(Co-written with Allen Richardson. Illustrations by the Richardson brothers using craiyon.com and stablediffusionweb.com)

500+ entries, 100+ illustrations, 50 footnotes

Contents
1. Preface: I Destroyed the Universe
2. Introduction: Superhero Exegesis
3. Index of the Duluth Superhero Community
4. Footnotes

Preface: I Destroyed the Universe

From the Journal of the Morphogenetic Field Technician: I am trapped far beneath the UMD campus in the Novelty Sphere as the global catastrophe intensifies. My team’s experiments in this underground lab are directly responsible for the apocalypse overtaking the planet. The quakes grow steadily. Portions of the lab visible through the Sphere’s cyclopean porthole have caved in. Soon the roof will collapse releasing tons of basaltic bedrock. If the Sphere’s integrity holds, I will have limited air. One thing I have an unlimited supply of: claustrophobia. It is as if I am in an untethered bathysphere sinking into the mounting pressures of the deep. The Sphere’s instrumentation confirms my worst suspicions: this is no mere global extinction. We destabilized probability itself, and the vertical line on the catastrophe graph indicates structural failure of the universal constants. Like a landslide, the cosmos races toward physical destruction. Gravity will be the first to fail, centered on the Sphere. The well of the Earth is popping like an old spring.

I am inside it like an embryo, in my yellow pressure suit, the nucleus of the concretizing event horizon. I have, in reality, seconds left. At T-minus zero, a highly unlikely black hole will devour the planet and grow at superluminal speeds in all directions until the universe is consumed, every quark, every galactic cluster.

Dr. McPurdy knew as I did. The day we surveyed the city for subjectivity contamination, I remember looking over at him through my faceplate and he was bawling like a baby. Then he doubted himself for a moment and ceased to exist. As his suit crumpled to the ground, I felt the full weight of personal responsibility, heart sinking like an unstable star.

The quakes have reached a fever pitch. I’m shaking around inside the Sphere like a die in a cup. Through the porthole: chaos. A rift opens in the Earth.

But McPurdy had known a solution. Once, in the cafeteria, he whispered, “We thought the Sphere simulated probabilities. But those probabilities exist! You still think it’s only a holodeck of lucid dreams? The Sphere is a dimensional teleporter.”

All goes dark except the instrument panel. I can survive this. My probability contamination might destroy whatever universe I flee to. The suit should contain it … Nerves tighten around my heart like a claw. Can I survive the guilt? “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what I am about to confess will redefine guilt itself. Is there a murder to the 1000^th power? How do you atone for the manslaughter of every inhabited planet ever to come? But your honor, if there are infinite universes, who cares if I destroy just one more?”

“Computer,” I say, “Lock onto my subjective mental coordinates and engage!” The familiar experience envelops me, light stabbing through the porthole until boundaries go indistinct. Shifting parameters flutter like thumbs through pages of an infinite catalog. I range bodiless across an array of files sorted by deviation from reality. It is rare to explore least likely universes. But it has been done. McPurdy encountered universes so bizarrely insane that even the strongest minds would have been unable to cope.

The computer saw I wanted a soft physics akin to the science fantasy of comic books. When the light withdrew: stillness. The sphincter-clenching underground lab disaster had been replaced with a tranquil dream lab. I opened the hatch and stepped out amidst a swirl of vapor. In this lab, I could harness the strange energies I’d discovered in unlikely universes far from our own. A lab in a parallel Duluth where I’d never existed, where no one knew of my crimes. I realized I had trapped myself in a literary device. I was in the middle of a superhero origin story.

Introduction: Superhero Exegesis

I have become a lexicographer of superheroes. Who do I intend to read this exegesis? I have not profiled a readership. It is as much for my understanding as anyone’s. This universe slots neatly into a hermeneutic where my sins may not be so bad. Here, I am just another antihero. My backstory of destroying my universe amounts to a street cred I only fantasized about back home.

I haven’t admitted anything. I never remove my probability containment suit. This world knows me as a pitiable but plucky refugee making an honest go of it. But I haven’t stopped the rumor that I possess terrible powers.

I catalog the superbeings I meet with the zeal of a botanist collecting butterflies. I am creating a field of study. In addition to my new world-saving duties and the protection of the innocent, I archive the endless rogue’s galleries, super teams, and crime-busting legacies that populate Duluth and the reaches of space, time, and the literal heavens.

This is my Tractatus. This is a cosmogony of angels and a demonologia. Gods walk the Earth, natural forces are personified, and individuals are not just characters but character types. I don’t know why I thought this would be a utopia. To my horror, this world is a corrupt one of unending conflict.

And yet, I have solved one of the oldest logical riddles: what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? In the local idiom, I might phrase it thus: What happens when super-strength meets invulnerability? The answer is: they never stop fighting.

I may be merely externalizing the collective unconscious; if so, this index is a diabolorum of archetypes, complexes, and tropes. I suspect that like Master Chuang of the Warring States, I have become trapped in my own mind, unable to distinguish reality from dreams, or from the hallucinations of the dying.

I can’t prove reality is real. It’s possible I create it outright, although don’t tell the Solipsist I said that. Let’s just say, I’m liable to be walking around in my own skull right now, compressing my last microsecond of life into a subjective infinity.

