Justice Avengers: (Villains) Sign Up

Nope. Revised that line.

• Name: Pete Lomax. He'll let you know how wrong you are if you say he needs a "supervillain name"
• Gender: Male
• Age: 20
• Appearance: Here.
• Alignment: On the petty side of evil.
• Personality: Rebel without a cause. He's a laidback kind of guy who doesn't like following any "rules" set by anyone. This extends to his villainy - where he refuses to adopt a gimmick, costume, or alter ego. He does not hate superheroes but hunts them just to prove he can. He's that kind of guy. Has no qualms about hurting women or children if they are in his way. Has a soft spot for animals though.
• Powers and Abilities: Pete's only notable skill is his archery - a skill which he has honed enough to be considered a threat by Green Arrow. He can drive stick and really hold his beer. He's also nimble enough to perform a very crude form of parkour through the city streets.
• Weapons and Equipment: A compact bow and a quiver with 12 arrows. He also owns an apartment and a beat up old car.
• Origin: Pete Lomax lived an unspectacular life - the only child who took an archery class over the summer and found out he was pretty good. He eventually tried out for the national team but was rejected. Uncaring, he eventually decided to make a name for himself by being a "regular guy" who could best even the mightiest of heroes. He took a potshot at Black Canary during a police raid and hit her in the shoulder. Proud and cocky, he then challenged Green Arrow to a duel and was utterly trounced. Having escaped from jail, he now looks to target even more heroes and even some costumed villains if he can find some.

Well, you were certainly right about no one being able to guess that.

So basically Johnny from American Idiot without the multiple personalities, skilled in archery instead of music, and decided to be a "super" villain.

Lobo and Lomax are both accepted. If no more people want to make their sign ups beforehand, then the game will be launching by Midnight, Greenwich Mean Time.

edited 5th Feb '14 8:57:35 AM by LizardOfAus

Reserve Silvermane for me, but I probably won't be able to write him up till late tonight or tomorrow. Birthday shenanigans.

@Liz: Is Spiral accepted?

Leather pants, ho!

•Name: Harm

•Real Name: Billy Hayes

•Gender: Male

•Age: Mid-Twenties

•Appearance: [1]◊

•Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

•Personality: For better or for worse, Harm sees other people as concepts rather than human beings. In addition, he takes the moniker of Harm very seriously, seeing himself as more of a force of nature than a person. That said, he isn’t stupid, and he isn’t without empathy. He projects an air of complete confidence and occasional smugness, but he is well aware of his limits and isn’t above trickery to overcome those limits. He has a streak of sadism as a result of his childhood, but has grown to view those tendencies with disdain even as they continue to seep through.

Weapons and Equipment:

Anima: An abnormally sharp blade as mythical and powerful as it is fickle and cryptic. Rumored to be the sword of a fallen angel, it has the ability to manipulate the boundary between life and death, but it needs balance in the world to function. This manifests itself by needing a select number of pure souls, both good and evil, in order to function. The current extent of his ability is to better resonate with Harm’s magic, allowing Harm great control over the lethality of his blows.

Vita: The sheath of the sword. It is bonded to Harm’s body, and he can transform his left arm into its shape to extract the sword whenever he so chooses. While holding someone with it, he can speed up their natural healing process or keep the mortally injured alive for slightly longer. The sheath also makes Harm distinctly harder to kill, capable of stemming bleeding, restarting his heart, resisting infection, etc.

Bulletproof Trenchcoat: Entirely mundane, but well-made.

Enchanted Sunglasses: Allow him to see in the dark.

Knives: A set of knives that Harm uses to channel his magic

Caltrops: Carries and deploys them in pouches.

•Powers and Abilities: From Felix’s tutelage, Harm’s specialty lies in an Arabic school of mystic arts. Particularly, creation and manipulation of magical fire, to tame the beating sun; runes tailored to get in and out of secure locations, to relieve the lords of their treasures; and elaborate portals between one location and the next, to conquer the unending tides of sand. In addition, Harm often uses his ability to create rudimentary illusions, control his sword without touching it, and deliver blows with his blade that merely feel like getting cut in half, with none of the actual physical trauma. Harm needs a great deal of preparation to accomplish large feats, and is frustratingly bad at transporting himself distances without exhausting himself physically and magically. He is heavily magically invested in his sword, and as such uses it as a focus for nearly all of his magical feats. He is capable of more, but these are the spells he practices most regularly.

