The History of Venture Comics!

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1204

Solace

Solace II
Solace II401×575 308 KB

Real Name: Rhonda Randall, First Appearance: (as psychopomp) Night of Lost Souls #1, March 2010
Background: Tragic, Power Source: Higher Power, Archetype: Reality Shaper
Personality: Stalwart, Principles: Compassion, Exorcism

Status Dice: Green d8, Yellow d8, Red d8. Health: 30 [Green 30-23, Yellow 22-12, Red 11-1]
Qualities: Alertness d10, History d10, Conviction d8, Imposing d8, Psychopomp d8
Powers: Precognition d10, Necromancy d10, Intangibility d8, Sonic d8, Teleportation d6

Green Abilities:

  • Psychopomp [A]: Boost using Precognition. Use your Max die. If you roll doubles, you may also Attack using your Mid die.
  • Dark Rivers [A]: Attack using Necromancy. You may move the target of that Attack anywhere else nearby. If the target goes next, you decide who takes the next turn after that.
  • Dark Focus [R]: After rolling during your turn, you may take 1 irreducible damage to reroll your entire dice pool.
  • Principle of Compassion [A]: Overcome to connect with an individual on a personal level and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
  • Principle of Exorcism [A]: Overcome entities or elements from another dimension and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.

Yellow Abilities:

  • See Your Fate [A]: You may remove a penalty on yourself. Boost yourself using Precognition. If you did not remove a penalty, Recover using your Min die.
  • The Path of the Dead [A]: Attack multiple targets using Necromancy. Use your Mid die. Hinder all targets damaged by this ability with your Min die. Hinder yourself with your Max die.
  • Prophetic Warning [R]: When a nearby enemy would create a bonus or penalty, you may remove it immediately.

Red Abilities

  • Death Curse [A]: Attack using Necromancy. Use your Max+Mid+Min dice. Take a major twist.
  • Change Your Fate [A]: Select a minion. That minion is now entirely under your control and acts at the start of your turn. If you are incapacitated, you lose control of this minion. You may also choose to release control of this minion at any time. At the end of the scene, this minion is defeated.

Out

  • Defend an ally by rolling your single Precognition die.

Our next Plutonium hero is Solace, upgrading from a banshee to a psychopomp as she learns to actually guide and direct the dead and gives us the details of Night of Lost Souls. Most of her changes work by shifting her focus; she’s more dialed into the tragic circumstances that turned her into a hero, she’s reframed her banshee curse as a gift, and she’s tied herself into the nature of reality. This version of Solace probably spends more time with Veilwalker, as a fellow necromantic medium; her writeup is mainly be about Night of Lost Souls and Solace joining the Champions, but I may add a small section about Veilwalker if there’s room.

This does mean movement away from Rhonda’s historical knowledge, the reduction of her scream powers to basic actions and Overcomes, and a slight reduction in the potency of her prophecy in exchange for more death powers. She still can use her sonic screams, but it’s much less of a focus. As with many other hero versions, Solace probably shifts between focus from story to story, using either writeup depending on what the writer wants to focus on.

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1205

Wow, that certainly does sound extremely permissive, far more than I’d remembered. With a dedicated build you could be able to access dozens of powers through one ability or another, even more than the shenanigans a Form-Changer can get up to. Although Shardborn couldn’t do that with basic actions (since they aren’t abilities) where F-C types can use whatever weird mix of powers their current form might have.

Even without being sure on reactions and inherents, that might be so strong it’s an auto-pick, and that’s not good either.

I’ve been fiddling around with a concept hero that tries to exploit this by having remarkably bad dice pools, a good boost game and some penalty removal/inversion to boot. I don’t think it works, but it’s kind of funny as a idea.

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1206

My two cents: you have to actually roll a power die for it to count as you “using” that power.

So the ability would apply to “Reaction: Defend with Fire.” but not “Inherent: You take no damage from Fire.” because the latter just modifies how somebody else’s use of a power plays out, but it’s not you using the power.

