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Bait and Switch

On the world of Sklar, the higher rank attained by a matriarch, status being gained by political maneuvering and financial success, the more husbands one can have. As a result, the most successful matriarch may have a half dozen or more husbands, mostly as a visible sign of their status, and not particularly valued for any other reason (although the more attractive and / or talented a potential husband is, the more high ranking matriarchs will seek to add him to their household). And most low-ranking Sklarans, even if their rank allowed them a single husband, find available men in short supply, as the higher-ranking matrons snatch them up. As a result, as in any society where demand exceeds supply, a black market has arisen, with slavers snatching the husbands of low-ranking women off of the streets, or even out of their own homes, and removing any evidence of their married status, before selling them far, far away, on distant continents, where they may never be able to return, both altered cosmetically to make them harder to recognize, and, using restricted technology, mentally conditioned to be unable to speak of their former wives. Those who purchase husbands from these dealers often know that the men they are purchasing are 'pre-owned,' but look the other way and pretend that they thought the men were the widowers of deceased women, or something of the sort, and not 'stolen goods.'

The Sklaran woman known now as 'Switch' was a self-defense trainer of low-station, only rated to have a single husband, and barely at that. The only reason she had a husband, is because she had the patience to find a male in his early teens (while barely an adult herself) and raise him to adulthood himself, hidden away in the basement of her dojo, out of the sight of black market slavers, or the more legal teams of government agents who round up men of marriageable age to bring to the attention of matriarchs seeking spouses. Once he was old enough, they traveled under cover of night to the registrar, and she married him before anyone else even knew he was 'on the market,' and, for a short time, they were happy enough. (Given a choice, most Sklaran men would prefer being the single husband to a lower-ranking wife, to the backbiting and competition and political maneuvering that comes with being the fifth husband of a woman who is far too busy to learn their name or regard them as anything other than a sign of their status.)

Still, her stunt, not terribly uncommon, drew the wrong sort of attention, as her husband was quite attractive, and a matriarch seeking self-defense training noticed him and wanted him for her seventh husband. She contacted black market slavers and made a 'special order' for the young man to be brought to her. 'Switch' was stunned by the invaders to her home, who bound her defenseless husband and carted him off while she lay restrained and unable to bring her formidable hand to hand combat skills to bear. The authorities proved no use, unwilling to take on the black market (tacitly supported by the higher-ranking matriarchs) for one low-ranking woman who'd lost her husband. Soon, Switch received a communication giving her only coordinates, and travelling in disguise, she found that she had received directions straight to the black marketeers themselves, and so she turned to a friend who also worked in security services and acquired a selection of electro-lashes, flexible switch-like weapons that could be concealed on the body, and would wrap around and restrain a target, perhaps even unleashed an electrical current, identical to the weapons that the slavers had used to immobilize her in their attack, as well as an identity-concealing mask, also similar to what the black marketeers used. She felt it would be just to use their own preferred weapons against them, and wears a half-dozen such weapons as belts, or coiled around her arms and legs, as well as a special insulated jumpsuit that protects her against the preferred nonlethal weapons of the slavers.

With help from her husband, who had sneakily accessed the slavers own communications gear to send her his position (something none of the slavers adequately prepared against, since the idea that a mere male would be trusted by his security-conscious wife to be able to work security consoles had not occurred to them), she overcame the pair of slavers on guard and rescued not only her own husband, but three other young men who were the husbands of other low-ranking women, some local, some from distant locations. The women, similarly ignored by the authorities, were grateful for the return of their husbands, and rewarded Switch for their recovery, and so Bait & Switch had their fifteen minutes of fame (or notoriety, depending on whom you ask...) on Sklar.

In the year and a half that has passed, Bait & Switch have taken down a half-dozen groups of slavers, often by arranging for Bait to be 'kidnapped' and Switch to arrive and bust the entire ring, with his secret assistance. In one case, Bait had to reveal his scandalous secret, that his wife had not only allowed him to carry a concealed weapon implant, but had also trained him in both armed and unarmed combat! (It is illegal on Sklar for males to use weapons or to be trained to fight, or, obviously, to raise their hands against a female.) Knowing the penalties for such an event, Switch killed the only witness to Bait striking down a female slaver (the slaver herself), but they both know that they are playing a dangerous game...

Nice exploration of Sklar, Set....I like the idea of different worlds having unique problems which highlight how different cultures can be. Here's a whole team from Imsk!

IMP FORCE
Imsk being one of the more independent worlds in the UP, they considered it a point of honour to create their own planetary superhero team rather than relying on the Legion of Superheroes whenever problems come up. The result of their work is the Imskian Metahuman Protection Force. Somehow it escaped the attention of every single person involved in the creation of the team that this name would inevitably be abbreviated as IMP Force, and despite the best efforts of ImskGov's best marketing teams the name has stuck. IMP Force are:

VICTORY LAD: As a child, Valk Vale was doused in experimental chemicals in an accident in his father's laboratory. These changed him on a genetic level, giving him super strength, durability and the ability to fly. He can still shrink like any other Imskian, and none of his other powers lose intensity as his size decreases. Valk is the group's golden child, an attractive and charismatic patriotic Imskian Superman.

