And yes, it is a
profoundly silly looking team. Granted, as a Gen X-er who has no stake in all
the identity politics and ideological terminology this book is drawing from,
I'm not going to sit here and say what would or would not appeal to the Zoomer
crowd. Nor am I going to pretend like I'm a superior writer to those who have
actually succeeded in making comics their profession.
But sometimes
seeing the controversy surrounding this sort of stuff makes my own gears turn.
In a way, I see what they are going for thematically with this group, and I
don't inherently hate the idea. For the most part, these are at least a group
of original characters, not forced replacements for established ones. Yes, they
are a new group of New Warriors, but hero teams gain new members all the time,
and if they are published long enough, having a whole new generation of
characters join the group is perfectly valid.
Do I think this
particular group is a good fit for the New Warriors? Honestly, I don't know.
New Warriors has been a property that's seen a lot of re-imaginings over the
years, usually unsuccessfully. After the original run of pretty damn good
comics, the team has been bounced between multiple phases, with most of the
original members moving on to other groups. And comics re-use team names for
new groups all the time, too. The current Champions team has nothing at all to
do with the original short-lived group. So, really, I'm not that hung up on the
fact that it’s a "New Warriors" comic. The entire premise is that the
old New Warriors are training this new group, because a law was passed that
means teen heroes cannot operate without the supervision of older heroes. Sure,
whatever.
Anyway, this isn’t
really about my opinion on the New Warriors legacy, or the validity of the new group.
This is a thought exercise for how I might iterate on this team concept,
pitching it as something perhaps a little less cringey, while trying to
maintain most of the elements present. Bare in mind that at the time of writing
this, the comic still isn't out, and the trailer for it has given us very
little information about the characters beyond their powers and the symbolism
of their names. Only three of the five characters are given an origin, which consists of a single sentence explanation for how they got their powers. We don’t even know their civilian identities yet. And its
really this complete lack of knowledge, I think, that is making this comic so
easy for pop-culture pundits to make a big deal about it; they can insert
whatever talking points they want and flash the handful of out-of-context,
silly-looking pictures as if that’s all they need to prove their theories,
because there is literally nothing else of substance to extrapolate from. To be
fair, Marvel didn’t do itself any favors with that trailer, but there’s so much pre-release hate for it, it
makes me want to give the comic the benefit of the doubt.
Which is, of
course, partly why I felt like doing this “pitch.” Frankly, I don’t have much
faith, either. I’m fully confident the comic will likely be garbage. But I
don’t know yet, because it hasn’t actually come out. Whatever else is going on
with the production of this book, who knows, maybe the actual story and characters won’t be that bad. I mean,
they probably will. But who knows?
In the meantime,
instead of railing on about culture war agendas, I can instead fill that lack
of information in with a brainstorm on how I might approach this team concept
if I were just given the names, powers, power sources, and pictures to work with, and told to
come up with something just from that. And so, here’s my fake, iterative pitch of Vigil, aka, Marvel's New New New New New Warriors.
If anything I list below ends up being accurate to the real depiction, well,
chalk that up to a very lucky guess.
THE TEAM
The actual comic
is supposed to pick up from the Outlawed event, where teen heroes are no longer
allowed to operate in the Marvel Universe without the supervision and guidance
of an older hero. Or maybe they can work for SHIELD, I'm not sure.
Either way, this
is the reason these five are now part of the New Warriors; they are up and
coming teen heroes, and the older New Warriors, themselves once a teen hero
group, have decided to take them under their wing.
Well, for this
little faux-treatment, I'm going to pretend the Outlaw thing hasn't happened
yet. Instead, this is a new group of superheroes unaffiliated with a previous
team, that forms the way many hero teams do: some shared danger unintentionally
brings them together, and they are forced to work together to stop it. After
realizing that they actually make a decent team, they decide to stick together,
and now we have a new group of heroes out to fight for justice on their own
terms.
We'll call this
new team Vigil. It's a team name
I've batted around in my own projects, but its short, to the point, and
emphasises the idea that these heroes are looking out for trouble. Being young
heroes eager to prove themselves, they take to patrolling the streets of their
city on the regular. This being the modern age, they end up getting spotted and
filmed by smartphone, and they quickly get an internet following.
