There is a certain Devil who has been making contracts with humans for a few centuries now and has acquired enough souls that he’s pretty well off by devil standards. He’s rich, in fact. But now he’s kinda bored. Tricking humans into selling their souls has lost its lustre for him. In his quest to find something different in life, he hit upon an idea: He would take some of those suffering in his hell and give them a chance for freedom. The Devil provided them with new physical bodies, with magic powers and helicopters, and with codenames. The selected souls would have to fight one another, the winner getting to go free for all eternity!

Voiceless

Voiceless sold his soul for musical talent. He had a good career as a blue musician while he lived, but in the end his soul went to the Devil’s realm. There, he was rendered unable to make music at all as a punishment. But now that he’s part of the Hell of Copters contest, Voiceless can make music again. He still can’t sing (hence the name), but his special helicopter attacks include sonic shockwave strums and scrambling sonars with harmonica riffs. He fights for his freedom so that someday he might be able to make music again, without it being a weapon.

Darkgirl

Darkgirl was just a silly teenager when she decided that selling her soul to the Devil would be rebellious and cool. She’d always liked horror films and dark imagery, so she wasn’t scared by the Devil in the least. But of course, he was just using her affection for darkness for his own ends, and Darkgirl fell for it. It was a damn shame, but now, in her reconstructed body, she has the ability to control darkness. From her shadowcopter, she can cast solid darkness attacks at her foes, blend into shadows, and stuff like that. With her freedom, she’ll be able to make up for the mistake she made falling for the Devil’s lies.

Gibberer

The Gibberer was a promising physicist when he was young, but he was hungry for knowledge. Greedy for it, even. He sold his soul to the Devil to learn things that humanity was not yet ready to know, and as a result went mad. He spent his remaining years in an asylum, his potential wasted, and his experience in the afterlife has been much the same. But now, in the Hell of Copters contest, he pilots a high-tech chopper with lasers and teleportation devices and tractor beams, finally using his scientific knowledge instead of simply muttering ideas to himself over and over.

Princess Greenelf

Another one that the Devil got young. This young lady got involved with the world of Role Playing Games, which as we all know, meant that she would wind up losing her soul (Jack Chick tried to warn us). But for the contest, she has been given the bodily form of her game character, the Druid Princess Greenelf, and she has all the magical nature powers that the character possesses. Greenelf pilots a fancy wooden helicopter and has control over the weather and plantlife, as well as fancy magic arrows.

Hot Mama

The Devil gave Hot Mama the codename “Hot Mama” as a cruel reminder of her circumstances. In life, she was in a bad car accident with her two children in the back seat. The car became quickly engulfed in flames and it was then that the Devil pounced, making a deal with her. Her soul for the safety of her children. The kids lived, but she did not. And now the Devil taunts her, reminding her that this Hell of Copters contest is the only way she’ll ever see them again. Her powers are all based on fire. Heat rays and fireballs and such. Will it be enough to reunite her with her family?

These characters are essentially the “Good Guys” of the Hell of Copters contest. While everyone is fighting for their own freedom only, these are the sympathetic ones. Next week, let’s have a look at the ones who we would call the bad guys.

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.

Snap

In the vast underground kingdom of King Mederex, there are several kinds of people. The normal humans and the mystical red people are the ruling class. Several other groups, strong hairy ogre types and talking cats among them, make up a middle class who are living well. The lizard people are the lowest class. And they’re sick of it.

Snap is the illegitimate daughter of a Lizard Man shaman and she has inherited some of his mystical power. Though she doesn’t know about her true parentage, she has begun to find out about her abilities, and she’s using them to strike at the upper classes whenever possible. She’s been doing a lot of vandalism and petty theft on one hand, but she also steps up against the abuses of those in power against those who are powerless. Does this make her a good guy or a bad guy? For now, it depends who you ask, and only time will tell where she goes from here.

Bally the Crystal Ball

Hey everybody! It’s Bally! It’s Bally the Crystal Ball! Let’s all hang out with Bally!

Bally is a talking, flying crystal ball and he’s here to fly around and talk to us. There’s no crystal ball that can do that better than Bally can.

When the idea of a flying, talking crystal ball came to me, I thought “that sounds easy to draw” so I drew it. And there he is. I have no idea really what I’m going to do with the character now, though. If I ever make a wizard-themed puzzle game, maybe Bally can be the tutorial guide.

The Mind Diver

The Mind Diver is Captain Drake Marko. Drake wears the suit made from the remains of a giant imaginary monster that was captured and killed by the military. Since the creature was imaginary, its natural habitat is in the mind. By wearing the suit, Drake can dive into the thoughts of anyone and mess things up in all sorts of ways. In this manner Drake can interrogate enemies for information, or attack targets from a distance via dreams, or even reach into a comatose person’s mind to help them out. If the military needs mental dirty work done, the Mind Diver is there to work those dirty minds… or something.

I don’t picture Mind Diver being a particularly imaginative. The suit does all the work for Drake, but opponents would be relying on their own mindpower. With that in mind, I picture Drake as one of those unlikeable pompous blowhard characters that you need to have now and then. Probably Drake would work best as a supporting character somewhere else.

The Gravedoctor

Getting a brain in there is one of the most important parts of making a frankenstein. But what happens if you put More Than One Brain In There!!!???!!!

The Gravedoctor is the result of such an experiment. A mad scientist crammed in as many brains as he could find into his frankenstein to see what would happen and the result was a kind of Frankensteingularty. Smarter than his creator, the Gravedoctor took over the lab and started his own mad science work. Creating more frankensteins to serve under him, the Gravedoctor begins a quest to learn the secrets of the universe. But that kind of work requires more workers. But when the supply of bodies at the local graveyard runs out, where is the Gravedoctor going to get the body parts he needs to going? Well, it’s time to start making more bodies out of all those people who are around. Can the world survive as a growing horde of frankensteins sweeps across the globe? Only time will tell.

I’m not going to lie: this week I’m using some sketches that sat around for some time because I had no idea what to do with them.

Bibliomancer X

Anyone can read a lot of books, but Bibiliomancer X’s goal is to read all books ever. Using his wizardly powers to aid this quest, he doesn’t need to sleep, retains all information he takes in, and he reads at speeds that would make machines stagger. He can also project his mind on to the Internet to soar the information superhighway for whatever information he might come across. With this knowledge, he finds patterns and trends that bring him closer to enlightenment and allow him to nearly predict the future.

But with so much of his magical energies devoted to such scholarly tasks, Bibliomancer X is not especially skilled in offense or defense. His library base, on the top floor of a skyscraper, is constantly at risk of attack from his enemies or those who want to steal his valuable books or magical trinkets. This is why Bibliomancer X is one of the most loyal clients of the security agency that employes Securitaur.

Chad Crabhands

Chad Crabhands is your classic bad attitude case. He’s the type of guy who gets pissed off at people and acts childishly in return, then gets more pissed off because everyone is pissed at him. It’s pretty tiring for people who know Chad Crabhands.

Chad works the night shift at a call centre. It’s the only job he’s held down for more than a couple years, so at this point it seems like it’ll be the place he remains as long as he can. He’s got a one-bedroom apartment in a pretty crummy building downtown. He spends a lot of his free time drinking and gambling. He’s got a jeep that he bought used, but it runs pretty well. He intends to take it out of the city for a trip through the woods, but never really finds the time. His parents are both dead. He was an only child. His favorite type of cereal stopped being made a few years ago. He has a recurring dream in which he’s lost in a city he’s never been to, in Europe he thinks, and he can’t find a phone.

Oh! Also, he has crab hands as a result of a curse an old lady put on him when he was a kid. That too.