An original super, without a doubt. I find that one of the greatest challenges in designing a super is taking a 'common' power and giving the reason behind that power a unique twist… or coming up with a nifty power that may not have been seen before (similar to the former, if only in the flavor text).
.-= Ed Healy´s last blog ..The Freedom of Transparency =-.

I've played supers games a LOT with many different players. My conclusion – and your survey will bear this out – is that players would 99% of the time rather create their own. Two things about that:

1) The character creation system often becomes the star of the system. Gamers will like to create all kinds of characters, even if they don't use them.

2) It makes me wonder why there are so many splat books for Supers games. I mean, when I support a game, I tend to buy them all, and it's fun to see the starts for all the characters I'm familiar with, but are they really that USEFUL?

One thing I've done is allow for guest-stars. A guest player comes in and I'll hand him a character from the comics (or a choice of characters) and that character will guest star in the players' "series". We've had hilarious run ins with a very emo Red Tornado, for example.
.-= Siskoid´s last blog ..Brightest Day… Oh, You're Being IRONIC! =-.

Another vote for original superhero characters here. Playing in an established canon would be limiting enough — playing an established character in any genre or setting would kind of drive me nuts.

Like all of you, when I play in a supers game I’d much rather play an original character than an existing here. I’ll even say that I like playing on original superhero universes. I have no interest in playing in an existing universe… Well with the exception of the Wild Cards universe. I loved those books!

Ed Healy, I usually focus on the character not the power, but that is an interesting take.

Siskoid, I think we buy those sourcebooks because we want to know how OUR heroes measures up to the characters from the comic books.

Daniel, I agree, but I wonder why so many people play clones of Wolverine in a supers game, or Drizzt in a fantasy game?

Well, one could say something uncharitable like "lack of imagination," but I doubt that's the whole story. For beginning players who don't have a lot of experience with RPGs, cloning a figure one admires is a good start — it lets one establish character without having to make up a lot of details.

Also, my personal experience has been that duplicating characters like Wolverine or Drizzt is more likely among younger players. Perhaps especially because that's when the notion of having kewl powers and beating stuff up has the strongest appeal, and nobody beats stuff up like Wolverine and Drizzt?

I generally prefer to play self-created characters but occasionally I have taken a shot at 'reinventing' comic character that were not being written about in various games. Overall, building a new character, even if working from an archetype, is usually more satisfying.
.-= Sean Holland´s last blog ..What Character Archetypes do you enjoy Playing? =-.