Category: Superhero

11- Atlas by Beausephus

CHARACTER NAME: Atlas

DATE OF CREATION : 1987-ish…

CONCEPT: A normal joe gains superhuman strength and invulnerability.  he struggles to adapt to normal life with his newfound abilities and decides throwing on a light blue spandex outfit to fight crime is the best way to experiement with his abilities, do good, get some recognition so maybe someone can help him discover the origin of his powers and if they have nefarious side-effects…

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ATLAS was the pure escapist creation of an elementary school mind.  He was the giant bruiser who just wanted to do good but really had no idea what he was doing.  At one time ATLAS, in his pre-powered days, wanted to become a cop and do what he saw as good, and now, newly empowered he dons a costume and tries to figure out how to fight crime based on his limited exposure to just what that entails.  He meets up with other super-folks who he regularly teams up with and they open his eyes to the network of alliances and dastardly intentions that criss cross the superhero scene.  Essentially, ATLAS is a first person avatar to explore a new superhero environment without having to disguise exposition.  Of course, the limitations of my emerging writing ability didn’t fully comprehend this concept, I just liked the fact that whenever ATLAS met new characters they could go into an origin story of their own.

ATLAS starred in two or three photocopied and hand colored issues of a comic book bearing his name.  In his adventures he tried to stop a nasty fellow wearing a green unitard and packing as many uzis as my young self could fit on the character.  This fellow was had numerous clones and an evil corportation bankrolled a mad scientist to create the whole thing.  ATLAS wound up teaming up with a rogue green unitard clone who fought alongside him to take down the evil organiztion, which, as it turns out might have had a hand in ATLAS’s powers…. cue melodramatic reveal music.  I don’t remember much else about the stories.  I know there was a guy who had a helmet that looked like a giant eyeball that shot lasers out of the pupil, but that’s it.

I do remember the cringeworthy costume and design of the character.  Blond mullet.  Bright blue costume with matching headband and a plunging neckline and flared collar that was more disco that superhero.  I tried to stay close to the original design but toned down the huge collar, and lost the mullet.  The basic blue bracelets that covered his forearms were anime-d up to give some more shape and design to the very basic original costume design.

Not an overtly amazing character but one that I cared about very much in my youth, but looking back, I’m pretty sure I liked drawing and coming up with new characters for him to meet more than ATLAS, himself.

Thanks for checking out my stuff.

Beausephus

# 8 CAPTAIN BASTARD & STICK BOY

Captain Bastard and Stick Boy is the brain child of my two friends Dave and Scott. When I was looking for Ideas from people for this challenge Dave told me about this comical super hero duo that he and Scott had come up with years back. The short bio on these two is “”Captain Bastard wields the weapon…Stick Boy IS the weapon…and he hates that $@*&!” A dysfunctional SuperHero team if there ever was one. LOL! They gave me no description of what they would look like so I thought it would be funny to do an interpretation based on the classic superhero duo of Batman and Robin. Thanks guys for letting have some fun with your characters!
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#10 “Dragonbreath” Eric Vaughn

Universe/Storyline: The Band

Universe details: In the isolated city of Crescent where these characters live, superpowers spring from close encounters with death. Only people born in the city can gain these powers, and since this is a relatively new settlement, the first generation of people born there are just starting to show signs of super-fication. This means mostly kids and teens. Of the teens, Camille, Max, Amelia, Walter, and Rin decide to team up and form a band. They take it upon themselves to help other kids who are just getting powers/dealing with death. Eventually, when The Band realizes that everyone deserves to be informed about the city’s unique predicament, they try to reach every kid in the city at once by putting on a live concert.

Height: 4’ 4”

Body type: Advanced toddler. Moderately chubby.

Hair: An untamed mess of dark brown squiggles.

Eyes: Reddish brown. They have an indescribable fire in them.

Race: White (He is convinced he is the last of his kind, a breed of shape-shifting dragon.)

Age: 7 (He believes he hails from medieval times, but has lost much of his memory since he assumed human form.)

Attire: Eric never takes off his dragon costume. It’s unclear how long he’s been wearing the thing, or how he bathes. To him the costume is a second skin, and removing it would be like being skinned alive.

