N-Tangle

Clarissa Jurgens has created an experimental suit that connects her nervous system to a collection of billions of strong, prehensile nanofibres. Clarissa can control these as if they were a part of her own body, winding them together to create thick cords or using them individually to perform delicate tasks on a minor scale. Using this suit to become the superhero N-Tangle (the N can stand for Nano- or Neuro- or anything else needed, Clarissa insists), Clarissa is living out her childhood dreams of fighting crime, though she soon finds that it is a lot more serious and a lot less fun than she expected. She struggles to stick with it, if only because she doesn’t know what else she wants in life.

Ridiculous hair. Just ridiculous. I don’t even know what is going on there. And also, if I had named the character before doing the sketch, I probably would have tried to work an N onto the outfit. I picture her being able to swing though the city like Spider-Man, using her to brace herself.

Skullserpent

Misti Drake has divided her mind. While she is still in complete control of her body, she simultaneously is within the Skullserpent, a floating snake-like entity with a human skull for a face. Most people don’t have that. Misti uses her mystical second self in a quest to locate and destroy a society of magical criminals called the Night Fellows. This evil order, intent on world domination in the name of their dread leader Karaksus the Uncontrollable.

Skullserpent’s design looks so much like a villain that I considered saving it until I got to the villain creation portion of my Super Sundays. To me, she looks exactly like someone who would be on a group of villains created in the 80s to fight some team of superheroes or another. But I decided not to go that way. The fact that she doesn’t look like a hero is one of the reasons that she should be a hero, I think. I mean, sure, I already did that with Queen Deathknell, but why not do it again?

Flying Falchion

On his deathbed, Carl Allen revealed something to his son Dwayne: there is a magic sword which has been passed down in their family for many generations that can transform its wielder into a winged warrior. The catch is, the body they transform into is that of an angelic white man, and the Allen family is black. Carl Allen refused to use the sword, content to live a quiet life uncomplicated by either adventure or controversy, but Dwayne can not do the same. While he has trouble adjusting to existing in a body not his own, Dwayne begins a superhero career, all the while investigating the origin of the sword and its history with his family.

Basically, while I was trying to decide what kind of obsolete weapon I wanted to base a superhero around, I noticed that falchions are a type of sword. I threw some wings on there, which allowed for some alliteration in his name, and I threw in a Shazam-style transformation with a race aspect to allow for story possibilities, and we’re done. Done.

Securer

Nora Quentin, FBI agent, was caught in the explosion of a mad scientist’s drug lab. The strange chemical mix that bombarded Nora’s body gave her superhuman powers. The FBI saw an opportunity to have their own superhero agent and created the identity of “The Securer” for Nora and she is now the Bureau’s first line of defense against superhuman threats.

I fully admit that it is getting hard to come up with new issues that I need to address in superhero form. More than once during this year of superhero creation I have noted that there need to be more lady superheroes whose ladiness is not their defining quality. Thus, once again, I’ve got a woman with a super-generic super name and that is that. Repeatedly fighting against society’s problems with more and more characters would be the most efficient way to make a difference, but it does cause me to have to repeat myself a whole bunch over here… (The chemical explosion origin is also really repetitive, but who is counting?)

Astrona

Space is full of mystery. The human mind is only capable of knowing so much and there is so much more than that in the universe. Astrona is from that part. Although she takes the form of a humanoid woman, Astrona seems to be some sort of living embodiment of the idea of helping others. She soars the cosmos detecting what she calls “scarred stars” which have been poisoned by negativity. Around these stars are often planets with societies that have problems (disasters, tyrannical rulers, plague, etc.) and Astrona comes down as a sort of messianic figure and helps them, which heals the star.

Astrona is just my attempt to make a trippy cosmic sci-fi character in the style of the seventies comics when cosmic was an in-style thing. The problem is, I haven’t read all that much of the trippy cosmic sci-fi from the seventies, so I’m kinda phoning it. In case it isn’t obvious that is supposed to be a sort of Saturn-style ring around her. I have no idea how that works either.