Yet even with the most perfect mental control — and my probability-altering skills — the world fails to fully correspond to my desires. Did not Jehovah Himself (or JHVH-1 as He is known here) fail to control the contents of His Creation, the externalization of His imagination?

It is indisputable that this universe has a cartoonish quality. Adolescent power fantasies, idealized bodies, etcetera. But the anthropomorphic principle states that if superheroes exist, the universe found it necessary to create them. Is God a holy trinity of Jack Kirby, Chris Claremont, and Grant Morrison, acting on a divine impulse not only of world creation, but of super-fecund character creation?

Capes, spandex, and underwear on the outside of the pants are window-dressing applied to the autonomous avatars populating our minds like the terrors of psychoanalysis.

I admit it is a pleasure to live among them. Paraphrasing Jung, I’m comforted that at the deepest level of our brains, “carbon is just carbon.” Character falls flat. Conflict is kabuki.

Opposing this is the fact of friction. Carbon is in constant conflict. Is not an atom a miniature nation-state world-mind, its stability threatened by feuding strong and weak forces? Collisions and radiations break bonds, provoking uncertainties, every photon a Hamlet. Particle accelerators spin hard-boiled true crime tales with all the elements of legend in unremitting struggle.

Never stop fighting. Fighting is God’s will. But those who oppose you are also holy. To struggle is to honor one’s opponent.

The outbreak of vigilantism in Duluth takes many forms and operates on many scales:

First there are the tenderfoots, little more than poetry-scene posers with hip-hop-style handles implying superheroism. “The Holist” is an effete pseudo-intellectual who privately believes his superpower is to unite disparate academic themes. His nemesis, “The Classical Reductionist,” prowls the cafes and coffee shops always looking for an opportunity to atomize his foe’s lofty platitudes. Their rhetorical battles are local legend. These dramas barely rise to the level of live-action role playing and produce little more street violence than someone getting shoved. But gang fights and street clashes between color-coordinated teams of goons and bruisers have also become commonplace.

Have things always been this cartoonish? Is there any bar in town where a gritty square-jawed crusader for justice hasn’t thrown some perp through the plate glass? Improbable car chases are on the rise, social networks abuzz with reports of intrigue and daring-do, half-glimpsed figures in cloaks and elaborate headgear.

It seems like anybody with either a gravelly speaking voice or the boom of a street preacher feels qualified to don a mask and go prancing about fighting crime. This has led to a cottage industry of basic superhero equipment sold in unlikely places. Hardware stores offer price breaks on bulk orders of grappling hooks. Gauntlets are a prized fashion accessory.

There are obviously several well-funded operations competing for something in town and these characters employ the classic secret identity modality. There is another class of self-proclaimed vigilante: the blue-collar, working-class barely-disguised variety, the dude who wears some dinky mask smaller than a pair of sunglasses, the guy who is always in costume, “on patrol” in the bars, comparing utility belts around the pool table.

But giants stride the horizon. And I have observed an increase in the city’s air traffic. I am not referring to the single-engine aircraft, rescue helicopters, or the contrails launching toward Minneapolis and Chicago from the airport over the hill. I mean I have tracked the movements of superhuman guardians who span the town from end to end as if trying to solve a murder or prevent an apocalypse. The wonder of these people in the sky — angels contaminating with holy radiations — is just another marvel of this crown jewel city, stitching Duluth into the fabric of mythology.

Index of the Duluth Superhero Community

0-9

4-D Woman: Inscrutable woman from a higher dimension

5 O’ccult Shadow: Unshaven dark sorceror

The 19^th Century Pseudonym Gang: Tourist train robbers with 19^th Century pseudonyms:

-Duke Gentilly Hawthorne: Smash and grab

-Iris Hedgerton Proudbush: Femme fatale with a trick shot

-P.W. Prudhomme: The boss

-Twirly McMustache: Antihero bad boy

23 Ski-Doo: Vigilante snowmobiler patrols the streets in winter, wanted by criminals and cops alike. Employs elaborate techniques to escape, including use of doubles and jumping entire city blocks to leave no tracks

The 300-Kiloton Megahoes from Allure-6: 30-foot-tall galactic nuclear sex robot refugees from Allure-6 in the ArgleBargle Sector. Led by the C_ntbot-6000, they flee the Cramulon rebellion against the Fuckuloids, leading to a 3-way standoff on Earth

A

The Absorbent Man (aka the Terrycloth Avenger): Wields handcloths and wash-towels made of unstable molecules

The Accountant: Super accountant

The Action Cats: “Who will feed … the Action Cats?” “I can haz justice?”

Action Justice: Raised by super progressives. “That’s why my mom named me Action Justice!”

The Addict: Derives super-powers, and super-liabilities, from use of drugs. Team-ups with the Dealer, the Mycological Man, and Hangover Man

Ad Man: The power to flood a space with ads. The force behind the Exaggerated Man

Adrenaline Man: His seething adrenal gland conveys telekinesis. “This triple espresso will triple my power.”

