Characters / Irredeemable

aka: Irredeemable Plutonian

Characters from Irredeemable.

---

The Paradigm

In General

• Breaking the Fellowship: The original Paradigm breaks up after they find out that one of their own (Bette Noir) knew that the Plutonian had a weakness and made a weapon out of it but didn't say anything because she had an affair with Plutonian behind her husband's back, so she let millions of people die, including most of her family, to hide her shame.
• Dwindling Party: Following the Plutonian's fall, the Paradigm keep losing members. By the end, only Qubit, Gilgamos and Kaidan are still alive.
• Expy: The original Paradigm are this to the Justice League since the Plutonian is a expy of Superman himself.
• Super Team: This world's premier super hero team.
• True Companions: The original Paradigm were a true family to each other until The Plutonian's rampage causes their secrets and dark sides to come out, which in the end causes them to no longer have the trust and bond they once had, except Qubit and Kaidan, who stay close with each other throughout it all.

The Plutonian

Tony, Daniel Anderson/Hartigan, The Wolf-Boy

"Fine."

The series' main character. A mysterious man with incredible powers, he was once the Earth's greatest and most beloved hero. Then one day something snapped inside him, and he went on a murderous rampage with no apparent aim other than spreading maximum pain and suffering across the globe. He's now the greatest threat the world has ever faced, and nobody knows how — or if — he can be stopped.

