Halt Evil Doer! thread IV - (Zombies!)

[Charles Phipps]

The Magi

The true history of the Magi is difficult to separate from the fictions they perpetuate. According to Magi history, the organization was formed by Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia. The future Pope hired a secret army of Sicilian killers and mystics to serve as his personal defense force against the White Lotus Society's assassins.

As in Assassin's Creed, the Borgias were members of the Knights Templar in HED! Somewhat disappointingly, their replacements were no better and even the non-Templar Cardinals of the Vatican at this time were often deeply unpleasant people.

This group, after the fall of Pope Alexander the Sixth, fled back to Sicily and began accumulating power for themselves. Supposedly; they worked as mercenaries, bankers, and wizards-for-hire. If this story were true, the Magi's history would actually predate the Cosa Nostra proper by a number of centuries.

In truth, the Illuminati do have records of a gang of thugs they used as cats paws against the White Lotus Society (that eventually became part of the Cosa Nostra) but it's not exactly a history as illustrious as the Magi's own illuminated books depict it as being. They're all forgeries, anyway. Basically, the Borgia-created Magi were a gang of murderers and bandits with a little bit of Sicilian folk magic.

The next few centuries were spent being cruel and abusive feudal overlords on Sicily, torturing and abusing peasants while reminiscing about their glory days. When the Sicilian mafia was created in the 19th century following the fall of feudalism, the Magi were there. Mostly because, cowards and bullies they were, the Magi saw new potential for power.

Despite being better organized and richer, the Magi were surprisingly only a minor part of the early Cosa Nostra. It helped, by this time, that the Magi were only a few feuding families with an exaggerated sense of self-importance. Feuds and vendettas between several of the houses (plus covert actions against them by the Knights Hospitaller) lead to the surviving Magi families only remaining a "creepy" part of the larger organization.

That is, until Baron Malus.

Don Alfredo Roberto Giovanni Gaspari was a confidence man with ties to the remaining families of the Magi. He's since been elevated to supernatural status by the Magi but his early history was somewhat pathetic, fleecing rich women of support for a non-existent Sicilian Civil War with himself as the brother of a (fictitious) exiled prince.

Nevertheless, made wealthy from the inheritance of several Westerners, Don Alfredo used it to construct a vast estate and remodel his family home. During this, he discovered, of all things The Book of Orkus.

The real thing, not a copy. Albeit, 111 of its 666 pages were missing.

Summoning Quasimodo since he couldn't get Orkus himself, Don Alfredo sold his soul and the soul of all of his descendants in exchange for real magic.

He needed to do the later since Quasimodo was less than impressed with the service of a aging con man.

Soon becoming the most powerful mafioso in Sicily, he was forced to flee the island with his entire family due to the White Lotus Society sending a dozen highly trained witch hunters after rumors of his perversions reached their ears.

Ironically, he was only guilty of about one out of ten.

Wealthy and supernatural in early 20th century America, he decided to resume his old trade and gave himself the unearned title of Baron Malus. New Amsterdam was almost completely absent of organized mafia activity and the Four Families trace their descent directly back to his five illegitimate children (The ironically named Baron family having since been wiped out).

Don Alfredo recruited a small army into his service from local immigrants and terrorized the city for several years until Antaeus beat down his door and smacked him around, magic or no magic.

In fact, the first issue of SUPER! comics depicts Antaeus beating down the door of an unnamed mafia
Don before slapping the **** out of it. This, in fact, was Don Alfredo.

Fearing Antaeus above all things, Don Alfredo allied with James Moriarty II who had created a network of most of the other major mobs in the country. Don Alfredo considered James Moriarty II a peer while Moriarty considered him a peon.

Its an apocryphal story; Don Alfredo summoned a hundred demons to force James Junior into becoming his slave, only for the Moriarty scion to pull out a hand-held orihalcon-powered death ray and obliterate them all.

Despite the two men consistently failing to eliminate the superheroes of America, the magi benefited tremendously and became almost as powerful as the mafia proper.

Then Mussolini happened.

By the time Hitler unveiled his Bio-Blitzkrieg project, Mussolini was desperate to have any sort of edge to make him more than a puppet leader. To this end, he made an offer to Don Alfredo to come back and become sole-remaining crime lord of Italy. Given Mussolini was the determined enemy of the mafia, this must have stuck in his craw (or he never intended to fulfill his part of the bargain). For the better part of WW2, comics were filled with stories of Baron Malus working with the Italians as a stereotypical archvillain.

The Magi were almost totally destroyed outside of New Amsterdam with their leader turning fascist. What mafiosi who weren't disgusted by his treason against Sicily *AND* America were revolted by the fact he was allied with the mafia's biggest enemy.

Many of their own troops abandoned them and no one objected when the Feds came crashing through their door. To this day, the Magi claims Baron Malus never worked with Mussolini and it was an imposter/clone/robot thing. New Amsterdam's families, ironically, survived by severing ties with him.

Baron Malus actually achieved a good deal of success as a magical supervillain. For a while, he was considered as dangerous as Count Reich and was believed by Allies to be plotting to assume control of the Axis via dark magic.

The Magi managed to recover, albeit very slowly, recruiting from the bottom of the barrel and behaving in about as nasty a manner as anyone could imagine. Still, for about thirty years, "Maggie" was a swear word in the American and Sicilian mafias. Really, it was Bugsy Siegal's most questionable move to invite their remnant to participate in the construction of Las Vegas.

The group actually had its biggest successes in Europe, its remnants recruited by Death Mask III to serve as the basis for PHANTOM's burgeoning network of spies. Millions poured in from that alliance and the group found itself possessed of advanced weaponry and government contacts that made it powerful again. By the 1972, the year low-ranking gambling hall manager Johnny Vice was elected "Boss of Bosses" as a means of drawing out assassins, the group was once more incredibly powerful.

Johnny Vice, actually, arranged for the election as a "joke" by careful manipulation. Already, he'd managed to make millions in the cocaine trade and building some of the most successful dance clubs in the country. Millions he made expansive use of to become even more rich and powerful.

The Magi is no more immune to bribes than any other criminal organization and his careful investment of the organization's funds in legitimate businesses (as well as gambling) stabilized the group in America. It didn't hurt that, oddball as he was, he was happy to murder anyone who got in his way.

