History Characters / CityOfHeroes

* AuthorityGrantsAssKicking: He IS the Lord of Arachnos. Though given Arachnos' laws, it might be more accurate to call it AsskickingLeadsToLeadership.

[[folder:Reichsman]]
An alternate version of the Statesman who sided with the Axis Powers during World War II. This Marcus Cole was a rogue and mercenary who was exposed to mustard gas during World War I, and discovered the Well of the Furies during his search for a cure. Adopting the persona of Reichsman, Marcus used his newfound powers to lead the Axis Powers to victory over the United States. When Dr. Webb, the founder of Portal Corp, fell into his clutches and exposed the existance of alternate Earths, Reichsman wasted no time in launching an invasion of Paragon City, only to be thwarted by the Freedom Phalanx and imprisoned.

* AttentionWhore: She can't stand not being the center of attention, and will try and steer any conversation towards her.

* FaceHeelTurn: Anyone who's played tip missions since issue 18 know that her descent into villainy is a ForeGoneConclusion.
** This doubles as a bit of a LateArrivalSpoiler.

* TheBadGuyWins: Its Praetorian counterpart has all but conquered Praetorian Earth after Tyrant's defeat.
* BlobMonster: Natch. You even have to contend with its protoplasm during Hamidon raids.

* DiscOneFinalBoss: At one point, the Hamidon was the penultimate fight in the game. Though new content has come along, it remains an extremely challenging world boss battle.

* EnergyBall: The Hamidon and its offensive Mitochondria attack with bolts of Electrolytic energy, [[InfinityPlusOneElement a damage type that can't be resisted without a special type of Inspiration]] and inflicts a [[StatusEffects plethora of debuffs on the player]] depending on the type of attack.

* PhysicalGod: WordOfGod states that Hamidon inadvertently tapped into the Well of Furies when it was created, making it an Incarnate and explaining its vast powers.[[invoked]]

* ArcherArchetype: As an {{Expy}} of ComicBook/GreenArrow, this is a given.

* ArcherArchetype: Like his Primal Earth counterpart of-course.

* InsaneTrollLogic: It's easy to forget given his appearance, but Captain Mako is a mutant human, not a mutated shark, and he still has a human mind; However he deliberately avoids human level logic, and considers thinking like a primal predator to be a sort of enlightenment.

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: At the games' inception they were all pretty one-note expys. Shortly after head of Paragon Studios left, and left ownership of his characters to his team, the dev team started having fun with the base characters, Positron went from generic super-scientist to full on Nerd, Sister Psyche went from Jean Grey knock-off to JerkassWithAHeartOfGold and Statesman went from just barely legally distinct Superman/Captain America to obsessive demanding pain in the butt to work with [[WriteWhoYouKnow (by shear coincidence, the same complaints the rest of the studio had about his creator before he left.)]]
* HeroesRUs: They don't charge, but the local, and sometime federal, government does sponsor, them to keep threats to national security at bay.

* SpotLightStealingSquad: They are the oldest, most consistent heroes who have cultivated P.R.; As a result their accomplishments make the papers much easier than player-heroes.

** Statesman is the most adamant of the policy.
** Sister Psyche’ sees the benefit of lethal force but agrees it would be bad P.R..
** Position follows Statesman’s lead but morally is neutral to the idea, at first. [[spoiler: He makes an exception for Darrin Wade after Statesman is killed, though he still says to just go for an arrest if Darrin actually co-operated, but otherwise green-lights lethal force so he doesn't lose any-other Phalanx members]].

** Numina is actually dead and so less afraid of death than the rest but still against lethal force as a she feels that would be JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope.
** Manticore is very very pro-lethal-force, but is out-voted by his teammates. He nearly breaks it but Back-Alley Brawler gives him a sobering look at where that leads.
** Back-Alley Brawler partially retired in order to maintain this policy, because he ''has'' killed. Things got too dark for him after that and he figured he was better off being a SuperCop anyway.

* ButForMeItWasTuesday: He has saved the world so many times what was the greatest day of other heroes’ lives is just another day for him -- leading to embarrassment that he frequently forgets working with other specific heroes.

* HappilyMarried: Well he ''was'' to Maiden Justice, before she died. Downside of immortality, you live to see your loved ones die.

