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.

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.

Marv Thinker, The World’s Dumbest Mentalist

A plane crashed into a mysterious jungle leaving only one survivor, an infant child. Discovered by members of a hidden tribe, the infant was taken to their secret hidden city. This tribe had secret mental powers. As the boy grew, he learned telepathy, telekinesis, and all the sorts of mental arts that the tribe possessed. Eventually, though, the boy became an adult and, in keeping with the traditions of the tribe, had to find himself. In his unique case, this meant Marv had to leave the village and learn about the outside world. In the outside world, Marv has powers that make him peerless, but he is also a freaking idiot.

Marv Thinker grew up without any kind of schooling outside training his mental powers, and he also has no familiarity with societal mores. This oblivious but powerful young man wound up in a crime-ridden American city and soon found himself in trouble with the mob (though he barely realized it). It was only the intervention of Marcy DaCosta, a private investigator who happened upon the scene. Marcy, whose business was failing, saw a chance, with Marv, to have a gimmick: a mind-reading detective would be sure to make money. So began the Marv Thinker: Mentalist Detective Agency, where Marv is a sort of front man, and Marcy does all the actual work.

Marv Thinker is one of the few ideas I’m using for a Super Sunday sketch for which I have a lot of desire to actually write. Like Noblewoman, I have actual ideas for this character and would love to get a chance to do them someday.

Captain Fire

Captain Fire is the second in command of Raid Force Zero, the superhero team who live in a terrible dystopian society and fight a hard fight to improve things. With fire-casting abilities and a military background, Captain Fire is a formidable warrior devoted to saving the world. She is also capable of teleportation by fire, meaning that she can step into a flame in one part of the world and exit a flame elsewhere. She can’t take the team with her, but it is useful for occasional covert operations.

There isn’t much to say about Captain Fire, really. I like the idea of such a generic, non-gendered superhero name being used by a woman (a couple of the Captain Marvels was a woman, though that did not last), and she’s also wearing a heckuva lot more layers than superhero ladies generally get to wear. That stuff is well and good and important, but mostly I wanted to flesh out Raid Force Zero a little bit more.

Karl B. Franklin, esq.

Born into a wealthy family, Karl Franklin had the opportunity to live his life any way he wanted. He wanted to see the world, so he has spent years travelling to exotic locations, studying at the best schools, and meeting interesting people. Naturally, this led to a life of adventuring. He has raided many a dungeon and fought smugglers in many an archaeological dig. To aid in his adventures Karl carries a sword, a gun, a magic amulet, a pipe, and a bag of tricks, but that is not all: over the years he has somehow acquired a pair of horns and a prehensile tail. Some might consider those to be deformations, but since they come in handy, he has no desire to get rid of them. Karl B. Franklin is an adventure-having expert and loves every second of it.

Karl Franklin is based off of an old sketch I had around, but I didn’t have a story for him until just now. I meant for the character to have a form of dwarfism, but I’ve never done the research to know which type (probably achondroplasia, I guess) because there’s not a lot of little person characters going on in comics. I mean, I can name about a dozen, but I’m crazy knowledgeable. I would figure that the most prominent example in comics would be Puck, of Alpha Flight, except from his backstory he is not a natural dwarf, but is the victim of a magic curse. That’s stupid, so Karl Franklin is my own diminutive guy hero who suffers from magic effects, but those two things are not related.

Combustaboy

With the ability to burst into flame and fly, little Timmy McIsaac became Combustaboy, the Fiery Teen, to make enough money to pay his way through college. Superheroing is not what Timmy wants to do with his life. To him, this is just a job. His heart isn’t in it and he let’s it show. Still, if you can create fire at will, there’s always going to be someone who is willing to pay you for something, right?

The story I came up with for Combustaboy is just a young superhero, but since I’ve gotta talk about something down here, I’m going to go with teen-aged sidekicks. The concept of teenage heroes is ubiquitous in comics, but for some reason the concept of a kid sidekick has faded away since the olden times. With the exception of Batman and Robin, teen sidekicks are almost never treated seriously anymore. I guess that is because you’d have to be Bruce Wayne-style crazy to recruit children into a war on crime. But still, here’s a stray thought I had on the idea: in the 1940s, a sixteen-year-old was more of an adult than a sixteen-year-old is these days. It was much more common back then for teenagers to drop out of school and take jobs and help support their families. My argument is harmed by the fact that the teen sidekicks in the comics of those days were more likely to act like eleven-year-old than grizzled sixteenagers, but I do think that when you’re telling stories of olden times, it isn’t as absurd for a superhero to have a kid backing him up. I mean, teenagers are sent to fight in real wars and some even lied to get in before they were of age (heck, Calvin Graham was twelve in WWII), so a kid helping out a superhero is not one of the most absurd superhero tropes as far as I’m concerned.