#13 Coal Dust
Names: Coal Dust, Ralph Macgavin
Place of origin: Altoona, Pennsylvania, USA
Occupation: Professional criminal
Legal status: Criminal wanted in the USA
Identity: Secret
Marital status: Single
Known relatives: None
Group affiliation: None
Base of operations: Varies
History: Ralph was a scientist working for a power company. He was hired to find a way to take the waste produced by their coal power plants and dump them into another dimension. An unscrupulous executive, Roger Warner, pushed the experiment too hard, and it ended up exploding, taking Ralph with it.
The company had not been particularly concerned with what inside the dimension they were using as a dumping ground and were not prepared when Ralph came back. He had been turned into a living cloud of coal dust. Ralph had always been a small, bitter person and the changes to his body did him no favors.
Ralph killed his Roger Warner and destroyed the company office causing many casualties. He was finally stopped by Spark Gap, who accidentally ignited Ralph’s cloud body. Everyone assumed that killed him, but Ralph’s consciousness is bound to the carbon, which was not harmed by the explosion. It was simply remixed.
Ralph saw no reason to alert them to his survival, but even a small-souled man still likes company. Eventually, he crossed path with some lower-end supercriminals, and he found he could be hired to take his bitterness out on the world.
As Coal Dust, Ralph has repeatedly fought with Summerman. Summerman’s powers do not give him an easy way to contain Ralph, and Ralph has been hired several times by other’s trying out plans to kill Summerman.
On the other hand, Deluge finds Coal Dust easy to deal with. He simply dumps water on him and then collects the polluted pool that Coal Dust’s body is contained in. Ralph hates that.
Coal Dust is obsessed with the Robin Hood-esque villain Debutante. She, however, hates him.
Story role: Coal Dust is an antagonist. He will fight just to fight and destroy just to destroy, although he lacks any genocidal or world destroying goals.
Height: Very tall
Body type: Cloud of gas
Known superpowers: Micro-telekinetic control over carbon, coal, and other minerals, which he uses to maintain a cloud body. Can solidify those materials into solid chunks with allow him to punch people or manipulate objects. Can alter the mix of his cloud so he will be explosive, although he requires an outside spark or flame to explode. He a recently figured out how to control carbon to give him a diamond body, although he still generally prefers his cloud form.
Limitations: Can be contained with forcefields. Also vulnerable to telepathic attack.
About the Author (Author Profile)
My name is Patrick Rennie. I am 36, have a day job that has nothing to do with comics, and live in Erie after growing up elsewhere. I can be found online at www.patrickrennie.com and on twitter as @patrennie. I am primarily a writer of fantasy, superheroes, and science fiction. I enjoy both short form and long form comics and have done work with both. For example, the daily strip Phantast Staffing Services that I used to do can be found here while this link leads to a more recent script for a superhero comic called Epiphany. I also prefer reading the genres I write in, although I supplement them with comedies, autobiographies, and dramas. I mostly read comics on the web, in trade paperbacks, on my iPad, and in the newspaper. I usually skip monthly comic books, magazines, manga, editorial cartoons, and children’s books.Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
