Hurtch

Hurtch is your typical Fifth-Dimensional Ogre. He’s just angry all the time and wants to beat the heck out of people. Luckily for him, he knows how to get to that puny Three-Dimensional world called Earth. In the Third Dimension, Hurtch is so powerful that he would Blow Your Mind! Unfortunately for Hurtch, Volcanocles is hanging around on that Earth planet. And Volcanocles isn’t going to let Ming Blowing Power stop him.

The idea for a Fifth-Dimensional Ogre is something that’s been rolling around in my head for a while, a reaction to the Mr. Mxyzptlk, Superman’s Fifth-Dimensional Imp. But, where Mxy gives Superman an opponent to fight with his mind, Hurtch and Volcanocles are just all about the punching each other. Because that’s the kind of guys they are.

The Larcener

The world’s cleverest thief. The Larcener is a mysterious criminal. He seems to work for himself, never taking jobs for hire, but he also targets items that are too unique to ever be fenced without getting noticed. Perhaps he is amassing some collection or the world’s most valuable knickknacks, or perhaps he is more interested in the act of thievery than the personal gains, but nobody can say for sure. The Larcener has never been captured and nobody has even heard his voice.

With all the tricks you might expect from a master thief (smoke grenades, suction cups, grappling hooks, laser cutters, etc.) the Larcener has broken into Billionaires’ mansions, top-secret military bases, an ancient temples, leaving only a monogrammed calling card with a monogrammed “L” is left behind to taunt the victims.

Allow me to paraphrase my thought process in creating the Larcener: “I should make a thief-lookin’ guy.” That was followed by “I wonder if there’s an old-fashioned word for a thiefy dude.” I turns out there was. The Larcener would work as a foil for Securitaur. I envision the Larcener being the One Who Gets Away, the enemy that Securitaur and company come up against again and again, but can never seem to capture. Maybe they foil his crimes from time to time, but he always gets away. Maybe Securitaur successfully repels the ninjas, then turns around to find the loot that he’d been hired to protect has vanished.

Club Man

Conrad was a young construction worker who fell off a roof, but the ground he hit wasn’t the pavement below. Somehow, Conrad fell into a dimensional tear leading to Ogretropolis, a city for ogres. With no way to return home, Conrad had to fend for himself in that strange town, eventually finding a job as an exterminator (his relatively small size helped him get into areas the big ogres couldn’t and he fight the dog-sized insectoid pests). When he had made enough money, Conrad was finally able to pay a magician to send him home. Back on Earth, Conrad realized he had grown stronger and his enchanted club was more powerful than most Earth-material. With these advantages, it was easy for Club Man to continue cleaning up pests, but this time it is the criminal variety that is on the receiving end of his wallopings.

I’ve always been drawn to big dumb good guy characters. There’s something I relate to in the fellow who is strong and stupid as an ox, but it still a decent guy. I feel like that character was all over the place in my youth, but is less common now. I’m not at all surprised by the conventional “twist” on the trope by having the big guy also be smart, that happens all the time now, so I just wanted to harken back to the lovable dumb strong guy.

Wizardog

Who is a good dog? Wizardog is! Yes he is!

With mystic powers passed down from the ages, Wizardog protects mankind from various threats and creatures from Realms Beyond. Intelligent enough to communicate with humans, Wizardog doesn’t bother, with the exception of little Maggie Bronson, his owner. Wizardog wages his war in secret, expecting nothing in return, except a scratch behind the ears at the end of the day.

Super Animals are one of those elements of superhero comics that some people don’t like. As with all the other weird stuff I’ve mentioned over the course of this year, I think super animals can be done well. I won’t be happy until we get Krypto in a Superman movie. It’s a shame Hollywood hates me so much. (It’s not a superhero comic, but an excellent example of pets fighting supernatural stuff would be Beasts of Burden. Read that thing.)

Bludgeonak

There is dimension called the Bronze Zone where there is a world ruled by an evil, powerful warlord called Oppressar. Oppressar holds power with the help of an army of pseudo-mechanical henchmen created from a cosmic-energy factory on the planet’s moon. But during a time of special celestial alignment one of the henchmen was created with more energy than was intended, making it smarter and stronger than its brethren. That henchman, designated Bludgeonak, saw Oppressar for the evil he is and escaped. Now Bludgeonak sides with the scattered rebels who live in the underground tunnels of the Exiled Gods of the Bronze Zone.

I was definitely going for a Jack Kirby vibe with this one (specifically his later crazy cosmic stories). Obviously as I am, at best, a reluctant artist, I don’t think I am fit to hold a candle to Kirby, but I couldn’t commit to a year of superhero creation without visiting his style. Bludgeonak was a character made up on the spot at the time of sketching, and his story made up on the spot again at the time of writing this. I don’t know why I decided to go with the headless torso kind of design (maybe I was thinking of Arnim Zola), but those circles on his chest are supposed to be his eyes. For the record, I’m picturing a color scheme of bright oranges and red mixed with black.

Brain Pain

When J. Paul Dean was born, he seemed like an ordinary child, but as he grew older it was clear that something was wrong. While his body grew rapidly, surpassing a normal adult size by the time he was ten years old, his head never changed from its original infant size and appearance. And apart from the physical aspect, there was something else: he could read minds. In his late teens, he was contacted by the Mind Set, a loose community of mind-powered individuals who gave him a home and helped him adjust to society.

Now, as an adult, Brain Pain has become an adventurer working with the Strange Squad. He’s something of a celebrity superhero, appearing in television interviews and getting book deals. Perhaps most importantly: when he goes into dangerous situations, he wears a helmet.

Brain Pain is one of the characters I thought up as a kid (which is also my excuse for the name). The whole tiny head and massive muscles thing was supposed to be a twist on the frail telepaths with big heads that are the more common formula. It’s just clever enough that it stuck around in my memory.