Amalgamated Knock-Offs

[Nucleon]

I'm starting off a new campaign and, althought I (and some others) made a very intricate universe since 1979 (pre-HERO...), I decided to create a new setting, lighter in tone (a bit DCesque modern art deco), that will feature parodies and amalgams of existing heros everybody know and love.

 

So Nucleon is fishing for Ideas. Here are some exemples of those He had so far.

 

Patriot; Steve Jordan is a freelance illustrator whose ascetism, leadership and ideals made him the latest bearer of the famed Bands of Power from an enigmatic, universal Corps. He founded the famous Avenging League of America.

 

Dark Knight; Bruce Stark lost both his family and usage of his legs in a terrorist act some years ago. From that day on, this thecnological billionaire secretly dons a modern armor (that grants him back freedom of movement) and use it to do a grim war on criminals. To this purpose, he recently co-founded the ALA.

 

Poseidon; While doing researches in the Mediteranean, American Scientist Arthur Blake uncovered a trident that appeared to be a direct channel to a Divinity no one beleived existed. Physically powerful behond measure, he can now control storms and marine wildlife as the mighty Poseidon, Lord of the Seas. As time goes on, Blake soon gives more and more to a Immortal mindset, detaching him further and further from is land-based root, including the ALA in which he was a founding member.

 

Hey, enough of me yet.

 

Fire Away!

[dbsousa]

Captain Arachnid: When Peter Batson got lost on a field trip to the Museum of Natural History, an old African shaman working as a janitor showed him an ancient spider totem hidden in storage. On it was engraved the word ANANSI The old wizard implored Peter to speak the world aloud. Peter complied and felt a strange spirit overtake him. Before his own eyes he transformed into an adult with the powers of Anansi, the Spider-trickster of African legend. Donning a Red and Blue costume, he swings through the urban jungle as Captain Arachnid...

[Hermit]

Another one maybe?

 

Scarlet Oracle -Wanda Gordon was the daughter of a police commisioner, and grew up in a city with quite a lot of super action, never knowing who her mother was. More than once, her endangered father was 'luckily' rescued by a super hero who just happened to show up at the right time. Especially when Wanda was filled with worry. As she continued to grow up, more good things happened to her, and bad things to those who threatened her loved ones. Wanda eventually realized she had some sort of subconcious psychic power that affected probability. Eager to get into the action of super heroing, she was instead directed away from it by other heroes who didn't want her hurt. Frustrated, she decieded to help them in a different way. Hacking into the computers of police and other forces, she began to annoymously help crimefighters not only in her own city, but the country. When it comes to computers, she's among the best... she always seems to 'guess' the right password on the first try. How long she'll be content staying in the background remains to be seen.

 

Additional Note: Wanda has discovered that her long lost mother maybe none other than the notorious villainess Magna Star.

[Nucleon]

Magna Star?

 

Nucleon is somehow curious about this one. If you consent to elaborate, He shall be Pleased indeed.

[Supreme]

The Green Marvel

Anita Jordan (sorry, can't remember Photon's secret ID) was one of the little-known Mercury 13 (an actualy cadre of female pilots who were part of the early space-flight tests of the Mercury Program of the 50s) pilots. A near miss with a UFO over Roswell, NM lead to Anita's only crash. Anita bailed out in time. Investigating the UFO on foot, Anita met up with the dying alien. Anita tried to save the creature, but lacked the equipment and knowledge of the alien's physiology. Still, inspired by the attempt to save someone who she not only knew, but engandered her life, the Alien (Abin-Vell) used his technology to endow Anita with the ability to assume a green light-form body possess of several marvelous powers (energy projector stuff with a conditional desolid-based defense).

[Lord Liaden]

Devil and Angel. Matthew Wayne was the son of a highly successful defense attorney. Curious and mischevious, his widower father often teased Matt with having "the devil" in him. When Matt was a young boy, his father accepted a client accusing a large company of dumping toxic waste into a residential water supply. One night his father got a tip that clandestine dumping would occur and slipped out of the house to obtain the proof that would clinch his case. Curious Matt hid in his father's car to tag along. The elder Wayne was discovered and murdered by thugs in the company's employ, who dumped the body in a tank of waste to dispose of it. Matt attempted to pull his father's body out of the tank, but exposure to the mix of chemicals blinded the boy. With no other living relatives, his father's client Alfred Nelson adopted Matt. The courts eventually ruled in favor of the company, and Matt's testimony about his father's murder was discounted since he could no longer identify the killers.

