WARNING: This post contains spoilers for a webcomic called
AmazonEss.
The Adventure Patrol
The Hazardverse
{1} is a pretty isolated place: few outsiders have visited, and even fewer know it exists. Still “pretty isolated” is not “completely isolated”, and since cosmic power levels don’t exist in the Hazardverse they’d likely get their butts handed to them in a straight-up fight. With the events of the recent Aum-Ra visit Doc Hazard has determined that the best course of action is for the dimension to get out and see the rest of the multiverse.
{1} The Hazardverse is a dimension where there is no such thing as “outer space” and everyone lives on a crustal surface (atmosphere, land, water, underneath) that exists in endless folds and loops. Many supernatural forces also operate differently: there is no “mundane/magic” divide and “god” is a title rather than a type of being.
To that end she called on some contacts and put together a team. But the Adventure Patrol isn’t intended as a reactionary force only going after stuff that invades
their dimension: their mission is to be pro-active, to stumble into inter-dimensional threats and de-threat-ize them especially if it’s
before they can do any harm anywhere.
The first people Doc Hazard contacted actually have a history with Earth-409: for a brief period in the late 40s they posed as alien superheroes in southern California calling themselves The Travelers. Unfortunately Earth wasn’t ready for non-human supers, so the four hopped the next travel method off the planet and eventually found their way home. Ironically their outsider status so early in super history has given them a cult following in the modern day.
Bast: Everyone upon meeting Bast understand why she’s the team face: very few people can stand up to the withering assault of charm and friendliness, the out-going personality that isn’t self-conscious. Plus her flashy clothes, small frame, anthropomorphic
{2} housecat features help make her distinctly non-threatening.
This also means many people underestimate her. Which can be annoying, but Bast finds it’s also useful when a villain gets a sun flare right in the face. Because even though she doesn’t have much raw power all that self-confidence means Bast can be dedicated to the point unstoppability: she may not be able to blast or ram her way through an obstacle, but anything or anyone in her way soon finds out why having to think though one problem makes you good at overcoming others. She does have some ability to control solar energy in the form of a mystical substance called sunfire, but she rarely relies on it.
Bast once tried wearing an Egyptian-themed costume back during her Traveler days, but it was just “stylistically stupid” and at that time there wasn’t anyone on Earth who could make white linen and costume jewelry that could stand up to her relentlessness. These days she just uses a standard superhero suits in her colors of red, green, and white, though looser fit to account for her fur, and magic jeweled bangles on each wrist and ankle.
Bast is quite the momma-bear despite having no children of her own (yet). She makes up for this by taking in every stray the team runs across. No villain ever has to learn more than once not to mess with her children, or indeed any children when she’s around.
For fun she likes to drag her husband Anubis to Earth furry conventions.
{2} In the Hazardverse all “humanoid” creatures are referred to as “pan (adj. panian)”.
Anubis: It’s quite a puzzle to many people how Bast ended up with someone like Anubis: She’s outgoing, he’s shy. She likes being around a lot of people at once, he doesn’t like crowds. She likes to be noticed, he doesn’t. She’s confident, he’s awkward……except when it comes to mysteries. Then Anubis changes completely, becoming all focus. He’s still not really the brooding dark sort of costumed detective, though, which combined with his usual personality -- and black anthropomorphic black jackal body -- makes him a lot more huggable than most.
That focus is Anubis’s special ability: while he is minorly proficient in various magics he prefers not to have to use them. Careful detective work and a brilliant mind (with special emphasis on the processes of life and death) solve most of his problems, and if he
does need to incapacitate someone his vast medical knowledge allows him to do so with minimal harm by martial art or substance.
These days Anubis dresses in the same style as Bast but in colors of blue, green, and yellow. He
used to have something more Egyptian-themed in the Golden Age, but that was Bast’s idea and he dropped it enthusiastically as soon as she discarded hers.
