by C. C. Ekeke
Her battles with deadly foes like Dr. Know-It-All and others in her rogues’ gallery were the stuff of legends. She and Titan did become a couple to much fanfare. But the public scrutiny, both of their own hang-ups, increasingly busy schedules, and Titan’s infidelity ended the relationship. In 2006, Lady Liberty left the Vanguard and took a four-year hiatus from being a superhero. She returned to action in 2010, assisting Titan and Geist to stop an Islamic terrorist group from deploying genetically engineered supermen on American soil. Lady Liberty did not return to the Vanguard but helped the team out from time to time. She teamed off and on with Titan and Geist. She and Geist had a very rocky relationship, but they worked well together when on the same page.
Lady Liberty is a very kind, loving, compassionate, and strong-willed person, and very outspoken when it comes to causes she believes in. Aside from saving lives and stopping supervillains, Lady Liberty set up a number of charities for causes that support equality among gender, sex, and races. She has been a feminist icon for decades and continues to use her platform to push for a more egalitarian society.
Unlike Sentinel, Titan or Geist, Lady Liberty maintains an alter-ego. She hides in plain sight as a very hippy-dippy New Age artist Betty Ortiz, running a superhero costume shop first in the East Coast and then another in San Miguel. As Betty Ortiz, Lady Liberty feels this allows her to not lose touch with her humanity or the people she pledges to protect. After Betty gave birth to her daughter Zelda, she moved to San Miguel in 2008 for unknown reasons and lives down the street from Hugo Malalou. Her and Savelina Malalou’s friendship deepened after the death of the latter’s husband. Betty became a constant presence in Hugo and his family’s life, which helped ease the pain of Angelo Malalou’s passing.
Lady Liberty was struck hard by Titan’s passing, but saw the best way to deal with the grief was carrying on his heroic crusade against evil.
Lauren Gerard: Lauren was the ex-fiancée of Greyson Hirsch aka Damocles. She worked for a subsidiary of Paxton-Brandt called Genex Laboratories. Early on in their relationship. Lauren found out about Greyson’s powers. Regardless, she remained loyal and helped him as best as she could. Lauren was even supportive after Greyson attempted to be a superhero. However, when Heroes Anonymous attracted the attention of local authorities and the OSA, Lauren sold out Greyson’s teammates in order to get him immunity. This deed backfired when she told Greyson, who snapped and accidentally injured his fiancée. Greyson fled, leaving her critically injured.
Lawrence Walker: Walker has been principal of Paso Robles High for the last decade and takes great pride in the work achieved in school. Though he, like many school administrators often give too much slack to student athletes.
Leap of Faith: Leap of Faith is an insanely popular hero rock band and superhero team. They can provide rescue services for disasters and still perform at a sold out stadium later.
Leslie Prentiss: Prentiss served as the HR rep for SLOCO Daily’s Editorial department. Forever perky and impeccably dressed, she usually appeared to handle employee complaints or fire employees. She was called in to fire Quinn after she continued investigating the Titan murders behind Helena and Jono’s backs.
Leticia “Letty” Masters: Letty was the tech guru for the superhero Hurricane. She acted as his eyes in the sky, warning him of police activity and directing him through buildings he wasn’t familiar with. It’s unknown how long they worked together, but it was Letty who sought Hurricane out after discovering his secret identity. She helped upgrade his operations and became his most valuable partner even though she wasn’t on the field herself. Letty went into hiding after the OSA went after Heroes Anonymous and Hurricane’s murder.
Lionel Wagner: Lionel is a student athlete who attends Paso Robles High and the captain of the varsity basketball team. He’s well-liked and popular, but has an arrogant streak. Lionel is currently dating cheerleader McKenna Phillips.
Longshadow: Therese Levesque operates in San Miguel as the arrow-slinging vigilante Longshadow. Levesque was a gold medal-winning archer for Canada. But, as with many young people, success went to her head and she squandered her endorsement money within a few years on partying, alcohol, drugs, and obscene retail purchases. Desperate for money, she joined an assassin cult and was brainwashed into becoming a killer. A violent encounter with Geist snapped Levesque out of her trance. Geist saw potential in her and took Levesque under his wing for the next few years.