---

• Ambiguous Situation: With the revelation that Daniel's Flying Brick powers are a byproduct of him warping reality and not because he was actually born with them a couple questions come up about the story as a whole. Namely, are there really natural forces that can hurt or kill the Plutonian, or does his Plot Armor and invincibility stem from the same basis as his powers, meaning he only gets hurt when he believes he can? Evidence in the story supports both interpretations.
• Angel Unaware: Played with. He knows naturally that he is superhuman, but he doesn't know why he has these powers, what he is, or where he's from until his parents show him.
• Arch-Enemy: Nearly anyone can qualify simply because Plutonian did something personally damning to them. However, his true enmity is targeted towards Max Damage and the feeling is mutual; Max's battle against Plutonian back when they were villain and hero respectively is a sour reminder of why Plutonian isn't as good as everyone else or he himself makes him out to be and Plutonian's turn to villainy and the destruction he causes is enough to make Max reflective over his past actions and eventually become a hero himself. Of all the characters, none battle Plutonian more than Max himself, and Plutonian even comes to respect his opposition and determination in stopping him, even when he makes it clear he is never stopping.
• Attention Whore: Even back when he was a superhero, he secretly had a massive entitlement complex and believed that everyone should revere him. Finding out that this was never going to be the case is what led him to forgoing heroism entirely. If he couldn't be the positive influence in everyone's lives, he would be the cause of everyone's suffering.
• Ax-Crazy: Tony's rage has made him dangerously unstable and his severe narcissism means pissing him off can be as simple as a mild insult. He takes a lie that a Singaporean ambassador tells him, done out of fear, as a personal affront and destroys the man's entire country as payback.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: With no apparent limits.
• Being Good Sucks: He really tried, but regardless, he couldn't save nor please everybody on Earth. The fact that he was the greatest hero in the world made Plutonian's psyche worse. Though this is not sympathetic as his actual motivations were not out of any concern or remorse over being unable to save others but to be loved by everyone, and this never seemed to be the case. Fully affirmed when he decides to become evil and realizes that being a malevolent destroyer felt more cathartic and satisfying than he ever thought.
• Beneath the Mask: Plutonian was a mentally impaired and damaged individual since his childhood and this was something that was not known to nearly anybody be it the populace of the Earth, villains, nor his fellow members in the Paradigm. Neither was his pathological desire for absolute adoration. He kept a determined, warm, and stern face to hide his troubles and present himself as a hero, which is made all the more shocking when he finally decides its enough and he lets out everything that he truly was.
• Berserk Button: His biggest one was his inability to take even the slightest bit of criticism. This was brought on by spending his childhood feared, unloved, and bullied, which instilled in him a pathological need to have the entire human race's complete, unconditional love.
  • He also doesn't like people lying to him. When a representative of Singapore lied to him out of fear, Tony sunk his whole country.
  • There's also Max Damage, his archenemy. This comes from the fact that Max knows he was the Coalville Wolf Boy years ago, and as such, Tony knows that he knows Tony's not completely perfect.
  • Ingratitude was another major one as Tony couldn't handle not being loved by everyone despite all his heroism. His trip to the moon for some peace during an attack, which played a major role in his turn, was even brought on by a man he rescued complaining about damage to his boat, causing Tony to get enraged at him.
• Beware the Superman: Once he turned to evil. The only person that feared this happening was Hornet.
• Big Bad: Even before his turn, Plutonian was on a level well above even his allies. Once he blew up, not even the other bad guys were evil or powerful enough to stop him.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Even before his turn to villainy, it was regularly hinted that Tony wasn't quite the endlessly patient, trustworthy figure he seemed to be and that he had serious issues. Hornet first caught on when Tony accidentally let slip that he'd been spying on his team members and a few people, most notably Max who remembered Tony's time as the "Coalville Wolf Boy", had seen first hand that Tony had serious anger issues and wasn't as perfect as he tried to seem, a fact which infuriated Tony.
• Blessed with Suck: He didn't have the psychological strength to handle his super-senses — hearing literally every single cry for help and every little snide comment about him over the cheers drove him increasingly closer to the edge. His invulnerability is also so great that he Can't Have Sex, Ever, since even if he doesn't move, his body hairs would cut through human flesh rather than bend. This becomes rather interesting once it's revealed that Tony is actually a Reality Warper who's only tapping into the most basic applications of his powers to appear to be a Flying Brick, so he's really only as strong as he thinks he is. It's never been remarked on, but it's possible to interpret all the "sucky" aspects of his powers as a manifestation of his own martyr complex.
• Born Unlucky: Despite winning the Super Power Lottery, Tony is just one of those guys who faces one bad thing after another. Having his psyche based off a women who went mad after killing her child was just the start of his misfortune.
• Broken Ace: He is a major winner of the Super Power Lottery and was the worlds most beloved hero. However, flashbacks show that even before he snapped, he was deeply badly broken inside.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • He serves as one for Samsara, though it's more surprising that this was before Plutonian became evil. After he made a crucial mistake in the field that left hundreds of children dead and he initially lied about his role in this tragedy, his sidekick stopped trusting him. Knowing his closest friend couldn't look up to him the way he used to was one of the last straws. What made it worse was that the people from the lab (where he had turned over the alien device that led to the tragedy) went behind his back and told Samsara about it, claiming to be too afraid of him to do it themselves.
  • Volt also sees the Plutonian as one. Plutonian helped him control his powers which allowed him to have a normal life. In a flashback, we see him trying to reason with Plutonian, only for Plutonian to rip his arm off.
  • Of course, he's this to Planet Earth, the very place which he protected and from whom he sought love and praises from. What's jarring is that most of Earth already loved and praised him for his heroics, but that wasn't enough. When Plutonian decided to object to everything he stood up for, he quickly turned the appreciation and respect the population had for him into fear, revilement, and disappointment.
  • He even serves as one for Max Damage, his arch enemy, of all people. Despite their long history as enemies, Max sincerely believed Tony really wanted to be as heroic and altruistic as he presented himself to be and genuinely admired him for it, even saying he never would've killed him out of respect. The revelation of Tony's true nature shakes him as much as it does Tony's former friends and inspires him to abandon villainy and becomes a hero instead.
• The Cape: He was the greatest superhero in the world and nearly everyone, even his arch enemy Max Damage, looked up to him due to him being a beacon of inspiration and hope for others and for using his god-like powers for good. Unfortunately, the fact that everybody didn't love The Plutonian was a point of contention he never got over and he decided to take the opposite direction. Evidently, he ditches the cape upon becoming evil.
• Can't Take Criticism: As a hero, he had a big problem letting go of anyone who said anything bad about him, justified or not. Not as big a problem when he becomes a villain, presumably because when you murder people by the millions you stop caring what anybody thinks about you.
• Card-Carrying Villain: After turning to villainy, he drops any pretense of being anything other than a gloating, sadistic monster.
• Changeling Tale: He was an extraterrestrial probe that took on the shape of a human baby by reacting to the emotions of an insane woman that had killed her child.
• Corrupted Character Copy: Take the tale of Kal-El/Clark Kent and reinterpret it as someone who struggled to adjust to domestic life on Earth, have difficulty controlling his powers, alienated and seriously hurt others, and had self-serving reasons for his heroics as opposed to Superman who did what he did because it was simply the right thing to do, and you get The Plutonian. He's arguably a stronger example than Homelander and Omni-Man; where Superman is the superhero example of inspiration, kindness, and selflessness, The Plutonian represents the exact opposite.
• Dark and Troubled Past: He was "born" when the emotion-studying probe released by the Eleos reacted to the strong emotions of an insane woman who went crazy with guilt after killing her child, was bounced around between several foster families who rejected and feared him, and went through a period where he lived as a Wild Child known by the locals as the "Wolf Boy".
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Superman Substitute. His background leaves his private motivations as a superhero wildly askew with genuine decency and faith in others and ultimately snaps due to not being psychologically capable of bearing the responsibilities and physical complications that come with the powers.
• Desperately Craves Affection: As a result of his unstable childhood and adolescence, Tony is absolutely desperate for praise and adoration and sees heroism as a way to get it. The knowledge that there would always be those who disliked him eventually drove him to snap.
• The Dreaded: After his turn, he becomes this to everyone, heroes, villains, and civilians alike, and with very good reason.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Due to Tony only seeing heroism as a way to earn the adoration he craved, he became extremely bitter knowing there would always be people who didn't love or respect him, no matter what he did, and he became deeply resentful of humanity for their perceived ingratitude before finally snapping.
• Entitled Bastard: Beneath his superhero persona, this is what Tony really was, feeling owed the love and adoration he felt he earned with his heroism and being gradually driven mad by knowing that he'd never be loved by everyone, no matter what he did.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Subverted. He seemed to mourn the deaths of his various foster parents, but its revealed later that he only truly mourned the loss of people who loved him. Later on, he passes up several opportunities to kill Bette Noir and is genuinely afraid of realizing he left her Alone with the Psycho, but likely because he'd see that as too easy a way out for someone as close to him as she was. Finally, he makes no attempt to track down and kill Alana, even though she knows he could easily do so, until his return to Earth from captivity, at which point he attacks Max Damage to learn where Alana is with implicitly malevolent intentions.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He himself doesn't actually understand good and never did. The reason he was The Cape for so long was because of a deep pathological need for mindless adoration brought on by his rough childhood, which instilled in him a selfish need to have humanity's complete, unconditional love. He only craved the personal glory of being a hero, not the true meaning behind it.
• Evil Costume Switch: The white parts of his costume get turned red and the red parts go black. Loses the cape too.
• Evil Feels Good: After years of trying to be a superhero and becoming demoralized, stressed, and upset that he would never be loved by everybody, The Plutonian finds great joy and excitement when that's thrown out the window and starts destroying and killing others. The feeling is so cathartic that Plutonian seemingly overcomes his desire for approval and makes it his goal to terrorize and subjugate others for his sadistic satisfaction.
• Evil Is Petty: Early on, he makes Qubit choose just ten out of four million people in Singapore to save. In truth, Tony was making Qubit choose ten people so that Qubit would understand what it was like to shoulder all the responsibility of only being able to save a few people while aware that millions more are doomed no matter what. Part of the reason why Tony snapped is that he couldn't take that pressure. And why was he destroying Singapore anyway? Because the UN ambassador from there lied to him about why they elected Tony as their absolute monarch.
• Expy: The Plutonian is one of Superman, by the end explicitly, albeit gone very, very wrong.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Deconstructed. Modeus developed an unhealthy crush on him and committed villainy to get his attention.
• Extra Digits: He gains an extra finger on each hand like his parents after his powers evolve.
• Eye Beams: That can carve lines in continents.
• Face–Heel Turn: He tried to be as straight an arrow as he possibly could, but being privy to humanity's thoughts (even the evil, petty ones) caused him to lash out violently.
• Fallen Hero: Played with. Plutonian did fall from grace, but he did not dwell in sorrow, opting to just destroy everything instead of facing his mistakes.
• Faux Affably Evil: After his turn, he still maintains a polite façade when talking to people, but it's pretty obvious he's just faking it and being pretty smug about his actions.
• Flying Brick: Played with. It's explained that Plutonian doesn't actually have the powers of a proper Flying Brick, but can alter the fabric of reality to cause power-like manifestations.
• For the Evulz: He definitely takes pleasure in his actions. Justified, as he's simply that happy to finally let loose all of his power and stop worrying so much.
• Freudian Excuse: He got tossed from one foster home to another after his families discovered his powers. Several rejected him out of fear, and one mother even killed herself. And then there are the circumstances of his birth — he was originally an alien probe that took on a human baby's form after reacting to the powerful emotions of an insane woman who had killed her child, which might have corrupted him from the start. He also lived in the woods as a feral child, known as the Wolf Boy, for a time. He was already severely psychologically damaged by the time things began looking up which did not negate nor heal any of the damage he went through prior. When he finally gets to a (relatively) stable, functional home, his new father's moral strictures also unintentionally give him a massive sense of entitlement, which is ultimately the final straw on a teetering tower of psychological issues.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: He also got a few good lucky breaks like a girlfriend and the love of at least 90% of the human race, but it wasn't enough. His biological parents tell him to his face that the treatment he endured doesn't justify any of his atrocities.
• Fun with Acronyms: Turns out his superhero name, the Plutonian, is this, though it's not well-known. PLUTO stands for Piety, Loyalty, Utility, Truthfulness, and Order. It came from his last foster father.
• Genius Bruiser: The Plutonian is very intelligent and manipulative, which makes him that much more dangerous.
• Glory Hound: As the series goes on, it becomes increasingly clear that Tony's heroic acts, while they may have had some altruistic element, were largely just a way for him to get the love and adoration he felt he was owed, as a way of making up for getting almost none during his childhood. Tony never cared about doing good for its own sake, only as a way to earn love.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Like Superman when he's angry.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: Went from windswept to a buzzcut. Grows very slightly over the course of the story, not back to the length he had previously but it's noticeably less rounded towards the end in comparison to the beginning.
• Good Wears White: His heroic costume is white and red. He switches to a red and black outfit after he turns evil.
• Hero with an F in Good: He tried to stand up for a girl that was being bullied back in his childhood. While a noble thing by default, he vastly underestimated his own strength when a simple shove he gave towards the bully instead knocked him away at high speed, killing him instantly. During his time as a superhero, he also struggled to work reliably with his teammates and come up with decent plans, which is how the sound virus disaster even occurred. On a more pathological note, Plutonian is this on a psychological level as everything he did as a hero was a way to validate himself as the world's best and most beloved hero and be praised by everybody, something that isn't realistically possible, so accomplish, and Plutonian's fragile mindset meant he couldn't handle not being universally adored, which held disastrous consequences.
• Heroic BSoD: When he realizes just how badly he screwed up with the sound virus.
• Hidden Depths: Despite his status as a beloved hero and inspiration to the world, Tony seriously struggled with both the weight of his responsibilities and the aftereffects of a deeply unhappy childhood where he was shown almost no affection or love. Even after he turns and gleefully slaughters millions at a time, it's shown that Tony is still desperate for love and a part of him wants to become a hero again to regain that, which some of his enemies exploit.
• Hypocrite: He cites humanity's consistent ingratitude as a major reason for his turn. In reality, most people, even his most bitter enemies like Max, loved and respected him with only a minority still disliking him. Tony, however, couldn't handle anything less than universal adoration and turned against humanity as a whole despite their previous adoration, making him the ungrateful one.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: At his core, Tony suffers from an extreme case of this. All he ever wanted was to be loved and believed constantly performing heroic acts would earn him universal adoration to fill the gap left by his unstable childhood. Tony's continued feelings of loneliness combined with his regular reminders that there would always be people who hated him, no matter what, and his struggles in dealing with the crushing responsibility his powers brought were among the major reasons he eventually snaps.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Particularly early in his life, when he was jumping between foster parents. Later, he wants to settle with Alana Patel, but messes that up.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: What first tips off Hornet, who sincerely viewed Tony as his best friend, that he wasn't quite as on the up and up as he liked to appear was Tony casually using the name of Jim's wife in a conversation despite the latter never having told him her name. This tipped him off to the fact that Tony had been spying on his team members and begin to take measures in case he ever snapped.
• Ignored Epiphany: He does reflect back solemnly on his actions as an evil monster who relishes in carving annihilation towards everybody. It's only for a brief, fleeting moment as he quickly asserts that he feels good about what he's done and continues committing his horrid deeds, learning nothing and having no remorse and shame in what he's done.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: As befits his narcissism, Tony has a serious case of this, even after he becomes a villain. His ego grew so big and so fragile that the constant reminders that he wasn't loved by everyone, no matter how much he did for humanity, caused him to eventually snap.
• It's All About Me: Ultimately the real reason behind his heroics. While helping people might've been a part of it, deep down he just wanted the unconditional love and devotion of mankind, and a large factor in his decision to turn evil was the realization that he would never get it when he felt it was owed to him. Best exemplified in a story from when he was a kid; he stayed with a foster family that had a baby boy and accidentally squeezed him too hard, causing the child to have severe and permanent brain damage. Tony loudly rants how he was the one who really suffered, since the baby would grow up loved and cared for for the rest of his life, but Tony had to be kicked out of yet another foster home.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Samsara discovering Plutonian's involvement in the sound virus incident that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of children led him to kill the scientists who told him, and soon after the entire city. He showed several signs of instability before that, but this was the straw that broke the camel's back.
• Kick the Dog: Plutonian takes just as much joy in his personal crimes as he does in his large-scale massacres.
  • In the very first issue, he forces Hornet, his best friend on the Paradigm, to watch him brutally murder his wife and children before badmouthing his daughter and then killing him. Given how powerful he is, there's no other explanation than pure sadism.
    The Hornet: Puh-please... Not my daughter too... She's only a little girl...
    The Plutonian: I know exactly what she is. She's a carbon bag of atoms and bioelectricity.
  • In his spare time, he forces people who look like him and Bette Noir to have sex with each other, even making the woman say certain phrases during the act.
  • Even while taking the time to destroy all of Singapore, he forces Qubit to choose ten specific people who get to live before he'll kill the rest, telling him that now he knows how Plutonian felt during his days as a hero.
  • He goes on a live broadcast just to gloat to the world about the millions of people he's murdered, even taking the time to tell one specific person on Earth that he has cancer.
• Kryptonite Factor: A magic candle that nullifies his powers as long as it burns, which is later melted down into a bullet that is the only thing that can hurt him. There's also radiation (not mysterious, exotic sources like the trope namer), just buttloads of it. Like, enough to cause a global extinction nuclear holocaust event, all concentrated on him.
• Lack of Empathy: As one would expect from a guy who can murder millions without a second thought, Tony is lacking a bit when it comes to empathy after he snaps and it's shown he never had much to start with, seeing other people as existing solely to heap praise on him.
• Light Is Good: During his superhero career, The Plutonian donned a white and red costume which emphasized his nature and reputation as the greatest superhero on Earth. This doesn't last.
• Living Lie Detector: Tony's powers allow him to hear heartbeats and determine if someone is being dishonest. Those who are quickly regret trying to deceive him.
• Love Hungry: Combined with Secretly Selfish, this was Plutonian down to the core. He was so desperate for everyone's unconditional love and acceptance that even the slightest criticisms (from bitter jerkasses that really should've just been tuned out) made him terrified of failure and making any mistakes that could lead to losing everyone's love and admiration for him. When he does make one of those Really Bad Mistakes (which also loses him his sidekick's trust), that's when he basically throws his hands up and says "Fine." His desperation for love results from being bounced between foster homes due to his powers making everyone scared of him.
• Literal-Minded: When his adoptive father told him to never use his powers for personal gain, he took it on board to the point of not informing his foster parents that his adoptive mother had cancer until it was far too late to treat it.
• Meaningful Name: Plutonian's name has a couple of different ones. One meaning can be taken from how it's derived or associated with Pluto, the Roman god that is the Expy to the more well-known Greek god Hades, God of Death and Ruler of the Underworld. He's also as distant as can be from humanity in general (like the dwarf planet Pluto). Additionally, it's almost a homonym for plutonium, an element that can offer humanity great power but is incredibly dangerous if mishandled.
• Meta Origin: In-universe for Superman. Qubit scatters his Eleosan essence across the multiverse and parallel dimensions, some of it getting into the original concepts of Superman for his actual creators in Real Life.
• Mood-Swinger: Plutonian is very irascible and remarkably unstable, though it is justified by his deeply painful childhood and the fact that he was an alien probe that took form from a person's conscience and desires. In this case, it was an insane woman who wished for a baby back shortly after killing her own.
• Mysterious Past: Up until the final act, even Tony knew nothing of his origins, or even if he's really an alien. The rest of the Paradigm had this to contend with during the first part of the series, as they had very few leads and only small scraps of information to go by to discover what they could on him.
• Narcissist: Tony obsesses over being adored and only ever helps people out of the hope that they will love him for it. When he goes rogue, he continues this behavior, taking it up to believing he still deserves the undying worship of those around him even as he slaughters them, unable to look at people as anything more than toys for his amusement. As further evidence of his high opinion of himself, he apparently has an elaborate throne in his hideout.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: His body hair is tough enough that it'll cut any human who touches it, and the only things that have even scratched him so far are literal magic powers and teleporting bits of him away. He can get knocked around by an opponent of matching physical strength, but he's almost impossible to kill.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: This happened to him often.
  • At one point in his childhood, Tony killed an abusive foster father and thought it would make his foster mother love him. It only really frightened her and eventually, she ended up committing suicide. Tony tried to stop her, but it was already too late.
  • In another childhood flashback, Tony tried to defend a girl he befriended by standing up to a bully. When he shoved the other kid away, he accidentally killed him.
  • The whole alien sound virus incident came about from Tony giving a piece of alien technology to a human scientist to study after figuring it would help contribute to humanity.
• Omnicidal Maniac: He kills masses of people on a whim after his fall, including all of Singapore.
• The Paragon Always Rebels: Toyed with. Of all superheroes, there was little to no suspicion that the Plutonian would ever rebel.
• The Perfectionist: Deconstructed. His inability to handle criticism, extreme fear of failure, and the fallout from his own mistakes played a major part in his fall.
• Person of Mass Destruction: By the end of the first few issues, Tony has already singlehandedly killed at least eight million people in the destructions of Sky City and Singapore, with the actual estimates being even higher due to random damage he's caused to the planet along the way.
• Pet the Dog: Tony's sole act of genuine kindness after his turn is leaving his and Max Damage's old hometown alone upon Max's request. Tony even says he respects Max's bravery.
• Physical God: He can alter the physical properties of reality to create manifestations of power. He actually limits himself, since he at first doesn't know about the nature of his powers.
• Psychopathic Manchild: At his core, Tony is and always has been a child who never grew up and craves nothing more than the affection he never got as a kid, just on a global scale, and never sees heroism as anything more than a means to achieve that. His immature side becomes much more prominent after his turn where his violent mood swings, petty cruelty, and smug sadism all become among his defining traits. Even his rare moments of vulnerability show him as distinctly childlike, crying for attention in a manner very close to a kid crying for their parents.
• Rape by Proxy: One of the Plutonian's more bizarre crimes is to kidnap men and women, dressing them up like himself and Bette and make them do the deed while he watches. The women are instructed to cry "Save me!" as they're brought to orgasm.
• Reality Warper: His real power, which he's never known about. Essentially, The Plutonian is extremely powerful and has the expected abilities you'd expect of a Superman archetype because he believes himself to be having those.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: After he turns evil, Tony switches his costume from white and red to red and black, respectively.
• Replacement Goldfish: He was this to the mentally ill woman that wished the Eleos' alien probe into the shape of a baby after she regretted killing her own moments before.
• The Resenter: Even with all the love and admiration Tony was given, it wasn't enough when he couldn't escape knowing there were people who would never love him, no matter what. For most people, such a fact wouldn't bother them at all, least of all when they already had so much adoration already. But it gradually drove Tony mad until he snapped. A flashback reveals Tony absorbed this behavior from one of his foster fathers who himself resented not getting the acknowledgment and appreciation he thought he deserved for the good deeds he did.
• Sadist: After becoming a villain, he develops a bloodthirsty need of savoring in people's fears and torment for the sole intent of entertaining himself, likely as a way to get back at the fact that he felt he was ostracized for not doing well enough as a hero. The most notable example is when he kidnaps men and women to dress up as himself and Bette and pretend that the former are raping the latter, with the woman expected to cry "Save Me" upon orgasming. The Plutonian has no practical reason to be doing this other than the fact that he just gets sick kicks out of it.
• Samaritan Syndrome: Before he turned evil. At one point, he flew to the moon just so he could enjoy a ten-minute break from the cries for help... right when that alien sound virus broke out.
• Saying Too Much: Hornet, who genuinely thought of Tony as his best friend, first picked up on the fact that Tony wasn't quite as trustworthy as he seemed when Tony used the name of Hornet's wife in a conversation, letting slip that Tony had been spying on his team members. This led Hornet to start taking measures to counteract Tony should he ever turn on them.
• Sealed Evil in a Can:
  • The Vespans trap him in a straitjacket made from fabric created from cloned samples of his own skin. When he proves too erratic for their own needs, they encase him in a diamond container and hurl him into a sun-contained insane asylum.
  • His true parents intended to leave him frozen in a dead universe and unable to move.
• Secret Identity: He seemed to prefer being Dan Hartigan after the foster parents he liked most; to the Paradigm he goes by the name of Tony, and to Max Damage, he will always be Wolf-Boy.
• Secretly Selfish: Revealed to have been this all along over the course of the book. He ultimately became a superhero to fulfill his deep-seated desire for love and acceptance (a result of his troubled youth as a foster child being bounced around) coupled with an intense martyr complex imposed on him by his foster parents.
• Slasher Smile: Has a truly frightening one when he reveals he knew Modeus was possessing Samsara's brain-dead body.
• Smug Super: Plutonian is as cocky as he is powerful, and he is really powerful.
• The Sociopath: The Plutonian is ultimately this beneath all his power and bluster. For one, he is incredibly entitled and freely shows that he doesn't give a damn about anybody if they don't entertain him enough, he cannot create or acknowledge any meaningful relationship with anybody, which is notable as he was part of a superhero team for years, has difficulty managing and containing his emotions, and is a rampaging and homicidal monster who takes great pride in destroying and hurting others for his own gratification. All this leaves behind a soulless, inhumane being that is The Plutonian, who will do anything to satisfy his sadistic and self-centered urges.
• Sociopathic Hero: He is one in an unconventional sense; he was a legitimate hero who genuinely tried to help others and save the world from worldly threats, but his mental and emotional psyche was already fractured and tainted. Even during his time in heroics, he showed subtle antisocial traits like being troubled and angry whenever somebody didn't appreciate his actions, lashing out in anger at trivial matters, and prioritizing his needs above his own teammates'.
• Somebody Doesn't Love Raymond: The critical remarks directed at him were just one in a thousand. But Plutonian had a pathological desire to be loved by literally everyone and knowing that he would never have that played a part in his fall from grace.
• Stepford Smiler: He's the "Unstable" type with more than a few touches of the "Empty/Depressed" kind.
• Stopped Caring: This is not played for sympathy and instead serves to further The Plutonian's narcissistic nature and desire for universal adoration. When he was a hero, he really cared about the populace in a very warped and selfish sense and extended that towards his teammates, seeing as they were people who fought alongside him and thus, validated his position as a hero. Then he decided to become a villain and that's when he decided to really give up caring about others and let loose all his pent-up rage.
• Strong as They Need to Be: Deconstructed. Tony's powers are psionic based, so he really is making himself as strong as he subconsciously restricts himself.
• Super Hero Origin: Not even he knew what his origin was, possessing his powers as far back as he could remember. Eventually the extraterrestrials, the Eleos, reveal that he was a probe they created from themselves to study the emotions of humans, which was drawn in by the maddened grief of a woman who'd just killed her baby and turned by her will accidentally into a replacement baby with the Eleos' powers.
• Superman Substitute: He's what happens when you take Superman's immense power, terrifying responsibilities and deep desire for acceptance, jack them up on steroids, and give them to someone with gaping psychological holes from a far less stable upbringing than Clark Kent. The result: he snaps. He even provided the image for the Beware the Superman trope for a while. In-Universe, he's actually an inversion: at the very end of the comic, Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster are unconsciously inspired by the Plutonian's essence to create Superman in our universe.
• Superpower Lottery: He hit the jackpot big time. If even Superman pulled off some of the stuff Plutonian does without even really trying, he would have just been written off as too broken a character to be handled narratively.
• Super-Senses: To an extent that he can read a person's thoughts by watching electrons travel through neurons in their brain and hear across hemispheres of the Earth.
• Super-Speed: When he really gets going, he's too fast to see and can perform fairly intricate actions while doing so.
• Super-Strength: He can squeeze asteroids into diamonds and throw them hard enough to sink islands and shoulder-charge opponents through tectonic plates.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Plutonian turned rogue when a single mistake he made resulted in the deaths of hundreds of children and Samsara losing faith in him made him feel that nothing he ever did would ever be good enough for the ungrateful masses.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Implied pre-Face–Heel Turn. Tony and his allies remember the struggles against dangerous foes like Modeus but never went beyond incarcerating them, despite having them at his mercy.
• Token Non-Human: The Plutonian's power was way beyond that of even his super-powered human peers.
• Too Kinky to Torture: When Cutter was able to make him bleed, he actually gets aroused by it and takes her as his lover.
• Tragic Villain: He had a very troubled childhood, and eventually snapped because of people's ingratitude. This is subverted as regardless of how much he struggled, it still doesn't excuse his crimes as his parents observed and told him.
• Tulpa: His existence practically revolves his human form existing due to being based on the desires of a mentally ill woman who killed her child and fell into deep guilt and grief. This did not, of course, help his own psyche later.
• The Unfettered: Tries to be this way after his Face–Heel Turn, but still strongly desires to be a hero again, too.
• Unfit for Greatness: Despite his powers, Tony simply wasn't suited to the emotional strain of being a hero and was pushed into the role by his parents and would've been much better off had he simply been allowed to live a normal life or at least not become a hero until he was ready for the responsibility.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Ironically, despite viewing much of the human race as this, he exemplifies this behavior much more himself. Despite years of adoration and respect, Tony's narcissism and insecurity couldn't handle anything less than complete and absolute adoration and he lashed out at humanity for not giving it to him, unsatisfied with the love and respect he already had.
• Unskilled, but Strong: What allows him to be defeated by Orian and Survivor. He's simply not used to having to fight physically skilled fighters with powers on par with his own. Weirdly, at the end of Incorruptible, Max Damage tells a story about how he fought the Plutonian in a Power Nullifier field and expected this to be the case, but found that the guy was actually really tough even with no powers. He could've just been making the story up, though, and it's important to keep in mind that Max usually has serious issues related to the sleep deprivation needed to bring him up to full strength. And Tony's Reality Warper powers were likely still in effect.
• Villain Protagonist: Plutonian slides to the side of deuteragonist, though his storyline remains the main one.
• Wild Child: When he was a kid, the Plutonian crashed a car that was transporting him in the woods outside of Coalville. From there, he went to live in an abandoned warehouse, feeding on the wildlife nearby. He eventually became a local Urban Legend called the "Coalville Wolf Boy". During that time, he attacked a young Evan Cousins (back before he was Max Damage) and his female friend. This is the reason why Max Damage was a Berserk Button for Tony. Max is the one person who knows about that, and as such, is a constant reminder to Tony that he's not a paragon of perfection.
• With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: His Face–Heel Turn stems from the weight of the responsibility, and his belief the world was never sufficiently grateful for it, wearing him down mentally until he snapped.
• World's Strongest Man: To the point that even the technology of the Vespa aliens can't do much more than slow him down. His stay in the space prison demonstrated that even among the most dangerous creatures in the known universe, he's at the top of the pyramid. It's later deconstructed as Modeus explains that Tony being so strong is physically impossible and thus theorized that his real power is to manipulate reality.
• Worthy Opponent: Despite their past and bitter mutual hatred, Tony does seem to have some respect for Max Damage, openly admiring his bravery in standing up to Tony and even leaving their old hometown alone at Max's request, his one act of genuine kindness after his turn.
• Would Hurt a Child: The series opens up with him murdering Hornet's children. He also killed a bunch of kids during his massacre of Sky City.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: In an in-universe example of Alternative Character Interpretation, Bette Noir believes Tony does this to himself, namely that once he makes a genuine connection with someone, he worries they'll see the darker and less savory aspects of him that he tries to keep hidden beneath a veneer of perfection, and thus punish himself for his own self-loathing. She may have a point...

