If you know me, then you know of my man crush for Robert Kirkman. Invincible is one of my favorite titles, I enjoyed his Marvel Team Up, I own the trades of Brit, I like Walking Dead, oh, and my desktop background? Eric O’Grady. I’ve compared his writing to that of Brian Bendis, only to comment that at least Kirkman knows how to further his plot along at a decent pace. Hell, one of my first Standards was all about Invincible. So this article isn’t actually going to be about him, rather something he said. You see, a few months ago he was made a partner at Image after walking away from Marvel to work solely on his creator owned work, and going beyond that to encourage more creators to do the same. Well, want to hear my pitch?
Some of my readers are going to read this and know immediately what it is, as it’s not an entirely new concept for me. I’ve been hanging around at an X-Men themed RPG for close to two years now, and this is one of my characters from there. Mike, you’re going to love me. Seph, you’re going to hate me. The rest of you? Prepare to meet my bouncing baby boy.
Jake “Apollo” Lange
Jake is a nineteen year old from Miami, Florida. Blond hair, blue eyes, former jock. Played football most of his life, up until just before his senior year started. He’s from a good Jewish family that is more well off then he realizes, and he loves his parents. His younger siblings Elise and Derrick looks up to him, and he’s a good big brother. Thing is, Jake is also a mutant. And in a world where mutants are hated and feared, well, Jake got off kind of easy. He might have lost his scholarship opportunities and football career, but he was granted amazing powers. His entire body chemistry had been altering itself over months, and the end result was that he became a living solar battery. He had the powers to absorb and rechannel light, which more or less made him a Green Lantern that had to charge on solar energy.
His debut avatar
He was just a tad bit too powerful, and came across like a bit too big of a douchebag, but he still got my full attention as a character. His evolution of a character started as a high school jock that didn’t totally live inside of his popularity, who went out of his way to be the same as anybody else. He did what his parents asked, provided a good example for his little brother and sister, and did his best to be active in the community. The all American male, you know? The kind of guy that you see walking through the halls and you think is going to be a total prick to you, but he always smiles. He knows everybody’s name, he respects everyone, he was just raised right.
Jake goes Hollywood
Being a mutant threw a couple of kinks into the equation though, as his light powers deviated his personality. In the days before he could comfortably maintain a charge while being active and alive at night, he would lock himself up for sleep and always figured that he was getting a good night sleep. Jake had a dark side though, everything he wasn’t as a man, and yet, nobody seemed to realize they were dealing with two people. Living with the rest of the New Mutants made it come out though, as it’s hard to hide a dark side you’re unaware of when surrounded by your peers 24/7.
His first day at the school Jake found his first girlfriend, someone completely his opposite in a pasty girl with a red mohawk and a faux punk attitude named Baby. His second day he had his love triangle as the schools resident bad girl made a play for his man-package. Jake, of course, had no true clue how to handle this and it led to somewhat comedic, but mainly groan worthy results. His first real date with Baby made him a pair of lifelong enemies in Andreas and Andrea Van Strucker, Fenris. A night on the town left his darker side in control with the other lady, and it ended with him coming to in the middle of a parking lot, with sparse memories of his night and vomit on his lap as the dark side cut and run rather than deal with it. That was the first time he really realized how bad the situation could be, yet he chose to keep it close to his chest, rather than tell everybody.
A series of unfortunate events left him alone, his sins catching up to him, and his mind in such a dark place that it wasn’t difficult for his dark side to become the dominant personality. The team was hijacked by Deadpool and led into a Hydra base to rescue one of his allies, and during this encounter Jake had his first kill……and his fifteenth, as he maimed his way through a squadron of Hydra foot soldiers, ripping them into pieces. An action that has haunted him ever since. Jake was forcibly rebuilding himself, trying to overcome the actions of his dark side, and all the while taking the blame on to his own shoulders. After all, if part of him is a killer then that must mean that it’s in him, a part of him, that he himself is willing to kill. No excuses, just acceptance.
