Creating a character: Part 2

A) Research

One of the first things I did was research on wikipedia for a history of women in comics. The first superheroine was actually Fletcher Hank's Fantomah an ancient, ageless blonde Egyptian woman who turned into a skull-faced being with the power to fight evil.

Interesting, but I don't quite know what to do with it.

Next is "the Invisible Scarlet O'Neil." That one is pretty much self-explanatory. She is a plain-clothed, plain-named superhero with invisible powers. Not too exciting, but invisibility is one of those cool, simple powers that seventy years of comic books have made boring. I would like to try to reconnect people with the fantasy of being able to turn invisible.

Let's see, then there is the Black Widow. She was (apparently) commissioned by Satan to send evil-doers to Hell. I'm sensing a "woman as monster" theme already; the bitch expressed as metaphor. That's something I can work with and take in interesting directions. (Note: It may be a sexist idea in its origination, but that doesn't mean it has to be in my story... although it could.)

What else? Ah, Nelvana of the Northern Lights. Now this is adorable. She's a patriotic Canadian superhero who is half Inuit goddess. Those Canadians are so sensitive to others it makes me sick. Why can't they have good racial characters like Pieface Tom, Ebony White, Black Lightning, Black Vulcan, Black Panther, Black Fury, or Black Negro? In all seriousness, though, this character is pretty cool. Her name is dumb, but the idea has promise. In fact, since both she and Lady Liberty are goddesses (of a sort), I should probably revisit this.

Then came Wonder Woman. Now, I won't go into a big diatribe about the complexity of this character because I've already done that on another blog and it really warrants its own post. Suffice it to say, Wonder Woman is an American patriot and a sapphic Greek with a prediliction for bondage and lesbianism. Conventional comic book writing would have us remove all the dirty parts to keep her more marketable, but really they make the character so much more interesting. To ignore this character and, even more, the controversy around it would be unpardonable, in my mind.

What else? Well, we have the jungle girls which feature all of the fun of Tarzan with the joy of leopard print bikinis. Of the more traditional superhero sort, we have the Blonde Phantom, a girl Friday-type who moonlights as a superhero; Golden Girl, a patriotic sidekick; Miss America, an heiress who fights crime out of boredom (This is a common character-type who, like Princess Leia, follows the archetype of the princess hero. This is a fantasy were the reader can imagine the luxury of being rich and secure, yet the thrill of adventure. It is similar to the billionaire superhero, but distinctly different in that the woman is not in possession of her wealth. More often than not, her wealth is in possession of her.); Namora, amphibian queen of Atlantis (Atlantis features prominently in period comics and also in my story); Sun Girl, fire-wielding secretary to the Human Torch (meh); Phantom Lady, daughter of a senator who turns invisible; Black Canary, a motorcycle riding street fighter; Miss Fury, a wealthy socialite in a catsuit; and the Black Cat, actress and stunt woman who is also a motorcycle rider.

B) Archetypes

From this research, I've been able to come up with four primary trends.

Invisibility - Despite the fact that you haven't heard of them, the Invisible Scarlet O'Neil and the Phantom Lady were both extremely popular. Their power brings to mind the Fantastic Four's Invisible Girl (later, Invisible Woman), Sue Storm. Logically, I know this power was probably chosen for its passive nature, but it can serve as a metaphor for the "invisibility" of women in society as well as highlighting the voyeuristic pleasure of observing women. Perhaps I'll have an invisible character who is a model or an actress, someone who is used to being looked at.

Warrior Princess - As indicated above, there seems to be a natural fantasy of a woman escaping domestic comfort to fight crime. Call me cynical, but I'm reminded of the song Common People about a rich girl who wants to slum it, but as the song says, "you could call your dad; he could stop it all." It's all very obnoxious to me, but an understandable primal desire of, essentially, having perfect comfort and adventure. Unfortunately, the two are mutually exclusive, or at least, that's what I believe.

