I think it is long since time I presented another superhero team:

The Crew of the Cosmic are a team of superheroes working for an international space program. In a world filled with supervillains and conquering aliens, a team like this is a necessity. I often encounter an attitude in the real world that space exploration is a useless waste of taxpayer money, so if I were to tell actual stories about this team, in addition to all the usual adventure action, I’d be trying to draw attention to all the very real ways space exploration has helped out everyday lives, and how little funding they actually get compared to programs I like a lot less. But mostly, it would be about adventures.

Moongloves

Sandra Collins’s mysterious moon gloves give her the ability to somewhat control of gravity. Reducing the weight of something, she can lift it over her head with little effort. She can also, at a touch, increase an enemy’s gravity rendering them unable to move. Also, she can punch real hard. The leader of the Crew, Captain Collins is strongly devoted into helping humanity find its place in the universe.

The Interplanetarian

Humberto Noriega is The Interplanetarian. With powers ideally suited to existing in space (he can survive in the vaccuum, fly unaided by technology, and so on), he has joined the Crew for reasons of money and fame. He presents a swashbuckling personality, which can grate on the rest of the team, but keeps him popular with the public. Since space programs are hard up for funding, the public’s love gives him a lot of clout.

Satellito

Satellito (Officially named Satellite-Zero) is the team’s robot, filled with sensors, as well as being their constant connection to Earth. Originally designed by a supervillain, Satellito is also packed with gadgets and weaponry that can help in any situation. What the team doesn’t know, however, is that some of Satellito’s original programming still exists, and it is in a constant struggle to keep from turning against the team.

Hypersquare

Claire Weber wears a suit that allows her to move through space by a kind of teleportation. By breaking herself into a series of two-dimensional squares, Claire can move about and re-form at a new location. It is not as instantaneous as many teleportation processes seen on television or movies, but it is definitely handy in space exploration.

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.

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.

In the amazing days of the Twenty-First Century, humanity has found itself reaching into the vast and mysterious universe and found danger. Who can keep the Earth safe in this time of cosmic change? None other than Gus Comet, Rocket Officer! Soaring through the cosmos in his Rocketship, Gus Comet battles evil aliens, captures space criminals, and explores new planets of all kinds. Hooray for Gus Comet!

Gus’s crew includes:
Brains O’Brien, a scrappy rough-and-tumble super-genius orphan from Brooklyn. Hyram, a talking cyborg hyena who solves mysteries. And, Andrianna: Princess of the Robots.

I don’t think that anyone can argue that the golden age of science fiction would be a bit disappointed about how the twenty-first century has turned out. I am the first to admit that we’ve got some great technology going on with out internets and our computers, but it is all kind of lazy technology. It’s the sort of technology that makes sitting around really great, but isn’t exactly the stuff of Adventure. I approve of sending robot drones to Mars and all that, but there’s no denying that the world would feel a little bit more special if we had heroic people off doing wonderful things at the frontiers of human experience. That’s a world I want to live in. Shame on us for not being there. If I ever had a means to tell stories of Gus Comet, the juxtaposition between his adventures and the mundane truths of our world would be at the forefront.

Dr. Amanda Freeman was an astronaut performing scientific experiments on the moon, but a key piece of equipment malfunctioned and sent a wave of reality-warping energy coursing through Amanda. When she recovered, she found that she was transformed into a being made of the same material as the moon’s surface. Amanda found that she could now reshape her regolith-body into all manner of different forms. Unfortunately, her “at-rest” form includes her space-suit, which she can not remove. She continues to use her powers to help the space program, but is always seeking some way to return herself to normal.

Regolith is a character I made up for the sketch. Basically, Regolith is a good guy, moon version of Marvel’s Sandman. I threw in the bit about being trapped in the space-suit to add a bit of a tragic drawback, like many of the classic superheroes have. She’s not likely to be the type of superhero who goes around foiling bank robberies, but she would be right at home foiling alien invasions and the like.