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THE REDCOATS

(Yes, I came up with this during a perios of time when I was mildly obsessed with the Revolutionary War. No, they were not British. Yes, I tried to think of a better name, but the big visual hook was that they all had some variation of a red overcoat/cloak/cape/shawl/jacket over their costumes.)

Whiplash - This guy was originally a petty thug. He is telekinetic but can only affect things that he touches. (This was WAAAAAAAAY before Superboy and his "tactile telekinesis" came about.) His main offensive weapon is his costume, specifically the two whips that coil around his wrists and up his arms that he can manipulate like snakes. (I had a miniseries planned called "Blind Date" where Whiplash places a personal ad which is answered by Barricade and the two of them hit it off really, really well without knowing that their alter-egos are bitter enemies.) He's in this scheme for the money but, as time goes on and he sees the extent of Mindbender's craziness, he becomes much more resistant to the idea. His telekinesis causes some interference with Mindbender's mind-control and he's taken great pains to not let Mindbender know.

Micron - This guy can expand and contract the density of his body to the point where he is either a billowing cloud of gas or a tiny, super-dense being of destruction. He's a pawn.

Flare - This woman has typical comic book fire powers; heat blasts, flight, etc. I figured, though, that if she's already generating tons of heat, rather than being very susceptible to cold she should be very susceptible to overheating (hence the need to discharge the excess heat). She is very much an unwilling participant but has no mental defences against Mindbender.

Harlequin - This guy is mute and is a total sociopath. He is a projective empath; meaning he can mentally manipulate the emotions of others (sometimes to the point of insanity). Mindbender has tenuous control over him but can shield the rest of the team from Harlequin's powers, making him a random element stacked in their favor. Harlequin has his own agenda and, since he doesn't talk, no one really knows what it is.

Chameleon - Chameleon is a shape-shifter. Her "natural" form appears to be that of a anthropomorphized lizard woman and she's got many of the lizard traits. Much later on we discover that this is because her ACTUAL power is to absorb things and take on their properties; she accidentally absorbed a chameleon when she was very, very young and the experience traumatized her to the point where she couldn't release the creature, turning her into the hybrid we originally meet. Eventually she does learn how to control her real power. Due to the lizard mind interfereing with her human mind, Mindbender sometimes finds her difficult to control; however no one is better at stealth infiltration and sabotage.

Main members were:

Styx (a lame name, I think), a rich brat who had supposedly trained thoroughly and bought his super-weapons, a pair of jo sticks with electric bolt abilities, but was secretly a mutant, and the electric powers were his own. Horrible person - uses his celebrity to get laid a lot, becomes addicted to cocaine and completely unstable.

Spectrum: a young woman with light powers that seem insubstantial at first but grow at a much faster rate than her confidence - she was to become immensely powerful. Seduced and mistreated by Styx at first.

Kraven - she takes that name after her revelation. His abilities. I was going to particularly play up her force of personality - I was thinking of the way that an alpha male animal can dominate others without having to fight. The natural leader and smartest member, though Styx, as the funder of the operation, sees himself as the leader.

Bhima (a name taken from the Mahabarat), the big mutant strong man, whose powers come from natural energy absorbtion, once his body adjusts to the nature and frequency. This means he gets bigger and stronger under the right attacks, and can attune to, for instance, force fields and push through them. Indian, very upper class/aristocratic.

Ribbon - based on a character in Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain, a Japanese woman with a magical kimono, passed down from ancient times through the female line, which can stretch and distort and bind and so on with immense power. She's actually from a line descended from the Eternals, with telekinetic power of her own, but she doesn't learn that the kimono is ordinary for a long time. Her line's mission has been to fight monsters in Japan, but these haven't been seen in generations, so feels able to leave - obviously, this doesn't last (and they are an offshoot branch of Deviants, the Eternals' old foes, in fact).

A Native American guy, introduced later, with limited psi powers; and then his big sister, with rather greater powers - because she blocked off most of his in his teens, after learning that he used them to 'persuade' his girlfriend over her reluctance to give up her virginity. These two hate each other, but eventually find that they can act as a gestalt with enormous psychic powers, when they can bear the mental intimacy.

I thought that was a decent bunch of characters (there was much more to them than is on display here), with lots of material to work with, but frankly I was rather short of really good stories for them - most of the plots I had were pretty weak. And it was old-fashioned superheroics, with the edginess in the character stuff rather than any great violence in the action. It wasn't saleable. But copyright, and all that.

I really should have gone into fiction.

Jordan: Hahaha! No.

Boy Howdy (of course)
John John John
Paws (a teddy bear prone to switching his "skin") (OK, the "secret" is he's actually a tape recorder that "walks" around in teddy bears)
Leviticus Bookworm (ungh)
Forensic Ox (I have no idea!) (shades of Rucka's Wonder Woman?)
The Quota
The Egress
Meta Four
Elektra Grey
Maako (a time-traveling muffler-wearing penguin) (I wrote that one while @ the beach; sun stroke might've played a part)
S. Poranteau (sure to play a big part in the multi-part epic, THE SPANGLISH INCLINATION)

Pilfering inspiration from: Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law; The Venture Bros.; Golden & Silver Age shenanigans; Grant Morrison's happy-go-lucky moments; The Goon; Hellboy; the new She-Hulk series; Andi Watson's Skeleton Key; X-Statix; Ray Bradbury

My big superhero idea (CODENAME: ALPHA) (with art by JOHN BYRNE & TERRY AUSTIN!) involved two characters called Hack (a whiz-kid computer expert) and Slash (a cut-throat cat burglar) in one of the many half-baked plotlines I mulled & chewed while delivering papers in junior high & high school. Learning of a recent bad-girlish slasher / horror series called _Hack / Slash_ disappointed me quite a bit, as my idea (for a subplot!) is SO MUCH BETTER. Never you mind that 99% of my ideas for C:A have been "pilfered" by JMS & BMB & other "quality" writers.

Copyright David Raposa 2004 SO STEP OFF

Ha, these are pure gold.

Is there ANY possible way that a superhero comic could do a story about how the female members' cycles synched up without coming across all
Vertigo "wings-of-meat" meets Avatar-style Ellis?

Oh that's right, Dan's never read any comics about Granny Goodness and her Female Furies (once led by Big Barda)!

Write this or I pull your mod privileges!

i don't really understand this! is this some sort of teddy ruxpin thing??