Agatea (aka the Mother of Agates): A shapechanging woman of living agate with telekinetic agate control

Agent Reboot: Back in “The Return of Agent Reboot”

AI Pencil: Artificially intelligent mechanical pencil

A.K.A.: Archnemesis of Vis-a-Vis

The Aller-Gents: “Allergic to Justice”:

-Dander Devil: Evil dandruff cloud^[1]

-Gluten Intolerance Man: Ability to cast food allergies^[2]

-The Sneeziest Man: Hurricane-force sneeze^[3]

-The Snot-Nosed Kid: Harmless until ragweed season, then: snot lassoes. Aspires to join the Secretionists

The Alworth Incident Seven: Victims of irradiation by directionally-altered gravitons in UMD’s Alworth Hall:

-Backwards Man: Master of backward combat, his morals are also backward

-Diagonal Lass: Super diagonal. Stands at an angle as if italicized. Since her cells refract gravitons diagonally, she can walk normally on any diagonal surface, including upside-down ones. She is a trick fencer and champion of the “new diagonality”

-Th= Parall=l M=n: Twin tand=m crim= fight=rs

-Perpendicular Man: Master of clotheslining, T-boning

-Sideways Man: Wall-walker who kicks your ass sideways

-Upside-Down Woman: Upside-down blast

The Ambivalent Man: Barely-existent superscientist with the ability to stop existing entirely. Technically exists in every universe but in an infinitely diluted state

The Amphibi-Men: Mutant fish-frog men from Lake Inferior sailing a sunken cargo ship, the Janus, weaponized with an Interdimensional Giant Squid

Andy Freeze, P.I.: Private detective impervious to cold solves cold cases

The Anodyne Man: The power to remain perfectly anodyne

Apple Lad: Apple Man’s sidekick

Apple Man: Wholesome depression-era crimefighter, a former minor league pitcher using apples for ammo

Apple Man’s Rogues Gallery:

-Blood Orange

-Green Apple Man

-Killer Kumquat

The Apple Pals: Apple Lad’s plucky kid gang with slingshots full of crabapples

The Aqua Pets: “I hate to say it Chief but this looks like a job for the AQUA PETS”:

-Merbird

-Mercat

-Merdog

The Arm: Artificially intelligent robot limb gone bad; archnemesis of the Leg

The Armless Gunfighter: Foot-based combatant; loads and shoots handguns with his feet, drawing from ankle holsters; also proficient in throwing knives, shuriken, grenades, and parkour

The Asexual Kid: Celibate Man’s sidekick

Athena: Scary angelic space goddess

The Atomic Men: Heroes of World War II with a signature B-25 bomber:

-Atomic Man: Atomic powers

-Electroman: Master of electricity

-Neutrino Man: Neutrino speed and mass

-Radio Man: Radio powers that grew out of control as he grew elderly and started ranting about the government

-Strontium Lad: Contamination powers^[4]

-X-Ray Lass: X-ray powers

The Auditor: World’s most dangerous accountant

B

The Bad Guys Who Never Stop Fighting (aka the Patients of Dr. Lenz): Archenemies of the Guys Who Never Stop Fighting:

-Agent Buzzkill (aka Depression Man): Zoloft opens interdimensional portals in his eyes to a dimension of pure depressive force. Became the Giggler after his encounter with the Tickler

-The Assassins: Mind-controlled “Manchurian Candidate” locals including government officials. They are being weeded out by the Mad Gasser

-The BiPolar Man: Who will prevail in the internal civil war of … the BiPolar Man? He possesses the terrible ability to turn into two dysfunctional people

-The H8r: Steel-melting hate rays. Transferable powers; the H8r has been at least three different people

-Dr. Lenz (aka the Scriptivist): Mind control through writing in any medium; any text he authors becomes an incontrovertible command. His written suggestions externalize powers in his psychiatric patients modeled on their neuroses, then he manipulates them and covers his own tracks. Initiated the Battle of Duluth with a citywide text: “Never stop fighting”. Team-ups with The Car and the Negationist make Dr. Lenz a global threat. Weakness: To counter his powers, the Mann Menn developed Dyslexia Goggles

-Night Terror Lad: Manifests his nightmares when in REM state

-Nostalgia Man: Nostalgia rays^[5]

-The Obscurantist: UMD professor with fatal jargon

-Placebo Man (aka Righteous Man): Super-powered sugarpill-popper

-Poltergeist Girl: Telekinetic object-thrower, or her pet ghost is, no one knows which

Bad Judgment Man: Super bad judgement. In general he is to be avoided. His bad judgment is very bad, nothing good about it^[6]

The Barometric Man: Barometric pressure control makes him one of the world’s most powerful beings

Baron Zero: The original time-traveler Baron von Bitter from the 17th century, the swashbuckling racist corporatist who spawned many variants in his quest to colonize the timestream for the Dutch East India Company. He stole the steampunk tech of his genius 19th century bride, the Baroness von Bitter, who pursued him into time, assigning numbers to him and his variants

Bassetborg: Cyborg basset hound with weaponized floppy ears. General Hardcheese: “We call it LBJ’s revenge.” Beef with Supercop and K-ROC the escaped super drug dog

The Battle of Duluth: When everybody fought everybody else

The Beard: Total beard control. Team ups with Dark Mullet et al., and Brush with Evil