 

Matt discovered that although they had robbed him of his sight, the chemicals had vastly enhanced his other senses. He began to obsessively train himself in crime-fighting techniques, and later pursued a career as an attorney like his father. He adopted a frightening costumed identity based on his father's nickname for him: "Devil".

 

In one early case, Devil attempted to rescue an ambassador and her teen-aged daughter from political assassins. He succeeded in saving the girl, Selina Natchios, but her mother was killed. Falling in love with her, Matt Wayne helped Selina bring her mother's killers to justice, later training her to be his partner in crime-fighting, under the identity of "Angel".

 

(BTW although I didn't use the amalgamated names, I did run Devil and Angel as NPCs in a Dark Champions campaign.)

[SuperPheemy]

Thunder God: Called by many names throughout the ages, this deity has returned to Earth upon witnessing the emergence of super-powered beings. However, the Omniscient has charged Thunder God with a twofold purpose. On one hand, he is to resume his role as a divine power to inspire and lead the mortals of earth, yet he is to live among them as a mortal to better understand their condition. Thus, the Thunder God has two bodies, his divine warrior form, and his mortal seeming, David Batson a documentarian who produces programms on Mythology for the History Channel.

[Hermit]

Sure thing... a bit long

 

Originally posted by Nucleon

Magna Star?

 

Nucleon is somehow curious about this one. If you consent to elaborate, He shall be Pleased indeed.

 

 

 

Magna Star- Carol Gordon was a happily married woman and mother of a beautiful baby daughter. None of this really slowed her down much from her obligations of running the city's airport. When rumors of a metorite landing near it reached her ears, she went out to investigate. What she found wasn't a rock of the normal sort, but a strange glowing sapphire, already cut, and unharmed by the heat of re-entry. Not knowing what drew her to do so, she reached forward and plucked the gem up.

 

Instantly she was filled with knowledge and power both. The gem was a device constructed by the ancient alien race of Suparons. This stone contained their society's ideals of leadership, ethics, and morality. As Carol placed it upon her brow, she was overwhelmed by the conflict between the utopian ideals and visions of this race, and the ugly reality on her own planet. Some say it drove her mad, but she would claim it made it see things all too clearly. Terrans always warred, always fought among themselves, they hated each other with disgusting passion. They understood only force. She would have to take over and MAKE this world the paradise it should be.

 

Using her new electro magnetic powers to assemble a costume reminicent of the leaders of Supar; she went forth to conquer. She dubbed herself Magna Star and never went home again.

[Redmenace]

Appologies in advance

 

 

Norseman- Knowing that the prophesied day of Ragnarok approached, Father of the Gods Jodin sent his infant son Thor to Midgard. There his Godly parentage would make him like a giant before the skraelings of Earth.

 

Faster than a speeding bullet train.

Stronger than a thousand trolls.

Able to leap vast Fjords in a single bound.

 

 

 

Midknight- Mercenary Wayne Spector, Detective Bruce Franco, Cab driver Mark "Matches" Malone, and the mysteryman known only as the Midknight, four personalities all residing in the troubled mind of one man. After seeing his parents gunned down before him, Wayne Spector's mind fractured into four personas. Each distinctly different yet obsessed by the same goal, to wage war on the underworld. (Batman-Moonknight)

 

 

The Unknown Four- Dr. Charles Challenger had once again talked his best friend, fiancé' and her bratty brother into trying one of his experiments, but this time the Crazy thing actually worked.

 

After beating the commies to be the first explores to reach the Earth's core, the four returned each horribly disfigured but possessed of new and unheard of powers.

 

Now as Dr Challenge, Slab, the Invincible Girl and the Flaming Youth, (mea Culpa, I'm sorry), they explore new dimensions, defend the earth from strange menaces and desperately try to reverse the process that transformed them.

 

 

Cyber Man Promising young athlete Victor Stark came back from Viet Nam without his legs and with a jagged piece of shrapnel inoperably close to his heart. Bitterness and self pity drove him to the bottle. Something within him, however, would not die. Throwing himself into College studies he drove himself to become the greatest engineer of the age. With the aid of his self designed, prosthetic power armour he fights for those who cannot defend themselves.

 

 

Penny Arcade- Originally a spoiled Beverly Hills princess, Quinn Harlin murdered her parents after being told they were cutting off her trust fund. Free to explore her twin passions of homicide and prop comedy by combining them in the creation of her Murderdrome amusement park, the bloodiest place on Earth.(Harly Quinn and Arcade

 

 

Toysmith Originally a cybernetic engineer, the man who would become the toysmith was killed by a scheming rival who wished to steal his designs. Somehow his mind become one with the companies super computer. He found he could control any machine connected to it thus granting him access to both the Toy factory and Army advanced weapons development project.