Harm has substantial physical capabilities and reflexes, though far from supernatural. The peak of his physical accomplishment was when he was forced to fight a Bengal Tiger with his bare hands, and won at the cost of a few facial scars and a maimed left arm. He is also a very competent swordsman, though he has little practice actually fighting other people that use swords.

As a civilian, he has a constant glamour active to conceal his facial scars and change the shape of his face. As Harm, this glamour is removed.

•Origin: At the age of three, Billy was deposited at the Primum Nil Nocere orphanage for reasons he can’t recall and that no one else seems to be privy to. It was a clean facility, warm in the winters, with a spacious property for the warmer months and an in-house education specialist. Miraculously enough, no one ever ran away. Perhaps it had something to do with the facility’s remote location on the outskirts of town. Maybe everyone was happy enough that running away just didn’t seem practical. But maybe it was because everyone knew better. Maybe it was because children disappeared every once in a while. Sometimes they came back. Other times, they even came back whole. Under the ever watchful eye of Headmaster Felix Faust, no one dared to make a move. But Billy was happy, for the most part, and remained as such for two years.

On Billy’s fifth birthday, it was his turn—though he found that he had a different purpose than merely spare parts. He had been scouted as possessing magical potential, and after a few aptitude and loyalty tests, began learning the mystic arts. It was traumatic, terrifying, and harder than he thought anything could be. His world was broken down into concepts—and for the most part, it stayed that way.

Billy was granted certain privileges as a result of his position. At the age of eight, Billy put himself up for adoption. This wasn’t unheard of, and Billy was mature for his age; Billy sold it to his superiors as a way to better adapt to the outside world, and proved himself by cutting off his pinkie. They agreed, certain that he couldn’t betray them. But they mistook Billy’s character quirks as proof of the extent of their brainwashing; Billy was loyal, but far from mindless.

Billy was adopted by the Hayes family, to provide a friend and brother for their seven year old daughter, Greta. Billy was mostly indifferent to his parents, having little to gain from them. But Greta wormed into a spot that Billy didn’t know existed, and they became very close. Billy’s years of rigid discipline were eroded the more he spent time with them.

But Billy never truly forgot where his loyalties were. In his spare time, he “volunteered” at the orphanage, helping the sorcerers with their research and rituals. In particular, Felix’s constant quest to achieve immortality was at the forefront of the facility’s goals. Billy stood by and watched atrocity after atrocity in the name of immortality. The luckiest subjects were able to die after they were no longer useful.

One night, on a camping trip, Billy purposefully let Greta in on his secret while helping her start a camp fire. The secret bound them together tighter than ever before; she acted as his confidante, even as Billy left the more detestable details out of his stories. She accepted him unconditionally. But slowly, Greta began to suspect something was wrong, culminating on her investigating the orphanage herself.

During the summer of Billy’s eighteenth birthday, just after he graduated high school, Primum Nil Nocere was raided by the police. Most of the involved occultists were imprisoned, but Billy was shielded from the fallout by his family. Just as Billy caught wind of it, Felix Faust arrived on his doorstep, demanding he hand over Greta. Billy and Greta fled, ending up in first a trainyard, then a moving train. Felix was hot on their heels, brimming with vengeance.

Billy held Greta close, knowing what was in store for them. Billy promised her that they weren’t going to be taken, and plunged his dagger into Greta’s chest.

Just as he was about to do the same to himself, Felix stood at the entrance of the train car, and laughed madly at the scene. In a fit of rage, Billy hurled the dagger at Felix’s face, stabbing into the man’s eye. In that moment of distraction, Billy grabbed Greta and leapt off the train.

Billy hobbled through the forest with Greta on his back. He came to a pond, radiantly clear, and set Greta down on the bank. They exchanged a few final words before Greta passed away, and Billy pushed her body to sink into the depths of the pond. Billy grieved until he collapsed on the bank.

Billy woke up the next morning, somewhat surprised to be alive. He waited a long while for Felix to arrive and finish him off, and as the sun began to set, Billy hesitantly concluded the sorcerer had succumbed to his wound. After accepting his continued survival, Billy came up with a plan. He broke into the police station, making off with a select number of the cult’s confiscated tomes, and used the lore therein to search for a magical sword that would be able to bring his sister back to life.