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1207

Yeah, that makes sense.

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1208

Okay, this entry is a bit of an odd one, formatting-wise, because the first two paragraphs are going to be in other sources in the book but I’m just putting them at the start of the introduction. Feel like it’s important to get how we get to…

Caliban

Caliban II
Caliban II400×574 267 KB

Real Name: William Handler, First Appearance: (heroic) If We Shadows Have Offended #1, July 2015
Background: Criminal, Power Source: Genetic, Archetype: Speedster
Personality: Alluring, Principles: Reformer, Detective

Status Dice: Green d6, Yellow d8, Red d12. Health: 34 [Green 34-26, Yellow 25-13, Red 12-1]
Qualities: Acrobatics d10, Investigation d10, Finesse d8, Criminal Underworld d8, Dashing Thief d8
Powers: Presence d10, Agility d10, Speed d8, Awareness d6

Green Abilities:

  • Set the Scene [A]: Attack using Acrobatics. Other nearby heroes in the Yellow or Red zone Recover equal to your Min die.
  • Step Lightly [A]: Attack using Acrobatics. Defend yourself using your Min die.
  • Dance Partner [A]: Boost or Hinder using Presence. Use your Max die. If you roll doubles, you may also Attack using your Mid die.
  • Principle of the Reformer [A]: Overcome by offering someone a second chance and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
  • Principle of the Detective [A]: Overcome to learn hidden information and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.

Yellow Abilities:

  • Change Partners [A]: Attack multiple targets using Agility, using your Min die against each.
  • Swing and a Hit [A]: Attack using Acrobatics. Use your Max die. If you roll doubles, use Max+Min instead.
  • Take a Bow [R]: When damaged by an environment target or a surprise Attack, Defend by rolling your single Presence die.

Red Abilities

  • Already Solved It [A]: Overcome using Investigation. Use your Max+Min dice. Hinder all nearby opponents with your Mid die.
  • Taunt [R]: When an opponent Attacks, you may become the target of that Attack and Defend by rolling your single Red zone die.

Out

  • Boost an ally by rolling your single Presence die.

Added to the Headmaster’s writeup: The addition of the Headmaster to the criminal underworld of Ferrisville led to unexpected allies and enemies rising in response. One of these was the superhuman thief Caliban. During this period, Caliban was making sporadic appearances throughout the pages of Venture Comics as he struggled with his pain and guilt. In Company Town, he briefly clashed with Paradox, had a long conversation with her about grief and loss, and intermittently joined forces with the Rogue Agents to undermine the Headmaster and Mr. Ferris for a few years, before vanishing again in early 2007.

Added to Greensleeves: One of Greensleeves’ major stories in 2009 involved the re-appearance of Caliban. In Kid Liberty and the Champions of Tomorrow #14, Caliban came out of nowhere, determined to kill Greensleeves in order to force the powers within her to return to Greenheart. He scornfully told the Champions of Tomorrow that they were failures, and would never be as important or powerful as the Champions of Truth; to restore one of the world’s greatest heroes, he was willing to have their blood on his hands. In the end, he was defeated and fled, but his words would prove to be darkly prophetic.

And then the actual entry:

Following his appearance in Kid Liberty and the Champions of Tomorrow, Caliban went through a spate of increasingly grim appearances. During the Night of Lost Souls, he appeared to protect Greenheart from a zombified Prospero, killing his father for a second time and telling Greenheart that there was no one he would not kill for her. Throughout 2011-2013, he seemed to be living up to that reputation, killing business leaders and wealthy heirs with no regard to their actual crimes, and mocking both Greenheart and Paradox when they tried to confront him. In 2013, after trying to rein him in, Greenheart finally didn’t hold back, fighting Caliban and almost killing him before he escaped. It seemed to be the final nail in the coffin of their relationship.