Bitch-monster - There is a fear amongst men that behind every beautiful woman is a monster who will destroy him. Sometimes I think we are just looking for the monster whose destruction will be most fun. Still, the archetype indicates that she isn't a villain, so what would compel a woman to go around destroying men? I have the rough outline in my head already. Young girl, desperately in love, experiences a tragedy that destroys her life and gives her terrible powers in the process. Damaged beyond repair, she spends her life seducing the worst men and destroy them utterly. I have the framework, I just need to fill in the details.

Biker Chick - There is something undeniably appealling about a tough chick on a bike. There is also something that compells me to use the world "chick." It certainly fits the Black Canary. Is the motorcycle the modern evolution of the horse and, therefore, carry over some of the romantic implications? Does the motorcycle convey a sense of individuality and rebellion? Perhaps that too.

So now I have a tragic bitch-monster seductress, a clever model who can turn invisible, and stuck-up adventurer wannabe. So far so good.

Next, cathexis or how to start adding dimension to an otherwise two dimensional character.

Creating a character: Part 1

Well, the harder I try to prepare the profile for my next character, the more I realize that there is still a lot I need to figure out about her before I can put together one of these profiles.

There are endless ways to develop a character that you are having trouble with. In today's post, I will be discussing some of the methods I use and I will be creating a new character from scratch to illustrate my points.

Lesson #1: Writers lie.

I have already lied at least once. No character is created from scratch. Everything is inspired. Nothing you can create is entirely original to the world, but that isn't the point. It's your interpretation of that character which is wholly unique and original.

In this case, I already have some of the hardest parts figured out. I have a story to put the character in including a time, a place, and a genre. That's a huge step right there. One of the reasons I seem to be having such a hard time with Lady Liberty is because I have very few other female characters in the story and she is the only lead. Consequently, I don't know what kind of woman she is.

Human beings are social creatures. We define ourselves in the context of our friends and think, "I'm the funny one or the smart one or the weird one or the artistic one." We like to think we fulfill a role that contributes to the greater whole. In fiction, this is even truer. When utilized well, characters have chemistry and we don't even think about their "role" in the story because we are too busy enjoying it. When utilized poorly, the role outshines the character and they become a stereotype.

Lesson #2: Context is everything.

When placing The Enigma and The Mechanic in the context of one another (for example), they are very similar but very different. They're both brilliant, alpha males with a strong, inflexible moral compass. However, The Mechanic is forth-right, polite, and hopeful. The actions he takes are designed to make his life better, but have the welcome side-effect of making the world better. He is a man in balance with the world around him, even if he doesn't fit in with the world around him. The Enigma is sarcastic, self-absorbed, and self-destructive. His actions keep his life in a state of dangerous instability because (due to his childhood tragedy) he is afraid to care about anything. Life has shown him that you lose what is most important to you. This, however, is also the same quality that makes him fight for others so selflessly. (Incidentally, this character flaw is why I'm so eager to write the Enigma, and the lack of debilitating character flaws is what makes writing the Mechanic so intimidating.)

However, when comparing Lady Liberty to the Enigma or the Mechanic, it becomes clear that her defining feature is that she is female. She takes Wonder Woman's place, in my universe, as serving an example of female strength in the years before the women's movement. Now, this is a bit too big of a challenge for even my ego, so I need to step back and develop the character's context.

Context, put simply, is everything outside of the subject. When developing the context, it is in relation to the subject. For example, when I created the Enigma, I just had a vague idea of a guy in a suit. I decided he should be Jewish (since he was inspired by Will Eisner's The Spirit). Since he was a Jew in the '30s and '40s, I thought about my love of the vaudeville (often featuring Jewish performers) and Harry Houdini, who was something of a real life folk hero, in particular. I quickly realized that, like his namesake, he was a man of deception, so what better place to put him than working as a newspaper reporter in Los Angeles? In this way, I use the character's context to reinforce his defining attributes.

In creating Lady Liberty, I have to discover her context, and while I have some good ideas about who she is, I've decided that it will be much easier if I have some other "mystery women" to contrast her with. Whether I end up using the characters or not, it will be helpful in defining her character. And if I don't end up using them, they may be tweaked for future concepts just as The Mechanic was tweaked for this one.

Lesson #3: Don't wait for inspiration. Look for it.