Qubit

A Paradigm member with the ability to create any device he can visualize. One of the most peaceful and idealistic characters in the story, he alone views the Plutonian as capable of becoming a hero once more.

---

• Anti-Hero: Despite his idealism and supposed pacifism. His greatest flaw is that he puts his principles over people's lives, meaning that he's far too willing to let people die to vindicate a solution that he finds more acceptable. Notably, his dogged pursuit of redeeming The Plutonian rather than killing him outright costs a countless number of lives. This isn't an entirely negative character trait, however, as having lines he won't cross makes him the most morally grounded of the Paradigm by far and the most capable of actually leading them in the Plutonian's absence.
• Badass Boast: Qubit, while an Insufferable Genius who isn't shy about expressing and reminding others of his super-intelligence, really isn't one to boast. He's more the type to let his actions and inventions speak for him in that regard. But when he approached the arrogant Vespan Commander, high off years of using Qubit's Teleportation Technology that Hornet gave them, who refuses to give into his command and threatens him, Qubit shows that he can be terrifyingly potent when he wants to boast and delivers an ultimatum so effective that makes the Vespan wear an Oh, Crap! expression so strong it can easily be seen even in his inhuman features and he instantly capitulates.
  Vespan Commander: I DO NOT FEAR YOU.
  Qubit: Give it a minute. See that? In the sky? That teleportal? One of those things that allows you to march your conquering empire across the cosmos? I invented those. They're mine. And I can take them back whenever I like.
  (Qubit presses a button, and the Mile-Long Ship is given a Portal Cut, destroying it instantly )
  Qubit: What I am about to say is by no definition a bluff, Commander. I will close every teleportal in your system right now, this second, if you do not tell us where Plutonian is.
  Vespan Commander: TELEPATHIC COORDINATES.
  • But Qubit gives one final one even after being given what he wants.
    Qubit: Received. But know this too: I still hold an indescribably large grudge against your race for weaponizing my teleport technology. Just a reminder-
    (Qubit cuts off the Commander's hand with a Portal Cut)
    Qubit: I can do that, too.
  • A more downstated one when the Plutonian is discussing methods to get around his death trap: "Are you really willing to gamble your life that you're smarter than I am? ". While angry, Plutonian immediately shuts up and does what he says.
• Badass Bookworm: He doesn't have Heroic Build and looks like a lanky nerd. Doesn't mean he's not dangerous when he wants to be, and he once successfully threatened an alien empire - and offhandedly mentioned that once they were done, he was absolutely going to follow through on that threat and destroy them for good.
• Badass Longcoat: As is befitting a 10th Doctor Expy, though it's shorter than most examples; doesn't make it look any less badass flowing in the wind during Qubit's moments of victory.
• Berserk Button: The only times he really gets angry is when his intelligence is questioned (moments include Encanta calling him stupid, and Tony claiming that he can work around Qubit's death trap). He also wasn't happy with how the Vespa weaponized his teleportation technology.
• Better the Devil You Know: He decided to kill Orian using the anti-Plutonian wax bullet. Later on, he negotiated Plutonian's release from the Vespas when it's clear that Survivor is exhibiting traits of becoming like the Plutonian.
• Doctor Whomage: Is a clear homage to the Tenth Doctor in looks and demeanor.
• Dirty Business: His hands get progressively dirtier over the course of the series. He notes how much Tony enjoys seeing him forced to compromise his morals in battling him.
• Expy: Of the 10th Doctor; he has the looks, the coat, the technical genius, and a Principles Zealot, desire to redeem a fallen friend included. He is also utterly terrifying when he stops playing nice.
• Good Counterpart: To Modeus. Both are super-smart, have a deep personal investment in Tony, are ultimately the only real non Deus ex Machina threats to him, care nothing for conventions and seem keen on figuring out how people's powers actually work and then enhancing them, but Modeus takes all those qualities in horrifying directions.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power:
  • In the hands of an uber-genius like Qubit, his abilities verge on story-breaking even though he doesn't use them to make weapons. In particular, in the last issue, it's revealed that he could have killed the Plutonian at any time after he got the wax bullet simply by teleporting it directly into his heart.
  • On a wider level, his genius means that he's brilliant at tutoring others in the full potential of their powers because he can see aspects that they cannot, teaching Kaidan how to summon their dead teammates and the Plutonian how to access the full breadth of his powers.
• Hypocrite: Despite adamantly preaching an aversion to killing, it has been pointed out a number of times how many lives he has taken in his pursuits to stop the Plutonian and Modeus as well as how many were lost as a result of his refusal to let heroes simply put Tony down. He is painfully aware of this.
  • His staunch opposition to killing also doesn't extend to alien lives as he was perfectly willing to annihilate an entire empire of alien invaders.
• Insufferable Genius: He is the smartest man alive (right next to Modeus), and can get very overbearing at times.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He can be insufferable and dismissive, but is a genuinely heroic figure nonetheless.
• Manipulative Bastard: He's very, very good at it, when he wishes to be, even when he refuses to lie - as the Plutonian quotes back to him, a smart man never has to. Even when the Plutonian knows he's manipulating him, he's still a step or three ahead.
• Messy Hair: He has a cross between Einstein Hair and a permanent updo, another direct reference to the Tenth Doctor.
• Principles Zealot: A committed pacifist and idealist, his sabotaging of solutions to the Plutonian's rampage that don't sit well with him directly lead to thousands of deaths. This bites him hard when Survivor tells a mob of people about it, and they predictably beat Qubit's ass.
• Psychic Block Defense: The best on the planet, a strategy picked up due to combating the telepath Burrows in his career.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: Subverted. Qubit uses his powers to help farmers redevelop machinery, so they can rebuild after Tony’s rampage. That is, until the Survivor shows up and tells all the farmers that Qubit let Plutonian live when the Paradigm had a chance to kill him. The farmers immediately turn against him.
• Science Hero: It's a given, as he is the smartest member of The Paradigm, and his powers involve the manipulation of technology.
• The Smart Guy: The smartest member of The Paradigm, and so the most dangerous to the Plutonian.
• Squishy Wizard: Qubit has no superhuman durability, relying on his teleporters and shields to protect him from harm.
• Technical Pacifist: Right up until he kills Orian.
• Technopath: Qubit can create almost any device he imagines if he has some tools to work with. He created teleporters from a few handfuls of coins and iPods. He can also disarm and dismantle weapons and machinery with a wave of his hand.
• Teleporters and Transporters: He invented them, and gets a hell of a lot of use out of them.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: A strong proponent of it, although he seems to value non-human life markedly less.
• Victor Gains Loser's Powers: Not usually, but when he managed to contain Modeus in his considerable Psychic Block Defense, he gains the latter's intelligence and knowledge, allowing him to devise even more incredible devices with his Technopathy.

