Hero project part 7; the Ur-characters

See:  The pilot. Part One. Part Two. Part Three. Part Four. Part Five. Part Six.

So this has been a romp through a pretty clearly-established but totally in-my-head comics universe. (Actually, it's multiverse, with at least two other Earths, one an alternate-history scenario and the other a near-future setting, but maybe that's another series.) The Bravos have pretty much solidified now, but their roots go way back into some of my earliest work. Here are artifacts from some far antecedents of the current characters.

First, piece so old there was actual typing on the sheet from my Smith Corona portable manual typewriter (I cropped it out).These are all folks that were originally slated to appear in prose, rather than in an imaginary comic.

I rather like the concept of Ebon and don't know why I left it. He's Pyewacket, the cat familiar from Bell, Book, and Candle, transformed into a human.

Domesday is a proto-Moxie, with a little too much Dark Phoenix, I think.

You can see Virago in Athena quite clearly. The character concept didn't change much but she sure went through a lot of names over the years.

Yancy was the size changer, courtesy of an alien police officer's uniform - maybe some Greatest American Hero going on there?

I made a superhero version of the Warner Brothers character Tasmanian Devil well before DC did. According to my notes, he was an ex-soldier with PTSD before the term was in use.

The final piece in this series is an illustration of the characters in a projected 21-chapter science-fiction novel that took them across the galaxy- that's the flow chart and table of contents there on the left. I think about two chapters were even written,a little more if you count my writing the opening scene about six times. I think the world-building and the character creation were enough to satisfy whatever itch I was scratching; the same with all the little doodles and scribbles of characters over the years. Even now I can conjure up entire scenes, as if I had read the books or seen the movies. Anyway, here they are:

Walking in with raincoat and gat is the main protagonist of the novel, Earthling. I can tell you exactly where his name came from: in a letter column to some DC comic, a reader complained of the use of the term "earthling" in a story involving aliens, saying "You can't imagine how old-fashioned that sounds". The editor responded: "You're right. I can't." Earthling was a person from Earth who had somehow gotten to be a part of the teeming intergalactic community well before anyone from Earth should have, so his name just identified his planet of origin. I believe his weapon is a one of the last remaining star-guns and draws energy from dark matter or something. He's the one who draws the rest of the characters into the story, and collectively they are called The Terran Irregulars. (I think that was going to be the title, too.)

The winged woman is Earthling's alien companion Ariel. Her schtick was that she could not be lied to. Originally, her name was Windy, and if you are thinking of a 1967 hit single by The Association, you'd be right.

I think the fellow swinging in on the rope is the Ebon, just going by straight-up Pyewacket here. He's giving a ride to the Tasmanian Devil.

The woman swinging in is Debbie - with the epithet "the girl with the doomsday mind". Domesday going by her real name, I guess.

Drop-kicking the drone is, of course, Athena.

And rounding out the group is a multi-limbed fellow that the the team must pick up along the way, since he's not listed among them in the novel outline:  Yantzee - the alien whose hobby was Earth. I supposes it's fitting that this shaggy dog epic ends with a character who so closely resembles a Thark.

If you have hung in here until now, thanks for coming along for the ride. It was fun to explore all this character creation, and re-examine how character concepts evolved and changed. Who knows - maybe we'll even do something with these some day.