Fans thus greeted news that Caliban would be returning in a 2015 miniseries titled If We Shadows Have Offended with trepidation. But there was some hope that the series might turn things around. So it wasn’t entirely a surprise to many readers when they opened the first page and learned that Caliban had been living on a tropical island in the South Pacific since his final appearance in Cryptic Trails in 2008, and his first inkling that something was off was when he opened a newspaper and learned that ‘Caliban’ had just committed a series of daring crimes on behalf of the Headmaster, killing several people.

Once he was back in the game, it didn’t take long for Caliban to realize what had happened. His sister, wanting to punish both him and Greenheart, had taken advantage of his absence and hired the Red Herring to impersonate him, with the goal of ruining his reputation and destroying Greenheart’s life. The master mimic had done so with gusto, and now Caliban was faced with the need to clear his name, avoid the police, and repair the damage that his family had done once again. Rather than digging up old wounds by going to Greenheart, however, Caliban reached out to the one person that he thought might be willing to help – Paradox.

Over the course of five chaotic issues, Caliban and Paradox went toe to toe with the Red Herring’s vast operation, pushing his way through layers of deception and creating havoc for his operations as he gathered the evidence he needed to prove that each of the crimes he was accused of had been committed by the other villain while reaching out to his family to bring them back from the edge. In the final issue, Caliban confronted Ariel and Scion directly, telling his sisters that he was sorry for what had happened between them, but that he no longer regretted it. It was Prospero who destroyed their family, not Greenheart. Scion refused his offer of reconciliation, but Ariel accepted, pulling back from the brink and agreeing to let Caliban and Paradox help her.

In the aftermath of the story, Caliban was back on somewhat solid ground. The retcon that he had been impersonated managed to satisfy both fans of the character and fans who had been afraid of the events of the past few years being brushed under the carpet to ‘redeem’ him; he was still a wanted criminal for the crimes he had committed, but he was determined to use his skills for good, and to make up for the harm he had caused. He made peace with Greenheart, apologizing for abandoning her instead of letting her help him, and began to appear in occasional issues of Company Town lending a hand to the Rogue Agents again.

Behind the Scenes

And there we go! I told you that all of our Plutonium Age heroes would be people that you knew.

There was a lot of discussion about a pointless “Caliban turns evil” arc that gets retconned later, and this is it. I suspect that the Red Herring has been used in the past for “wildly out of character villain” storylines, but this is one that helps to buff up his heat by reminding people that he’s dangerous, while also giving Caliban a solid villain to wrestle with. It also helps to cement a Caliban - Paradox friendship, which is going to be important in a little while.

5 Likes
1209

Partisan

Partisan
Partisan400×576 276 KB

Real Name: Glyeb Jotu-Kal, First Appearance: (as statesman) House of Jotu-Kal #1, Jan 2017
Background: Upper Class, Power Source: Genetic, Archetype: Form-Changer
Personality: Stalwart, Principles: Team, Equality

Status Dice: Green d8, Yellow d8, Red d10. Health: 30 [Green 30-23, Yellow 22-12, Red 11-1]
Qualities: Persuasion d10, Conviction d8, Close Combat d8, Deep Space Knowledge d8, Jotari Reformer d8
Powers: Telepathy d10, Size-Changing d10, Vitality d8, Intuition d8

Green Abilities:

  • Leading Light [A]: Attack using Persuasion. Other nearby heroes in the Yellow or Red zone Recovery equal to your Min die.
  • Change Size [A]: Take a basic action using Size-Changing, then switch to any available form.
  • Smash [A]: Attack using Size-Changing and use your Max die. Then change to any available form.
  • Principle of the Team [A]: Overcome by using your status as an official representative and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
  • Principle of Equality [A]: Overcome to protect the rights of the underprivileged and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.

Green Form: Brute
Powers: Telepathy d10, Size-Changing d10, Strength d8, Vitality d8

  • Dense Flesh (I): Reduce any physical or energy damage you take by 1 while you are in the Green zone, 2 while in the Yellow zone, and 3 while in the Red zone.

