Shapemaster

Herb Caesar was a young man when he gained the power to change into shapes. But he couldn’t turn into other people, or even animals or even, say, a car. He is limited to simple shapes. Squares, cubes, spheres, etc. Still, he was inventive, and found many ways to use these powers in creative ways. For several years Herb fought crime as the Shapemaster, but it never seemed to pay off for Herb. He couldn’t pay his bills, he couldn’t keep a job. A supervillain killed his best friend, and a girlfriend turned into another supervillain and blew up his house. Eventually he realized it wasn’t worth it. To get any satisfaction, he decided, he had to look out for Number One.

In real superhero comics, well mainstream real superhero comics anyway, nothing ever changes. No superhero will ever go bad for real. It might even last a few years, but the non-stop soap opera of it requires that every twist is eventually, shockingly twisted back. Anyway, with Shapemaster I can pretend it happened in my little superhero universe anyway.

The Witch

Three hundred years ago a woman was accused to consorting with demons to get mystical power. She totally had done exactly that. Those who accused her couldn’t do a damn thing because she was a magical killing machine. Any of her accusers that she hadn’t drowned or crushed or burned at the stake decided that it wasn’t worth the risk of even trying to stop her.

Now, in the present, the Witch still lives. She has used her mystical powers to found a worldwide criminal empire and only the emergence of these newfangled “super heroes” has ever posed any threat to her. She will have to deal with them.

Here I wanted to take the idea of a witch and do it differently. I wanted the opposite of every good witch idea, but also to avoid the standard look of a cartoon witch with green skin and black hat and all that. I planned on giving her a better name, but then I decided I liked the simplicity as an excuse to stop trying to think one up.

Color is back! And I don’t just mean for this post! Over the last week, and at the expense of working on SecGov, I have gone back through Super Sunday and colored them all. They are all now in color! I figure the Internet will care more if they’re flashier, right? If anyone cares to go back through the Super Sunday tag, they’ll find a whole colorful world of superheroes and villains. This will make any comments I made about colors in the posts obsolete, but that’s probably worth it.

The Man Defender

Danny Adam Stark was just a regular guy in his early twenties until a chemically-infused pollution cloud caused a strange atmospheric disturbance and a bolt of lightning struck young Danny. After some time in hospital, his life continued. Over time he began to notice he was changing. He’d grown stronger and faster. He discovered he could jump almost a mile and shrug off a bullet to the face. Danny decided to use his powers to help those most in need to help: men. Danny sees society’s attempts to emasculate men as the primary cause of all the problems and if only the roles of the genders can be fixed, things will return to the way they were in the good old days. With this goal, the Man Defender will strike out against prominent feminists and lawmakers (especially females) who are trying to change things. He will break accused rapists out of jail, because the women were obviously asking for it. As far as he is concerned, he is the only hero addressing these issues of misandry and all the others are pathetic failures.

I’ve been doing a lot of world building stuff with the Supervillain Sunday sketches, which I enjoy, but I haven’t done as much addressing issues as I did with the Superhero Sundays. One of things a superhero story can do is use villains to represent real problems in the world. ‘Cause then we get to have a superhero beat up those problems, and that can be fun.

Hekkar

The demon-sorceress Hekkar is obsessed with gaining more power through a process known as “eating magic users”. Merging with the mystically altered flesh of those who use magic, Hekkar grows stronger, though what her goals may be beyond that are not known. But there is one who Hekkar can’t devour for power: the Conjuroid. The demon-fighting robot hero is the ideal defense against this demonic glutton, though as she is quick to point out, isn’t the Conjuroid just another being that destroys demons in its own quest to become stronger? Are they so different?

I admit, this one isn’t addressing an issue, really. I mean, sure, I worry about the threat of magicians being devoured as much as the next person, but the next person doesn’t care that much either.

Voltagoblin

The Voltagoblin is the last of his kind. For most of his existence, the Voltagoblin lived in a pocket dimension contained in a candle. The candle was owned by a mystic, who would enter the dimension and live like a king. That was not enough for the mystic, though, so outside of the pocket dimension, he was a magic-using criminal. That attracted the attention of superheroes like the Beam, who shut down the mystic’s operation.

The denizens of the pocket dimension, without their ruler, tasted freedom, but the mystical maintenance of their realm suffered. Faced with the apocalypse of their fantasy world, Voltagoblin and several of this fellows formed a sort of roving band of warriors and ruled over the ruins. There were other bands, of course, and fighting followed. Ultimately, the electric-powered Voltagoblin discovered the portal the lost mystic used to get to Earth. “Screw everybody else” was his line of thought as he passed through the portal and closed it behind him. Once he realized what was the deal was, he snuffed out the candle’s flame.