Some of the team
thinks this is great, as the celebrity of it all may be a benefit in getting
help when needed, or getting respect from the citizenry. Others see marketing
deals. Other's consider the undo publicity when they've barely gotten started
to be more of a hindrence than a help. But what can you do? This is
superheroing in the 21st Century.
CHARACTERS
TRAILBLAZER
Power: She has a mystic bag that acts as a sub-space pocket. It can actually hold
ten thousand times its apparent volume (roughly equivalent to a bank vault),
and can alter itself to suit the user. In Trailblazer's case, the bag adapted
itself into a backpack shape.
She is also much
stronger than her figure might imply. Much like the Kingpin, she is unusually
stocky in build, but most of that bulk is pure muscle. She lifts weights,
boxes, wrestles, and jogs. People make fun of her for being dumpy or fat, but
she proves them wrong when she can deadlift heavier weights than most of the
football players in her high school.
She is also just
starting to learn the secrets of Shaman magic. Though she lacks a natural skill
for it, she may eventually learn to do some basic spells.
Background: Anjij is an Inuit girl distantly related to the
Shaman line of Canadian superheroes. When her grandfather passed away, she
inherited his magic bag. However, her inheritance was actually a fluke. It was supposed
to go to her cousin, Kirima, who had recently been sent to juvenile detention
for a violent crime. Because the bag was charmed to not be usable by an evil
individual, it then passed to the "next in line" of inheritance,
which happened to be Trailblazer.
She was not
remotely prepared to be saddled with a magic item, but her take charge attitude
means she's more than ready to make the best of it, and use it responsibly.
Unfortunately, Kirima is getting out of juvie soon, and when she finds out
Trailblazer has the magic item meant for her, she's going to be pissed.
Trailblazer
becomes involved with the rest of the team when her home city of Seattle
Description: Trailblazer is a hefty girl, made fun of for her
apparent weight, but she doesn't let that get her down. She works out to be
strong and able to hold her own in a fight. She never imagined she was going to
become a superhero, but part of her seemed to always know she might one day be
called to adventure. The world was a dangerous place, after all. You never know
when some crazy supervillain or subterrainean monster or alien menace might
roll through your town.
Despite her
confident attitude and innate skill for leadership, however, she has some doubt
about her situation. She never previously studied the mystic arts, and now
she’s wrapped in a family conflict she wasn’t even aware of until the backpack
landed in her lap. Moreover, as useful as the backpack is, and as strong as
she’s made herself, she knows her abilities place her squarely on the low end
of the power scale; never mind fighting supervillains, a punk with a gun could
kill her. She fears she is in over her head, and yet she charges into action
anyway.
She wonders if
Kirima may still be the rightful heir the legacy. This would be fine with her,
except that her cousin is clearly dangerous, and may in fact be deranged,
meaning the responsibility is up to her whether she likes it or not. Maybe she
resents that a little.
Or maybe, worse
yet, she likes that she was chosen. It’s a burden, but it’s also a chance to
stick it to everyone who doubted her. Is it really bravery that spurs her on?
Or is it vanity? Is she really concerned for innocent bystanders, or is she
just an adrenalin junkie who is thrilled by the danger?
Since forming
this team, she hasn’t had much time to really reflect on it. The others
deferred to her leadership on their first couple of missions, and she slid into
the role naturally. She has to look out for them now, too, and isn’t about to
admit her concerns. She has to put on a strong face to be the leader. For their
sake, of course.
B-
Power: Low level superhuman strength, durability, speed, and reflexes. Enhanced
hearing, sight, and smell. Natural claw and fang weapons. Surprisingly light
body enables him to glide long distances using a specialized wing suit.
Requires blood to
survive, and regenerates from injuries swiftly after feeding. Animal blood will
do, but like most vampires, he is best fed, and disturbingly tempted by, a
thirst for human blood.
Being an
artificial vampire, he lacks the traditional mystical weaknesses a vampire has.
Although too much sunlight makes him woozy and his eyes are sensitive to the
light, he can walk in daylight without suffering injury, and he is unaffected
by holy objects. However, he also doesn’t have any supernatural protections,
either; getting stabbed through the heart will kill him whether it’s a wooden
stake or a kitchen knife, assuming the weapon can puncture his skin.
