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Post by johnreiter902 on Apr 1, 2020 14:47:12 GMT
Awhile back, I created a bunch of posts on yahoo where I created origins for Earth-3 characters for whom names had been suggested, but not much else. I like filling that universe with new characters. I dream of seeing Earth-3 develop into a full comic book universe, just like the other earths.
It's also a fun writing exercise, to study the original supervillains and heroes, analyze their characters and the writing style of their creators, and imagine what type of villain or hero they would be if their alignments were reversed. For every kind of hero, their is a corresponding opposite number, a matching type of villains, and vice versa.
I am going to start reposting them here. one at a time, on this thread. Not all of these characters may exist yet on Earth-3, and I am happy to modify them to match the plans of other writers.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Apr 1, 2020 14:47:37 GMT
Origins - Dr. Atlanta Thaddeus Bodog Atlanta, the World’s Wisest Scientist, was born sometime in the 19th century. He was originally a somewhat vain and selfish genius, but all that changes when he married. His wife (her name unrevealed) was as glorious in spirit as she was in form. For her, Thaddeus put aside personal ambition. They had two beautiful children before tragedy struck. Mrs. Atlanta was killed by militant agitators during the rise of nationalism in the late 19th century. Dr. Atlanta was left to raise his children alone. He dedicated his life to fighting the evils of the world that had robbed him off his wife; injustice, war, sickness, poverty, hunger, and so forth. Through his insightful political analysis, however, Atlanta began to fear that the world would plunge into a global war. He knew that the inventions he was creating might be used as weapons, and cause more harm than good. To protect his family, he built a rocket and settled them on the planet Venus. For years, the Atlantas lived on Venus, taming the wilderness and educating the Glompers into a happy civilization. Beautia and Magnificus Atlanta were content to enjoy the idle pleasures of their utopia, but Dr. Atlanta could not stop thinking of the people back on Earth, suffering who-knew-what. He began to feel he had abandoned them, abandoned his duty to his wife’s memory. So, in 1940, Dr. Atlanta returned to Earth. He resolved to keep his inventions from being misused by using them himself to stop disasters and fight injustice. He did sell some of his inventions, but only with great care, and only the most harmless. He based himself out of a private laboratory in Fawcett City, paid for with his patents. In time, he found himself regularly battling men and women with great power who sought to dominate the human race, people only his technology could oppose. The first of these was his mortal enemy Mazahs, whose black magic and physical might sharply contrasted the benevolent genius and slight physique of his opponent.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Apr 1, 2020 14:48:42 GMT
Origins: Captain Germany Albrecht Krieger’s father was one of many brilliant German scientist who was forced to slave for the nazis’ secret projects, even though he did not support them. He was ordered to create a serum that would turn German soldier into supermen. It was to be a safer and more effective process than the one that had empowered Commandant Ferro four years earlier. Dr. Krieger finished the formula, but had no intention of giving it to the Nazis. He injected the only sample into his son during a rare visiting day at the laboratory. Before either of them could escape, a guard shot Dr. Krieger and killed him. The grief-ridden Albrecht escaped the base and flew across the channel to England. He was initially mistrusted by the Allied High Command, but proved his worth when he defeated an attempted nazi invasion of the USA, timed to coincide with the attack on Pearl Harbor. In that same adventure he fought his arch enemy, King Marvel, for the first time. Krieger, or Captain Germany as he now called himself, dedicated himself to the cause of German liberation from the Nazis and the championship of freedom and justice for all. He also became the symbol of anti-nazi Germans in the allied countries, fighting against prejudice and encouraging Germans in Britain and the US to join the war effort. Most of his career, however, was spent in occupied Europe, fighting alongside the German underground to liberate Europe and sabotage the Axis war machine. One of his greatest enemies was the embodiment of Nazism, Axis Hans.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Apr 1, 2020 14:48:57 GMT