Ironically, he's still considered something of a joke due to his flamboyant mannerisms and is frequently the subject of sexually derogatory remarks.

The retirement of Johnny Vice lead to a very awkward transition of power when Baron Malus returned from exile in Sicily, apparently no worse for wear despite forty years having passed. Baron Malus, now insisting EVERYONE call him by this title, began using his magic and stolen PHANTOM technology to create superpowered soldiers for his plots to take over the world! Well, not quite that bad but seizing nuclear missiles, trying to kill the Patriots, and kidnapping the Prime Minister of Italy to replace with a homunculus are just some of the subversive activities they participated in.

Which is why everyone breathed a sigh of relief when young Serena Mass reversed a spell to make him a god and seemingly killed him for good.

In fact, it didn't. Baron Malus is now genuinely immortal as an energy-based Anti-God. It's just he's an Anti-God with no other abilities than his immortality. Immortality which sucks because since he can't die, heavy-hitters like Athena and Divinos have no problem tearing him to pieces as soon as they find him.

He's been killed seven times since his original death. Almost always within days of his regeneration.

The Organization, as it's nicknamed, passed into the hands of Ganglord Gorilla. Falconcrest City's magi overlord wasn't yet a walking simian but was already well known for being a vicious murdering sociopath. When Doctor Necros transplanted his mind into a gorilla, most of the Magi abandoned their allegiance but ended up being dragooned into the International Crime League by their leadership. Amusingly, Ganglord Gorilla never realized how much his own former organization disdained him.

Replacing Ganglord Gorilla as Boss of Bosses was, of all people, Vanessa Gaspari. The innocent daughter of Baron Malus' latest mistress, the Four Families revealed her heritage to the public and ruined her life before forcing her into the business. Arranging for the murder of her adoptive family and blaming it on the Black Hand, the Magi gave her a crash course in criminal mastermind behavior and made her Baroness Malus.

A known romantic foil to Black Wing II and Steel Commando III during their international adventures.

Eventually, Baroness Malus discovered the Magi were responsible for her adoptive family's death and had a nervous breakdown. She's still institutionalized and the organization is currently without a leader. That doesn't mean it's not one of the most powerful criminal empires in the world and is certainly the strongest in New Amsterdam.

[Charles Phipps]

New Amsterdam Locations

New Bourbon: A predominately Afro-American community that has recently tripled in population due to a preponderance of New Orleans refugees coming to live here, New Bourbon is defended by Son of Horus and his attitude towards other heroes is decidedly less than friendly. New Bourbon, amusingly enough, was home to many blacksploitation heroes during the 1970s.

Of all things, the most common problem in New Bourbon is vampires.

Cathedral Park Row: Informally known as Blood Alley, Cathedral Park row is the worst neighborhood in all of New Amsterdam and the home of the Midnight Swordsman. Despite numerous attempts to reform the district, nothing has ever really worked. It is a center of extremely dangerous gang activity and not all of Divinos' efforts have cleaned it up.

Lamplighter Island: The Lamplighter statue is a massive steel Revolutionary War hero with a domino mask and a lantern in one hand that turns on every night to signal boats in port. Interestingly, the island is built over a secret base of The House of Serpents that was recently abandoned but still contains vast amounts of equipment and technology. It would be simplicity for a group of heroes to move in.

Meta-Town: After the massacre of the Ultra-Terrestials by Doctor Mabuse, the city refurbished one of its lesser neighborhoods to set up a new home for refugees from the rest of the country's Meta-hysteria. Meta-town bears some similarities to Joker Town in the Wild cards books with the fact it is predominately a place of despair as opposed to one of happiness. Richer, attractive, and powerful Metas generally move to the West Coast while those who are just trying to live under the radar go here.

Drug abuse and arms trading is rampant here. Unsurprisingly, the Tomorrow Detective Agency has big business here.

Millennium Building: The former home of Doctor Aeon and the Fabulous Five, the Millennium Building was permanently leased by the John Smith Society as a favor to the Aeon family. As a result, they have their own personal multidimensional base at the top of the place plus dozens of floors devoted to various scientific experiments. Amusingly, the Millennium Building's most profitable business is actually the Daily Sentinel which is one of the most honest newspapers in the country. Likewise, the building also houses Amazing! comics for free.

Perhaps ironically, the Aeons are almost never present and thus are not able to handle many of the problems the two groups run into.

Patriots Mansion: The formal headquarters of the Patriots since the destruction of Seventh Heaven, Patriots Mansion is surrounded by huge skyscrapers and seems out of place in the middle of Park Place and Boardwalk. Still, it is often a source of fighting and the Patriots are considering moving their headquarters permanently due to the potential danger it poses to nearby buildings.

Pellucidar: A massive Project: Icarus-built nature preserve constructed back when the organization was still part of the United States government. Pellucidar was built outside the city but is within spitting distance and connects to New Amsterdam through its tunnel's system.

Pellucidar has dinosaurs, treetop cities on steel-hard trees, Moreau-built animal men, emancipated clones, and plenty of sentient robots working for the scientists who are no longer affiliated with Project: Icarus. Now, only legitimate DNA research is done here.

Honest.

SpartaCorp Building: A singularly massive "S" shaped building that is built over a massive underground complex complete with a small army's barracks, testing center, and underground laboratories for all manner of unpleasant experimentation. Jack Washington III's face is now ubiquitous with a big picture of his face on a tapestry hanging down the side.

Raven Tower: More or less identical to the one in Falconcrest City, it is a black-tinted windowed building in a mass of gray and white ones. Raven Towers, ironically, shines as a ray of hope in a city that often finds itself in dire economic strife. Like the SpartaCorp building, it has a huge underground complex beneath it.

Undertown: Constructed by Robur the Conqueror as a potential refuge from humanity's evil in the late 19th century, Mole people and disease wiped out most of the populace. Still, robots and free housing was available and squatters from the Ultra-Terrestials have since made this place their home.

Undertown steals power from the rest of the city and is often a refuge for criminals due to the fact that they naturally accept virtually anyone fleeing from society. That and, honestly, any money is good down there.

