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Having moved into Spectrum’s fast, let’s get to the future
Following their tense encounter with the Anarqueers, a slightly more experienced Spectrum has to deal with the rising political and social momentum of the Golden Choir. Started by charismatic philanthropist, Ezra Simon, the Golden Choir had come from seemingly out of nowhere. While not overtly belonging to any religion, the organization espoused ‘traditional’ values and proposed itself to be the answer to the ‘moral degradation of society’. One of its specialties happened to be reparative therapy for LGBT youth, advertising its program as the cure for homosexuality, drug addiction, and all social ills.
Needless to say, Spectrum was more than disturbed by this rhetoric and Rosemary publicly denounced Simon’s teachings. He responded with a smear campaign on Spectrum and its members, buying out media vendors and curtailing favor with extreme-right leaning politicians. All the while the Golden Choir had something seedier going on behind its facade as a rehabilitation clinic and charity organization. Rosemary vowed to expose Simon for who he was, but she had no idea the scope of the forces involved and the danger she was putting all of them in…
With that out of the way allow me to introduce Ezra Simon. The charismatic and well spoken leader of the Golden Choir. He appears human, but his origins are far from it. He has vast telepathic power, his mind working like a virus, planting itself in the minds he comes in contact with and eventually overwriting them entirely and fusing them into a vast telepathic hive-mind. His powers don’t seem to work on the members of Spectrum, due to their exposure to the extra-dimensional energies of Triad’s prism. Something in his past is tied to Triad and the source of his powers, as yet unrevealed…
Triad, having disappeared after the team disbanded, re-emerges at the LGBT youth rally in a disheveled and unhinged mental state. He ends up causing the disaster that grants Spectrum their powers after cracking open the extra-dimensional prism that was the source of his powers. He disappears again in the ensuing confusion.
Thanks! Good to be back
I had a blast coming up with them. There’s one surviving member whose older modern-day self I have to produce then on to the next story arc…Of course! I love putting group shots together.
Last member of the retro Spectrum team.
Rocketina- Donna Edrington
Backstory:
She was the daughter of a billionaire industrial engineer, who built his fortune through advances in aviation technology and architectural innovation. Donna was gifted with an eidetic memory and showed avid interest in pursuing an engineering degree like her father before her. Despite her interest, Mr. Edrington favored his eldest son as an heir and pushed him for excellence. Donna’s brother joined the air-force hoping to make their father proud, but was killed in combat during a skirmish over the Congo. Mr. Edrington became severely depressed, withering away until the day he took his own life. She inherited her father’s business and used its resources to build a personal flight-suit. One that would allow her to make an individual difference in the world. Something more maneuverable that would prevent tragedies like the one that claimed her brother’s life. She never claimed a distinct orientation, and didn’t want to, having a strong distaste for labels and constrainment. Rocketina would die shortly before the disbanding of the team, sacrificing her life in order to destroy a device that would have opened a rift in space-time under San Francisco. Donna wore an advanced aerial rocket-suit, allowing her to fly through the air at incredible velocities. The suit had onboard weapons systems in addition to the arms Donna kept on her person. She was an expert marksman, and incredibly agile.
Thanks! Another member of the retro Spectrum team, arguably their most powerful.