Waiting for a muse is like waiting for a girlfriend. In other words, when the opportunity arises, grab it, but don't count on it because it isn't reliable.

When you are facing writer's block, I've found that the best thing to do is try to look at your story from a fresh angle. Stories can get really stale... to the writer more than anyone. This is why most projects get abandoned. Usually this is because you have a vision of what the story is and its limiting what the story could be. This is part of the reason I'm writing an ensemble story so that I can switch more easily to other styles and points of view as the mood suits me. However, I am very much limited by the period which makes this particularly challenging as well.

Personally, I have found that female characters are particularly difficult for me. Usually, I model them on people I know or my own personification of the feminine ideal, which is usually entertaining, but I want to dig a bit deeper in this story.

Part of the mission statement in this idea is to show a more complete look at the history of America and the history of comic books by creating a modern allegorical myth which highlights both our diversity and our common culture. To ignore the history and culture of women would miss out on half of that picture. On top of which, there are a lot of great issues surrounding women that make for great stories: the Virgin/Slut trap, the institutionalized status of inferiority, their attraction to men (for the most part), hell... why do they like flowers so much?

My story currently has three developed "mystery women:" Lady Liberty, Rosie, and Dawn (modelled after Myrna Loy in the Thin Man series) so I will be seeking to create at least three more. As I said, whether I use them or not isn't important, as long as they help provide a context for the others. Rather than confine this process to my mind, I thought I would share in case anyone has any suggestions or they are just looking for their own methods to help create new stories.

Comments, questions, and suggestions are always welcome.

Astonishing Adventures Profiles: The Enigma

There is a tradition in superhero comics, particularly Golden Age superhero comics, of superheroes who... aren't quite as into it as other superheroes. Sure, they have their nom de guerre and a domino mask, but they skipped the tights and cape for a three-piece suit. There always seemed to me to be an implied contemptuousness about this look as if to say, "Sure, I wear a silly mask and use a silly name, but let's not go too far! I didn't have a nervous breakdown here!"

These "casual superheroes" usually had little to no power (power-levels may have a direct correlation to how tight your clothing is. Must investigate further), so were generally far more grounded and struggled with simpler threats like gangsters or con-men rather than mad scientists or monsters.

I knew I couldn't do this story without one. No matter how big the story gets, someone has to represent the guy who is just struggling to keep up as the world around him goes nuts. Someone has to be clever enough to talk his way out of problems, go undercover, rally the troops, and generally just be the mysteryman-everyman.

The Enigma is the only son of a Jewish immigrant who was the stage manager for a vaudevillian theater. His mother was a performer of great beauty, but no specific talent. She was a singer, dancer, and assistant to the dapper Illusionist. The young boy was loved the theater and constantly snuck around under foot to spend time with all of the colorful characters: musicians, dancers, comedians, actors, strongmen, contortionists, minstrels, acrobats, clowns, freaks, and general weirdos, all of whom were fond of the boy and would teach him their trade. However, his father said, in no uncertain terms, that he wanted his son to stay away from show business, often locking him in his office to do his homework and study the Torah. The young Enigma hated doing either and made escaping from his father's office the first part of his adventure.

The boy most admired the Illusionist. Not merely a practitioner of card and coin tricks, the Illusionist would perform godlike acts of deception, could escape from any confinement, and could convince anyone to do whatever he wanted with the power of mentalism. His father, however, hated the brash, headlining illusionist who lacked any scruples or consideration for his co-workers. The Illusionist, however, saw potential in the young boy and took him under his wing as his secret protégé.

The boy was gifted and had the potential to be a great illusionist, but then his father found out and he was furious. The boy was banned from the theater and the last thing he heard as he left was his father and the Illusionist fighting. The next day, the boy sneaked back to the theater just to say goodbye to his mentor, but instead discovered his mother dead in one of the Illusionist's props. The Illusionist was missing, and the boy never got along with his father again.

Rather than become a performer or the respected professional his father wanted to be, the Enigma became a reporter dedicated to uncovering and exposing the secrets of the world around him. He settled in Los Angeles (at least in part to be as far away from his father as possible) and became the leading crime reporter at the small newspaper where he works.