[Charles Phipps]

Next up, Nightwoman I, II, III.

Also some of New Amsterdam's most ruthless villains and villainesses.

I should give people time to catch up, though.

[Phrozen]

Doctor Tarantula

Splotch's secondary mad scientist archenemy eventually had a final team-up with Doctor Necros before HED 2.0 and was murdered at the end of it. Doctor Necros proceeded to harvest the Doctor Tarantula's exoskeleton and adapt it for his own use. Doctor Tarantula has, of course, returned but it's now in a hideous half-human half-spider THING form. Amusingly, his daughter is completely unphased by this and is actively assisting him in his weird Spider-based plots to TAKE OVER THE WORLD.

and get revenge on Dr. Necros. We will feast on his tasty tasty human juices.

Dr. Tarantula: "Now that was just creepy, Lucille. Tasty human juices? Really!"

Doctor Tarantula was a 1930s Pulp Villain and enemy of Ink Spot. It's just that he actually managed to survive via longevity potions until the modern era (potions which required drinking the blood of normal people). Doctor Tarantula, he insists, was NEVER a Nazi and resents the Nazi pretender (!) who menaced Freehold under his name during WW2. In fact, Doctor Tarantula was working for the Nazis but it was due to his beautiful first wife being held hostage back in Germany.

That time period was about the only time he wore a mask. Also working was loosely defined as "giving the bare minimum effort and making sure the heroes could always follow him back to where his co-conspirators were."

Seriously, Dr. Tarantula really played up the absent minded mad scientist during this period.

It should be noted he had his name legally changed to Doctor Simon Tarantula before his transformation. To this day, no one really knows what his deal was aside from some vague hints he was a refuge from Germany. He just showed up one day and started menacing Ink Spot. You can't even blame his wife being held hostage since he was doing horrible experiments and building giant robots well before then.

Yeah.

"Really now, Hitler was a foolish. He didn't believe in Nuclear Physics because he thought it was Jewish science. How can you work in those conditions? Plus, you just can't trust vegetarians."

The Living Mummy

Doctor Edward Easton was a dual Egyptology and medical researcher at Hamilton University. During one of his displays, a group of supervillains broke in and one of them used a white phosphorous grenade which left his entire body covered in horrific burns. Doctor Moreau, in hopes of helping the man, noted he was a carrier of a "Radical Scientific Experimentation Volunteer" (or RSEV) card so he subjected him to untested Tsavong-based skin-grafts and a regeneration formula injection.

Note that being a carrier of the RSEV card isn't something that you sign up for. Dr. Moreau just hands it to you and tells you to keep it in your wallet. It has really microscopic fine print. Its not that Dr. Moreau wouldn't do the procedures anyway but bills for lawyers are expensive and he is only on a professors salary.

Doctor Easton found himself covered in permanently dessicated skin which had healed in such a way as to look like he was a centuries-old corpse. Worse, somehow, he'd become a life-energy vampire. Able to absorb the life of the living, he could briefly return to a human state but only for a short while. Attempts to live without it, only lead to him "dying" by becoming a shriveled up corpse. One which was actually still alive and aware.
Splotch sympathizes with Doctor Easton but considers him a murderer for all the people he's killed to avoid that horrific fate.

Also extremely painful. Dr. Easton is now also addicted to a variety of designer drugs to somewhat kill the pain. Guess who his supplier is?

Yep, thats how the Living Mummy ends up on Insidious Seven teams.

Wolfwere

Doctor Moreau's, arguably, weirdest experiment was on a wolf that he gave the "Moreau Formula." This transformed the wolf into a full-grown adult human. Possessed of an astounding intelligence, the newly created human quickly learned everything from language to mathematics as well as culture. However, his enhanced intelligence came at the price of him utterly repressing his life as a wolf. Moreau, in a shocking display of originality, named him Romulus Moon.

In hindsight Wolfwere should of known something was up. Dr. Moreau was going to name him Canis Lupus but thought better of it because his Grad Students might think his name was Cannibus Lupus. Yep, that is about the end of Dr. Moreau's discretion.

Sadly, while Doctor Moreau thought he had perfected his ancestor's process, he hadn't. Wolfwere fell in love with with Doctor Moreau's research assistant and ended up tearing her apart during his first full-moon transformation. The unstable formula turning him into a Crinos-form werewolf with superhuman strength to match his human side's superhuman intelligence. Doctor Moreau, after he'd returned to "normal", chose the worst time to inform him of his true heritage. Romulus, of course, went COMPLETELY NUTS.

Dr. Moreau doesn't like the word 'disappointing' he prefers 'exciting'.

Of course, Romulus tried to somehow cure himself of the transformations. Results have been middling.

Romulus Moon has bizarre Victorian manners and his attempts to kill Splotch often have a rather old-fashioned flavor. Romulus has, on several occasions, attempted to create a bride for himself or infect everyone in Freehold with lycanthropy.

Romulus feels that he is the Alpha of the pack. He has even tried to topple The Gentleman to little success.

He in fact did create a bride for himself. Its to bad that she was meaner than him as the alpha female actually runs a wolf pack. She decided to go off and live in Yellowstone.

Splotch's nickname for Wolfwere is of course 'Bad Doggie' and yes he has smacked Romulus on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.

Shoggonauth

A diabolical THING from another dimension! The Shoggonauth is a blob-like entity possessed of vast alien intelligence and psychic powers! The Shoggonauth was originally summoned during an electricity demonstration by Nikolo Tesla, only to have the monster sent back to its home realm by the timely intervention of Ink Spot. Sadly, its brief encounter with humanity convinced the dreadful thing that it needed to conquer our universe.

With its vast powers its often contacted impressionable young scientists to bring it over. As long as a part of it survives, sadly, it will regenerate in either this universe or the next. It doesn't reproduce, though, since disparate parts of the creature will simply merge when they meet.

Its a small fish in its home universe. It sees that moving into the universe will smaller will make it a big fish.