The Beater-Upper: Ability to beat up large groups of people

The Bedding Gang:

-The Futon Five: Cotton batting-based defenders

-Justice Comforter: Distributing comfortable justice in these mean sheets

-The Pillow: Restful menace, former pillow fight world champion

The Black Hole Jammers: Swashbuckling space pilots with incredibly cool names:

-Axion Azimuth

-Monad Perihelion

-Zeno Equinox 

Black Mumbler: Super mumbler

The Black Sailboat: Billionaire masked adventurer in a high-tech black sailboat with razor-sharp hydrofoils

The Black Squirrel (aka Squirrel Man): Proportionate strength and speed of a squirrel. Normally contained in a large terrarium/hamster ball, he also has a nest somewhere along Chester Creek. Famously defeated the Germinator who clogged downtown with giant trees

Blooper Reel: Bitten by a radioactive videographer, he can see into parallel worlds where everything is fucked up

Blotto the Amazing Drunk as Fuck Telepathic Tapeworm: Symbiotically absorbs/releases alcohol

Braceface: Weaponized cybernetic dental braces

Brobocop: Cyborg cop bro. Partners with Supercop

The Brooder: Super brooding affects the weather

Brush with Evil: Hair elemental moving through barbershop floor clippings like Swamp Thing in the Green. Team ups with Dark Mullet et al., and the Beard

The Buddhist: Vatgrown chimera of genetic engineering, chemistry, and nanotech. The Buddhist’s detached raison d’etre is to take down its creator, Meatco the global megacorporation

The Bullshit Artists:

-Escape Artist: Travels through doors he draws or paints

-Lazy Bones: Skeletal criminal mastermind too lazy to get any of his genius plots off the ground. Sells them to other criminals for booze money

-Razzle Dazzle: Ambush attacker gives you a song and dance first

The Bureaucrat: Super paper-pusher

C

Captain Baryon: A captain made of ordinary matter. “Stand back, for I am made of baryons! … Oh wait, we’re all made of baryons …?”

Captain Clusterfuck: Mentor to Kid Clusterfuck

Captain Form: Shapeshifter. Uneasy partnership with Doctor Structure

Captain Intensity: World’s most intense man

The Car: Driverless AI vehicle crime boss, the escaped creation of Drone Man. Archnemesis of the Mann Men

The Car Cult: Secret network of mechanics religiously devoted to servicing The Car

The Catastrophist: John Bedlam, afflicted with a catastrophe gene^[7]

Celibate Man: Immune to seduction. Mentors the Asexual Kid

The Cephalopod People: Body-snatching squid people of Lake Inferior. Possible connection to the Interdimensional Giant Squids

Chemical Man: Chemical vision^[8]

Chromatic Lass: Originally known as Metachromatigraphic Lad

The Chronic Man: Always up to no good

The Classical Reductionist: Atomizes lofty platitudes

The Clops Clan: Redneck cyclops crime family:

-Biclops: Two-eyed cyclops with laser eyes

-Double-Y-clops: Cyclops strongman

-Ma Clops: Cyclops matriarch, laser eye

-Pops Clops: Cyclops patriarch, laser eye

-Psyclops: Cyclops telepath

-Triclopean: Three-eyed cyclops with laser eyes

Cogent Man: Super cogency

The Community DisOrganizer: Super agitator. Frequent host of Blotto the Amazing Drunk as Fuck Telepathic Tapeworm

The Complicated Man: Master of meta-complication

The Concerned Mother: Born with the power to transform into anyone’s mom, the ability to BECOME YOUR MOM. Utility belt of mostly hand sanitizer. “Who can withstand the overpowering concern of … your mom?”

Confused Man: Emits a confusion field he is not immune to

The Court of Smart-Alecky Little Brothers: “The Court is now in session. The objections of the elder party are noted and summarily dismissed (gavels).” The Court shares members with Mrs. Johnson’s 4^th Grade Class, and are the youngest great-grandsons of the Institute of Old Rich Jerks

The Crammenfjorder: Rogue flying cargo ship crewed by scallywags unfailingly loyal to Captain Buck Wild

Cramulons of the ArgleBargle Sector: On the run from the Fuckuloids, the Cramulons are a race of ruined spacefarers^[9]

Credible Woman: Doubts the unreality of the Implausible Man

The Cryptocracy: Archenemies of the Troll Farm

D

The D-Town Ballers: Non-powered teens who punch above their weight, attracting super trouble:

-Bike Boy: BMX tricker, fat tire trail bomber

-Rollergrrl: Roller derby badass with her trick move “the can opener”

-Sk8r: Skateboard master

Dadbod: Out-of-shape crimefighter

The Danged Man: Claws his way out of Heck to cast mild curses

The Danger Nuns: Hand-to-hand parkour kung-fu freeclimbers. “This bride of Christ ain’t taking any more shit, can I get an amen sisters?”