Origins: Fog Brilliant young biochemist Kyle Murphy labored on his pet project during the early years of World War I, till at last he perfected it. He had created a formula, called Inviso-Solution, which would render objects invisible. Murphy felt his invention would change the world. Particularly, police and the military would be more effective, with fewer casualties. He presented his invention at a secret meeting of military brass first, in the hope that it could prevent further casualties in the trenches. At first, the officers seemed very receptive. Later, however, he overheard how they intended to take advantage of his “foolish idealism.” They saw his invention as a way to gain power for themselves. This awakened Murphy to the dangers that would arise if his invention came into public use. He reported it was a failure and continued to work as a research chemist, leaving his greatest discovery in a locked safe. But it did not stay there forever. Kyle could not stand by as crime and war ran rampant, knowing the potential good of his discovery. In 1941, he decided he would use the Inviso-Solution himself to fight crime. He originally intended to be an invisible force of justice, but then came up with the idea of making himself a symbol of justice, to strike fear in the underworld. He coated a flowing cloak in Inviso-solution, to make him look like a disembodied figure in a cloud of fog. This ghostly appearance capitalized on the fear of superstition of the underworld. In his first case as the Fog, Kyle Murphy defeated his future arch-nemesis, the power-hungry scientist Spaceman.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Apr 1, 2020 14:49:17 GMT
Origins: Hath-Set (plus Manhawk and Lady Hawk) The story of Hath-Set begins in ancient Egypt, where he was a wise high priest of Set, the god who is first among Ra’s protectors. Hath-Set was a dedicated scholar who used the wisdom of the ages to help the people of Egypt. But a shadow was over the land. Prince Khufu and his Queen Shayera were given harnesses of Nth Metal by the god Horus, to spread the civilization of Egypt to the four corners of the globe. These two were ruthless tyrants, who ruled Egypt with an Iron fist, and showed no mercy to their enemies. As the chosen champions of the gods, they saw themselves as gods on earth, and demanded “all due glory.” Their winged harnesses gave them the power of flight, which made them all but invincible. Hath-Set opposed the evil Pharaoh and his queen, until he finally toppled them from power. Egypt was freed, and prospered under Hath-Set’s protection, but his arch-enemies had not given up trying to regain their throne. Realizing they could not defeat Hath-Set in a fair fight, they infiltrated his palace and traitorously stabbed him in the back. With his dying breath, Hath-Set cast a spell binding them together, so that whenever his foes reincarnated, he would be there to stop them. In the year 1940, all three had been reincarnated as arrogant, glory seeking archeologist Dr. Carter Hall, his vain and domineering girlfriend Shiera Saunders, and the brilliant and friendly archeologist Dr. Anton Hastor. Hall and Hastor uncovered the tomb of Hath-Set, where their memories of their past lives were restored. Hall recovered the Nth Metal harnesses, and tried to leave Hastor trapped in the tomb. He escaped, bringing with him the dagger that had murdered him. As Hath-Set, he became an international adventurer and consultant on the supernatural and preternatural, using his mastery of lost science and ancient magic. Meanwhile, Hall restored Shiera’s memories, and the two of them began their schemes for world domination anew. Capitalizing on the fearsome appearance of their winged costumes, they took the names Manhawk and Lady Hawk. Hath-Set fought them in his first appearance as Earth-3’s first golden age hero.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Apr 1, 2020 14:49:49 GMT
Origins: Dr. Shadow The real name of Dr. Shadow is unknown. In recent years, he has used the alias of Wilfred Knox as his secret identity. Dr. Shadow’s earliest memory is wandering through the streets of London in a disheveled state in the year 1838. He was found by the author Charles Dickens, who gave the young man shelter in his home. Knox was very grateful to Dickens for his help, and the two became friends. At first, they assumed he was the victim of some factory accident, but it soon became clear it was an accident of some mystical nature. While they were walking in Hyde Park one evening, the two were attack by a band of robbers, the Ludlow family, Knox discovered he had the power to control shadows and give them substance when he instinctively lashed out and killed all the robbers present. Dickens helped his friend yet again to recover. Knox determined never again to use his powers, lest he harm someone else. He did practice in secret over the years, to improve his control. He found he was immortal, and was forced to move frequently, because some of the Ludlows had survived and were determined to kill him. Whenever he crossed their paths, he tried to protect their victims, but was still too wracked with guilt to hunt them down, or use his powers publicly. Each generation of Ludlows grew more evil than the next however, and increasingly it was only Knox’s efforts which foiled their schemes. Finally, inspired by the mystery men like the Fog and the Queen who had debuted in the 1940s, Knox began to use his powers for the good of all men rather than for selfish self preservation, as the costumed Dr. Shadow in 1942. He could no longer ignore his responsibility to act. His arch-enemies included Jack B. Quick, and the current heir to the Ludlow’s legacy of crime, the Tarantula.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Apr 1, 2020 14:50:15 GMT