COLOSSAL GIRL: (I posted her in this thread a while ago as Macro Maid, but I've made a couple of adjustments) Hani Venne was a scientist who wanted to synthesise the radiation of the space dragons which give the Imskians their ability to shrink. After a mishap in the lab, she absorbed an almost lethal dose and found herself shrinking at a rate of a couple of inches per month with no way to return to normal size. Desperate for a remedy, she approached Colossal Boy for help. With his consent, Hani spliced some of his own DNA with hers to counter the shrinking effect...it worked, and even gave her the ability to grow to a maximum height of fifteen feet. While her limited growth ability isn't that hot outside of Imsk, it makes her a behemoth amongst its tiny cities.

DUST: Dolken Hamil is the son of the notorious Imskian criminal Psi-Dragon. Whereas Psi-Dragon can focus his considerable telepathic powers into a telekinetic dragon-shaped exoskeleton, Dust's power is much more subtle. Dust only inherited the barest fraction of his father's telekinesis, just enough to manipulate roughly 100 grams of material. While this is fairly useless on a normal person's scale, he can wreak chaos in the shrunken cities of Imsk. He generally uses his power in inventive ways to control the dust in his surroundings, thus his name. He is very imaginative in the use of his abilities though, and once even extracted poison from his teammate's system safely.

FIREFLY: Fireflies on most planets are harmless glowing insects; Imskian Fireflies are the exception to this rule. They're actually parasitic ticks who live off of the space dragons, making them extremely hardy critters. When they've stored too much energy from feeding, they literally burn this off in the form of a flaming sheath. Kris Stom used his medical expertise to mimic the ability of the Imskian Fireflies with limited success; he can't flame on when he's full size as he'd never be able to consume enough food to create that much fire, but he's a veritable human torch at smaller sizes. He can even fly with the assistance of thermal updrafts and shoot fireballs at any size lower than 6 inches.

Ooh, more Imskian heroes! They are so fun, because shrinking is, unlike, say, Durlan shapeshifting, or the raft of powers a Daxamite gets, a decent power to pair with other powers.

I love the name 'IMP Force.'

Dust and Firefly and Colossal Girl all having powers that aren't quite so awesome at full scale or off-world, but amazing on Imsk itself, is a neat concept.

Wow, Psi-Dragon sounds amazing! What a cool villain!

Colossal Girl, on Imsk, sounds like a great visual. She's like Ginormica, from Monsters vs. Aliens!

Nur Cabir was always kind of a loser, by Durlan standards, able to shapeshift, but only after long minutes, or even hours, or reshaping his body one cell at a time, while his peers were just fluidly changing to various forms as fast as water runs down a wall. He had mastered the orange humanoid form preferred for off-world interactions, although it still took him several minutes to transform, but more exotic forms, or advanced applications like changing his mass, or turning into something capable of winged flight, where just beyond him. It took him years to master what many of his peers could do almost instinctively, and he grew increasingly ostracized, as he was spending all his free time just trying to catch up, which he never would.

And yet his perfectionism and stay-at-home nature turned to his advantage when he was tasked to organize the sacred records of the time before, and the great war and the blasphemies of science that led to the near-destruction of Durla. In those forbidden archives, he found references, long thought destroyed, to a cache of technology that had arrived back on planet after the war, and wasn't confirmed as destroyed, like the other relics of science that had led their people astray. He intended only to confirm that these items had been properly destroyed, and could no longer tempt his people into a dangerous flirtation with the forbidden sciences and technologies that had cost them their world in the first place, but upon trekking to this forbidding location, and confirming that the artifacts indeed remained intact, his curiosity got the better of him, and he tried one of them out...

The ancient Durlan explorers had visited other worlds, using their advanced technology to emulate powerful deific entities, and this technology was what Nur had recovered! A helmet and boots that allowed one to run at incredible speed, and quickly process information, used by a Durlan to emulate a god of speed and trickery. A backplate and gauntlets that produced powerful blasts of electricity, used to emulate a 'king of the gods' who hurled lightning. An archaic looking bow that contained computer targetting system and fired arrows with gravitationally enhanced force, whcih was used to pretend at being a goddess of archery. And others. With these items, which surely could not lead to another devastation, Nur could be special!

Instead of revealing his find, so that it could be properly destroyed, Nur concealed the relics in a new location, and smuggled both them and himself off-world, knowing that once they were seen, all of Durla would rise up to destroy them, no matter what intentions he had in using them. Out in the universe, he calls himself 'The Olympian,' and has taken on a human appearance, so as to draw attention away from his Durlan heritage. He's a bit new to the heroing concept, and so has yet to make a splash, but he knows that his time will come!

[I have taken great liberties with this world, because I just plain didn't like it!]

Amazon, of Geequoa

Tal Obrin, the member of the Devil's Dozen who called himself Apollo, is the most (in)famous known Geequoan, and many assumptions have been made about his world based on his nature. The Geequoans have seen little interest in correcting these misperceptions, finding them amusing.

