Never crossed your mind, eh? All well and good.
Finishing up my series looking at my dudes- here's Stingray and Barrier!
(Quick note before the picture... I'm really happy with how Barrier turned out, but I accidentally went a little hard with the pink on the lips, so if you look closely he's got a bit of a Joker face going on. Ugh, what happened?? The Stingray I'm not so happy with, I'm not sure exactly what it is with the figure itself, I may have made the head, arms and hands too small, I'm not sure. But forgetting the figure, I'm not pleased with the colour scheme. This is probably only the fourth or fifth time TOPS I've ever coloured Stingray in, and I always try a different look, but I'm never 100% happy with it. Everyone elses colours are pretty much solidified, but Stingray defies me. It pains me to say, but maybe I need to think about a costume redesign? I love his belt though, that thing is gold.)
Just like how Warp and Eyesore were a bit of an odd couple to have on the page together, the same goes for Stingray and Barrier- Stingray is a take on a 90's hero, note the giant shoulder pads, angry expression, sharp looking fin things, and a couple pouches obscured by the shoulder pads (which I usually don't even bother drawing anymore), while Barrier is silly fun personified.
These characterizations follow through to their powers as well (which, now that I think about it, would make for an interesting Freaky Friday scenario... yeah, it's been done to death... and I already had a similar story planned for Warp and another character anyways... hmm, maybe the Stingray/Barrier switch could be a B plot for that story, played for some background humour...)
Stingray is a bio-battery, always charging up energy, which he usually expells from his fists, but could concievably blast from anywheres. This starts out with giving him extra power packed punches, but soon he can actually blast it along as a long range attack, eventually figure out self propulsion (aka FLYING! I always thing of Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now' when I think of Stingray flying "I'm burning through the sky..."), and this energy helps him heal better than most people.
The downside is that when he isn't using his powers it just keeps charging up, to the point that it gets hotter just standing around him, and he's actually worried that he'll explode if he doesn't get rid of some of that energy.
Naturally he's the hot-headed, always spoiling for a fight, member of the group- I'm kind of mean to him in that regard, he doesn't REALLY get a decent fight until issue #4 (against the Sunflower Man! Oh, sure you laugh, but he's EPIC. I love that guy.) In the second issue he gets all excited to have the Hypnocrook to finally fight, then gets taken out with that hypnosis beam before landing even a single punch, and then there's the giant robot at the beginning of issue 4 that SELF DESTRUCTS before Stingray gets to do anything.
But you know he isn't REALLY that much of a tough guy- he's got freckles! Come on, you know he's a sweet heart underneath it all! There's this great moment in issue 2, where the bank teller asks if he's a good guy or not. Stingray gets taken aback by this, loses the angry look, and says "Good guy, of course."
Ah, his powers just have him on edge all the time. That's why I'm excited about how, a good long while down the line, he'll eventually be able to use his energy to heal other people. Taking a step away from destructive stuff, which is the kind of thing people would be expecting from him.
As far as secret identities go, when everyone was picking he just said his name was Stingray. But then everyone gave him a dirty look, so he went with Stanley Raymond.
Here's a note on a story idea of mine: See, it turns out Marvel HAS a Stingray character, an underwater dude with a red/white colour scheme going on- he actually has a pretty cool looking costume, but I don't really know much besides that about him. Not only that, but I read one X-Men comic years ago that had a throw away Warp character in it, oh right- plus there's the lame Warp that runs around the DC Universe. Anyway, as a sort of meta joke I've got a story in mind that consists of another pair of characters called 'Stingray' and 'Warp' showing up to challenge my protagonists to their names. I forget the design for Other-Stingray, I'm sure I've got it written down somewhere, but 'Other-Warp' is actually pretty cool- he's got this distortion field around him that only he knows the "code" of to get through, so if someone tries to throw a punch at Other-Warp's head, you may miss entirely, or more likely end up punching yourself in the kidneys. His weakness being that if you can figure out the pattern yourself, say it's throwing a punch two feet to the left of his left hand, he's knocked out and you win.
So the Other Stingray and Warp challenge my guys to a duel for the names- Stingray takes out Other Stingray relatively easily, but Warp is on the ropes against Other Warp... so Warp says "Hey man, listen maybe we can share the name..." Then POW Stingray flattens Other Warp with one shot, then Warp springs up and finishes what he was saying- though a bit differently than with what he was going to say "....is something I'll NEVER SAY! WHOOO!! #1!"
Cut to "The End". The suddenness of the ending makes me laugh, which is a big part of what these characters are all about. If I'm not enjoying their antics, I'm doing it wrong.
Barrier, as I've already said, is fun personified. He erects an energy shield around himself, the intensity of which he can vary- it doesn't have to be gas permeable if he doesn't want it to be (which of course leaves him with a limited amount of air) nor does it have to be light permeable (so he can hang around a bubble in the dark). For the most part, if Barrier is inside his Barrier, he's got it made.
Well, okay, someone could pick the whole thing up and shake him around like a snow globe, that could hurt- ANYWAYS generally he's safe. And that's why he can afford to be fun and silly. It reminds me of the Fantastic Four, their adventures can be a little more goofy and fantastical than others because each of them is basically invulnerable to harm. A rubber man? A giant rock? A ball of fire (extra points for melting anything that tries to hurt you) and an Invisible Woman that can either avoid the problem entirely OR as is more likely the case since the 80's and up, erect a force field of her own.
And, for the sake of mobility I should remember to say that Barrier's ball can fly around- when Barrier isn't cartwheeling inside his ball he'll be sitting down cross legged, flying above everything.
And that's pretty much all you need to know about his powers... the barrier gets more advanced later on, with changed shapes and different colours for camouflage, but that's a long ways off.
There's a gag about Barrier stressing as he chooses a secret identitiy, trying to think if "Barry Allen" is a good name (Barry Allen, aka the silver age Flash), but he takes so long that the others name him "Barry Ryerson" which I think has a cool ring to it.
There are some running gags with Barrier! Pretty much once an issue he'll say "Nothing can harm a man with an Unbreakble BarrierTM!" (don't know if there's a way to superscript that TM on blogger, but you know what I'm doing) and right after saying that, something will go wrong- in issue 2 the Hypnocrook's hypnobeam gets him right away (what with the barrier being usually light permeable) and in issue 3 Barrier says the line right before getting buried in coal, trapping him in place. The whole gag would be good in and of itself, but it's actually a riff on the line Spider-Man's old villain the Vulture would always use, exultantly exclaiming "Nothing can hurt a man with wings!" which is, obviously, ridiculous. And awesome.
Another running gag would be Barrier's run ins with Michael Sylvestro. Sylvestro (who pretty much looks like a hobo version of the Green Lantern villain Sinestro. But with a name that got spliced with Sylvester the Cat.) barely ever says a word and JUST LOOKS SO SUSPICIOUS!! The gag is that Barrier (or even someone else) will always think "Sylvestro did it." but that will never ever be the case. Plus, right after you think that, he'll probably walk in with some muffins he just baked for you or something. Turns out he's the nicest guy around.
OR IS HE!?!
Plus, whenever Barrier is off on an adventure on his own, it will invariably be an especially silly adventure, usually involving anthropomorphic food. The first example being him facing off against the dreaded Jello-Monster (yes, I know that's a brand name and I wouldn't use it, but that's what it is) that Barrier would end up beating by eating. And don't even get me started on the dreaded Were-grape.
Man that's silly.
So, yeah, those're my buddies Atticus, Warp, Eyesore, Stingray, and Barrier.
No comments:
Post a Comment