How A Character is Created

So now we had the origin of the character, an idea in my mind of what he should look like and a concept sketch from Ethan Wright that was a first step in the right direction. Although the design had a lot of great ideas in it, I didn't think it was suitable for a slick futuristic space dictator. The single shoulder pad and gauntlet gave the character a Mad Max look. I could see Der Verge's soldiers wearing something like this, patchwork armor left over from the alien invasion or taken from a hundred different worlds. I also didn't want any skin to be showing so that people would never be quite sure how human he still was or how he had changed. Lastly, there was the Darkness Cloak he wore had to be bigger, more extravagant, something that could wrap him in shadows. So even though I could use this design for some of Der Verge's soldiers, I knew this wasn't the man himself and I had to ask Ethan to go back to the drawing board. . .

Captain Future was a pulp hero created back in 1939.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Future

As a "Man of Tomorrow" and space hero, Captain Future gave me the link between the superhero universe and the pulp era space stories I was trying to mimic with this villain. Of course the original Captain Future didn't carry a Gravity Gunsword, that was completely made up for the character. The Gravity Gunsword has an edge cut by a futuristic laser, the blade is so sharp it actually cuts through the electromagnetic forces of gravity. Not only will it cut you in half but it could send those two halves flying in opposite directions or straight into the air. At this point I was reading about numerous other pulp heroes and I found one more who seemed a natural fit in the story.

Der Verge was able to locate the last surviving rebels, some of whom were well past the point of defeat and united them together. Some of the weaker superhumans were still active, including a former District Attorney named Tony Quinn. Quinn had been blinded and scarred by an alien acid attack and left for dead. Carol Baldwin, the daughter of a man known as The Black Bat, was able to transplant her dead father’s corneas unto Quinn, gifting him with her father’s ability to see in total darkness. Tony then took on the mantle of the Black Bat, using the darkness as a weapon against the diurnal alien invaders. Der Verge had changed drastically, the insect-like abilities of the aliens were solar based, but he was also able to absorb Quinn’s power making them an unstoppable team night or day. It seemed as if the aliens were simply evolved intelligent moths, a race of almost humanoid looking creatures with a society structure beyond human understanding. The Gravity Gunsword make it difficult for the aliens to send in flying aircraft and so they send in hundreds of thousands of ground troops. With each victory more and more humans joined in the fight. Der Verge had no sympathy for the humans who worked with the aliens; he killed them as quickly as their alien overlords. Perhaps it was something in the aliens that drove them to conquer other races, something that Der Verge absorbed from them that turned him into a dominant warlord. The moth-men inevitably fell and Der Verge used their space technology to take the fight back to their homeworld. The aliens civilians had no idea what their government had done but this made no difference to Der Verge. He took the young from the planet and shipped them back to Earth where they were slaughtered and fed to the starving people of Earth. The rest of the population was then wiped out, not a single life remained on their world when Der Verge and Quinn left it. At this point Quinn and Der Verge parted ways. Quinn took over the Earth, building a peaceful utopia. Der Verge and the remaining soldiers left for space to proactively protect their home. As the people of Earth built a peaceful utopia, Der Verge was conquering every alien planet he encountered. His armies soon grew to massive sizes, containing soldiers from hundreds of different worlds. Der Verge realized that a whole multiverse of threats existed. .

Powers:
As Echo, Der Verge was a moderate level fighter who would primarily duplicate the powers of the villains he fought in order to defeat them. The only power he "banked" during the early periods was the power of flight. After encountering his nemesis Skylark, Der Verge was forced to take on multiple powers simply to stay a step ahead and stay alive. At this time Der Verge stopped flying and took more close combat abilities from his fellow heroes. In their final battle against each other, Der Verge and Skylark had accumulated the powers of almost fifty heroes and villains between them, using one at a time but able to shift between abilities. At the time of his capture he had no abilities "banked".