Assuming the alias of Longshadow, her primary weapons are a bow and arrow—including various trick arrows—and a katana sword. Longshadow is also a highly skilled martial artist, having been trained by Geist in styles like Kenjutsu, Sambo, Taekwondo, Muay Thai, Capoeria, Jeet Kun Do and Shuriken Jitsu. Longshadow was already an Olympic-level archer before becoming a vigilante. But her assassin indoctrination plus training with Geist have elevated her to peak human perfection, the archer’s physical attributes roughly past that of an Olympic level athlete.
She meets Quinn Bauer in Monsters Among Men, tasked with bringing her to Geist’s main headquarters for the reporter’s own safety. But Geist had assigned Longshadow to watch over Quinn a few weeks before in his absence. During that time, she grew very fond and protective of the young reporter.
Lord Borealis: Carmine Bernini aka Lord Borealis was one of the most infamous supervillains in the 90s and 2000s. With his power over electromagnetism, he became Titan’s greatest adversary as well as a major adversary for the Vanguard. Borealis didn’t wanted power for powers’ sake. He was a racist who believed in the genetic superiority of supers and felt that humanity should be swept aside for the next step in evolution. He was the leader for the first iteration of the Lethal Alliance, which challenged the Vanguard several times. His rivalry with Titan started around the hero’s early years and went on across many years and throughout time.
Around 2010, Borealis was captured by Titan and thrown in an ultra max he couldn’t get out of. After he helped the OSA and the authorities capture his old Letha Alliance buddies, he was granted parole with the help of Titan as a character witness. The two became friends in the years that passed and Borealis found love with a woman named Veronica Carson. But he had to wear an ankle monitor as part of his parole.
He would go to a superhuman-centric bar and drink, regaling about his heyday as a supervillain. Unfortunately, this left him open to being drugged and then framed for Titan’s death. And due to their long history, few people bought his pleas of innocence. Thanks to his wife tracking down Quinn Bauer from SLOCO Daily, this led to an investigation that eventually exonerated Borealis. After gaining his freedom, Borealis and his wife left San Miguel to an undisclosed location protected by the government.
Mercedes “Max” Ochoa: Max Ochoa is a supernatural werewolf who can shapeshift between human form and wolf form. Max belongs to the Ochoa Pack, headed by her father Bill Ochoa. She first meets Hugo Malalou on a Halloween weekend at a house party where she stops a vampire from attacking another teenager. After a brief misunderstanding, the two team up with a Shepherd from the Catholic Church to curb a nest of vampires that had come into San Miguel. Hugo also visited Max in Las Cienegas, New Mexico where her pack lives around New Year’s. Her primary ability is being able to shift from human to wolf form regardless of a full moon being out. She possesses superstrength, enhanced speed, enhanced agility, heightened animal senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste), enhanced durability, and stamina in human and wolf form.
Max also possesses the means to share memories with another person, though the ability is more potent with another werewolf or a full-blown telepath. Her abilities are heightened under a full moon and weaker under a new moon. Max also possesses an Icelandic tattoo on her forearm called a vegvísir mark, like the rest of the Ochoa Pack, which gives her greater control over her transformations.
The Midwest Miracles: The Midwest Miracles was a superteam of heroes from various Midwestern cities like St. Louis, East St. Louis, Kansas City, Des Moines, and Jefferson City. One of them was a
young Hurricane. They had been active for fifteen years with a rotating roster and were at times called the Middle America Vanguard. This all changed in 2005 when Paragon was brainwashed by the Controller to slaughter nearly the entire team as well as leveling downtown Chicago. Hurricane and the few survivors never tried to reform the team. Superheroes in the Midwest never recovered from that fatal event.
Mindy and Mike Longwell: Michael “Mike” and Melinda “Mindy” are the parents of Brent Longwell and his older brother Wesley. The couple is very wealthy thanks to Mike Longwell being a founding partner in the law firm Longwell, Luckman, and Garrick. Mike more or less forced both his sons into basketball, which he played in both high school and college. Mindy is a homemaker and quintessential “suburban wine mom” involved heavily in her community and church, using weekly book club meetups as excuses to gossip with girlfriends and polish off bottles of wine. She enjoys her girls’ nights out to try out new wineries, which is another excuse to drink. Mindy is a member of her church’s charitable foundation which raises millions from Paso Robles’s elite towards children’s aid at home and abroad. The Longwells’ older son, Wesley, is now in college and was the golden child in the family. Every December, the Longwells throw an extravagant holiday party/fundraiser where various members of the Paso Robles elite a desperate for invites. Hugo and his mom were invited to the last few due to the former’s friendship with Brent.