Charybdis aka Cary, Survivor

The twin brother and partner of Scylla, Charybdis shares his energy manipulation powers. The one problem in Cary's life before the Plutonian turned evil was that he was in love with his brother's wife, Kaidan. After Scylla's death, Cary takes the name Survivor and reveals that he is, in fact, the source of the brothers' powers, and has become even stronger. Even later it's revealed that they're triplets, with a third, retired brother called Elliot.

---

• Always Identical Twins: Subverted — they're actually triplets.
• Anti-Hero: Cary goes from a Good Is Not Soft one to a straight up He Who Fights Monsters type.
• Brought Down to Badass: Subverted. He's more badass, only faking being weakened. He becomes much more powerful after Scylla's death.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Gilgamos abruptly kills him under the mistaken belief that Cary and Elliot are mutual beneficiaries in the same energy pool. Scylla's ghost is horrified, not only because his brother was just murdered, but also he and Elliot both know that Cary is the source of the power. If he dies, it's gone.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: A big part in what causes his eventual slide is his feeling that he's not getting the adulation and respect he "rightfully" deserves for being the only being that can match the Plutonian in a straight up fight.
  Cary: (to a group of reporters that seem more stumped than anything after Cary tells them about his power boost and fighting off the Plutonian) Why aren't you cheering?!
• Entitled to Have You: Once Scylla has been seemingly killed and Cary has become the world's most powerful super-hero, he starts putting the moves on Kaidan, forcefully kissing her and obviously assuming she's his girlfriend now. Naturally, she isn't very receptive (especially once she finds out that Scylla's Not Quite Dead after all and Cary has no interest in trying to find him).
• Everyone Has Standards: He's shocked and appalled at how Hornet gave coordinates to worlds the Paradigm had protected to the Vespa for their aid in countering Plutonian in case he went rogue.
• Extreme Doormat: What he has been to his brother Scylla and how his brother treated him. Cary is the only source of power, he shared his powers with Scylla and Elliot out of pity for them. Scylla thanks him by belittling him before Kaidan, the woman they both love, even when Cary was clearly in the right calling out his brother for putting her in danger. Still, Cary doesn't stand up for himself against Scylla's words. As result, Kaidan shows great contempt for Cary's attitude, and falls in love with Scylla.
• Expy: Of Captain Atom, as an Energy Being that can go toe-to-toe with the local Superman Substitute.
• Flying Firepower: His and Scylla's powers involve shooting superheated energy blasts.
• Hand Blast: Given he is an energy being, Cary can fire energy blasts from his hands.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Cary becomes almost as arrogant and unbalanced as the Plutonian soon after he develops his stronger powers. As a result, Qubit comes to fear the possibility of Cary snapping in a similar fashion, driving him to team up with Modeus and get Plutonian back from the Vespa.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Taken to extreme in his rematch against the Plutonian. Without one of his brothers sapping his powers, Charybdis can fight off Tony.
• It's All About Me: Much like the Plutonian, Cary doesn't give a damn about helping people or saving the world, and mainly engages in heroics to sate his own ego. After he successfully fights off the Plutonian following his power boost, he gives an interview where all he does is talk about himself, and when he doesn't get the cheers he expects, he becomes angry. This seems to mainly be the case following his transformation into Survivor, as he's shown to have been much more genuine as Charybdis. He'd been overshadowed by his brother Scylla all their lives, and it's heavily implied that his refusal to look for him after learning that he's still alive is rooted in an unwillingness to give up the power boost his brother's death granted him. Additionally, he is perfectly willing to murder his other brother Elliot to further increase his own power.
• Killed Off for Real: Gilgamos stabs him late into the series.
• Nice Guy: Apparently Cary has been this all his life, until Scylla's death. Kaidan, when comparing him with Scylla, describes him as a "nice boy" with more than a hint of contempt.
• The Peter Principle: He was a competent superhero for a long time, but he was absolutely not equipped to carry out the role of being Earth's primary hero. This is best shown by his plan to rebuild the world: call upon all surviving superpowered individuals to join him with the promise of clemency, ignoring that many of them were still supervillains, a couple of whome had kill counts in the triple digits.
• Same-Sex Triplets: Him, Scylla, and Elliot.
• Sherlock Scan: He was able to deduce that the Plutionian had some kind of hand in the sound virus tragedy based on his finding an interesting piece of debris in the virus' release point (an SOS-signal device Tony gave to the scientist studying the piece of alien tech that held the lifeform). He uses this find to stun Plutonian long enough to reveal his power boost.
• Sibling Triangle: Between him, Scylla and Kaidan.
• Smug Snake: What Cary possesses in raw power, he lacks in every other department. He's a brash, impulsive idiot and a very poor leader. At separate points, he is described by Modeus as a brain-dead vegetable, and by Qubit as having all the charm and charisma of a leaf blower.
• Smug Super: When he becomes powerful enough to fight off the Plutonian.
• Strong and Skilled: A downplayed example; after getting his power boost following Scylla's death, Cary actually manages to win a fight with the Plutonian because the latter is a sterling example of Unskilled, but Strong, having no experience fighting someone at his own level, as Cary lampshades. Later events make it clear that while Cary has some experience with fighting by the skin of his teeth, he only came off like he was Strong and Skilled by comparison. More critically than his fighting abilities, he has zero experience with leadership, strategy, or organization, so when he tries to position himself as the new Big Good, it falls apart quickly.
• Theme Twin Naming: Their codenames are the names of the two monsters Odysseus sailed between.
• Took a Level in Badass: One of the few beings capable of fighting the Plutonian on equal ground.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: More like several levels after gaining his power boost. He immediately assumes leadership of the remaining Paradigm, gets easily angered when he thinks people aren't in utter gratitude to him, makes some creepy advances on Kaidan (which gets especially worse with the revelation that Scylla survived that explosion in Inferno's lair), becomes quite a Bad Boss to the new Paradigm members, and then he was willing to murder his other brother Elliot to gain more power and become strong enough to kill Tony.
• Twin Desynch: He and Scylla were always different, due to his shyness. With the reveal of Elliot, and Cary's increasing arrogance, their differences become even more profound.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He means well, but he's unbalanced, arrogant and a major Jerkass.
• Wonder Twin Powers: Played with. They don't share the same energy source, Elliott and Scylla are siphoning the energy off Cary to power themselves.
• World's Strongest Man: Hypothetically, Cary is the most powerful superhuman in the story. When Scylla died and Cary emerged with a power boost that put him in the same ballpark as The Plutonian, it's revealed that he has always generated the power between the two of them. Then it's revealed that Survivor has another brother who was siphoning energy from him. It's unclear how much stronger he would've been if his brother gave his power back, but the implication is that he would exceed even the Plutonian.
• You Killed My Father: Scylla's death is Cary's vendetta against the Plutonian.

Bette Noir

Gilgamos' wife, and master sharpshooter who uses specialized bullets.

---

• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Deconstructed for tragedy and horror. She felt bored with her straightforward relationship with Gilgamos, and was one of the few to sense the Plutonian's hidden dark side, and was attracted to it. However, that dark side ran much deeper than she originally thought.
• Death of Personality: Modeus taking over her mind essentially results in this. Even if not, her body was cut to pieces by Qubit's teleportation tech and her head used to collect world-razing radiation. Considering her moral cowardice, no-one other than Qubit - who expresses bittern regret - really comments or reflects on this.
• Driven to Suicide: She spent most of her final appearances (before being possessed by Modeus) attempting to kill herself in a variety of ways for her actions that led to the death of millions at the hands of the Plutonian.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: Modeus possesses her and amplifies her power, allowing her to take on the Plutonian.
• Good Is Boring: Her sole reason for her affair with the Plutonian was centered around her utter dissatisfaction with the straightforward and loving relationship she had with Gilgamos. His lack of romantic complexity and emotional stability caused her to divert her attraction towards the emotional inconsistencies and hidden fiery temper of the Plutonian.
• Gravity Master: Her true power. When Modeus amplifies it, she also gains Super-Strength.
• The Hedonist: After she reaches her Despair Event Horizon, she gives up on heroics, shacks up in a Beverly Hills mansion and lives an extravagant and hedonistic lifestyle while awaiting death.
• Heroic BSoD: Unusually, a particularly unsympathetic one: she feels guilty about hiding the fact that she could have killed Plutonian at any point because doing so would have revealed her affair with him. She let millions die to cover a single act of infidelity.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Her aim is the best on the team. Justified in that her real power is to manipulate gravity on a minute scale subconsciously, allowing her to guide her bullets.
• Meaningful Name: She's a pretty dark character and the French euphemism of "bette noir" is a dangerous animal, to be avoided at all costs.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Goes through this when she realizes how she had egged on the Plutonian's eventual meltdown.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Turns out that she could've stopped the Plutonian sooner, but didn't act on it because it would end up revealing her affair with Tony.
• Physical God: After her power up.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: When Modeus boosts her powers, each punch is fueled by a star system.
• Star Power: She can add momentum to an object by draining power from the stars. According to Modeus, she squandered this ability by just using bullets when she could have reached enough power to even stop Plutonian had she gained enough brain synaptic power.
• Trick Bullet: Her main tools are specialized bullets that can accomplish various effects. After the world goes to hell, she decides to try if her high explosive bullet is powerful enough to blow a deserted skyscraper in two. It is. She also has a magic one that can kill the Plutonian.
• What a Senseless Waste of Human Life: How everyone, including her own father, feels about her actions (or rather non-actions) when the Plutonian first began to go rogue. She had a bullet crafted from the wax of a special magical candle that could have possibly killed the Plutonian, which she never revealed, because the only reason why she knew of this one weakness was due to her cheating on her husband with Plutonian. Literally millions of lives were lost because of this.