Green Form: Tiny
Powers: Agility d10, Size-Changing d10, Telepathy d8, Intuition d8

  • Quick Evasion [A]: Defend using Agility. Use your Max die. Remove all penalties on you.

Yellow Abilities:

  • Extradimensional Flesh [A]: You may remove a penalty on yourself. Boost yourself using Vitality. If you did not remove a penalty, Recover using your Min die.
  • Psychic Cry [A]: Attack multiple targets using Telepathy, using your Min die against each.

Yellow Form: Towering Warrior
Powers: Strength d12, Size-Changing d12, Telepathy d8, Vitality d8

  • Shockwave [A]: Attack multiple targets using Strength.

Red Abilities

  • Emergency Change [R]: When hit with an Attack, change to any form before resolving the Attack. Take a minor twist.
  • Rapid Shift [R]: When you are Attacked, roll your single Size-Changing die as a Defend against that Attack. Also Boost yourself with that same roll.
  • Inspire [A]: Boost another hero using Telepathy. If that hero has already acted for the turn, use your Max die, and that hero loses health equal to your Min die. That hero acts next in the turn order.

Out

  • Defend an ally by rolling your single Telepathy die.

In 2017, with the Overseer defeated and the Jotari Provisional Government in a shambles, a new rebuilding effort was accompanied by a new team of heroes, collected from across the twelve dimensions of the former Authority. House of Jotu-Kal would focus on an unlikely collection of heroes from across the world: Partisan, his still-somewhat-villainous brother Mindscape, human ambassador Pulsejet, rebel heroes Jester and Sage, and two heroes from among the Jotari’s subject species, Technopath and Silver Squall. The comic was initially pitched as a three-year story arc that would help to define the new standard of the Jotari layers, give some breathing room to the Vanguards before re-introducing them in 2020, and introduce a few new dimensional heroes.

Partisan himself was front and centre for this storyline, working at re-adjusting to being a leader of the new provisional government, with his family’s wealth behind him once again and feeling the dual pressures of the many citizens of the newly-growing Jotari Alliance who viewed him as a revolutionary hero, the many more who viewed him as a traitor responsible for the fall of the Authority, and those who didn’t care what he had done because he was still a prince of Jotarus and a symbol of their oppression. After years spent in exile, learning to live as a refugee and a revolutionary, the adjustment was difficult – made even more so by his brother Mindscape, who had been pardoned by the Jotari courts as part of the ongoing political outreach meant to prevent another civil war and allow a smooth transition to representative democracy. Gyleb and Volen continued to clash, each one feeling a complicated mixture of love and loathing for the other as they struggled against threats to the fragile peace coming from external enemies, revolutionaries who didn’t want to lay down their arms, and Authority loyalists who refused to allow a world in which the Jotari did not rule.

This would prove to be the comic’s greatest strength, and its greatest weakness. The compelling dynamic between the two brothers quickly pushed the rest of the comic’s cast to the side, which in turn reduced the number of storylines about former Jotari servant species or the culture and activities of Jotarus’s poor. House of Jotu-Kal sold decently well, but it was clear that readers were buying it for soap opera drama and aristocratic politics, not for a deep study of the complicated mechanisms of dismantling an ancient colonial empire without violence. Ultimately, the planned story arc was trimmed down to twenty-five issues, as a new approach was decided on for the coming years.

Behind the Scenes

I actually went back and forth on this one, as to whether I wanted to have a new version of Partisan representing his position as a leader, or whether I wanted to write up a heroic sheet for Mindscape. I narrowly picked Partisan; I think that Mindscape is still primarily a foil even when he’s working with the heroes, I suspect that he’s a villain again in the Diamond Age whereas this sheet is probably still good for Partisan there, and I think if someone wants to write Mindscape “he’s a mind-controlling psychic” is probably good enough, he’s not that complex. We may get Heroic Mindscape in the Flash in the Pan section.

Partisan, meanwhile, is focused more on size-changing and less on revolutionary action now. He’s still a leader who uses his telepathy to inspire, but as a Form-Changer he’s relying a lot more heavily on impressive size shifts.