Background: When he was a baby, Jacob nearly died of a rare
illness. However, he was saved by a blood transfusion from a dubious source;
his doctor was actually the mad scientist Dr. Makari, collecting DNA samples
from various superheroes and hoping to create a way to replicate super powers
in other people.
Very few of these
experiments were a success, and Jacob turned out to be one of the few. Given a
transfusion of blood laced with the DNA of Morbius, the Living Vampire, Jacob
underwent a transformation into a living vampire himself. Soon, Morbius,
Spider-Man, and several other heroes tracked down Dr. Makari and stopped his
schemes.
Jacob was saved,
but he had to spend his life mostly in seclusion, taken to a small village
where nobody asked questions, and raised by his overprotective parents. Jacob’s
social life mostly came from the internet, where he identified with vampire
characters, and became somewhat obsessed with the rebellious attitude of the
grungy 90s goth aesthetic. He knows his parents cared about him, and even fed
his need for blood with animals from their farm, but their stifling way of
living, eventually caused Jacob to run away from home. He has been living on
the streets of Seattle
Unfortunately,
Dr. Makari has recently ended his prison sentence, and he has not forgotten his
mad ambitions, and when he hears rumors of a teen living vampire haunting the
streets of Seattle
B- is discovered
by the other teen heroes who would become Vigil, when they decide their first
real mission together will be to investigate the “mysterious teen vampire”.
After an initial scuffle, the group and B- come to an understanding, and they
offer him a spot on their team. It’s then they decide to officially become a
hero group, and B- suggests the name Vigil.
Description: Jacob adopts the name B- (b-negative) as an edgy
handle inspired by heavy metal bands like Type-O Negative. He thinks it fits
his need for blood, and also the edgy goth personality he effects to try and be
cool.
The truth is, B-
doesn’t feel very cool. It’s all an act. His years of being cooped up in a tiny
farming town, with only the internet as his real outlet, has not exactly raised
him to be a confident or charismatic person. He wishes he could be, not normal,
exactly, because he likes being a cool vampire kid, but that he could be
accepted and make friends just like everyone else. But he’s shy and insecure,
and he leans on the spooky vampire gimmick because it’s easier and he’s afraid
of getting too close to people. He does still crave human blood, after all, and
as much as he treasures the friendship of these new heroes who have taken him
in, he’s afraid he might hurt them, or vice versa, so he puts up a cold front.
SCREENTIME
Power: Screentime is a cyborg technopath; his body is infused with nanomachines
that greatly enhance his mental faculties and are capable of linking him to
machines with sufficiently advanced electronic components. In a modern age
where more and more devices are computerized and wi-fi capable, this grants him
a truly vast range of influence on the world around him.
He can not only
control such machines, but mentally rewrite code on the fly, enabling him to
hack into any system in a matter of seconds, as long as he is able to link to it.
The biggest
advantage of this power is that he is linked to the internet at all times,
granting him near-instant access to the sum total of recorded human knowledge,
and the ability to communicate with nearly limitless devices. His enhanced mind
is able to process this information on multiple trains of thought while still
being fully aware of the world around him. He can be fighting an enemy, hacking
multiple computers, and hold a separate conversion with each team member on
their comlinks, all at the same time.
Screentime is
hence the primary tech person of the team, providing them with communicators
and gadgets as the need might demand. Having adapted Ktalku technology from the
twins into his resources, he is working to build even more advanced devices, if
he can just get their tech and Earth tech to be compatible.
Background: Tetsuo is a hacker and programmer whose initial
ambitions were to make video games, or create a killer app that would make him
millions. He was close with his grandfather, Ryu, who had spent decades working
on computer technologies; he was one of the men responsible for the development
and commercialization of the internet.
Ryu’s belief was
that one day, all people would be able to have instant access to all
information with just a thought. Ryu’s ambition was to effectively create a
sort of virtual Universal Subconscious, and to give everyone the means to
access it at will. Only through this shared knowledge, Ryu thought, would the
human race be able to see past their petty differences. To this end, he created
a specialized nanomachine that could infect a person like a benign virus, and
link them to this eventual Data Net.