Missy Magnificent: Katie Epperson aka Missy Magnificent is a teen superhero and celebrity who used to be the leader of the Extreme Teens superhero group. She has superstrength, heightened durability, and pyrotechnical blasts. Missy was rumored to have flight powers but has never demonstrated anything beyond leaping abilities. Missy was signed at age thirteen after entering various talent contests in her rural Kansas. The team was built around her and she became one of the most popular superheroes in the country. Some people even referred to Missy as the next Lady Liberty, a tall order for any young female hero to live up to. As the original Extreme Teens lineup grew in popularity and profits, Missy fell for her teammate Blur, who was a year younger. But due to fame, bad influences, and a lack of proper parenting, Missy rose high before burning out quickly, falling into drugs and alcohol as well as bad behavior that made her a fixture of the gossip blogs. OWE sent her to rehab a few times, none of which stuck. Eventually, this behavior cost her the leadership of the Extreme Teens and her relationship with Blur. By age seventeen, she quit the team, got herself emancipated from her parasitic parents, and left Paxton-Brandt. They threatened to sue if Missy kept using her name, so she legally changed her name to Missy Magnificent. A series of bad romances and trips to rehab followed, until after Titan died. Missy found love with D-list hero Montgomery Major and worked on yet another comeback, which she chronicled in the reality show Missy and Monty’s Misadventures.
Mohammed El-Saden: Mohammed is the father of Briseis, Theodora, and Ramses. He was born in the suburbs of Cairo before going to university in America, then working in Europe in the energy industry. During a trip to London is where he met his wife, Daphne. They married and had three children. Mohammed is a very traditional Muslim man, following many of the customs and attends Mosque services weekly. He didn’t react well when his son Ramses came out to both parents, and promptly disowned his son for what he felt was a sin against God. Mohammed isn’t handsome, his jowly face like a bulldog’s, with a sizable paunch. He sported a swarthy complexion and a retreating hairline. But his pale-green eyes are what he shares with Briseis and his son Ramses.
Morningstar: Alexis Refel is the disgraced ex-superhero known as Morningstar. Blessed with light-based EM powers, she was a rising star in her native Argentina. Her profile had attracted so much buzz that she was handpicked to join the Vanguard during the push to fill the team with a more international roster. During her training, Refel began seeing Titan. But when she found out about his relationship with Wyldcat, Refel dumped him. The legendary superhero retaliated and used his influence to stall her career until she resumed their affair. Titan crossing the line with Refel’s brother, an addict, was when she began plotting to kill him and then framing Lord Borealis for the murder. She is currently in an ultra-max prison at the bottom of the ocean.
Montgomery Major: Montgomery Major was a D-List hero with the power to change the color of non-organic objects and husband of Missy Magnificent. He made plenty of attempts to become a hero and bottomed out several times due to his paltry powers, narcissism, and drug habit. In rehab, he happened to be in the same facility as Missy Magnificent on her third or fourth rehab stint. Seeing his next meal ticket, Monty manipulated an emotionally fragile Missy and began a relationship with her. The two quickly married after they got out of rehab and announced their relationship with a reality show titled Monty & Missy’s Misadventures. Of course, Monty was a parasite who took advantage of Missy’s emotions to control her and live off her vast wealth.
Monty teamed with Damian Hazard and Paxton-Brandt to level the Junction and create a brand-new neighborhood where Missy could be the hero. The plan went sideways thanks to Quinn Bauer’s intervention, leading Damian Hazard to grow impatient with Monty’s failures and behead him in brutal fashion.
