VILLAINS!

Lord Terryr

Lord Terryr watches the Earth from his castle on his asteroid. Master of the Army of Horroriors, Terryr wants nothing more than to sow chaos among humankind and create fear. His ultimate goal? Nothing more than the ultimate downfall of society on Earth, to scare humanity back to the stone age, leaving on only a superstitious, easily controlled population behind.

Using a machine called the Mind-Miner, Terryr can probe the nightmares of those sleeping on the world below, and from these he can breed his Horroriors, a warrior race of terrible monsters. These monsters he then sends to Earth, alone or in groups, to attack at random. Generally Lord Terryr will break into the Earth’s communication systems to mock humanity and make sure they know: “You are not safe.”

I don’t have much to say about Lord Terryr here. I mostly just wanted to draw a weird looking villain who would rule an army of monsters. I admit I’ve not seen a lot of Power Rangers, but the idea of sending monsters down to Earth is something I know they had, but here those monsters are only there to cause fear, not to conquer the world or whatever. This seems more feasible. It was not intentional, but given that I’ve made him into a fearmonger who exists in space, I think he’d be an ideal enemy for Valia, the space god of courage. Natural enemies.

Gunfire

Wielding two custom-made shotguns, the woman called Gunfire is one of the highest paid assassins in the world. Homeless as a teenager, the woman who would become Gunfire had to turn to crime. It turned out she was very good at it. Starting as a heister, she pissed off some organized crime types when she robbed a store under their protection. When they came after her, she was able to turn the tables and brought the whole operation down. When a new syndicate moved in to fill the void, Gunfire’s reputation was more than enough to get her a job as a trigger person. Since then, her career has only gone up.

As I did several times during the hero portion of Super Sunday, I’m going to be trying to stick women into roles typically filled by men. There are indeed lady assassins in comics, but they are generally sexified ninja sorts. I’m not going to say there aren’t unsexified female assassins in comics, I just think it wouldn’t hurt to have another one. I had not intended to assign every villain I make this year to a hero I’d made in the previous year, but since I did it above, I’ll tie Gunfire here to the crime-fighting careers of Rhinoceros Woman and Rabbit.

We start at a Mennonite community where those wacky Mennonites are at it again! This time they’re building a water pump! What next?!?!? Anyway, from there we go to the year 1980 and some eggheads are trying to build a pump to help out in developing nations. The eggheads can’t figure out a way to make a pump that will function in the hellscape that is Africa, until they realize that using an old-school pump would do pretty well. Some lady, via a translator, says “You Canadians have such modern ideas,” and the Canadian is like “Tell her it’s actually a very old idea.” And then they all laugh, including the woman for whom the remark hasn’t yet been translated. Happy End. Of course, the line “Tell her it’s actually a very old idea” seems like it should be followed up with “but your country is still so backwards that you haven’t caught up yet.” Hilarious!

Quotability: “Light weight, rust proof, so simple you could fix it with a rubber band and a bent nail.” That;s a pretty decent rant that I love in the context of the commercial, but it doesn’t have a lot of use outside of it. “Maybe today’s technology is the problem!” is one that definitely stuck in my brain and, though I haven’t used it in daily life, I definitely could. I’m not sure I even noticed as a kid the repeated line “Water. Lifeblood of a farm.” said in non-English languages. That’s actually kind of a neat touch.

And helping get water to people is a thing I support, so I’m okay with the commercial from that standpoint as well. PDR is a pretty big fan of water. I’m going to go as high as Four and a Half Pieces out of Six of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. It’s one of the ones that crams a lot in, and it does a good job cramming it.

I should definitely mention that I got my first ticket while driving this week (and hopefully last for quite some time to come). I can in no way argue that I was going above the posted speed limit (though I will maintain my belief that maybe the limit should be higher at four in the morning than it is at rush hour), so I don’t feel like I was in any way wronged in getting the ticket. Still would have been nice not to though. Anyway, I paid that thing off today and that is that.

Haiku!

Boston is a place.
I know this ’cause I’ve been told.
Still, who cares though, right?

Apart from that, what have I got going on? More of the same, mostly. The semester is practically over and it felt so short. Short and busy, I guess.