Origins: Spaceman “Cosmic” Rod Knight was a millionaire inventor, but his wealth never satisfied him. He spent most of it either trying to gain more influence and popularity in Opal City, or on his secretive experiments to gain limitless power from space. Finally, Knight invented the Spacerod, a device which would draw on the unlimited energy of space radiation. Creating the sinister identity of Spaceman, Knight formed a criminal organization in Opal City to amass wealth and power. He ruled his servants with an iron fist, and the fear of his Spacerod. By day he could spend the loot without fear, since nobody suspected the eccentric but charming Rod Knight. Spaceman saw this only as a stepping stone, and his successes grew, so did his ego. With the power of his rod, he imagined he would soon command an army, and rule the world. Eventually, however, the invisible mystery man the Fog tracked down his gang and brought him to justice, the first time.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Apr 1, 2020 14:50:35 GMT
Origins: Father Tears Father Sebastian Klamata, originally of the Church of the Tears of Christ in Zandia, now a missionary doing social work in San Francisco, has a great secret. Seven hundred years ago, a group of monks and wounded crusaders took shelter on the peaceful island of Zandia on their way home from the Holy Land. The island was then attacked by Muslim pirates, and the people were all but helpless to save themselves. A priest at the Church of the Tears of Christ was given a cloak by a dying monk who said it was the Cloak of Christ. Whoever wore it would find his strength magnified by the combined faith all believers. The priest drove off the pirates, and continued to secretly protect Zandia, calling himself Father Tears in honor of the Tears of Christ which saved all believers. He kept his identity secret, lest evil men steal the cloak. The mantel was kept in the secret archives of the church, to be used by the priests in time of emergency, until the current Father Tears decided that the power of the cloak to do good should not be confined to Zandia, but like the gospel should do good for all the world. He immigrated to San Francisco, where he had gone to school, and became one of the most recent public superheroes on Earth-3 in the 1980s
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Post by johnreiter902 on Apr 1, 2020 14:53:54 GMT
Origins: Boogeyman Prof. Jonathan Crane of Gotham University was considered to be the world’s greatest expert on fear and the power of the human will to overcome it. He lectured often on how evil is founded upon a life of fear, and how fear is the greatest weakness of every criminal. He was a firm believer that good arises when people conquer their fear through willpower. Often, Professor Crane was called on by the authorities to give his opinions on criminal psychology, particularly in cases of terrorism. Prof Crane became convinced that he could do much more. He took it on as a project, to try and find a new way of dealing with criminals, who he saw were too often running rampant in Gotham City. The police tried, but Owlman and his fellow criminals were much too successful. Inspired by the new heroes emerging along with Lex Luthor, Crane decided to exploit the cowardly nature of criminals by creating a terrifying costumed persona to strike fear into their hearts. He created the identity of the Boogeyman, after the scary story he had heard as a child. In time, he became one of the greatest heroes in Gotham.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Apr 1, 2020 14:54:13 GMT
Origins: Puzzler Edward Nigma had always loved puzzles, ever since he was a child. As he grew and honed his mind for deductive thinking, he began to have trouble finding puzzles too hard to solve. He found a new source of joy composing puzzles. This, after famous submissions to several contests, got him his first job as a game show producer and host for Gotham Broadcasting. Nigma hosted many quiz shows, but still never found the proper audience to do justice to his deductive skills. Then, one day, he observed subtle, but tell-tale clues indicating that the studio was being robbed. Since there was no concrete evidence of guilt, Nigma hatched a daring plan. Inspired by the modern wave of superheroes, he created a new show where he announced that he was in contact with a mystery man known as the Puzzler, who was investigating the possibility of a crime at the studio. While Nigma pursued the mystery as the Puzzler, he announced his finding on the show, thus scaring the criminals into more and more blatant movements to hide themselves, including attempts on the Puzzler’s life. Finally, he gathered enough evidence to convict all the crooks and turned it over to the police in his first public appearance. Nigma had finally found a challenge worthy of his brain. The Puzzler went on to methodically crack some of the greatest mysteries in Gotham City. At first, the Gotham police resented the interference of this amateur, but despite some conceit and grandstanding, Nigma was always careful to give due credit and then some to Gotham’s finest. In time, they began to request the aid of the Puzzler through Edward Nigma when confronted with incredible crimes, usually ones planned and executed by Owlman and his cohorts. Meanwhile, the “Puzzler Show” became the most watched program in Gotham. A telephone service was set up so that people with impossible cases could phone them in for the Puzzler to solve. Nigma would also record interviews between himself and the Puzzler on current cases, done secretly to “preserve the hero’s anonymity” (actually, Nigma recorded his part and the Puzzler’s separately, then spliced them together.)