The journey was long and arduous. Years passed as Billy pushed himself towards physical and swordplay perfection to be deemed worthy of the sword’s power. But at the heart of a dead volcano, Billy found out that the sword was long gone. Undeterred, Billy made a deal with a demon for the sword’s real location—only to find the cost of its activation to be no less than ten thousand human souls.

Billy wasn’t about to become a mass murderer. After probing the sword magically, he came up with a workaround. The souls of the pure, both good and evil, were worth a great deal more than normal souls, but he would need them in equal amounts. By culling the purity from the world, Billy would be able to claim his greatest desire. Donning the moniker of Harm, he collected the heads of a white supremacy leader and a businessman known for his work in helping third-world countries.

He then set his sights on Hub City, and the monsters that called it home…

edited 5th Feb '14 2:36:25 PM by Uncandescent

Did you make her less "hey admins ban me please"-ish?

Ud: What Bean is trying to say is that the 'gender age or species' part of the signup carries unfortunate implications.

Uncandescent: Accepted.

Game: Begin.

Nah, what I'm saying is that Spiral's personality is the kind of thing you'd see in a website registering sex offenders, and that's not a good thing.

Hm. Well, the revised version struck me as more of a Female Captain Jack Harkness, hence why I'm accepting it.

Really? Captain Jack?

I understand that the words "verbally overt about sexuality" bring to mind Captain Jack, but the one thing Jack had that Spiral didn't do was control. If you were not the person for that kind of thing, Jack would not do it, no matter if he liked or disliked you. And even if he did like you, he'd know when to stop, or if you could take it like a joke between friends, he'd make sure you knew it was a joke between friends.

Do I need to repost this section? "though she tends to completely disregard the personal space of anyone she finds attractive, regardless of gender, age, or species.". COMPLETELY DISREGARD THE PERSONAL SPACE OF ANYONE SHE FINDS ATTRACTIVE. That's not Captain Jack-ish. That's Some Sad Teen's Fanfiction!Captain Jack-ish.

Or as we like to call it in real life, a sex offender. I don't care if you put in "far less grabby", the moment you disregard a person's personal space, you cross the line.

edited 5th Feb '14 4:36:39 PM by TheBigBean

I hate to go against you, Lizard, but Ud is going to have to remove... Not change, not modify... remove that sentence which had been revised. Fast Eddie is actually itchy on the trigger finger about that stuff, so we can assume it is accepted except for that particular sentence which needs to be removed and cannot be acted on by Ud lest someone call one of the mods and Ud ends up banned.

edited 5th Feb '14 5:27:59 PM by GameGuruGG

Real Name: Spiral
Alter Ego Name: Larisa Ellips
Gender: Female
Age: Looks Late 20's, Early 30's; actually at least 250
Appearance: Need to be◊ age of consent in your local civilization◊ to view Mature pics◊
Alignment: Whatever gains ratings at that time
Personality: Equal parts chipper and bubbly and equal parts professional and business-like, Spiral gives off the air of a preky yet extremely competent secretary out on her first producing gig. While sociable and easy to get along with, she prefers to not have any true attachments with others unless they are very nice to her and/or she herself likes them. Even then however, she will not think twice about brutally murdering you if it will gain ratings and/or her boss Mojo orders it. She also has the tendency to see others and situation purely in a theatrical and romantic sense, purely for presentation as some sort of television broadcast rather than the real life scenario it actually is.

Though she does not initially act like it, Spiral is just as much of a depraved sex freak as her employer, except far more verbally overt and impulsive about it and far less grabby. Despite the near thousands of lovers that have sexed her, her heart belongs only to Long Shot, long-time Mojo network star and gladiator, whom she surprisingly never slept with ]]. She also loves to brawl and enjoys combat, though she treats it like yuppies enjoying yoga lessons rather than a matter of life or death.

She has a few berserk buttons. First, if one tries to touch her inappropriately without her consent, they'll find themselves clinging to the edge of life if not outright killed by her. This is due to a chip implanted in her head that on purposely triggers extremely violent reactions to physical sexual harassment, because otherwise she would go into catatonic panic attacks due to flashbacks. The only people she tolerates it from is her boss Mojo and Long Shot if he was not such a nice guy. She will also be extremely offended if you ask her how many of her arms are actually real instead of being robotic. If you are suicidal, go ahead and imply that she betrays Mojo, no matter how subtly you do so. Afterwards, try to count how many of your internal organs that do not have holes in them.

