PS238

PS238 is a comic book that follows the lives of both teachers and students at an elementary school for children with super powers, which the comic calls metaprodigies. Issue #0 was published in November 2002. PS238 is written and drawn by Aaron Williams and published by Do Gooder Press. Until issue #20 it was published by Dork Storm Press and Henchman Publishing. In December 2006 Aaron Williams started posting the comic page by page on his website. The online version was updated Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Hero Games created a PS238 role-playing game using their "Champions" game system.
Story overview.
PS238 is a school only recently founded, three miles below the seemingly normal Excelsior School, with many of the teachers having little or no experience teaching, because most of the teachers are former superheroes. Part of the school is made from the old satellite headquarters of the Union of Justice, a superhero team whose members founded the school.
Issues #0-#2 each follow different characters, but by issue #3, we are introduced to Tyler Marlocke, who becomes the central character. Tyler's parents, two of the most powerful metahumans, refuse to accept that their son has no super powers and manage to enroll him in PS 238. Though the school let Tyler attend, but only after they determined that he would actually be safer at the school than subject to his parents' attempts to discover any latent superpowers he might have. The Revenant, a Batman analogue and crime-fighter with no superhuman abilities, is recruited as Tyler's tutor and mentor. Reluctantly Tyler assumes the identity of Moon Shadow, becoming Revenant's Robin-like sidekick. Toby, Tyler's clone, proclaims himself his twin brother. Tyler makes friends with Cecil Holmes, Ambriel, Angie, Julie, Malphast and many others. Only Zodon, of all PS 238 students, is hostile to Tyler - and Zodon is hostile to "everybody". Tyler is so popular that he was once elected class president.
The Rainmaker Program.
The original Rainmaker Program was a US government project to study superhumans, with the aim of finding out how to give people superpowers (or take them away). The project started in the 1960s and focused on one boy, Harold Nelson, who had the power to make rain start and stop. The government had become increasingly insecure about metahumans and a boy who couldn't fight back with super-strength was an appealing research subject. For 6 years, Harold was put through tests to try to find how his power worked, but with little success. The scientist working on the project started to get worried about the lack of results and resorted to drastic measures. Enlisting the help of Dr. Irons (an imprisoned supervillain in a robotic body) they tried a new machine of Dr. Irons' own creation. The machine was actually made to enhance Harold's power, not to study it, and with a torrential downpour of rain, the lab wall was broken. In an ensuing explosion, Dr. Irons lost his body and Harold made a run for it carrying away Dr. Irons' still-functioning head. It is not known what happened to the Rainmaker Program after Harold's escape.
The modern day Rainmaker Program was started when PS238 was opened as an alternative program geared towards those with super powers deemed unfit for superheroics. The program is very similar to that of the rest of the school except that the Rainmaker children don't participate in activities like combat training. Those in the program include:
Characters.
Many characters in PS238 are analogues, homages or outright parodies of heroes from other publishers. One of the pleasures of older readers is spotting the sometimes-obscure allusions that will elude younger readers. Other characters correspond to familiar superhero archetypes: they may or may not be direct references to heroes in other media.
Faculty.
The faculty of PS238 includes:
Of these, only Principal Cranston and Dr. Newby were not members of the Union of Justice. Ms. Kyle was the only faculty member who had any teaching experience before the school was founded; the others got a simulated crash course in teaching via one of Herschel's machines.
Students.
Other than Tyler Marlocke, all the children at PS238 have super powers: 
Excelsior School, located 3 miles above PS238, has provided several characters, most notably:
The rival Praetorian school, headed by the Cyborg supervillain known as The Headmaster, includes in its student body:
The Realm of Order and Chaos, home of Malphast, includes some recurrent characters:
Glimpse of the Future.
In the episode "Time After Tyler," we see Tyler 15 years in the future. He still has his Alter Ego as Moon Shadow. He is now working on salary for the Revenant, doing such important work as answering the telephones.