Now, I still need an inciting incident... something to make him first want to fight crime. The fact that he does it with a funny name and mask make sense to me, given his theatrical background. He is also uniquely suited to disguise himself from his alter-ego through subtleties of mannerism and inflection. That same magicians mind attuned to cause, effect, and deception is perfect for solving crimes and finding unique solutions to problems. Of course, the problem with having a clever character is that it requires you to be clever as well.

Los Angeles was the natural location for this character. It is a city of smoke and mirrors filled with secrets. Although the protagonist hates the shallow decadence of the film industry, he is nonetheless called upon to cover it often leading to investigations of high society. It is also the home of an extremely corrupt police system, as seen in LA Confidential, and then of course, there is manipulative media magnate William Randolf Hearst. It just makes for the perfect backdrop for this story.

In imagining the Enigma's working class counterpoint, it was clear that he could not be a mild mannered reporter. Quite the opposite, he is brash, rude, arrogant, and dismissive, but a damn good reporter who always gets the story... which is why he can get away with a lot of what he does. Of course, no one expects that he could be the Enigma, not because he couldn't physically do it, but rather because it isn't seen as being in his character.

The Enigma's look is simple and extremely similar to the Phantom Reporter (top), except without the cape. Because he is a noir hero, I want his suit to reflect black and white with marks of red (for blood, passion, violence). His suit is a charcoal grey (slightly more visually versatile than black). His mask, hat band, gloves, and tie are all bright red, which should provide an iconic quality which will not only provide a visceral impression of the character, but allow him to be easily and quickly identified by the scanning eye. His hair is curly, black, and short with a peppering of gray.

Another element to the Enigma is that he is a secret Jew. He doesn't actively hide the fact that he is Jewish, he just doesn't express it... which is easier because he no longer practices. This is important not only because it indicates something about the social climate of the time, but also because it is a pattern seen in comic book creators, vaudevillians, superheroes, and actors. Although there were many popular Hollywood figures who disguised their Jewish roots, there may have been even more in the comic book industry. Even more importantly, there are many superheroes whose identities are wrapped up in Jewish culture, but are presented as WASPs. For example, Superman's Kryptonian name is actually Hebrew, his origin is a sci-fi take on baby Moses traveling down the river in a basket, and he is a first generation immigrant (like his Jewish creators). And look at Spider-Man: polite, funny, intelligent, overwhelming guilt... clearly, he's Jewish. So the Enigma is for all of the Jewish superheroes who aren't allowed to be Jewish.

He's also the only character so far with a sidekick. Rosie was originally just supposed to be Rosie the Riveter forced into a superhero role, but she has developed a lot for me since then. She was a girl the Enigma helped out who came to join his mission. She comes from a family of mechanics and so she volunteers to design and maintain the Enigma's custom 1936 Mercedes-Benz roadster (right). But as the only person who knows his duel identity, she is also his closest friend. They should have a great chemistry playing off of one another because they both have a sharp sense of humor and a tendency to act first and figure things out later. However, there is no romantic tension because Rosie is gay. (Part of the concept for the Enigma is that he is unusually open minded and accepting of differences for his time period due to his experiences growing up in vaudeville where he would spend time with whites, Jews, Chinamen, negroes, fairies, and other terms now regarded as abhorrent. As a big fan of old vaudeville, I have found this to be consistent with those who have performed there.) Later, Rosie will don a domino mask and chauffer's outfit to take a more active role in the Enigma's adventures. Later still, she will meet the Mechanic and become his rocket wearing protégé, Rosie Rocket. However, the Enigma has his own love interests including the young, ambitious, celebrity reporter who wants to move over to hard crime and the sultry thief known only as the Crimson Mask.

Of course, the Enigma's arch-nemesis will be with the return of the Illusionist who has turned his brilliance to demonstrating that he is above the rules of society and so he flamboyantly flaunts his disregard as a criminal mastermind. Yet when he rediscovers his protégé, he vows to the Enigma that he will make him his prodigal son whether he agrees to it or not. To this end, he uses his villainy to shape the Enigma's life, forming him into the brilliant and dynamic world traveler that he is to become. And he may well be smart enough to do it.