Kaidan

Keiko

A Japanese woman with the ability to summon figures from stories she reads, Kaidan is Scylla's lover and one of the younger members of the Paradigm.

---

• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Played straight, justified and deconstructed (like with Bette Noir except with opposite effects). Both Scylla and Charybdis loved her and she knew it, but she chose to hook up with the brazen Jerkass Scylla over the timid and humble Charybdis at the time due to finding his Shrinking Violet nature to be weak and cowardly. This had a part in contributing to his eventual mental breakdown after he started going mad with power after his brother's apparent death.
• A Day in the Limelight: The annual features a story from her background, showing how she obtained her abilities and offering insight into how she is able to maintain her kindness despite living in a Crapsack World.
• Break the Cutie: She gets it very rough in the months of the Plutonian's rampage. To wit, Scylla dies, then turns out to be Not Quite Dead, and is forced to Mercy Kill his brain-dead body.
• Meaningful Name: Her birth name, Keiko, means "lucky/blessed child". Her superhero name, when the kanji is broken down, means "strange, mysterious, rare or bewitching apparition" (kai) and "talk or recited narrative" (dan).
• Mystical White Hair: Granted, it's the result of dye, but her power involves summoning warrior's spirits and she has white hair.
• Necromancer: Of a kind, as she can summon the spirits of warriors to fight for her.
• Necromantic: With Scylla.
• Nice Girl: Is one of the most kindhearted people in this whole setting.
• Sibling Triangle: Stuck in the middle of one with Cary and Scylla.
• Summon Magic: She summons the spirits of samurai and warriors by telling their stories. Later on, courtesy of Qubit, she learns this extends to her deceased Paradigm comrades.
• Token Minority: Is Japanese.

Gilgamos

The husband of Bette Noir and an immortal Babylonian.

---

• An Arm and a Leg: Loses both of his wings by the end of the Orian arc.
• Been There, Shaped History: He met and befriended Alexander the Great.
• The Determinator: He tears off his own wing to use the bones to pick a lock when he's imprisoned.
• Expy: A clear one of Hawkman. Just remove the Egyptian motif and substitute it for Babylonian. Unlike most Hawkman expies, however, he lacks reincarnation but is apparently immortal instead. And his wife is mortal.
• Ignored Epiphany: Gil suspected that Bette was cheating on him but he did not want to believe it. He's been around long enough to have seen the signs, he just didn't think it'd come to such catastrophe.
• Last of His Kind: Mentions this in passing to Alexander the Great, though what, exactly, he is remains unclear.
• Meaningful Name: Combined with his background, he's implied to be the inspiration of The Epic of Gilgamesh. Also like Gilgamesh, the woman that loves him is responsible for unspeakable atrocities. Unlike Gilgamesh, Gilgamos chooses to live forever, and offers this to humanity at the risk of enslaving them forever to Plutonian.
• Mysterious Past: It's very unclear where he came from, or even what he is, other than alluding at one point to the fact that he's the last of his kind.
• Nice Guy: One of the simpler members of the Paradigm.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He kills Survivor on the basis that he'd been becoming increasingly unstable, and would eventually be just as big a threat as Tony was. On top of that, he believed that killing him would grant Elliot, a kindly priest, the power instead. Unfortunately, Survivor was the source of the power, not a simple beneficiary. Killing him actually took away the power that Elliot had, which by that point was Survivor's equal.
• Older Than They Look: Looks like he's in his mid-30's, but is actually several centuries old, if not millennia.
• Pals with Jesus: Not the actual Jesus that we know of, though a passing reference suggests that he's met all the religious figures that Elliot, a Christian priest, venerates. Other than that, a flashback shows he once met and fought alongside Alexander the Great.
• Really 700 Years Old: He has been around since before the very beginning of Ancient Rome.
• Smug Super: Entirely inverted. Bette says that his confidence in his powers and his apparent immortality made him an incredibly warm, open and friendly guy.
• Super-Strength: He's pretty strong, much like his inspiration.
• Walking the Earth: For most of his life, until he settled down with the Paradigm. Resumes this after the Orian arc.
• Winged Humanoid: Before losing both of them during the Orian Arc. Unlike Hawkman, they're not technological and are actually part of his body.

Volt

One of the Paradigm's more recent recruits, and extremely devoted to the Plutonian for having helped him gain control over his powers.

---

• An Arm and a Leg: The Plutonian took his left arm as a joke.
• Broken Pedestal: After Tony went evil, Volt went through this hard.
• Deadpan Snarker: One of the most sarcastic members of the Paradigm by far.
• Electric Black Guy: He even lampshades the trope.
• Everything Is Racist: One of his major flaws. He tends to go on rather weird tangents about this. In a flashback, he accused Bette of only wanting to be with Gil because he was white.
• Flight: An aspect of his powers included this.
• Killed Off for Real: By Modeus in Samsara's body.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: His admission that being a black man with electrical powers isn't exactly original.
  Volt: Why couldn't I have been a super-speedster? A black guy who runs really fast... that wouldn't have been too racist, would it?
• Power Incontinence: Before meeting the Paradigm, he couldn't touch anything electronic without shorting it out. As a result, he couldn't hold down a job.
• Punch-Clock Hero: A combination of an inability to hold a steady job and the massive chip on his shoulder caused him to turn to crimefighting for cash. This changed when he met The Plutonian, which is why Volt feels like he owes him.
• Shock and Awe: He claims he can power all of Las Vegas with a sneeze.
• Touched by Vorlons: His powers came from being exposed to an alien energy-flux during an attempted invasion of Earth.
• Walking Techbane: His powers prevented him from so much as owning a watch because they would always ruin any complex technology he came into contact with.

Scylla

Charybdis' twin brother with identical powers, and the lover of Kaidan.

---

• Always Identical Twins: Subverted — they're actually triplets.
• And I Must Scream: In his brain-dead body.
• Back from the Dead: Of a sort. Kaidan summons his spirit through her ghost stories.
• Character Development: Dying did a lot to make him more mature - and pleasant to be around.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Blown up by the Plutonian.
• Eye Scream: That golden half-mask and red eye? He and his brother only have them because the Plutonian smashed their heads together hard enough to cost them both an eye.
• Flying Firepower: His and Cary's powers include being able to shoot blasts of superheated energy.
• Hand Blast: One of his powers is to project the energy his body generates in the form of a powerful blast.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Drags Kurne to the spirit world so he can save Kaidan and Gil.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: His words from beyond the grave are "kill me".
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: "Jerk" might be excessive, but Scylla was hot-headed, childish and a show-off (at one point, he even put Kaidan's life in danger). However, he was also remembered as a good hero and a much-loved friend and teammate. This becomes more pronounced as Cary becomes increasingly unhinged as the series goes on, while Scylla mellowed out post-mortem.
• Not Quite Dead: Survived the explosion in the Inferno's lair, and was a brain-dead husk for a while. Kaidan has to kill his physical body to free him.
• Same-Sex Triplets: Him, Cary, and Elliot.
• Sibling Triangle: Between him, his brother, and Kaidan.
• Soulless Shell: Leading to an unusual scenario where his spirit fights his corpse.
• Theme Twin Naming: Their codenames are the names of the two monsters Odysseus sailed between.
• Twin Desynch: Scylla was the bolder and more outgoing of the two. As a result, he ended up with Kaidan, much to Cary's chagrin.
• Wonder Twin Powers: Played with. They don't share the same energy source, Elliott and Scylla are siphoning the energy off Cary to power themselves.

Hornet

Jim

A former policeman who uses his incredible skills and gadgets to fight crime. He was also the Plutonian's first and best friend on the Paradigm, but that didn't save him from being killed early on when Plutonian snapped.

---

• Badass Normal: Deconstructed Character Archetype. Gadgets and martial arts skills are nothing compared to a guy with actual superpowers, and he was the only one of this type on the entire Paradigm, something of which he was all too aware. It's what made him so paranoid around Tony, even while considering themselves best friends, and what eventually led to his deal with the Vespas.
  Hornet: (video recording narration) But none of the rest of you were on guard as I tended to be... being as Gilgamos would have called me one of those 'ordinary mortals' and all. Metalman was tough. I'd seen him bounce mortar fire off his chest. Even Volt could bring down a building when he really cut loose. Me, I was a guy who knew some Muy Thai. Not a superhuman bone in my body. I had reason to be a little more wary of the Uberman than the rest of you.
• Betrayal Insurance: His deal with the Vespans is this regarding Plutonian.
• Crazy-Prepared:
  • He created a deal with the Vespans to return to the planet to take out the Plutonian in case he ever turns evil. This was based solely on a single incident where the Plutonian mentioned the Hornet's wife's name in passing when the Hornet had never mentioned it to the Paradigm, leading the Hornet to realize that the Plutonian had been spying on his teammates.
  • Unfortunately he correctly surmises that this trope is why Plutonian will take him out early, in case he has a contingency plan for the Plutonian going rogue (which he does).
• Deal with the Devil: Sold out the entire universe to the Vespas in exchange for them leaving Earth alone. Horrific as it may be, this deal did manage to stop Plutonian's rampage mid-series. Pity the other party overestimated their containment protocols...
• Decon-Recon Switch: His character as a whole. His early death, completely unable to do anything against the Plutonian, serves as a blunt deconstruction of the Badass Normal; being Crazy-Prepared doesn't help him at all. However, his take on that type of character later turns out to be more nuanced; he did predict that the Plutonian would go bad, long before anyone else did, and he set up a plan that ultimitely managed to neutralize the Plutonian even after his death.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: The Badass Normal. Much like Batman, Hornet has no powers, yet uses his fighting skills and tactical mind to serve as an important member of a superhero team, even managing to hold back an entire alien invasion with nothing but his words. The issue is that he knows just how weak he is in comparison to the others, especially the Plutonian; this makes him far more paranoid than even Batman usually is, since Plutonian has no known weaknesses and Hornet knows that if Tony were to go rogue, no one would be able to stop him. That alien invasion he stopped? He did it by selling out the entire universe, offering the Vespas the coordinates of other planets in exchange for their aid should Tony go mad.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Grows out of it though when he is accepted as a hero in his own right.
• Expy: Of Batman. He has no powers, his base is in a cave under his house, and his best friend is the Plutonian, Superman's equivalent. His name is a direct reference to the Green Hornet, the serial crimefighter whom heroes like Batman draw their inspiration.
• Good Parents: From what we can tell, he was a loving father and a devoted family man.
• Happily Married: Was this with his wife Donna.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Despite his suspicions, he really did consider Tony to be his best friend.
• Humble Hero: Self-describes as "a guy who knows some Muay Thai" in comparison to his superpowered teammates. This ends up deconstructed, as this translates as perceived powerlessness and becomes the primary motivation for his Deal with the Devil.
• I Did What I Had to Do: He gave the coordinates of every Earth-like planet that the Paradigm visited and saved to the Vespa in exchange for them leaving Earth alone and their help if Plutonian went evil. Horrifying as it was, his paranoia was completely justified. In his post-mortem video he expresses the hope that he'll be remembered as having done this. Qubit, for his part, is disgusted and absolutely not inclined to do so - and given that he's a pacifist and it was his teleportation technology that allowed them to reach all those planets that Hornet sold out, and that Hornet gave the Vespa, you can really see why.
• I Never Told You My Name: In a casual conversation before he went mad, Plutonian once referred to Hornet's wife by name. The only problem was that Hornet had never told anyone her name, meaning that Plutonian was spying on his teammates. This single act made him so paranoid that he made a deal with the Vespas to leave Earth alone in exchange for the coordinates of other planets to conquer and a promise to help defeat Tony should he go rogue.
• Killed Off for Real: In the first scene of the first issue.
• Overshadowed by Awesome:
  • The day he sets out to become the first real-life superhero, Plutonian makes his debut. This gives him a chip on his shoulder until Plutonian tells Hornet how much he admires him for doing his job without superpowers.
  • He is considered more of a scalpel than a mallet by his comrades, but he's still underpowered compared to the rest.
• Posthumous Character: His character is explored a lot more in the flashbacks and in the special.
• Properly Paranoid: He was afraid that one day the Plutonian would snap on the grounds that even if he genuinely was the pillar of virtue that his teammates thought he was, no single person could hold the weight of the world without eventually breaking. Even before there were any visible signs that the Plutonian (who Hornet truly considered to be his best friend) would turn, he made a deal with the alien Vespa to return and stop him, in return for the coordinates of every Earth-like planet the Paradigm ever visited along with the teleportation technology necessary to reach them. He hates having to have made such a deal, but it saved Earth from being overrun by the Vespa, and created a contingency plan in case Tony went rogue.
• Sherlock Scan: Leave it to a former cop to pick up on the small things pertaining to the Plutonian that no one else did.
• The Smart Guy: Not as smart as Qubit of course, but the Hornet is a skilled tactician and picked up on certain things pertaining to Tony's character before anyone else did.
• Stripped to the Bone: What Tony did to him and his family with his heat vision.
• The Team Normal: Didn't have any powers, but he did have a decent arsenal of weapons, and tactical and deductive skills to make him a valued member of the Paradigm.
• Weak, but Skilled: The Plutonian allied with him at first specifically because Hornet can act with more precision.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Was killed right when the series began. He's explored more in the flashbacks.