Shoggonauth has, on occasion, indicated that it is the source of Splotch's powers or that it is actually the entity that created life on Earth when it was nothing more than a primordial soup. This is, very likely, nonsense and just reflects the creature's massive ego. Shoggonauth possesses the unusual ability to animate any object part of its protoplasmic body infects - so it is prone to animating store dummies and turning them into things resembling Autons. It also briefly possessed Splotch's car in something similar to the movie Christine, only with less lust from the evil car and more trying to kill him. It was the last time Splotch ever tried to get a wall-crawling vehicle.

Shoggonauth is, it should be noted, not a deity but just something plain WEIRD.

It also likes to talk a lot. So much that it has even driven Splotch to yell at it to just shut up. "It's like being nagged to death by Gilbret Godfrey's snot!'

[Phrozen]

New Amsterdam

The Second Anglo-Dutch War strongly offended Johan Driegberg a.k.a Long John Stone, a man of questionable Dutch descent but extreme wealth. Having intended to retire in the New World with his vast accumulated fortune, Johan didn't do the sensible thing and retire in the Caribbean. No, instead, he paid ample bribes and got numerous traders to move from the newly conquered province of New York to an illegal settlement up-north.

New Amsterdam was built on several islands which had been created during the Age of the God-Kings in order to bind the spirits of numerous monsters and evil despots, as well as seal over the entrance to a tunnel to the Hollow Earth. Coincidentally, most of these would not trouble New Amsterdam until Antaeus and Divinos arrived in the city during the 20th century. Otherwise, honestly, New Amsterdam never would have survived to become the juggernaut it is.

It was built to last. Also, the natives let him have it for less than Manhatten Island was bought for. Of course it was a case of 'Dumb white man not knowing what he is buying'.

New Amsterdam is TECHNICALLY in the state of New York but is actually an island chain above it that links to the mainland. It won't long before the two cities are bouncing into one another.

New Yorkers also dislike the 'Dumb Damers' slightly less than Bostonians.

Really, despite the fierce loyalty of New Damers to their city, it's not exactly been a history of roses and sunshine. Conquered soon after it became a thriving settlement, Johan Driegberg's son was hung by the British for piracy and the city was cleaned out of its criminal element. Well, the obvious criminal element. If they'd removed the entirety of the criminal element, the city would have bee burned to the ground.

As a result, it became a place where many of Britain's less impressive citizens chose to retire and those who wanted to go to the New World but didn't really fit in any of the other colonies. Amusingly, almost a quarter of the new immigrants during the 17th century were French. Having arrived at the New World to trap live free, they never really went past the city known as "the City of Prostitutes, Lice, Liquor, and Guns."

The weather is a little bit better than Quebec.

New Amsterdam was occupied by the British during the Revolutionary War and ended up becoming a place rife with patriotic sentiment. This was as much due to the fact that it's population consisted of many indentured servants, exiled criminals, and people of dubious English heritage as anything the British did. This was when New Amsterdam got its first superhero, The Lamplighter.

A Minuteman who lost his innkeeper father to a drunken brawl, he decided to wage a one-man war against the hellish evil afflicting his city. He destroyed pirate ships, killed murderers, exposed corrupt officials, and even "protected Negroes as well as Injuns!" (it was the 17th century, roll with it). The Lamplighter's egalitarian policies were partially due to the fact he was secretly married to a Iroquois woman he'd married against all the "common sense" of the time. Later, she joined in his crime-fighting.

He couldn't expose all the corrupt officials for if he did there would be no city government. The Lamplighter did attend the first Continental Congress for two reasons 1) the people voted for him and 2) the city fathers wanted him out of their hair for a few weeks. He isn't in any of the pictures because he wouldn't take of his mask.

The Lamplighter's efforts inspired the citizens of New Amsterdam to clean up their act, somewhat, and he captured the imagination of the city. Later, the Lamplighter was immortalized with a huge lighthouse statue in the middle of the bay which most citizens considered horrifically garish. Ironically, it was put up roughly about the same time as the Statue of Liberty and the two cities insist the other was ripping them off.

New Yorkers pointed out their statue was actually given to them by the French. The 'Dumb Damers' were just jealous.

Whatever the case, the city continued to build itself up normally until the 19th century. Then it became famous for the works of Doctor Steam and his amazing Fair of Wonders!. An eccentric inventor from Holland, Doctor Ignatius Steam intended to revolutionize the world with his inventions. In fact, Doctor Steam was a traveller from the year 2XXX and constructed countless devices well beyond the capacity of normal people to build in this era. Steampowered jetpacks, mecha, and orihalcon powered death rays were the order of the day for almost twenty years.

Sadly, Doctor Steam's inventions were not much more than a novelty outside the city despite numerous attempts to replicate them. Worse, the Steam Mongul and his vicious gang of CHINESE THUGS (the 19th century was not very politically correct in describing their rivalry) engaged in a bitter war with Doctor Steam over his technology.

The Steam Mongul, of course, was the Iron Khan and his attempts to force Doctor Steam into building weapons he could use to conquer the New World for China lead eventually to the majority of them being destroyed.

The Steam Mongul's Chinese thugs weren't actually Chinese. Just immigrants from Europe and American never do wells that he dressed up. The real Chinese immigrants were well aware of just who the Steam Mongul was and did their best to avoid him at all cost.

Of course that didn't stop the Know Nothings from painting them as the so called yellow menace.

Doctor Steam, himself, was eventually dragged off by Time Agents back to Edenia for his many flagrant violations of the Temporal Accords. Still, his adventures lead to the city becoming far more economically prosperous with the lesser results of his efforts making it a fabulously advanced city for its time. Crime, unfortunately, prospered still with Butcher Pete becoming infamous in New Amsterdam's underworld as the secret master of the city.

Doctor Steam of course was just more eccentric than dangerous.

Butcher Pete eventually died at the hands of Union soldiers but not before becoming a terrifying spectre linked to the city's leylines. Butcher Pete, despite being a vicious anti-social thug, was also a (low-ranking) member of the Illuminati with an interest in geomancy. Amusingly, despite the fact the buildings he funded keep him as an unbanishable specter, they also keep out most other ghosts.

Butcher Pete appears once every generation, normally, and kills thirteen innocents to renew his power. Oddly, despite his preference for women, it's not necessary. He actually stuck to prostitutes, usually not guilty of some horrible crime, so people thought his MO was something else entirely.

