Liberty Bureau - Super Hero Team Concept

From my upcoming Kickstarter Project Superhuman: Archetypes and Archvillains

Left to Right: Criterion, The Sxint, Manta and Shield Maiden

All story concepts and imagery © 2015 Griffin T. Kearns

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TL;DR: A Superhuman/Alien Hero, a street wise former pro wrestler & super hero sidekick, a shadowy detective who uses his vast wealth to fight crime, and a forgotten Norse Goddess, the daughter of Odin.

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Criterion: Matthew "Hudge" Hudgeons is a prototypical hero character with superhuman strength, flight and speed, amongst other powers. It's *almost* like he's from another planet. Lately he's been moonlighting as a vigilante, stopping some petty crimes and gaining some local notoriety in Manhattan.

Manhattan, Kansas.

One night as he is investigating the break-in of a local print house (see: petty crimes) Hudge runs into a caped, shadowy detective character known as the Manta, who is conducting his own investigation. Uninterested in the break-in itself, Manta's case centers around the paper that was stolen; a very special paper that is used and issued by the US mint to print currency. During an initial battle in which Manta realizes he is hopelessly outmatched by this super powered dynamo, he notices that Hudge uses some pro wrestling style holds and throws, and correctly deducts that this guy is a fan of his promotion Championship Wrestling Heroes (CWH) and reveals himself as Luthor McDowell, Jr. owner and promoter of CWH. After witnessing his incredible powers, Manta also deduces that Hudge is somehow connected with the events that created Great Lake Tulsa in 1983, and the subsequent founding of it's namesake New Lake City. He offers him a job wrestling for his company, both as a financial boon and cover for his extra curricular activities, to which Hudgeons accepts.

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The Manta is a legendary super hero and crime fighter and the second man to wear the uniform. His secret identity is that of Luthor McDowell, Jr., billionaire owner and promoter of CWH (Championship Wrestling Heroes), which is the largest producer of Professional Wrestling Entertainment in the world. He plays the in ring character known as "Mr. Luthor" wherein he is an overbearing, chauvinistic authoritarian who seeks to dominate every part of the promotion, and constantly feuds with fan favorites and colludes with "villains." He inherited the business from his father, Luthor McDowell, Sr. (the first Manta, founder of CWH and an early companion of the Shield Maiden during WWII) and grew it from a regional promotion into a global conglomerate. Using the traveling show as a cover for his movements, Manta rarely defends any one particular city for long, unlike the Sxint who has made it known that Chicago is *his* town. The lone exception to this is New Lake City, which even has a Manta Signal Spotlight mounted on McDowell Tower, the worldwide headquarters of CWH.

His company uses modern technology like search algorithms and Google alerts to search for possible wrestling talent, which Manta has also adapted to run a piggy back system that searches for crime. Additionally, he uses it to search for stories that may lead him to discover the rise in super human sightings and their relation to the asteroid impact, and subsequent earthquakes that sunk what used to be northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas over thirty years ago. Of particular interest to McDowell is the man who claimed that he had been the victim of alien abduction and experimentation outside of Manhattan, KS, along with several others. None of the abductees knew each other, some hailing from as much as half a world away, yet all of their recorded accounts were identical, and vivid. All went on to give birth to, or father a single child then die not long afterwards. The man's name was Michael Hudgeons.

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The 2nd City Sxint/Sparrow - As Sparrow, he was the former sidekick of Manta. As a former professional wrestler, he was one of CWH's biggest stars. At some point in his career, he came across information that led him to believe that he (and every other wrestler on the roster) had been the victim of genetic experimentation. Somehow, instead of killing him, the experiments had given him increasingly super human powers and abilities (strength, speed, stamina, agility, healing, five senses enhancement, etc.) Suspicious about the nature of these powers and their source, he faked his own death as the sidekick Sparrow and disappeared. CWH released a statement that he was yet another tragic pro wrestling death due to steroid abuse and aired a tribute to him. Several years later, a vigilante known as the 2nd City Sxint started gaining notoriety in Chicago, attracting the attention of Manta and Criterion. The Sxint has been known to take advantage of social media and advertising billboards, advising criminals that Chicago is not the place for their activities, even garnering a huge Twitter following and conducting AMA's on Reddit.