Corona
The first true tragedy to come through his life was when Jake’s team of New Mutants was left face to face with a team called the New Masters, alternate reality versions of him and his allies. Jake was attacked by his own double, the mad man-God known as Corona, and the battle ended with Corona took a sick sense of pleasure in ripping off Jake’s arms, absorbing it into himself and leaving Jake with a stub of a shoulder, cauterized like a butcher had done the job, and in a state of shock. Wounded beyond his wildest sense of imagination, lacking a lot of blood, and more or less completely broken down, Jake did the only thing he could. He fought back. He took on Coyote, the Masters version of his rival Army, and even threw the Masters version of his beloved Baby to her death, before finally finding his way to the actual Baby during her fight with Corona, and returning the favor. Jake spent the next several months with a right arm made up entirely of starfield, a growing evil in his body that would spread with his anger and rage, sometimes overtaking him with the personality of his evil double.
Starry Jake
Jake went about life as best he could for a while, doing his best to keep his darker urges at bay as he continued to be the hero he felt he was deep in side. He graduated high school through Xavier’s and moved on to do some web and correspondence courses for college, intent to further his own education when he just as easily could have done nothing, becoming the only member of his New Mutants team to attempt a college education (though given their ages, he was one of only a few that were able to). Several instances happening across the shared universe forced the hand of the government, prompting mutant registration to become a reality, and forcing sides to be chosen amongst the mutant population. Magneto was given the nation of Genosha, creating a haven for mutants under his rule, while Xavier stayed his ground in America, running his school with registered students.
Booster Jake
Jake, of course, stayed behind and signed on the dotted line. He wanted to be a hero, he wanted to make his family proud, and being labeled a terrorist under Magneto’s rule was not the way he wanted to go. His time on the New Mutants, now relocated back to New York, was uneventful at best; as Jake found himself in situations that he would hardly have deemed super hero material, and at times he felt like a bonafide PR monkey. This actually led to one of his most interesting character tweaks, as he threw on a bright costume, complete with a mask and cape, and flew around New York playing super hero as Goldstar. He called it his night job, as during his time out West he had learned a measure of controls over his abilities that would let him go well into the night without needing to recharge, so long as he knew his limits.
Goldstar
There were quite a few changes to his powers during this time, as it became more and more apparent to his teachers that his abilities were growing in strength, to a point where it was becoming less apparent if he was truly human anymore, as his body was starting to run without need of some of its more basic needs; such as eating, drinking, sleeping. He wasn’t getting tired, and it was as if he could last for weeks without problem. The nature of his abilities, until that point, was believed to be that he could generate light after absorbing into himself, rechanneling it. The reality was that Jake was made entirely out of it, that his body had mutated to the point where it was arguable that he was only maintaining a human form and physiology because of his own will, because he didn’t know that he could go beyond that. Probably for the best, looking back.
As if dealing with a double life, growing powers, and an evil arm weren’t enough, Jake soon had his greatest responsibility thrown into his lap as his little sister manifested powers and came to live at the school with him. Elise wasn’t exactly a little version of him though, as her powers only enabled her to make rainbows; and even then, she was quite limited with what she could do. More or less she took on the name ‘Rainbow Brite’ and flew around on a self made rainbow cloud. During her debut there was an issue, and all of the on campus family members of the team (quite a few, as it was Parents Weekend) were kidnapped and had their souls corrupted. The journey to find their salvation further damned his own soul as Jake killed dozens of innocent people while magic had the situation corrupted to cause him to believe that they were, in fact, zombies. He tried to run his mind through it, just as he tried to find some semblance of logic that would justify his actions. He found no such thing. Not even close, in fact. And yet, oddly enough, the situation ended in a peculiar way. While fighting a demonic soul devourer inside the essence of his sister, the team was ejected only to find themselves in the middle of Gotham City, quickly brought under the thrall of Poison Ivy.