In-between these actions, he rules a hellish Underdam which is pretty much his own private universe. Sadly, neither Pete or his kingdom vanish when his killing sprees are thwarted, it just means he won't be able to manifest as a mortal or ghost for the next twenty-years.

Banishing him would require tearing up the city or somehow destroying him in the heart of his universe.

Also, those buildings are now historical monuments.

The Hierophant: "I do not know what this Commission for Historical Preservation but it sounds sinister."

The Emancipator and Unionist came from New Amsterdam during this period. Both were attempts by citizens to emanate the Lamplighter. Sadly, the former was resoundingly despised by the populace while the later had questionable popularity at best. Ironically, both achieved their lasting fame outside of the city.

In a somewhat bittersweet tale, the Emancipator died early on in his career but the South was so angered by his efforts that they publicized him as a second John Brown. The Underground Railroad adopted his name and costume then so that literally hundreds of Emancipators took his place, leading to countless slaves being freed during the Civil War. Many of these would settle in New Amsterdam's Bourbon District.

The Unionist, by contrast, eventually gained supernatural powers from the spirit of America and ended up bitterly battling the similarly empowered Dixie Belle. Dixie Belle was someone he initially thought to be a sweet lady but the inherent evil of slavery corrupted her into increasing acts of barbarism during the later half of the Civil War. In the end, the Unionist sacrificed his life to destroy a hellish army of deceased Confederates who found themselves (amusingly) barred from entering the city by Butcher Pete's ley lines.

The Unionist of course got a bad reputation for assisting the army in putting down the draft riots that plagued New Amsterdam. As these rioters were usually poor and Irish. 'Being a Unionist' was not a compliment in such circles for a long time.

By the early 20th century, New Amsterdam was a thriving port city filled with a racially diverse and technologically advanced infrastructure. Architect Randolf Curwen was invited to design many of the city's skyscrapers but, unlike Falconcrest city, threw out most of the designs and went with cheery upbeat Art-Deco as opposed to morbid and depressing. Doctor Aeon and Jetboy were the first of the city's new protectors, working from the top of the newly constructed Millennium City Building.

Anateus soon followed, followed by Steel Commando and Ehrich Weiss (after his seeming death). It was an age of heroes with a never-ending supply of mad-science villains and gangsters. The Phantom Empire was created in New Amsterdam, the world's most vicious gangs united under the efforts of James Moriarty II. James could never have hoped to get the mafia to work with him normally so he used a specialized form of hypnosis by his half-demon girlfriend, Madame Satan. Amusingly, this lead to the creation of The Magi, the mystical pseudo-mafia created by Italian imposter noble, Baron Malus.

New York was much calmer and under the steady hand of Lucky Luciano despite many attempts on his life by Moriarty and The Magi. New York, Boston, and Freehold were the three major cities that the Phantom Empire did not control and were loose allies.

Really, the 1930s were a really wild time including Mole People, Dinosaur Men, Giant Robots, and the occasional foreign agent. The Liberty Men protected the city's extensive shipyards during World War 2 from numerous foreign agents, including the brutal Agent X and Major Cassandra Schwartzvald. It's partially due to their extreme heroism that even the HUAC was unable to muster enough support to gain any traction against superheroes during the 1950s (a state, unfortunately, mirrored by the KKK).

Though after the war there was a great retiring of heroes and the 1950s being relatively peaceful, the number of heroes declined nationally. Really, the horror of war was what drove a lot of heroes to quit the hero game. Its one thing to duke it out with some neighborhood toughs, its another to watch your buddies die in foreign fields.

After the Great Unmasking Massacre and Butcher Pete's third generational killing spree, resulting in 11 young women dying with superheroes seemingly helpless, the city cooled a bit on their support. Jack Washington III constructed his laboratory on top of an even higher building than the Millennium Building while spending very little time fighting crime. Instead, racial tensions were the order of the day with the Steel Crusader defending the Bourbon District while Agent Flag defended the United Nations Security Building. A building which, while not holding the general assembly, DID hold the nonexistent in our world bureaus dealing with international security.

The Steel Crusader was actually Jack Washington Junior's illegimate half-brother, Josiah Washington, who was African American. To the future supervillain's eternal credit, he did nothing to discourage the man and assisted him financially in building his own suit of armor. The Steel Crusader is sadly, still somewhat unknown outside of black culture where he remains an icon. This is due to deliberate government propaganda.

Agent Flag was an attempt by the United States to create a counterpart to Jacob Hunter. Thomas Flag was, amazingly enough, even more of a womanzer than his counterpart and a hedonist of the highest order.

Despite this, he did good work with his Russian defector partner, Viktor Cipher. Both would retroactively be added to the Foundation for World Harmony's roles and later became trainers there. It's questionable who did more damage to PHANTOM in the long run, them or Jacob Hunter.

Cipher was later injured enough to stop the super spy work. He went to college and became a forensic pathologist. He certainly had the stomach for it.

This was when The Blue Avenger and Sparky, the Boy Genius debuted. Actually a brainwashed and time-lost George Timons with his sidekick, the pair spent almost a year as colorful champions of justice and good hygeine. This was apparently the work of Fuzion the Nuclear Wizard attempting to FIX reality after it was broken by The Omnipotent.

Alex, to this day, swears they were someone else. The Blue Avenger, to this day, remains one of the most popular TV shows in the world. Adam West and Burt Ward believe the show was a better use of their talents than the Batman pilot they'd planned.

Alex insists that because there is no way that well he could imagine himself or George as that cheesy and corny. Even Divinos thinks that Blue Avenger and Sparky were just a little hammy. It took General Venom posing as the American Avenger I to match the level of cheesiness and that was pretty much trolling.

The White Stag society also became a major concern in the city, basically a group of police who served as a state-sanctioned crime family while ostensibly being about fighting it.

The White Stag Society, unfortunately, never left and pretty much exists as a gang in its own right. The group has actually wholesale co-opted many police precincts across the nation in a network of corruption that works with both the House of Serpents and the International Crime League. What's terrible is they really do think of themselves as good cops - despite the fact they've killed some of their fellows to protect themselves.

The have different branches. In Los Dios they took over the KEEP taskforce. The whole society took over KEEP's motto which was "We intimidate those who intimidate others."

