In the dystopian world of Universe Red, there are a multitude of evil governments. One of these, based in Europe, is an extreme right-wing group that holds on to power with an army of superhuman agents. They are:

The New Leader

Manfred Feigenbaum is the masked leader of the Nuclear Nazis. Though he began his career as a relatively normal, and relatively unsuccessful, politician, some radioactive accident has transformed him. It is rumored that beneath his mask he is deformed, though that rumor is false. The accident, rather than marring Feigenbaum, has improved him, has made him superhuman. He now feels that the masses are undeserving of seeing his visage. Having not aged in the two decades since his accident, the New Leader of the Nazi party feels confident that he can play the long game and guide the world toward a glorious new Reich.

Tanksolder

Willie Andrews, Jr is an American. Raised in an impoverished town, Willie was in and out of prison for years and found his place among a white supremacist group. When the Nuclear Nazis came to power in Europe they put out an announcement that they would accept white immigrants who wanted to join them. Once there, Willie applied to the army and was accepted to the superhuman agents program. Given superhuman strength and a suit of armor with guns and stuff, he became the Tanksoldier.

Stormstriker

Jean-Francois Venner is a French teenager who ran away from home to join the Nuclear Nazis, wanting to get on to what he considered the likely winners of the war in Europe. Also a graduate of the superhuman agent training, Jean-Francois has the ability to fly and shoot bursts of electricity. His brother has since become a prominent solder for an opposing government, also with super powers.

Overtrooper

The identity of the Overtrooper is unknown. He is touted as an example of the ideal soldier, and indeed he is a force on the battlefield, but he has never spoken in public. It is almost as if he has no personality at all beyond his role as solder. Which is, perhaps, the ideal solder after all.

Okay, notes: Nazis and superhero comics have been together a long time. It makes sense considering the Golden Age of superhero comics was almost exactly coincides with the Second World War. And, to make it that much easier, the Nazis come as close to supervillains as you can get in the real world. They have their recognizable uniforms and ideals that can pretty much only be seen as evil.

Still, I kinda want to see less of the Nazis in superhero comics. It’s overdone. I mean, my favorite villain in superhero comics is a Nazi (well, when written well the Red Skull will use any ethos to further his evil ends, but most often that is Nazism). But in cases like Captain America, having the villains he fought in the war still be active today makes it seem like the heroes haven’t accomplished a damn thing. In any case, the Nuclear Nazis here would be a Neo-Nazi group with no members dating back to the original Nazi party.

I inked these guys after the pen I liked best ran out of ink. I’m not really happy with the way they turned out with the very thin pen I used. But who cares, really? Also, all four were taken from old Junior High-era PDR sketches, which means that though I see some similarities between Overtrooper and the Winter Solder, my design came from the era before either the movie or Bucky’s return to the comics, so I don’t have to feel bad about it.

Finally: in the Europe of Universe Red I have also established the character Killshadow. Something could be done with that.

Suppose that you’re the kind of person who is completely okay with identifying yourself as a supervillain. Your disdain for society has placed you in a mindset where you can happily say “I’m the bad guy” and your love of death rays keeps you from just being satisfied with drug dealing, tax evasion, or politics. You need to be a supervillain and that can be a lonely life. Superheroes keep beating you up and henchmen are unreliable. But the thirteen members of the Villainy Alliance prove that supervillains can work together and fight loneliness and the forces of good at the same time.

Major Crimewave

A cyborg with a variety of weapon arms, Major Crimewave was never really in the military, but he liked the idea of military rigor and discipline so much that he based his attempts to conquer the world around it. Eventually, though, he realized that world conquest was a bit out of reach for one guy with a platoon of crooks, so he joined the Villainy Alliance to make his goals more achievable.

Professor I

The result of a lot of genetic tinkering, Professor I is an incredibly talented little freak. It is unfortunate for society that I uses that talent for crime science. The builder of the Villainy Alliance’s headquarters and designer of many of their weapons, I doesn’t like to go on missions, but can always be found woring hard in the Alliance’s laboratory.

The Killer Corsair

The Killer Corsair is a feared pirate. She’s leader of a bloodthirsty crew of criminals who like to hijack ships and ransom crews, but the Corsair herself enjoys playing up the swashbuckling role and masterminding outlandish schemes. She provides the Alliance with her henchmen.

