Shift and Angel

Random brainstorming for a superhero RPG

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Joshua
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Shift and Angel

Post by Joshua »

Shift

"Light is both a particle and a wave. With correct levels of vibration, matter is capable of acting the same way. If you examine the spectrum we've proposed, low level carrier vibrations allow for seismic activity all the way up to piercing the dimensional barriers at the other extreme."
With that, Lance Knight fled from the invading nazis by stepping into his experimental dimensional gate, which promptly exploded.

In the 1940's it was well known that the nazi's were seeking occult means to win the war. "Carrier Shift" took a pseudo-science approach to that. Shift was granted the ability to adjust his 'personal vibration' to match two different types of waves. (A regrettable naming convention, later retconned.)

As a seismic wave, he had great strength and inertia. As a sound wave he was capable of running at sonic speeds. Initially it took him almost a full minute to switch between them. This was quickly shortened to five seconds, leading to lots of battles where he would count to five to indicate when he was changing from a speedster to a brick.

Initially he fought a lot of nazi-occultists and chthulu-esque intruders from other dimensions. Most of the magic in the comics was actually a combination of para-normal aliens and weird alien-science.

Later comics would tone down the war aspect and see him retire to his home-city of Los Angelis becoming a more traditional superhero. He kept his science and occult knowledge, which did occasionally surprise both readers and supervillians. Around the mid-fifties, he gained the ability to switch between seismic and sound modes at a faster pace, using the rapid shifting to become one of the most effective heroes of the time and a founding member of the (Not Justice League, replace name).
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Joshua
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Re: Shift and Angel

Post by Joshua »

Angel

Russet Rascal was a tech millionaire who had several military contracts during WWII, originally appearing in Ammo comics as the tech guru. While he was highly patriotic, he was also religious. WWII was a war that 'needed to be fought'. When Ammo comics covered the Korean war, Russet was starting to rethink if he was on the moral side.

Russet would become a hero in his own right shortly after the start of the Vietnam war. During a test of the new Heaven's Watch personal jet-wing, a saboteur broke in, stole the prototype and shot Russet in the gut. Paralyzed from the waist down, Russet swore off war and created a remote-controlled robot soldier. A Guardian Angel for the masses. (Guardian is usually dropped from the name.)

The control rig for Angel was originally the size of a building, then was miniaturized to fit into a specially modified car. In the 1970's it was reduced further to a cap and briefcase.

He was assisted in these endeavors by his beautiful daughter Rosemary Rascal. About half-way through the 70's, there was a 3-issue miniseries that involved modifying Angel to be controlled directly by an internal operator, in this case Rosemary herself. This allowed Angel to be directed remotely by Russet, or, if Rosemary's life was in danger, to be worn as a defensive suit of armor.

In the 80's, while Russet was still in charge of the suit, Rosemary was featured more and more as the hero and less as a sidekick. When Angel Joined the (legally distinct from the JLA), Rosemary was the one invited in.

Angel, both the robot and the suit, started out as having jet-wings. These began as foldable airplane style wings, and later adapted to a thin set of foldable metal bars whose jet exhaust looked a little like feathers, to modern incarnations where it's more of a shimmering white force field. Once Rosemary started wearing the suit, it was given a shimmering force-field (nicknamed 'the halo'). For weapons, due to Russet's pacifist nature, they were all non-lethal and/or based on the robots great strength. Both Russet and Rosemary were constant tinkerers, so Angel's actual equipment is often in flux. The force-field and the angel wings are the only true constants.
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