To end this calendar year, I am going back to the “Superfluous Sunday” idea, where I take minor characters from existing PDR stories and flesh them out more.
Zoftak
Zoftak is a space cop. He often works undercover (such as when he posed as Space Pirate “Zoftak the Mighty”). While the Space Army has been able to relax since the end of the war against the Flartians, there is still plenty of Space Crime to keep Zoftak busy.
Since last we saw Zoftak, the powerful cop has been infiltrating a galaxy-spanning robot-smuggling syndicate. The rules of the Space Government lay down some very clear restrictions on the use of robots and how they are allowed to be spread about to various worlds, but some scofflaws just don’t care about that. Zoftak, posing as a bodyguard to a particularly scummy trader, has been gathering information to bring them down, but has just been hit with a major curveball: the biggest stolen robot shipment Zoftak has ever seen was just made, and the buyer was none other than the Chief of Space Police. If corruption goes that high up the ladder, who can Zoftak trust?
Churg
Churg is an immigrant from the Underground Kingdom of Mederex to SecGov City. Life in that underground realm is not great for Lizard People, so even though Churg was a highly respected medic among his people, he still thought it better to take his family above-ground, to the Robot city where he was convinced he could help more people while shaking off the shackles that would have held his children. But SecGov City wasn’t so kind to Churg and his kin. The robots there, already primed to think that Mederex’s citizens are primitive and the Lizard People most of all, found that this guy who had no money was hardly likely to be useful in any kind of medical field. Still, Churg persevered. He started a store where he could sell organic food to the few humans that existed in town (he had to import food for his own use anyway), and though it isn’t he life he wanted, he is making the most of it.
Churg was first seen on this page of Secret Government Robots.
Gus White
In the opposite of Gus’s situation, Gus White has left SecGov City to live in Mederex’s Kingdom, where he has been given a position as a Baron by Mederex, and gets to live in his own subterranean cave/castle. Though there is a Baroness (popularly known as the Black Baroness), Gus does not see much of her. She does her own thing, while Gus works mostly as a representative of either SecGov or Mederex’s Kingdom to the other group. Though the two forces remain at peace, there is always the chance things could go awry, so Gus deftly tries to make and keep allies in both locations, and across the other Secret Factions across the world. He is not trying greedily to gain power, but he is deathly afraid of losing what he has.
Gus made exactly one appearance in Secret Government Robots, turning up at a war meeting on this page.
Unable To Fly Man
Carlton G. Carlton is one of those superheroes with way so many powers that it isn’t fair for the bad guys. He’s got super strength, super speed, super senses, sonic screaming, ice beams, fire breath, lightning control, nigh invulnerability, telepathy, raygun reversal fields, invisibility, ghost-smelling, phasing, the ability to talk to animals, turn undead, water knowledge, recipe summoning, computer affinity, cloud loyalty, emotion vision, and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
But he can’t do everything. Carlton is completely unable to fly (he also can’t hover or levitate or even super-jump). When it comes to getting off the ground, Carlton is just out of luck. Still, in spite of this terrible problem holding him back, he has made good of his life. He is now the leader of the Team of Superheroes, and though he does worry a bit too much about public opinion of the team, he gets to help them do a lot of good.
If I’d been better at drawing comics, my plan had been to do a story of Hover Head and friends every couple years, but it hasn’t worked out that way. Still, I have mentally fleshed out the characters a lot and hope to get back to them at some point.
