Tag: Marginal Men

#13 – “Gator Percy”

“Gator Percy” from Australia will be a recurring guest star on “Marginal Men”.

A mysterious fellow who seems to be too perfect to be true. He claims to be the perfect gentleman, completely honest, and an expert in animal handling.

What sets him apart from any park ranger are his further claims of having been raised by and in the company of alligators, which has not only increased his strength to levels rarely achieved by humans, but has also made him the master of alligators.

“Gator Percy” insists that there are sewer-alligators in New York, and that he uses them to fight crime.

Needless to say, nobody believes the man. Yet, he is allowed to join the team since he is skilled in close-range combat and can tie up criminals in under 4 seconds.

It remains to be seen how much of his backstory is actually true.

Alligator Percival is meant to be an absolutely “over the top” character, to have a little bit of comic relief in the otherwise very serious storyline.

#11 – Imprint

Imprint has the power of fast reading. Filing through a book in a second or so gives her enough time to absorb all the information in that book. However, she does not have a super-memory.
Moreover, having read lots of books, Imprint is bored with reading completely, since she takes no enjoyment from books at all.
She works as cinema operator Lucy Allred, enjoying movies far more than literature.
She gets to know Glitch in a chatroom, and he convinces her to use her powers for good as well. This proves to be harder than imagined, because her powers grant her little actual advantage. Imprint develops a crush on Simulacrum, whom she supports by supplying ideas for further transformations.

#10 – Glitch

Glitch is Herb Monroe, a small-time crook who appears to have marginal electrical powers. He makes a living from manipulating electrical devices from a distance and then “repairing” them in his shop.
Actually, Herb has telekinetic powers, which are however very, VERY small. Herb can only move objects no larger than the size of atomic particles. He usually uses this power to stop a handful of electrons from moving or redirecting them, causing “glitches” in electronic devices.

Due to the nature of his powers, Herb can influence many particles at once, as long as they are not connected to structures lager than a single atom of hydrogen.

Glitch is recruited by Nevermind, who falls victim to one of his schemes, but uncovers the truth about the malfunction of his computer once he meets Herb and picks up a thought about “fraud”. Herb is offered a different life as a hero, and gladly accepts, although he refuses to wear a costume.

#9 – Calendar

Calendar is a late replacement member of the “Marginal Men”.
She’s a kind of shapeshifter, with the limitation that she can only assume forms of herself at different ages.
While changed into another age, she retains her memories, but is limited by her mental capacities. Thus, she never dared turn into a baby (because she fears she will be unable to return to her original age), and she finds out that she will be suffering from Alzheimer some day, so she doesn’t turn herself too old, either.
Mysteriously, if she turns her age to just over approximately 40 years, a strange scar appears across her chest, leading to the question wether Calendar is not actually more of a timeshifter.

Calendar does not give her real name or age. She aids the team by blending in with the crowd, looking totally unsuspicious, collecting information for the team.

#8 – Killray Thanocloud, Boommaster Of Death

One day, a young man confronts the Marginal Men, demanding to join in.

He identifies himself as Killray Thanocloud, Boommaster Of Death, and never gives another name.

Heavy makeup, an emo haircut and his lowered face further hide his identity.

He doesn’t talk a lot, except for a detailed account of his power. He just talks about the death of 200 people in the Tokyo Subway, and how he was the only survivor, that he was the cause for it all.

The team sends KTBD away, but he manages to save the day, when gangsters take all customers of a bank hostage. He tells them about his power, and how he would hate to use it now, and kill everyone, BUT – it’s the only power he has. The gangsters give up.

From then on KTBD is treated as a member. He doesn’t do a lot, actually, but attributes that to his lethal power.

What dark secret is there about his “power”?

#7 – Cavity

Cavity may be the oddest hero of all the Marginal Men.

Anthony Hoyt was an astronomer from Hawaii charged with SETI (search for extra-terrestrial intelligence). He found one, and directed it to Earth. The problem was, the alien intelligence was not another scientist, but the equivalent of a construction worker, and a curious one at that. The alien was a kind of livin wormhole, and when it followed Hoyt’s signal, it came crushing down on him and merged with him.

