#7 The Annunciator

Constance Punnoose was always a bit of a quiet girl. There were long stretches where she would go without saying a word. Keeping to herself, she excelled at her studies but went about her days being virtually unnoticed. And if she were being honest with herself, she kind of liked it that way.

One day, a fight broke out at her school. She saw a group of bullies cruelly beating up a quiet boy who was sort of a friend of hers. As much as someone could be without ever actually speaking to them. Anyway, it was getting brutal & she had had enough. She screamed “STOP IT YOU JERKS!”  & the words came out, but not as a sound. The phrase, shooting from her mouth, hit the assailants & pinned them to the ground.

It was at that moment that Constance’s mutant power first manifested. From that moment forward, every word she has tried to say has become a physical object that projected from her mouth. At first, she looked at it as an affliction, & herself a freak. But the boy she saved convinced her that it was a gift, one she should use to fight crime. And that’s when she became the Annunciator.

Here, she is pictured talking some smack as a matter of demonstration. She’s still learning the ins & outs of controlling her ability. One of the first things she noticed was that certain words will take on the quality of their meanings. For instance, if she says “Fire” the word will suddenly burst into flames. Saying “Acid” will eat a hole through the floor. Volume, speed, & pronunciation dictate how large, the speed it travels, & long the word lasts before evaporating into thin air like dry ice. Another fun wrinkle she’s noticed recently is that if she directs a verb at someone, they will immediately, almost involuntarily do as they were told. In once instance, she yelled “Drop” at an armed robber pointing a gun at her. She intended for him to drop the gun, which he did, upon his immediate collapse to the floor.

Still, she’s looking for a way to able to communicate vocally without hurting anyone. She currently relies on a mixture of American Sign Language & a trusty notebook mostly, but is still on the lookout for a language that will allow her to speak once again like a normal person. So far, she’s had a little bit of luck with the recently extinct language of the Eyak people of Alaska, but only with certain phrases.

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There’s got to be a character with this ability somewhere. I mean it’s just one of those things that feels like it should already exist but I can’t think of another character who has it. So I went with it. Am I missing one?

Catching up is looking less & less likely as the end of this month begins to start looking pretty hectic. That said, I’m going to give it a valiant effort & keep trying. I’ve gotten 30 in the past but this time around, I’m liking most of these characters more & like how they look finished up. So I’m going to move at my own pace & if I hit the goal great. If not, well I still win because I’m pretty happy with the results.

Category: 2012, Superhero