Luxwave Comics Universe
A friend (Lockonlockon) and I have started worldbuilding a superhero universe of our own, mostly just for fun.
This is a thread about it. And it will contain a list of all the characters, organizations, and so forth.
Currently we know this about the U:
- Superhumans have been showing up en masse since the beginning of the 21st century, but in the last two years in particular.
- the US Government has formed the Anomalous Activities Division to deal with said superhumans.
- nearly all superhumans in this continuity are between the ages of 16 and 20. With the outermost limits being 14 and 24.
here's a list of all currently created characters of the U.
Characters:
Heroes:
- Name: Rebekah Waters
- Aliases: Nightrunner, Across
- Age: 18
- Threat Level: Extremely Low: Rebekah's attitude makes her a threat only in the sense of the larger public discovering her. And she has proven rather competent at keeping her few uses of her abilities under wraps.
- Residence: Ironton, Pennsylvania
- Area Active: East Coast of the United States
- Physical Appearance: Caucasian. Short, thin, long straight black hair, green eyes.
- when altered: jet black skin with white dots. Strong resemblance to a night sky. Eyes and hair solid white.
- Abilities: Rebekah's abilities have been described as "super speed", but this is technically incorrect. Rather, she appears to be able to subvert, or "turn off" proper friction. Letting her achieve speeds that no normal human should be able to survive at all. It is assumed that her body is somehow modified to be able to cope with such speeds, but exactly how is not known. Her abilities have some resemblance to the flight mechanisms of UFOs.
- Biography: Rebekah has lived in Ironton her entire life. She lives with her mother only (her father is deceased), attends a local community college and has a job at a pharmacy. Of note, when she was six years old, she went missing for two days, she was returned home safely, with no apparent memories of the event. Connections between this event and her powers are not assumed, but possible
- Name: Ursula Grant-Marshall
- Aliases: none, sometimes referred to as "The Rake" by internet-users after a popular urban legend.
- Age: 16
- Threat Level: Medium, Ursula's home is extremely remote, but her difficulty in controlling her alter-ego makes her dangerous.
- Residence: Unincorporated Area, Washington State (near the town of New Sussex)
- Area Active: Washington State
- Physical Appearance: Caucasian. Short, medium weight. Short red hair. Blue eyes.
- Abilities: Ursula, will at seemingly random intervals, transform into a bizarre creature with long claws, and a spindly, bony structure. Said creature is extremely dangerous, and Ursula, while aware of the transformation, appears to have little to no control over the creature. It is known to frequently hunt wildlife in the area around her home.
- Biography: Ursula nominally lives with her uncle, but he is often away due to Ursula's condition, and seems to care little about her. Ursula attends an online high school.
- Notes: Ursula's active area has recently extended to most of Washington State, and her shifts appear to be taking longer to wear off. As such, she's started to be noticed by locals and rumors have spread online.
- Name: Marcus Gemmer
- Aliases: Helios the Sun-God
- Age: 21
- Threat Level: Medium, despite Marcus' highly destructive powers. He is quite capable of tightly controlling them.
- Residence: Currently nomadic
- Physical Appearance: African-american. Tall, short brown hair. Brown eyes.
- Abilities: Marcus can, at will, transform into what can flatly be described as a six-foot tall flaming, skull-headed magma golem. In this form, he can create and control fire at will. Though curiously, the fire on his own body is not very hot at all.
- Biography: Marcus lived most of his life as a completely ordinary person. But, one night fell into an incredibly bizarre dream where a flaming skull addressed him as "Helios the Sun-God" and told him to become a protector of the weak. Marcus awoke to find his bed on fire, and himself in his altered state. He took this as a sign and has taken it upon himself to fight the various evil or evil-esque IWATs who have emerged since the dawn of the millennium. Marcus has developed a strong sense of justice, and was a natural leader even before his transformation.
This thread is mostly for my own use, but feedback is always welcome.
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Comments
That has nothing to do with this.
It may complicate my desire to trademark the name "Skullboy" though.
updates 'n' necros 'n' stuff
Aliases: Cleric, The Hammer of God
Age: 62
Threat Level: High, Horace is good-intentioned, but severely risks revealing knowledge of IWATs to the public due to his reckless nature.
Residence: Currently Nomadic (Horace is a street preacher)
Physical Appearance: Tall. Lanky. Long grey "mane" of hair that connects into a beard and mustache. Horace is surprisingly fit for a man of his age.
Abilities: Horace has powerful force-creation abilities. Said force takes the shape of a glowing white light (likely influenced by Horace's own beliefs). He generally prefers to fire this force at foes in the form of a "holy beam", or, if necessary, surround his fists with it so he may fight up close.
Biography: A veteran of the Vietnam War, and also possessing a degree in Theology, Horace could likely have sent himself many places, but at age 31, gave it all up to become a roaming street preacher. He does not identify with any particular sect of Christianity, but shares common threads with more liberal branches of Protestantism, as well as a fervor common to Evangelical Christianity. Horace considers his abilities a gift from God, having developed them sometime in 2009. And uses them to protect the weak. Horace has interacted with Marcus "Helios" Gemmer and Frances "Ghost" Adani in the past, and while the three sometimes butt heads over theological matters, they have been shown to work together well as a team.
Name: Frances Adani
Alias: Ghost
Age: 15
Threat Level: Low, Frances' inconspicuous powers and reluctance to use them do not make her a visible target very often.
Residence: Albany, New York
Physical Appearance: Indian. Short, long black straight hair. Brown eyes.