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1210

A quick tease today as I set up my Iron Age characters, from the newly-updated and lengthened entry for Doctor Strife:

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1211

“Look, I appreciate the offer and all, but I just don’t have the room to retrofit all my bases with aviaries. I hear Razorbill and the Great Auk are looking for help. Might want to wear a sweater to the interview.”

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1212

Mount Olympus

Mount Olympus
Mount Olympus401×575 267 KB

First Appearance: Covert Tactics (Vol. 3) #15, February 1986

Lieutenant Type: Enemy
Die Size: d8
Motive: Power, Approach: Social

Traits:

  • Puppet Masters: As a reaction, reroll one environment die.
  • Battle Plans: When Zeus Boosts or Hinders, add +2 to the result.
  • Internal Affairs: When Poseidon Boosts, they may apply the bonus to all nearby allies this turn.
  • Test Weapons: When Hades Attacks, add +2 to the result.

From their re-introduction in 1985, AEGIS was portrayed as a complicated and shadowy organization, one that could be used but not trusted. During the first year of Covert Tactics, the agency was largely depicted as a shadowy but otherwise fairly normal covert branch of the United States government. Major agents were given callsigns – Madame Liberty had been “Agent Athena” during her time working for the agency, and her friend Rick Wilson Jr., who remained at the agency after she left and helped establish her cover identity and feed her information, was the agency’s “Agent Apollo”. Early on, AEGIS was portrayed as meaning well, but prone to dangerous “ends justify the means” decisions. In 1986, however, the masters of AEGIS were unveiled, and the organization’s slow fall into supervillainy began.

Mount Olympus was made up of three individuals, all of whom were masked and kept their identities fully secret. Director Zeus was in charge of tactics and mission planning, Director Poseidon managed personnel and logistics, and Director Hades oversaw weapons development and prisoner management. The civilian identities of the three directors were unimportant; while there was some reader speculation that one of the directors would turn out to be someone involved in Madame Liberty’s life, it soon became clear that all three were seen as interchangeable to the writers. In late 1987, Director Hades was killed by Night Bird while overseeing an operation to capture her, and was replaced by a new director Hades before the end of the issue. Her fellow directors welcomed her to Mount Olympus, and then continued their operations as though she had always been present.

This would prove to be the methodology for the directors. Mount Olympus itself was what mattered; the individual directors could be replaced or killed, and the operation would continue. On two occasions, Covert Tactics was able to track down and expose Zeus and Hades, and when isolated from their resources they were easily taken down. But each time, AEGIS was able to quickly promote a new member to take their places, and life went on. Mount Olympus was even vulnerable to internal strife; in 1991, the newly-appointed Zeus assassinated Poseidon, removing the last director who had qualms about the agency’s operations, and setting the stage for AEGIS to become the pre-eminent threat to multiple superhero teams over the next several years.

Behind the Scenes:

And here they are at long last, the shadowy masters of the organization that ended up becoming a really, really big deal.

The growth of AEGIS from “the morally complex guys that Madame Liberty both works for and against” into “the supervillains that primarily oppose Covert Tactics, the Vanguards, and the Rogue Agents” happened gradually enough that I never actually wrote up their leadership. I wanted to develop some lieutenants to do that, because it felt like a huge gap in the setting, but I’m trying to avoid “lieutenants who are really just villains” - I feel like a couple of my lieutenants have been getting dangerously close to that.

The solution for Mount Olympus is that the leaders really aren’t top-tier villains, except in bulk. They’re bureaucrats working behind the scenes, they’re an amorphous set, and they’re not going to survive a superhero punch-up. If you can track them down and get past the villains and minions who work for them, they’re easy prey.

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1213

The “faceless, interchangeable coterie of sinister masterminds” archetype is a very useful tool for supers games.