It is true that the males of this human sub-species possess powerful pheremones that cause most humanoid women to enter a suggestible state and follow their bidding, but on Geequoa, this is a necessary adaptation merely to get the attention of the females of their kind. Due to a metagenetic plague soon after their colonization of this world, the neo-classicalist settlers found that only one birth in ten led to a living female child, with nine male children born for each who would grow up to be a woman. Only the activated metagene allowed the settlement to survive, as these rare female children were superhumanly strengthened by this crucible, and had ten times the strength of a Geequoan male, and similarly enhanced endurance and resistance to lesser contagions and hazards. They also quickly developed seemingly superhuman ambition and a powerful sense of competition with their 'sisters,' and the society of Geequoa, centuries later, is run by long-lived women with superhuman strength, each of whom has many shorter-lived Geequoan males competing for her attention, having developed ever stronger pheremones to draw the attention of their 'queens.' What evolved simply to 'smell nice' to the superhuman women of their own world proved to be overwhelming to less-superhuman women of other worlds, and Geequoan males were surprised to find that the women of the other worlds were plentiful and subservient to them, which most Geequoan males found terribly unattractive, having grown up competing for the attention of statuesque and superhuman beauties who held themselves aloof and apart from the common crush of men clamoring for their attention.

Still, there were always frustrated losers like Tal Obrin, who found a universe where everything was upside down, and these tiny (by comparison to the two plus meter tall women of his homeworld) fragile little females were the ones clamoring for *his* attention, to be enticing... And so Geequoa's reputation as a world of piggish chauvanists was born.

Once or twice in a generation, a woman-child is born with an extra strand of DNA tangled up in her double-helix. These 'triples' have not ten times the strength of a Geequoan male, like a typical Geequoan woman, but *a hundred* times the strength, and there are currently three such individuals on Geequoa. One of them is only two years old, and while great things no doubt lie in her future, Geequoan females age slowly, and it will be three more decades before she is even considered an adult, and has reached full physical maturity. Another was a great champion, some decades ago, but is now 137 years old, and serving on the Advisory Body, the ruling council of Geequoa. While still quite fit and capable, again, as befits the long-lived females of the race, she’s far too busy for crimefighting. This leaves Timaya of Jian*, current 'hero' of Geequoa, who goes by the name Amazon, as befits the neo-classical Greek tones embraced by her society (although she has no connection to the actual Amazons of Earth).

*Geequoan women use their given name and the name of their mothers, so Timaya 'of Jian' (her mother's name). On medical forms, where such information is pertinent, she might go by Timaya of Jian by Wensel (her father's name), but the father's name is generally regarded as unimportant, and not part of her legal name. Geequoan men also use their own name and their mother's name, with Tal Obrin making a misogynistic political statement by using his own name and his *father's* name instead.

Amazon, like all Geequoan women, remains active exclusively on Geequoa itself. While some males travel off-world, required by SP regulations to wear a device on their upper arm, thigh or throat that suppresses their natural pheremone production and time-releases a counter-agent, the rare women of Geequoa are considered 'too important' to risk sending off-world. With a notorious exception here and there, the vast majority of Geequoan men find non-Geequoan women to be small and weak compared to the towering powerhouses of their dreams, and yet also are unusually deferential to them, being unfamiliar with a situation in which genders are equal, and women aren't prized and fought over by much more common lower-status men. As a result, they can often offend, with their cultural misunderstandings, ranging from treating an adult woman like a child (since she's so small, compared to the adult women of their world), to refusing to make eye contact (which is seen as flirting, on their world).

And one more from Cargg;

Mialo Ormulo was born six minutes after his fraternal twin sister, Wiona. A twin birth is a rare occasion on Cargg, and these twins proved to be most frustrating for their parents, as at any given time one or the other might have gone missing! It was several weeks before their questions were answered, as it turned out that the twins could not just triplicate and re-absorb their duplicates, but could also absorb *each other!* They grew up inseperable, but as they grew, they began to seek out their individuality and privacy. Wiona, in particular, no longer had any interest in joining with her brother, and as she grew more independent-minded, Mialo found himself feeling a loneliness that he'd never known before. Still, he respected Wiona's decision, and it was only by chance that he discovered that he could absorb his father, as well! Further testing, and development of his power, revealed that he could absorb any Carggite capable of triplicating, whether they wished it or not, and that anyone absorbed could speak to him in his mind, but had no control over his body, being effectively a passenger, or prisoner, in his body, until he either lost consciousness or willingly released them. It was during this development that he also learned to tap into the strength of those he had absorbed, which typically was just his own two duplicates, giving him the strength and resilience of three men.

Joining the Carggite Science Police, he generally avoided using his ability to absorb others, as it constituted unlawful assault unless used in the process of arresting someone, but being able to combine into one man with the strength of three also proved an asset. It was only during an visit to the southern continent for a wedding that he found a dramatic new use for his unique ability. A freight hauler with a megaton shipment of cometary ice had suffered a catastrophic braking failure coming down from orbit and accelerated into the landing pad, creating a shockwave that nearly brought the spaceport tumbling down. Mialo had fortuitously been in an office in the security area receiving some routine immunizations for new arrivals, and nowhere near the outer walls or windows, and when he staggered to his feet he rushed out to find a scene out of a disaster vid, with wounded and confused Carggite travelers everywhere. He couldn't help everyone get to a safer location in the confusion, with many deafened from the blast and some panicking dangerously, and so he began just grabbing people and fusing them into himself, growing stronger with every Carggite absorbed. The smaller percentage of visiting non-Carggites, he rounded up as best he could, using his authority as an SP Officer to get people moving, and his own unique talents to just gather up injured or shell-shocked Carggites by absorbing him.

