Heroes

''Evolution is imperfect and often a violent process. A battle between what exists and what is yet to be born. Amidst these birth pains, morality loses its meaning, the question of good and evil reduced to one simple choice: survive or perish. - Mohinder Suresh, Heroes'' (Episode 1.06, Better Halves)

NBC's latest smash-hit television show, Heroes tells the tale of several 'special' people who discover they have powers and thus, every week, same bat-time, same bat-channel, must save the world from others like them, others not like them, and themselves.

Characters

 * Peter Petrelli - An hospice nurse-turned-ultimate hero with empathic mimicry (he can copy the powers of other heroes just by being near them). Arguably the most powerful hero on the show, while simultaneously one of the most annoying characters. A fangirl favourite because he's played by Jesse from Gilmore Girls.
 * Claire Bennet - A high-school cheerleader with the power of spontaneous regeneration. Is a regular danger magnet (hence "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World"), and can regularly be accused of being Too Dumb To Live. Played by Hayden Panetierre, which means the fanboys get something nice to look at as well.
 * Hiro Nakamura - A Japanese office-worker and nerd-to-the-max who can bend the laws of time and space. Commonly viewed as "cute" by fangirls, despite the fact they would never say that if he was a real-life person. Usually comic relief, but has some surprisingly engrossing dramatic arcs.
 * Nathan Petrelli - Peter's older brother, a morally-ambiguous politician who went all goody-good in the second half of Chapter Two. One of the more solid, fleshed-out characters in the show.
 * Nikki Sanders - A single mom with schizophrenia and super-strength. The super-strength usually only surfaces with the schizophrenia. Has rather random, bland dramatic arcs. Her son, Micah, a technopath, is much more interesting.
 * Noah Bennet - Claire's adoptive father. An ex-member of The Company (the Big Bad Corporation of the series) who is the ultimate in cool. He'll kill you in a heartbeat, but still has time to take his daughter to school during his busy days of breaking and entering and assault.
 * Mohinder Suresh - Indian geneticist following in his father's footsteps by continuing to work on The List of supers. Gotten increasingly bad-ass the show has continued, but also increasingly tormented.
 * Gabriel Gray/Sylar - The real Big Bad. A sociopathic, murderous watch repairman who kills people with powers and absorbs their powers (presumably by eating their brains). Has a Draco-esque following because he's played by the charismatic and very attractive Zachary Quinto.
 * Matt Parkman - A telepathic cop played by Greg Grunberg. Pretty cool, but doesn't do that much. Lives with Mohinder and person-finder Molly Walker, a set-up that has been dubbed by fans "House of M".
 * Maya and Alejandro - Guatemalan brother and sister on the run from the law. Maya has the power of killing everyone around her when she gets emotional. Alejandro has the power of stopping it. Both look like models and are incredibly annoying with all their crying and indiscriminate killing. Needless to say, they weren't exactly embraced, and, thankfully, Alejandro got killed (rather brutally) near the end of Season Two.
 * Isaac Mendez - Now-dead painter and ex-drug addict who could paint the future. He finally kicked the drugs and was pulling his life back together, only for Peter to piss him off and make him kill his girlfriend. And then Sylar killed him. Great.

State of Fanfic
Heroes is becoming an increasingly common target for badfic, notably in slash (with common pairings being Mohinder/Matt and Sylar/Mohinder, along with incestuous het Peter/Claire - Peter is Claire's birth uncle - and illogical het Sylar/Claire) and Mary Sue areas (most of whom set their sights on Peter and work like buggery to latch on to him). The show's increasing popularity will only serve to make these fangirls more active.