Like Dr. Josef Mueller, the Illusionist is a mentor and surrogate father figure who becomes an enemy, but unlike the Mechanic, the Enigma had and still has a father, so his conflict with the Illusionist is a choice between two lifestyles. His father's lifestyle has to do with a strict adherence to the rules of both man and God to be a moral person. The Illusionist's is to follow one's passion in order to become a more evolved being. Both are valid points of view and both have very serious flaws. Perhaps only his mother, the link between the two, might have given him a way of reconciling this difference and that is why he looks to women to fill the emptiness.

Inspiration has come from multiple sources for this character, but perhaps none so strongly as Will Eisner's The Spirit (not to be confused with Frank Miller's The Spirit). The Spirit (AKA Denny Colt) was Will Eisner's gentile hero with a Jewish... well, spirit... who got in beautiful, light-hearted adventures that are honestly probably more a testament to Will Eisner's writing and drawing abilities than anything brilliant about the character concept. Unlike the other serious heroes, The Spirit would often get stuck in embarrassing situations and relied on his wits to get him out.

Other sources of inspiration include the complex social dramas of The Question, the romantic detective noir of the Philip Marlowe stories, and a lot of wise-assery from pulp novel reporter Fletch. He's a Byronic folk hero living in Los Angeles during the final days of the Great Depression, the height of Hollywood, and the days before the second world war.

Of all my characters, this is the one I'm most looking forward to working with.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

In talking about my "epic" story tentatively entitled Astonishing Adventures, I realize now that I forgot one of the most important influences on my story; that is, Jackson Publick's The Venture Brothers.


In the first season, I had no idea how deeply thought out this show was. I thought it was just a hilarious parody on Hanna Barbara adventure cartoons, but as the series went on, it became a pastiche for all of the creator's odd interests.

In essence, the series premise comes down to this: What if the Hardy Boys were the sons of Johnny Quest who was the son of Doc Savage? Not only does it illustrate a wonderfully ironic deterioration of a once proud name, but it merges three disparate but similar mediums: pulp novels of the 1930s, cheap televised cartoons of the 1960s, and young adult paperbacks of the '70s and '80s. He has many clear analogues to some of Marvel Comics more... awkward characters including the flamboyantly macabre Dr. Strange, Eastern European dictator Dr. Doom, absent-minded professor and stretching man Mr. Fantastic, blaxploitation vampire hunter Blade, and the ineffectual shrinking Ant-Man.

But my favorite character... well, what do you get when you cross gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson with super-spy Nick Fury and real life FBI director and crossdresser J. Edgar Hoover? A paranoid, transsexual conspirator by the name of Hunter Gathers.

Once I was able to see the way the writers managed to let all of these very different kinds of stories merge into one cohesive world, it became a lot easier to figure out how to do it myself.

Another big influence is Warren Ellis' Planetary. This very serious, realistically rendered comic book is a dark homage to the history of modern fantasy-adventure. The story follows three super-powered detective working for an extremely wealthy, private, worldwide investigation network (called Planetary) which investigates abnormal activity. Aside from references to Marvel and DC Comics, it is filled with references to Tarzan, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Doc Savage, the Shadow, and Monster Island (home of Tojo Studio's giant Tokyo attacking monsters). Rather than becoming one dimensional heroes and villains, the characters in this series range from bitter and contemptuous to monstrously cruel.


Of all the stories I've read or watched, I would say my story most resembles Planetary... and I would be concerned about being unoriginal, but Ellis' book is a nostalgic look back and an attempt to recontextualize old pop culture. They are archeologists uncovering a history with the spirit of a twelve-year-old discovering his dad's old comics in the attic. With Astonishing Adventures, I want more of a sense of immediacy by making the reader live with this history rather than just look back on it. I want to try to recreate not only the types of characters and stories, but the period itself by creating a historical context in which to view these figures, so that the story is not just about "What do these stories mean?" but "What do they mean to this period of our history?"

