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Sometimes, it's interesting to understand where an
idea comes from. Recently, I was watching MTV's
Spider-Man on DVD and the little light bulb flicked
on, in my head. There are a few scenes where Spidey's
talking to himself, through his digital video camera.
It's as if he's making a Spidey documentary and that's
when I got the idea of following a young hero as he
starts his crime-fighting career.
First, I thought of doing it as a comic strip in the
documentary style, but I don't have the time to put
enough work into that. I was thinking of having a blog
follow the progress of the documentary and before
long, I realized the blog would do everything I wanted
to do, without the documentary part. A Hero Blog.
From there, I needed a character, a back-story and
all that. I have, literally, hundreds of characters
I've created, over the years, but I wanted something
fresh. So, I began sketching and working out ideas. I
knew what I wanted, though. I wanted a young hero,
with powers in the middle range, someone like
Spider-Man. So, I went to work designing a costume, as
I worked on that, I made notes of other characters I
might want to use in the "story".
In the process of listing characters and story
elements that might show up in the future, I began to
develop an origin for my character. I needed the
origin, to determine his powers and from there, I
began looking for a name. No, I'm not going to tell
his origin here. There's a reason for that. When you
read his story, you'll be reading it from the point of
view of a person living in his world. You don't have
an omniscient narrator telling you what everyone is
doing, while this guy is of fighting evil. Nor do you
get to see behind his mask.
Once I had the origin and powers, I began searching
for a name. I wanted something simple and reasonably
modern and after a few days I came up with "Amp". It
fits the powers I gave him better than I could have
hoped. Amp has the ability to absorb virtually any
form of energy and convert it into energy his body can
use. He can amplify (see!) his strength and speed. He
can heal injuries more rapidly than normal and he can
sense energy around him, giving him a form of
night-vision. Every hero needs some kind of
super-senses, right? He can also discharge the energy
in a force blast that varies in strength and he
release energy in a kind of repuslor field that lets
him deflect bullets and blows. And, because I think
every hero needs some way to get around quickly, I
decided he could also use the energy field to propel
himself through the air. Top speed, about 80 MPH.
So, I had my character and origin, I had some
peripheral characters to work into the story and so I
went back to the well of ideas I've put aside, over
the years, for a setting. I had come up with a
fictional city a few years back, that would suit this
story perfectly. Pinnacle City. Pinnacle is the home
of this world's three super-hero icons, Apex, Victoria
and Iron Eagle.
These three form the core of Pinnacle's premier
super-team Legacy. Legacy is the team founded in the
1960s by the children of, and successors to, the 1940s
Freedom Legion. The only surviving original member of
Legacy is the hero, Gauntlet.
Yes, Gauntlet is our homage to the original Green
Lantern, Alan Scott.
It's not easy, getting started in the hero biz and it
helps to have friends. Inexorably tied to Amp's origin
is another super-group, Omega Unit, the "first family"
of super-heroes, a team founded by Dr. Alfred Omega,
the only surviving hero from the 1940s. Dr. Omega is
also the founder of Omega International, a corporation
specializing in exotic technology and applications.
Omega Unit was always the investigatory branch of
Omega International, and their exploits alongside the
world's super-heroes has made them world famous. But
in May of 1990, during he final battle with Professor
Apocalypse in Copenhagen, Omega Unit was trapped
within the Omnisphere, a hyperdimensional construct
that is believed to extend through all dimensions and
realities. Within the sphere, many of the members of
Omega Unit died horribly or were lost in the infinite
pathways within the sphere. Three members escaped the
Omnisphere, but it had left its mark on them. And
other things escaped with them.
Omega Unit members Marc Strasson, Teresa Michelle
Omega, and Phillipe Ortega emerged with superhuman
powers. Marc Strasson, who later took the code-name
"Intrepid", emerged with strength, speed, reflexes and
senses amplified to approximately five times the human
norm. His subjective time in the Omnisphere was
approximately seven years and in that time, he was
forced to use his abilities to free himself from
slavery in an alternate dimension and learned the use
of weapons, from the primitive to the exotic, at an
expert level.
Teresa Omega's powers were quite different. She had
been trapped in a hyperdimensional maze for a
subjective period that is unknown. In that time, her
mind adapted to the sensory assault by allowing her to
collapse the hyperdimensional sensory input to a level
of dimensions she could comprehend. Eventually, she
was able to manipulate the space around her, to "fold"
the multidimension back until they were managable by a
human brain and senses. But that ability would also
allow her to locate an exit back to Earth to free
herself from her timeless prison. Once back on Earth,
she found she was able to "unfold" the numerous
dimensions that are beyond the normal human's
sensorium, so that she could see the world from a
fourth, fifth, sixth, etc. dimensional perspective.
She can enfold herself, and others, in
hyperdimensional constructs for protection and
transport. Her code-name is "Tesseract".