By the time he reached the security doors exiting that wing of the spaceport, he found the way blocked by a panicky crowd, all pounding on the exit doors, which were jammed by the structural warpage to the buildings superstructure. He took a deep breath and barreled into the crowd, and had absorbed over thirty Carggites by the time he reached the doors, with the strength of a hundred men, the doors came unstuck readily, and the rag-tag group of non-Carggites followed him to safety. Once in a safe area, emergency teams were puzzled by the small numbers of 'survivors,' and feared the worst, until Malo exhaled and released his 'cargo' of Carggites, tumbling out of him by the dozens, coughing and reeling from the after-effects of the explosion. He passed out, to learn later that the building behind him had been slowly filling with toxic fumes from the crashed ship, and that if he hadn't cleared the wing, every single person would have died…

And so a hero was born. Mialo still works for the SP, but also has a 'superhero' codename, which translates to ‘Fusion.’

For her part, Wiona is happy for her brother, to have found such a great use for his ability, but has zero interest in letting a dozen or more strangers rent time in her body. She's currently mid-term with her first child, and finds having *one* tiny person stuck inside her and affecting her body and mood to be just about all the 'sharing' she can stand!

Oh hey, Appelaxians are a thing!

*

The Forever Queen. Earth Empress. Eternal Sovereign of the Appelaxian Empire. Only a select group on Earth even know of the Appelaxian known as The Ice-Queen, and her vast palace of ever-changing ice deep in the mountains of Antarctica. She has been the titular ruler of Earth for 200 years, and yet almost nobody on Earth, outside of the highest levels of government, and a dedicated diplomatic corps, even know that she exists. And that's how everyone likes it!

The Forever Queen is the only Appelaxian to maintain rulership of an entire world, her people having fallen far in their endless squabbling, having devastated every other world they once ruled, leaving them blasted wastelands, haunted by their eternally warring 'rulers,' who once numbered in the hundreds, but now may only linger in the dozens, scattered across a half-dozen barren worlds ruined by their presence. Only Earth remains pristine, a jewel in their once-vast Empire, and the Earth Empress takes great pains to ensure that it remains so, with a hands-off policy that forbids other Appelaxians from encroaching on her sovereign domain. She allows her fellow Appelaxians to believe that she rules the Earth with an iron hand, in the way of her people, but has taken great pains to conceal her presence from the people of Earth, with only a small cadre of diplomats, unknown to even some Earthgov presidents, and most senators, shuttling to her ice-fastness to place documents before her for her signature. She does not bother to read them, because she cares nothing for the minutae of governance, saying that it bores her and is for minions and bureacrats, trained in such bean-counting tedium, to deal with. In truth, she is wily, with centuries of experience, and has been playing a long game exceedingly well, convincing her fractious people that the Earth is her domain, and outside of their reach, preserving it for herself, while convincing the few humans who even know of her existence that she's a doddering old alien, willingly accepting an empty title as a pretense, and nothing more.

She sees it as the best of both worlds. She has the title, the castle, the fawning sycophants, and yet also the anonymity that protects her from revolution or strife, as well as none of the boring responsibilities of rulership that, truth be told, her people have spectacularly failed at, time and again.

In the nature of her people, she has incarnated in an elemental substance, in her case, water ice. She can manifest as a walking glacier, but instead chooses a humanoid form, coldly beautiful, and four meters tall, the better to tower over the humans who come to play the charade of attending their 'queen.' The secret core of diplomats that work in her ice-castle she transforms temporarily into living ice, although she rarely controls them directly, saving that for reminding a mouthy lesser of their 'proper place,' and that, in her presence, their free will is utterly at her discretion! When their term is up, she reverts them to flesh and blood, and they leave her presence, all memory of their time working with the 'Queen of Earth' frozen so deep within their mind that they remember nothing unless they return for another tour, at which point she 'thaws' the crystal memories so that they do not have to relearn how best to curry her favor, which they do in diverse ways, from long-winded technical reports on the financial activities of 'her subjects' (which she finds endlessly fascinating, until she suddenly finds it irritating and sends them scurrying with her displeasure), to bizarre pageants, masquerade balls and plays staged for her entertainment.

The covert agency that trains these diplomats, and keeps this great secret, does so in the knowledge that the charade protects the Earth from the ravages of the rest of the Appelaxian race, each a walking catastrophe capable of transforming and enslaving thousands, perhaps millions, individually, who would descend upon the Earth en masse if they ever thought the Ice-Queen to have lost her grip on the world.

And so the long game continues...

Moar Carggites! (Kinda)

The Carggite crime-fighting duo of Hither and Yon do not share their fellow citizens gift for triplication, being instead a speedster (Hither) and a teleporter (Yon), and, unbeknownst to the world, half-sisters!

A few decades back, an Imskian named Sek Sikkai working at the embassy on Cargg got a little too 'friendly with the natives' and got multiple Carggite ladyfriends in the family way, which, since he had convinced them both that they were 'an exclusive thing' became a bit of a scandal. He was recalled to Imsk and is still not allowed off-planet, having already given the world's embassy enough of an embarassment.