The city went into an economic depression after the destruction of the American Steel Industry and the sabotage of the city's shipyards by The Constructors, a group of radioactive powered supervillains seemingly from nowhere. The city, then, had a beacon of hope. A savior who came from nowhere and promptly raised the city out of its depression: KENNETH KANE!

Months later, Divinos appeared. The rest, was history.

Kane of course was behind the Constructors. One of Kane's many flaws was a penchant for deification.

[Charles Phipps]

and get revenge on Dr. Necros. We will feast on his tasty tasty human juices.

Dr. Tarantula: "Now that was just creepy, Lucille. Tasty human juices? Really!"

Lucille, also known as Doctor Tarantula II from her days as a 90s villain, is a bit more into the whole EVIL thing. Ironic since she seems so sweet looking.

That time period was about the only time he wore a mask. Also working was loosely defined as "giving the bare minimum effort and making sure the heroes could always follow him back to where his co-conspirators were."

Seriously, Dr. Tarantula really played up the absent minded mad scientist during this period.

He also appeared as the kind of tiny, beady-eyed bald nasty figure many people thought just screamed EVIL. Interestingly, his ethnicity was considered without flaw by the Third Reich and that really bothered them. Doctor Tarantula, himself, was fine with fascism but considered eugenics pseudo-science in a rare progressive attitude.

After all, they could repair any genuine genetic flaws with RADIOACTIVE TARANTULA BLOOD!

In what is probably the first sign that the Red Knight/Rotter Parsifal was not as ignorant as he's always pretended, or at least had suspicions to the effect, it was him who assisted the Liberty Men in freeing Doctor T's wife. Doctor Tarantula promptly returned to his evil ways but not before sinking the Bismark II, a ship constructed by Atlanteans who were hoping to drive humanity to destroy itself.

"Really now, Hitler was a foolish. He didn't believe in Nuclear Physics because he thought it was Jewish science. How can you work in those conditions? Plus, you just can't trust vegetarians."

Eva Braun was also reported to have an absurd fondness for the man as well, which goes to show you that some women have no taste.

Note that being a carrier of the RSEV card isn't something that you sign up for. Dr. Moreau just hands it to you and tells you to keep it in your wallet. It has really microscopic fine print. Its not that Dr. Moreau wouldn't do the procedures anyway but bills for lawyers are expensive and he is only on a professors salary.

Hamilton University is a place one has to be aware of certain risks, regarding. It's not got quite as bad a reputation as the John Smith Society Research Center in Utah but people have noticed the number of professors who have gone insane, been turned into monsters, or are recruited from other less reputable institutions on the basis they're MAD! MAD I TELL YOU!

Also extremely painful. Dr. Easton is now also addicted to a variety of designer drugs to somewhat kill the pain. Guess who his supplier is?

As Splotch says, Doctor Easton got a lousy choice but it was still a choice. He often tries to kill people who deserve it but it's not exactly like he can tell when his overwhelming hunger will take over.

Dr. Moreau doesn't like the word 'disappointing' he prefers 'exciting'.

Paka and his other feline ladies are more popular than Wolfwere, anyway. Though he maintains a certain fanbase due to his brooding Bryonic charm.

He in fact did create a bride for himself. Its to bad that she was meaner than him as the alpha female actually runs a wolf pack. She decided to go off and live in Yellowstone.

Romulus, himself, wants as far away from nature as possible - ironically.

Splotch's nickname for Wolfwere is of course 'Bad Doggie' and yes he has smacked Romulus on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.

Nothing QUITE sets Wolfwere off as these reminders of his status as an animal man.

Its a small fish in its home universe. It sees that moving into the universe will smaller will make it a big fish.

It's actually a form of bacteria so very true.

It also likes to talk a lot. So much that it has even driven Splotch to yell at it to just shut up. "It's like being nagged to death by Gilbret Godfrey's snot!'

Plus, it's hungry.

"FEED ME SEYMOUR!"

[Charles Phipps]

It was built to last. Also, the natives let him have it for less than Manhatten Island was bought for. Of course it was a case of 'Dumb white man not knowing what he is buying'.

Very true.

Thanks for all these comments, Phrozen! They mean a lot.

New Yorkers also dislike the 'Dumb Damers' slightly less than Bostonians.

It's a common statement that New Amsterdam is the Ugly Stepsister to the Cinderella City.

NAers consider New York to be the Wicked Stepmother.

The weather is a little bit better than Quebec.

Better alcohol at the time, too.

He couldn't expose all the corrupt officials for if he did there would be no city government. The Lamplighter did attend the first Continental Congress for two reasons 1) the people voted for him and 2) the city fathers wanted him out of their hair for a few weeks. He isn't in any of the pictures because he wouldn't take of his mask.

The Lamplighter is known for a number of fun folktales regarding events during the Revolutionary War.

* He cracked the Liberty Bell dropping it on a Wendigo.
* Had a temporary truce with Fitz Mueller to defeat the Tsavong attempting to replace the Founding Fathers.
(Lucien, amusingly, collected a bounty for all of them from King George)
* The Lamplighter actually gained many Batman-like gadgets from a secret workshop where they were constructed by Ben Franklin.
* He also time-traveled to a post-apocalyptic future where he helped the locals build New America.
* Was present at the Boston Tea Party where he famously fought off a group of O'Hara pirates who had, that very night, intended to STEAL the tea.



As a note, the Lamplighter is the direct ancestor of WW2 hero, "Yankee Doodle Dandy."

New Yorkers pointed out their statue was actually given to them by the French. The 'Dumb Damers' were just jealous.

Which is countered by the NAs pointing out they had plans for a Lighthouse for decades.

(Yeah, the SOL gift *NOT* going to them really annoyed them)

The Steam Mongul's Chinese thugs weren't actually Chinese. Just immigrants from Europe and American never do wells that he dressed up. The real Chinese immigrants were well aware of just who the Steam Mongul was and did their best to avoid him at all cost.

Of course that didn't stop the Know Nothings from painting them as the so called yellow menace.

Amusingly, in direct contradiction to his later appearance, the Iron Mongul was quite good at actually growing out a beard and wearing thick glasses which allowed him to impersonate a white man without any difficulty. It helped that the Iron Khan "disguise' consisted of a ridiculous robe and huge Mongul hat plus slicking his beard up.