Phillipe Ortega came out of the Omnisphere in the
midst of a hurricane. One of his own making. His time
in the Omnisphere had been, subjectively, much longer
than either Teresa's or Marc's, but no less eventful.
Lost in a magical universe, Phillipe had been granted
the powers of a demi-god, by a grateful council of
sorcerers. On Earth, he retained his powers, but
somewhat diminished. Where, in the other universe, he
could command a planet's entire atmosphere, and even
ride the solar winds, on Earth, he has the power to
generate and control winds on a very localized scale.
This allows him to exceed the speed of sound, for
short periods and throw hurricane force winds. He's
known as "Airborne".
Several strange creatures emerged from the
Omnisphere, at the same time, one breach allowing
many. A few were so ill-suited to the terrestrial
environment that they died in minutes. One of the
creatures dissolved, as it's atoms lost cohesion in a
universe many times more complex than its own. A
grey-green monstrosity tumbled out of the sphere,
battling scaly, lizard-like creatures. When one of the
lizard creatures attacked Teresa, the grey-green giant
smashed it, using one of its fellows as a club. Marc
and Phillipe, seeing this, aided the giant in his
battle, dispatching the remaining creatures.
Following the battle, in which Professor Apocalypse
is known to have died (for the fourth, and hopefully,
final time) the three surviving Omegas brought the
injured giant back to Omega International with them.
Over the months that followed, he learned to
communicate, mastering 5 human languages in record
time. They learned that he was a defender of his
people, back on his world, but one of several. These
defenders are charged with protecting the people, but
also with seeking knowledge and adventure, which is
what led him to being trapped in the Omnisphere. His
experiences in the sphere and his adventures in this
new world would make for interesting tales, when he
found his way home, he told them.
From this point on, Omega Unit became a true
super-team.
Of all the changes wrought in the Omegas, the
strangest is their slow aging. In the fifteen years
since the incident with the sphere, none of them have
aged in any detectable way. It is fortunate, however,
that this trait was not also passed on to Teresa's and
Marc's daughter, Evelyn. Teresa did not know, yet,
that she was pregnant when she was drawn into the
Omnisphere and her experiences in the sphere left
their mark on her daughter, as well as herself.
Evelyn Louise Strasson-Omega was born January 2,
1991, apparently normal to the 99th percentile. She
is, perhaps, the single most often studied child in
human history and so, it's no surprise that when she
began vanishing from sight, there was someone there to
"see" it happen. And, instruments to record the event.
In a wide range of spectra, optical as well as
infrared, and beyond. It was soon discovered that
Evelyn had been empowered by her own exposure to the
Omnisphere. She was able to rotate the molecules of
her body along various dimensional axes, allowing her
to cease interaction with photons, though remaining
physically solid. She has a wider range of sensory
percention than normal, allowing her to "see" by means
other than electromagnetic radiation. Later, she
learned to rotate her molecules along a different
dimensional axis, allowing her to remain totally
visible, but rendering her immaterial, in the three
dimensional universe that is perceptible to humans.
She can then propel herself to pass thru solid matter,
energy fields, anything that does not extend into the
dimensional range she has receded into. When her
parents could no longer keep her from meddling in
their Omega unit missions, and after she proved
herself so useful in thwarting the G'hurgh invasion in
2002, they allowed her to join the team. She chose the
nom du guerre "Esprit", or "Spree", to her friends.
Other heroes that will show up, from time to time,
include the teenage super-team SIDEKICKS, originally
made up of the sidekicks of adult heroes, they're now
open to all teen heroes. (I haven't designed the
SIDEKICKS, yet, so that'll have to wait for future
revelation) And, there will be more members of LEGACY
and probably some other independent heroes and other
teams, as we think of them. It's still wide open. A
couple who will show up are Dyna, whose electrical
powers and lightning reflexes make her a formidable
hero. And Nanoman, capable of shrinking himself down
to molecule size.
The villains, well, there's the "Big Bad" as they say
in Sunnydale, Professor Apocalypse, who is known to
have died, not faked his death, but actually died,
three times before the final battle in Copenhagen.
Even if he is, finally, out of the picture, he left
behind as yet undiscovered store houses of
super-weapons, such as the dreaded "siphon" virus. He
also left behind a cadre of disciples, such as Lord
Chaos, whose activities are only slightly less
destructive than his mentor's.
There's also TRIPLE THREAT, the crime "family" of
Beauty, Brains and Brawn, dangerous, in their way, but
not out to conquer and/or destroy the world. There's
Fractal, the artificial intelligence with a nanite
body, capable of "fractioning" himself into smaller
duplicates of himself. And there's also Panzer, a
common thug who received a powerful battlesuit from
one of the aliens from the Negative Universe.
OK. This is late, because I had to think a LOT of
things through, and we're working as fast as we can to
get the site up and running. I hope you'll check it
for updates and hope you enjoyed this column and will
enjoy the HeroBlog site. It doesn't end with Amp, and
his exploits, but that's for the future.
http://www.heroblog.com
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