Team Strike-Back
Major Pain: wearing army fatigues this former drill seargent come super heroe has the power of invulnerabilty and great leadership skills. He cultivated his nickname while training soldiers in bootcamp. he is known as a Hardass with a heart of gold.
The Mechanic: a super-genius with several inventions at his disposal. he's a flirt, despite being in a semi-commited relationship. he's desperate to prove that he's "As smart as all those other super-geniuses". Somewhat of a Narcissist
Cast-Iron: wearing a Stark-Tech knock off, this guy is a hard drinking, woman chasing, chain smoking play boy. he has money, and guts and is willing to use both to protect those around him.
Straight-Arrow: an archer with an attitude he is proud of his native american heritage and shows it off in his costume. he is also an excellent hand to hand fighter.
Calico: a mutant girl with feline DNA, she is a flirtatious hottie who likes to show off her new body, which wasn't this good before her mutation kicked in. she has the ability to turn back into her other self, but refuses to out of insecurity
Buzz: after being injected with irradiated humming bird blood, this momma's boy became a heroe, like his mother wanted. only she still doesn't think he's good enough.
Magistress: a practicing sorceress, she uses her powers as a hero to look out for her twin brother, Buzz. She is more grounded and self assured than her brother, and tries to keep him out of depression.
Synthetic Synthia: based on LMD technology she is a wholly different type of simulacrum. she is able to mimic the appearance of any humanoid she comes in contact with. she also posses strength and invulnerability. She was built by The Mechanic to prove his skills. while she has free will and the ability to tell he's probably going to (if he hasn't already) cheat on her, she has loyalty to him hard wired into her circutry... which is depressing because she's madly in love... with the Magistress, who loves her back
another intentional knock off.
Orb-Weaver
Dale Danvers was a youth prodigy. Living with his last living relatives, his older brother and sister-in-law, Dale studied everything he could, even the spiders that made their home in his basement room. One day an explosion in his basement lab mixed chemicals, bits of radioactivity, and the poor spiders together as they bombarded Dale. Dale could now lift fifty times his own weight, jump amazing distances, was agile, possessed an early warning system, and could cling to walls. He was even able to create tools that would aide him, spinnerets that could be fastened to his wrists and ankles, tracking chips that worked with his danger-sense, and even a tear reisistant fabric for a costume.
he first started out trying to make a bit of money for his family that was just barely getting by. he stated out doing pictures for tabloids, then after watching t.v. one night got into a new thing called "Ultimate Fighting". all he had to do was show up to kick the crap out of someone, a great way to let out his pent-up teenage aggression. after a couple of weeks he was caught up in the glitz and glam and forgot why he was doing it in the first place. then one fateful night he had a fight with his brother, and like men in their family, they both went for a walk to cool down. Dale wound up going to another fight and winning money for himself, his older brother Kenneth wound up being shot by a mugger. When Dale got home he blamed himself. His older brother had always told him that what he put out into the world came back to you, and Dale couldn't help but see that he'd put bad out into the world since becoming lost in the lights of his minor celebrity. he vowed from that moment on, he would use his powers to put good into the world, and only good.
This was many years ago however. Since then he has fallen in love, and had that loved ripped away, fought and won, fought and lost, fallen in love many times over again, been on the verge of ending his own life, sacrificed what he wanted for what was needed by his Sister-in-law (who had a chronic heart condition), sacrificed what he dreamed of for the good of the city, broke the heart of his lover for the good of the city, and fought and bled along side the greatest heroes the world has ever known. among the hero community, it is known that if you face a new bad guy and need a hand, the Orb-Weaver is the man to call. if he can't help you, he can point you to someone who can. Eventually he had great joys in his life; a civil ceremony to formalize his relationship with John Clark, the love of his life since highschool, telling his sister-in-law, the closest thing to a mother he'd ever known, about his identity, and being offered a place on "Team First Strike", the Worlds Greatest Heroes.
The Team First Strike
--WMD: a highly decorated soldier who lost his legs in action was granted the chance to fight for his nation again. He was given a massive battle suit that made him roughly the size of a SUV. loaded with weaponry, machinery, and the will and drive to use it against those he deems evil, he is a one man Weapon of Mass Destruction
--Insect Master: Ever since he was a teenager Lane Summers was facinated by inscets. he grew up studying them, becoming the worlds formost authority on entemology. He eventually built a harness that allowed him to emit pheremones to control insects. he has constantly upgraded so that he can control almost any invertebrate (which out number vertebrates thank you), he is powerful, but still has very little self confidence. his ex-wife (who married him because he'd become rich and famous off of his patents, divorced informing him smugly that she was pregnent. he knows full well the son is probably not his, but he wishes to be a father anyway.
--Major Freedom: a weakling, labled 4-F during WWII, Rodger Stevens was offered a chance by a mystical being. He was granted as much power as he believed. so long as his confidence in his purpose was strong, he would be too. he was recruited into the army and was quickly became an icon of the war. However, this deal was made when he was a teenager, head strong and sure of everything. as he grew in the war he learned that nothing was firm, that concepts of morality were constantly shifting to accomadate regimes and convenience. his power began to wain, and he went into seclusion not long after the war. no one knows what he did between then and 1984, but that is when he reappeared. Now, looking older, but sure once again, he was no longer fighting for a nation, but for the ideas the nation was founded on.
--Athena: Athena is a goddess come down to earth. Goddess of wisdom and strength. Perhaps her one weakness is her pride. she is a strategic thinker and prefers to fight from a distance, but those who insult her, incur her wrath, will soon wish they had never been born.
--Devastatrix: Former lover of the beheamoth now known as the Devastator. In an attempt to siphon off the power that caused his transformation into the Devastator, she was accidently imbued with a small fraction of it. but that small fraction was enough to transform her from a beautiful, but physically weak actress, to the buxom red-skinned Devastatrix
--Major Power: a female Army officer who was bonded to a bizarre alien device who's name translates simply to: "The Generator". The device, a highly covetted weapon and tool, is now a part of her. It gives her unlilmited energy, strength, and blasts of what ever form of energy she wishes. She was a spoiled rich girl, but now she must heft a great responsiblity.
The Higher-Powers
--The Devestator: once a professional football player, he sold his soul to an extradimensional being and became host to the "Devastation Force" a cosmic force of destruction. he is the size of a house, and has the intelligence of a toddler. he does not intended to destroy, but doesn't know his own strength.
--The Creator: once a promising Surgeon, he lost the nerve to practice medicine after being forced to watch his wife raped and murdered by a psychopath. he sold his soul to find a way to stop the pain. he became host to "The Creation Force" a cosmic force of renewal. he is able to form things from his will, and even enhance his abilities with magic. He is of great intelligence.
--The Imaginer: once a promising writer, when his muse dried up with the death of his father, he gave up. he tried to drink himself to death, like his father. in a near death experience he agreed to become host to "The Thought Force" a cosmic force of intelligence and creativity and imagination. he was granted telepathy and telekinesis on a grand scale. he has retained his own mind.