Back on Cargg, the two very different women went about very different lives, and it was only recently that their daughters reconnected and bonded through the sordid details of their shared paternity, and it's unique effects. The Carggite and Imskian natural abilities to triplicate and shrink did not 'play well' in these two girls, expressing as very different abilities.

Hither, real name Forah Shakar, a tall strong woman with a lean runner's build, dark skin and a shaven head, in her costumed identity (she wears a 'living wig' cloned from her own pate with an outrageous bushy 'natural' hairstyle when in her public persona as Forah), developed the ability to shunt the forces attempting to either reduce or multiply herself into bursts of acceleration, which threw her about uncontrollably (and dangerously!) as a child, but she has refined after years of training, and expensive medical enhancements, to allow her to move and run at superhuman speed. Her mother, her biggest booster and acting as manager and 'person in the chair' for both young women, researched and refined various medical procedures once used to strengthen spacefarers bodies against organ-bruising bursts of acceleration to help her body survive it's own powers. Forah takes her privacy (and that of her mother) seriously, and uses what little (unknown publically) Imskian talent she possesses to appear a few centimeters visibly shorter when 'heroing,' to further obscure her true identity.

Yon, real name Beatti To, a shorter woman with features indicating Earth-Asian descent, and a trademark asymmetrical bob, can slowly teleport to anywhere she can see, as long as at least a small opening allows her access to that area. It takes her a second to both fully dematerialize from her current location, and fully appear at her destination, and, for that moment of time, she is in both places at the same time, ever-so-briefly sharing her mother's Carggite ability to self-replicate. Her mother is far less involved in 'the girls' super-powered antics, running her own morning show that has many thousands of local viewers, and being unwilling to put her career on hold to deal with her daughters activities. She and Fora's mother get along poorly, as she dismisses the other woman's involvement in her child's affairs as a desperate attempt at remaining (or becoming) relevant by vicariously living in her daughters shadow. She is aware that she also is considered to be neglecting her own daughter, conversely, and so everyone concerned is content with the two avoiding each other...


Yes, my quirky affection for 'paired names' like Cloak & Dagger or Hue & Cry strikes again! It's Hither & Yon! And their real names include To and Fro! And their absentee schmuck dad is named 'Sexy Guy!' And despite being half-Carggite and half-Imskian, neither can triplicate or (significantly) shrink, but they do have powers that kinda/sorta relate to those abilities.

I am just catching up on your last bunch of guys, Set - you always do good worldbuilding stuff, I like the thought that has gone into Geequoan society.

I LOVE Olympian The idea of a Durlan who is actually a bit crap at shapeshifting but uses the weapons from those guys in that annual (I think it was an annual?) that one time seems to really suit the Legion's universe.

I also really dig Fusion and the Forever Queen; a secret ruler of Earth is a very Warren Ellis thing, I could see her happily existing in Stormwatch or something similar.

Thanks! The Ice-Queen and Fusion are definite favorites. I love the idea of an Appelaxian's technically 'ruling' Earth, but not being bothered with the minutiae of the task, making it almost irrelevant (and carefully kept secret from the general populace, since it's kind of the intergalactic conqueror version of a 'political marriage' that mostly exists only on paper).

Olympian and Amazon were just bits inspired by reading what little information was available on the Geequoans and that annual with the Durlans pretending to be the Greek/Roman gods. I kinda wish the writers had gone more into depth with the 'gods' in that story, to give some hints as to what sort of tech they had. A water-shaping, earth-quaking trident for 'Poseidon/Neptune?' A force-field generating shield for 'Athena/Miverva?' A heat-generating forge-hammer for 'Hephaestus/Vulcan?' There's a ton of possibilities.

Ella Gom of Xanthu

Ella was born on Dollworld, but her parents migrated to Xanthu when she was a child.

As a young girl, inspired by the Uncanny Amazers, Ella sought some method of obtaining super-powers. She managed to acquire a sample of the bio-elasticizing serum which gave Chuck Taine his powers, as well as a supply of concentrated extract of gingold. (as used by Ralph Dibny and Jimmy Olsen in the 2Oth century)

Ella, in her natural form, is only three feet tall, and weighs just 22 lbs. (10 kg) Her powers enable her to elongate her body, or any part of it, to fifty times its natural length, but with increasing attenuation of diameter. Due to her regular association with larger-sized individuals, she generally maintains a stretched-out appearance of between five and six feet in height-- while still retaining her 10kg mass.

She is also able to reduce her size by half, to a mere 18 inches (45cm), forming her body into a spongey, super-elastic near-spherical shape. In this form she is able to replicate Bouncing Boy’s abilities, achieving velocities of one-hundred-fifty miles per hour. (Mach-speed-point-two)
(I realize that Bouncing Boy is sometimes depicted as inflating, rather than shrinking, into his spherical form, but this is how Ella's powers work.)

Initially calling herself Rubberdoll, she changed her name after learning of the lewd connotations of that name. She took the names Skinny Girl and Elastica, finally settling on Elastic Ella. Since joining the Uncanny Amazers, most people just call her Ella.