That’s right, the New Mutants got dropped in the DC Universe, and their first job was to kill the Bat family while under the influence. Jake nearly killed Batgirl before his teammate Paige regained her senses and used the giant dinosaur against him, shattering a few of his ribs. Jake’s time in the DC Universe was a strange one, to say the least. As far as he was concerned he was there for a total of three weeks; during which he dueled with Guy Gardner, teamed up with Kyle Rayner, had Booster Gold threaten to sue him, and even took the virginity of Stargirl. Jake was always kinda funny like that, he knew how to network. When the time came to head back home though, when it was all said and done, Jake’s on-again-off-again-girlfriend Baby chose to stay, and a part of Jake stayed behind with her.
Six months had passed back home during their absence, and the New Mutants team had been completely rebooted during his absence. When Jake made his dramatic reappearance after having apparently stayed behind, he found himself in the midst of a team completely not his own, but he did have one thing upon his return that he was lacking before. He had his arm back, his real one. Flesh, blood, bone….no more stars or evil, it was just Jake as he once again got a new beginning. Quickly taking himself to task, Jake got his life going again in no time flat; getting back into classes, resuming his second life as Goldstar, and even settling down with yet another of the Mansion’s most eligible. That was just Jake though, quick to bounce back from anything, into anything.
His time on the newly restructured New Mutants was marked by both failures and successes, though if you ask him the greatest combination of the two is when he, as Goldstar, led the New Mutants on an operation against Hydra. During a solo adventure just prior to the encounter, he found himself nearly killed by Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker and his Death Spores, crashing through the windows of the mansion with the last of his energy. He led the New Mutants to a confrontation against Hydra where the team was able to subdue the Baron as well as the twins, but there were quite a few green suited casualties and a few members of the team were changed forever from it. Jake was not pleased, at all. His own powers had kept him alive where any normal man would have died, but it kept him out of the fight where he felt he could have done more to protect his friends and colleagues. His cover story had him laying around in bed, pretending to be down with the flu to excuse his absence during the mission…..this ploy worked against his girlfriend for about thirty-five seconds before she found his mask and realized that he’d been the one to save her.
Jake’s first Apollo suit
Despite that, his time as Goldstar lasted him up until the day he graduated from New Mutant to X-Man, a baptism by fire that left him needing to rethink the priorities of his life. Onslaught had come to pass as the Shadow King returned, possessing Magneto and brutally slaughtering the X-Men, leaving only the New Mutants. During the final epic battle between Magneto and Xavier, Magnus boasted about how he had killed the X-Men, how he had bathed in their blood, how he was at last victorious.
Jake killed him without a second thought, fueled by his rage and desire for revenge. The dominos toppling, Xavier found himself next on the list of the fallen as the death of Magneto forced the Shadow King into his mind, and the only way to defeat Farouk was to kill Xavier as well.
Jake mourned the loss of his mentor as he took the guilt and weight of responsibility on his own chest, never for a second forgetting that he played executioner. In the weeks between the deaths of the X-Men and the next generations rise to replace them, Jake gave up his role as Goldstar following a night of soul searching and crime fighting, one that ended with Captain America addressing him by name and telling him that he didn’t need the mask to be a hero. From that point on, as much as he tried, being and X-Man never felt right. He couldn’t help but feel that his destiny lay elsewhere, that limiting himself to mutant affairs was a waste of his abilities. He eventually stepped away from the team and moved out of the mansion, getting himself an apartment in New York that he lived out of while living a semi-public life as the maskless super hero known as Apollo.
Recently, through a series of fan fics written as his solo series, Jake has begun to establish his life in the city. Already having faced off against his nemesis, the new Master Man, Jake almost faced defeat at the hands of the super powered Nazi before he was saved by the timely intervention of a new, female, Goldstar. No sooner did he let the bruises start to heal from that before Black Midnight struck the Marvel universe, and he found himself up against his greatest nightmare as the ghostly shade of Magneto rose from the grave to try and drag Jake back under along with him. Following the encounter, Jake publicly announced the events of the Shadow King incident, taking full responsibility in front of the eyes of the world as the man who killed Magneto. Figuring his career to be at an end because of this, Jake prepared to settle down and get a nine to five and start a normal life until Steve Rogers showed up at his door one day with a package. A communicator card, a new costume, and a plaque denoting that he had been voted into the roster of the Avengers.
