#10 Robert Feinstein

#10 Robert Feinstein

"This costume is so freaking hot.  How does he expect us to see anyone through this mask?  My legs are tired.  I can't believe it's gotten to this.  Sentry guard to Mister Mystic.  Not sure what I'm really supposed to do if I even see someone.  Hit them with this stick?  Why couldn't he have given me a gun?  Or, like, a metal stick.  This thing is probably going to break if I try to hit a superhero with it.  I guess it's part of his schtick.  But why the girdle?  It's hard to breath in this thing.  I'm going to pass out.  If the girdle doesn't do it, the mask will.  It smells like... like sweat and death in here.  I mean, I guess it is a skull, so the death is from that.  And the sweat is cause it's hot, but still.  I'd like to air it out a little."

"What's that?"

"Huh.  Footprints.  I wonder where they go.  Around the corner here.  Who could be out here this late?"

#9 O'Shannon

#9 O'Shannon

"A world war?" asked O'Shannon, his tea lowering from his upper lip briefly.  "I simply don't believe it.  Oh a believe there will be a war in some world at some time as there always is, but not in my world.  Not at my time.  The world and its wars and its going ons affects us as we let it, old bean.  I'm in control of my strata same as you are in control of yours.  The man at the next table is upset or worried or anxious.  I think it was something about the price of silver dropping it.  You aren't upset by the price of silver dropping though, are you, old bean?  No.  So his war with that copy of the Journal and his war with his blood pressure don't affect your world.  I believe there is no difference between that and this.  Let another world have its war.  It won't bother me.  It doesn't affect me.  I realize some may call that denial or even insanity, but you know what?  They don't affect me my world either."

He raised the tea to his lips and sipped.

"I'm quite comfortable in my own little world and should be very much put out to have a war intrude on it."

#8 Levi Rucker

#8 Levi Rucker

American reporter for Strut Magazine, a lad mag that includes a serious article in a dangerous locale, a James Bond adventure. Whores in Cuba, gunsmiths in Afghanistan, slave auctions in Singapore. A chance for the average American to vicariously experience the very worst while never leaving their recliner. He's usually in and out with these adventures with very little real danger, but still considers himself the baddest big dick motherfucker around.

He's a metahuman with the ability to exhude a calming gas from his pores. In the world of superpowers, it's very weak, but it comes in handy in his profession.

#7 Tintswalo Mavimbela

#7 Tintswalo Mavimbela

Tintswalo was once a brilliant chemist working for the Swaziland government under the name Dr. Sikelela Mavimbela, masquerading as a man. She developed new and powerful narcotics for sale by the government to many worldwide criminal organizations.

Prior to her masquerade, Tintswalo was sexually assaulted repeated, as many women in Swaziland are. Like the majority of young women, she lost her virginity to her rapist. She was raised by her grandmother after her mother died. She never knew her father. Her grandmother taught her to keep her emotion in check and to guard herself while she focused on her studies.

One day, Tintswalo realized she had somehow moved from working on narcotics to chemical weapons based on her original narcotics. She was upset, but kept her emotion in check and forged ahead, creating the drug “putout” which transform the victim into a mindless and violent raging animal permanently.

The day she left the government was the day she saw the man who took her virginity. She had gone to an airport hanger adjacent to her building for some cleaning supplies she had run out of. Inside the hangar was three buses and horrible noises were coming from them. She looked in the window and the face of her rapist slammed against the glass, screaming and biting, restrained in his seat. The buses were filled with men suffering the effects of putout. Tintswalo pitied him and realized if she could feel that way about a man she hated so much, then putout was truly horrible and her creation of it was no longer something she could be a part of.

She attempted to leave the country, but a warrant for high treason was issued for her and the borders of Swaziland were always extremely tight, requiring very restrictive paperwork. She travels the roads of Swaziland now looking for a way out of the country, selling her custom drugs to tourists (using her camera and selling photos as a cover) and natives alike until she can find a way to escape. She created another, new male persona for these travels, calling herself Lindiwe Dyuba and dressing in the loud African dandy style of sapeurs, blending in by standing out.

#6 The Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York

#6 The Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York

The Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York is now an installation of the grand artist, the High Visionary, who has blessed those city blocks with their inclusion in one of his pieces. All hail the High Visionary. A statement about human nature and democracy itself, the High Visionary shrunk the Upper East Side and implanted it in the head of an empathic android. The android senses the wants, needs, feelings, and thoughts of every living being trapped forever in its domed face and acts in accordance with the most prevalent of emotions within the streets. If the majority of people are sitting, the android sits. If they are walking, he walks. If a large portion are eating, he recharges his batteries and the dome's life support systems. The Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York will be on display at the High Visionary Museum of Art in Technology indefinitely.

#5 Vanessa Wilde

#5 Vanessa Wilde

Daughter to the celebrity movie star couple of BraJess, Vanessa found herself separated from the real world from birth, sheltered from cameras and hidden behind walls of fortune, sent to private tutors within private sections of private schools. She began starring opposite her father before she was nine and for her twelth birthday her parents produced a movie to be used as a vehicle for her ascent to fame. Despite her parents' wealth and fame affording her success, she sought to distance herself from them. While they continued to fund her career, despite a hit or miss track record at the box office, she began to change her appearance, appearing more and more bizarre and otherworldly before debuting her latest appearance at the Video Music Awards. Describing herself as “Porcelain Frankenstein”, Vanessa continues to garner the attention she was shielded from as a child.

#4 Sheamus Cheallagh

 #4 Sheamus Cheallagh

Sheamus Cheallagh left Ireland for better fortunes with his pregnant wife, Aine. She was early with child and they thought ordeal of the voyage safer than it was. The child was lost midway through the voyage and Aine began to blame Sheamus for the loss, despite the voyage and the attempt to better their lot being her idea. For the rest of the voyage, she abused him, with inattention at first, followed by sharing her attentions with the other men on board. Upon landing in Boston, she declared herself a single woman in America and the last Sheamus saw of his wife was her happily leaving arm in arm with another man.

