As with the Fantastic Felines, the Body Warriors were another group of creature-mutants created by the Company, and sent out to combat the Mutant Force. As with the FF, they ended up breaking their programming right away, and becoming yet another superhero team in the Power Universe.
The gimmick of this team was that they were basically body-themed superhumans, as in, they had powers and forms based around a specific body part. I confess the concept was ripped off from a friend of mine at the time, although I did make my own characters for the concept.
In hindsight, this was almost a body-horror themed superhero team, which is kind of an interesting concept.
BRAIN
Powers and Abilities: Professor X/Martian Manhunter level telepathy and mind control, Jean Grey level of telekinesis.
Description: Brain was the leader of the group, and likely the one who broke the programming first and freed his new team. He was the intellectual of the group. He appeared as a man with a giant brain with a face for a head, and with the spinal cord hanging down like a ponytail.
The Power Universe didn’t actually have many psychics. Despite this, there were a rather large number of characters who had powerful psychic shields. Brain was notable as being the one guy who could consistently bust through them, making him the most powerful psychic on Earth.
Brain was also a good example of the Power Universe’s tendency to not have any thought put towards power balance. Heavy hitters were teamed up with street levelers all the time.
HAND
Powers and Abilities: Hand had about Luke Cage strength, maybe not quite as durable. He could also use his hand-head as a giant fist, so his head butts were also huge punches.
Description: Hand had a giant hand with a face for a head. He was your typical Ben Grimm, tough-guy-with-a-heart-of-gold character. A lot of my strong guys were like that, and they all tended to be buds with each other, now that I think about it. Maybe they all drank at the same bar. He was the team strong man, but he was probably on the bottom rung of “strong guys” in the Power Universe.
RIBCAGE
Powers and Abilities: A living skeleton, with the power to control bones. Both his own, those of the dead, and those of the living. He can reconstruct his body even if it has been ground into dust. He would usually carry several random bone weapons with him to fight with, using them as melee or thrown/boomerang weapons. He was also not above just pulling skeletons out of the ground to fight for him.
Description: Ribcage shows another trend with Power Universe teams in that at least half of them happened to have a random magic character in the group, regardless of the rest of their origin. Ribcage is hence not a Company creation, but an undead skeleton they ran into shortly before they formed. They call him Ribcage to fit the theme, and also because his costume was a shredded outfit with an open shirt that showed off his manly skeleton chest.
His power can be pretty scary, strong enough to pin lesser super strong characters in place by locking their bones, but strong enough guys were able to fight the control. He could also, if pressed, just cause people’s bodies to explode in a shower of bone fragments, but I don’t think he ever actually did that.
EYEBALL
Powers and Abilities: Eyeball had pretty much all the “optic” powers of someone like Superman: microscopic, telescopic, multi-spectrum, x-ray, etc. He could also fire energy beams that were either heat or concussive.
Description: Eyeball looked like a genderless humanoid with no skin, giving him a red exposed muscle look. His head was a giant eyeball. Somehow he could talk, despite not having a mouth.
STOMACH
Powers and Abilities: His primary power was the ability to generate and project powerful acid. He would usually fire “acid beams”, but could also create a coating of acid over himself for protection. This acid was powerful enough to melt bullets on impact. He was also slightly super strong, in that he had about Captain America level strength and toughness.
Description: He actually looked like a giant stomach with arms and legs, and a little face on the esophagus. Even among the other Body Warriors, he was freaky looking.
No comments:
Post a Comment