Sorcerer In A Tiny Car

Vroom. Vroom. Abracavroom.

With mystical control of the four elements and of his four wheels, this mysterious driver races into towns and attacks armored vehicles, stealing what he can, then races out of towns, never stopping for a second. Even when opposed by the police, or the Guild of Crime Fighters, the Sorcerer in a Tiny Car never slows down. He’s never even stopped long enough for anyone to learn his name. So far, though the good guys have sometimes prevented his thefts, none have ever managed to catch him.

If I’m using this year to create the kind of villains I want to see in superhero comics, this guy is one. Supeheroes and Tiny Cars need to be united, dammit.

The Hateful King

The one now known as the Hateful King was conceived during a tryst between an immortal magic user and a demon meeting in a spiritual plane. The future King’s mother was a messenger demon, a go-between between earthly wizards and a powerful demon, the Fear Fomenter. Born and raised in the demon realm, he was put into service of the Fear Fomenter, fighting against other demons who tried to muscle in on his turf, though the other demons mocked him for his partial corporeality. In his thirtieth year, the Fear Fomenter traded him to a human wizard. He was on Earth for the first time as a slave and being forced to build a castle alone, by hand. Doing this, he grew strong, and watching his master, he learned magic. After years of slavery, he was powerful enough to overthrow his wizard master. And after that he opened a rift to the demon realm and killed the Fear Fomenter. Claiming the castle as his own, the Hateful King now had an army made up of the remnants of the wizard’s goblin hordes and a fear demon mob. He looked at the world around him and decided, he would take it for his own.

The sharp-eyed among you may notice that this guy is in color. I’ve been toying with coloring some of my previous Super Sunday sketched and, while I don’t know how to make it look less messy, some of the results please me. I guess from time to time when I feel like it, I’ll throw a color sketch up on here. Why did this guy deserve to be the first with color? Well, as of this writing, I think there is no story I’d rather be writing than the story of the war against the Hateful King. If I had an artist who wanted to work with me, this is the first idea I’d pitch right now.

Zglarxon

A walking mass of space matter that resembles a color-inverted starry sky, Zglarxon is not from around here. Spawned in some anomaly deep in space, Zglarxon has come to Earth with an apparent mission, though its nature is not understandable to us mere mortals. Often it appears to steal rare elements and using them in constructing strange machinery, often in places that cause trouble for humanity (it seems to prefer building its structures on city streets). If it completes its machine, it will often leave. If the machine’s operation is impeded, it will attack.

Given the “inverted starry sky” description I gave above, Zglarxon is practically colored as well. Hooray. As a mysterious space-thing with unknowable motives, Zglarxon is a counterpart of the Orbzoid. What makes Zglarxon a bad guy and Orbzoid a good guy? The Orbzoid seems to help people on occasion, but Zglarxon barely notices their presence, uncaring as it causes harm to achieve whatever it is trying to achieve. And if someone stands between Zglarxon and his goals, Zglarxon will become extremely violent.

The Besuited Beast

Governments are obsolete. Corporations rule the world now. If you want power, business is the route to take. But watch out, there are already those who have power in the world of commerce, and they don’t love competition.

The Besuited Beast works through proxy corporations and anonymous holding firms, but rumors of his existence have spread. People aren’t sure if he’s some sort of demon bent on acquiring wealth and power or simply a deformed businessman, but his penchant for hostile takeovers has made his intentions clear: complete domination of the business landscape. Those whose businesses are at stake might want to know more about there opponent, but who could investigate such a mystery? The Panda Detective, of course.

It’s inevitable that I’m going to write some corporate-type villainy every now and then, given my beliefs. That said, I’d try to be even-handed and not make literal monsters out of them. Except this time, I guess. I’ve got to have one.

The Burglaroid

Treasured things are kept behind closed doors and in locked boxes, which makes them a tempting challenge to a being who likes nothing more than to violate secret locations. From a mystical otherworldly dimension, the Burglaroid comes to Earth with no other purpose than petty theft. To him, the monetary value of an item is meaningless, but the sentimentality of the item is what is enticing. Most importantly, if someone is worried about an item being stolen and makes an effort to protect it, that is an item the Burglaroid will want.

But when a creepy freakish being sneaks into your house in the middle of the night and takes only some trinkets that only matter to you, who can you call? The police wouldn’t care even if they did believe you. Who could investigate such a mystery? The Panda Detective, of course.

I don’t know what my fascination is with using the -oid suffix for names on my Super Sunday thing here. I’ve got Conjuroid, Horribloid, Orbzoid. I had to cut myself off from doing it during the hero portion, but I figure that since I hadn’t done one for a villain yet, it was fair game.

Why two villains for the Panda Detective in one week? Why not? They just seemed to fit.

(Guest Coloring by my friend @sanityormadness)