Since then, Hoyt can open wormholes through his body, and decided to become ther hero known as Cavity. He found out that when he opened a cavity through his head, he could still breathe. Although he has no idea how that is possible, he used it for diving without an oxygen tank, and became a protector of the coast, and the ultimate coastguard. Since there’s a hole through his face, he doesn’t need a mask. Unfortunately, he cannot speak with the hole in place. But since he believes to have nothing to fear from fellow heroes, he entrusts them with his identity, and simply shows his face when alone with the team.

Cavity is meant to have a “Golden Age” feel, despite his odd powers.

#7 – The Vibe

Aaron Leslie Hines never knew he was special, until the very day he became involved into a gang war that alerted Blindsight’s Team, and was almost beaten up by Xroma because he seemed to have snuck up behind her, and refused to answer her questions.

The point is: Aaron is not only deaf from birth, he is also a mutant living completely in a world without sound. His power is that a special vibration pattern of his body prevents Aaron from creating any sound. If he hits a table, no sound can be heard. He cannot talk, not even cough audibly.

However, his shoes DO create a sound on the floor, but still muffled by his powers. But still, since he was deaf anyway, Aaron never even suspected he had any powers at all.

Impressed by the team’s efforts in the gang war, he agrees to aid the team, which is made possible by Neverminds telepathy, which enables him to communicate with the team.

An accomplished freeclimber, Aaron takes over the part of reconaissance.

He uses an array of different projectiles and slings/slingshots as weapons.

Aaron calls himself “The Vibe” for reasons of irony mainly, but also as a diversion from the nature of his powers. Like most of the team, he tries not to give away too much about his powers so that his weaknesses cannot be exploited.

He’s also the one who suggests the team should have a name. Blindsight is against that, and when Aaron is asked why he wants a team name, his answer is the handsign for “family”.

Dedicated and loyal, The Vibe is a true teamplayer, and shows no signs of fear.

#6 – TYLERMAN!

Tyler Choe suffers from autism. Aside from that, he is superhuman in most respects. He is impervious to physical harm, and his strength can be compared only to a towering crane – a big one.

The only real connection to the outside world is Tyler’s fascination with superheroes. In his mind he has created the persona of TYLERMAN, and he will only wear clothing with his insignia, a diamond shape with a capital T inside.

Blindsight encounters Tyler during a fire in the sanatorium he spends his days in. Tyler helps Blindsight free a few people from the fire, before he drops back into his dreamworld again.

When Simulacrum joins the team, Blindsight decides to add a strongman to the lineup, so that someone would be able to use the objects Sammy turns into, someone able to wield a 140 pound sword. However, no superstrong hero is willing to join the ranks of the “limited power”-team, and so Blindsigt decides to give TYLERMAN a chance.

Tyler ultimately only agrees because he likes the coincidence that Blindsight is also called “Ty”, and often will make jokes about “big Ty” and “tiny Ty”.

TYLERMAN cannot cope with the world as it is. He is easily overwhelmed by exterior sensations and will then withdraw into a catatonic state. In order to fix that, Nevermind is brought on the team to aid Tyler in processing the sensual input, and ultimately showing him how to interact with the world.

On the downside, as Tyler is eventually cured of his condition through Nevermind, he chooses to leave the team because he reasons that as an invincible hero who can function without the team, his presence would destroy the team, since he would soon become dominant. With him gone, the team quickly has to say goodbye to Nevermind as well, and other heroes along with him.

#5 – Careen

Another day I didn’t manage to upload my picture… this challenge is more challenging than expected. I spent half my day running around looking for a connection cable for my new Cintiq. And when I finally got one and plugged it in, I found out it was broken! So I though today would have been the right day for Careen, the fastest member of the Marginal Men. I should have her do my errands!

Careen is actually Kareen Amidou, an assistant tax consultant from New Orleans. During a tax inspection of estranged scientist Thierry Lamont, a freak accident bestowed upon her amazing powers, which seemingly enabled her to move at incredible speeds.

Kareen and Dr. Lamont decided to work together in an effort to understand the exact nature of her powers. Kareen adopted the identity of masked crimefighter Careen (another slang word for moving fast, I know…) and donned a costume that is specifically meant to look like it has to withstand extreme velocity and friction. It is, however, basically a cheap cosplay made of cheapest materials, and Kareen keeps a dozen or so of them in her appartment. The only real part of the costume is the oxygen tank around the back of her waist.

