Stormwatch PHD - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Earth's post-humans are about to find out humanity's not dead yet."
Christos Gage

The 2007 iteration of Storm Watch created by Christos Gage and (mostly) drawn by Doug Mahnke, Stormwatch PHD emerged from the line-wide event known as Worldstorm. Part of the fallout was that the UN-sponsored Stormwatch Prime could no longer afford to be profligate with their funding. Then Jackson King, Weatherman of Stormwatch Prime, has a brainwave. He introduced PHD (Post-Human Division) with a mission statement of street-level Stormwatch ops on the cheap, crewed (for the most part) by people who would normally be support staff. The series lasted for 24 issues (January, 2007-January, 2010).

The lineup was as follows:

Fahrenheit/Lauren Pennington - A veteran of the original team, she sustained brain-damage in the same battle that saw John Doran's ascendancy, losing access to her pyrokinetic gifts. Despite this, her level of experience and knowledge of SPB combat ensure she remains an asset and she's getting fight training from ...

Liam Mendoza aka Callsign Paris - Iliad, not Hilton; otherwise deceptively boring. Late of Stormforce (the special ops army Storm Watch used to have), Paris is a specialist in counter-SPB close-quarters-combat (much like Jukko Hamalainen of Team Achilles.) He has a phenomenal talent for spotting vulnerability in opponents, be it in anatomy or in fighting style.

John Doran - NYPD cop, survived a Stormwatch Prime/horde-of-supervillains fracas and personally took down two supervillains himself. In over his head, but swimming hard.

The Machinist/Dino Manolis - ex-supervillain, low-budget high-effect gagdeteer of no small ability. Too bad he's potbellied, has a Ron Jeremy back and lives with his mother. Answers to whoever squeezes his balls the tightest.

Gorgeous/Wanda Durst - independently wealthy due to a string of supervillain ex-boyfriends/booty calls. On the surface, she's exactly what the codename says, but look north of the surgically-enhanced décolletage and you'll find an dizzyingly-high IQ and a scalpel sense for (post)human behavioural tics. Team profiler. Not to be trusted.

Black Betty - something of a fan favourite, she's a Professor of Metaphysics and assistant to one of the foremost magicians in the WSU (excluding The Doctors). As such, Jackson King recruited her to be PHD's supernatural specialist. She doesn't cast spells herself (for hilarious reasons) but knows magical theoretics inside-out. Her perpetual grin and Vera Black sunglasses hide atramentous depths.

Dr. Mordecai Shaw/The Monstrosity - Dr. Mordecai Shaw has a secret; he's a leftover from experiments in Daemonite/human hybridization. Think Curt Connors meets Ultimate Bruce Banner. He is also a PHD in posthuman genetics and forensics.

Oh yeah, and Jackson King is their Augustus Gibbons. Having paid several prices - small and large alike - for the privilege of putting boot to ass for his planet, he conceived the PHD concept and recruited the team. Ultimately, he plans to have a PHD unit - cheap, effective, human - in every state.

This series provides examples of:

Abusive Parents: Paris' childhood. Saying more would be a spoiler but damn.
Aliens Are Bastards: Daemonites are bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling.
Anti-Hero: The Machinist for one. The Monstrosity is one in the original sense of the term.
Astral Projection gone Horribly Wrong: Jeremiah, Black Betty's mentor
Awesomeness by Analysis: Paris' metier.
Badass Army: Stormforce, when it existed.
Badass Grandpa: Slaughterhouse Smith, a superpowered crimelord woke up from a coma he's been in since the 1960s and kicks everyone's ass while griping about how much better music and girls were in his day.
Badass Normal: Excluding Fahrenheit and Shaw, the entire team.
Bald Black Leader Guy: Jackson King.
Beware the Nice Ones: Black Betty. Just because she's the perkiest goth girl you ever met doesn't mean you should ever make the mistake of getting on her bad side.
Big Bad: Lord Defile, Daemonite telepath and sorceror.
Brought Down to Normal / Brought Down to Badass: Fahrenheit loses her pyrokinetic powers to brain damage rather than outright power suppression. As a result, she retains the mildly enhanced healing and durability that all SPBs possess.
Crazy-Prepared: Black Betty, a rare magical example. She has defenses against every form of possession imaginable, to say nothing of her tattoo.
Dark Mistress / Hot Consort: Lady Decadence, to Lord Defile.
Dysfunction Junction / Hidden Depths: Though they appear mostly stable at first, it's revealed nearly all of them have severe issues.
Flaw Exploitation: Paris' speciality.
Intangible Man: The Walking Ghost, their first (but not biggest) Big Bad.
Hard Head: Incredibly averted. Farenheit starts the series with no powers thanks to a concussion. Although she regains her powers, they're not as strong or precise as they once were. On a smaller note, Gorgeous gets a concussion later in the series. Though she survives, it's treated as something very serious in-universe (just as it is in real life).
The Mole: Done by and to the good guys.
Mr. Fixit / Gadgeteer Genius: Dino Manolis is the low-budget version. Can turn your Discman into a laser weapon but probably can't build you a teleporter.
- He also can't genuinely create anything, just improve on someone else's ideas and creations.
Perky Goth: Black Betty all the way.
Perpetual Smiler: Black Betty again.
Playing with Fire / An Ice Person: Fahrenheit and The Cooler had a bit of a rivalry going.
The Profiler: Gorgeous.
Science Vs Magic: The Machinist in their battle with The Ferryman.
Shinigami: The Ferryman, albeit an particularly omnicidal variant.
The Siege: Lord Defile, Lady Decadent, The Cooler and a small army of daemonites assault PHD's police station HQ near the end of the series.