Most of the time Anubis acts like he wished the entire multiverse would calm down so he could spend a day “being bored for once”. Whatever time he gets free is usual devoted to some slow, careful activity like a science experiment, restoring some old artifact like a book, or studying the latest research, alone for preference. With the running gag being someone always interrupts him. It might seem odd that these two very different individuals could find enough reason to be a couple, but who’ve been around Anubis long enough realize he has god-like patience, which may be just the thing one needs when married to a force of nature like Bast.
His greatest professed problem is that since he’s become a sexual icon for the furry community Bast
insists on dressing him in something minimal and dragging him to conventions so fangirls (and fanboys, Anubis doesn’t care about the gender part) can squeal and blush over him.
Mystery: Of the original Travelers Bast, Anubis, and B-movie were the heroes. Mystery was their pet-mascot. The general public had no idea he could talk, but anyone with a modicum of sense realized soon after meeting him that he was just as intelligent as anyone else. Really it was just a manifestation of one of the many quirks about the amorphous beast: he’s not good at verbal communication. Facial expression, body language, and non-verbal sounds are how he normally comments, but when nothing else will work he’ll use words, though it may be in broken and erratic speech. His method serves him just fine, however, as he sees many things normal people talk over as kind of silly.
Physically it’s not hard to see why people might mistake what Mystery is: the form he uses in social situations is that of the pokemon Umbreon, without the glowing rings and eyes of blue rather than red. He’s been known to assume others on occasion, but as this one is his most common people imagine this must be his true. In reality Mystery is a several-different-colors-of-black……
thing (actually a demon
{3}). A few too many viewers evoke HP Lovecraft or similar horror, but the best non-horror answer is of uncountable numbers of long, sharp leaves stitched into each other and zig-zag vibrating like something off an EKG readout until it forms....well, okay, it's form keeps changing. Obviously Mystery tones this down into a vaguely generic shadow when he has to be in public like this. The freak show actually serves a purpose, though: Mystery can only utilize his best powers, super-speed and elasticity, in shadow form.
Beyond superheroing Mystery spends his time by sticking his nose into things. He likes to explore new places whenever he gets the chance. And with super-speed that’s a lot of places. It also extends to investigating mysteries, but without Anubis’s super-focus. This has gotten the team into quite a few of their adventures.
Despite the fact that he really doesn’t like to get involved he’s been the one called on to arbitrate any Bast/Anubis discussion since 1947. Emulating the younger heroes are now also going to Mystery with their conflicts, which he alternatingly finds hilarious and annoying.
{3} Demons in the Hazardverse are any spirit which meddle in the affairs of other beings. While this means they can be malevolent, they are just as often given the job of scaring other spirits to keep them in line.
B-Movie: Is a 7-foot organic robot mutant green alien insect man cooler than a thing made out of vibrating shadows? Flame wars have actually started over this. Back before the Internet ever existed. And said 7-foot organic robot green alien insect man is continuously astonished that his popularity has grown so much. But then it’s always been preferable to being seen as a giant monster: back when he came to Earth in the 1950s he was subjected to the usual “scary alien, must be invading” behavior.
B-Movie really does look like he came out of a cheesy sci-fi flick from the 50s and 60s: he’s basically human-shaped, with green chitinous armor that looks a bit more like rubber with a few insect-like flourishes, and a muzzled head with two slitted red eyes that could only be called insectoid because it’s angular and has antennae. The “organic robot” part comes because even though B-Movie’s organs are biological they have a unique self-contained structure that allows them to be put into a dormant state and safely removed or swapped without harming the system as a whole. His whole species is like this (though not always looking like it came out of a b-movie) back in the Hazardverse.
B-Movie’s construction makes him one of the toughest and strongest of the team, meaning he functions as a powerhouse when needed. But his true talent is in SCIENCE! Making and repairing wondrous devices, puzzling out mysteries that break the laws of how the world is supposed to work
{4}. (Also causing troublesome accidents: it’s why they call it “mad” science.) He’s got a personality to match the all capital letters, which can compliment or compensate for his appearance.