Powers and Abilities:

• Super Strength: Her race is about ten time stronger than humans, though her cybernetic limbs make the strength distribution uneven due to the limbs being stronger
• Sorcery: Was given actual magic ability and taught to use it by Mojo himself. Spiral has many different spells at her disposal, from simple projectile stun blasts to full blown reality warping. The latter though only applies to actually being in the Mojo-verse, and even then more powerful normal spells require a combination of various hand gestures and complicated dance moves in order to pull off. Also, some of her spells are restricted by Mojo himself, often confining her to a set area of effect if need be.
  • Teleportation: Achieved through a combination of sorcery and spacial technology, Spiral is able to teleport anywhere within the radius of a large city, most often silently without warning. However she cannot teleport outside a designated area which Mojo limits her to.
  • Communication: Able to communicate to anyone through any electronic device with a video screen. Is incapable of doing anything really fancy, such as seemingly hijack a pre-programmed show like Mojo himself or the Watchers, and the power is restricted by the area of effect Mojo designates and actually being in range of service.
  • Shape Shifting: Can transform into versions of herself from different races and/or species, such as human, Korugan, or elephant with little effort and can transform herself into perfect copies of other individuals using more complicated incantations and preparation. However, she is completely limited to own original power base and cannot mimic the abilities of whatever she transforms into (eg, can transform in a copy of Superman and incapable of flight, and can tranform into a dog with only human level sense of smell and laser eyes).
• Martial Arts: Spiral is a master martial artist, having learned from a combination of various instructors hired by Mojo and through spending hours of watching programs on the subject, blending them together to create a truly unique fighting style. This made her proficient with various melee weapons as well, though she has a definite affinity for swords and blades.

Weapons and Equipment:

• Weapons: While she is seen with a sword and sheath almost all the times, do not be fooled; thanks to advanced magitek hyperspace storage technology developed in the Mojoverse and given to her by Mojo himself, Spiral is able to pull out six swords at the same time, as well as an assortment of other weapons and items at her disposal. She's a very proficient weapons user, but most she prefers her swords and sorcery.
• Mojo Network: Has remote access to the Mojo Network, able to bring up footage from all cameras stationed all across the known universe, including the near infinite number just on Earth itself. Best not to ask for details, such as how many there are, how long ago they were placed before Spiral came along, and where they are placed......

Origin: Spiral is a member of a race of beings that were long conquered by the Gordanians and used as livestock for their slave trade. From the tender age of six, she was sold as a sex toy, raped and passed around from master to master for twenty years. She suffered number scars, physical, mental, and emotional. The worst of it came from her precious and most brutal owner who went as far as removing her arm(s?). Spiral was a completely broken shell just for death to finally take her by the time Mojo came to her........

......and to her great surprise, the insane sleazy multidimensional TV exec did not treat her as property or something to vent frustrations on. He treated her as a person......or the closest thing to it as capable by a perverted blob monster who rides around in a mechanical spider chair, but this was all the difference to Spiral. After using his resources and magic to help heal Spiral's physical wounds, including giving her mechanical arms to replace her originals she lost and having a device implanted in her head to prevent her from suffering from any flashbacks, Mojo began the process of healing her mental and emotional wounds, mostly through pampering her and using the number one surefire parenting tool for those too busy for actual raising: TELEVISION!!!

As Spiral grew, she gained more and more responsibilities as Mojo's assistant, gaining skills in sorcery and martial arts and helping to run the logistics side of Mojo's empire while starring in a few shows and features herself (demographics ranging from children's programming to porn). Eventually, through hard work and shanking more ambitious competition, she gained the coveted position of being Mojo's personal secretary - essentially making her co-ruler of the entire Mojoverse and allowing her actual production and directing jobs.

Spiral's latest gig is going to planet Earth to help produce the Mojo Network's next big show! While Earth itself and its people already the subject of an untold number of series and productions, ranging from popular time honored shows having lasted for literally centuries to single episode stinkers, Mojo has never actually had a direct hand in shaping the content shown at all. Until now that is! With the resurgence of superheroes and villains on the planet, Rocket Raccoon actually settling on the planet after being sent by the Guardians of the Universe, the appearance of a Kryptonian, and rumor of a Watcher actually getting involved with the planet, Mojo figures the ratings are just begging to be reaped while the irons are red hot!

