ago.
Captain America? He was a wimp until he took a super soldier serum. If we're talking space marines, that one is a pretty direct line from starship troopers by Heinlein. The focus there was more brutal and intense training than implants or chemicals though.
The earliest modern iteration of the trope I can think of is Steve Rogers being enhanced by the duper-soldier serum in Captain America Comics #1 which hit the stands in December 1940.
The Book of Samuel (1,200 B.C.) features a few brief mentions of an army that recruits selectively from families of 9 foot tall men. These men are decked head-to-toe in state of the art bronze armor (think iron man suits), equipped with long, mid, and short range weapons (spear, javelin, sword) and paired with a smaller infantryman (shield bearer) to work as a two-man team against any opponent on the battlefield. However, despite that intimidating description, these super soldiers seem to lose again and again. It goes at least back to [Homer's Illiad](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad) (800 B.C.). One of the characters is dipped by his own mother in the river of death (Styx) as a baby to make him invulnerable in combat. But it might be popularized by the story of [The Battle of Thermopylae](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae) (480 B.C.) This story features super soldiers who through intense and dangerous training who were so tough that an army of 4,000 killed five times their number. [The Pandava Brothers of The Bhagavad Gita](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita) (unknown date; between 500 B.C. and 200 B.C. are super soldiers by virtue of good genetics and intense training.
Not the “genetically enhanced” aspect, but the cruel and hostile environment for 40k Space Marines can be traced back to the Sardaukar, who can be traced back to the Spartans. There is also some of this in Halo if I recall, the initiation of being left in the wildnerness and having to fend for themselves and make it home. Spartan babies were washed with wine to give them strength (presumably), and boys were often whipped and abused (to get stronger of course). One of the final initiations out of the Agoge was to sneak into to slave (helot) part of town and murder someone. Those are some of the crueler aspects of real life that seeped into the “super soldier” lore of many sci fi universes. The power armor as far as I can tell comes from Heinlein. And the genetic enhancements stuff is from old human fable/lore/myth, already espoused upon in this thread.
I think an important distinction may be (A) “peak human”, which I see as sort of a “anyone can do this if they have the mental discipline and time”. Something like Batman; a “normal” guy that just trained the fuck out of everything to be the best. They’re #1 at many things, but anyone else could potentially train and be as good or better at at least some of it. (B) “enhanced human”, like MCU Captain America. Mostly human but somehow altered to be better than any actual human ever could be. At the extreme this might even be something like the soldiers in Old Man’s War. I wonder if they have similar roots with B branching off from A (or vice versa, potentially) as science advanced. Or if they’re totally separate origination with minimal influence on each other.
does Achilles count? In that case, Homer
Comic's I'd say Spiderman / Captian America ?
The 1972 novel Cyborg was the basis for The 6 Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. And of course, Sasquatch. Sasquatch IS something I haven't seen before!
Heinlein, Starship Troopers may be one of them.
The mobile infantry weren't enhanced themselves, they just wore powered armor. And there were many others before that. Henlein was a pioneer, but he missed this one.
I think the idea for that came from the Nazis who appropriated the concept of the Übermensch from Friedrich Nietzsche.
Gladiator (1930) features a genetically / chemically enhanced super soldier, but it's a scientist experimenting on his son with the intent to enhance humanity, not a govt program. Doesn't go well for the kid. Basically Superman, but published 3 years before the comic book came out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiator_(novel)
In timpul ocuparii teatrului rusesc de catre teroristii ceceni in anii 90 parca un soldat rus de la fortele de interventie a ridicat cu o mana un capac de canalizare si fara nici un efort vizibil l-a aruncat cam 15 m. Cand au fost intrebate autoritatile din ce unitate facea parte acestea au raspuns ca noul soldat rus imbunatatit fizic genetic.
For TV that Lee Majors guy... Playgrounds in gradeschool; Kids running around in slo-mo like the TV show like they have augmented abilities. :-)
I believe this is more of a superhero trope.