However, on a day
that Tetsuo was visiting his grandfather, Ryu’s home was attacked by agents of
A.I.M., seeking to steal Ryu’s work. Tetsuo could only hide and watch
helplessly as his grandfather was gunned down, and the villains ransacked the
house. Failing to find what they were after, they left, and Tetsuo called for
help. With his dying breath, Ryu told Tetsuo seek a hidden door on the floor of
his shed.
A few days later,
Tetsuo went to look for said door, and discovered a hidden laboratory beneath
the property. There, he found his grandfather’s various experiments, including
a box that said “internet gas”. Curiosity got the better of him and he opened
the box, only to be engulfed in a spray of green gas that made him feel itchy
and faint. He crawled back outside just in time to pass out.
A few days later,
he awakened in a hospital, and his mind was changed.
His parents had always said he spent too much time with computers, too much
time online, and as a punishment sometimes limited his “screen time” by banning
him off electronics for a few days. Now, however, he found himself connected to
the digital world in a way that could not be taken away or shut off.
Although desiring
revenge for his grandfather’s death, Tetsuo was initially overwhelmed trying to
process his transformation, and for several weeks became lost in the fog of
data, just exploring his new powers. Then, he encountered the twins from
Ktalku, and very shortly there after, the three met Trailblazer and B-. Joining
this group of heroes has centered his focus, and brought cold reality to his
digital dream.
Description: Tetsuo has changed from a game and social-media
obsessed geek, to a focused and methodically competent vigilante. He is
conflicted over his grandfather’s ambitions of a world of shared knowledge that
seems like a wonderful idea, and the knowledge that such power could very, very
easily fall into the wrong hands and be abused with devastating results to
society.
His initial
exposure to the information, before the nanomachines fully adapted themselves,
also left him in a fog that nearly obliterated his personality. While he is
fully capable of multiple trains of that, and can function in the real world
simultaneously with the digital world, most of those trains of thought are
swept up in the flow of ceaseless data. Only 10% of his total consciousness, at
best, is keyed into the real world, and he soon discovers that if he doesn’t
have a hard reason to stay focused, he can lose himself completely in the realm
of the virtual, doing only the bare minimum to take care of his physical needs.
When fully
focused, he does present some personality, a wry sense of humor, a passion for
“geeky” hobbies, hatred for his enemies, and when he communicates casually
online, he’s quick to embrace the ironic humor and memes typical of the
internet.
But overall, his
emotions are muted, and if he doesn’t socially engage with people in the real
world, he becomes increasingly robotic in his mannerisms. He has to find a way
to balance his consciousness so that he doesn’t become so consumed by the
virtual world that he doesn’t make it back out. He doesn’t tell his teammates
that the main thing keeping him tethered isn’t their friendship or the love of
his surviving family; those things help, too, but its not the majority of his
focus. Despite mostly presenting his friendly side to them, he always has a
train of thought anchored to a seething hatred for the men and women who killed
his grandfather. His unspoken fears is that if he ever satisfies his need for
revenge, his loss of self will be inevitable.
SNOWFLAKE and SAFE SPACE
Background: Alien twins from the planet Ktalku, an Earthlike
world where a tribe of prehistoric African humans were taken two as part of
some other alien species’ inexplicable experiments. This race, the Bogoli, died
millennia ago from biological warfare with yet another race, the Murkendrons,
leaving the stolen tribe on this alien world.
Thousands of
years later, the Ktalki have grown into an advanced civilization, as they were
able to learn and adapt Bogoli technology for their own ends. The world of
Ktalki is now split between eight kindgoms, each ruling one of the eight
habitable continents on the planet. Centuries of war finally came to an end one
hundred years ago due to fear of mutual destruction with increasingly deadly
Bogoli weaponry, but tensions remain high between the nations. The “truce” is
little more than a Cold War fought through espionage, political backstabbing,
and economic competition that has caused the ruling class of the nations to
care more about maintain power than improving the lot of the people.