Careens exact powers are temporal. Due to the accident, she is able to build up a “time dilation field” which removes her from the timestream. Since it is an emitted field, it grows weaker with distance from her, enabling her to move and interact with the world instead of being completely removed from our timescape and simply vanishing from existence.

While her powers are active, Careen appears to move at speeds near lightspeed, while she herself notices no difference at all. If she is sent across town, she still has to run across town and will be running for – what appears to her – hours.

The dissipating time dilation field around her also has severe side effects:

Careen has almost no air within her “time bubble” and needs an oxygen tank for respiration. She cannot touch things, because the field pushes everything back, even beneath her feet. So basically, Careen is constantly floating, and cannot stop running, or she will literally vaporize the floor beneath her. Even while running, the floor takes noticeable damage wherever she treads. She cannot take larger objects or persons with her into the field.

Careen is able to deliver hard blows by just slowly approaching targets with her fist. A quick blow will result in death and destruction, since the destructive effect of the field increases radically with proximity to Careen.

Careen has been training her condition and running speed constantly since the accident, but still her effective range is limited tothe amount of oxygen she is carrying with her and the distance she can cover on foot without her powers. Careen can cross smaller bodies of water, but will sink immediately if she stops. Running to China would be entirely impossible for her. Sending her to Alaska would mean that she would have to run the entire distance like a normal person. It’s just that nobody would notice, except for her accelerated aging while she was gone.

In order to be accepted into the superhero community, Careen decided to keep these restrictions a secret. She joins Blindsights team after a shared adventure with Xroma, who convinces her that superheroines are at a disadvantage anyway, and she should establish herself as part of a team in order to be taken seriously.

#4 – Nevermind

Douglas Carlin had it all.

In Highschool, he became an athlete at the peak of human fortitude, excelling in boxing, wrestling and football as linebacker.

His IQ developed beyond the scale of common tests, through intense training, meditation and self-disciplining. In the opinion of his classmates, he bordered a demigod.

Then he crossed the border. When trying to push his mind beyond the limit of human comprehension, suddenly something snapped in his brain and unlocked access to a cerebral area that enabled Doug to transcend his own mind an enter that of others. He became a telepath, capable of planting words in the mind of others, and reading surface thoughts (those you form before speaking).

He grew obsessed with this newfound power,  tossing aside all other accomplishments, and became a psychologist, achieving his doctorate by the age of 24.

He grew discontent when he realised that there was a definite limit to his power. He could influence people, even control their actions, whenever they were in an impaired state of mind (sleep-depraved, sleepwalking, suffering from any form of mental illness), but could not break another person’s will.

He eventually contended with helping mentally ill people recover, but a certain degree of frustration remained.

Years later, Blindsight offers him a chance to make a real difference in the world as a hero, joining his team in order to help another hero, and as communication beacon between the team’s members.

Dubbed “Nevermind” by his teammates, this mountain of a man is one of the central posts for the team, until he later on persues his professional career again.

#2 – Xroma of the Marginal Men

This is the character that started it all. I’ve played her as Chroma in several online newsgroup-rpgs, and every time the super-team made her the leader after only two days. After a little bit of reconceptualising, she became Xroma (still pronounced Chroma, but spelled like the original Greek word, meaning colour).

Xroma is Sarah Bloemdahl (pronounced somewhat like Bloom-darl, which means “valley of flowers”) from Amsterdam, Netherlands. Sarah found out early in her life that she had the power to affect the light-reflecting and light-absorbing properties of exposed surfaces – colours. She kept it a secret, and used it to train herself in the arts.

Unfortunately, the colours she invokes don’t last, so her career as an artist was cut short by a harsh reality-check: nobody wanted paintings that faded after 8 hours. Sarah’s power can be maintained by shere concentration, but this will put her under an extreme strain. Objecte the size of a penny stay coloured for about 8 hours, but the colours fade instantly from a wall, if Sarah diverts her attention to somewhere else.

Sarah found out that she wanted to use her superpower for super-heroism, just because she was special, and specially gifted people should be heroes. Sarah trained herself to become a professional gymnast, and has participated in the Olympic games and various championships for the Netherlands, winning Olympic Bronze a few years ago. She has since started to teach gymnastics in order to pay her bills.