Konwaag, the Magic Hunter

Konwaag comes from a planet that we would describe as post-apocalyptic. The world, once a high-tech utopia, was brought to ruin by a cult of wizards who sought to take over. Although the wizards were overthrown, the cost was too great. Konwaag grew up in the aftermath of this war and saw the damage that magic did, so when he found a trove of war-time technology designed specifically for hunting down wizards, and a space ship to go with it, he set about the universe to hunt down those who would tamper with magical forces.

I’ve mentioned more than once that I like aliens to look less human, but this is a character I drew from an old sketch I had lying around. I’m going to claim that under his costume Konwaag has all sorts of things that make him look less human…

Anyway, I don’t think Konwaag could stand on his own as a hero, probably, but I like the idea of him being a rival to another superhero, sort of like how Vartox was a rival for Superman, except instead of fighting over women, the hero (let’s say Noblewoman) would have to prevent him from attacking magic-users who aren’t evil, but they’d still work together against legitimate threats.

Here’s the final pair of characters from the Justice-Man supporting cast:

The Lupine

J. Aaron Stallone was an orphaned boy who had superhuman powers. He came to the attention of the the super-agency BEST. Given that Justice-Man had been through a similar experience, it was decided that the established hero should work with the boy to try to help him adjust. Though it was not the intention, Stallone was able to turn this into a position as a sidekick. Styling himself as Justice-Kid, Stallone was allowed to come along on some of Justice-Man’s simpler missions for a few years, while learning from BEST in his off hours. That wasn’t enough, though, and eventually Stallone created another secret identity, that of the Lupine, so that he could sneak out at night and fight crime on his own. The mysterious wolf-based vigilante made a big name for himself and Justice-Man and BEST had no reason to expect that anything was wrong with Stallone.

That continued until the day the Lupine was arrested after killing and eating a couple of criminals. BEST and Justice-Man were confused and horrified when the Lupine was unmasked. Stallone is now in prison, but still considers himself a good guy (he insists that the fact he only ever ate criminals makes it okay) and Justice-Man still visits once a month, hoping to find some way of helping him.

So anyway, the story of Justice-Kid is basically a worst case scenario of the whole teen sidekick thing. I mentioned that the Lupine still considers himself a good guy, and that’s true. For stories I hope to tell someday, that will be important. It is worth noting that Stallone’s powers are in no way wolf-like. He’s got glowing super punches, for example. His logic with his costume choice is that it would be nuts for him to use an identity that gave away the kind of powers he had. There’s a method to his madness.

The Old Sage

There is a mysterious old man who has been a mysterious old man since at least the 1930s. He hangs around on the edge of the superhero community appearing when there are problems of some mystical or cosmic significance, seemingly using magical abilities, though he won’t admit to it. They call him the Old Sage because his true identity is unrevealed (he insists that it is unimportant). Justice-Man, however, knows more than most. Over the years the two have worked together many times and Justice-Man has learned that the mysterious stranger is actually from another dimension, a fantastic realm of magic and monsters. He has travelled the cosmos to fight evil and uses the superheroes of Justice-Man’s world as a handy workforce. Perhaps his methods are a bit underhanded, but Justice-Man has grown to trust the strange wizard, and so the Old Sage continues to serve his purposes from the edges of rational thought.

There were times when young PDR was creating his superhero universes when he would decide that it would be best (or more “realistic”) if he tried to make his superhero universe Hard Sci-Fi, meaning having no magic or aliens or anything that didn’t really exist. That never ever worked out for long. “Realistic” superhero fiction is not what PDR actually wants out of superheroes. Anyway, during the times when PDR was creating his superhero universes, he was also creating fantasy universes. That’s where the Old Sage comes from, my fantasy universe, and he’s travelled to the superhero world to be the Dr. Strange-style magic man.

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.