At the time of his escape Der Verge had copied the natural abilities of the moth-men which included superhuman strength, unlimited endurance, resistance to radiation and chemical poisoning, limited need for food and an enhanced healing ability in the sun. After his conquest of the moth-men and the discovery of the Wormhole Nexus at the center of his universe Der Verge encountered a cosmic police force who operated out of the Nexus. They were known as the Cosmic Wave Riders and they almost defeated Der Verge's armies. Der Verge absorbed their abilities, harnessing the Cosmic Wave Energy to make him indestructible. He no longer needs food, drink, sleep or even oxygen to breathe. He still retains the increased senses and abilities of the moth-men and it seems he cannot release these powers the way he can with the others. Defeating a villain of the night who survived the alien invasion Der Verge also gained control over a shadow force, he can use it to create a blanket of darkness which he becomes invisible in. This ability remains active in the cloak he wears. He also possesses a level of mind control and telepathy that has created a labyrinth of locks within his mind and his senses and combat skills are nearly unbeatable. Untouchable at night and almost unstoppable during the day, Der Verge is a powerful force.

The first concept design that Ethan sent me very good. In fact the sword was almost perfect. I'd always wanted a character with a Gun-Sword and he seemed the perfect character to use one. At this point I decided to write up an origin on the character, figuring that would help Ethan understand the kind of guy he was. As a character who can absorb other peoples powers, or an empathic mimic as they call it in Heroes, it was important to know which powers he has at the time he tries to conquer the Earth in the Canadian Legion. Here is the history I sent him (more or less):
Emperor Der Verge

Der Verge was once a normal human being living in an alternate world full of superheroes. Born with the ability to absorb superhuman powers, Verge became a hero and often stood against his world's deadliest villains. While still a teenager Verge was known as the hero Echo, while an adult he changed his alias to Mr. Mimic. During those years Der Verge often faced off against an opponent with matching abilities, the mad scientist Joseph Skylark. Their final battle lasted three hours. In a bizarre twist an alien race invaded their Earth as the two men lay exhausted and wounded from their war. Taken prisoner, tortured and powerless, both men made a pact that one would sacrifice themselves so that the other, their arch-nemesis, could survive. It took seventeen months but finally Skylark managed to detonate an explosive device, killing himself but buying Der Verge time to escape. With no superhuman abilities, Der Verge was forced to absorb what he could from the aliens. Their thoughts and alien physiology was terrible to mimic, it changed him down to his very basic form, but with their insect-like abilities at his disposal Der Verge was able to steal a ship. Returning to Earth, Der Verge found the planet completely under alien rule. The moon had become a graveyard for superbeings, a final resting place for hundreds of heroes and villains. Searching the dead for anything that might help him, Der Verge found a gravity gunsword that once belonged to Captain Future.

Since I haven't really used this blog in a while I thought I would take the opportunity to show everyone how one of my ideas comes together.

I wanted to do a super villain from space, someone along the lines of Ming the Merciless and Darth Vader, someone who conquered whole planets and civilizations. But I wanted him to be very unpredictable, very multidimensional, someone who was feared for his mind and ingenuity as much as his destructive power.

I used photoshop to create an idea, a shadow of what I wanted, something that would feel like the character I wanted until I found an artist to bring him to life.



The name came from the German translation of Space Rapist; Raum-Vergewaltiger, becoming Emperor Raum Der Verge. The sword in the original design was for a double bladed weapon. The character then went into the file with the dozens of others, waiting for his time to come. Some characters have sat for years, others sit no more than a week before being 'finished'.

In this case, Der Verge sat for about two months. During that time Ethan Wright and I got in touch with each other again. We had worked on something before for a Marvel pitch, before I got tired of trying to pitch to a company whose books I couldn't even read anymore. While trying to decide who I could pay Ethan to illustrate for me, Der Verge just seemed to pop up.

Ethan and I talked a bit about costumes we liked. I wanted something between EMPIRE's lead villain and Lars from Tekken 6. Ethan was also a fan of Tekken and so we went with a more down to Earth, fist fighter look. The first draft Ethan sent me was this:

The Canadian Legion Issue #3

The Face

The Heroic History of the Canadian Legion Universe

In the world of the Canadian Legion, heroes and villains are classified as either an Alpha or an Omega. An Alpha uses his/her powers and abilities to help humanity, an Omega is considered a threat, capable of killing large numbers of innocent people. Most of the characters listed are Alpha Heroes, although there are a few Omega class villains as well.
In fact, we begin with one. . .