Ella’s elastic body gives her a certain resilience, which results in a robustness against physical attack. In addition, she has an ‘elastic punch’, which uses some of the force of her body’s compression and extension, making her more powerful than one would expect for such a small person.

Her costume is usually a simple jumpsuit-and-boots affair, but she has worn several different styles, mostly in single pastel colors. She did have one hideous lavender-on-the-right-side, white-on-the-left-side outfit, but she only ever wore it once.

10) Rog-Jer of Krypton

Krypton had been at peace, a united society for many centuries. Until Thir-El, a brilliant, eloquent and charismatic historian, organized a large following among a minority of Krypton’s inhabitants. Having researched the ancient arts of war, he launched an insurrection against the United Krypton, in an effort to have himself as installed as supreme ruler.

The Kryptonian Police Force, the closest thing Krypton had to an army, was completely overwhelmed by armed, well-trained militias opposing them. Ordinary citizens volunteered, or were drafted, into an opposing army, but being basically a peace-loving people, they were ineffective in fighting for their freedoms.
The Science Council undertook a technological solution. A device was created which, with accompanying biochemical treatments, would allow a Kryptonian to be empowered by the sub-yellow radiation of distant stars. However, the treatment proved mostly ineffective, except on one man: a scrawny, but altruistic fellow named Rog-Jer.

Clothing him in a costume based on the flag of Krypton, Rog-Jer became a powerful force against the insurrectionists, as well as an inspiration to the Kryptonians themselves. Thir-El was eventually brought to justice, and imprisoned in the Phantom Zone.

Rog-Jer went down in history as Captain Krypton.

Ooh, Krypton (and Daxam), planets important to the UP that I tend to forget all about! Nice!

Captain Krypton's actually a pretty cool name, but that flag, wow.

Kryptonian traits - flight, super-strength, invulnerability, telescopic vision, X-ray vision, heat vision, super-speed, super-cold breath, fashion disaster*...

*blinds and disorients foes with garish outfits

Well, I didn’t design the Kryptonian flag. See HERE for more than you will ever want to know about the Flag of Krypton.

Haven't really thought Captain Krypton through completely. I imagine him from some time in the distant past… Krypton had a high-functioning technological society and a unified planetary government for some ten millenia. Possibly the Phantom Zone was not in use at the time, so maybe a different fate for Thir-El.

If we apply the Silver-Age principles, Captain Krypton’s flight, speed, and strength powers (including super-breath) would be limited by Krypton’s high gravity.

On the other hand, super-senses, super-intelligence, invulnerability and heat vision are purely yellow-solar-radiation powers.

So, maybe the strength and agility on the level of say, Spiderman. No anti-gravity powers. Full invulnerability, though.

Doomed sidekicks, girlfriends or spouse, what he did after the war, how he might show up in the 31st century… all are possibilities.

Enemy of the People of Mars

As the end of the 28th century approached, Earth was in the midst of World War VI. The planet was in despair. Both sides’ positions were inflexible and uncompromising. Greater and deadlier weapons were being created on a regular basis. Whole cities were laid waste. It seemed the war would never end until all life on Earth had been exterminated.

The war spread to the new Terran colonies on Mars, Venus, and Titan. The colonist chose sides: despite their conviction that victory-- indeed, survival itself-- seemed a lost hope.

Popular songs of sorrow, lamentation, and existential despair filled the airwaves, reflecting the mood of the times.

But there was one young Martian girl who spoke up against the war.

Beginning her broadcasts and podcasts at thirteen, her message of peace was not new. Her eloquence and emotional conviction, however, had never been heard before on the Earth.

Life is better than death. Every person has a right to live in peace. There are never any true winners in war. Love your fellowmen. These sentiments were not new. But gradually, people who heard the young girl began to believe-- even internalize them.

Sometime after she had turned seventeen, after four years of broadcasts, books, and interviews, it happened.

Two armies faced one another on the battlefield, put down their weapons, and walked away. Even the commanders gave up the fight.

In occupied cities, foreign soldiers took off their uniforms, and disappeared into the native populations. Indigent families, who had had no food yesterday, could be seen eating military rations today. Children who had been dressed in rags a week before, were now seen wearing clothing made from the day-glo orange and indigo uniforms of their former conquerors.

Alarmed at the power of her message, the authorities jailed her, and attempted to silence her. But still her message leaked out to all sides. Decried as the “Enemy of the People” by both sides, it was less than two years later that a Universal Armistice was declared, Peace Treaties were signed, and a concrete path to an United Earth was agreed upon.

One year following the last treaty, the “Enemy of the People” was approached by her closests friends and followers. It was suggested that there be some sort of celebration of the New Peace that had fallen upon the Earth, Mars, Venus, and Titan.

“Not Peace,” said the “Enemy of the People”. “This is something the Worlds have never known before. A new determination to live together as a human family, without war, and without discord. Something else else beyond Peace-- something for which there is not even a word.”

“Then what shall we call it?” they asked.

“Call it… Klordny,” was the answer. “And it should be a weeklong festival of feasting, dancing and wild partying, honoring this new Klordny, and Freedom and Friendship.”

The young girl’s name was Eris Frunt. She lived or a ripe old age, into the last quarter of the 29th century.

Thus the ritual Klordny toast of: “To Freedom, Friendship, and Frunt!".