I think I’m done doing Superheroes on Sunday for now. It wasn’t a year, as I said it would be, but since I started doing two a week at one point, I think I’ve earned the right to move onto villains when I feel like it.

But before I do that, let us review what has come so far. I said I would populate four universes with superheroes. With the creation of the Beam(s), I started fleshing those universes out a bit. But now I’ll go considerably further.

Let’s say that superhumans and supertechnology first appeared in the late 1800s. The sort of scientific advancements you’d expect to see in a novel by Wells or Verne contributed to a sort of steampunk society. As time went on, portals to other dimensions (like the Narnia or Oz books) allowed humanity glimpses of other worlds and allowed still more technological progress. By the 1930s, pulpish heroes had adventures all over the world and on other planets. By the time the 1940s rolled around we got heroes that resemble those of our Golden Age of superhero comics. With a history like this it is not a surprise that by the modern day humans are spread throughout the galaxy and Earth is a complex world of advanced cityscapes. Superheroes here are relatively common, employed by law enforcement agencies and governments, but also rogues and vigilantes.

This pulp/sci-fi/Golden Age world would be home especially to heroes that fill those niches. Gus Comet is definitely here, as are the Red Shark and the Green Camera. Other possibilities include Astro-Hero, Bludgeonak, ProboscAce, Halberd-Man, and the Scarlet Cannon.

Suppose that the coming of the superheroes happened during the Second World War. Their arrival ended the war years earlier than in our world, and the world had to adjust to all these colorful costumed characters. In the 1950s World War Three occurred, a war between superpower nations with superpowered soldiers. At the end of that war, William Block was the Secretary General of the United Nations and he created a unit called Block’s Elite Strike Team, which would grow to be the primary peacekeeping unit in a world filled with superhuman threats of all varieties. Through the 60s a slew of “super-criminals” came into being, many disillusioned WWIII veterans, and accordingly superpowered crimefighters came as a result. As society grew more accustomed to famous people with code names, it became common for celebrities who didn’t fight crime to take on aliases (a singer might call himself, the Mighty Voice or Songmaster or who knows what other nonsense). Supervillainy has had its effect on society as well: street gangs wear capes and masks to show their colors, and even some of the world’s military uniforms have been designed to look like super-costumes. On this Earth, superhumanity is a world-shaping force, and their constant fighting is starting to reach dangerous levels that could result in the end of humanity itself.

This is the world that is home to my Justice-Man character and all the supporting cast I made for him. Most of the other characters I made circa Junior High call this world home. That includes: Rhinoceros Woman and Rabbit, Helm, and the Strange Squad (including but not limited to Cut-Up, Forcefieldo, and Brain Pain). But it isn’t only the heroes I created then, many of the ones invented for Super Sunday would also be in here. Securer, Vanquisher, HAULER, and the Crew of the Cosmic would also be among this world’s multitude of heroes. The overall feel of this world, with its long history of superhuman activity and the overabundance of costumed chaos, kind of reflects what I would have seen in comics during my formative years (and today).

The bad universe. A world where bad guys are winning and good guys are few and far between. The coming of superhumans here has not been pretty. The world’s most advanced remaining societies are now dystopian nightmares and the countries that aren’t as lucky have been reduced to almost post-apocalyptic scars on the surface of the Earth.

The most prominent heroes here are Lex Techno and his Raid Force Zero (Captain Fire was a member of this group). The Blue Cloak and Killshadow. And to keep things organic, I’ll throw in some who were not specifically created to be in especially dark worlds, like Monstrona.

A universe where superheroes haven’t yet had a huge effect on society and the jury is still out about how they will change the world. Will they bring about an end to crime and warfare, or will society crumble? This is the universe where I’m placing most of the characters who have turned up in Super Sunday that I find the most interesting. In a way it is what I consider my ideal superhero universe to write about.

Home to: Noblewoman and the Surrealist. Skullserpent. The Orbzoid. Horribloid. Volcanocles. Queen Deathknell. Drona. Demonoclast. Securitaur. The Astounding Gunk. The Guild of Crime Fighters.