Action Mermaid Team:
A quartet of half-fish teens.
They live under the seas
and solve the mysteries.
Action Mermaid Teeeaaam: Unite!

It was months ago now that Marq thought up the name “Action Mermaid Team” and then I drew a picture of that team as I imagined them. I forgot about that picture for a long time, but today, while drawing superheroes, I figured why not put them on the site? They’re not an official Super Sunday thing, but it’s clearly created by the same impulse that drives me to make those.

Okay, so I figure they’re an 80s-style cartoon team. We made that little snippet of a theme song up there, and I figure there must be a leader one, an tough one, a smart one, and a wacky one. I also threw in their little octopus-lookin’ dude as their animal sidekick (who is actually the friendly spawn of some eldritch sea-being). I’m sure that we can all agree that this is a cartoon that should have been there when we were growing up.

I have not read the Flash of Two Worlds story, but I know the basics. There’s two universes and there’s a Flash in each of them. They meet up and hang out. Probably punch some dudes. Good times. What I like about this concept is that this isn’t a mirror universe where the guy meets an alternate version of himself, but instead it’s two separate guys (Barry Allen and Jay Garrick) who both have the Flash identity in their respective worlds. I thought that was neat.

I said when I started this whole Super Sunday thing, I said I could come up with enough characters to populate four superhero universes. Well, let’s get that particular claim some backup. Here’s a superhero called the Beam from each of those four universes. To avoid the “Which universe gets to be Earth-1” argument, the Beams have taken to using a naming scheme that is based on the primary colors of their costumes. That’s how we get:

The Beam of Earth Green

Frank Goldsmith was a district attorney who discovered a magical gem. It turns out that this “Beam Gem” gave him the power to fly so fast that he appears as a bright green streak. He affixed the gem into a helmet and became the Beam, champion of justice and right.

This guy is the oldest of the Beams. He’s been doing it for decades and isn’t slowing down (You see?). I’m going for something of a Golden Age Beam feel with him (though he’s not a WWII hero or anything literal like that), but I picture the gem being green, as is his shirt, but he’s just got brown pants. And he probably carries a pistol most days.

The Beam of Earth White

Terry Tork was an astronaut who got caught in a space storm and was bombarded with space-warp energies. Consequently, Terry gained the ability to defy gravity and move so fast that he is just a white streak. He became a superstar space hero, but he got cocky and he hired an agent to help him make more money off of his superhuman status. Sadly, the agent was secretly a spy for an enemy nation and he used the Beam as part of a plan to sabotage a space station and several of Terry’s colleagues were killed. Now humbled and repentant, the Beam serves humanity instead of himself.

This would be the Silver Age-inspired Beam. The costume, I figure, is white with red highlights (his boots, gloves, emblem, etc). The tragic origin is especially typical of Silver Age Marvel styles, as is the alliterative name.

The Beam of Earth Red

Rick Delroy Lewis was a soldier in the British Army who was chosen to take part in a secret experiment. The army scientists injected hundreds of young men with nanotechnology. There were some successes, many failures, and there was the Beam. With the same powers as the ones above, the Beam was used for a variety of covert ops, but he is now a free agent.

This is the bad alternate universe, somewhat like the world of DC’s Crime Syndicate. Luckily I had already created a pretty crappy universe when I made Lex Techno, so it looks like that’s Universe Red. The Beam is a member of Lex Techno’s team. He’s got a mysterious past with the covert ops and all that. His costume is pure red except those black stripes.

The Beam of Earth Orange

Erika Daniels was a typical college student. Her father, however, was a world-renowned scientist. There was a quantum physics experiment, her father died, she got powers, her father’s partner turns out to have been behind the accident and becomes a supervillain and she fought him and he died. She continued her superhero career as the Beam. She is then recruited to the Megacavalry, the primary hero team on this Earth.

This is just a basic modern-superhero-movie-style origin story (except Hollywood, sadly, basically never goes with a female protagonist). In the current generation of movies there is always a villain in some way tied to the hero’s origin to make things personal, and the villain almost always dies. The recruitment to the Megacavalry would be the after-the-credits moment. Any part of the costume that isn’t shaded black is meant to be orange.

So there’s four heroes, each for a different universe. And that is without even factoring the Hover Head universe into this. And I don’t think I’m halfway through this year of superhero making either.

CommandOak

There is a secret magical forest called Arborika, and an evil pollution-loving corporation want to get in there and steal all the magic wood. But luckily for Arborika, there are CommandOak and the Forest Force, magic tree-people who fight the evil corporation’s weekly schemes.

Other members of the Forest Force would include the Maple Leaftenant, Na-Palm, Brigadier Birch, and so on.

Here, I wanted to tap into 80s toy-style heroes so I combined the aesthetics (and terrible name schemes) of He-Man with the military trapping of G.I. Joe and then threw trees into the mix. In case it isn’t obvious, he’s got bark for skin, leaves for hair, and those are supposed to be acorn buttons on his shirt. Also, I picture that gun being bright orange.

