Power Universe Retrospective: The Power Team

The Power Team is a kid-hero group whom I only made maybe three stories for, including half a comic and one prose story, and an outline for a crossover story, all of which are lost to time. In truth, this is a tiny team barely worth talking about, but the Evolutioneers article reminded me of them, and they are kind of an odd quirk in my Old Multiverse stuff.

CONTINUITY SHENANIGANS

The Power Team occupies a strange place in my old multiverse. Ostensibly a superhero team that should have fit in the Power Universe superhero reality, I believe they actually existed in the Krazy Komix Universe (which is where all my cartoon characters existed). I only surmise this, because the Power Team encountered another group of traveling kid heroes who also existed in the KKU, before they officially crossed over into the Power Universe continuity.

(Yeah, things got complicated as I kept building up this whole little multiverse and tried to cram every project I had into it during this time period. Some characters had connections across multiple settings.)

The Power Team never officially made the transition from obscure Krazy Komix team to official Power Universe hero group. What did happen, though, is that several members of the group got re-imagined as adult versions in the PU. Chalk this up to “alternate timeline versions” I suppose; I never officially declared them the same characters.

INSPIRATION

The Power Team is a kid-hero group largely inspired by Marvel’s Power Pack. Like many of my superhero characters at the time, “inspired by” usually meant “I saw a picture of this character or maybe read half a comic book featuring this team, and decided to make my own version based off my initial impressions of a comic or show I actually knew almost nothing about.”

A good example was the time I made a “rip-off” of Batman, who actually ended up being nothing at all like Batman, because I didn’t actually know anything about Batman. But we can talk about that guy another time.

The Power Team is probably a better example, as all I knew about the Power Pack was a promo image for a PSA comic in which they were featured. All I had to go on was “these are kids with colorful costumes and powers”, and I extrapolated from there.

BACKSTORY

I’m gunna be honest, I made these guys during a time when I put very little thought into my characters being the surface levels. Backstories usually involved “oh they were experimented on by mad scientists” or “they stumbled on a magic gem” or suchlike. So some of this is kind of duct taped together from barely-remembered notes I no longer have.

What I do know is that the group were a team of orphans. Why, precisely, a team of orphans was running around in superhero costumes and going on wild adventures, I’m not really sure. I think this was another reason I put them in Krazy Komix, because even though they weren’t a comedy team, their circumstances were just too silly. This was a common theme with me when I was young, though. Kid hero teams just existed without any sort of oversight and usually no families anywhere to be seen, except the occasional sibling. I don’t know what the Power Team’s deal was, except that they were a ragtag group of street kids who lost their families somehow. I’m pretty sure none of them were actually related.

Knowing me, they were probably experimented on, or stumbled upon a magic gem, and spontaneously decided it was their destiny to go fight crime.

ROSTER

TORNADO KID

Powers and Abilities: Aerokinetic, particularly with the ability to form small tornados. He could also fly by forming tornadoes under his body and riding them.

Inspiration Point: I’m honestly not sure. I vaguely recall a “Tornado Man” from the old Mighty Mouse cartoon, but I don’t think that was where I got the idea. Appearance-wise, he was inspired by Alex Power, who in the initial picture I saw was flying. I guess somehow I equated that with wind, and from wind I got tornadoes. So there you go.

Description: At 13, Tornado Kid was the oldest and the natural team leader. A lanky, tall blond boy who dressed in a grey costume with a tornado emblem on his chest. He was the older-brother figure to the others, being the most responsible, but then again, being superheroes was his idea in the first place. He was brave and courageous, the most “adult” person of the group.

While too young to really be in a relationship, Tornado Kid and fellow hero Titanium Girl liked each other a lot, and would have probably become a couple. Tornado Kid sometimes clashed with Cloud Kid, the team’s smart alec. He otherwise took a more guardian role for Invisible Girl and Lightning Girl.

Legacy: Tornado is a man with a similar costume (although his featured a mask and shoulder pads, while TK’s suit didn’t), similar powers, and similar appearance. Tornado was the leader of a team of elementals with the hilariously inaccurate name of the Galaxy Defenders.

TITANIUM GIRL

Powers and Abilities: Can summon a pink and purple power armor that covers her entire body except her head. Instead of a helmet, she gets a visor that looks like a light blue version of those big sunglasses you can put over your regular glasses. However, despite not having a helmet, the suit projects a force field around her head that allows for similar protection.

The suit grants her superhuman strength sufficient to smash through stone walls and toss steam rollers a dozen yards, and is durable enough to be nearly unhurt by a point blank shot from a tank (although that will send her ragdolling a fair distance). I believe in one story she could also shoot lasers from the gauntlets, but I think that was actually a separate device she had attached to her suit, and not part of the suit itself.

Despite appearing like a power armor, the suit was actually a psychic energy construct, and thus had no actual electronics or mechanisms to sabotage; in one story, someone tried to hack her armor, only to discover there were no cybernetic systems to interface with.

Special Weakness: This is another reason I think the Power Team was in the KKU, because I think Titanium Girl was actually a joke hero I’d come up with before including her in the Power Team.