Abilities: Frances can "phase" through solid objects (including people) and can fly while doing so. She also appears to cause effects similar to the beginning stages of hypothermia when passing through living beings, though these effects wear off more quickly.
Biography: Frances lived a mostly unremarkable life before discovering her abilities. Indeed, even after discovering them, she continues to live one.
Name: EPSILON
Aliases: None
Age: [no data]
Residence: Nomadic
Physical Appearance: Most of EPSILON is not visible due to the large, light blue cloak-like fabric it wears. What is visible are two yellow lights (eyes, likely) beneath the cloak, and metallic arms and claws that extend from its sleeves. Similar looking legs are also visible.
Abilities: Appears to be robotic in nature. Possesses the ability to "reshape" its claws into working automatic rifles. EPSILON also appears to be able to create and manipulate an explosive, high-energy, purplish plasma-like substance through unknown means. The designation "EPSILON" is self-assigned by the creature, and may be an acronym.
History: [no data]
After all, X-men was about the diverging walls set up because of petty discrimination and how that's more harmful to the world as a whole.
The main message of my comic will be
"comics are a bad place to take life lessons from"
What's the theme? What are you trying to say? What do you care about that you're imparting into the story? What compels you to tell this story?
Why should I care about these characters? How can I empathise with them? If I'm not supposed to, how are you distancing us from them and what understanding of human nature are you trying to illuminate?
If these questions seem accusatory, they're not meant to be. They're just things that anyone writing a story should think about.
I honestly doubt I have the patience to write a story with this.
I might someday though, you never know.
Do you have respect for sequential art as a medium?
Yes and yes.
But, as I said
Although my intake of traditional superhero comics is indeed rather limited.Changed the name of this particular U for assorted reasons. Don't ask.
Anyway! Time for some knight templars! Almost literally!
What's wrong with that name? :/
I only changed it because I don't want *everything* of mine to be called that on the off-off-off chance I ever do something with this.
I probably won't stick with Luxwave either, to be honest. Thinking "21st Century Comics" might be a good name.
"Skull Boy" is taken, "Skullboy" is not. Spelling and punctuation count at the patent office*. That's why there's both a Captain Marvel and a Captain Mar-Vell.
Anyway, I do see what you mean, though.
*Trademark Office, technically, but meh.
Exactly.
There's other instances of this sort of thing too. My point being, it's not, in the strictest sense, "taken".
And honestly by the time I'd be at a point where I'd be willing and able to trademark a name anyway, I'd probably have picked up something else out of sheer habit. I go through names like water.
--Alicia "Flare Girl" Blackmoore
Basically, I've decided to reconfigure the continuity here, now that I have a much harder idea of the setting than I previously did. Consider all of the previous posts to be only semi-canon, rough sketches if you will.
----------------------------------------------------
The setting is Earth as you know it, with one major difference. On the night of December 20th, 2012, a minority of the world's population went to sleep, the day after, they awoke forever changed. It would take some quite awhile to realize this, while others caught on almost immediately. Still others would find or invent strange items to change them. What is known is this, the New Age that has been so long prophesied retroactively added fantastic elements to the world we live in, and it has changed forever.
With this, we must go on to our protagonists. Some are self-styled superheroes. Others answer a call from their God or Gods. Others still, are egomaniacs seeking to conquer this new world. Many simply act in self-interest.
I'll post more soon.
*I will expand upon this later. I only know a few of them as-is. One being "Do not kill."
Something like that.
Not commandments per-se (though obviously "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is also a commandment) but rather, rules and guidelines an officially recognized hero (or someone aspiring to be such) should follow. This is an important distinction in-universe, between heroes and vigilantes. To give non-Luxwave examples, it's the difference between a standard hero and a grimdark-style anti-hero. Non grimdark anti-heroes could be either. Exceptions could also probably be made to most of the tenants (not killing your opponent is less of a priority if your opponent is trying to blow up the world or something) for extreme situations.
As for "official" there's a loose Justice League-type organization founded at some point, but I haven't thought of a good name for it yet, and it's not as tight-knit as the (DCAU anyway, can't really speak on the comics) JLA is.
I actually quite like the idea of superheroes-as-modern knights, thank you for giving me that idea. :P
Though the only in-'verse knight is Gem-Knight, who is most certainly not a real superhero (more one of those "I MUST HAVE VENGEANCE" 90s antihero types).
Pfff.
We can make that a running gag as an insult hurled at him by foes or something.
"You know I was just going to turn into knockout gas, but for that, you get the tear gas."
Generic Terms for Superhumans
Since the event, several generic terms referring to superhumans as a group have come into use.
*I should note that I really do not plan to keep this name, it's just a placeholder
*all of these claims are based on information she has willingly given up, and are not verifiable.
Name: ??
Alias: The Samurai Stranger
Age at Empowerment: n/a
Ethnicity: British-Japanese
Hometown:
Powers: The Samurai Stranger actually lacks powers, but he is highly skilled in the use of his katana and several martial arts, making him capable of standing toe-to-toe with most superhumans. He is known to ride a motorcycle for transportation.
Personal History: Little to nothing is known of The Samurai Stranger's backstory. He is known to be from The United Kingdom, and the child of Japanese immigrants to that country, beyond that, nothing is known.
About: The Samurai Stranger began his career long before the event, preferring to lie low and stopping crimes whenever possible. With the advent of more visible superheroes, he has become slightly more exposed to the public eye. His "costume" consists of a modern version of ceremonial samurai regalia, though it is black instead of any traditional colors.