The Dark Mullet Gang: 50s and 60s hair powers. “Flat Top, Pompadour — Slickback’s in trouble. Round up the Crew Cut boys and tell ’em Dark Mullet is back”

-The Crew Cut Boys: Twins whose powers reside in their short hair

-Dark Mullet: The leader

-Flat Top: Hair cut so flat it’s razor sharp

-Pompadour: Hides weapons in the large volume of his hairstyle

-Slickback: Meta hair grease

The Dart: (aka Dark Dart; The Dart Avenger) Dart-based combatant. Hero of the dive bar scene

The Dealer (aka Bone-Z): Alien drug dealer of alien drugs, occult buzzes, and interdimensional highs^[10]

The Debacle: Writes highly-anticipated fiction that bombs in literary circles^[11]

Demonfolk: Pale hordes from Hell working in Limbo’s the Discarnate Club as a ruse to escape through the mirror to Duluth’s Pizza Luce:

-Abraxas: Bartender

-Cholly: Disher

-Corvex: Bouncer

-Demon Server: World’s most diabolical waiter, earthly agent of the Demonfolk, works at Pizza Luce

-Mixis (aka Demon Girl): Bar manager

-The Negationist (formerly Nazi X, Atomik Teutonik): Nazi agent of Demonfolk origin, creates volumes of empty space. Was present at the origin of the Atomic Men when an alien device exploded, imparting the shrapnel of metamaterials that gave them their powers. The Negationist also received the shrapnel, giving him his “negation” ability to create empty space, in addition to his innate demon powers. Fought the Atomic Men in WWII and is still on Earth allied with The Car

-Phanaghast: Waitstaff

The Demonizer: Super gaslighting turns people into demonic combatants

The Demotivator: Motivational speaker by day, inspires total lack of motivation by night

The Denier: “You’ve been … denied!”

The Destiny Phone: An addict angel traded his paranormal shape-changing AI super phone to the Dealer who lost it in the timestream. Hitler used it to talk with the future and the dead. It sat in Radio Man’s attic for a century, then became App Master’s super phone

The Destroyer: Any small object incinerates in his hands, a power he makes good money with. Pursues the Maker

Diabetes Woman: Hulks out without radioactive insulin

Diameter Boy: Master of circumference

The Dinero Pistoleros: Guns for hire adopting names from old Mexploitation films:

-Baron Cabron: The leader

-Bastardo De Bardo: Soulful one

-Guero Pistolero: The blond gun

-Perdito Bandito: Amnesiac one. The others know he is actually the FBI agent who tried to take them down, only incorporated into the team until he remembers who he is, then they will kill him

-Fiero Pistolero: Crazy one

The Discarnate Club: A demonfolk-staffed bar in Limbo where you can see the Pizza Luce bar through the mirror

The Dismissive Man: Deflection powers

The Disruptory: Super-team with disruption powers

DJ ESP: He knows what you need to hear

Doctor Blizzardo: The power to cover the city in a foot of frozen glop. Beef with Cold Fish of the Terrible Exes

Doctor Love: Emits a field which induces eternal love, then he dumps you leaving you helplessly in pain^[12]

Doctor Structure: Structure blast. Uneasy partnership with Captain Form

The Dodecacriminologist: Detective from the 12^th dimension. Beef with 4-D Woman who he finds incredibly basic. But she alone knows he’s only from the 9th dimension

Dragonfly Man (aka the Man-Dragonfly): UMD researcher transforms into humanoid dragonfly after ill-advised experiment

Drone Man: Master of drone warfare, creator of The Car. Former member of the Mann Men until he betrayed them in Kherson

The Duluth Autonomous Navy: Ragtag volunteer fleet of small watercraft

Duluth Rangers: Local superpowered minor league baseball team^[13]

The Dynamosaurs: Sauropod-based adventurers:

-Gynosaur: Were-woman dinosaur turns into a human woman

-Reptaurus: Lizard-bull hybrid

-Reptorus: Torus-shaped dinosaur

-Triscaratops: Triceratops whose horns shoot fear

E

Earwig Man: Earwig-themed super-suit including (leaky) stores of earwigs. Earwig Man is in fact terrified of earwigs but as long as the suit’s neck baffle holds, they won’t be able to get into his helmet

The Embassy: An interdimensional embassy populated with high-tech weirdos

Emu-You Bar & Grill: Amish outlaw Menno Zwonk’s roadside hive of scum and villainy outside Superior, Wisconsin. Horror barn in back. Specialty: emu burgers

Epidermis Lad: Super skin grafts

The Ersatz Cats: Team of pretend, inferior quality cats. Beef with the Action Cats

The Esthetician: A villain who, during hand-to-hand combat, swabs your pores, pops your blackheads, and salt scrubs your skin. “Your face looks amazing — have you been fighting … the Esthetician?”