Titanium Girl’s weakness was that whenever she came within six feet of a feline, she became weak to the point she couldn’t stand, and sometimes had a harder time thinking. This effect also seized her armor power: if she didn’t have her armor activated, she couldn’t summon it. If her armor was already in place, then she was actually stuck in it, which at least kept her protected.

She very quickly recovered once the feline was removed. This worked with not only house cats and wild cats, but also feline style humanoids, and sometimes even just cat-themed characters. This also worked only with living cats; being near a cat skeleton wouldn’t have the effect.

I have no idea where this weakness concept came from. It might have been some kind of curse laid on her early in her hero career; at any rate, I don’t think it was related to her psionic power.

Inspiration Point: I seriously have no idea with this one, especially where the idea of the cat weakness came from.. Titanium Girl is probably the most original character of the bunch.

Description: She was 13, but a few months younger than Tornado Kid. A tall, athletic brunette who usually stayed in casual clothes even on missions, since her power armor was already enough of a costume. She was ostensibly the big sister of the group, but was also a bit more reckless, eager to prove her hero status.

As aforementioned, she liked Tornado Kid, and they were probably going to be a couple eventually. She got along better with Cloud Kid, whom she could joke with. Invisible Girl looked up to her and thought she was cool, while Lightning Girl liked her, but was at times exasperated with her.

CLOUD KID

Powers and Abilities: Ability to transform into a living cloud, enabling him to float and slowly fly (although not against strong enough winds), and flow around obstacles and attacks. If he was injured as a human, he could heal himself instantly by shifting from human to cloud and back again. However, energy damage to his cloud form (such as being struck with fire or an electric field, or being flash frozen) caused him pain and forced him to revert back to human.

Inspiration Point: Cloud Kid is a blatant rip-off of Mass Master from the Power Pack, not just in that I got the idea of the power from that image, but it turned out I captured the same personality type without even intending to.

Description: Cloud Kid was a shorter kid with brown hair. At 12 years old, he was the “middle child” of the group. He wore a blue suit with a cloud emblem on his chest.

He had a sarcastic wit, and while he always had his team’s back, he sometimes clashed with Tornado Kid over mission plans, and he got on Lightning Girl’s nerves sometimes. He got along better with Titanium Girl, who joked with him, and he was overall nicer to Invisible Girl, whom he was a bit more protective over.

Legacy: Mistmaster is a Company mutant escapee who joined the first incarnation of the Mutant Force. He had the same power and personality as Cloud Kid.

LIGHTNING GIRL

Powers and Abilities: Electrokinetic, she mainly just shot off lightning bolts and could electrify her own body to make herself dangerous to touch. She could redirect and channel electricity from other sources through herself and was immune to electrical damage, enabling her to use her body as a conduit for external power sources.

However, she didn’t yet have the fine-tuned control to, say, charge electronic devices safely or bend electricity in the area with precision. She was training to learn how, though.

Inspiration Point: Inspired by Katie Power, who has energy abilities. I went with lightning specifically since I thought that was a cooler visual, rather than Katie’s more generic energy blast.

Description: I actually can’t remember if Lightning Girl or Invisible Girl was supposed to be the youngest. I think LG was older, which would make her either 11 or an early 12. She was a shorter girl with blond hair done up in braids, alternating between one or two. She wore a yellow suit with a white lightning bolt emblem on the chest.

Lightning Girl, despite being one of the two youngest, was the more serious and responsible of the three girls, to the point that she would actually have been the most fit for second-in-command if Titanium Girl and Cloud Kid took her more seriously. Tornado Kid had to vouch for her ideas occasionally. As such, she got somewhat exasperated with TG and CK, but I assume that as the group got older, things would have ironed out, and she’d be more respected. She was also closest to Invisible Girl, whom she treated like a little sister.

Legacy: As detailed in the Evolutioneers post, Lightning is basically an older version of Lightning Girl.

INVISIBLE GIRL

Powers and Abilities: Could turn herself invisible, as well as others within a certain distance. She had to touch that person or object first, and if they left her range of influence (about twenty feet), they would lose their cover, and she’d have to touch them again to reapply it.

Inspiration Point: Not precisely sure, but more than likely inspired by the Invisible Woman from the Fantastic Four. I hadn’t known Invisible Woman had once been called Invisible Girl, too, so once again, even my naming was a blatant rip. Anyway, I would later find out that the Power Pack became affiliated with the FF, so that’s still close enough.

Description: I believe she was the youngest of the group, thinking on it, so she would be the 10 year old. Her costume was green with pink highlights, and had a clear cube emblem on her chest, I guess to imply invisibility. She also wore a visor to mimic Titanium Girl.

Invisible Girl was somewhat shy and soft-spoken, but no less willing to engage in heroics. Due to the nature of her power, and her youth even compared to the others, she was mostly did reconnaissance and helped the others sneak into places.

The team treated her as their kid sister, and she was comfortable in that role for a while. She looked up to Titanium Girl, who she thought was super-cool, and trusted Tornado Kid as the responsible big brother, thought of Cloud Kid as the fun big brother, and Lightning Girl as the responsible older sister. Eventually, she would get bolder and want to go on more dangerous missions, which would cause her to rebel a bit against her “kid sister” status, but overall, she still looked up to them.