Pride
Backstory:
He’s never revealed much of his past. Much of what the team does know is second-hand information from Triad, with whom Pride formed a particularly close relationship. He was a soldier in WWII. A member of an elite clandestine wetworks squad. Thus any record of his civilian existence has been destroyed, making it near impossible to determine who he used to be. They had a mission against the Axis powers in Germany. They failed. Pride and his surviving teammates were rounded up and experimented on by Nazi scientists. One by one, Pride watched his comrades die wretchedly, either by side effect of the treatments they were subjected to or by their own hand after the torture had driven them insane. According to Triad, Pride lost somebody incredibly special to him during this ordeal. Some genetic quirk in his physiology allowed Pride to survive the treatment. He was gifted with near invulnerability, vast superhuman strength, and superhuman speed. Pride used these abilities to tear his prison apart and kill his captors.. He spent much of the years thereafter wandering as a homeless vagrant, anonymous and alone. He found he didn’t age anymore, another gift from his jailers. Eventually he made it back to America, hiding amongst the burn outs and abandoned in NYC. It wasn’t until the Stonewall Riots, the sight of a man in uniform brutalizing a young gay man, that something inside him snapped. He rose up, using his abilities to tear apart the shackles and police wagons. No more secrecy. No more hiding. He would be a living banner to his people. A living symbol of Pride. He was a natural leader to the team, but always deferred to Rosemary. Pride burned out his abilities during the 1970’s, deliberately and repeatedly exposing himself to the HIV virus and incubating post-human antibodies through his accelerated immune system. His abilities were gone, but he spared the LGBT community the ravages of a potential plague. He passed away in the late 80’s. His true age finally catching up with him.Hey thanks! It’d definitely have to be an edgier kind of comic line, I think Image sounds good
These guys are mainly nods to the kind of wild and rapidly-changing attitudes that began to emerge during the 60’s LGBT movements, moving away from trying just to blend in and get by unnoticed towards being more outspoken and in your face about everything. Elementa and Cub were fun because I tend to do street clothing or kind of fantasy robe/armor stuff and my traditional superhero outfits are a bit rusty.One more for today!
Triad
The team’s resident mage. In the modern timeline of the story he’s also the reason behind Spectrum’s revival, going unhinged and detonating the source of his powers in the middle of a pride event. It’s unleashed energies are the catalyst that transforms the six young members of Spectrum and grants them their powers.His background:
A bisexual young man from Puerto Rico, raised by his grandmother and instructed in island lore and santerÃa. After her passing he spent his youth without resolve, aimless, addicted to an endless chain of substances. During an attempted overdose he found a crystal clear prism hidden in the refuse of a squalid building, seemingly drawing him near. Upon contact with the relic, the drugs and addiction were burned clean from him and he felt true power, a one-ness with the universe. He attached the prism to a chain around his neck and took up the identity of Triad, used his magic to better the lives of others. Using the prism as a power source, he could fly, conjure waves of extra-dimensional energy with various applications, even teleport. His potential was limited only by his imagination. The prism also seemed to guide him somehow, giving him an almost precognitive supernatural intuition. He often told his teammates that it had a personality, a presence of it’s own. After Spectrum initially disbanded, Hernán became lost. He became somewhat of a silent protector for the Village, dispatching muggers and bigots alike before fading into obscurity altogether. Hernán wasn’t seen for years, until the eventful day when his actions led to the formation of Spectrum’s current incarnation. He was ranting and raving for Elementa and the Bear to help him, telling them the voice in the Prism had gotten too loud, too demanding. In his unhinged state he cracked open the Prism, unleashing its magicks on the crowd. He disappeared with the ensuing explosion and hasn’t been seen since…
Now to not leave you with a decidedly civilian character. I’ve started designing the 1960s super-team that The Bear and Elementa were a part of before joining with Spectrum. They were an active crime-fighting unit devoted to protecting and fighting for the LGBT community, put together by Elementa after the Stonewall Riots in New York.
First up is Rosemary’s first incarnation as Elementa, new to her abilities and eager to make a difference in the world.
Next is the Bear, in the freer more scantily clad days of his youth.
Finally we have Arnold Aronov’s former superhuman identity: The Cub!
Backstory on his abilities:
When the Bear was first granted his powers, following a disastrous plane crash, Arnold was gravely injured. Despite the Bear carrying him swiftly from the surrounding wilderness in his powerful new form, Arnold almost didn’t make it. An emergency blood transfusion from the Bear brought him back from the brink. Sensing that the Bear would an anchor, someone to guide him through life, Kodiak empowered the blood within Arnold, granting him an enhanced physique and superhuman senses. He stayed with the Bear throughout his quest, through retirement and back again.
I’m baaaack! After an extended hiatus I’m back with some more Spectrum stuff!