Pete Seeger

This was excellent, thanks Klar

TAR AND FEATHERS OF RIMBOR

Tar is Joey Monteleone, of 21st-century Earth, a small-time crook who discovered he had the metahuman ability to psychically inhabit inanimate objects. When he animated a vat of asphalt, he ‘got stuck’, and was unable to return to his human body.
By the early 22nd century, Joey’s human form had aged away, but his consciousness still inhabited in the entity he had named ‘Tar Pit’. From this he assumed that, if he was careful, he was of potentially unlimited life-span.
With the advent of space travel, Joey journeyed out into the greater Galaxy, seeking alien life forms which he might resemble, and possibly live among. Facing an unending future as the only one of his kind filled him with a dreadful loneliness.
Tar’s physical body is a mixture of hydrocarbons and free carbon, sticky, black, viscous semi-liquid substance. In order to obtain full mobility, he must maintain his body temperature at 650°F. As this causes the tar to burn, he must regularly replenish his body mass. This is not unlike ordinary humans eating. However, as tar comes from many sources, and he does not metabolize the materials he adds to his body, Tar’s specific composition can change over time.
He was never successful in finding intelligent tar-like alien life-forms, but eventually settled on Rimbor, the most diverse planet in the United Planets, where he would not stand out so much.
While there, the met another Earthling:

Riel was born in a hidden area of 31st-century Earth called New Feithera in what was once Kahndaq. New Feithera is inhabited by a variety of mutant Terrans with various bird-like characteristics, including bills, wings, and feathers.
It is possible that they are related to the bird-people who inhabit (or inhabited) one of the islands near Themyscira.
(The fact that they are mutant human beings is evidenced by the ease with which they mate and reproduce with ordinary humans.)
Unique among the members of her race, Riel has the ability to fire her razor-sharp feathers like darts, in a manner similar to Dartalon’s and Porcupine Pete’s qulls. (Although with finer control than Pete.)
She left Feithera and Earth for Rimbor, eventually taking a job as a private Enforcer-- the closest thing the mostly-lawless world has to the a police force.
(There are, of course, United Planets Science Police stationed on Rimbor to enforce the UP codes, but no one on Rimbor really takes them seriously.)
Taking the name Feathers, she is respected and feared for her no-nonsense, business-like, and sometimes vicious demeanor.
Seeing great potential in Tar, she recruited him into her Agency, and the two now work together enforcing contracts for Rimboran entrepreneurs.

Ooh, a far future Feithera! Very cool!

And I love the 'Cloak & Dagger' naming convention, so Tar & Feathers is fun!

I had a whole bunch of characters written up for the last try-out story I did in my fanfic (all of whom are based on the reader suggestions from BITS), but I never actually got to use most of them in my fic and I don't know if they'll get another shot so I thought I might as well put em up here

NIGHT OWL
Daani Hollis-Mason grew up on Earth hearing family legends of her ancestor, the famous 20th century crimefighter known as Night Owl. According to the stories handed down from generation to generation through the Hollis-Mason clan, the original Night Owl had preceded the Golden Age of Heroes that saw such iconic figures as Superman, Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman enter Earth's history books. He'd been a superbly athletic genius on par with the later Batman, and no criminal escaped his wrath. The only problem with the grand legend of this Night Owl was that nobody else had ever heard of him. Outside of her own family's anecdotes, there was no record of a man named Daniel Hollis pursuing a double-life as Night Owl in any historical record whatsoever.

In truth, many of Daani's family saw the stories of Night Owl as a kind of quirky family fairytale with no truth to it; Daani however thought differently. With so much of Earth's recorded history lost to the wars of the past, she was convinced that her ancestor had been a real hero anyway and she was inspired to follow his example. While she was not at all a superb athlete, Daani had become quite the accomplished student of genetics by the time she turned 16 and she decided that her mind could compensate for the failings of her thin underdeveloped body. Daani designed a series of treatments based on the works of Dr Mar Londo and Dr Edmon Jath among others, a highly illegal practice on Earth. Nonetheless, she underwent genetic resequencing, and after three days of the most intense agony she'd ever endured Daani Hollis-Mason emerged a new woman. Daani found that she was approximately twice as strong and agile as a normal Terran adult, and her sense of sight had also been enhanced. She could now easily discern complicated visual details up to 700 feet away, but more impressively she'd accidentally activated a latent metagene which gave her the ability to see in total darkness and to create a field of impenetrable darkness up to 20 feet in diameter.

Excited to finally realise her dream Night Owl donned the flight-capable costume she'd already designed and rushed to the next Legion of Superheroes tryout. She was disappointed when she never even made it to the tryout stage, but even more so when she realised how many of her peers had been turned away because their powers simply duplicated those of an existing Legionnaire. Daani was idealistic, but she was also smart enough to realise that as it stood currently she had nothing to offer the Legion that Shadow Lass or Shadow Lad couldn't do better. Her bad luck continued when she went home and heard that the Science Police had begun investigating her recent work. Daani knew it would only be a matter of time till she was charged with genetic tampering, so she resolved to leave Earth till the heat simmered down a little and in the process to gain enough experience to make her a valuable asset to the Legion of Superheroes. She drifted aimlessly for a while and somehow eventually fell into a job playing tour guide for high-paying visitors to the infamous Monster World.