Apollo of the Avengers
He finally had lived up to his dreams, and met his destiny. He was a super hero on the world scale, respected by his peers, making a difference. His personal life was in check, his super hero career was booming beyond his wildest dreams. And best of all? He wasn’t even twenty yet.
And to think, that’s just the events and happenings of a character in a Marvel themed RPG over the course of about a year and a half. A rotating GM roster, occasionally flakey other people, and missions and events happening occasionally at times I can’t be around for. Just look past that though, see the rest of the situation. I created a character, developed him, entrenched him in continuity, and the only issue he had? Over powering. How was the issue solved? Move him to a different corner of the sandbox and let him keep doing what he’s doing.
What’s something lacking in the current market of super hero books? Fresh, new characters that are given the attention to detail and the exposure throughout the collective universe that are able to actually survive. Especially when you try to take a non-legacy character and put them into that spot. New and original characters can be a hard sell, especially given the state of the industry today. We, as readers, have been following many of the same characters for as long as we’ve been picking up books, and that is absolutely fine. I can’t imagine comics with Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, or the X-Men. There’s just no way. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be bringing new characters in, free of existing legacies, free of names tagged on to increase sales.
But wait! I just spent this entire column talking about a character in an X-Men themed RPG! That’s just one giant legacy and marketing tie in, hell, that’s a world that he couldn’t even be introduced into. Here’s the fun thing about Jake though; his is the heroes journey, someone who has tremendous power overtake him all at once and had to grow into the role of a hero, molded by his peers and the world around him. At his core Jake is a template that I could use in any existing comics universe, my own included, one that would grow and develop naturally based on the given surroundings. He’s the kind of character that could be beloved by readers if he were given a chance to grow and mature, and, if he were in a Marvel or DC setting, he were allowed into the shared universe.
There’s a wealth of ideas out there, you just have to know how to apply them, and more importantly, find the proper outlet.
Anyone want to buy a character?
Can you hear, can you hear, can you hear the thunder? You better run, you better take cover.
For starters, I want to apologize for the tardiness this week. My computer died on me last week, and it threw a wrench into a lot of things. Like finishing a column with a rough draft saved to its drive. My ram died, my net died, and as I sit here six hours before my deadline, with an unfinished rough draft, I feel horrible. This will not happen again, that’s my vow.
New Krypton was 100% exactly what I was expecting as far as how the story would go, and while I expected to enjoy the story as I love the Superman titles right now, I didn’t expect to be surprised. The reveal of who was heading up things on the ‘villains’ end was very surprising, and I can’t wait to see what happens. Not to mention that his first act is to recruit Lex Luthor, whose presence is always missed.
Secret Invasion gets a big fat MEH from me this week. Just like New Krypton, I knew what to expect going in. A giant fucking fight scene. That said, I also expected twists and turns and Skrull reveals. I didn’t get that last part, I didn’t get it at all. Sure, we had the giant fight scene, and yes, Uatu did show up, but nothing else happened! Norman and Fury was much better handled in the Thunderbolts issue this week, and to be honest, now I’m much more excited to see what happens with Norman Osborn in the coming months, more so than I am the Avengers.
And how about the Crisis? The time jump works for me, as does the creating of new alliances in this world where Anti-Life is life. I even like the way they’re handling the Gods of Apokolips. What I don’t like, however, is that the book has turned into a rotating art team. This month was Jones and Pacheco, and the last issues is 100% Mahnke? What gives?
