Characters I’d love to write given the chance - Prometheus
His parents were Bonnie and Clyde with the serial numbers filed off. With their adoring son in the backseat, they cut a swath across 60s America, robbing banks and raising hell. Unsurprisingly, they were killed in a shootout with police before his very eyes. His hair turned white as a result. Following this, he dedicated himself to a life of crime - more than that, a lifelong fight against the forces of Justice. He traveled the world, learning martial arts, gunplay, blackmail and tech wizardry - y'know, all the nutrients a growing supercriminal needs ... Eventually he sought out Shamballah. The monks took him in and, years later, introduced him to their Lama. Cue melting alien freakiness and our hero (well, villain) leaves with the Cosmic Key, an artifact granting him access to the Ghost Zone, his private little extradimensional getaway.
When he felt he was ready to attack Justice (the concept, albeit in its various concretized forms), his first order of business was to infiltrate the Watchtower and smack down the entire JLA - with superior planning, luscious tech and the element of surprise. Only the intervention of a wildcard prevented him from killing them all.
After that high point, this epitome of nineties kewl (note the complete lack of quotes) fell completely by the wayside. With the exception of a disgusting appearance in Gotham Knights (or was it Detective Comics) where he got own3d by Green fucking Arrow ... ahem. I mean, come on! This is a guy who incapacitated the entire JLA and nearly talked Superman into killing himself! He's a heavy hitter goddammit!
So. We have a technological whiz ("an iceman" as described by Steel), tough, smart, ruthless and very well armed. Helmet with a CD-ROM drive that downloads information into his brain (information like Watchtower blueprints and the complete skillsets of martial arts masters), uber nightstick with variable mass (not to mention datathieving capabilities), wrist-mounted cannons and of course, the Cosmic Key.
The question then, is what would _I_ do with him?
For starters, I'd get rid of the fucking CDs
so nineties
and replace them with a combination of generation-after-next RedTaction - using your body’s magnetic field as a transmission medium for personal mobile devices and rTMS - stimulating savant-like skills by the violent and ultraprecise application of magnetic fields to the brain. Read the links too? Good.
Essentially, he upgrades to MP3s. Now you have someone who can mediate his neural/neuronal activity using magnetic fields generated by his costume and helmet without the obvious weaknesses of a CD-ROM spinning right next to his head.
form follows function
His ability to duplicate the skills of other martial artists (like Taskmaster only with tech) remains largely the same: overlay magnetic imprints of other people’s muscle memory for instance onto his own. But why stop there? If he's so proficient with magnetic fields, he can use precision rTMS to stimulate different idiot savant modes at different times - 13 digit primes, mnemonic stunts, hypercomputation and the like. The helmet would basically be a hub for all this schtick but, if he's smart, not the only one. Having a pet nanoswarm in his blood as backup wouldn't hurt (distributed neural net in his armor, whatever ...)
Taking things a step further into the extramundane, he can use all this biomagnetic mastery to forge his Kirlian aura (biomagnetic field) into a weapon (think Hadoken), something ancient martial arts masters are believed to have done. Since he doesn't have a couple of lifetimes to waste meditating under waterfalls, he amplifies it artificially. Natch.
To be continued
When I continue this, there'll be something of a pitch - encounters with Deathstroke, Neron and the Birds of Prey (he should make a considerably deadlier Canary/Oracle foe than Savant did)
Edit 3:09 AM: Lest I forget, this is all jarodrussell's fault. Him and his fictional informatics ... he finally put a name to the obsession that consumes us all
When he felt he was ready to attack Justice (the concept, albeit in its various concretized forms), his first order of business was to infiltrate the Watchtower and smack down the entire JLA - with superior planning, luscious tech and the element of surprise. Only the intervention of a wildcard prevented him from killing them all.
After that high point, this epitome of nineties kewl (note the complete lack of quotes) fell completely by the wayside. With the exception of a disgusting appearance in Gotham Knights (or was it Detective Comics) where he got own3d by Green fucking Arrow ... ahem. I mean, come on! This is a guy who incapacitated the entire JLA and nearly talked Superman into killing himself! He's a heavy hitter goddammit!
So. We have a technological whiz ("an iceman" as described by Steel), tough, smart, ruthless and very well armed. Helmet with a CD-ROM drive that downloads information into his brain (information like Watchtower blueprints and the complete skillsets of martial arts masters), uber nightstick with variable mass (not to mention datathieving capabilities), wrist-mounted cannons and of course, the Cosmic Key.
The question then, is what would _I_ do with him?
For starters, I'd get rid of the fucking CDs
so nineties
and replace them with a combination of generation-after-next RedTaction - using your body’s magnetic field as a transmission medium for personal mobile devices and rTMS - stimulating savant-like skills by the violent and ultraprecise application of magnetic fields to the brain. Read the links too? Good.
Essentially, he upgrades to MP3s. Now you have someone who can mediate his neural/neuronal activity using magnetic fields generated by his costume and helmet without the obvious weaknesses of a CD-ROM spinning right next to his head.
form follows function
His ability to duplicate the skills of other martial artists (like Taskmaster only with tech) remains largely the same: overlay magnetic imprints of other people’s muscle memory for instance onto his own. But why stop there? If he's so proficient with magnetic fields, he can use precision rTMS to stimulate different idiot savant modes at different times - 13 digit primes, mnemonic stunts, hypercomputation and the like. The helmet would basically be a hub for all this schtick but, if he's smart, not the only one. Having a pet nanoswarm in his blood as backup wouldn't hurt (distributed neural net in his armor, whatever ...)
Taking things a step further into the extramundane, he can use all this biomagnetic mastery to forge his Kirlian aura (biomagnetic field) into a weapon (think Hadoken), something ancient martial arts masters are believed to have done. Since he doesn't have a couple of lifetimes to waste meditating under waterfalls, he amplifies it artificially. Natch.
To be continued
When I continue this, there'll be something of a pitch - encounters with Deathstroke, Neron and the Birds of Prey (he should make a considerably deadlier Canary/Oracle foe than Savant did)
Edit 3:09 AM: Lest I forget, this is all jarodrussell's fault. Him and his fictional informatics ... he finally put a name to the obsession that consumes us all