To this day, even his fellow Black Handers want to know what the hell that was about.

Doctor Steam of course was just more eccentric than dangerous.

The Time Agency has him doing community service on Edenia. Some suspect he's actually Doctor Aeon, anyway, and the Doctor Aeon living under his casino in a cryogenic casket in Las Vegas is actually just a badly written program by Walter Rand.

Also, those buildings are now historical monuments.

The Hierophant: "I do not know what this Commission for Historical Preservation but it sounds sinister."

Hierophant actually lives in, "The Village" and seems oblivious he's surrounded by hippies, New Agers, and stoners.

The Unionist of course got a bad reputation for assisting the army in putting down the draft riots that plagued New Amsterdam. As these rioters were usually poor and Irish. 'Being a Unionist' was not a compliment in such circles for a long time.

The No Nothings basically considered him a supervillain and held quite a few rallies to see him brought to justice (and by that, we mean Lynched). Amusingly, Butcher Pete almost got elected Mayor as their candidate and was a founding member of the Republican party.

(Butcher Pete, bizarrely, supported Lincoln based on the fact that if slavery was spread then that would mean more blacks would be found everywhere - his ghost has since gotten slightly more tolerant, in-between serial murder and all that. The Irish still suck, of course.)

New York was much calmer and under the steady hand of Lucky Luciano despite many attempts on his life by Moriarty and The Magi. New York, Boston, and Freehold were the three major cities that the Phantom Empire did not control and were loose allies.

Nice bit here.

Though after the war there was a great retiring of heroes and the 1950s being relatively peaceful, the number of heroes declined nationally. Really, the horror of war was what drove a lot of heroes to quit the hero game. Its one thing to duke it out with some neighborhood toughs, its another to watch your buddies die in foreign fields.

The Great Unmasking Massacre gets a lot credit, ironically, because it is more heroic seeming. Still, the fact that revealing themselves exposed their families to danger combined with a large sense of bitterness that the public had been turning away from them anyway and was doing its best to downplay the more questionable Liberty Men's activities (and by questionable we mean ethnic or progressive).

Cipher was later injured enough to stop the super spy work. He went to college and became a forensic pathologist. He certainly had the stomach for it.

Ha! Good one. Amusingly, his Goth assistant is a cousin of the Masterons from Freehold. No superpowers, though, that we know of.

The have different branches. In Los Dios they took over the KEEP taskforce. The whole society took over KEEP's motto which was "We intimidate those who intimidate others."

"The Sword" TV-series was based on some of their alleged activities. Office Tom Nickel of the White Stag society was a regular enemy of Ymir and Athena over the years in a mild way with his excesses getting parodied in Grand Theft Auto and by Densel Washington. He eventually ended up assassinated by the Magi in one of the few murders of a cop by organized crime that no one was particularly outraged over.

[Kysodeus]

1.Halt Evil Doer welcomes analogue of familiar heroes and villians, but please put an original spin or creative twist on them-no straight "Captain Ersatzes".

By extension, this means that multiple analogues of different aspects of the same character are allowed, correct?

The Alpha Sentry

Surely an officeful of investigative reporters would have noticed by now that soft-spoken journalist Ivan Iverson is secretly the Alpha Sentry. Every time danger rears its hideous head, Ivan will recite an excuse (early in his career they were logical. Now his excuses border on the surreal), run off into some cupboard, and, sure enough, the Alpha Sentry will burst through the ceiling to save the day. They are nearly identical, save that Ivan has a mole. The Aeons, during their brief visits, have noticed this behaviour, and presume that the reporters protect his identity out of gratitude.

They are wrong. The Alpha Sentry is what allows the Sentinel to get the scoop in places that other papers wouldn't dream of sending star reporters to. The Sentinel staff have been known to let Count Reich kidnap them in order to uncover plots, confident in the Alpha Sentry's crime-fighting prowess. Also, the Alpha Sentry continuously drops hints that he will refuse to save them if they ever reveal his identity.

He is a manipulative man. Despite Mithran level powers, he prefers to trick his enemies into their defeat. These ruses often come at a cost to his "friends", mostly temporary, like the time that cub reporter Fred Kowak ended up marrying a super-intelligent orangutan in order to trick the Crimelords A-Leaping into confessing on tape, or the time he got his mind swapped with the Iron Khan's best stallion, or the time he became a rock and roll sensation in the Future of Wonders to prevent a villain from even farther in the future from being born. Don't even get me started on what the interns go through.

[Libra]

Gentlebeings, just popping in to apologise for a somewhat extended (and not entirely voluntary) absence - I'm still trying to work out how to make amends for it after I catch up!

On a more serious note I recently gained a minor qualification, hence the 'Voluntary' element to my absence.

[Charles Phipps]

Gentlebeings, just popping in to apologise for a somewhat extended (and not entirely voluntary) absence - I'm still trying to work out how to make amends for it after I catch up!

On a more serious note I recently gained a minor qualification, hence the 'Voluntary' element to my absence.

Yay! You have returned!

Just do that thing you do, Libra!

[Charles Phipps]

1.Halt Evil Doer welcomes analogue of familiar heroes and villians, but please put an original spin or creative twist on them-no straight "Captain Ersatzes".

By extension, this means that multiple analogues of different aspects of the same character are allowed, correct?

The Alpha Sentry

Thanks, glad you could join us.

A little TOO Superman here, though I'm not one to talk.

Some great ideas, definitely, like ORANGUTANGS!

They make everything better.

[Libra]

Just do that thing you do, Libra!

Compliment, comment, take an interest in EVERYTHING, promise more than I can deliver, procrastinate, display the attention span of a toddler with Attention Deficit Disorder and a sweet tooth in Wonka's Chocolate Factory, then allow myself to become distracted and - just occasionally - actually post something?

Do - ooooh shiny digression!

( )

[Charles Phipps]

Yeah, I'm holding off on posting a bit.

You don't have to comment on EVERYTHING, of course, but I want to give everyone a chance to catch up.