Furthermore, in reading Alan Moore's (right) introduction to Mike Mignola's Hellboy, Moore brought up an interesting point. You see, Hellboy, if you haven't read the comic, uses old inspiration from old style fairy tales from the Brother's Grimm and earlier. The kind with witches eating the meat off of the bones of children or spirits trading wishes for body parts. What Moore says is that the brilliance of Mike Mignola's approach is that he doesn't try to recreate the stories how they actually were but rather how we remember them to be. This is something I keep in mind when working on this story.

In writing, it is better to feel authentic than to be authentic. Creative writing is not about facts, but about truth. The appeal to the gut is more important than an appeal to the head. You can get the facts straight and put in all the anal "nuances" later.

Because reading Golden Age comics is hard. Honestly. The dialog is flat. The characters are dimensionless. The stories are beyond ludicrous. Oh, and the racism and sexism would be nauseating if it weren't so funny... and then sometimes it is just nauseating. But you read modern comics based on characters created sixty or seventy years ago, you look at the cool interpretations that writers have devised over the years, you become accustomed to more complex storytelling, and you want there to be some great and sophisticated history to these characters.

Well, find an itch and scratch it. It's a rule of business that is just as true for writers as it is for prostitutes. Since I can't find any great, epic, World War II action stories, I'll just have to write my own.

PS - It's worth noting that I'm not the only one thinking about World War II superheroes right now. The upcoming Captain America film is to be set during World War II, and superb comic book writer James Robinson is writing a Justice Society of America story to be set in the same period.



Come to think of it, the Justice Society of America (precursors to the Justice League of America) were actually another form of inspiration for this series. The series featured a collection of B-list mystery men who fought mostly on the homefront, but also at war. It occurred to me that, since it has few individually marketable characters, it could easily be made into a great "superheroes in World War II" movie, particularly with the Golden Age Sandman whose gas mask and trenchcoat always give him more of a hip steampunk look than his garish companions. (Sidenote: Despite being the most well-known and powerful of the group, Wonder Woman served as the JSA's secretary. Ah, sexism.)

Astonishing Adventures Profiles: The Mechanist

A long time ago, I was working at Verizon Wireless doing data entry and couldn't help but wonder what it would be like if superheroes had somewhat ordinary nine-to-five jobs? Not alter egos, but they show up to work at 8 every morning in mask and cape, sit down in their cubical and do paperwork for five hours. Sure, then there is an emergency and a bunch of them run out and solve it, but then they have to go back to work and (like a police officer) fill out more paper work.

Interesting ideas came from this like different sized urinals for giant and tiny people and most of the employees being victims of villainy or super-phenomena (i.e. dino-men, time travelers, parallel universe duplicates, etc). I called it The Union: half-Justice League, half-The Office.

One of the characters I developed for this was a Superman analogue named The Mechanist who had all the powers of Superman, but basically he was the company's warehouse and fix-it guy who I just imagined hanging out in his own area moving several tons of machinery from one place to another. A sagely blue collar sort.

For his origin, well... one part of Superman's origin always bugged me and that is, aside from his powers, he is absolutely identical to a human being. So I decided he was an alien/human hybrid from a UFO abduction. (There was something very sardonic about having your pure, ideal superhero being the product of an alien rape.) And since I have no sympathy for middle America or Smalltown, America, I decided that he was born in one of those backwards-as-fuck Evangelical towns where his mom had a well-earned reputation as being crazy and a not-so-well-earned reputation of being a slut. Meanwhile, the young boy was picked on by the other kids as a weirdo, but he possesses a budding brilliance as his head is filled with ideas from his advanced culture written into his genes (i.e. at three years old, he was doodling with crayons and ended up drawing a design for a microchip).

In large part, I've retained most of the ideas for this concept. Now, however, the Mechanist was born at the turn of the century and, naturally, in order to fit the less fantastic power levels, I've made him merely a brilliant inventor and super-athlete. I've also switch the main source of his inspiration from Superman to Doc Savage (right).

Who is Doc Savage? Just because you probably haven't heard of him doesn't mean the character hasn't effected you. He was the direct inspiration for Superman, Batman, Indiana Jones, Jonas Venture Sr., Buckaroo Bonzai, and Tom Strong (above). Superman's arctic Fortress of Solitude was, in fact, directly stolen from Doc Savage's arctic Fortress of Solitude. Like Batman, Doc Savage was in peak physical and mental condition from a life time of training. Like Jonas Venture Sr. and Buckaroo Bonzai, he went on bizarre scientific adventures with a strange band of adventurers.