(The Captain Planet-style villains are, I admit, more a 90s thing than an 80s one, but whatever, shut up.)

HAULER

The Hundred-Armed Urban Law-Enforcing Robot was designed to meet the needs of a world where superhuman criminals are unfortunately common. While strong and durable, the real feature of HAULER are the side panels that lead to micro-storage units containing a plethora of different arm attachments for a myriad of different uses. Claws, grappling hooks, flame throwers, various restraints, and a multitude of weapons. This is one robot who always has something… up its sleeve. (No apologies)

“Hey PDR,” said nobody ever, “you need to design another robot!” HAULER would be a non-sentient robot, though. Most of the time in comics, it’s taken for granted that the robots can think and feel and laugh and love. This is an exception because there should be exceptions. A story about HAULER would be about have to be about the people who control him, probably from some remote back at police headquarters, rather than about the robot himself. Some sort of procedural soap opera deal, I guess.

Demonoclast

Joann Hanlon is employed by the government, but they don’t admit it. Joann Hanlon destroys demons. Her work is necessary, but, the government says, if word got out about the existence of otherworldly evil creatures there would be panic in the streets. Luckily for everyone, Joann Hanlon is extremely good at her job. When any kind of demonic invasion is discovered, the Demonoclast is sent in things are cleared up quickly.

This was one of those cases where I just drew and saw what came out. I got the gloves and the boots and I thought “She looks like she does hard work. What’s hard work in superheroing?” And eventually I decided that cleaning up demon infestations would have to be near the top of that field. I drew that little sigil on her chest, somewhat inspired by the little ghost monster face on Dr. Strange’s costume (though a lot of the time that is just drawn as a generic shape these days).

Also, the name “Demonoclast” which means “Destroyer of Demons” appears nowhere according to Google, so I’m pretty happy about that.

Vanquisher

Vic Decker was a baseball player until he was paralyzed in a car accident that he had caused. While he spiraled into depression for a time, he eventually found a place in the world as a public crusader, trying to improve his hometown with various social causes. But this brought him into contact with a local crimeboss, who didn’t want some gimp celebrity interfering with his business. The crimeboss sent a hitman to take out Decker, but things did not go as planned. During the attack an experimental energy device that Decker had been investing in exploded and bathed him in bizarre energies that not only caused his body to heal its wounds, but raised him to new superhuman levels. Super strong, nearly invulnerable, fast and agile, Vic Decker became the Vanquisher to face off against those who use violence to stand in the way of social progress.

You’ll note that none of that description addresses the way Vanquisher dresses. That is on purpose. Vanquisher dresses in clothes that he finds comfortable and that’s that. As I’ve said in the past, I have no personal belief that society’s conception of what constitutes manly or feminine clothing is an absolute truth, so I’m willing to let Vanquisher dress as he pleases and not depict him as being weak because of it. I can assure you that if I were better at drawing, that outfit would be much lacier.

There’s not really any thematic link between the two heroes I’m giving you this week, but here they are:

Stegosauress

Stegosauress has the spine, tail, and thagomizer of a stegosaurus. There’s not much else that one needs to know, but I suppose I’ll come up with some more anyway.

Following her origin, she had Stegosaurus powers and became Stegosauress. Now she fights crime with her Stegosaurus powers. I don’t know what more I could possibly say!

This is a character created name first, that’s for sure. And I admit, the particular bad naming joke could work with any dinosaur ending with -saurus (Tyrannosauress, Brachiosauress, anything), but I’m not doing that. Stegosauruses are the best and I see no reason to diversify.

Lex Techno

Lex Techno lives in a world where the bad guys are winning, and the heroes have to be tough just to survive. Superhuman dictators have conquered the world and divided it among themselves. Wars rage between them causing destruction and pollution on a scale the world has never seen. Slavery, genocide, and viral warfare are all over the place like they’re going out of style. Comfortable shoes cost way too much. It’s basically a world you don’t want to live in.

But Lex Techno lives there. And he’s trying to make the place workable. Lex Techno is a cyborg, more than 50% technology, and he’s been fighting his entire life. The leader of a proactive squad of violent super-soldiers called Raid Force Zero. The group performs hit-and-run attacks on the villainous despots and try to make a difference as best they can. With all necessary brutality.

The 90s have a reputation in comics as being a time when stupid violent stories starring stupid violent guys with big guns and shoulder pads. First of all, the 90s were the decade when I got into comics, so I know very well that that is an oversimplification that is just wrong. There was no point during the 90s when there wasn’t something good being done. Sure, I admit that for a couple of years that bleak kind of hero was the dominant trend, but you can’t write off the whole decade.

But Lex Techno is not a rejection of those 90s Anti-Heroes, he’s an embracing of them, because simply being a 90s-style character is not inherently bad. The cyborg soldiers and killer vigilantes of that era are as much a part of superhero mythology that we should accept that and deal with it. So, with Ol’ Lex here, I’d try to explore what kind of heroism you’d expect to find in the bleakest of circumstances.