[Kysodeus]

I tried playing up the super-dickery side a bit, without making him noticeable enough of a threat for him to have been revealed by the Patriots already. In retrospect, there is still some room for exaggeration, though.

[Charles Phipps]

Lord Abyss

Jerry Covello has been damned since the day he was born. This isn't really an exaggeration since, more or less without exception, every single member of the Magi's many bloodlines have produced souls destined for transport into the heart of Abaddon's slave pens.

Jerry is a direct descendant of Alfredo Covello, the illegitimate son of Baron Malus and like all of the Baron's descendants, is promised to Orkus. Jerry, himself, isn't too broken up about this. He doesn't care about the vast majority of his ancestors since virtually every one of them was a scumbag of one sort or another.

His sister is another matter entirely.

A few previous members of the family have been able to break the curse with the aid of white magic and outstanding personal piety but, for the most part, the fate that awaits them post-death is horrific and not totally deserved by even the worst of them.

We're getting ahead of ourselves, however.

Jerry Covello was born the son of Don Marcus Covello, the head of the Covello Crime Family. For the longest time, Jerry considered his father to be an exemplar of mob nobility. He and his sister, Maria, grew up in the shadow of his overwhelming presence and when it was time for Jerry to take up the family business, he jumped in head-first.

In a bit of tragedy, Maria was deeply and horrifically abused by her father but never able to confront her brother with the truth of his actions. She is currently on the run from the family and only occasionally calls for aid from her brother due to the fact she's marked with Orkus' power and thus a magnet for trouble.

Jerry can live with the majority of the people he's killed. His time as a mob hitman was mostly spent killing people who were fellow professionals or low-lifes of the worst sort. He killed the occassional debtor but, for the most part, he had bigger fish to fry. He bought hook, line, and sinker into the idea of mafioso as "men of honor."

Needless to say, he didn't think his father had it coming when Divinos smashed up the majority of his businesses before delivering him directly to the police. Marcus Covello was sentenced to life in prison for trying to kill Divinos and the numerous criminal infactions people were willing to come forward about now that they knew the Golden Guardian would protect them.

Outraged by the way the city reacted to his father, Jerry volunteered to become the family's guinea pig for a ritual to summon a fraction of the Darkness Beyond Time inside him. With the power of the Annihilation Zone within him, Jerry would be able to slay the Golden Guardian outright. The only price, of course, would be his soul.

His family was cheating him here, of course. The ritual actually has no cost, whatsoever, but Baron Malus altered the Book of Orkus text with a false page so that the family wouldn't be overrun with superpowered rivals.

Besides, Jerry's soul was already promised to Orkus.

When the ritual was done, Jerry found himself possessed of the ability to generate an darklight energy-based suit of armor around himself and create terrifying constructs capable of smashing through concrete. Likewise, he found himself capable of summoning forth Annihilation Zone-based minions resembling demons and totally loyal to himself. The only price, however, was that sunlight removed all of his powers and normal light weakened him tremendously.

Obviously, when fighting Divinos or other Mithran, Jerry is at a great advantage. When he binds Divinos, the man loses all of his protection and he is restricted to normal strength when trying to pierce his armor with punches. Divinos compensates, of course, by just hitting him with rocks and cars.
He's also done wonders for fighting Jerry in broad daylight.

Jerry should have been put away in prison for the rest of his life the first time Divinos cleaned his clock but he escaped several times from prison with the assistance of the Dark Undermaster and Kenneth Kane. Later, of all people, Merlin recruited him and arranged for a magical spell that made most people forget his presence at crime scenes while physical evidence degraded.

Jerry Covello's time with the Midnight Pact was, to his surprise, the happiest of his life. The absence of Divinos and the chance to help people with his otherwise horrifically evil powers changed him fundamentally. It also helped that, as insane as the Last Ranger was and how contemptuously Amulet considered him, they were probably his first real friends. Isn't that pathetic?

It's to the point that Jerry often comes to the assistance of Metaman for the Tomorrow Society just because Valkyrie and Lucien Drake are on the team. The fact his help is unwanted by Serena Mass doesn't phase him one bit. He's similarly made it very difficult for the mob to harm Amulet despite the fact she's done a horrible number on them.

The return of Divinos shattered Jerry's life and he immediately redoubled his efforts to killing the man, though he did protect New Amsterdam during the Psychotic Seven's coup. To this day, he thinks Hecate and he had a connection.

Hecate, meanwhile, would love to know what he was smoking that day.

The Modern Age, twelve years it's been, has been good to Jerry. With his powers, he's been able to increase the Covello's influence outside of New Amsterdam as far as Falconcrest City while also inflicting enough damage on the International Crime League that the Magi is now completely independent of it. As a result, he's been recognized as Boss of New Amsterdam by a majority of the Magi.

The other three families have made almost monthly attempts to remove him from this position, of course.

His loathing of Divinos has dulled, somewhat, albeit only because it's expanded. Lord Abyss has fought virtually every straight-laced superhero in the world and come close to killing many of them, sparing them only because it's usually not business. Divinos, however, has just been impossible to kill. Ironically, Mikhail wonders why exactly Lord Abyss is wasting so much of his potential in organized crime. Jerry's in his forties now and has so much potential to do more than be a wise guy, at least according to Divinos.

Divinos' speeches, of course, only increase his anger.

The Orkus Invasion resulted in many of the Covello family getting possessed by his minions as well as their ancestors being brought back as specialized capos for the takeover. The discovery that his entire family is
"Orkus' butt monkeys" has shaken him to the core and he's spent the past two years researching ways of breaking the pact to free his soul.

Jerry is also troubled by the fact his father attempted to turn full-blown voluntary quisling during the invasion, getting killed by his mother in the process. Jerry is pretending his father was mind-controlled and burying the evidence to the contrary in the back of his mind.

Despite his more admirable qualities, it's best to remember Jerry is a member of the Magi and responsible for a lot of the bad things that happen in New Amsterdam. As long as he continues to follow in his father's footsteps, he's bound for the same fate of all Covellos. One thing that might shake him out of his current status is the fact he'll do anything to protect his sister from the fate of them and is drastically overprotective of her, like Tony Montana overprotective.

If she ever gets harmed by a PC even circumstantially, like if they fail to save her, they have made an enemy for life.