New Avengers made up for last week’s Mighty Avengers, though the art of Billy Tan alone could have done that. It was good to have an issue dedicated to the Hood and his syndicate of super villains, as all too often during big events like this do writers forget that there are villains running around too. There was a nice attention to detail, and a reveal as to the source of Hood’s powers that I should have seen coming. I mean, come on, there are like three name brand demons in the Marvel universe, it wasn’t a hard guess.
Invincible wins the “Awwwww” award from me this week after the last few pages that showed just why Mark and Eve are perfect for each other. As a supporter of their relationship, I absolutely loved it. Hats off to Kirkman for giving us a super cheesy moment right when it was absolutely called for. And to those who didn’t like it? Too bad! That was for us romance lovers :P.
Awwwwwwwww!
Captain America saw the start of something that it hasn’t done since the first issue. It truly began a new story arc. Not just the beginning of a story line, no, it began to pave the way to a new story like the Lukin and Skull one before it. A forty-two issue story, contained in one title, culminating with a fitting conclusion, and leaving the book open to begin to explore its new status quo with the next issue. Bucky is a perfect character for this book, and Bru makes it obvious. He’s a lot like Steve in all the big ways, but there’s enough to him that sets him apart that you never feel as if he’s just holding a place. Black Widow makes for a great supporting character in this book, and not just because she spends her entire appearance bare-ass naked. She’s a great character to play off of Buck, and the relationship works more than most I’ve seen her shoe horned into, if not just because of the explanation of young romance put on hold for years and years. I could have lived without Batroc’s new costume though, I liked his old one.
Thor: Truth of History jumped out at me from the shelves this week, as I saw classic Thor with familiar art on the stands. Written and drawn by Alan Davis. Sold. But could it live up to the hype set only by the name of its fabled creator? Davis crafts a story about Ancient Egypt, and how the Norse Gods find their way there. We see how the Sphinx looked originally, and how it wound up as it is today. It was a fun, well thought out story, that easily fits into the mythology of the character. Definitely a must read.
All I have to say about X-Men Legacy and Original Sin is that it was VERY weird to see Daken making out with Ms. Sinister.
VERY VERY CREEPY!
One last note on my otherwise short rumblings, remember when “New ongoing artist” meant something? Mike Deodato has been announced as the new ongoing artist of three different books this year. It’s not ongoing if the artist comes on board, does one arc, than never comes back. That’s calling penciling a story arc. Ongoing artist would be something like Steve Epting on Captain America, or Gary Frank on Action Comics, Tony Daniel on Batman, or better yet, Ron Frenz on Spider-Girl. Artists who do all of the work, or at least most of it. Having a rotating art team of two artists who alternate arcs is fine, but when you have a new artist for every story arc then the book turns visually into a cluster. A single identifiable writer on a book does nothing but build up strength behind it, as it defines the look and feel of the title in a way that a rotating cast can’t possibly do.
What I read this week:
- Birds of Prey
- Final Crisis
- Final Crisis: Submit
- Superman: New Krypton
- Tangent: Superman’s Reign
- Invincible
- Captain America
- New Avengers
- Runaways
- Secret Invasion
- Thor: Truth of History
- Thunderbolts
- X-Factor
- X-Men Legacy
Best of the week:
- Final Crisis
- Captain America
- New Krypton
- Thor: Truth of History
What I watched this week:
- Heroes
- Sarah Connor
- South Park
- Entourage
- Superjail
- Ski Patrol
- Metalocalypse
- Dexter
Movies:
- Wanted
- The Happening
- Pick of Destiny
- Existenz
- I Am Legend
- The Mist
- Aqua Teen
- Beast with a Billion Backs
WoW Instances:
- Mechanar (heroic)
- Botanica (heroic)
- Karazhan
- Zul’Aman
- Hellfire Ramparts (heroic)
- Slave Pens (heroic)
- Underbog (heroic)
- Durnhold (heroic)
- Black Morass (heroic)
- Gruul’s Lair
- Mount Hyjal
The Gold Standard