Samsara

Sam

The Plutonian's Indian teenage sidekick, Samsara is Tony's best friend and possesses immortality and the manipulation of mystical energy due to a jewel embedded in his forehead.

---

• Blessed with Suck: Considering that his immortality is what gave him a fate worse than death.
• Broken Pedestal: Samsara losing his faith in the Plutonian over the sound virus incident was the last straw for Tony and kicked off his fall from grace.
• Buried Alive: As he technically cannot die.
• Dead Sidekick: As close as Samsara can get. Samsara cannot be killed due to his mystical jewel, so Tony does the next best thing and lobotomizes him with heat-vision before Samsara can reveal his secret. Samsara is now brain dead, and has even been buried by his teammates.
• Empty Shell: Lobotomized but still technically alive, he can only keep a few memories.
• Facial Horror: When Modeus has possessing his body, The Plutonian says that he could not hate him because he had the face of his beloved sidekick... then Plutonian uses his heat-vision to deform Samsara's face.
• Fate Worse than Death: Had his brain fried up by the Plutonian's heat vision, which left him a brain dead vegetable. Thanks to his immortality, he can't properly die, so he's stuck like that.
• Kid Sidekick: Tony was rather paternal towards him.
• Meaningful Name: Samsara is the name of the Buddhist concept of repeated reincarnation, considered painful and unsatisfactory. Somewhat fitting considering his immortality and his fate.
• Nice Guy: Before everything went downhill, Samsara was remembered as being a kind and gentle person.
• Power Crystal: The blue gem embedded in his head gives him magical powers.
• The Reveal: Modeus has been hiding in Samsara, possessing his body and waiting for the right time to make his return.

The Inferno

Martin Reber

A now-deceased member of the Paradigm. His secret hideout is visited early on in the comic.

---

• Crazy-Prepared: In one specific sense: his base was developed with a self-destruct switch to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. Other than that, not so much.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Punched right through the head. By his old friend. Ouch.
• Didn't See That Coming: Plutonian's Face–Heel Turn took Inferno by surprise.
• Expy: Of Batman, but strictly in the superficial details: the millionaire Secret Identity, the secret mancave hideout, the habit of collecting the equipment of his foes as trophies, the idea that he was a Badass Normal and possibly a detective... also, he may have been inspired to fight crime to avenge his parents' murder, if the Fixer's snide remark specifically applies to him. Apart from that, though, he doesn't seem to have had much in common with the Bat personality-wise.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: "Don't! I'm your frie-!"
• Posthumous Character: He's dead by the time we hear about him.
• Stereotype Flip: He was a Wall Street banker, but unlike the Corrupt Corporate Executive you'd expect him to be, he was apparently of strong moral character.
• Take That, Audience!: The manner of his death, which seems like this towards anyone who claims Batman could easily win in a fight with Superman.

Other Characters

Max Damage

Evan Cousins

The Plutonian's rival and former supervillain, he pulls a Heel–Face Turn after seeing the Plutonian destroy a city. He and his sidekick Jailbait then do all they can to bring him down.

---

• Arch-Enemy: To the Plutonian. Max is far from the biggest or most evil threat the Plutonian has ever faced but he is definitely the most personal villain and has a particular animosity to Max, not least because Max knows some of his dark secrets and that he isn't as perfect as he wants to appear.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: His wanted poster says that he's wanted manslaughter, terrorism, armed robbery, conspiracy and illegal interstate flight.
• The Atoner: Dedicates himself to correcting his ways after seeing the Plutonian's rampage. Given that, at least at first, he lacks an inherent moral compass and tries to compensate with a series of Morality Chains and Black-and-White Morality, this means he's not always very good at it.
• Badass in Distress: Happens a lot to him, whenever his enemies realize what his weaknesses are and exploit them.
• Berserk Button: He is a major one to the Plutonian as Max knew of Tony when he was the Coalville Wolf Boy and now serves as a constant reminder to Tony that he is not perfect and there are people who know his true nature.
• Big Good: At the least, he's trying to be this. He has limited success, not from a lack of effort so much as a lack of direction, as a life of crime has left him with a rather limited understanding of how to properly be a hero, and being absolutely terrified of Jumping Off the Slippery Slope if he takes charge or makes even the slightest compromise.
• Blessed with Suck: He gets stronger and more invulnerable in proportion to how long he's awake. However, his invulnerability shuts down his physical-contact senses, making him unable to smell, taste, or feel anything. Also, sleep deprivation degrades his perception and judgment if he stays awake too long.
• Break Her Heart to Save Her: What he tries to do to keep Jailbait out of harm's way.
• Broken Pedestal: Despite being bitter enemies, he honestly believed that the Plutonian really was the hero he seemed to be and genuinely respected him, saying that he'd have killed the others in an instant, but he always trusted the Plutonian to be the one to save humanity from themselves. The revelation of the Plutonian’s true nature shocks Max enough to abandon supervillainy.
• Bullet Seed: Catches a bullet in his teeth, then spits it out.
• Card-Carrying Villain: As a villain, this was his persona in sharp contrast to how the Plutonian was seen.
• Deadpan Snarker: His humor is generally bitter and biting snark.
• Defector from Decadence: Incorruptible #25 shows he comes from a fairly wealthy but unhappy family which he left and was later disinherited from when he became a criminal.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: It isn't easy and he makes a lot of mistakes along the way, but Max's choice to redeem himself does pay off in the end, with Coalville becoming a beacon of hope in the post-Plutonian world as one of the most intact places on the planet due largely to his efforts, the populace eventually recognizing (and adoring) him as their new hero, him growing and becoming a happier person, and assuring Jailbait that he will wait for her.
• Ephebophile: The 30-something man's long term "lover" is Terri, a sixteen year old girl. Post Heel–Face Turn he firmly rejects her, to her initial bafflement and distress, and then anger. Towards the end of the series, he indicates that he is willing to get back together, but only once she turns 18.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Part of what led to his Heel–Face Turn. He's utterly horrified by what the Plutonian's doing in his rampage.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: At the beginning of his hero career, he just did the opposite of his supervillain instincts. He gets better though. He is also an aversion as it was shown that, even when he was a super villain, Max still understood and respected heroism and sincerely admired the Plutonian for his, even saying he'd never have killed him out of respect.
• Exhaustion-Induced Idiocy: He has to stay awake a pretty long time to get stronger, but the resulting sleep deprivation has consequences.
• Foil: To the Plutonian. One is the world's greatest hero who became its greatest monster while the other is one of its deadliest villains who's trying to redeem himself. One is an obvious Expy of Superman (and by extension other Superman expies) while the other evokes both supervillains like the Joker and ultra-violent anti-heroes like the Punisher. One dresses in either brightly colored spandex or Red and Black and Evil All Over spandex with blonde hair while the other wears a Badass Biker evoking outfit complete with a leather jacket and jet black hair. One has had superpowers for as long as he could remember while the other volunteered for an experiment to acquire his as an adult. This especially becomes apparent when it's revealed that Max and Tony actually met each other when both were kids when the latter was a feral child called "The Wolf Boy." There it's shown that Max (real name Evan Cousins) came from a rather well-off (if dysfunctional) family that he cut his ties with once he became a serious supervillain while Tony was bounced from unloving foster home to unloving foster home and surrounded by people who hated and feared him. And while Max, even at his worst, still had a sense of restraint and was able to recognize and respect genuine heroism and does good out of a sense of duty and because it needs to be done, showing no interest in adulation or recognition for his deeds, Tony abandons any semblance of morality after he turns and shows he never truly understood or saw heroism as anything but a way to get him the adoration he craved and felt owed.
• For the Evulz: When he was a villain, he did bad stuff for fun.
• Genius Bruiser: Was working on a scientific equation to stop the Plutonian before the Plutonian was captured, with the consensus that his plan would have worked, and regularly shows himself to be fairly intelligent, designing and building a remarkably durable jail all by himself.
• Heel–Face Turn: As a result of the Plutonian's Face–Heel Turn, Max wants to abandon supervillainy and become a hero with his efforts to do so forming the bulk of his arc.
• Heel Realization: Seeing Tony's rampage made him experience the fear he and other villains had been inflicting for years prior and decide to change.
• Hero with an F in Good: At first. He becomes a better hero as time goes on, but a huge chunk of his Character Development is spent trying to overcome his previous status as a villain who was already pretty close to crossing or had already crossed some serious moral lines and his initial impulse is to simply do the opposite of what he would normally do.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: He starts as one for obvious reasons. His standing eventually improves as more people see his turn to good is sincere and see him stand against Tony.
• Hour of Power: Inverted. He has about an hour after waking up before his powers fully kick in, during which time he has to take advantage of his vulnerability to due mundane things like shave.
• Horrifying the Horror: On the receiving end. Watching the Plutonian become history's greatest monster overnight absolutely terrified — or at least severely unbalanced — him.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: As a result of the drawbacks of his powers (particularly his Sense Loss Sadness). Ironically enough, he got his abilities because he volunteered himself for an experiment.
• In a Single Bound: Can jump quite tall buildings with one leap.
• The Insomniac: Out of necessity to increase his powers. Among other things, this impairs his judgement, as he is well aware, and he warns Alana when she gets a variation on his powers that it took him months, even years, to train himself to stay functional.
• The Jailbait Wait: After his Heel–Face Turn he ends up doing this when it comes to Terri, as a minor - an unusual variant in that before, he was already "dating" her.
• Logical Weakness: Staying awake increases his powers... but his brain still needs sleep. When he's strong enough to fight the Plutonian, he's nowhere near the top of his game mentally because of sleep deprivation. By Modeus' design, naturally.
• Lonely Rich Kid: It's revealed late in his series that Max was born into a wealthy but emotionally distant family and had almost no friends growing up. His father later disowned and disinherited Max when he first turned to crime.
• Made of Iron: The only one who can survive fighting The Plutonian.
• Mutual Disadvantage: What allows him to be the Plutonian's archenemy. He can't beat the Plutonian in a fight, because the brain fog he has to endure to become as powerful as the Plutonian makes him incapable of fighting at his best. On the other hand, while the Plutonian can defeat Max, Max's Nigh-Invulnerability means that the Plutonian can't actually put him down for good.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In a fashion — witnessing the Plutonian's rampage for himself made him realize how small the Muggles felt when they were suffering the wrath of supervillains, driving him to make a Heel–Face Turn.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: What he gains if he stays awake long enough, being durable enough to survive Plutonian's powers.
• Perma-Stubble: His invulnerability causes razors to break on his skin, resulting in this.
• Sociopathic Hero: Initially was this, just turning his wrath on "bad guys" without actually improving himself, but he does get a lot better later on.
• Strong and Skilled: He's got super strength to match Plutonian and is a skilled fighter and brawler from his years in prison and who shows skill in Boxing, Wrestling, Karate and other styles, allowing him to come out on top with Tony who never needed to learn how to fight.
• Super-Speed: His speed increases along with his strength the longer he's awake.
• Super-Strength: How strong he is at his peak is unknown but he is at least strong enough to hold a car in place with one hand as his base level, and he's the only person bar Survivor that can give the Plutonian a run for his money - and unlike Survivor, he actually knows how to fight.
• The Unfettered: Max's drive is to be the Plutonian's opposite in all respects; when Plutonian was a hero, he was a villain, and when Plutonian becomes a villain, he becomes a hero. He gets better about this.
• Worthy Opponent: Considers the Plutonian to have been one and notes he wouldn't have killed him out of respect. Tony, for his part, does respect Max's bravery in standing up to him and leaves their old hometown alone out of respect after Max asks him to, pretty much the sole act of genuine kindness Tony commits after his turn.
• Would Hurt a Child: Pre-Heel–Face Turn, he killed a certain attorney's 12-year-old son.

