Red Team

The team’s members:

Hannibal Lectric, the nomimal leader. He uses electric powers to accelerate his mind and body.
Bad Seed, a plant manipulator. She uses her powers to reshape the battlefield.
Exodus, the team teleporter and resident goofball.
Overreach, a dangerous front-line fighter with stretching powers.

In the security world, a “red team” is a group that pretends to go after an objective, in order to assess and improve the defenses around that objective. Imagine art thieves hired by the Louvre to test the Mona Lisa’s security, and you get the idea.

Members of the villain group known as the Red Team have been told they’re on such a group, funded and organized by a secret government organization. They’ve been sent up against different targets, including hero teams, and let off the hook the times they were defeated.

Is the deal genuine? Or is someone just keeping them out of jail to cause chaos? They don’t know. All they know is, someone wants people like them on a long leash.

Playing Red Team

The key to Red Team is uncertainty. They’ve been told a story by people over the phone. At the same time, nobody else seems to be in on the stories. Heroes don’t acknowledge them as being on the government’s side. So what’s going on? Should they try escaping their mysterious controllers’ grasp? Can they?

From the heroes’ perspective, the Red Team should hesitate, just a little bit. They won’t go for killing shots - doing so might fail their “mission”, as far as they know. They might give up on their stated objectives a little too easily. Something is clearly going on.

Red Team is clearly inspired by DC’s Suicide Squad, but without the implied body count. Rather than being a story about government corruption and fear, the Red Team is a story about how trust can evaporate in proximity to power.

Within Red Team, individual members often come into conflict. Hannibal Lectric despises Exodus’ antics, Bad Seed’s passivity, and Overreach’s brutality. Exodus tries to be friendly with everyone, but dances away from any real commitment. Bad Seed is just following orders, and resists opening up to the others. Overreach dislikes Bad Seed and Exodus for not using their power to gain glory, and is annoyed by Hannibal Lectric’s pretentions.

Despite all this, the group knows they need each other. They’ll be punished if they leave a teammate behind. And there’s still the mystery of their origins. They’re all facing the same problem - and it’s easier to face it together. Slowly but surely, in spite of themselves, they’re learning to trust each other.

Variations

Sincerity

The central question of the Red Team is how sincere is the deal they’ve been given? Are they really on the payroll of a secret government team? Whoever is assigning them missions can get them out of prison easily enough, but maybe that just means the local super-prison is in on some kind of scam.
On the one hand, the classic “Suicide Squad” setup would mean that the offer is just like it sounds. Do missions for us, and we won’t lean on you as heavily.
But what if that’s not how it is? What would that mean? Who has the power to corral supervillains, imprison or free them at will, and yet not be part of the government?

Control System

Red Team members are under some kind of control. They can’t just freely escape. But the mechanism is unstated. The classic control system is a “collar” or implant, which will explode and kill the villain if they disobey.
Other options include chemicals that could poison the villain. A more interesting variant is some kind of power-neutralizing chemical, that would leave the villain vulnerable to capture.
A purely psychic or magical control system is a possibility. Nobody on the team is able to break such a thing, but perhaps exposure to the right psychic or magical hero would do the trick?