 

At his whim, the toysmith unleashes his lethal playthings, green plastic, life sized and lethal army men, radio controlled armoured cars and worse. (Toyman-Machinesmith)

 

 

Thanoseid- He is the embodiment of the shadow in all men's hearts existing for one purpose, to extinguish the flame of life in the universe. From his lunar base Necropolypse, in orbit around Saturn, he sends out his Paragod minions to attack Earth while he works to complete his panthanatic equation.

 

 

Gammazon- Bathed in purple radiation during a Gamma Ray Laser test at while investigating sexual discrimination at the Citadel military academy, judge advocate general linda Banner became a high energy heroine.

[Nucleon]

A coupla more...

 

(My first post was quite lacking in the femina departement...)

 

Sprite; Dinah Van Dyne may seem a jetsetting socialite but in fact, she is the leather-clad mutant Sprite. Closely related to birds, she can shrink to an incredible tiny size, making her able to fly and to cast devastating sonic "stings". She too is a founding member of the ALA .

 

Scarlet Priestess; Paradisiac Island of Symkaria' envoy to the outside world to teach values of art and beauty, Diana Maximoff is perpetually surrounded by the "hex" energies that keep her Island concealed, making this Sword and Shield warrior maiden a very potent threat for evil -and machist wrongdoers. (Yeah, granted, this is second to Hermit's Scarlet Oracle...)

[Nucleon]

Say, Redmenace, those were good. I especially liked Gammazon. Mind if I burrow it? Thanks.

 

[Killer Shrike]

Grindstone: Solomon Cain-Nelson, step brother to Professor M the famed mystic master, was with his step father Ryan 'Arkansas' Nelson and his weakling step brother Charles when they found an ancient crypt in the Sudan, containing fascinating artifacts including a very strange apparatus that looked like a stone exoskeleton. Solomon stepped into the exoskeleton causing 4things to happen; 1st the trapped crypt collapsed upon him, killing him instantly, 2nd the collapse also crushed his step father to death, 3rd the exoskeleton conformed magically to his body, permanantly bonding itself with him and 4th crushed another artifact which released a powerful extraplanar entity called Dabu from a trap it had been caught in for several Millenia. Solomon was stuck below the rubble for a decade and believed dead. However, somehow the magic of the strange armor animated the corpse or arrested the release of Solomons soul.

 

The armor grants the Undead Solomon great strength and seemingly complete invulnerability, and the ability to curl into a wheel-like posture so as to inexorably roll forward head over heel. No force on Earth has yet proved strong enough to keep the menace called the Grindstone from rolling forward. Grindstone's immunity extends to Mental attacks, but being a mystical entity, he is vulnerable to magical effects. He is quite possibly unkillable; concerted effort of many heros and expensive containment equipment has been able to capture and imprison him for short periods of time, but he always escapes in the end. He believes that his step brother caused the collapse of the crypt all those years ago and pursues a vendetta against him in between making money as a super criminal for hire. (Solomon Grundy + Juggernaught)

 

 

Professor M:

Charles Nelson was the son of famed archeologist and adventurer Ryan 'Arkansas' Nelson. Charles was always frail and sickly, taking after his mother a noted researcher and cataloger, who died when he was only 5. Ryan dragged his dissapointing son from dig to dig, and eventually remarried when Charles was 16. His new wife, Shannon Cain, had the seeming of an angel but in reality was a cold manipulator who was only after Ryan's estate. As luck would have it she was killed by a booby trap on a dig in the lower Nile basin, leaving Ryan straddled with 2 kids he didnt know how to take care of. Though Shannon's son Solomon was not his own, Ryan tended to favor the fearless, impetuous, and physically-oriented Solomon over the bookish, often ill Charles.

 

A year later Ryan got a tip about a lost tomb or crypt somewhere in the Sudan rumored to have great treasure, so off they went to find it. They found the crypt, but the impetuous Solomon set off a trap which collapsed the structure and struck Ryan dead. Charles had remained outside the crypt due to his allergies (and general cowardice). When the crypt collapsed, a mystical entity known as Dabu, a Lord of Order, was released from a dimensional trap it had been caught in for 3 millenia. Weakened by its long imprisonment, Dabu entered the weak body of the only human within 50 miles, that of Charles, and partially possessed him. Dabu used some of his magical powers to enhance the weak form of the boy sufficiently to escape the hinterlands for more civilized locales. Charles inherited his father's considerable estate, and under Dabu's urgings retired to an extended mansion located near Syracuse NY that Ryan had won in a high stakes poker game many years before.

