10 – The Wooden Wizard
… continued from Character #9, SPUNGE! …
…the arboreal enchantments of the WOODEN WIZARD!
Environmentalist Everett Green was staging another one of his internet-famous logging protests when he began to cough up a shimmering golden mist. This distraction allowed the authorities, whom Green was in a stand off with, to move in and subdue the aggressive protester. In the squad car, Green began to convulse and change. His arms and lower legs became tree-like to the point that his elongated fingers sprouted a few leaves and his skin took on a bark-like texture. This transformation increased Green’s strength allowing him to tear the door off of the imprisoning police cruiser.
The wooded Green then began a rampage against the police, loggers and media present; ranting his extreme environmental mantras over and over. Nearly taken down by a brave logger in a front loader, Green instinctively rooted his trunk-like legs into the ground and through extraordinary means animated the nearby trees to come to his aid. This extremely surreal turn of events resulted in all present running for safety and allowed Green to focus on his new found power.
Turning his attention from the recent events and to the city skyline in the distance, Green amassed a gigantic army of trees, all under his direct control, and marched on his hated enemy, civilization and its voracious consumer population. The attack on the city immediately drew the attention of the Five Points of Freedom. While the Gold Gladiator, Ms. Mercury and the Enforcer fought back the mobilized forest, the Azure Aviator and War-Dove took to the skies to find the driving force of the arboreal onslaught. Impeded by a pair of surly redwoods the aerial avengers were thwarted in their attempt to capture the super villain who escaped back into the wilderness where he remains at large. That rustle you hear in the trees is not always the wind.
The rise of empowered villains has been met by the Five Points, but this shift in focus to the fantastic has left a void in their previous crusade against less bizarre street-level crime. This void has been filled with individuals like…
09 – SPUNGE!
… continued from Character #8, СУПЕРЗВЗДР…
…the ever-expanding SPUNGE!
The Secret Soldiers led by the Gold Gladiator, whose public identity as Senator Trent Day was covered up by rumors of a debilitating illness that rendered him unable to effectively represent the people of Michigan in the U.S. Senate, executed a number of clandestine operations during the first years of their existence taking on the growing threat posed by Korvus Kain and his murderous henchmen and thwarting a number of international, super power related, incidents. Their presence, once a national secret relegated to conspiracy theories, became publicly known when the first American not present at the Danaian encounter manifested extra-normal abilities.
Sandra “Sandy†Summers hadn’t been feeling well and had acquired a rather obnoxious cough. She wasn’t going to let a little thing like that stop her from enjoying a day at the lake on the beach. While lying in the sun, Sandy started coughing uncontrollably. A stranger gave her a drink of water between convulsions. The water helped and Sandy stopped coughing but realized how thirsty she had become. She found a water fountain and began drinking, and drinking, and drinking. While her thirst was marginally quenched, Sandy started to grow and change; absorbing all of the water she had been imbibing.
When the water fountain began to sputter, Sandy became enraged and with he new found size and strength, tore the fixture from the ground and bellowed for more water. Turning she saw something that could quench her thirst, the lake. Shambling toward the body of water, leaving large wet foot prints behind, Sandy waded out into the water and immediately began to grow. Sandy’s altered appearance loss more humanity and gained more mass the more water she absorbed; and she soaked up a lot of water.
The beach born behemoth posed a threat to not only the people running for safety but for the nearby city as Sandy absorbed more water. In B-movie tradition, the National Guard was brought in to deal with this human sponge. When they proved ineffective, the U.S. government saw no alternative short of sending in the Secret Soldiers, though redubbing them the FIVE POINTS of FREEDOM for this public appearance. With a combination of distraction, for none of the super soldiers could harm the water-logged menace, and a surgical strike to Sandy’s mutated brain, executed by Gold Gladiator and Ms. Mercury, the team toppled the titan, who shriveled down to human size and returned the lake water to its rightful place.
The Spunge was taken into custody and the Five Points of Freedom became national heroes, more so when the Gold Gladiator’s identity was revealed. Though the first new extra human, the Spunge was hardly the last. The Five Points faced another unusual challenge when they faced…
08 – СУПЕРЗВЕЗДÐ
… continued from Character #7, Korvus Kain & the Murder Men…
…the Soviet Union and their super powered agents!
America’s revelry in their new super heroes was cut short when it became known that other people, the world over, had begun to display abilities beyond that of normal man. In clandestine circles, it was also known that the Danaian arrival on Earth was not an event isolated to the wilds of northern Michigan. The U.S. government’s biggest concern in these unprecedented times lay in the knowledge that unfriendly foreign nations were also fielding their own super powered operatives. Operatives like the Soviet Union’s СУПЕРЗВЕЗДР(SUPER STAR)!