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Post by johnreiter902 on Apr 1, 2020 14:55:39 GMT
Origins: Janus Harvey Dent was an indolent, wealthy lawyer who had little interest in his job as district attorney. He won the post because of his brilliant mind, but saw it only as a source of fame and money. He was a member of the circle of Gotham’s wealthy and unscrupulous, which included Thomas Wayne. All that changed when Harvey bent his mind to the task of convicting a man named Salvatore Maroni of murder. Maroni was believed guilty by nearly everyone, and Thomas Wayne hinted that he also believed the man’s guilt. In fact, Owlman was using him as a scapegoat for one of his murders. Dent obtained a conviction, but the desperate pleading and protestations of innocence from Maroni haunted him afterwards. So Harvey began investigating the crime more closely. To his horror, he discovered Maroni was a harmless, innocent victim with a wife and children. Harvey Dent was changed forever. He saw that his abuse of justice had made him a killer. His guilt drove him to dedicate himself to preserving the balance of justice. The guilty should all be punished, the innocent all be spared. He also discovered links which made him suspect that at least one of his former crowd in the Gotham elite was the mastermind behind this and many other crimes. Therefore, by day Dent would maintain a pretense of his old lifestyle, to stay close to those men and pick up information while keeping them from suspecting him. By night, he carried out his relentless crusade for justice in a black and white costume calling himself Janus, after the roman god of dualities and balance. Some of his fellow heroes find him a bit ruthless and intense, not totally unopposed to killing criminals he knows are guilty before they can be tried.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Apr 1, 2020 14:56:21 GMT
Origins: Glass Man Wesley Dodds was failing as a businessman. He embezzled money to support a social lifestyle, while allowing his company to operate undirected. Eventually, however, Dodds was found out by three of his buddies, who showed their true colors and began blackmailing him. Dodds’ business began to fail, and he took to drink and even drugs to relive the constant stress. He hoped with increasingly fevered desperation that someone else would take over his life and tell him how to end his troubles. Then, a strange thing began happening. Wesley Dodds began seeing visions in mirrors. In any reflective glass, he would see himself dressed in a shadowy coat, fedora, and mask take his revolver, go down to the bar where his blackmailers would meet, and shoot them all. Haunted and desperate, Dodds finally acted out the vision. His gun had only two bullets in it, but he killed two of the men with one shot. Wesley Dodds became convinced that he could see the future in glass. He continued to follow all of his visions, calling his costumed alias the Glass Man.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Apr 1, 2020 14:56:46 GMT
Origins: Dunce Clifford DeVoe was an exceptionally gifted young law student, with a promising career ahead of him. He was a passionate and idealistic boy, who believed that by honing his mind to perfection and mastering the legal system, he could always bring the guilty to justice. However, he bit off more than he could chew when he tried to take down the local crime boss, Hunk Norvock. Norvock manipulated the witnesses and the evidence, until the naïve young lawyer looked like a complete fool, with no conception how to handle a case. Utterly disgraced, and derided as a “dunce” by the papers, DeVoe left the legal profession and became a private detective. More worldly wise now, he chose play into his reputation as dull and simple, the better to keep his enemies off-guard. Humble now and unassuming, he remained a deep and ponderous thinker. He carefully built a new case against Norvock, taking years to put it together, before putting it in the hands of the DA.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Apr 1, 2020 14:57:05 GMT
Origins: Gamester Steven Sharpe III was a hardworking you man in a small-town general store. He had his heart set on a beautiful woman, but she was interested in the high life. She took up with a crooked gambler, who treated her royally from his ill-gotten gains. Sharpe was determined to win her back. He studied days and night, becoming a master of probabilities and gambling techniques. Then, he challenged the gambler to a no-limits game of poker, and not only exposed his cheating, but beat him fair and square, and took everything but his shirt. Sharpe’s love threw herself at him, but by now he could see through her superficiality, and pushed her away. The truth was, he had found a new thrill. Using his expertise at games, he could expose cheaters, and show people the futility of gambling for profit. In a fair game, the only person who always wins is the house. As Sharpe built a reputation for ensuring fair play, he was increasingly called to travel all over the world, to all varieties of competitions. He became the mortal enemy of gambling syndicates and fixers, and developed skills at disguise and self defense to protect himself, even taking to carrying a phony gun filled with anesthetic gas. He soon earned the nickname the Gamester.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Apr 1, 2020 14:58:36 GMT
Origins: Sportsman Lawrence Crock was a world-famous professional athlete at nearly every sport. He was also famous for his honesty and sportsmanship. When a crooked syndicate of gamblers tried to force him to throw a football game, he refused. However, the gamblers got Crock disqualified by framing him for theft, so that the other team would win anyway. Determined to get justice, Crock created the costumed identity of the Sportsman and used his athletic skills to bring the criminals to justice and clear his name.
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