Mr. Quiet: Mr. Quiet is the alias of a domestic terrorist and former school teacher named Darren Proctor who worked at Paso Robles High. Sometime in the past, he adopted a boy named Khan with an animalistic mutation and raised him like a son. His daughter’s suicide due to her classmates bullying and Titan’s death set Mr. Proctor on a path to make the popular bullies at other schools pay for how they treated others. Proctor developed a very cynical and nihilistic view of the world, declaring that “there are no innocents in this world.” Using Khan to kidnap teens, he would turn them into walking bombs with his bomb vests. Proctor ran into conflict with Hugo Malalou aka Aegis. When the hero stopped his plot to bomb multiple locations, Proctor rigged a bomb to himself and forced Hugo to choose: disarm the bomb to where Proctor would out his secret or kill him. Hugo had little choice but to toss Proctor in the air before the bomb exploded.
Myriam Khan: Myriam Khan aka Trailblazer is a superhero and former member of the Vanguard and current President of the United States. She has microwave emission powers, which she can manipulate to fire microwave energy blasts and fly. Khan served in the Army between 1998 to 2005 until she was recruited by intelligence operative and Vanguard ally Kat Sandoval. From there, Khan filled out the Vanguard roster as the Sensational Seven era came to a close. After serving on Vanguard for six years, Khan retired to spend time with her husband and start a family. However, duty called again and Khan found herself running and winning a mayoral race for the city of Billings, MT. With the help of Kat Sandoval, Khan served as both Billings’s mayor and patron superhero. The city’s crime rates dropped and its economy flourished under Khan’s tenure. Afterward, she took a few years off, welcoming another child.
But as 2020 approached, Khan was approached by various donors and political strategist to run for President after her name was added to a virtual poll and she won. Despite the Vanguard and Titan scandal, Khan won the 2020 presidential election handily. Some of her accomplishments since taking office include normalizing relations with Amarantha after the new regime change (Generation Next) and increased funding for government-sanctioned superhero teams.
Nancy DeWitt: Known as Mrs. DeWitt to her students, Nancy is a guidance counselor at Paso Robles High. Hugo Malalou is one of the students under her supervision.
The Nationals: The Nationals are DC’s official superhero team and government sponsored. The team was formed after Paragon’s fall from grace.
Nikhilesh Patel: Nikhilesh was a formidable telepath who worked with Presley Lau as fixers for the highest bidder. Quinn Bauer described his stare as “dead-eyed and creepy.” He never trusted Hugo Malalou, even when the latter was dating Presley. Like the rest of Presley’s crew, he got slaughtered by a remote-controlled Dynamo when Morningstar decided to cover her tracks and frame Ramon Dempsey.
Oscar: Known only as Oscar, he serves as Lady Liberty’s “medical guys,” patching her up whenever she actually gets injured in battle—which is rare.
Papa Voodoo: Papa Voodoo is a magician/witch and popular superhero operating out of New Orleans. Most people think he is just a superhuman posing as a witch, but Papa Voodoo is a legitimate witch who uses the Voodoo practice to harness his magic. He mixes street smarts with magic when confronting crime in New Orleans, which is a hotbed of supernatural activity. While Voodoo will team with the Defenders of Crescent City from time to time, he is not part of their team.
Paragon: Paragon was the first American superhero to emerge after the Global Whiteout in the 1972. Blessed with superstrength, durability, heightened senses, flight, and speed, he helped turn the tide of the Vietnam War, leading to the country’s unconditional surrender in 1973. Nicknamed “the Original” or “the American Original,” he set the standard for many other superheroes and inspired a whole generation. His main reasoning for becoming Paragon was to present a positive image of superhumans, especially in the early days when there was so much fear and confusion being spread about people with powers.
Paragon mainly operated around Washing DC and the Northeast in his early days but gradually became a national hero. He also teamed with Ace Steele and Sonya Bullet in 1975 to form Triumvirate, the first American superhero team. He remained a fixture in the superhero community, even after Titan’s popularity eclipsed his. Paragon was bothered how the media happily kept pitting him and Titan against each other upon the latter’s emergence and minimized his accomplishments. But the veteran hero swallowed any displeasure and continued his duty, soon becoming a mentor to the newer generations of heroes. At one point, Paragon was close with Byron Campbell, author of The Golden Age. He gave extensive interviews to Campbell to help his book. For most of his career, Paragon stayed very apolitical and was reticent to speak on civil rights issue for fear of turning the populace against him, despite being African American. He expressed deep regret for that approach in the early 2000s.
