Super Sunday: The Beam and Bust-Up

The Beam of Earth Silver

In at least four universes, “the Beam” is the name of a respected superhero. In another universe, there is a Beam, but she is no hero.

Valerie Duncan was once an ordinary human criminal, but during a heist she stumbled across the most important thing she’d ever steal: The Cloak of the Space God of Speed. As she felt the shining silver garment, she felt its energy coarse into her. She instinctively draped it around herself and the world seemed to stop around her. Instead, though, it was she who was moving immeasurably fast. With her newfound powers she became the Beam, a crook capable of crimes so quick that she was gone before anyone knew she was there.

The idea came up in the original Beam post that there could be some villainous Beams out there, but I neglected to do anything with it during my year of Supervillains. Since it is now Supernatural Sunday year, I had to make a supernatural origin for this one. Luckily, it was about time I fleshed out the Space Gods a bit more.

Bust-Up

You can’t take it with you, so when rich prick Randall Penderman-South III died, he had to stick around if he wanted to be with his vast fortune. Randall’s spirit, by inhabiting a bust of himself, can interact with the material plane to protect his wealth. When someone tries to steal his money, this statue-headed ghost is likely to turn up and beat them down. Most of the time this means that Randall’s targets are criminals, but not always, so it’s a good thing the Noblewoman is around to put an end to his spectral rampages. Still, what can the law do about him? You can’t exactly lock a ghost in prison, and there’s not really any assault laws that apply to the deceased anyhow. These questions don’t have easy answers, so for the time being, Bust-Up is a problem Noblewoman will have to deal with on regular occasions.

This fancy coloring was done by @sanityormadness, who took my original version and made it all special effecty.

Super Sunday: Twinklyn and Hatwearer

Twinklyn

Uncertainty. Is a particle in one place or another? Both at the same time? There’s no way to know. Reality is a trickster. As with most concepts, there is a Space God to embody Uncertainty. Twinklyn is the trickster of the Astrolympians. He has a thing for preventing people from knowing things hat could help them, usually with the intention of causing chaos on a broader scale. He only tends to associate with his Space God family when there’s a chance for some mischief.

I kinda threw this one together to prove to myself that I can still expand on specific elements from the Superhero/villain years. Twinklyn here is the Astrolympian equivalent to chaos gods like Eris, but filtered through the omnipotent alien type, like Mxyzptlk or the Great Gazoo. Unlike those guys, though, I envision Twinklyn being extremely dour, taking his job extremely seriously. I just want to be different, I guess.

Hatwearer

Sometimes, when someone is alone at night, they might see a figure off in the distance. In the darkness, it is impossible to make out any features, except for the hat. The figure is always described as wearing a hat. Often the experience lasts for hours, in some cases it has even happened over recurring nights, but it always ends the same way: The person who saw the Hatwearer is found eviscerated.

It seems likely that the Hatwearer has been active for centuries, but it is only in recent times, with the advances in technology like texting, that has allowed the victims to get the word out about what they see.

Hatwearer is my attempt at creating a monster in the style of the Internet horror stories that are, regretably, called Creepypasta. He’s a pretty generic monster (which is actually quite appropriate for the genre), but I could find a use for him someday.

Super Sunday: Valia’s Supporting Cast

Valia’s Supporting Cast

I’m doing something different this week. I’m not limiting myself either to superhero or supervillain, and I’m doing a group of characters, but not one that would be called a “team”. I’m just going to pick a character I liked from the previous years and flesh out their world a little bit.

The character I choose is Valia, the Space God of Courage. She was uploaded in the very last week of Superhero Sundays, but she made an impression apparently, so in my very first week of Supervillain Sundays, I gave her a villain with Lord Terryr, the Space God of Fear. That wasn’t enough for me, apparently, as the Space Gods of Violence, the Violence Sisters, came along later.

Still, I can do more than that. Here’s some more of Valia’s family:

Genitor

In the beginning there was nothing. The twin Emptinesses were in charge. But then came something. Even the very possibility of something. It was: the Great Genitor, the spirit of creation itself. Genitor fought the Emptinesses for a long time, until he finally had made enough room in which to create a universe. In this new universe, Genitor begat Astrolympians, a group of Space Gods each embodying some concept or another. With this pantheon beneath him, to keep things running, Genitor is able to focus on smaller projects, like inspiring inventors or artists whose creations mean no less to him than that first one he fought so hard for.

My design here is a straight-up Jack Kirby wannabe thing. If you’re creating a pantheon of space gods, I don’t think there is anyone better to emulate. I tried to make a sort of explosion theme (just that thing on his helmet and the general fiery color scheme, really) that is meant to be evokative of the big bang.

Constelli

The Space God of Intelligence is Constelli. Constelli is a decent sort, aware that there’s no particularly good reason not to be. A being of rational thought, naturally, is more likely to ally with Valia than the bad Space Gods who want to tear things down and ruin it for everyone. Typically Constelli is occupied in simply studying creation from a UFO/laboratory, but will come to Valia’s aid when it seems necessary.

The idea is that seeing constellations represents seeing patterns in the world and that is the first step toward rational thought. I think that’s sound enough for a Space God, yeah?

Influence

Unsurprisingly, Influence is the Space God of influence. Unlike Constelli, Influence will work with anyone who wants to sway someone else, good or evil. As long as you are willing to pay tribute, he will work alongside you.

I didn’t actually sketch Influence specifically for this role, but the alien look of him made me associate him with the Space Gods.