Superpowers: Eric’s powers make him what he always thought he was: a dragon. Most of the time he remains in his human form, in costume, but if prompted by danger or desperation (or the need to bathe) he changes into his dragon form, which basically involves his body merging with the costume until the costume comes alive. He does not grow huge, or have wings to fly, but he can breathe fire (in both human and dragon form) and while in dragon form his armored skin is virtually impenetrable. As a dragon he moves very quickly and has dangerously sharp claws and teeth.

Personality: Eric is very smart for his age, but overly imaginative. His favorite book is Grendel by John Gardner (he likes the dragon in it). His favorite day is Halloween (his costume is always the same). He doesn’t have many friends on account of his odd behavior, so he goes to The Band when he wants to socialize with someone who understands him. He doesn’t fight alongside The Band, however, unless he is compensated with treasure to add to his slowly growing hoard.

Power Source/Backstory:

a.       Eric was at The Band’s first concert, where overenthusiastic heroes killed a person disguised as a usually robotic police officer.

Theme Song: Through the Fire and Flames- Dragonforce

#9 “L’Artiste” Ashley Ash

Universe/Storyline: The Band

Universe details: In the isolated city of Crescent where these characters live, superpowers spring from close encounters with death. Only people born in the city can gain these powers, and since this is a relatively new settlement, the first generation of people born there are just starting to show signs of super-fication. This means mostly kids and teens. Of the teens, Camille, Max, Amelia, Walter, and Rin decide to team up and form a band. They take it upon themselves to help other kids who are just getting powers/dealing with death. Eventually, when The Band realizes that everyone deserves to be informed about the city’s unique predicament, they try to reach every kid in the city at once by putting on a live concert.

Height: 5’ 5”

Body Type: Somewhat gaunt.

Hair: Just past the shoulder, black, with various colored highlights spaced throughout. The highlights have grown out to about halfway down her hair.

Eyes: Blue

Race: White

Age: 14

Attire: Lately she’s been limited to the generic orange jumpsuit of the jailbird, but before that she wore long, flowing skirts and dresses with t-shirts and leather boots. A mixture of feminine and hardcore. Her style resembles that of Greenbeard.

Superpowers: Anything that Ashley renders (draws, paints, scratches into the wall with a toothbrush) on a flat surface, she can pull out of the 2D world and into the real world. Depending on the crudeness of the illustration, the item drawn may not look exactly as it should, but it always suits the artist’s intended purpose. If she were lost in the desert and hungry and she drew an apple with her finger in the sand, the apple might still look like it was made of sand when she pulled it out, but it would taste like an apple and satiate her hunger. Ashley’s preference seems to be for still life, but she may be capable of creating something a little more complicated given the provocation.

Personality: Ashley has gone a little insane since her power first manifested. (See backstory below.) She babbles, stares into space, and does finger paintings in her own blood because they won’t let her have art supplies in prison. She’s detached but not in a sad way, exactly. Sometimes, in her better moments, her madness can be comedic. During their stint in jail together, Ashley and Camille form a strong bond because they are both fighting off darkness inside of them. Camille helps Ashley put an end to her insanity and use her powers to help people.

Power source/backstory:

a.                  After her mother died, Ashley painted a portrait of her, as beautiful and lifelike as she could make it, which is pretty damn beautiful and lifelike since Ashley is something of an artistic savant. In a moment of grief, she went to touch the finished painting, only to find her hand reached inside and pulled out her mother’s warm, fleshy, living arm. The arm, poking out of the canvas, thrashed and scratched, an angry contrast with her mother’s still smiling face in the portrait. The painting desperately drags itself after Ashley with its one exposed arm, a grotesque creation that Ashley decides could not possibly be her real mother. She sets the canvas aflame, and the exposed arm burns just as easily as the rest of the painting. The fire spreads to consume the rest of Ashley’s house, and she is arrested for arson. Ashley vows never to paint another portrait.

Theme song: Pictures of You- The Cure

#10 Paragon

The peak of physical perfection, Paragon is almost impossibly strong, resilient, and completely tireless.

#10 The Frame

A artist on the edge of his ropes,  turns to using human subjects. Murdering those who told him he wasn’t good enough. As The Frame he makes a new name for himself as one of the most famous “artists” of the 21 century.