However, Mojo's genre savvy enough to know that heroes tend to be extremely fickle when he gets directly involved with them and the ratings for the heroes are already high enough, so instead, he decides on something truly bold, a cash cow idea that's dynamic enough to be Stars every time: A villain episode! Luckily for him, Spiral had already figured out the perfect place on Earth where there are plenty of villains to document, with a few of them being bad enough psychos and murderers to safely harvesthire without gaining the ire of law enforcement, both on Earth and in space: Hub City........

edited 6th May '15 8:08:37 PM by UdtheImp

I completely removed the last part of the offending sentence. Was trying to figure how to word it to make it less offensive, but it was proving to be harder than expected and because GG reminded me of Fast Eddie.

edited 5th Feb '14 5:42:03 PM by UdtheImp

• Name: Silvermane

• Real Name: Silvio Manfreddi

• Gender: Male

• Age: Late 60's.

• Appearance: The hell are you looking at??◊

So I had a little accident. So what?◊

• Alignment: Evil

• Personality: Confident, domineering, aggressive, prone to fits of psychotic rage, and psychologically incapable of giving a FUCK.

• Powers and Abilities: Once, Silvermane was a normal human man, though he was an excellent hand-to-hand combatant, marksman, and fencer. After his first day in Hub City ended poorly, however, 98% of his human tissue was replaced with a near-indestructible robot body with Super Strength and Speed. He no longer needs food, drink, sleep, or air. But he does it anyway, because he likes it. And smoking and sex. That, and to maintain the illusion that he is unharmed. So he can crush his enemies that much easier. When his anger reaches its absolute peak, it manifests as physical heat strong enough to make his robot body glow red, melting synth-flesh and causing clothes to burst into flames.

• Weapons and Equipment: There's some sort of glowing rock buried inside Silvermane's ribcage that powers his robotic body. He's not really sure WHAT the rock is, but he's got a good hankering that it's radioactive as all fuck.

• Origin: Silvio Manfreddi, nicknamed Silvermane for his pure white hair, started his criminal career in his youth in the organized crime in racketeering in Corleone, Sicily, before he made his way to America and carved out a criminal empire for himself in New York City, often butting heads with that whale of a Limey, Wilson Fisk. Everything was going fine, until all the freaks started showing up. Spider-Man, The Question, Iron Man...and a talking Raccoon that tried to blow off his goddamn head with a bazooka or some shit. Silvermane tried to weather them all, determined not to let these freaks drive him out of his city...but then that freak Ice Age happened, and Silvermane decided he'd had enough. He was getting too old for this "Superhero" bullshit, so he uprooted everything and moved his racket to Hub City, where a crook could still be a crook and not have to worry about anything but cops or the occasional fed.

His first day in Hub City went...poorly. When he went to get into his car late that night, someone blew him up with a car bomb. Some new-age, high-powered incendiary shit. Blew off half his body, and whatever it didn't blow off charred him to the bone. He was pretty sure he was dead, but thankfully, a few months beforehand, he'd paid off a down-on-his luck scientist named Emmet Vale to build him a robot body in the off-chance he ever got cancer or liver failure or was gunned down. Real edge-of-death stuff. This seemed pretty close. So, Vale got flown into Hub City, scooped out Silvermane's brain, and put it in the robot. After that, he had to get used to the body, basically physical therapy. He had a close approximation of his face put over the robot in Synth Skin, because it would have looked damn strange for him to survive an explosion and look twenty years younger, wouldn't it? For all his hard work, Silvermane thanked Vale...by snapping his neck. Can't leave loose ends.

Stronger than ever, and burning with revenge, Silvermane is more determined than ever to find which of the six crime families or countless independent criminals tried to do him in...so he can thank them, too. And after that, it's the whole city. Not even those super-freaks can stop him now.

edited 21st Apr '14 3:37:18 PM by SonOfSharknado

You've turned a Spider-Man villain into Metallo. FREAKIN'. GENIUS!!

Also, I think this version of Fisk is a black guy. Though it depends on Liz.

edited 5th Feb '14 8:39:32 PM by UdtheImp

Don't see why we can't blend some elements for our characters. Try to give the universe a more intertwined fee, ya know?

I certainly don't have many problems with the mixture. Well, one minor gripe is that a kryptonite heart doesn't have much purpose when there are no kryptonians around, but that's pretty minor and I can probably think of something.

Accepted.

Am I good to put in Spiral now?