{4} Ironically in the Hazardverse this is a respected discipline.........in some places.
Artemis: Sometimes in the seventh century BC Ser the Ancient
{5} stumbled across a city of Amazons who were being encroached upon by the various patriarchies surrounding them. Knowing that the Hazardverse was a safer place but wouldn’t rattle them too much he transported them and their brother tribe called the Gargareans with the aid of their goddess: Artemis.
But this “Artemis” is not the one of Greek myth: she was a hanger-on to the original, but wanted to be more militant in bucking the patriarchy. Discovering a village where the women were treated poorly she appeared to them as Artemis and had them revolt against the menfolk. From then on she posed as Artemis to this tribe.........and the Greek pantheon let her get away with it since it meant one more group of warrior women to scare people with (also probably the whole lesbian thing: we all know Greek gods are pervs).
Losing her cosmic power and having to rely on a host of spirits to play god was a bit of a shock, but Artemis had already mellowed somewhat on her militant ways by allowing men who lived as women into the society. Eventually she gave up being a god altogether (which unfortunately allowed a schism between the dual-gender Hyppolatans and the gender-purist Gallifems/Muscarites). Because of this she’s not sure she’s really comfortable returning to universes where cosmic eternals reign.
This Artemis is as much a melee warrior and hand-to-hand fighter as a trick-arrow archer. She also looks quite different from the traditional image of Artemis: she’s tall and husky with darker skin and boyish-cut light-blue hair. She’s also a lot more personable than the original, being more boisterous and certainly not a virgin. She doesn’t hate men anymore, either.
{5} Ser the Ancient is the last remaining member of the original non-evil serpentfolk. He’s been adventuring around the multiverse since before humans existed, knows lots of stuff, and is generally all-around badass.
Boulder: People who first encounter Boulder as a superhero usually make the mistake of taking her appearance as an indicator of what her super traits are: as a tall, thick near-anthropomorphic white bovine with a Buddha belly they assume she must be some sort of brick or bulk. While she is indeed strong and tough for a human, neither of these are in the super range. Instead she is a martial artist: a master of muscle-powered weapons, from clubs to polearms to throwing blades. Though if things do come down to hand-to-hand she’s not adverse to making use of her bulk. In fact that problem may be that her code name is an abbreviation for a title she was given by her fellow martial artists to honor her mastery of her family’s signature move: Boulder that Falls from the Heavens.
In fact it was this move which caused Master Boulder (real name Nanda Asura), in a freak interdimensional intersection of energies, to collide with a Feng Shui portal and land in Ani-Earth’s Iron Khanate. There she stumbled into the usual “disguised kung-fu master defends peasants from corrupt ruler’s thugs” situation and was captured by the Iron Khanstrictor’s gorilla goons and taken to his palace, where she met the White Leopard Society on her way out and they were able to send her home. She related this experience to Omni and Shinchuu when they stayed at the Jade Palace in the Middle Kingdom, who brought it to Doc Hazard’s attention.
In her non-hero, non-training time she takes up painting with a vigorous, energetic style she’s derived from her weapons expertise. She’s very much a laughing Buddha character, cheerfully encouraging tolerance and generosity among everyone she meets. She spends a lot of time with Mystery, both because she likes his personality and to nudge him into better expressing himself to others.
Hania: A long time ago the people of Hyrune were plagued by malevolent ghosts, until their princess made the dangerous journey to the land of ghosts and stole the secret of their phantom flames, trapping it inside lanterns and allowing her people to use its magic. Ever since each prospective lantern bearer has had to make the same journey in a vision quest to obtain the magical flame for their own lantern.
Hania must have taken a wrong turn, because he soon found himself following a ghost down into the depths of a sea that was filled with ruins and all manner of half-glimpsed nightmarish creatures. He wandered about, lost, until he was able to follow another ghost to a half-submerged city called Atlantis. There everyone thought he was from Hyrule, a place Hania had thought was just a myth from the Legend of Zelda cycle. But when he finally met Hyrulians in the video game district there was indeed too much resemblance to be a coincidence. Enough that with a little help in sorting through the many storylines and fan creations Hania was able to piece together the way home, and with a truly unique poe flame in the process. Therefore it wasn’t too much effort for Doc Hazard to convince him that more visits outside home might help unravel the truth of Hyrune’s origins.