Zarrek and Zedda
are twins from the royal family of Traventis. As is tradition, Their father has
had many offspring by many wives, and the one who to succeed him will be the
son or daughter who levers themselves into political power by being the most
ruthless and successful, be it through bureaucracy or trickery.
The twins want
nothing to do with this game. Having embraced the rebellious spirit of the
lower class youth, they have eschewed their responsibilities to the throne in
favor of petitioning for increased rights for the common citizen. This is much
to their mother’s fury. When they are discovered one too many times to be
fraternizing with the “filthy underclass”, they are punished by being sent on
the Pilgrimage, a dangerous “trial by survival”, where they are supposed to be
dumped on a neighboring planet filled with savage beasts.
What the twins
had kept hidden, however, were their budding psionic powers. Like humans on
Earth, mutants were a recent, and rising, phenomenon on Ktalku, although the
manifestation of these gifts were mainly psionic in nature. Unleashing these
powers on their guards, Zedda and Zarrek were able to take over the ship and
kick the guards off via the escape pods.
Zarrek then tried
to steer them to a different, more hospitable world, so that they may live free
of their oppressive lineage. They felt bad for abandoning the citizens whom
they had wanted to help, but knew they were in no position to stage a
revolution. They would have to lay low, rethink their options, and come back
with better resources for the job, if possible. Unfortunately, their ship’s
warp drive suffered a catastrophic error, due to damage from the fighting. When
the warp drive activated, it flung them far, far away from their home planet,
spitting them out in low Earth orbit.
Zarrek barely
manages to protect the two of them in the crash, and is knocked unconscious.
Zedda manages to get her brother to shelter, and mends his wounds while
scrounging for resources in the small town they’ve landed near. She is able to
commandeer food and a tablet with internet access; with the help of a
translation device, she is able to learn much of Earth, and she and Zarrek
manage to pick up English with speed. It is here they also learn of the current
“culture war” struggle seen across various social media. The twins find
themselves sympathizing with the plight of the younger generation trying to be
heard.
However, the
device and its alien code is detected by Screentime, who was already
investigating the crashed ship. He finds the twins in their hideout, and they
almost come to blows, but Screentime explains that he just wants to help them
out, being fascinated by their technology. While the ship has been locked down
by the US Military, the twins were able to salvage some valuable devices from
it that Screentime wishes to study.
As Screentime
takes them to his home, however, the three bear witness to a super fight
attack. They see Trailblazer doing her best to stop the Rhino and the Scorpion.
Without hesitating, the twins leap into action, helping defeat the two
villains, with Screentime backing them up. This is the incident that first
brings Vigil together, although they are not officially a team yet.
SNOWFLAKE
Power: Capable of absorbing the negative psychic energy of those around them,
from hatred to sadness to hopelessness to violent impulses to bigoted beliefs
to physical pain. They fashions this dark energy into psychic snowflake-shaped
shuriken constructs, which they can throw with unerring accuracy; they somewhat
guide the arc with their will to ensure they doesn’t miss. Their shurikens are
more powerful the more negative energy they can draw upon; even their own anger
and the violent actions of their teammates can fuel effective shuriken.
Those cut with
the shuriken suffer physical lacerations, but are also briefly overcome with a
terrible nerve pain and a cocktail of terrible emotional distortion. The target
is usually taken out of the fight for several seconds to a minute as they
writhe in agony and are paralyzed by a whirlwind of crippling negative emotions
that paralyze. While the effect is quickly shaken off once its worn off, it
still leaves the target shaken, and thus easier for Snowflake’s teammates to
take down.
The shuriken do
not work on synthetic life-forms such as androids, nor against undead, nor
those with exceptional willpower or psychic shields. In cases where they are
surrounded by positive emotions, their power weakens or is rendered inert,
though it is rare they are ever in such a blessed environment while also
needing to use their power.
They also have a
psychic link with their brother, able to sense his location and communicate
telepathically if he is nearby.
Description: Zedda has always felt uneasy with their gendered
role in society on Ktalku, and embraces the idea of not being bound by such
things. The concept of more than two gender identities is unheard of on their
home planet, and so one way they have adapted to Earth is by embracing this
rising culture of gender fluidity. Ergo, they have come to identify as non-binary.