Tezcatlipoca – The God of Darkness was the first true embodiment of evil to walk the Earth. He fought the great dinosaurs and when he discovered the Aztec civilization he chased Quetzalcoatl from the temples and ruled over their entire civilization. In human form Tezcatlipoca wore a frightening war mask. This mask eventually fell into the hands of Tony Trent, the Face. Only the warrior tribe known Sons of Quetzalcoatl stood against him. Eventually his priests deserted him, allowing the Spanish to conquer South America while Quetzalcoatl went into a deep sleep. It is believed by some of the Gods that Quetzalcoatl eventually defeated and devoured Tezcatlipoca. The evil of his enemy corrupted Quetzalvcoatl and turned him into the Midgard Serpent.

Enki – A citizen of ancient Babylon, Enki was the first real magician. A sailor and fisherman, Enki learned magic from the river spirits and the early ancestors of the Porposi people. Just as the rivers crossed the plains, rivers of mystical power cross the planet. Enki was the first to tap into these energies and used them to build a village for Magi that would eventually become the city known as Atlantis. Enki was one of the first men to become something more than human and when the Gods of Babylon faded away, Enki slept in the lost ruins of the city he spent his life building.

Hercules – Perhaps the first of all heroes, Hercules was born to a human mother and often stood between the Gods and man as humanities protector. As an immortal Hercules matured very slowly, he spent almost forty years as a ‘teenager’, which is part of the reason his good intentions often turned into such horrible mistakes. The rest could be attributed to the constant abuse and manipulation Hercules suffered at the hands of his Step-Mother, Hera. While in his late twenties Hercules developed Epilepsy. Hera was able to use this to drive him mad, which eventually led to his 12 Labours of Restitution. Many stories told of Hercules’ eventual death but this was in fact a hoax created by Hercules himself. When a centaur ferryman attempted to rape his lover Deianeira in front of him, Hercules went mad and killed not just the ferryman, but every centaur that existed. Deianeira was horrified and fled into the forest. Believing himself to be a danger to all mankind, Hercules built a funeral pyre and donned what he called a “Vest of Weakness”. Then Hercules laid himself upon the fire and appeared to die. The Vest was in fact a gift from his father; it transported Hercules to a place where he could fight enemies without the fear of harming innocence people. The Vest transported Hercules to Valhalla, a realm of eternal battle. It is not known what eventually became of Hercules at some point during the birth and life of Jesus of Nazareth, the Gods went into a deep slumber. It is believed that Mount Olympus lies just outside our dimension, waiting for mankind to believe in Gods once more.

Achilles – The greatest of all Greek warriors, Achilles was also possibly Hercules half-brother. His mother, a river nymph named Thetis, was so beautiful both Zeus himself and King Peleus fought for her affections. In the end Zeus gave up his pursuit when a prophet warned him that a child born of Thetis and Zeus would one day become ruler of Olympus. This does not mean that King Peleus is in fact Achilles’ father, only that Zeus no longer interfered in their relationship after hearing of this prophecy. Thetis believed Achilles could be the greatest warrior of all time and pushed her son from an early age to excellence. He was blessed by all the Gods of Greece, he was trained by the fiercest warriors. Summoning her family together, Achilles was baptised by Nereus and Doris to be invincible. Only the spot where Thetis had held him by the ankle was not protected by the enchantment. When the prophecy spread throughout Olympus during the Trojan War, the Gods decided to guide Paris in killing Achilles. It was believed that had Achilles not fallen during the War, he would have eventually killed Hercules (for his treatment of Achille’s grandfather Pontus ) and Zeus himself. Eventually all the river and water spirits were destroyed by Zeus and Odin who united to create a Great Flood.

We've got a couple mini-posters for fans if anyone wants one.


Consider it an apology for the book taking so long, I know it has been a while, but good things come to those who wait! Or is that the plague?

Anyway, here are the two mini-posters:

http://www. indyplanet. com/catalog/product_info. php?products_id=1679

http://www. indyplanet. com/catalog/product_info. php?products_id=1678

Thanks everybody for the support!