Little is known of Super Star before he was transformed into the hero of Russia. His real name was redacted from records and written over with “The Great Hero Super Star.â€Â There is some evidence indicating that he was a pilot and cosmonaut destined for a lunar mission that was interrupted, before lift-off, by the arrival of a delegation of Danaians at a remote, undisclosed launch pad somewhere in the Siberian tundra.
This powerhouse of the people is able to convert matter into form of energy that he can project as a weapon, favoring his hands and the star emblem on his chest as projectors, or a thrust for short flights or powerful leaps. Physical attacks are nearly useless against Super Star as they are converted into energy to fuel his ability. It is postulated that his initial transformation horribly disfigured this Soviet soldier and destroyed his vocal chords as he is never seen without his helmet and speaks, rarely, in a raspy voice. Super Star, along and a handful of other powered comrades, works for the Soviet government fighting monstrosities, some human others less so, that began to appear shortly after the arrival of the Danaians.
Super powered soldiers and spies may have escalated the already tense relationship between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. but, as in Russia, empowered menaces on the home front pose a more immediate threat. The Secret Soldiers have their hands full with threats like…
07 – Korvus Kain & the Murder Men
… continued from Character #6, Ms. Mercury…
… state trooper Sgt. Korvus Kain!
Sgt. Kain was sent out to investigate a remote area of forest, accessible only by dirt roads, under the assumption that smugglers were operating in the area. Kain liked smugglers. He liked the bribe money and kickbacks he received from various smuggling operations even more. The sergeant arrived to the designated site, looking to cash in on whatever illegal activity was occurring, when he was joined, much to his dismay, by military personnel, a handful of university types and even a Senator!
Kain witnessed the Danaian contact and was mentally trying to find an angle to play when the meteors began to fall. Like everyone, Kain sought shelter from the rocky precipitation. Unfortunately, he was overcome by a fit a coughing that stalled him long enough to become a target for a large meteor fragment that crushed his body beneath its enormous weight. A soldier and, if his traumatized eyesight could be believed, the Senator’s wife lifted the meteor off him before dragging his broken body through the meteoric maelstrom. Left in the care of a soldier, shielded by the wreckage of his own police cruiser, Korvus Kain died from the injuries he had sustained in the impact.
The soldier who was with him ducked as a meteor slammed into the ground nearby ending up on top of the recently deceased Korvus Kain. Kain’s body glowed with an internal golden light. His dead hand grasped the shocked soldier’s face and began to drain the life energy from the warfighter. When the meteor storm cleared and the wreckage was surveyed, Korvus Kain’s body was nowhere to be found.
While Kain’s fateful coughing fit was due to emphysema from his years as a heavy smoker or from inhaling the alien atmosphere that emanated from the Danaian craft remains to be seen, it is clear that Kain was transformed that day along with others at that monumental meeting in the Michigan wilderness. Korvus Kain is effectively dead and exists solely through the absorption of human life force. The more life that Kain drains, the physically stronger he becomes. Being undead, Kain is resistant to toxic substances, does not need to breathe, eat, drink or sleep.
To fuel his hunger for life and that for power, Kain turned his contacts from his days as a corrupt policeman into his own criminal empire. His personal army, the MURDER MEN, serves him and brings him living offerings in return for money and power. Kain and his Murder Men are a constant thorn in the side of the Secret Soldiers and are the first, and arguably the most successful, super-powered criminal organization in the U.S.
While this homegrown horror is enough to occupy the Secret Soldiers, the real threat to their super powered presence comes from…
06 – Ms. Mercury
… continued from Character #5, War-Dove…
… Henrietta Glass!
Dr. Glass is a biology professor who made her way to the Danaian landing site moments before the aliens arrived. She came out of her own curiosity when she overheard her colleagues joking about some reports that amateur astronomers had begun calling in to the university. She was the scientist with the quick wits who doused Senator Trent Day with the Danaian Elixir transforming him into the Gold Gladiator.
When the meteors began to fall, the golden Sen. Day shielded her and his wife, Hilda, from the initial impacts and left them in the back of an Army jeep. A jeep that was unfortunately hit by small meteor throwing her and Mrs. Day out into the field unprotected. That is when the coughing fits began. Each breathe Henrietta took was followed by a painful exhalation of golden mist. Henrietta watched in awe, still clutching the Elixir, as Hilda Day fought through her own convulsions and performed miraculous feats of strength. When Hilda destroyed an incoming meteor Henrietta, like everyone on the ground, ran for cover from the falling debris.