Despite the
nature of their power, they are not directly influenced by the negativity they
absorb. However, knowing how much it hurts others, part of them is insecure and
bitter that their power is purely damaging; they would have much preferred a gift
that was more broadly useful.
Still, you deal
with the hand you were dealt Zedda presents a confident, chipper attitude and a
smart-ass sense of humor, bold in the face of danger. They to be the “cool big
sibling” of the group, being emotionally supportive and helpful.
They chose the
codename “Snowflake” as a pun on the shape of their shuriken and the idea of
emotional fragility. Their Earthly teammates think the name is rather
embarrassing, but Zedda almost finds that funnier, and leans into it.
SAFESPACE
Power: Creates force-fields that multiply in power the more people he is
protecting. At its base level, protecting only himself, the field is only
stab-proof, semi-fire proof, and will only slow down a bullet, not stop it
entirely. With every person he protects, however, the force-field draws on
their latent psychic energy to strengthen it. While protecting two people, the
shield is enough to stop small-arms fire, three people strong enough to
withstand grenades and rifle bullets, four people strong enough to stop a tank
shell, five strong enough to handle a powerful bomb, etc. However, the field
can only extend to about 100 feet.
He also has a
minor psychic link with his sibling, able to sense their general location and
communicate telepathically if they are nearby.
Description: Strong-willed and brave, Zarrek likes to take
charge of a situation, but at times this can lead to some reckless behavior. It
was mostly his outspokenness that got the twins into trouble. He simultaneously
likes his power and also kind of hates it; he does want to protect people, and
his power is great for that, but in his mind, he always imagined himself as a
frontline warrior, charging into battle. He pushed himself to learn how to
fight and be at peak physical strength, so that he can fight as a glorious
champion.
The fact that his
power turned out to be purely defensive and reliant on others to be fully
effective grates on him. Still, he doesn’t let it show; you deal with the hand
you were dealt. To this end, he presents a warm, supportive attitude, and be
the mediator between his teammates when their personalities clash.
Like his twin, he
picked his name as something of a pun, and doesn’t quite get why his Earthly
teammates find it eye-rolling. As far as he sees it, he makes a literal safe
space in battle, and he tries to make a safe space among his teammates, and he
finds it a little funny they are hung up on the name. Besides, who are they to
talk about silly codenames?
ENEMIES
While I’m not
going to plan out an extensive rogue’s gallery, I have planted the seeds for
each character to have a potential nemesis they will have to face, connections
to their past that will come to haunt them, on top of whatever new rogues they
may gain as they go on their adventures.
The twins, of
course, have the Ktalku royal family conflict to worry about. Assassins and
rival cousins may decide to make a name for themselves by going after them;
despite Zedda and Zarrek giving up any claim to a throne, the complicated web
of intrigue and power plays of their home world isn’t going to let them go. To
borrow a phrase, they might not be interested in their world’s politics, but
their world’s politics is interested in them. This will also be a good excuse
to send Vigil on space adventures, because every Marvel hero needs that on
their checklist.
A.I.M., while a
predictable fodder enemy most of the time, is a solid enough establishment in
the Marvel villain scene, and if you’re going to make a team for Marvel, you do
want some connections to established IP to more solidly tie the group into the
canon. A.I.M. makes a large enemy for of the group to fight, and gives
Screentime a vital focus of a broad target to keep him engaged in his need for
revenge.
Dr. Makari is a
typical mad scientist type, perhaps has something of a Dr. Moreau or Dr.
Frankenstein vibe. His desire to recapture B- gives the team the chance to
fight the “monsters and mutants” experiments gone wrong type of enemies, but
opens up the idea that B- could also find a community of fellow survivors of
the experiments, and give him a struggle of who he really belongs with.
Trailblazer, of
course, brings in the mystical side of the Marvel Universe, and her conflict
with her cousin Kirima invites magical dangers to attack the team. Inuit
folklore could inform some of these challenges as well. This also gives
Trailblazer pause to doubt her true place as a hero, since the backpack going
to her was a fluke. In the end, she’ll prove herself more worthy of the role
than her selfish cousin, but it’s a stark reminder that sometimes even the most
stalwart hero finds their character tested.
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