 

There Dabu harbored its energies and practiced its arts through its mortal host until after a decade it had accumulated sufficient strength to return to the other planes. However, blessed with a scholarly intellect and an Edetic Memory, and altered forever by his association with such a powerful entity, Charles possessed mystic knowledge far surpassing that of most other Earthly magi, and the power to weild it. Fortunately, the kind hearted Charles decided to use his power for good, and in fact soon set up a private school on the grounds of his Syracuse estate and began finding children with mystic capability or talent and arranging for them to be sent to his school where he also teaches them the use of thier arcane abilities. Later he formed some of his older students and outsiders with more developed mystic powers into the Unearthly M-Men to counter the threat posed to the world by Magnifico the Master of Mysticism and his Fraternity of (Evil) Magi.

 

Professor M is perhaps the most powerful magic user on Earth overall, though other individuals exceed his capabilities in specific fashions. For example, Magnifico is less poweral over all than Professor M, but his control over offensive magical force exceeds that shown by the largely pacifistic Professor M. (Professor X + Dr Fate)

[Killer Shrike]

Bump

[ShinDangaioh]

I was going to throw in the Mighty Crusaders, but they have such simplistic names.

 

Fly, Fox, Comet, Jaguar, Shield, Web, Black Hood, Noman

 

I'll do the obvious one. Captain America and Shield

Captain Shield(talk about whitebread)

 

Let's combine the team names.

 

Avenging Crusaders of Justice

[Hermit]

Joker+Red Skull equals

 

Death Head's Grin- Ain't death just funny? come on, it must be, or why else would you be smiling once you removed the fleshy stuff? A nazi scientist didn't always think so. He was humorless, dispasionate. He bore the jews, Gypsies, and others he sliced open no particular hatred... he was a scientist, and, in his heart, a bringer of enlightenment. The secrets of life and death were unraveling every day. Let the war be won or lost; Science would be the victor. What were a few million lives when it meant progress could come forth, not only for weapons, but medicines?

An improvement had already been made on the old mustard gas. A way of stripping the very flesh from the bones. The Death Head's Grin gas was going to win the war.

No less important was the statis serum, a way of suspending cellular activitiy.

That is when those verdammit Allied heroes stormed in, seeking to stop his experiments.. in desperation, he realized the new gas upon them, only to have it blown back his direction... he was dying, his skin peeling from his face in seconds. Desperate, he enjected the Statis Serum straight into his heart.. and.. nothing.

 

The 'heroes' assumed he was dead, and left him for such as they destroyed his lab. Decades passed, and finally, the two warring chemicals seemed to settle on a truce. The corpse opened it's preserved eyes. He explored the new world, and saw only misery, felt only pain. Oh, some subtle, some extreme, but surely death was preferable to this. It was, he thought, very funny. For the first time, he laughed at the ludicrious nature of life and death.

 

Yes, it was time to make some smiling faces. Death Head's Grin was born.

[Twilight]

Just some ideas off the top of my head.

 

Blind Justice: Young Matthew Wayne was a happy child with loving parents. At least he was untill that fateful day when they crossed through an alley as a shortcut when coming home from the movies. They were accosted by thugs and his parents were shot and killed, and young Matthew left for dead. The last thing he ever saw was his parents falling to the ground and laying in a pool of thier own blood.

 

Raised by his family's butler, Matthew's soul cried out for revenge. Unwilling to see his blindness as a handicap, he travelled the world learning all the skills he would need in order to fight his war on crime and searching for ways to overcome his blindness. It wasn't untill he travelled to a monostary in Tibet that he found the answer. Training with the monks there, they taught him thier secrets and he learned techniques to use the full potential of his mind.

 

Returning home, he created the persona of Blind Justice, a mysterious figure that soon became the bane of criminals everywhere. Noted for his seeming ability to appear and disappear at will, his apparent ability to read minds and his chilling laugh.

 

[A mix of Batman and Daredevil, with the Shadow thrown in for extra coolness.]

[Killer Shrike]

Bump--

Lets keep this going; lots of interesting ideas herein

[Hermit]

DNPC anyone?

