The “Supernatural Sunday” theme has been going on for more than a year now, so I think it is time to switch things up. But before we get into the next year’s theme, I will do another superfluous post of characters that aren’t even new:

Zappo

Mike Titus was a regular, ordinary young man who got caught in a science accident that gave him electricity-based superhuman powers. In Zappo’s world full of superheroes, this was not that uncommon an occurrence. It’s been known to happen. Following the examples of all the other people it happened to, he crafted a superhero persona for himself and got to fighting crime.

When I was in elementary school, I created Zappo. Drawing him at the time, his face looked like the mask he wears as I draw him now. Just inexplicable Bart Simpson-spikes on his head. I don’t know why I did it that way, but I think this mask at least makes sense of it. It would be very important to Zappo stories that he is not very powerful. A lot of superhero comics try to do stories with underdogs where the lesson seems to be “you might actually be the most powerful hero of all” and I hate that. It may go against a core tenet of superhero comics, but I don’t equate physical power with worth. Zappo would have some minor electrical powers and that’s it.

Also, we must never forget that a frog was also caught in the science accident and it also gained powers and it is now Zappo’s pet and he calls it Zap-Frog.

Clownsassin

The Clownsassin is the still-living spirit of a human who abandoned their birth-body to take on the forms of other people. Atypically for such people, when the Clownsassin takes on a new body, it immediately begins to get dressed like a clown and then go on a killing spree. Gotta have a hobby, after all.

The Clownsassin has made some cameo appearances in Secret Government Robots, including the currently running final storyline. I wouldn’t usually do a Super Sunday post for a currently-appearing character, but I wanted to talk about the origin of the Clownsassin. If it isn’t obvious from how often I mention finding information about characters in “my notes” dating back all the way to when I was in elementary school, I think up a lot of ideas but don’t follow through on stories as often as I ought. One of those things was to be “Wizard Ghosts”. They were meant to be a big part of a bunch of PDR stories, but they just sat in my head as I failed to tell those stories. And then, around 2008, the webcomic Dr. McNinja by Chris Hastings introduced Ghost Wizards (that image is from a later story). These Ghost Wizards were way cooler than my Wizard Ghosts, who were just magic users who had no permanent physical form of their own. I didn’t completely abandon the idea, Wizard Ghosts are mentioned a few times in Secret Government Robots, but I felt like I had to lessen their role. After literally years of internal debate (as I said, these things take a long time for me), I decided I can still use the ideas and just not call them Wizard Ghosts anymore. That is the term that SecGov uses for them, but they don’t call themselves that.

Muscle King Grotorr

On planet Deltoi, everyone is tough. You may think you’ve met some tough people here on Earth, but you are wrong. The Deltoids can slap rocks into dust, jump into orbit, and shrug off explosions. They are a warrior people who find all reasons to fight among each other and other reasons to attack other worlds. And strongest of them all is Grotorr. This is most fortunate, because Grotorr is a peaceful king, more likely to save other worlds from disaster than to conquer. Also, he has a gold tooth. There are Deltoids who crave violent invasions of weaker species, but Grotorr won’t allow it. After all, if those species are so weak, they wouldn’t be enjoyable to fight. Since no other species (that remains) is stupid enough to try to invade Deltoi, the only fights Grotorr gets that are worthy are would-be usurpers.

Grotorr appeared in a single Hover Head strip. I couldn’t pass up the chance to make that character into something bigger now could I? I picture Deltoid society being like the Saiyans on Dragonball. And not even what Saiyans are actually like, but what I assume they are like based on my limited knowledge. They fly around space with no ships and fight each other in world-shattering combat that takes hours.

Smoldor

Smoldor is a magical creature made from a mass of burning coal. Created by an evil pollution-loving corporation to fight CommandOak and the Forest Force. Smoldor is a strong, but dim-witted guy, but his burning touch is a formidable threat (especially to enemies made of wood) so he can’t be written off entirely. Still, most of the time he just makes stupid remarks and gets belittled by his superiors. It’s possible Smoldor might not actually be such a bad guy, he may actually just not know any better.

Good old Smoldor is just me continuing to grow the Forest Force’s resemblance to the 1980s cartoon franchises I liked as a kid. Every good villain in those days had at least one idiotic henchman. I have not actually designed any of the evil corporate people that Smoldor works for yet, but we do know that occasionally he would work alongside Mr. Slime. Also worth noting: The Forest Force are living tree people. It is my (admittedly limited) understanding that coal can be made from wood. How did the evil corporation create a living coal person? The answer may be very dark.

Evil Toe

The wizard Mak Skyruiner was a terrorist known all over the world. He and his forces sowed chaos with numerous bombing attacks on the capital city of the island kingdom Islopia. The superhuman law enforcers of Islopia (including the Beam) tracked Mak down and, in a violent climactic showdown, seemingly destroyed the wizard once and for all.

But the wizard was not entirely destroyed. A single toe remained, and was not noticed by the good guys. Having transferred enough of his essence into that solitary digit to remain conscious, the wizard used what magic power he had remaining to develop a small mechanical body to keep himself mobile. While he may now be much, much less powerful than he was, he is still alive, and where there is life, there is the opportunity for this Evil Toe to rebuild himself. And, perhaps more importantly, to cause whatever mischief he can to make things harder for the good guys.