Of particular interest to the Sxint are drug dealing operations, as he advocates a straight edge lifestyle following his years as a pro wrestler.

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The Shield Maiden - Prima (Prymhildr, Odinsdottir, the Fallen Valkyrie), bearer of the sword Grim, twin to the blade Gram, which was later pulled from the trunk of the mighty oak tree Barnstokkr. Upon presenting Mjolnir, Gungnir and Gullinbursti to Thor, Odin and Freyr respectively, Loki also gave gifts to Odin's Daughter by the Valkyrie Brynhildr: the swords Grim and Gram (the latter of which she then gave to Odin to honor him), and the shield Svalinn, so sturdy that it was said it could shield the earth from the light of the sun. Now a forgotten part of Asgard, Prima made her way to Midgard to find a way to reverse the spell on her father, whereupon she gained fame and adulation as Earth's first super hero, the Shield Maiden. Though Prima is sometimes successful in proving herself a scion of the Alfödr to enlist the help of other Æsir and Vanir, she is just as quickly forgotten upon leaving their presence.

Tunguska Event - The Valkyrie Grimhild gave Prima's father Odin a magic potion to make him forget her mother (and Grimhild's chief rival) Brynhildr, thereby making all of the other gods also forget the existence of his daughter; including Brynhildr herself, who went on to fall in love with a human man and have other children through him. Her fear, anger and frustration at being forgotten by everyone she ever knew or loved manifested in her fury as she set upon Grimhild. As they battled across the skies of Asgard, the gods witnessed only Grimhild herself in what appeared to be a mad frenzy, and so Odin cast her out; bringing Prima with her. In 1908, they descended in the form of a fiery comet that split in two upon entering earth's atmosphere. Seeking to minimize both environmental damage and loss of life, Prima targeted a remote location in the Siberian wastes over which to land. Even so, the force of her gravitation devastated the surrounding countryside for nearly 800 miles. Such was the impact of her landing that during WWII the Allies developed the Atomic Bomb based on the residual energy signature and blast range left by her arrival.

Sadly, Grimhild also picked her landing site, though hers with inimical intent. However, due to the peculiar nature of gods and the ways in which they both view and move through the ocean of time, the comet bearing the Dark Valkyrie didn't land until 1983, striking Tulsa, Oklahoma off the map and leaving a massive crater that soon filled with groundwater to form the New Great Lake Tulsa. New Lake City was eventually planned and built adjacent, then populated by lottery winners with great fanfare as the "City of the Future." A military base was also quietly built on a platform in the center of the giant lake. Public access is restricted within a 100 mile radius.

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The Godsleep - There has always been something special about New Lake City. Whether it is simply a matter of its status as the "City of the Future" or if there really is something in the water, New Lake attracts the crazies; often those with super powers. It is the worst kept secret in the world that something lies at the bottom of Great Lake Tulsa, and the tinfoil hat wearing crowd has postulated many theories over the years. The truth is also the scariest possible scenario; that a living, evil god slumbers in the deep. For years the Shield Maiden has warned the world that Grimhild had followed her to Midgard in her own fiery comet, and that her arrival would shake the earth. Then Tulsa happened in 1983, and still they doubted her. Prima inspected the crash site for herself to confirm that the Dark Valkyrie was indeed "dead," as gods cannot be killed, just injured badly enough that they enter into the godsleep (a stasis like dream state) while they heal and regain strength. She urged them not to resettle a city so close to *her*, as the future consequences for mankind would be dire. As with her prediction of the comet that brought her, Prima's foretelling of the time of Grimhild's awakening from the godsleep is an equally vague and useless "Anon," but awaken she will.

In the meantime, the US military has gained much and more knowledge far ahead of its time and now has weapons they believe capable of incapacitating a god, should the need ever arise.