Tripping in her search for shelter, Dr. Glass dropped the Elixir flask, breaking it and exposing Dr. Glass to the entirety of its contents. Covered in luminescent liquid, she looked on in horror as a chunk of space rock came hurtling towards her. The meteor fragment never made contact as it continued through the space Dr. Glass had been occupying unimpeded as her body separated into two smaller, chrome beings both, strangely, under her control.
Appropriately dubbing herself Ms. MERCURY, Henrietta Glass is the science officer for the Secret Soldier. Her body has been completely metamorphosed into a mercurial metallic substance that allows her to split into smaller versions of herself, all controlled by her central consciousness. In addition, her mirror-like body is hard to damage as most attacks will either pass through or cause her to automatically separate.
As the lead investigator into the change that occurred in those individuals present in that Michigan forest that historic evening, Dr. Glass discovered that these extraordinary transformations were the work of a virus of extraterrestrial origin. Upon infection, the virus is capable of altering an individual down to the atomic level with wildly unpredictable results. Take for example…
05 – War-Dove
… continued from Character #4, the Enforcer…
… Hilda Day, professor of archaeology and wife of Senator Trent Day!
Through fits of coughing up a golden mist, Hilda Day shocks both the newly mechanized PFC Johnson and herself when she helps him lift a meteor pinning down a state trooper. A meteor that weighs over ten tons! Taking all of the weight herself she effortlessly tosses the space rock several hundred feet into the woods. Looking about she sees her gilded husband helping a small group of soldiers while Johnson pulls the injured trooper to safety. Hilda hears a voice coming from overhead and turns her attention to the heavens to see Captain Hughes flying under his own power pointing to another, larger meteor falling toward them.
Reacting without thinking, Mrs. Day leaps into the air, toward the plummeting boulder and flies past the hovering, glowing Hughes to intercept it before impact. Misjudging her speed and power, Hilda plows through the meteor, shattering it into millions of pieces saving the people gathered below. Taking a breath after her incredible feat, Hilda is tapped on the shoulder by Captain Hughes and realizes that she is watching the proceedings below while hovering in the air.
The events of that fateful day left Hilda transformed. Her strength is astonishing, able to lift twenty tons given the right circumstances. Her body, while not as invulnerable as her golden spouse’s, is very resilient and capable of shrugging up gunfire. Donning a Nordic-inspired costume and the nom de guerre WAR-DOVE, Hilda Day fights along side her husband and fellow members of the Secret Soldiers!  In addition, Hilda can fly for short distances and provides some aerial assistance to the team’s resident aerialist, Azure Aviator.
While Hilda’s spontaneous heroics prevented those present at the Danaians first appearance, debris from the broken meteor nearly killed…
04 – The Enforcer
… continued from #3, the Azure Aviator…
… PFC Rocky Johnson. Deployed from a nearby Army outpost on the northern shore of the Upper Peninsula, PFC Johnson bore witness to the Danaian encounter and was present when the meteors began to fall. Johnson’s quick thinking saved Captain Hughes’ life when he pushed the Army aviator out of the path of meteor that granted him his powers. Unfortunately this maneuver cost the Private his hands and most of his forearms, as they were crushed in the impact.
In the ensuing confusion of the meteoric storm, the injured Johnson, in complete shock by this point, fell upon the dropped Danaian “disc of universal knowledge.â€Â The disc lit up at the Johnson’s touch and emitted a ray of light that pulled bits of metal from Senator Day’s helicopter and Johnson’s own jeep and fashioned them into large mechanical hands that were summarily fused to the ends of what remained of Johnson’s arms.
These mechanical hands, which upgrade themselves from time to time and automatically repair themselves from available materials, grant PFC Johnson incredible strength. These powerful prosthetics, coupled with his skills as an Army boxer, allow Johnson, using the field name of ENFORCER, to serve as a capable combatant as a member of the Secret Soldiers.
Despite recent traumatic events, Johnson’s instincts again saved lives when he made short work of an incoming meteor with a mighty blow of his mechanical hands. He found the limits of his newly acquired strength when he attempted to move a large asteroid that had pinned a state trooper named Korvus Kain. Eventually the hefty rock began to move. Johnson was surprised to receive aid from…
03 – Azure Aviator
… continued from #2, the Gold Gladiator…
… [as a meteor] strikes the ground directly in front of Army Captain Robin Hughes, helicopter pilot for Senator Day and his wife, Hilda. Captain Hughes is showered in blue crystalline meteoric fragments and thrown into the air by the impact. Captain Hughes did not come back down.