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1214

Desecrator

Desecrator
Desecrator400×572 299 KB

Real Name: Terri Schumer**, First Appearance:** Champions of Truth (Vol. 2) #188, June 1986
Lieutenant Type: Enemy
Die Size: d10
Motive: Destruction, Approach: Raw Power

Traits:

  • Power High: Desecrator has +1 to damage saves when the scene tracker is Green, and -1 to damage saves when it is Red.
  • Apocalyptic: When the Scene Tracker is Yellow or Red, Desecrator may take a -2 penalty to her Attack to target two enemies. When it is Red, she has +2 to Attack.

The newly-formed Champions of Truth had several of their old enemies to contend with in the Iron Age; longstanding foes like Doctor Freak and the Head Master were still active, as were both longstanding team-ups and new alliances as the world’s leylines and magical forces settled into new patterns. But the loss of Madame Liberty and Flatfoot meant a shift away from political and criminal foes to focus more thoroughly on magical supervillains, which in turn meant a need for new plotlines and threats.

Jordan Marks, the new lead writer for Champions of Truth, introduced a storyline in 1986 centring on the Fomorians forming a temporary alliance with the Mirror Mayor, using him to distribute magical reagents to interested occultists. Serving as a drug metaphor, the reagents gave only brief powers and had terrible side effects, but a few of the small-time mystics who took them ended up being popular enough for writers keep around. One of these was Desecrator.

Terri Schumer was a real estate agent in Havenwood who dabbled in the occult on the side, casting good luck fortunes to help her sales or cursing would-be sellers to give her clients an edge. When she bought a ‘magic feather’ that was actually a piece of an ancient Fomorian, it transformed her into a winged warrior with a thirst for devastation. As Desecrator, she laid waste to the neighborhood, blasting homes with infernal energies and attacking her rivals. The Champions were able to bring her down, and when the feather’s magic was burned through she reverted to Terri, seeming to be horrified at what had happened.

But the lure of the power that she had felt was too strong, and Terri sought out her supplier again. She would continue to take feathers, transforming herself into a goddess of destruction in order to feel free. Soon she was arrested, but after repeated exposures, a piece of her soul had aligned with the Dark Sea. In the presence of high levels of magic, Desecrator could re-establish herself, bursting free from Terri and rampaging again. Terri herself was often shown as being horrified by her dark side, but unable to resist the feelings of power that it gave her.

As an enemy that could be activated by other magical events, Desecrator sometimes served as a servant to a greater evil, happy to work towards a plan as long as it involved doing enough damage, while at other times she was simply a threat that could be tossed onto the page, with the bulk of the issue spent trying to deal with the disasters that she was unleashing. As such, she became a persistent threat to the Champions as the Iron Age advanced and body counts became increasingly common in the pages of Venture Comics.

Behind the Scenes:

Whenever I give someone evil religious theming, I have to make sure that they’re not too much like Fanatic or Apostate. I think Desecrator fits the bill. She’s a rampaging scary monster in her supervillain form, and a slightly pathetic power addict as a mortal. Dangerous, but you can kind of feel bad for her.

Desecrator is based in part on Sauron from Marvel Comics, and in part on Suzie Boreton from Dirk Gently (the TV series). I liked the idea of a “magical drugs” arc, it felt very 80s, and having Skybreaker and Reverie on the same team definitely seems like there’d be some “evil fae” arcs touching on the overlap between those two forces.

5 Likes
1215

Interesting personality conflict, and the drug addict parallel comes through well.

Feel bad? For a real estate agent? Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! No.

And that’s without even considering the supervillainy thing, which is pretty bad too I guess. :slight_smile:

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1216

Thom Zahler’s “Love and Capes” comic had a hero with the secret ID job of real estate agent. As I was typing I remembered Sky High also had real estate as the day job. I like the idea that the hero in real estate cleans out all the “abandoned” warehouses/factories/amusement parks used for villain lairs. Plus, the freedom to leave the office to “meet a client” anytime there is an emergency.

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1217

I’ve had sufficient bad personal experiences with real estate agents to categorize them as “likely to be criminally dishonest” myself. That isn’t going to change - although I’ll concede it might make a good cover identity for a super of either leaning.