Nicole Archibald

Space Gods are fine and all, but you know who isn’t Space Gods? Mortals. The old epics were full of mortals. Let’s have some here.

Carter Archibald was a great civil rights leader whose fearlessness in the face of overwhelming oppression caught the attention of Valia. They fell in love and Nicole Archibald was the result. Now an adult, Nicole is a member of a special police task force for dealing with the sorts of situations that crop up with Space Gods around. She’s aware of her status as a demi-god, but has shut her mother out of her life both because she failed to save her father (who was stabbed to death when Nicole was young), but also because she isn’t quite sure how to feel about the idea that her mother is the anthropomorphization of a concept. It’s not normal to know that you are, basically, half fictional. Nicole is brave, there is no doubt, but she will not admit to being her mother’s child.

So there we go. By this point, Valia is probably the most fleshed out concept I’ve done here with the exception of Justice-Man. And so much of it is still in my head. Imagine if I could actually, you know, tell stories…

Super Sunday: The Violence Sisters

The Violence Sisters

In the battle that was the dawn of time, The Great Genitor, the Space Spirit of Creation and founder of the Astrolympians, banished the Twin Emptinesses to allow room for existence to exist. But Genitor’s victory did not mean there was an end to battle. Even to this day, Genitor’s daughter, the Space God of Courage Valia, has to deal with several enemies powered by the negative influence of the Emptinesses. Lord Terryr, the Space God of Fear, for instance is the son of an Emptiness, but not all of their servants are their direct offspring. The Astrolympians’ Space God of War has many children, some among them allies to Valia, but a set of triplets begotten by War and the Space God of Hatred are among the most problematic foes Valia has to face.

The Violence Sisters, Cruelty, Brutality, and Ferocity. As with all gods, Space or otherwise, they are the living embodiments of the things they symbolize. While Lord Terryr is out for his own goal of domination of humanity, the triplets are loyal to the Emptinesses and their goal of destroying creation. The sisters dwell in the Caves of Emptiness, a sort of pocket dimension full of portals through which they can view and travel to the Earth. By influencing events, often taking the form of mortals to influence events so that any potential conflict escalates to the deadliest outcome they can.

There is no hierarchy among the group, each contribute to their cause as needed without any need for discussion. Ferocity is most likely to incite a crowd to violence, Brutality is the one who works to ensure that that violence is as savage as possible, and Cruelty exists to make sure the violence lasts as long as possible. It is up to Valia to show the mortals that sometimes the braver way to act is not to resort to violence. But luckily for her, she also gets to beat up on this terrible trio to further that cause.

I guess I can also mention that I originally sketched Brutality and Ferocity separately without any intentional connection between the two. When I picked up on their similarity, I added Cruelty because I felt like a trio would work even better. With that done, seeing they were named after concepts, I figured they’d fit into a pantheon of gods and it turned out I already had one of those lying around. The triplets were a perfect fit for the Astrolympians. I had already given Valia one villain in the form of Lord Terryr, and I hadn’t planned on spending so much time building up her supporting cast like this, but I do find that the Astrolympians are one of the things that have come up in my Super Sundays that have best stuck in my mind. I will possibly return to them at some point. But considering that neither these nor Terryr were intentionally created for that purpose, it will probably have to happen unintentionally.

Super Sunday: Lord Terryr and Gunfire

VILLAINS!

Lord Terryr

Lord Terryr watches the Earth from his castle on his asteroid. Master of the Army of Horroriors, Terryr wants nothing more than to sow chaos among humankind and create fear. His ultimate goal? Nothing more than the ultimate downfall of society on Earth, to scare humanity back to the stone age, leaving on only a superstitious, easily controlled population behind.

Using a machine called the Mind-Miner, Terryr can probe the nightmares of those sleeping on the world below, and from these he can breed his Horroriors, a warrior race of terrible monsters. These monsters he then sends to Earth, alone or in groups, to attack at random. Generally Lord Terryr will break into the Earth’s communication systems to mock humanity and make sure they know: “You are not safe.”

I don’t have much to say about Lord Terryr here. I mostly just wanted to draw a weird looking villain who would rule an army of monsters. I admit I’ve not seen a lot of Power Rangers, but the idea of sending monsters down to Earth is something I know they had, but here those monsters are only there to cause fear, not to conquer the world or whatever. This seems more feasible. It was not intentional, but given that I’ve made him into a fearmonger who exists in space, I think he’d be an ideal enemy for Valia, the space god of courage. Natural enemies.

Gunfire

Wielding two custom-made shotguns, the woman called Gunfire is one of the highest paid assassins in the world. Homeless as a teenager, the woman who would become Gunfire had to turn to crime. It turned out she was very good at it. Starting as a heister, she pissed off some organized crime types when she robbed a store under their protection. When they came after her, she was able to turn the tables and brought the whole operation down. When a new syndicate moved in to fill the void, Gunfire’s reputation was more than enough to get her a job as a trigger person. Since then, her career has only gone up.

As I did several times during the hero portion of Super Sunday, I’m going to be trying to stick women into roles typically filled by men. There are indeed lady assassins in comics, but they are generally sexified ninja sorts. I’m not going to say there aren’t unsexified female assassins in comics, I just think it wouldn’t hurt to have another one. I had not intended to assign every villain I make this year to a hero I’d made in the previous year, but since I did it above, I’ll tie Gunfire here to the crime-fighting careers of Rhinoceros Woman and Rabbit.