Mouthlaser

Ty Taylor accidentally drank a secret formula. It was a secret formula intended to work as computer fuel, which means people aren’t supposed to drink it. To keep Ty from dying, vomiting was induced. Ty ended up vomiting for a long time, and when he ran out of vomit, something strange happened: Ty started vomiting lasers. Eventually Ty felt better, but could still vomit lasers at will. Still, he lost his job and had to pay the company for the computer fuel that he ruined.

Unemployed and able to shoot mouth lasers, Ty did what anybody would do in that situation: he sewed a costume and started picking fights with crime. So far, that’s working out for him. Good for Ty.

The story behind the creation of Mouthlaser is simple: shooting lasers from one’s mouth has been Kip’s choice for favorite super power for years. I have to admit that if I were ever to do anything with the character, I bet I could do a better job with the costume. For now, though, this works.

The Orbzoid

It is unclear what exactly the Orbzoid is, though it is known to be of alien origin. It was a Summer day when a large orb crashed to Earth and crawled out of the resulting crater. The orb was given the name “Orbzoid” by during a frenzy whipped up by a twenty-four hour news cycle, and it was clearly intelligent. Its motives, however, could not be discerned. For days it wandered the world, apparently at random. On one occasion it smashed through the window of a hospital and roamed the halls for hours. Reporters lost sight of it for weeks as it submerged itself in the ocean waters. More recently, though, the Orbzoid has apparently constructed a body for itself. It has also begun interacting with humanity, though it still remains mysterious. The Orbzoid has appeared at the scenes of crimes and prevented violence, and also stopped several buildings from being destroyed by fires, so humanity is accepting it as a hero. Still, the unknowable orb has been seen digging large, apparently useless holes strange locations, and moving parked cars in the middle of the night. Humanity can only hope that if the Orbzoid’s motives ever become clear, they will be benevolent.

The Orbzoid came to me in a dream, the design and the name, at least (and it happened only a short time after I decided I had to stop using the suffix -oid in character names). You can’t tell because of my drawing style (aka crappy-style), but the big Head Orb is supposed to be floating a few inches above the weird triangle shoulder thing, disconnected physically from the rest of the body, but still somehow connected. It’s weird, but that’s what he’s for.

Okay, we’re out of July, so instead of looking back at old characters I created as a kid, let’s see what new things I’ve got to offer:

Halberd Man

Dirk Carson worked for the movies. He was a stunt man and weapons expert specializing in medieval and fantasy epics. Dirk’s brother was a director and the two often worked together. It was a good time, but eventually Dirk’s brother wound up in debt to some crooked businessmen. Increasingly desperate, he embezzled from the studio. When Dirk found out, he offered to help, but it was too late, his brother was captured, then killed by a hitman before his case could go to court. Dirk, unable to find justice for his brother through legal means, Dirk wound up throwing together a ridiculous costume from the studio wardrobe and using a halberd to seek his own revenge. The Halberd Man now stalks the night, bringing down the criminal empire that is responsible for his brother’s death.

There’s a lot of superheroes (and villains) based around old-style weaponry. The most popular is going to be your archer characters, who are all descended from Robin Hood, really, but you can find characters with swords and whips and axes and hammers. So anyway, it was with that in mind that I picked some obsolete piece of weaponry and make a superhero out of it.

Horribloid

Roaming the countryside is a creature, the creation of a mad scientist who tampered with things man was not meant to tamper with. The Horribloid! Large, strong, brutal, it hides in caves and woods, roaming wherever it may. It is occasionally seen by people, who flee before its fearsome visage, but it seems to want nothing to do with people and keeps to itself. Or so it seems. In fact, the Horribloid is not alone. The Horribloid is able to communicate with animals, and has friends among the birds, rabbits, foxes, and other animals of the area. In the service of his friends, he has become something of a superhero to these animal civilians, a strange visitor who devotes his time to their protection.

This is one of those cases where I drew something and then had to make up a story to go along with it. I look at this guy and I think of the kind of monsters that might show up in some Golden Age comics, but since this is a good guy I had to flip some of the story points around. But then you just get Frankenstein’s Monster, so I threw the bit about animal-talkin’ and I had something new.

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.