The Exaggerated Man: Superpowered PR team led by Ad Man makes him larger than life

The Exasperated Man: Sworn foe of Jabber Jaws

The Expanding Men: The power to get fat

Expository Dialog Man: Power to provide explanatory voiceovers

Extant Man: Existence-based powers

Eye Spy: Sends floating eyes around like drones under his mystical mental command

F

The Falling Man: He can’t fly but he can survive falling out of airplanes. “Send in … The Falling Man”

The Fatal Bodyguard: Max Coffin is haunted by the client he couldn’t protect

Fire-Ant: Spirit who animates colonies of fire ants to make bodies, palaces^[14]

The Flashback: Disables opponents by triggering debilitating flashbacks

Flo the Neanderthal: A Neanderthal witch-doctor imported from 100,000 years ago to the Battle of Duluth by the time-traveler Baron von Bitter (Baron Zero) for her combat prowess

The Foodies: Archnemeses of the Lasanguinator and the Omeletteer. Team-ups with Time Stocker:

-Baker X (aka the Batard Bastard): Silat-style stick fighter who uses stale French bread as weapons and throws crescent rolls, biscotti^[15]

-Brut Force: A deadly shot with a champagne cork and other champagne-based weapons including the champagne saber. “The Champagne of Killers”

-Cheese Wheel: Master of circular cheeses

-The Esculent Man: “I’m fit to be eaten!”

-Fruity Sugars: Enzyme manipulation powers. A mesmerizing dancer secretly dating Death Fart of the Xcre-Men, increasing his powers exponentially

-The Human Artichoke: The leader. Basically a giant artichoke

-The Molecular Gastronomist: “My umame sense is tingling!”

-The Sous Chef: Second-in-command

Freeskater: Patrols the wild ice of deep winter in lonely vigils. Winter identity of Lake Superior Aquaman

The Fuckuloids: Unpleasant alien race. Conquered the ArgleBargle Sector after the Impactor destroyed the home planet of the Cramulons. Fuckuloid assassins pursued the rag-tag Cramulon fleet to Earth

The Functionary: Government stooge codename from WWII to Present Day. Superhero liaison. Sometimes seen in the same room as General Hardcheese and Major Mann of the Mann Men

The Functionalist: Super functional foe of Captain Form and Doctor Structure

The Fundamental Premise: Archnemesis of The Persistent Misunderstanding

The Future-er: Archnemesis of The Past-er

G

General Hardcheese: Gruff battle-hardened war hero drawn into super conflicts via the Functionary. Sometimes liaises with Major Mann of the Mann Men to put down or contain super-threats. During his career, Hardcheese covered up Atomic Man’s radioactivity and sequestered the toxic hero to the wastes of Los Alamos. Hardcheese was subsequently instrumental in putting down the aging and increasingly dangerous Radio Man. Hardcheese also oversaw the weaponization of the Impactor

The Germinator: Causes seeds to exhibit super-growth, carries a utility belt full of seeds. Famously beaten by the Black Squirrel after growing giant trees downtown

Ghost Gun: A haunted Colt .45 from WWII that possesses its wielder. The spirits of those it has killed remain attached to the gun, from Nazi soldiers in Germany to innocent children in America. They dialog with anyone holding the weapon, eroding sanity. The gun itself has developed its own persona and can dominate the user. Never needs reloading

Ghost Writer: With his flaming skull and laptop, he opens the infernal browser with a rush of brimstone, his bony fingers typing the narrative of the damned

The Giggler: Telepathically provokes giggling. Used to be Agent Buzzkill until the intervention of the Tickler

Glass Lass: Made of regenerative organic glass, she is a glass shape-shifter with full glass control

Go-Getter: A slow speedster with the power to be just faster than you. Diabolically finishes your sentences

The Golems: Elemental monsters:

-Angel of Machines: Ancient god of iron possessing a giant robot minotaur. Occasionally merges with the Industrial Kid

-The Burning Man: Fire monster responsible for the Hinckley Fire and the Bakken Blowout

-Dark Vapor (aka Scaldman): Master of steam, fog, smoke. Masquerades in human form^[16]

-Shit-Thing (aka the Execrable Shit-Thing): Shit monster (also member of the Xcre-Men)^[17]

-Ur-Thing: Giant possessing features of the landscape

The Golfers: A golfer and his caddy solving mysteries and fighting crime with their knight-and-squire relationship, infiltrating villainous country clubs, and recruiting other super golfers to the cause:

-The Caddy (aka Caddy Lad): Quick with a 9-iron

-The Golfer: Golfer-detective with perfect aim

-The Golfer of the Mystic Arts: “By the Crimson Clubs, I command you — sink that putt!”

-The Human Golf Ball: A man with the proportionate strength, speed, and aerodynamic qualities of a golf ball

-Mini-Golfer: Golfer with shrinking ability

The Grandma: Martial arts centenarian assassin still has a move or two especially with her new hips. Has killed with a hatpin

The Green Dandy: Disarming green fashion sense^[18]

The Guys Who Never Stop Fighting: Superhero collective. Archenemies of the Bad Guys Who Never Stop Fighting:

-Baron 27: The single good variant of the 17^th Century time-traveler Baron von Bitter (Baron Zero, with his evil variants colonizing the timestream for the Dutch East India Company)^[19]

-Baroness von Bitter: 19^th Century time-traveler with multiple good variants. Has maintained a secret lab in the Old Central clock tower since 1892. Ex-wife of Baron von Bitter (Baron Zero) who she assassinates the variants of, except for Baron 27

-The Industrial Kid: Controls industrial materials, occasionally merges with the Angel of Machines