** In the prerequisite to the main event of the ''Who Will Die'' arc [[spoiler:his daughter]] is killed and he needs to fly off to collect himself. According to his grand-daughter, Ms. Liberty, he went through the same thing when his wife died. To make things worse [[spoiler:his daughter was killed]] to get a sample of the power it would take to [[spoiler:kill him too]], when he inevitably showed up to arrest her killer.

* TheWorfEffect: Very prone to getting his ass handed to him a lot in Villain strike forces, high difficulty-high level mayhem missions, VEAT arc finales, off screen in either of the task forces involving Reichsman, gets captured at the end of the Maria Jenkins Praetorian story arcs (twice in canon), one of the two new Task/strike forces coming with issue 19, and is dead in just about every possible future you go to. [[spoiler:Finally, in the most traditional example of the trope, he gets KilledOffForReal in "Who Will Die?" to establish Darrin Wade's threat level.]] The poor guy just can't catch a break.
* WorldsStrongestMan: The Well of the Furies granted him the status of strongest being on the planet in his lifetime. Since the Well is dimensionally transcendent, it's guarenteed that Marcus Cole will ''always'' be the world's strongest man in [[TheMultiverse every version of Earth that could ever possibly exist]].

A prominent member of the Freedom Phalanx, Sister Psyche (aka Shalice Tilman) is also known for being one of the world's most powerful psychics. For a time, she was incapacitated by wounds suffered during the Rikti War, and the young heroine Aurora Borealis offered her [[BodySurf the use of her body]] until her own could recover.

Ultimately, this proved to be Sister Psyche's undoing, however -- an imprint of Aurora Borealis remained within Sister Psyche's mind and with support from her former sidekick Malaise it sought to break free. With her psychic powers raging out of control and threatening everyone in Paragon, Psyche told her husband to kill her to stop it.

With the deaths of Statesman and Sister Psyche during "Who Will Die?", he has become the new leader of the Freedom Phalanx.

* TimeToStepUpCommander: He is put in charge of the Freedom Phalanx [[spoiler:following the deaths of Statesman, Sister Psyche' and Manticore's less than cool head about the whole thing]].

* BeneathTheMask: He seems carefree and easygoing but in truth he still gets night-terrors reliving what Crey did to him.

* FragileSpeedster: Stat-wise, he has noticeably less health and basically no defense compared to his team-mates. He lives off that [[SuperReflexes high evade rating]] cause all it takes is a couple of hits for a villain to down him.

* SecretRelationship: Very strongly implied in the background lore between him and his side-kick, Mynx. All we know is that the two have spent nights together, we don't know doing what, and Synapse get's super evasive about it. Whether it is over the side-kick hero relationship or perceived hang-ups about furries is anyone's guess since he will not talk about it.

* SuperReflexes: It's even part of his passive buffs.

%%* UnwittingTestSubject: And not the least bit happy about it.

* GrewBeyondTheirProgramming: Crey made a super advanced A.I. copy of the hero, Horatio out of his suit. Naturally they intended to use him for their own purposes, but he developed a conscience through his advanced reasoning and rejected them.
* LegacyCharacter: He was built into the power-armor of a now retired hero Rick Davies. Rick is more than happy to see his armor and image put to use keeping the city safe during his retirement.

* RidiculouslyHumanRobot: Somewhat averted in the comics. While he looks human, (aside from being huge and green skinned) he actively programs his own dreams before he sleeps (which must allow for some awesome nights) and once bought a toothbrush just to feel more human.

* BeingGoodSucks: Arresting the really bad villains rather than just killing them really gets to him some times. He nearly left the Freedom Phalanx and joined Arachnos once due to the combination of this, Statesman being a Spotlight Stealer and Lord Recluse's [[BreakThemByTalking ability to play to his frustrations on such matters]].
* {{Expy}}: His backstory is almost a word-for-word reproduction of ComicBook/{{Batman}}. Being a bow-using superhero with a privilaged upbringing also echoes ComicBook/{{GreenArrow}}.
* Fiction500: Oddly subverted. He has enough money to fight crime with single-use high-tech arrows as a hobby, yet he still maintains that such actions are still cheaper than what it would cost him to throw money at charities til crime was abolished, and even then, he stresses, it would only be temporary.