In short, my idea is of an exceptional, good-natured person who travels the world endlessly searching for somewhere that he fits in. After his mother's death, he travels to the big city and gets a job working at a factory. His boss finds out he has a talent for fixing things which is where he gets his nickname. He soon finds he also has a habit of getting into trouble and gets propelled on a life of constant adventure and intellectual pursuits.

When the story begins, the Mechanist is living in his custom-made, spacious, and ornate airship. Accompanied by an unusual cast of friends and comrades (I'm imagining a 1938 equivalent to the entourage of Hansel in Zoolander), including a Tibetan holy man, Clea the Clockwork Girl, and a hyper-intelligent gorilla named Padre whose hobbies are reading and piloting. Padre is his best friend and former science experiment. Clea is his artificial Girl Friday with his custom-made "electronic brain." And the as-yet-unnamed Tibetan holy man is his mentor and spiritual guide.

As for his look, that first image (top) is pretty close, particularly with the goggles and leather gloves. His casual clothes would be period adventure style with cargo pants and a white shirt unbuttoned enough to feature in a romance novel. He wears a red leather, button-up jacket in that old fashion V-button style (right). I was going to go with jet black hair, but the more I think about it, the more I think he should be a brunette with a lock of white hair on his widow's peak a la one of my favorite upstanding childhood heroes, Quantum Leap's Sam Beckett (below). (Interestingly, as I looked for this picture, I found on wikipedia that says that Sam was inspired in part by Doc Savage. It makes sense. He's a scientific genius in multiple disciplines as well as an accomplished martial artist.)

The Mechanist's arch-nemesis is his childhood mentor Dr. Josef Mueller, a quiet and timid scientist who goes mad when he essentially downloads the knowledge of Atlantis into his brain (which parallels the Mechanist's own unnatural alien intellect). For some reason, there are a lot of father-type villains in this story. I'll try not to psychoanalyze that too much. Dr. Mueller's daughter, Milla, was the Mechanist's first love. (She is easy to describe. Dress Marilyn Monroe as a Nazi and put an eyepatch on her. Voila!) She is probably just me vicariously living out a fantasy reality where I can caricaturize my ex-girlfriends as Nazis, but who can't identify with that? The Mechanist and his airship have also faced the deadly Tokyo Rose, captain of the Japanese sky pirates in service to the Empire of Japan.

So far, I have one very important rule for the Mechanist: every entrance has to be not only big, but huge... and he has to take it completely casually. I have an image of him riding a giant sandworm through the city and dismounting it like the cowboy who just rode into town.

Astonishing Adventures: The Golden Age

Part 1 of my intended epic takes place in the era commonly referred to as the Golden Age. The story takes place between 1938 and 1945 as the Great Depression ends and World War II begins. It is the beginning of superheroes, but ironically, also the beginning of America's status as a world superpower. It was, perhaps, the most morally unambiguous war ever fought with the world actually hanging in the balance.

It is a period that comic books were never really divorced from. Originally superhero comic books (like the pulp novels that preceded them) served as guardians of social good protecting the victims of the Great Depression. When the war started, the heroes became a part of the propaganda championing absolute good against absolute evil. It worked, but when the war ended and the Depression was over, their message no longer resonated quite so strongly. America, it seemed, didn't need superheroes any more.

But the period has always had a certain mystique and romanticism about it, no doubt in large part due to the glamor of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Cars were works of art. Men wore stetsons. Women wore pearls. You could jitterbug all night long for a nickle. It is a period of crime noir and world adventuring (i.e. Indiana Jones) before the conservativism of the fifties, the radical turmoil of the sixties, and the downright ideological clusterfuck of every era after that.

But naturally, this is where my story begins before superheroes traveled through time to parallel universes and through the depths of space. Many didn't even have powers. Those that did often had "minor" abilities such as the strength of ten men or "the ability to cloud men's minds." In fact, the term superhero wasn't even used early on. More often, they were referred to as "mystery men."