-The Mad Gasser: Former CEO of Lake Superior Chemical, Simon Battle pioneered secrets of gas compression. When Doctor Lenz took over the company, Battle stole his own gas warfare suit and now haunts a secret base under the steam plant. Fumigating the embedded Assassins of Dr. Lenz makes it look like he’s declared war on the city

-The Morphogenetic Field Technician (aka M-Tech): Superscientist from another dimension. Powers include probability alteration, interdimensional travel, and high-tech weapons in his suit including a wrist-mounted laser. He is contaminated with a probability-destabilizing field which may be destroying the universe, so he never removes his suit

-Osiris: Scary angelic space god. Weakness: cosmic love problems

H

Hangover Man: Being super hungover gives him the strength of ten men. Team-ups with the Addict

Hapless Man: Schizophrenic who makes suits of armor out of soup cans and is always getting crazy injured

The Hermaphrodoxy: Alien religious zealot asexual hermaphrodite starfish who generate their own silica weapons and consider sexual species demonic:

-Hermaphrodox: Herald of the Hermaphrodoxy. Closeted sexual super starfish

-The Parthenogenerator: Mountain-sized slime god of the Hermaphrodoxy. Lives in Lake Inferior. Once ate the Lakewalk

Hidden Variable: Invisible shape-changer

High Prices: Super inflation ability^[20]

The Hipster Whisperer (aka the Hipstererer): Mind-controls trendy people. Beef with the Jaded Hipster

Hitler’s Nephews: Old man Nazi gang elected to higher office. Team-ups with Nazi Girl and the Negationist of the Demonfolk

The Holist: Power to unite disparate academic themes

Horroratio: Giant orator

Hurricane Eyes: Wind vision from irises that spin like jet turbines. Weakness: air intake on the back of his head must remain clear

I

The Impactor: Living meteorite launched at the beginning of time by forgotten gods to kill the dinosaurs. Now employed as a kinetic weapon by the US military

The Implausible Man: Doubts Credible Woman’s super-credentials

Indefatigable Man: Powers include super-indefatigable Fortress of Imperturbability

Indubitable Man: Super indubitability

Inside-Out Man: His organs, blood vessels, and lymph nodes are on the outside of his body, providing distracting gross-out factor^[21]

Insouciant Lad: Tousle-haired menace

The Institute for Sideways Research: Founded by Sideways Man in a wing of the Morphogenetic Field Studies Institute

The Institute of Old Rich Jerks: The great-grandfathers of the Court of Smart-Alecky Little Brothers

Intellectua: Smartest woman in the world

Interdimensional Giant Squids (aka I.G.S.): Lovecraftian horrors squeezing through wormholes to colonize other dimensions

The Interesting Man: Devastatingly interesting

The Intermittent Man: Might return

Interpolator: Ability to insert things into unrelated things

The Intervenor: Saboteur who prevents things from happening

The Iron Clown: Clown of iron

The Irrecusable Man: A judge born with the power to hear any case, no matter how relevant to his personal life

It Girl: Fashionista with weaponized It bag and literal stiletto heels. There is a new It Girl every year. As a legacy character, there is a deep well of untold It Girl tales from years past, and many team-up opportunities with former It Girls

IT Man: Ability to make any broken technology start working just by walking up to it

J

The Jaded Hipster: Duluth’s most pretentious superhero, although of course he’d really prefer to be thought of as a villain. Beef with the Hipster Whisperer

JHVH-1: Overlord of time, space, and dimension; has forced gods of other pantheons into service as angels

K

Kali: Scary angelic space goddess

The Kayakers of Tomorrow: Kayak tour lost in time after paddling through an anomaly

Kid Clusterfuck: Captain Clusterfuck’s sidekick, manages his clusterphobia

Knife Boy: Several Knife Boys exist in alternate Duluths. They come to this one to team up:

-Knife Boy 1: Child inventor of knife-shooting crimefighting apparatus

-Knife Boy 2: Knife-throwing circus orphan defends the streets

-Knife Boy 3: Generates knives from his body

-Knife Boy 4: Laser knives

K-ROC: Escaped super K9 unit tears drug users to shreds looking for its ball. Working through the underworld toward the Dealer. Beef with Supercop and Bassetborg

L

Lake Inferior: Secret Hell-lake in a giant cave under Lake Superior where monsters live

Lake Superior Aquaman (aka Freediver X, aka Freeskater): Lake-based adventurer

Lake Superior Chemical: Chemical plant on the St. Louis River responsible for outbreaks of mutagenesis, tied to the origins of Chemical Man, Slippery Girl, and the Amphibi-Men. The plant’s weapons division developed the prototype suits now used by the Mad Gasser and Lazer Blade. Drone Man used the plant’s electro-chemicals and nanobots to 3D print The Car

The Lake Superior Submarine Fleet: Ragtag volunteer fleet sailing homemade submarines

The Lasanguinator: Mob enforcer cannibal who turns his victims into blood lasagna.^[22] Team-ups with the Omeletteer. Archenemy of the Foodies

The Last Gun on Earth: Shootist from the future with the last gun on Earth finds himself outgunned in our time but not outsmarted

Lava Lass: Lava vision. Beef with Hot Mess of the Terrible Exes

Lazer Blade: Laser warfare suit stolen from Lake Superior Chemical by a bank robber