He continued west out of a sense to duty to see the plan through and a confusion over his place in the world. Everything had seemed so secure and happy a year past. In a small, dirty town in Texas, he found hard work as a cattlehand. The rancher had laughed when he had asked for work and hired him with intentions to work him hard and make him quit as a joke. Sheamus was trampled by cows and knocked into manure and made to move bags of feed his own body weight, but he didn't quit. The other cowhands were starting to think about respecting him when he was found dead in his cot, a red necktie dried up on his throat and a stained bowie knife in his hand.

#2 Boss Hurricane and #3 John DeTemple

#2 Boss Hurricane and #3 John DeTemple

Boss and John Four Page Teaser

PAGE ONE

PANEL ONE – panoramic top

Art:

Panoramic view of Gotham city and a winding road leading up to it, a small green and purple car dwarfed as it nears.

Caption

We were somewhere around Gotham, at the edge of the city, when the drugs began to take hold.

PANEL TWO – inside car

Art: Boss Hurricane and John DeTemple inside, focused on the road ahead.

Boss Hurricane is a starvation-skinny wired drug addict. He's white and in his late forties. He's dressed in a stained white wifebeater and gray dress pants. His knuckles are bloody, his arms are pot marked with injection scars, and he's sporting an array of multi-colored patches like nicotine patches all over any exposed skin below the neck. His twitching eyebrows can be seen moving between his wrap around black sunglasses and his gray fedora as he nervously drives the car into Gotham. Right now his nose is six inches long and hanging straight down.

John DeTemple is a healthy, smart chemist. He's Puerto Rican and sports a thin mustache above his large toothy smile but also sports stubble on his cheeks. His black hair is medium length and blowing in the wind from the open window. He's wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans and boots.

Caption

Gotham City is a paradox. It's the perfect city to be on drugs because the people here love altered humans. But it's the worst place in the world to have those same drugs in your posession. Because this is bat country.

PANEL THREE – inside car

John

Slow down. You're doing ninety.

Boss

Am I?

Boss (separate bubble)

I can't see the speedometer.

PANEL FOUR – a brown bag of drugs between them that John picks up

John

That's the Gingold. Messes with your eyesight.

PANEL FIVE – John hasn't been looking at Boss for a while and notices his nose. Boss looks at him.

PANEL SIX – John erupts in laughter and Boss just stares at him.

Boss

What?

PAGE TWO

PANEL ONE – The two have parked and exited the car and are moving towards Gotham Fish Cannery. Boss is putting on a gray suit jacket and John is putting on a white lab coat. Boss is carrying a metal briefcase.

Boss

You could have just told me I was stretching. You didn't have to laugh at me.

John

You know what Gingold does. Gets you high and spinning and rubbery and loose.

PANEL TWO – John is putting on latex gloves and Boss cracks a capsule under his nose, sucking up a green gas that comes out and moaning.

John

Terragen Mists?

Boss

Eep eep eep... Oh yeah.

PANEL TWO INNER – tiny panel inside showing a close up of John's moustache and nostrils as a capsule breaks under it and Terragen Mists go up his nostrils.

PANEL THREE – Two doors swing open, pushed open by Boss and John, in their glory. Boss looks more gangster than tweaker and John looks more scientist than hoodlum.

John

GENTLEMEN! Let's do some business!

PAGE THREE SPLASH – inside the cannery, which looks disgusting and dangerous, are the meanest, toughest, most vicious looking men in creation. And in the center is their boss, a huddled and spiteful man with a long hook nose and hands that look like they were caught in the machinery. He's polishing his monocle. Though it's recognizable as the Penguin, it's a different vision than has been shown before. More realistic and looking more like the victim of a series of horrific accidents than a midget gentleman. Like Danny Devito with pockmarks and scar tissue.

PAGE FOUR TOP HALF – continuation of page three as if panning over to show John and Boss in the door way. Boss has the metal briefcase open to reveal a multicolored galaxy of uppers, downers, laughers, and screamers. John gestures to the briefcase like a model on The Price is Right.

John

Grendel, Mayfly, Anti-Life, Gingold, Fear Gas, Burnt Sienna, Miraclo, Chuckles, Ilium 349, Delirium, Lazarus Pit, Speed Juice, Kick, Tar, Velocity 9, Velocity 10, Mutant Growth Hormone, Terragen Mists, Extremis, Super Soldier Serum...

PAGE FOUR PANEL TWO – Boss slaps a patch onto his neck with his free hand.

John

And, of course, the go-to for your personal security...

PAGE FOUR PANEL THREE – Boss gets huge and muscly, screaming as he goes, his pupils fading out.

John

VENOM

PAGE FOUR PANEL FOUR – Close up of John's face with his arms motioning back to post-Venom Boss looking terrifying in the background holding the briefcase open.

John

The only question is

John

How SUPER do you want to be?

#1 Francisco Alexandre Padrimos

#1 Francisco Alexandre Padrimos

A French cardinal given special powers by the church to guide the Inquisition in Spain towards a more profitable end for the papacy. A man who sees himself as a true instrument of God, performing the wickedness that must precede the glory of the church. Unlike other sinners in the church, he believes his sins in the name of the church will send him to hell and he is proud of the sacrifice he is making. Without the fear of hell in him, Padrimos is free to indulge his sadistic and savage nature. He sees every evil thing that he does as a proud sacrifice of his soul. The more evil he does on Earth, the greater his punishment in Hell, and the greater his pride in making that sacrifice to serve the church.