Making sure Schmidt is still reserved; life and responsibilities kicked my ass today (again) but I'm going to get that app done tomorrow. Promise.

Edit: Shit. I suck. Tomorrow. Tomorrow it will be done.

edited 8th Feb '14 7:15:57 PM by herrcolonel

Name: Captain Boomerang

Real Name: Owen Mercer

Gender: Male

Age: 17

Appearance:

Alignment: Torn between villain and hero Personality: He's cocky, and more then a little harsh, but surprisingly nice if you get to know him.

Powers and Abilities: Owen can move in short bursts of super speed. He is the master of Boomerangs. He is also a skilled and experienced fighter. Weapons and Equipment: Boomerangs. All of the Boomerangs. Explosive Boomerangs, electric boomerangs, gravity boomerangs. Every type of Boomerang imaginable.

Origin: Owen's father is Captain Boomerang, and he was trained with Boomerangs since he was a boy. He got into many fight's over the years, do to it being public knowledge that his dad calls himself Captain Boomerang. His father was never home much, and he never really felt like he had a family. One day, during training, he exhibited a burst of super speed and his father revealed that his mother was Meloni Thawne, the daughter of the Flash. Later that night, Owen stole a motorcycle and ran away from home wanting to find his place in the world.

edited 9th Feb '14 11:33:15 AM by luckybreak91

lucky: The profile's gonna need cleaning up there. Also, Flash's daughter? Barry was probably in his thirties while Wally was in his teens. I think he was a wee bit young to have 17 year old grandkids in the present.

Now, apparently in the comics, Meloni Thawne was a descendant of Professor Zoom, and married Barry's descendant to produce Impulse. I can think of three good reasons from that why you might want to rethink this, lucky.

Oh, and Spiral's accepted.

edited 9th Feb '14 1:37:53 PM by LizardOfAus

Name: Typhon / Red Skull.

Real Name: Johann Schmidt.

Gender: Male.

Age: 113, though he appears to be in his late 40s.

Appearance: Schmidt looks like what many might expect from an old-style German supervillain; all high cheekbones and forehead, dark eyes, strong jaw, and neatly trimmed shock of brown hair. He dresses in stylish and neatly tailored military uniforms, mostly in field gray and red trim, with the trademark HYDRA insignia on the shoulders. Over that, he wears his trademark leather coat. The only trace of his now-healed Red Skull damage are faded scars that trace a line from ear to jaw. http://imgur.com/a/LFRAI

Alignment: Villain, and evil.

Personality: Schmidt cloaks his malice well. To acquaintances, potential allies, and harmless civilians, he is nothing less than courteous. Towards sworn enemies, though, he may stop at nothing in his attempts to annihilate them. Schmidt holds grudges like none other, and his moral compass is skewed at best; he values certain individual lives beyond measure, yet is willing to cast aside hundreds when he deems them insignificant. He is a connoiseur of the arts, enjoys the finer things in life, and nurtures a healthy contempt for today's youth and culture.

Powers and Abilities: Schmidt's abilities correspond with the gifts the supersoldier serum gave him. He possesses peak human strength, speed, agility, stamina, reflexes, durability, mental process, and healing. However, beyond these limits, he is vulnerable. He is susceptible to great pain and injury if his senses (eyesight, hearing, etc) are damaged.

Weapons and Equipment: He normally arms himself with a pistol powered by the Tesseract's energy, which can obliterate human enemies at full strength, and seriously wound superhumans. He also has the full resources of HYDRA, an international private corporation dedicated to biotech, weaponry, infiltration, and slow global domination. http://imgur.com/0naisZI

Origin: After making a name for himself in the field of medical science and research, Johann Schmidt rose to power within the Nazi party after a chance meeting with Hitler and Himmler at the Berlin opera house. He swiftly took control of a wing of the SS, having gained Hitler's attention for his radical ideas about maximizing human potential. Schmidt's interest in ancient mythology led him to name this new division HYDRA, after the mythical creature that could regrow itself twice as powerfully after injury. When Schmidt captured Abraham Erskine, a German scientist who wished to defect to the Allies, he took advantage of Erskine's half-finished serum, which promised to improve the human body to its maximum human potential. Rather than bequeath the formula for this serum to the Third Reich, Schmidt injected it into himself, and shipped the remainder of the research to HYDRA's headquarters, where it would be safe from both Allies and Nazis. Meanwhile, Erskine escaped with the help of Peggy Carter, who had been planted underground in HYDRA.

