Tag: Duke

#8 The Duke of Brixton

Courageous acts made him legendary. And after saving the King’s only son, a medieval peasant named Henry, with extraordinary abilities far beyond that of common men, was given the honorary title of Duke of Brixton. That title, along with flight, superstrength, & nigh-invulnerability has been passed down from generation to generation ever since. They’ve always stood to protect England & to protect the crown. Nowadays, the threats are even bigger, but the Duke is always at the ready.

The current duke, Simon, has carried the title since 1981. Before that, he was just a kid, listening to ska, wanting nothing to do with his family’s wealth or status. He rebelled against authority, having no intention of ever becoming it. That was until his father died while selflessly thwarting a nuclear blast over Sheffield. It stirred something in the young punk. It was then that he buckled down, realizing that being Duke wasn’t only an obligation, but a symbol of national pride. And in his day, Simon came to be regarded as one of the greatest Dukes in history. He fought terrorists & supervillains. He stopped his own nuclear attacks, & even an alien invasion or two. This also put him directly in the public eye. He had a series of PSA’s with the BBC, he used his likeness to endorse special superscience projects throughout the UK, Hollywood movies based on his exploits, & for a time, his own line of organic yogurts. In the late eighties, he even became a tabloid fixture, sparking a relationship with his then Cold War rival Zavtra, whom he later married & divorced.

More recently, Simon’s fallen out of the limelight. A single father, for a time, he put off superheroics to raise his & Zavtra’s daughter, Alina. When he was ready to come back, the world was different. An influx of other superheroes meant less crises to go around; usually it’d be averted by the time he got there. More than anything these days, The Duke uses his celebrity & pretty substantial means to forward scientific & humanitarian projects at fundraisers & charity dinners, feeling there’s more than one way to be a hero. This, of course does nothing to help the popular belief that he’s too old & washed up to be saving the day. The thing is, he’d retire in a second if his now-grown, & awfully rebellious daughter was ready to assume her inevitable role as the first ‘Duchess of Brixton’. But it seems she’d much rather party & tear up half of London in her own drunken escapades than gear up & save the world. Secretly, Simon can relate. At the same time, he remembers the jarring incident that woke him up, & only hopes Alina pulls herself together before she’s forced to.

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Earlier this year, I had an idea for an Entervoid character. She was an entitled, bratty party girl who just happened to be the daughter of superheroes. She was sort of the black sheep & fodder for the tabloids. I started developing her but not much into the family she came from. The furthest I got was that they were a long line of superhumans going far back into the middle ages in the UK, & as a reward for their heroic actions, at some point received an honorary title & were famed protectors of the realm ever since. That was about as far as I got before I got distracted & started doing something else. So here’s her dad. But frankly, if I were to do another void character, I’m thinking right now it’d probably be Glorious Sentai Gokaider Red, my first character from this year. Probably because I think this family has a lot of story to explore, more than you could probably show in character battles.

There of course is no Brixton title in British Heraldry. Figured it was best to make one up as opposed to stepping on a real duke or something. I went with Brixton simply because of the Clash song (& why there’s also maybe a little bit of Paul Simonon going on in the face). Originally, I was just planning to make him look like an upper class, well-yet-casually dressed Englishman in a suit. But I thought that might be a cop out. So I started to work on something that might be his Hero suit, intending it to be something you’d see in like an X-men movie or Wildstorm book from the late nineties/early oughts. Ultimately I’m not super thrilled with it because I don’t think it gets the point across. What I really I wanted, was to kind of give the idea that he’s been a bit vestigial & out of touch, & the last time he was a big deal was that Oasis/Spice Girls sort of era. Oh & he’s supposed to be levitating, not standing on tip toes. It might look a little strange without a point of reference. And again, I’ll give it a proper color job if I ever have the time, but that’s looking less & less likely.

Sorry, that all got a little verbose.