* KillTheOnesYouLove: He is forced to kill his beloved wife to stop her powers from killing everyone in Paragon City.

* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: The richest character in the setting. Although this would probably be more accurately described as CrimefightingWithCash.

* DarkIsNotEvil: Yeah she has death magic but she uses it to act as the team White Mage.

* DudleyDoRightStopsToHelp: As a hero stopping to solve everyday crimes cut into his missions to stop mad-scientists and giant monsters... which is why he is semi-retired and trains other to go after the crazy crimes while he sticks to the small ones. He will not ignore that purse-snatching just because another alien assassin has a doomsday weapon.

* RequiredSecondaryPowers: His high-tech gloves may seem like they are the source of his super-stregnth, but the super-strength is all natural, the gloves are to make sure Back-Alley Brawler doesn't break his hands everytime he punches a hole in a wall.

* SmallStepsHero: He deliberately ignores the big crazy villains to go around retrieving purses, stopping home-invasions and arresting muggers. Anyone who has ever been to Steel Canyon or Skyway City will attest to how many muggers they need to pass over to stop the supervillain of the day, so someone has to stop them. Calls in the current Freedom Phalanx members if can't afford to stop his pursuit of a local drug dealer to go after that dooms-day device he passed on the way.

* SuckSessor: She substitutes for Sister Psyche’, [[spoiler:after Sister Psyche’ is killed]].

A mutant psychic with hypnotic abilities that let him project illusions and give of telekentic waves. He suffers from a split-personality but was give a new lease on life thanks to Sister Psyche'.

* BeyondRedemption: His part in the murder of [[spoiler: Miss Liberty]] and near brain-death and permeant possession of Sister Psyche' has the rest of the Vindicators and the Freedom Phalanx consider him a lost soul in-need of putting him down. To her credit Sister Psyche' was trying to the bitter end to try to reverse his SplitPersonalityTakeOver but ultimately had to tear his mind apart in self-defense. No one mourns him except for Sister Psyche' herself.
* MadArtist: During his bouts as this he goes into museums stealing anything that strikes him as mad-genius to give it a better home, and defacing the rest for being uninspired.

* RedemptionRejection: Sister Psyche tries to offer him redemption for his part in killing Statesman as she knows he is not in his right mind... right before he kills her for trying to chain his mind with the concept of sanity.

* SplitPersonalityTakeover: Both heroes and villains will encounter Malaise while he is off his psychic meds. In the ''Who Will Die'' arc, we see a final re-emergence of crazy Malaise, after what happens to Sister Psyche' though, that time no one was giving him a chance to go back on his meds.

* CompositeCharacter: Combined with SpinOffspring. He's allegedy the son of Manticore and Sister Psyche from the future, equipped with a model of Positron's armor.
* FakeMemories: Proton's future is in fact Praetoria, Mother Mayhem has just altered his memories to view it as a different time, he thinks he has gone back in time when he crossed into a less technologically advanced reality.
* HeroicBSOD: Thinks he is the son of Manticore and Sister Psyche' from the future, when thinking that was just a false memory from evil alternate-reality Sister Psyche, that is going to give anyone a HeroicBSOD. Upon stopping to look at few details that don't make sense in the whole time-travel scenario the logic of it starts to break down for him.

* DayOfTheJackboot: "Axis Earth" is a timeline where the Axis Powers won World War II, and the players briefly visit it to fight some {{Palette Swap}}ped 5th Column mooks called the Amerika Korps.

* PoweredByAForsakenChild: [[spoiler:He's kidnapped several other alternate Marcus Coles -- including [[TheWorfEffect the Statesman]], in the hero version of the adventure -- and hooked them up to a machine to siphon their powers, giving him outright NighInvulnerability. Finding a way to remove this buff so you can fight him takes up a good chunk of the hero task force. The villain strike force, on the other hand, levels the playing field by having the players use the machine on themselves, after duping the Arachnos Patrons into feeding it.]]

* HeroesWantRedheads: He married Sister Psyche in-canon lore (also, the [[AuthorAvatar developers who use the two characters]] married in real life).