Schmidt suffered terribly for this act, though. The intense pain associated with the transformation caused him to rip the skin from his face and neck in a fit of madness, which healed to a vivid red color. His mind was affected, too; his plans for improving humanity took a sinister turn. When Schmidt was called before a Nazi tribunal to discuss his disobedience, then exiled to the Alps, it was an easy choice for him to decide to pursue his own path with HYDRA. He located a curious artifact, called the Tesseract, in a church in Norway. He believed this artifact contained unlimited potential to generate power and alter reality; he was correct on the first part, though he never quite achieved the second. The Tesseract was soon put to use to power HYDRA facilities, guns, and tanks. From that point forward, HYDRA developed weapons for Schmidt's own cause, refusing to help the Nazis any further.

Schmidt's chief scientist, Dr. Zola, had taken over for Erskine, and had achieved a degree of success with a new version of the supersoldier serum. This version had few negative side effects, but was only partially as strong as the original. However, Schmidt still desired to obtain Erskine's finished project. He sent one of his most trusted HYDRA agents, Heinz Kruger, to New York, in order to kidnap Erskine again and steal the serum. Knowing that this was not possible, Kruger killed Erskine instead and tried to steal the serum, only to be foiled by the subject of the SSR's latest tests, one Steve Rogers.

Schmidt was furious. He redoubled his efforts, now sending actual battalions and regiments to fight the Nazis whenever possible (and with great success). When the 107th Division interfered with a HYDRA offensive effort against the Reich, Schmidt had no qualms about putting the captured prisoners to work in the HYDRA factories, knowing that they could easily be replaced. However, one particular prisoner captured his attention; after being severely beaten by a cruel guard, this prisoner immediately orchestrated that guard's death (via a stack of falling machinery), despite contracting pneumonia and suffering from several broken ribs. This prisoner was Bucky Barnes.

Schmidt took Barnes in for interrogation and administered HYDRA's serum to him, repairing his physical injuries. Though Barnes was initially uncooperative, the two soon came to an agreement. Unfortunately for Schmidt, Rogers promptly arrived at the HYDRA base to rescue his friend and the other soldiers. Schmidt had had the forethought to place a map on the wall with the least important HYDRA bases, to delay Rogers' onslaught, but even this could not save all of HYDRA.

By the time the war was drawing to an end, the SSR and HYDRA had fought to a near standstill, with many HYDRA bases destroyed across Europe. Schmidt tried one last, desperate tactic: he loaded the Tesseract and many of his soldiers onto a massive bomber, the Valkyrie, and instructed the soldiers to fly piloted vessels that would be released at the right time to ensure their safety. These vessels were designed like bombs, and painted with the names of American cities. How else to convince Rogers that the Valkyrie needed to be sunk, effectively trapping the Captain in Arctic ice and leaving Schmidt free to continue his offensive against the Nazis, once he'd escaped via the Tesseract? After all, as Schmidt was keenly aware of, Rogers' self-sacrificing instinct was always his weakness.

Unfortunately, Schmidt's escape plan mostly failed. In addition, the Tesseract was lost to him... only temporarily, perhaps, for Schmidt is a man of great ambition. Years after the war, when Schmidt was found and slowly restored to health, he regained command over HYDRA and slowly reshaped it into a massive corporation that specialized in advanced weaponry, medicine, and biotech. Why not put its resources to use, after all? And if HYDRA toppled a few despotic governments and took command in some small nations with abundant natural resources, who would care? Very few, ultimately.

Since then, HYDRA has made a name for itself and defied its origins, existing on the borders of the law and selling its wares under innumerable front organizations. Schmidt sits squarely in charge, having shed the name Red Skull after advanced HHYDRA medicine managed to repair his face and appearance (except for those scars). Now he calls himself Typhon, after the infinitely powerful creature from ancient Greek legend, father of the Hydra and threat to the sovereignty of the Olympians. In this city, he intends to cement HYDRA's presence more firmly, as well as reunite with the man he once knew, Barnes. He has heard rumors, he knows of Barnes' fate as the Winter Soldier, and above all else, he hopes to reclaim him.

HYDRA is always looking to establish new bases of operations in uncharted territory, yes, but Schmidt has often mixed professional and personal ambitions, achieving both simultaneously. This is no exception.

edited 9th Feb '14 9:54:34 PM by herrcolonel