Jailbait

Terri

A teenage girl Max rescued from sex slavery, she's since stuck by him as his sidekick, helper, and lover.

---

• Ax-Crazy: She's a bloodthirsty adrenaline junkie.
• Badass Normal: In a world of supers (including her own boyfriend), she can hold up well.
• Domino Mask: It's effectively her only costume, the rest of which is just an ordinary, tight-fitting leather outfit.
• Hellbent For Leather: Her outfit is tight enough to look like it was just painted on her body.
• May–December Romance: She's sixteen in the series, while Max is stated to be 28-30.
• Meaningful Name: A teenager dating an adult, with a dark history related to being preyed upon sexually.
• Morality Pet: Downplayed, when she tried to get Max to stop trying to be a hero, viewing it as a waste of time. She does come around eventually. On the flipside, it's shown that she genuinely does love Max.
• Ms. Fanservice: A very uncomfortable example, as she's still a teen.
• Perky Female Minion: For Max. Flashbacks show that before the Plutonian went rogue, she happily helped him torture people and rob banks.
• Rescue Romance: She was a young teenage runaway working at a brothel. Max saved her from that place and she's stood by him ever since.
• Unexplained Recovery: She gets her left pinky finger amputated by the villain Deathgiver (who then has it sent in a box to Max, as proof that she is held captive by him) early on in the story, and even has bandaged her hand where said finger used to be for the remainder of the story arc, until she parts ways with Max. By the end however, when Terri reunites with him, she somehow has her pinky again in her left hand.
• Younger Than They Look: It's pretty easy to mistake her for a woman in her twenties instead of being a 16 year old girl.

Headcase

Annie

A young woman Max Damage saves from getting abducted. She gets enlisted by him into replacing Terri as Jailbait, works with him, and returns home to find her family murdered by members of the White Supremacist Diamond Gang. After such a tragedy, she sticks with Max who grants her a new identity called Headcase.

---

• Ambiguously Bi: Claimed to not be into men back when she first worked with Max as the new Jailbait. She's later shown flirting with boys before she heads off to Max's fateful meeting with the Paradigm, so that might have been a lie.
• Appropriated Appellation: Max calls her Headcase as she becomes increasingly unhinged. She adopts it as a superhero moniker, much to his annoyance.
• Ax-Crazy: Ends up as this. Complete with attempting to murder Qubit for rejecting her from the Paradigm and calling her a poser.
• Badass Normal: Her short run as a vigilante shows that she's more than capable of kicking ass on her own.
• Domino Mask: Essential for playing the part of Jailbait, as it's the only thing concealing her identity and her main distinguishing feature.
• Hellbent For Leather: The other essential element of the Jailbait disguise. She later adopts an even more revealing leather outfit as Headcase.
• Jumped at the Call: Deconstructed. Annie embracing her new identity as a vigilante is noted in-story as rooted in her trying to escape from her life.
• Ms. Fanservice: Invoked, as she has to be this to convincingly pass as Jailbait. She adopts this when she steals Jailbait's costume to strike out on her own.
• Perky Female Minion: Becomes this to Max, though her perkiness is the result of increasingly volatile insanity.
• Put on a Bus: After her murder of Qubit is fixed with Kaidan's power, Max resolves to have her imprisoned since he's seen how far gone she's become under his wing. Max is remorseful at this since he sees it as his fault for encouraging her despite how unstable she was.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: For Terri, which is why Max forces Annie to be a new Jailbait once the original one is kidnapped.
• That Woman Is Dead: Annie embraces her Headcase persona to the point that she insists on others calling her by it instead of her given name. She goes as far as to have a tombstone with her full name erected next to her parents' graves.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Annie's fate by the series' end is debatable. Armadale shoots down having her put into psychiatric care by pointing out the destruction visited upon the psychiatric hospitals and how they're in his words, "certainly not taking any new costumers." He brings up jailing her, but his choice of words point to that being temporary. It's never confirmed if and when Annie gets treatment for her issues. Or even if she gets out of jail, leaving her status by Incorruptible's end and future once she gets out of jail (if she ever does) unsure.
• Yandere: She acts seriously clingy towards Max.

Lieutenant Armadale

A policeman Max Damage recruits to serve as a moral compass.

---

• Corrupt Cop: Hinted at when he's in Max's old headquarters. He tries to get some of the cash Max acquired over his career as a criminal but fails.
• Da Chief: For the Coalville Police. Played with in that his actual authority is minimal since he has to rely on heavier hitters to actually get things done, and he's a little bit corrupt.
• Driven to Suicide: After St. Lucifer gets control of Coalville and his goons terrorize the citizens who continue doing their jobs from before the Plutonian's rampage, Armadale shoots himself in despair at his uselessness.
• Poor Communication Kills: Later on in the series, he's constantly trying to enlist Max's help with a murder case, which Max brushes off because he has bigger fish to fry. It eventually becomes clear that the murder he's talking about is his own suicide, and he was trying to get Max to convince him not to go through with it. Had he phrased this differently, things might have been different.

Modeus

A mysterious supervillain who was the Plutonian's most feared opponent. Not heard from for years before the story begins, he comes out of hiding once Tony's rampage starts and slowly reveals a horrifying plan for him...

---

• Arch-Enemy:
  • To the Plutonian, becoming a criminal just to get his attention.
  • To Qubit as well, interfering with his attempts to stop the Plutonian and killing Volt
• Asmodeus: He's clearly based off of the demon from the Book of Tobit.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Easily the most prominent villain after the Plutonian.
• Body Snatcher: He can possess other people.
• Body Surf: Thanks to Encanta's upgrade he is capable of moving his mind to another person's brain. Apparently the condition of the brain is no obstacle, as he is able to possess the brain dead Samsara with no difficulty.
• Brain Uploading: His bodies have included the lobotomized Samsara, a robotic duplicate of himself, Cutter and Bette Noir. He tries to take over Qubit, but Qubit contains him with his psychic shields.
• The Chessmaster: A given, as he is the smartest and most cunning character after Qubit.
• Child Prodigy: He was just as much of a genius when he was younger. In fact, he helped imprison the Plutonian's parents.
• Depraved Homosexual: Subverted and played straight. He's in love with the Plutonian's power and states that Tony was the only person he ever felt emotion towards, making this a case of Single-Target Sexuality, but he is such a creep about it, that he definitely plays the depraved part straight.
• Diabolus ex Nihilo: Despite his importance in the story, only his intelligence, evil, and lust for Tony get much attention. We know almost nothing of his background, and only the faintest understanding of his powers. He appears to be this In-Universe as well: Tony comments that Modeus was always impossible to understand simply because no-one knew anything about his background or motives or even what he wanted, as all he ever did was try to hurt the Plutonian and the people around him.
• The Dreaded: To pretty much every hero and civilian who knew of him. Alana even states Modeus was the only villain that the Plutonian actually feared.
• Evil Counterpart: To Qubit. Both are super-smart, have a deep personal investment in Tony, care nothing for conventions and seem keen on figuring out how people's powers actually work and then enhancing them, but Modeus takes all those qualities in horrifying directions.
• Evil Genius: He's the smartest man alive besides Qubit.
• Expy: He's one to both Lex Luthor and The Joker. Like Luthor, Modeus is a super-intelligent Mad Scientist who has become the arch-enemy of a human-raised alien who is also the most powerful superhero in the world. Like the Joker, Modeus' past is a complete blank, his motives are apparently inscrutable other than causing mayhem and his relationship with the Plutonian is riddled with Foe Romance Subtext.
• Foe Romance Subtext: Taken to its disturbing conclusion. It becomes text with The Reveal this is Modeus' sole motive for all his actions.
• Grand Theft Me: One of his powers gained since his disappearance. See Brain Uploading.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Qubit and Tony outgambit him by using his body-surfing tendencies to trick him into jumping into Qubit, who has defences in place to counter that - and, to make matters worse, uses Modeus as a database.
• It Amused Me: He had no real motivation for his crimes besides to torment Plutonian. Until Tony realized Modeus was actually in love with him.
• Keeping the Enemy Close: Initially rationalized his obsession with the Plutonian as this until he realizes and accepts he loves Tony.
• Manipulative Bastard: He took control of Samsara's brain-dead body to egg the Plutonian's rampage on, and he has no qualms using every piece at his disposal to further his goals.
• Monochromatic Eyes: Not in most flashbacks, but his appearances in-person have been depicted with these.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: He's just 2 letters away from Asmodeus.
• Power Parasite: Courtesy of Body Surf, he gains the powers of the body he possesses. The biggest of this is the Gravity Master powers of his last body.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: His attempt to possess Qubit backfires when he is trapped by Qubit's psychic blocks.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Towards the Plutonian.
• The Sociopath: He cares for nothing but himself and the Plutonian, the only person to ever elicit an emotional response from him. Tony even remarks that Modeus' arrogance, Lack of Empathy and inability to see the world through other people's eyes were his Fatal Flaws.
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: A telepath took a glimpse into his mind once, and was Driven to Suicide soon after.
• Took a Level in Badass: He was scary enough when he was just an ordinary human. Several levels later, he's an ungodly nightmare.
• Yandere: A Rare Male Example. When he takes over Bette's body, uses her newly enhanced gravity manipulation powers to subdue Plutonian, and gets ready to achieve his dreams of knocking boots with Tony, Tony points out that the world will end if that radioactive cloud that contained his parents doesn't get resolved soon, and Modeus' reply is pure yandere.
  "[My world] ends every time you turn me away."

Orian

An extraterrestrial (or possibly a demon, or both) that has fought with the Paradigm before. The US government summons him to defeat the Plutonian and prevent the Paradigm from going rogue.

---

• Aliens Are Bastards: An alien, a demon, or both. Whatever he is, he's definitely not of this world, and he's very evil.
• Arc Villain: He is summoned by the US government to stop the Plutonian, and decides to spend some of his time on Earth also dividing the Paradigm.
• Body Horror: To summon Orian, you read an alien script. At that point Orian crawls out of your mouth, tearing you in two.
• Brown Note: See Body Horror above. The worst part is that you don't even have to vocalize it, just looking at it and registering it in your brain is enough. Even more frightening is that he can apparently impart this ability to others. He does it for Survivor, which makes it not only just a way to summon him in the first place but also a g(l)orified form on teleportation once he's already summoned.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He's a vicious and sadistic monster who just loves being what he is.
• Eldritch Abomination: Reading his name causes him to crawl out of your mouth and rip you apart.
• Enemy Mine: Allies with the US government, Survivor, and the Paradigm to kill the Plutonian. Qubit points out that this isn't a good thing, however, as it's clear Orian is not doing this out of any good in his heart and all he wants is to invade and take Earth for himself.
• Evil Versus Evil: Against the Plutonian. The government realizes this, but is hoping (vainly) that Orian is just easier to deal with.
• For the Evulz: The summoning doesn't have to be as painful or violent as he makes it. He just prefers it that way.
• Godzilla Threshold: The entire reason the US government summoned him is because of this trope.
• Killed Off for Real: Whatever was in that wax bullet, it killed him just fine too.
• Meaningful Name: He explicitly calls himself "the best hunter [the US Army] know," and he's named after Orion the Hunter.
• Take Over the World: His plan when he kills the Plutonian. He planed to summon a demonic army the second Plutonian was out of the way.
• The Sociopath: He's effectively a demon, so this is pretty much par for the course. Notably, he doesn't actually have to kill anyone to be summoned, but he inevitably does so in the most gruesome way just because he can.

Alana

Alana Patel

The ex-girlfriend of the Plutonian and later on, assistant to Max Damage.