Hania’s got the best stealth on the team, and that’s even before he uses his ghostly cloaking powers (you have to be pretty good to stay sane in the Imagerial Depths). He’s still pretty novice in other areas, but he’s got a keen mind and can sometimes function as the know-stuff person when Anubis isn’t around. He’s pretty androgenous (and as a Hyrunea teen his elf-like looks didn’t need any help in that regard), enough that he prefers wearing gender-neutral or womens’ clothes just because he looks stupid in anything tailored for men.
Mon: Found in the wild by a bunch of monsters
{6} and raised her in their wildly mixed community they named her after the sound with which she always punctuated her sentences: “mon”, which they thought was her trying to say “monster”. When she grew up Mon decided she wanted to go out and see all the kinds of monsters there were in the world. It wasn’t too hard to tag along with adventuring groups, since not only was she a physical match for many monsters but could also talk to them (those who were willing to talk, anyway).
It was during a visit with her sun spirit horse friends in Kursan that she ran across a group of ponies on an expedition to find the legendary Lost Temple of the Mother of All Monsters. Since that was exactly the kind of thing Mon did she tagged along, endless pestering the group with questions especially the odd duo of Omen and Shiny. Obviously Omen and Shiny were Omni and Shinchuu, on a quest from Doc Hazard to look up an old friend. The Lost Temple turned out to be an old lab of one of their old circle of advanced alien scientists..........and conveniently the source the bad guys they’d been fighting for a few months got their mutagens.
A battle ensued, during which one of the bad guys took Mon hostage. The lab did not respond well. It turned him into a newt. (Okay, a giant fire-newt. But he was still sufficiently pacified.)
Turns out the old friend was none other than Mon. According to Doc Hazard Mon prefers to occasionally rejuvenate into a new life rather than live continuously. This shocked Mon for exactly 3 seconds, after which she decided she really didn’t care. What was more important was that Omni and Shinchuu were from another whole dimension full of new monsters to meet (they tried to tell her it wasn’t that simple, but Mon has a habit of not listening).
Mon is slowly discovering an ability to change shape into various kinds of monster. They have nowhere near the variety of Chris’ shapeshifting and it requires a lot of time to switch which she can access from her default yellow-haired catgirl form. She really doesn't need them, since her "raised in the wild" nature makes her more than useful anyway.
{6} Where Mon comes from “monster” is used to refer to any type of being with inherently super-normal abilities.
Chris: Chris’s story is quite simple: she’s a narrian
{7} dog who was caught in an explosion involving special crystals made from the interconnectedness of all things in the Hazardverse and gained shapeshifting and telepathic powers, spent some time “spying” on the super-spy police agency known as LANTERN, then got to hang out with the Avengers. Unfortunately her experience on Earth convinced her she really didn’t want to be any sort of super-powered agent. So what made her change her mind and join the Adventure Patrol?
Lurv.
Chris’s Doc Hazard transport home didn’t quite go all the way through, and she ended up captured and enslaved to serve as the "pet" of a vain and cruel V'hanian noble named Nee'an who fancied himself an interdimensional conquerer. And then she was rescued by the most heroic of dogs: Spinner (oh, yes, and some other Earth-409 heroes). It was love at first sight (well, sniff). Spinner's not even weirded out by the fact she can change into human-like forms. There was no way Chris was going to get stuck in her home dimension and lose out on this piece of tail.
Chris is still the hyper-curious person she was when she joined the Avengers even with all she's experienced since then. For various reasons her power level isn't the same as back then, but as the team member who's had the most recent experiences with the outside multiverse she's still invaluable.
{7} I.e. “sapient”.