At first Daani was dismayed that her dream had come to this, but it didn't take her long to figure out this was actually a great way for her to gain experience dealing with exotic threats while also making contacts who might be useful to her at some point when she does decide to introduce Night Owl, the Heroine of Monster World to the wider UP.

Ooh, very cool. I always liked the two-fisted adventurer with a darkness gimmick so common to pulps (and as Justice Society members), like Dr. Midnite or Phantom Lady or, yes, Shadow Lass. It's a great equalizer, being able to blind your foes and yet see clearly yourself!

I have always liked darkness powers...I can understand the logic behind it, but I was kinda disappointed when they made Umbra's darkfields more like darkforce from the Marvel Universe than just plain lack of light. I would have preferred they just kept her being a kickass fighter who had to use her power in clever ways...though no doubt if I was playing Tasmia in a roleplaying game I'd be BEGGING my gamemaster to let me make her power offensive at some point hahaha

Anyway, here's a guy who's definitely not just Cypher from the New Mutants transplanted into the 31st century

LANGUAGE LAD
Sal Klare was a bright young Xanthui boy who took naturally to the military training that all Xanthui natives begin at the age of 6. He was at the top of his class in physical disciplines, though it became apparent early on that his real gift was academic. Sal wanted nothing more than to advance in the ranks of his homeworld’s military, but his homeworld had other ideas. Thanks to his extraordinary talent in advanced mathematics and various sciences Sal was sent at the age of 12 to live and work on the prestigious Kallor Observatory with Star Boy’s parents. While he was disappointed at not being able to follow his dream of military service, Sal nonetheless pledged to do his homeworld proud. He earned a reputation on board the spacefaring observatory as an attentive and reliable worker, and when the Kallors discovered a dying star designated NM13-1984 which was releasing oddly timed neutrino pulses they brought Sal in on their research team to investigate. Sal gave the job his normal dedicated approach, and he was the first one to come to the conclusion that the star was actually sentient and trying to communicate. With the help of his more experienced team Sal designed a program to interpret and talk back to the star, but nobody could have predicted what would happen next.

Upon successful contact, the sentient star bypassed the Kallor Observatory’s neutrino radio altogether and bathed Sal Klare himself in a directed pulse of exotic radiation. He barely survived the process and had to be sent back to Xanthu for immediate medical attention. Sal was in a coma for seven months, and when he finally awoke he had some crazy half-remembered stories to tell about a race of sentient stars which had lived for tens of billions of years before dying out; as far as NM13-1984 knew, it was the last of its kind and was nearing the end of its days. Sadly, the neutrino pulses had stopped just before Sal had regained consciousness so it was assumed that the star had suffered the equivalent of brain death.

Sal’s star-memories faded over the next few weeks, but one odd souvenir remained; NM13-1984 had changed the boy’s brain somehow so that he could intuitively comprehend any form of communication. After everything he’d experienced, Sal couldn’t go back to a normal life. Calling himself Language Lad, he applied for membership with Xanthu’s most celebrated heroes the Uncanny Amazers but Atmos rejected him without even granting him a meeting. Language Lad next used his income replacement credits to make the journey to try out for the Legion of Superheroes, but they couldn’t see how his translation power would be of sufficient benefit to them either. Where Language Lad goes from here remains to be seen.

Yeah, while the 'darkness constructs' power is way more useful, I have a soft spot for the 'mere' Lights Out Lass version of Tasmia. One way to make it *slightly* more team-friendly would be to give her the ability to animate a field off darkness and make it cling, skin-tight, to another person or their face, selectively blinding them without hampering her teammates. It would still be intangible, so the target couldn't just reach up and rip it off, and it would 'ride' them around, so they couldn't dash out of it.



Woah, that's a super-awesome backstory and bit of world-building there! And tying in Thom's parents was also very cool! I love it, even if his power isn't exactly ready for prime-time yet.

Further developments leading to a sort of 'cosmic awareness' as he taps into the vast ancient knowledge of the stars, or linguistically-related, the ability to talk to others and be perfectly understood even if they don't speak any language he knows in a sort of 'universal language,' or to even speak in such a way as to be instantly obeyed (speaking in such a way as to convince their nerves it's the hearers own brain 'speaking' to them!), or to speak in such a way as to befuddle the language centers of another person and cause a 'Babel effect' where they can no longer understand anything or communicate intelligibly (temporary aphasia), could be ways to go, if you felt the need to advance his powers.

I actually thought Shady was gonna go in that direction after the fight with the Persuader in the Lady Memory story where she shot darkness through the eye slits of his armour but I don't remember her doing anything that cool ever again.

re: Language Lad - thanks! It's funny how ideas develop, after I finished writing that I was like wow okay I really wanna use him now

Didn't Doug Ramsey of the New Mutants have more or less the same power as Language Lad?

Yep! I figured I might as well lean into it cuz it's a unique enough power that you'd naturally think of Doug anyway so I kinda made him a homage. His real name Sal Klare is taken from Doug's creators (Sal Buscema and Chris Claremont), the star is named after the issue where Doug first appeared (New Mutants #13 from 1984) and like Doug his introduction to being a superhero came from being asked to communicate with an alien life form