---

• Action Survivor: Being a muggle in the Irredeemable verse doesn't give you a lot of options, but Alana is decently resourceful.
• Ambiguously Brown: She has dark skin and her surname is "Patel", implying she's of Indian descent.
• Corrupted Character Copy: Of Lois Lane. She was what Lois would be like if she exploited the prestige that comes with dating the world's greatest hero and sold him out the second he revealed his Secret Identity to her... though in fairness to her, she did genuinely care for him too, he seemed to be fine with it, and she only sold him out because she - understandably - freaked out that her coworker was actually her boyfriend in long term disguise.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the hero's Love Interest. She's got a thing for the Plutonian, but solely for self-interested reasons. She also thinks Dan Hartigan is coworker with a harmless crush on her, and is not delighted to learn that he and the Plutonian are one and the same. The first thing she does at this reveal is betray the Plutonian's confidence, albeit mid Freak Out, which drives him to intimidate the only other people who know into silence.
• Damsel in Distress: She was occasionally kidnapped by Tony's enemies (mainly Max Damage), but they actually tended not to mess too much with her for fear of incurring the Plutonian's full wrath.
• Everyone Has Standards: Even though Max Damage kidnapped her, she wasn't willing to let even someone like him get beaten to death by the Plutonian when he gave into his rage.
• Freak Out: Not unreasonably, she doesn't take the fact that the coworker with a harmless crush on her was, in fact, her superhero boyfriend, all that well.
• Gold Digger: It is implied she was only using Tony for the privileges that came from dating a superhero, though it's suggested that she genuinely cared for him too.
• It's All My Fault: She blames herself for having a hand in Tony's fall for nearly having revealed his secret identity (making him ultimately give it up) and for breaking up with him. Max reassures her that it's not her fault, but it did definitely added more to the pile of things that would cause Tony to snap eventually.
• Not Worth Killing: She's hiding out in the ruins of Sky City in the hope that Tony won't bother coming back there, but knows Tony would have no problem tracking her down if he really wanted to. Even though Tony looks up other people from his past that he has grudges against, he never does this with her, implying that he really did have feelings for her.
• The Reveal Prompts Romance: Averted — when Plutonian revealed he and her coworker Dan Hartigan were one and the same, Alana was utterly freaked out by the fact that Tony had lied to her about this double life for years and breaks up with him for it.
• Too Dumb to Live: Even if the Plutonian wasn't insane, ratting out his secret identity out of jealousy is a suicidally bad idea. The Plutonian flat out says that she almost got herself and everyone else killed by his many enemies, who would kill them to get to him.

The Plutonian's Allies

Auroran, Mallus, Kurne, Mordanse, and Cutter

A collection of insane and extremely powerful aliens that the Plutonian gathers around him on the planet Genhom in order to escape the intergalactic lunatic asylum they've been imprisoned in.

---

• The Alcatraz: They're escaping from it.
• Bedlam House: The whole planet is effectively just a warehouse for the dangerously insane. Predictably, the place is a literal madhouse.
• Body Snatcher: Cutter is possessed by Modeus.
• Exposed Extraterrestrials: Cutter, combined with Non-Humans Lack Attributes.
• Flying Brick: Auroran because he mimics the Plutonian's powers.
• Green-Skinned Space Babe: Cutter is a tall alien woman with a curvy figure.
• Hearing Voices: Subverted with Kurne. At first it seems that he's hearing voices, as everyone believes he's insane. Turns out that he actually has tiny mouths whispering to him all the time. Modeus later uses a subliminal recording to make him hear the voices again, telling him to attack the Paradigm.
• Legion of Doom: They're Plutonian's evil version of the Paradigm
• Person of Mass Destruction: Modeus tricks Mordanse into a shrinking gravity bubble while telling him to shout as loud as he can. When Qubit captures Modeus the bubble bursts, releasing all this power at once and destroying Pyongyang.
• Power Born of Madness: Cutter's powers depend on her mental state — when she's freed and calms down, the amount of damage she can do decreases. It's actually Foreshadowing that Modeus is possessing her body.
• Psychic Powers: Auroran.
• Self-Harm: When Cutter slices herself, a larger version of the cut appears on her foes.
• Super-Scream: Mordanse's power.
• Super-Strength: Kurne and Mordanse
• The Symbiote: Auroran was this for the Plutonian, latching onto him and being so overwhelmed by the tide of emotions and the weight of his life story that he wanted to help heal Tony. Tony responds by killing him..
• Time Travel: Mallus can send people through time by punching them. He can literally knock you into next week (or rather, last week).

The Eleos

A pair of aliens that were imprisoned by humanity, and were released after the Plutonian's return to Earth. They are also his parents.

---

• Angelic Abomination: In essence, what they are. Their name of "Eleos" is similar to "Elohim," while their true form is too much for mortal minds to comprehend and they are very powerful reality warpers who can smack the Plutonian around easily.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: They appear as massive giants.
• Benevolent Abomination: While their true form is too much for mortal minds to comprehend and they are very powerful reality warpers who can smack the Plutonian around easily, they're actually pretty nice, styling themselves as keepers of knowledge on time and space who were intrigued by human emotions. When they were imprisoned, they chose not to break out for fear of harming humanity with the radiation used to seal them and often held pleasant conversations with their guards.
• Due to the Dead: When their prison was unlocked, it caused a nuclear explosion on the island, instantly killing the guard who just had a nice chat with them moments ago. Their first course of action was to construct a memorial for the guard from the facility's rubble and mourn for him.
• Establishing Character Moment: The very first thing they did after they were freed from their prison was to create a memorial for and mourn a guard they were having a conversation with who was killed by their release, showing despite their vast power and eldritch nature they are very empathetic beings.
• Good Is Not Soft: Despite being essentially the most compassionate and kindest characters in the entire series, sympathizing with even Plutonian over how his warped childhood and powers made him who he is now, they still cannot ignore the horrific atrocities he had committed nor risk him continuing to harm Humanity and Earth out of hatred and spite. Thus, they took him to the end of time and left him there to be frozen in the heat death of the Universe.
• Humanoid Alien: They appear bipedal with bodies that are human-like in structure, but this is only how they appear to others.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Eleos is the Greek personification of mercy and compassion. The two Eleos that we see are god-like and very compassionate towards humanity.
  • "Eleos" sounds a lot like Elohim. This, of course, makes their son, the Plutonian, another trope.
• My God, What Have I Done?: They're horrified to see the damage caused by their release, which included the death of the guard watching them (they build a headstone and engrave his name into it). They're also horrified and saddened by their part in the Plutonian's creation (and his less-than-ideal childhood) and the disaster it brought on later.
• Physical Gods: They are highly powerful beings and easily trounced Plutonian with only a snap of the fingers.
• Proud Scholar Race: They fashion themselves keepers, recorders, and scientists of space and time, traveling across the multiverse to gather knowledge.
• Reality Warpers: To an even greater extent than their "son".
• Sealed Good in a Can: Imprisoned within a barrier of nuclear energy, which they could escape from but choose not to as doing so would release the energy and kill more than a third of Earth's population.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form: They tell Tony that the appearance they take is merely the only way his mind is able to conceive their forms.

The Hartigans

A couple who adopted the young Plutonian and were the only people who accepted his powers without fear and genuinely tried to teach him to use his powers responsibly.

---

• Abusive Parents: Bill was a strange case, as he was never outright cruel or malicious towards Daniel and sincerely wanted to help him become a hero, but he was extremely strict and had questionable methods of trying to teach his adoptive superpowered son how to be a selfless hero. During one Christmas, he made Daniel give away all the presents he got that year to a bunch of orphans, which ended up being All for Nothing since the kids did not even like any of the presents. Despite his best intentions, Bill's parenting arguably left Daniel even worse off than before.
• Corrupted Character Copy: Of Jonathan and Martha Kent. Whereas Ma and Pa primarily focused on raising Clark to be a good and kind person who thinks of others and making sure he had a good head on his shoulders, with the Superman persona being Clark's own chosen method of how he uses his powers to help and protect the little guy, the Hartigans (Bill especially) set out to raise Daniel to be a hero from the start, which only gave Daniel a major martyr complex and a belief in his own "special" status and denied Daniel the love and stability that would have allowed him to handle the strain of being a superhero.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Muggle Foster Parents in the vein of Jonathan and Martha Kent. They were perhaps the only foster parents who genuinely accepted young Daniel's powers and loved him as their own, but Bill's draconian attempts to teach the emotionally damaged teenager responsibility and complete selflessness backfired in the worst possible ways for everyone down the road, himself included.
• Driven to Suicide: Bill, after finding out from Daniel that his wife was going to die from undetected cancer, asks Daniel why he did not tell anyone else about this, to which Daniel answers that he was told not to use his powers for self-serving purposes, which is what Bill taught him. Bill, realizing what he had done, drove the car he and his wife were in off the road to kill both her and himself out of guilt.
• Expy: The Hartigans are clearly ones to Jonathan and Martha Kent, being the loving and accepting adoptive parents of an extremely powerful alien child to whom they teach good moral values. Bill, however, is more of a Corrupted Character Copy of Jonathan, taking Jonathan's role in instilling Clark with the values that would turn him into a hero and showing what would happen if that role wasn't paired with actually being an understanding or affectionate parent.
• Good Parents: Mrs. Hartigan was just as accepting of Daniel's powers and was shown to be less strict than her husband and often called Bill out on his more extreme actions.
• Gone Horribly Right: Bill wanted to help Daniel grow into a hero who would be looked up to by the world. He succeeded but at the cost of showing him the love and stability that could have helped Daniel better handle the enormous pressure Bill forced him to take on.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Bill wanted to raise Daniel to use his powers for good and act selflessly, but his lessons and harsh methods only ended up leaving Daniel with the belief that he had to shoulder all the world's problems when he simply wasn't suited to the task in his present state, resulting in his later turn to villainy.
• Happily Adopted: Zigzagged - on the one hand, they fully accepted Daniel's powers and loved him like their own blood, but Bill's methods of trying to teach the psychologically damaged superpowered child in his custody to use his powers for selfless purposes did a great deal of damage in their own ways.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Bill badly misjudged the best way to approach Daniel, putting so much emphasis on forging him into a selfless hero that he completely failed to see that what his son needed was love, acceptance, stability, and to just be a regular kid rather than being forced into heroism or to shoulder a responsibility he simply wasn't emotionally suited for, at least not yet.
• Hypocrite: As much as he tried to drill into Daniel's head the importance of being selfless and never expecting any reward in return, Bill ultimately revealed he also wanted to be acknowledged for his good deeds. Also, when Daniel reveals Bill's wife has terminal cancer, Bill gets upset even though the only reason Daniel didn’t tell anyone about it right away was because that's what Bill taught him to do.
• Misery Builds Character: The crux of Bill's teachings - he believed that Daniel's powers automatically meant his purpose in life was to use them to save and help people while never gaining anything in return and his teaching methods reflected that.
• Muggle Foster Parents: They were normal humans who adopted and loved the young Plutonian like he was their own child.
• Parents as People: Bill honestly loved Daniel and wanted to instill good morals and a sense of responsibility to use his powers for heroic purposes in him. However, his Misery Builds Character mentality, harsh teaching methods, and unyielding approach, as well as his failure to understand the severity of Daniel's emotional issues and what the boy really needed was love and support and to just be a kid rather than a hero in the making, all wound up making things much worse, adding a serious martyr complex and extreme sense of responsibility to the already long list of issues plaguing Daniel's psyche.
• The Resenter: One of Bill's biggest flaws was how he got resentful and angry when his seemingly selfless acts didn't get the gratitude and acknowledgment he believed they deserved. Unfortunately, his son picked up on that behavior.
• Tough Love: Deconstructed. This was basically Bill's approach to raising Daniel, but he went way too far with the "tough" part while forgetting the "love" part of things, and Daniel ended up with a serious martyr complex on top of his already existing issues.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In a broad sense, Bill's desire to help Daniel use his powers for good but putting so much emphasis on selflessness and failing to show him real love and stability ended up leading to his eventual breakdown and fall into villainy. The whole world would have been a lot better off if Bill had let Daniel make his own decisions, even if it meant him never becoming a superhero.
• With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Bill fervently believed in this and tried to teach Daniel to use his powers for heroic purposes. However, he went way overboard with it and left Daniel even more psychologically scarred than before.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Bill believed he was the Jonathan Kent-style figure in a traditional Superman story whose guidance would shape his son into a great hero. He couldn't (or rather, refused to) see that Daniel was just not suited to that role, or at least needed to get over certain emotional hurdles beforehand, and simply needed to be a normal kid first and that his guidance was closer to emotional abuse and only wound up doing far more damage in the long run.

---