 

Mary Lane: Known for her distinctive hair style (naturally raven, but she dyes a streak of it a fiery red) Mary Lane is a former model turned fashion reporter. The reason she draws attention is she's an expert on the fashion of super heroes and villains. It's Mary who helps determine who's hot, and who's not in the often spandex clad world. Naturally, a few villains have vowed terrible vengeance on her when they were reviewed unfavorably.

[Smoot]

Wyrd (from a Norse word, meaning both 'strange' and 'fate'): A rune-based sorceror working out of the Northeast. A former surgeon, he took a trip to Scandanavia, where he 'discovered' his powers. (Driving back a rather garish invasion by rock trolls).

 

Back in the US, he shuttles between Massachusetts and New York City -'tamping down' dangerous magical sites like Arkham or Miskatonic with rune stones while in MA, and keeping a townhouse full of artifacts (Like a stone he found near Agamotaway, MA) in the City.

 

Alloy: John Henry "Rhodey" Rhodes, military veteran and former pilot for S.T.A.R.K. Labs, whose life was saved by a flying superhero. Inspired by this, he wears his steel and iron, man-shaped war machine into battle. (The hammer may indicate he was saved by Thor, though accounts differ.)

[Nucleon]

Re: DNPC anyone?

 

Originally posted by Hermit

Mary Lane: ...

 

Arggh! This so so good it actually frustrate Nucleon with Envy!

 

Sentient: It has been found out that the Android called "sentient" is a construct from behond our planet. At first perverted by the ALA's arch-ennemy Ultriac 5, who implanted in him all the personalities of this famed outfit. But the synthezoid acted bravely at the last minute, saving the day. Now itself a memeber of the ALA, Sentient is ever the lonesone, brooding figure who can alter mass and appearance, while having almost mental relationship with machines.

[Klytus]

Originally posted by Smoot

Wyrd (from a Norse word, meaning both 'strange' and 'fate'): A rune-based sorceror working out of the Northeast. A former surgeon, he took a trip to Scandanavia, where he 'discovered' his powers. (Driving back a rather garish invasion by rock trolls).

 

Smoot... this name... this is Inspired. Pure Genious. I am in awe.

 

::bows deeply::

[Smoot]

Thanks!

 

Oh, and how about the campaign world's version of the movie Almost Famous being about an amalgam of Rick Jones and Snapper Carr?

 

"Hulk am a GOLDEN GOD!"

[Hermit]

Mash two aliens together and...

 

Captain Martian

Refusing to take any further part in the genocidal civil war between the greens and the blue skinned people of his home system, Captain Jo'n Mar of the M'ree race went looking for the most remote part of the galaxy he could. He was rather surprised to find a intelligent life on the third planet of the Sol system. Not wanting any trouble, he instead settled for making a habitable home on the fourth planet. There he would have stayed, as a recluse for the rest of his days, if not for the fleet his sensors picked up, and his own conscience.

 

The fleet was intent of invading the 'Earth", and Jo'n Mar realized the primitive planet would have no chance against such superior technology. Sickened by war, he nevertheless rushed to warn the greatest champions of the Earth. His Psychic bands (The most advanced technology his own race had ever devised) took some time to adust, and there were some misunderstandings. The Earthlings at first wondered if the invaders had come from Mars. When he explained that HIS out post was on Mars, they assumed he was a native, and, that with his obvious uniform, he was dubbed "Captain Martian". Since it prevented the still nascent (by his standards) Earthlings from finding his TRUE Homeworld, he let it slide.

 

The name has stuck ever since.

[Killer Shrike]

Good stuff Hermit. Sadly, I was never a big DC fan, so my amalgamated skillz are "suxzor" as I believe the kids are saying on the streets these days. Im really getting a kick out reading this stuff though.

[Supreme]

Plastic Spider (sorry, can't think of a better name..)

When Peter "The Eel" Parker, a teenaged street-theif, tagged along with a local gang on a heist, he didn't realize that he was only invited to be bait for the cops. When the police showed up, they shot Peter and left him to take the blame. Mortally wounded, Peter managed to escape, but not before being exposed through his wounds to an experimental "bio-fiber" plastic. Peter limped far enough away to elude the cops, only to faint from loss of blood.

 

When Peter awoke in a Buddhist monastery he discovered that the bio-fiber not only helped him recover miraculously, but gave him strange powers. Peter could use the bio-fiber now permeating his system to alter his clothes, create costumes, cling to walls with micro-hooks, enhance his strength, and even to project silk-like webbing. Peter vowed to use his newfound powers to fight crime. After all, with great power...