#14 Summerman

Name: Summerman, Sam Wilson

Place of origin: Washington D.C., USA

Occupation: Superhero

Legal status: Citizen of good standing of the USA

Identity: Public

Marital status: Single

Known relatives: Mother Bamidele Wislon, Adopted brother plant clone Adongo Wilson aka Grassblade

Group affiliation: Seasonals, Cohort of Champions

Base of operations: Solstice Tower, Washington D.C., USA

History: Sam Wilson was born with his powers. The twelfth generation of an unbroken chain of family, each born at local noon on the summer solstice, Randall was imbued with the powers of a long departed sun god. He could fly before he could walk and was nearly indestructible, much to his mother’s relief.

His disposition was the very definition of sunny. He was also sweet and obedient, which was good, because his superstrength and ability to set things on fire also developed early.

His mother enrolled him in a non-profit preschool for children like him that the superhero community had set up. There, his caretakers named him Summerboy after his birthday and his disposition.

He carried the name with him through other power training programs. At eight, he had his first real taste of being a superhero during the Stellar Storm event, where he and other solar related superpowers were kidnapped in an effort to turn them into a ring of stars around the Earth. While others ended up doing the heavy work, Randall came out of it with a reputation for being fearless and capable.

On Shattered Earth, superteams of teenagers are frowned upon. In addition to the dangers it exposes the teenagers to, such teams have a tendency to slide into gangs. Instead, teenage superpowers tend to be corralled into academies, afterschool programs, and summer camps. Despite the best efforts of the adults, however, there are always a few groups in every generation that seem unable to avoid having adventures and getting into fights with bad guys.

Summerboy’s group that could not stay out of trouble was called the Seasonals. They named themselves that because either their identities or powers corresponded in some way with the four seasons. Some of them were the children of superheroes, so they were a bit more willing to indulge their superpowered offspring’s occasional lapse into superheroing.

Sam reluctantly traded in the name Summerboy when he got too old for it. Summerman did not have the same ring to it, but someone else was already using Summer and anything else just would have been silly.

As an adult, Summerman has become a high profile and well respected superhero. While he has yet to be recruited as an Executive, his team, the Cohort of Champions, is one of the active North American Emergency Response Teams.

Also in the Cohort of Champions is Summerman’s former sidekick, Grassblade. Grassblade tends to be more cynical that his mentor, so they do not see eye to eye on everything. Nevertheless, there is no one Summerman would rather have at his side in a fight.

Summerman has fought just about every supervillain during his career. Notably, he has had to deal with Mad Rat Mad several times when the creature attacked Grassblade or their civilian friends.

Coal Dust gives him quite a bit of trouble with they fight, because their powers do not synch up in a convenient way. Punches and energy blasts just do not do much to a living cloud.

Since his identity is public, Sam had his mother move into Solstice Tower so he could keep her safe.

Summerman made a valiant effort to drive Supernova Stag from the Earth during the Cosmic Stag Conflagration. He did not manage that, but he did drain enough energy from it that the Stag quick randomly setting fires as it wandered around the planet.

Story role: Summerman is a protagonist. Actually, he’s a Superman archetype and he has the same underlying theme to his character, “Be good, do good.” To that end, like Superman, he should have a civilian cast around him that allows him to explore that theme in story settings beyond just hitting things. That is why that note about his mother living with him is in there. There are a lot of Superman archetypes running around. Most of them lack civilian support characters and most of them are kind of dicks. That is not a coincidence.

Height: Very tall

Body type: Althetic – linebacker

Known superpowers: Flight, superstrength, Invulnerability, superspeed, energy blasts (plasma or laser, can control mix and spectrum)

Limitations: Summerman avoids killing. His power level is high enough that he would be terrifying if he killed on a regular basis. Technically, he is vulnerable to energy drained from his body faster than he can replace it, but they amount of energy that would need diverted is beyond the scope of most villains.

Category: 2012, Superhero