First up is a supporting character, who acts as a mentor and consultant to the young team. The Bear’s husband and former superhero side-kick, Arnold Aronov. Arnold was a former vigilante himself, but is now in a state of semi-retirement, begrudgingly following his husband back into superheroics.
Your team is awesome! I’m humbled that Spectrum group could inspire you so much
Double Trouble is such a novel way of incorporating an intersex character and Enabler looks so badass. She’s also a concept I hadn’t considered, especially with LGBT families becoming more commonplace. I could certainly see the two teams interacting together. My only complaint is that now I have all these ideas buzzing in my head, but have I try and hold to my Lenten commitment Have to hit the sketchpad and the journal I suppose. But anyway, keep it up! I approve wholeheartedly!PS- I kind of like your white insignia more than mine… I might have to borrow it for the Anarqueers!
Been a bit busy with real life (boo! lol), but as promised. Some villains for Spectrum
Starting off with the ANARQUEERS! A three-person terrorist cell, all of them former military or black ops, who operate in defiance of any and all governments, blaming all of them for the plight of LGBT people around the world. They routinely perform widespread attacks against organized religion and political groups with anti-gay leanings, and assassinate those leadership figures at the head of each. They view all non-LGBT members of society as complicit participants in the status quo as it has been thus far. They are expendable cannon fodder in the war against heteronormativity. Spectrum aims to put an end to them, but even their abilities are hard tasked to overcome such ruthless adversaries.
BUTCH
Former Black Ops operative, fell in love with a teammate and jeopardized a mission forher, leading to their handlers abandoning them in hostile territory. Her teammate was brutally tortured to death in front of her, before Butch managed to escape. Butch wages war on the government that abandoned her and against any who would hurt members of the LGBT community.
She is an expert marksman and martial artist, having undergone extensive gene therapy during her black ops contracts which enhanced her body and neurology beyond normal human limits.
NANCYBOY
A former intelligence analyst for the military, he lived isolated and withdrawn because of the DADT policy in effect during his enlistment. Eventually his fellow soldiers got wind of his secret, created an elaborate ruse involving a fake online relationship and exposed him to his superiors. Despite his long career, Nancyboy was summarily expelled from the army. Unhinged and with nothing left to lose, Nancyboy erased years of intelligence from military servers and leaked sensitive information. He was kept locked up in an undisclosed facility, awaiting sentencing as a traitor when Butch broke him out and recruited him.
A computer expert and an excellent forger, Nancyboy allows the Anarqueers to stay ahead of authorities and keeps a rotating supply of valid ID documents at their fingertips. He uses enhanced weaponry of his own design.
DOROTHY
A genetic experiment uncovered by Nancyboy’s hacking and rescued by him and Butch from a clandestine facility based deep within the Rocky Mountains. Her true identity, or even gender, remains unknown. She refers to herself as Dorothy and wears a dolled up mask at all times. She was the only surviving test subject of a combined radiation/gene therapy program that greatly altered her body. Butch and Nancyboy killed the entire research staff, leveled the base, and scoured all records of its existence. Very few people remain aware of her origins. Dorothy is generally docile, but becomes a vicious and cruel assassin on mission.
Thanks to her treatment, Dorothy is an efficient killing machine. She has superhuman strength, enough to punch through plate steel and rip heavy machinery to shreds. She is not invulnerable, but the increased density of her skin, bone, and muscle tissues make her incredibly resistant to injury. She can switch off her pain receptors at will, allowing her to fight through enormous punishment.
And close it off with a group shot:
These guys are mainly nods to the kind of wild and rapidly-changing attitudes that began to emerge during the 60’s LGBT movements, moving away from trying just to blend in and get by unnoticed towards being more outspoken and in your face about everything. Elementa and Cub were fun because I tend to do street clothing or kind of fantasy robe/armor stuff and my traditional superhero outfits are a bit rusty.
Have to hit the sketchpad and the journal I suppose. But anyway, keep it up! I approve wholeheartedly!
