Continuing with our failed series, as you can see from some of the character art, I hadn’t quite settled on a design for the main protagonist. She had a very familiar “Jean Grey” costume at first. I was always a fan of the green and yellow outfit myself, but given that her powers were “fire” based, that color scheme would have made no sense.
The male character was an obvious combination of myself and Prof. Xavier from the X-Men. If there was ever a hero I could identify with, it was him. There’s an allure to being able to read people’s minds, but in the story, I wanted to demystify it when the character is confronted by people’s actual thoughts. It must be a chaotic and disappointing mess for most humans, and I can’t imagine anyone not being cynical and reserved as a result.
I had never really settled on his name, though the working one was “Doctor Omega” (I’ve found some more of his concept artwork, which I’ll be publishing soon). He had the standard fare of mental abilities. The key was that as a result of how his powers worked, no one could recognize his contributions (since they were always behind the scenes).
The comic idea was actually a relationship story disguised as an action one (which is a surprisingly popular genre). The couple was to be a representation of this idea: how do you deal with your partner being more famous than you? Fire-Bug is a flashy hero with obvious powers. Dr. Omega’s powers were not. The tension was in the struggle that comes in people’s professional lives, which often interferes with a couple’s happiness.
Alas, I was never to know the in and out of such dynamics. We split up before it was ever fully flushed out. My ex-partner Carisa Hendrix continued on her path to fame, and I’m happy to say that she seems to be doing extremely well for herself. Had we stayed together, no doubt this comic might have had a chance of life!