Multimonster

The Multimonster is used to working on a team, being a hive mind of alien creatures. On their world the group was the first to achieve this sort of gestalt unity, the rest of the population considering it abhorrent, but Multimonster grew strong. An insatiable urge to conquer brought the Multimonster to Earth and to the Villainy Alliance. Each segment of the Multimonster has different powers and they can separate to perform different tasks as needed.

Avian

On her own she was just a jewel thief in a bird suit that allowed her to fly, but since joining the Villainy Alliance, Avian has moved up in the ranks of infamy. And that is important to Avian. She is very interested in maintaining a reputation as a badass criminal, because as far as she’s concerned, if you aren’t tough, you’re weak, and that’s the worst thing you can be.

Jerboa

A wanted criminal tried to escape police pursuit by hiding in a science experiment, he wound up trapped there as it activated and became mutated with a Jerboa. With his newfound superhuman hopping abilities, combined with his previous streetfighting experience, he became a formidable fighter, but not so powerful that he can take out most superheroes. With the idea of safety in numbers, Jerboa took up with the Villainy Alliance.

The Rubber Bandit

It’s a simple concept: a criminal who can stretch like rubber. For years the Rubber Bandit has been a successful part of the supervillain scene. Using the profits from his crimes, the Bandit funded clubs for super-criminal networking that led to bringing together the Villainy Alliance.

Voidface

Some sort of sentient portal to an empty dimension, the being known as Voidface has commandeered a human form and joined the Villainy Alliance. With the ability to create suction or expel force through the void in his face makes him a powerful foe. His motives are not entirely clear, but he seems happy to do crimes with his friends.

Incinerato

Some people just love the dramatics that go along with supervillainy. Incinterato is one of those. With the ability to generate and control flame, Incinterato wasted no time dressing in an elaborate costume, building a fire-themed headquarters, and holding cities for ransom. When the opportunity to join a full-fledged supervillain team arose, he did not hesitate for a second.

Volley

Given the ability to generate bursts of energy at will, Volley served in the military for several wars, but eventually looked at his life and saw how little he had to show for it. Instead, he decided, he should be working toward more selfish ends. He became a supervillain, then joined the Alliance, and has had such a good time that he’d got no compunction to go back to the straight and narrow.

The Blue Brute

A criminal from an alternate timeline who escaped justice their by coming here, the Blue Brute is an extremely strong and violent offender. In a way it is fortunate for society that the Blue Brute has been recruited by the Alliance, because on his own the Brute would simply be following his own homicidal whims.

Pangolin

Wearing a suit of cybernetic armor modelled after the pangolin, the criminal called the Pangolin was a formidable force as a bodyguard for hire for various mob bosses. But when one of those bosses thought it would be a good idea to kill off the Pangolin because she knew too much, the Pangolin had no choice but to kill the mob boss off. That pissed off the entire crime syndicate and the Pangolin was on the run. At least, that was, until she found a home with the Villainy Alliance. The syndicates are not stupid enough to continue their vendetta against this group.

Crime-Diver

When you’re entire theme as a supervillain limits you to underwater crime, you have few options. Sure, the Crime-Diver is strong and tough and can hold his own in a fight with a superhero, but unless he’s underwater, he is just a thug on the low-end of the dumb muscle spectrum. But with the Alliance, there are always smarter villains around who can find a role for the Crime-Diver’s skill set.

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.

In the interests of being easy on myself during this, the busy school season, I am going to rattle off some easy superheroes for a couple weeks. Instead of thinking up new characters and ideas, I’m going to use draw sketches of characters that already exist in my notes for my Hover Head stories.

The New Superhero Team was founded by Ms. Super Robot Rocket Girl, a former member of the Team of Superheroes. Ms. Super Robot Rocket Girl decided that the most logical reason to be a superhero is to become famous and live like celebrities. The rest of the team didn’t want to go along with that, so Ms. Super Robot Rocket Girl went off to found her own team. Here are some of the members:

Queen Stronga

Queen Stronga, the queen of Strongania, is one strong queen. Stronga is used to the finest things in live, but she is not some pampered royal. Having been ritually bathed in space steroids since she was an infant, Stronga is fully capable of punching a hole in a diamond guillotine and could easily shrug off the blast from a dozen exploding powder kegs. Long Live The Queen.

The Foggy Knight

Fogbert G. Knight starred in so many martial arts movies that he suddenly became a real martial art master. Now he has the mystical ability to melt into shadows and has a sword that can sense the blood of enemies. Foggy Knight does his own stunts.

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.