But at night, she dons a white iceskating suit and mirrored glasses, and fights street-level crime in the streets and subway of Amsterdam. Using her powers in unique ways like branding fugitive criminals with a glowing green X, blinding them by turning the outer layer of their eyes (or the tear fluid) black, or entering a camouflage mode, Sarah has earned the respect of the local authorities.

When her existance became public eventually, Sarah realised she needed a name. The letter X is hardly used in the Dutch language, so Sarah picked a fitting name that would make the X her very own. She became Xroma.

Xroma is a very light-hearted heroine, loves physical activities and full contact martial arts. Although fun-loving and cheerful, she is very determined about her heroics.

When she finds out about Blindsight’s quest for fellow heroes, she seeks him out and volunteers, even moves to the US, building up a new school for gymnastics there.

Being a foreigner, Sarah has a few quirks, especially her lousy English. Often, she will mix in Dutch words or entire sentences. Within the “Marginal Men”, Xroma is the field commander, since she is an exerienced combatant and master of improvisation. She’s also the one to cheer everyone up. The fact that underneath her mask she is quite pretty also helps keeping the male members of the team together.

Sarah is secretly in love with Blindsight, who in turn is also fond of her but refuses to admit it because of his constant fear to cause anybody harm. What fascinates Xroma most about Blindsight is his almost complete immunity to her powers. Blindsights x-ray-vision does not perceive colour in a normal way. Since Blindsight keeps the nature of his powers secret, Xroma constantly tries testing her powers on him, which she perceives as “flirting”.

Yesterday: Blindsight
Return tomorrow for Simulacrum

#1 – Blindsight

This is the first concept sketch for one of the three main characters of my new superhero title “Marginal Men”. I chose to participate here mainly to finally get myself to work on the story visually, and define the characters. This is the first one, although chronologically, he was invented second.

Tyson Reese grew up believing to be blind. Then, at 13 years old, he contracted a cataract, and darkened.

That was the day he first saw the sun rise.

Ty confided to his eye doctor, Dr. Helm, and together they found out that he had a unique mutation. Tyson had been born with a sort of active x-ray vision. His eyes were able to emit what Dr. Helm called “phased photons”, which could penetrate any matter, with one exception: if they went through matter that conventional photons – any form of light – were already passing through, there would be an interference, and Tysons’s vision could not see through.

That was why he had not been able to see: his vision was not able to pass his transparent pupil.

Tyson had to learn how to see completely anew, and realised the potential of his newfound power. Although he could not see like normal people (colour is still mostly a mystery to him), he understood that his vision was in most aspects far superior, after he had learned to control the depth of his vision.

Dr. Helm agreed to keep Tysons condition secret. He created a cover story about a new operation technique that had restored Tyson’s vision, and Tyson decided to use his power to heroic ends.

Since he could still not see through glass (mirrors appear black to him, windshields appear blackened out) he became a rescue firefighter, being able to see through thickest smoke effortlessly, in buildings where most of the windows had already burst from the heat. With a lot of protection from his captain who always suspected that something was odd about his eyes, but never doubted his heroic efforts and results, Tyson did ten years of service as a hero.

There was one problem though: he had to paint his gasmask black in order to be able to see and breathe. One day, he went into a burning building, trying to bring out a six-year-old boy, who had – by an odd coincidence – been terrorized by his alcoholic father with stories about the “bogeyman” who would come from burning hell and steal his face to replace his own, lost one.

The boy died, running from Tyson into the fire.

Tyson quit his job, devastated, altough he was cleared of any misconduct. But his heroic conviction still remained, and so he became a superhero, Blindsight, using his all-seeing eyes to follow criminals and find hidden evidence.

But when he tried to apply for membership in a renowned superhero group, he was sent away when they realized that he actually could not see through a common window, or tell how much milk was left inside a bottle without picking it up. They laughed about him, calling him “merely human” or a “limited power superhero”.

Frustrated, Blindsight began traveling the world and roaming the internet, searching for others like him: people with definitely superhuman powers, who were willing to use them for good. He founded what was to become known as “The Marginal Men”, a group of people caught between two worlds – not quite human, but not accepted as superhumans – and with “marginal” powers like himself.

Return tomorrow for: Xroma