The force of the blast had embedded the blue crystal shrapnel all over Capt. Hughes’ body through his shredded clothes. While airborne from the meteoric shock wave the crystals began to glow and resonate with the Captain’s mental desire to live and not crash into the ground. Captain Hughes stopped moving and remained stationary and safe suspended in midair glowing a faint blue.
Code named the AZURE AVIATOR, Captain Hughes serves as aerial reconnaissance and support for the Secret Soldiers under the command of Senator Day, in the guise of the Gold Gladiator, as the first flying hero!
The Azure Aviator can levitate and fly, propelling him forwards at tremendous speeds, with the aid of the meteor crystals that riddle his body and respond to his mental commands! With some concentration he can extend his anti-gravity field outward to include a single person and take them with him.
While the meteors that fell that night granted Captain Hughes extraordinary powers, and served as the power source for the Secret Soldiers’ floating headquarters, dubbed the Strato-Sphere, the rest of those gathered for the encounter with the Danaians weren’t so fortunate. Take for example…
02 – The Gold Gladiator
From #1 – Lady G’Lipis & the Danaians
… America’s first real superhero! (The Gold Gladiator is arguably the first superhero, by a matter of minutes.)
After the departure of the Danaians, Michigan Senator Trent Edward Day suddenly doubled over in pain, clutching his stomach and screaming that his skin was burning as a steam started to rise from his skin. A scientist left in charge of the mysterious Elixir sphere quickly responded to the situation and dowsed the Senator in luminescent contents of the orb. With a final scream Trent Day was transformed into the GOLD GLADIATOR!
The Gold Gladiator’s body has been completely converted to a golden metal that has rendered the Senator impervious to injury and allows him to shift his right arm into a large, very sharp blade. Other physical changes accompanied this transformation including enhanced strength, the loss of the need to breathe or eat which has been replaced with a need to absorb solar energy, and a significant increase in his weight.
Modeling his heroic identity after the Roman gladiators, the Gold Gladiator serves as the leader of America’s first superhero team, the Secret Soldiers. The other members of his amazing squad all have origins dating back to that fateful night in the wilds of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Senator Day’s astonishment at his transmogrification was short lived as meteors, caught in the wake of the Danaians interstellar ship, fell to Earth, to the clearing where Senator Day and the others were gathered. Day used his newly invulnerable form to shield his wife and the scientist with the Elixir. A soldier standing nearby wasn’t so fortunate as a meteor…
01 – Lady G’Lipis & The Danaians
A ship from beyond our solar system landed in a remote forest in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula at twilight on a warm spring evening in 1975. Before the hatch doors opened, a small company of individuals, including a vacationing congressional senator and a handful of law enforcement and military personnel, had assembled before the remarkably featureless craft. The release of the sealed portal was accompanied by an escape of a sweet smelling extraterrestrial atmosphere in the form of a violet cloud that engulfed those gathered, bringing about a fit of coughs, before dispersing and mixing with that of Earth.
Led by the Lady G’Lipis, a trio of slender, helmeted beings floated from the opened door of their ship to hover before the small group of de facto ambassadors of Earth. Identifying them as Danaian first contact scouts representing the Pan-Universal Council, Lady G’Lipis welcomes Earth to the universe after their recent forays off their planet into the vast void. The Lady presents Senator Trent Day, who has been speaking on behalf of the United States and Earth, with three gifts: a disk of common universal knowledge, a sphere containing a luminescent medicinal liquid simply called the Elixir, and a golden beacon with a single glass circle. The beacon, she tells him, will let them know when the Danaians are returning with a group of ambassadors to fully bring Earth into the Pan-Universal fold, though that return would occur no sooner than the turn of Earth’s millennium due to interstellar travel time.
The trio of Danaians boarded their craft and silently left the planet, while the assembled audience looked on in awe. This first contact with the Danaians was easily covered up by the government due to that night coinciding with the emergence of…
2011 Challenger: David Bednarski
My name, as the title implies, is David Bednarski. I am a comic art fan and creator, at the “hobbyist†level as my day job involves biotech research. I love to create new characters and concepts, as my deviantART page can attest. I participate in the semi-weekly Whitechapel remake/remodel thread and similar redesign forums.
I was directed to this challenge by someone who saw my ever expanding collection of characters, including a large number inspired by a random name generator that I put together to help me get through idea-less periods and to generally help get my creativity flowing. Doubtlessly, I will create a few characters in this challenge with names generated by this tool.
I’ve had this grandiose idea for a comic universe in my head for a while that I will attempt to breathe life into during the thirty days of the challenge and maybe, if things go according to plan, flesh out a story of sorts in the character descriptions. I know, I know… why not make a difficult challenge even more harder for myself?  I am looking forward to the challenge and to seeing what everyone creates!
#30Characters Chatter…