Another pair of characters from the supporting cast of Justice-Man, the superhero I created as a child:

Justifier

Mike Hey was a martial arts instructor who made his living teaching self-defense in a particularly crime-ridden part of town. On a regular basis he saw the people in his community becoming the victims of criminals and eventually he, inspired by the exploits of Justice-Man, became a crimefighter of his own. Wearing a thick suit of armor and using his friendship with a local police officer, Mike became the Justifier and fought the local criminal element. Eventually this caught the attention of Justice-Man himself, who recruited Justifier into his ever-expanding circle of superhero friends.

I am much more aware now than as a child that the name “Justifier” is essentially pointless for a superhero. What is he supposed to be justifying? Basically, I wanted a name that was kinda related to justice as a concept, and this is what came out. Oh well!

Mind Agent

When the super secret crimefighting organization called BEST discovered a young boy who had been created as a perfect assassin, they tried to give the boy as normal a life as could be possible. Eventually, though, the boy, Alex, decided that he didn’t want the normal life. He wanted to be Justice-Man. As skilled as Justice-Man was, BEST did not intend to allow him to go into the field unattended. Senior BEST Mind Agent Natalie French, a friend of Alex since his discovery, became Justice-Man’s partner in his earliest days, using her mental powers of telekinesis and telepathy to watch his back and guide him. Eventually Justice-Man earned the trust to do his job on his own and Agent French would be promoted to the upper echelons of BEST, but the two remained close allies.

Perhaps the most important thing I remember about this character is that the name “Natalie French” was used on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show I didn’t get around to watching until around the year 2000. They clearly stole the name from me, but cleverly disguised it by having their character nothing like mine. Those dastards.

Another pair of characters from the supporting cast of Justice-Man, a superhero I created as a child.

Justice-Beast

In a world where superheroes are common place, criminal groups have to try harder to keep up. One such group made an effort to create its own supersoldiers by experimenting on mercenaries. Some of these mercenaries wound up with useless mutations, some got actual powers, and some died. The one that was once known as Joe Curtis, with his lizard-like appearance and tiny additional hands, did not seem particularly useful to the crime scientist, so he was euthanized and left in a mass grave. That wasn’t the end, however, as other, slow-acting powers would not only keep the Beast alive, but help him to escape into a nearby town. With only scattered memories of his life Curtis was confused and afraid and angry. He attacked people when he encountered them, and that brought Justice-Man to the scene. While preventing the Beast from harming anyone else, Justice-Man noticed signed of intelligence in the monster and reached out. Perhaps because Justice-Man himself had been created by evil interests, the two were able to bond and, after getting the help he needed, the Beast became Justice-Beast and served alongside Justice-Man in opposing crime.

This guy was created when I took a little monster finger puppet (of the sort that turn up on Google for that phrase even today apparently) and stuck it on the head of a G.I. Joe figure. I don’t think I had much of a backstory in mind back then (at least, nothing survived in my notes) so the fact he was once a paramilitary guy is an homage to his action figure origin. What I liked most about Justice-Beast, though, is the idea that Justice-Man didn’t beat him up and toss him into a prison. Justice-Man was the kind of guy who liked to make friends out of enemies and this guy is one of those.

Combustion

Jessica Faulkner ran away from home when she was a teenager and hasn’t been back since. Jessica Faulkner’s family is a fire-based twisted supervillain group. For several generations the ability to generate and control flame has been passed through this bloodline and, over that time, they have become an extremely successful crime group based out of New Zealand led by the Fire Queen, Jess’s mother. Jess wanted nothing to do with that. She left home and fled to America where she was trained by a retired superhero called Bill Q. Watson. Taking the code-name Combustion, Jess fended off her family and their agents when they first wanted her back, then wanted her dead. Combustion did not only fight her own battles, though. She fought crime and corruption wherever she found it and that was how she became friends with Justice-Man and Justice-Woman. Lifelong friendships were formed and Combustion continues to do as much good as she can to offset the evil done by her family.

Combustion is more of the “big breasts and tight clothes” character type than I generally try to create, but that’s okay. The current state of superhero comics may ignore any idea of female characters that don’t fit into their idea of beauty, but my idealized superhero situation wouldn’t fight that by turning the “pretty people” into the new ignored group. There are pretty people in the world and, while not all superheroes should be them, some should. I should, though, make note of something here: as a kid I created a lot of characters whose hands and forearms would be obscured by fire or energy or whatever. It made them so much easier to draw. Hands suck. Especially fingers. I hate drawing fingers. (I reused this for the Volcano Rabbit as well)