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1218

Rush

Rush
Rush401×576 241 KB

Real Name: Yasmin Kazimi, First Appearance: Company Town #20, December 1989

Lieutenant Type: Ally
Die Size: d10
Relation: Family Member, Approach: Physical

Traits:

  • Fools Rush In: When you Boost yourself, you may also Attack with a value equal to the bonus created, and you gain a second bonus of the same amount to your next damage save.

The early issues of Company Town played heavily into the idea that Paradox’s actions were only serving to create the future that she was trying to prevent. Bringing Jimmy Hix closer to the reins of power, stopping particular scientists only to learn that Ferris had used their defeat to acquire their research, and saving a few young Atlanteans from death before learning their DNA had already been acquired left her wondering whether it was possible to make a big change in the timeline, or whether she was locked into merely mitigating damage.

Of course, the writers of the title had no intention of keeping their stories that bleak indefinitely. While Company Town verged on noir, it was still a superhero comic, and a year and a half of uncertain victories and cautious small steps had their readers starting to wonder if there was a point to it all. As a result, the writers handed her her first major victory in a way that could lead to greater dramatic tension, when she interfered in her own family history and creating a new superhero at the same time!

In Salma’s home timeline, her grandfather Yusuf had been killed in a mugging when Salma’s mother was just a teenager. Young Yasmin had been forced to give up her dreams of college and work to keep the family’s store afloat, which was where she met Salma’s father and ultimately started a family. By the time Salma was an adult, both of her parents were gone, having worked their way into an early grave trying to give their daughter a better life.

After a particular battering one night, Salma realized that it was the night her grandfather had died. Diving from the shadows, she saved his life, and in the process learned that his death hadn’t been an accident. The Table was targeting Yusuf for his latent Atlantean genes, and came after him at home. Paradox intervened again, saving her mother’s family and erasing any record of them from Ferris’s servers, but in the process of the second fight her battle with a pair of super-powered Table agents accidentally put Yasmin in harm’s way and triggered the activation of her Atlantean powers. Yasmin gained the ability to sheathe herself in sonic energy, growing in power as she picked up speed, and used that power to help Paradox and protect her family.

The teenage Yasmin immediately decided to become a superhero, taking on the name ‘Rush’ and dedicating herself to keeping her neighborhood safe. She idolized Paradox, having no idea that the woman that she respected was actually her own daughter, and Paradox found herself having to mentor her mother and guide her away from danger. Rush would become a protector of the streets, but Paradox did her best to keep her from pushing too hard, and encouraged her to continue her schooling. She had no intention of watching her mother die again.

Behind the Scenes:

I did not intend for this to happen, but when I got “Family Member” as an option for Company Town, a comic that had only one main character at this point and that character was from the future… there was only ever one option. Paradox has Atlantean genes, so there was always a possibility that other family members might have powers too, and the idea of her trying to mentor her own mother is just the sort of thing that comics writers love.

This also means that, in the future, Rush is still active, and Stutter will have no idea that her mother is a superhero and a potential target for Stillmaker. That’s much too juicy not to include.

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1219

Amusing. “Mom, can you please not get yourself killed before you’ve given birth to me?”

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1220

@FrivYeti
as you are working on your Iron Age files will you change any of the Hero Forge art? I seem to remember them adding new options for “Urban computer hacker” weeks after you posted your character with that look

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1221

Probably not. There’s already so much to do that I’m not feeling the drive unless a model is particularly underwhelming. I’ve made a couple very minor adjustments, but generally I’m just sticking as-is.

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1222

reminds me of Cartoon Hook Ups- Vegeta x Bluma. she is ready, he is not in the mood and Future Trunks is in the corner “dude you have to do what she wants”

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1223

And now I’m thinking of DBZ Abridged and the “What the $%^&'s a condom?!?” line. Y’know, right after his, ah, Galick Gun goes off. :slight_smile:

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