This story is essentially about the sudden sociological shift where America went from a poor and isolated land to a world superpower. Roughly stated, the theme is "Where are we going and where have we been?" As the Nazis are looking to the past to establish legitimacy for their ideological goals, our heroes are looking to the future and a way out of the current state of the world.

There are (currently) four protagonists: The Mechanic, Lady Liberty, The Enigma, and another character for whom I'm still trying to find a name. For now, I call him The Alchemist. The Mechanic is a brilliant inventor, world traveler, and natural super-athlete whose mother went insane after she was abducted by a bright light from the sky and woke up the next morning pregnant. Lady Liberty is a fast-talking, aggressive New York City lawyer who is embodied with the spirit of Athena when she is exposed to the Atlantian psycholotron (read: plot device) and is sent on a spiritual journey which changes the world as she knows it. The Enigma is a cocky, self-absorbed Los Angeles reporter raised as an illusionist/mentalist/escape artist in vaudeville who fights as a crime noir hero against mobsters, solves Hollywood murders, and frequently comes into conflict with the corrupt police department. The Alchemist (or whatever his name will be) is a San Francisco Chinese immigrant, master of "Chinese boxing" (as kung fu was known at the time) and Taoist alchemical mysticism. In Hong Kong, he was a mob boss and assassin, but after killing a holy man, he is trying to find redemption.

The villains include Dr. Josef Mueller, a German scientist and mentor of the Mechanic who became an eccentric genius when he gained the wisdom of Atlantis via the psycholotron; his daughter, Milla Mueller, the beautiful blonde bombshell who serves as a high ranking member of the SS (she wears an eyepatch over her right eye from when the Mechanic, her ex-boyfriend, shot her for taking his best friend, a talking gorilla, hostage); the Hidden Khan, the Alchemist's illegitimate father and leader of an ancient secret society of spies and assassins; Dietrich von Frankenstein, euro trash great grandson of Victor, who creates monsters for anyone who can afford it; Geist, an emotionless, German SS officer turned living ghost and assassin; Ubermench, the mortal incarnation of Thor embodying the Nazi ideal; Tokyo Rose, the Japanese sky pirate who loyally serves the empire; and the Illusionist, the Enigma's childhood mentor who killed his mother and seeks to make the Enigma his prodigal son... whether he agrees or not.

Other "Mystery Men" include Secret Agent Zero, a ruthless, white-suited master of disguise who never shows his real face; Twilight & Dawn, a husband and wife team of crimefighters mixing the adventurous athleticism of Douglas Fairbanks with the sardonic wit of Nick and Nora Charles; Tin Man, a Nazi war robot befriended by a pair of orphans wandering the dust bowl; Titan, a man who takes an experimental pill to, um... grow large (unfortunately, it's highly addictive and psychologically unstable); and Rosie Rocket, the Enigma's personal mechanic and chauffeur turned protégé of the Mechanic.

The story travels from the dirty streets of Depression-era America to a gigantic superpowered war over Nazi Germany. There will be airships, ninjas, lizard men, ancient cities, UFOs, mobsters, psychopaths, evil spirits, flamboyant tricksters, magic, gods, and, of course, lots of Nazis getting their asses handed to them.

It should be fun.

Bring Back The Bondage For Wonder Woman

I was going to write a blog about the near impossible task of making a good Wonder Woman movie, then I read this and... well, it does a pretty good job weighing in on the challenges this project presents.

Comic Writers Speak: Bring Back The Bondage For Wonder Woman

Joss Whedon (on writing the Wonder Woman script): She’s a character who’s kind of elusive, she’s an old-fashioned superhero. At first I didn’t know what to do with her and then I realized, oh no, that’s what’s great about her—that she is an old-fashioned superhero and there is no place for her here. Or anyplace.

Updated: What would Joss Whedon have done? See for yourself.

Wonder Woman: What Might Have Been

Only the first one is specifically about Wonder Woman, but it's all about comics and comic movies. If you like Joss Whedon, you'll love it. If you don't like him, this might change your mind.