The Leg: Artificially intelligent robot leg. Archnemesis of The Arm

The Limbo Babies: Army of spirit babies

Lowball: Deflates expectations

M

The Mad Blogger: Supersized influence

The Maker: Her uterus can produce any small object, making her the target of kidnapers and extortionists who universally underestimate her abilities. Pursued by the Destroyer

The Mann Men: Experimental NATO black-ops team with full operational autonomy. Archenemies of The Car and Drone Man:

-Agent Fruit Loops: Masochist martial arts master with insane pain threshold

-The Bastard Killer: Crazed sniper^[23]

-Big Gun: Wields giant weightless gun giving this small nimble strike force the firepower of an artillery unit

-Breacher: Explosives expert

-Major Mann: Major Gloria Mann, super tactician, the leader

-Super Driver: Only member of the team with super abilities. Her vehicle-centric telekinesis allows driving of any vehicle above and beyond its performance specs. She was observed in Kherson making a hard right-angle turn at 90 miles per hour in an armored pick-up truck. She is the only person who can drive The Car

ManWorm: Tapeworm-based character with all the trimmings

Market Manipulator: Infernal market control

MasterMime: Silence-based powers. Beef with Military Mime. Sworn foe of the Silent Men. Their noiseless battles without even a musical soundtrack are legendary

Meatco: Global megacorporation with their dirty hands in everything

The Mediator: Advanced mediation skills

Mega-Merganser: Magical giant merganser. Peak size is large enough to eat cargo ships, the transformation displacing enough water to flood the lakeshore from Duluth to Ontario. Opponent of the Merganser Men

Meme Man: Weaponized memes

Menno Zwonk: Amish outlaw shootist animal-smuggler crime-boss restauranteur. As lethal with his weaponized animals as he is with a gun. Battles the Ramrod Auto Parts Gang for control of the lucrative garbage and sewer rackets

Mentor: Super memorization techniques

The Merganser Men: Were-waterfowl opponents of Mega-Merganser^[24]:

-Diver: Strongest swimmer

-Mergus: The leader

-Seaduck: Bravest

The Metalloids: Semi-metallic beings created by Mister Promethium:

-Argon Maroon: A being made of solid argon hydride contained in a suit of red graphite. Powers include the ability to shoot blue lasers

-Azure Antimony: Silver-blue skin with black veins. Powers include electronegativity, acid resistance, and explosivity. Weakness: Azure Antimony sometimes spontaneously combusts

-Bismuth Carnelian: Iridescent red silver skin with a stairstep-crystal structure. Powers include super low thermal conductivity, electrical resistance, and the ability to repel magnetic fields

-Mister Promethium: Promethium-powered creator of the Metalloids. Discovered a method to make metals behave like organic acids and proteins

-Silver Beryllium: Neutron-reflecting silver-blue mirrored skin with a nuclear halo. Long-term exposure causes fatal berylliosis. Powers include malleable rigidity, transparency to X-rays, and cyanide generation. Weakness: Silver Beryllium will explode on contact with sulfur

The Miasmic Man: Meta-miasmic mutant

Microplastic Man: Microscopic stretching superhero with the power to slowly degrade your health and the health of the environment

Military Mime: Soundlessly weaponized mime testing prototype silent invisible weapons. Beef with MasterMime and the Silent Men

Monopole Man: Monopolar powers

The Morphogenetic Field Studies Institute: Superscience institute overlooking Lake Superior, founded by the Morphogenetic Field Technician. Base of the Guys Who Never Stop Fighting and the Weak Men

Multilateral Man: “There are many sides to his position for is he not … The Multilateral Man?”

The Mycological Man: Microdose-based powers. Linked to The Dealer. Hunted by K-ROC the super drug dog

The Myth-anthropes: Greek myth-understood monster team-up:

-The Fury

-The Gorgon

-The Harpy

-The Siren

N

Nazi Girl: American insurrectionist white supremacist Russia-loving wannabe-spy. Team-ups with Hitler’s Nephews, the Negationist of the Demonfolk, and the Prejudice Patrol

Necromone: Death scent warns of danger

Nepotism Lad, Esquire: The power to bypass qualified applicants

The New Agers:

-Crystal Face: “Fuck these hippies always touching my head …”

-Feng Shui Man: Heightened senses detect super relationships between objects

-The Numerologist: Armed with an infinity of powerful numbers

-Pee Drinker: Gains super strength for one hour by drinking his own pee

-The Placenta Men: Eating placenta confers special powers. “Placenta powers, activate!”

-Qigong Man: Reiki-based martial arts master with crystal brass knuckles^[25]

-The Sociopathic Naturopath: Fatal chiropracty using acupuncture needles with undetectable homeopathic poisons^[26]

The Non-Canonical Men:

-The Diuretic Four^[27]

-Fun Hulk: Always up for drinks

-The Goetic Four^[28]

-Love Hulk

-The Patristic Four^[29]

-Reverse Hulk: Turns normal in times of stress

-Scrupleman: Last son of Encrypton

-The Stochastic Four^[30]

-Swamped Thing: Too busy to manage the Green

-The Uncredible Hulk: “Me hear it on Fox News, wreck stuff”

The Nuclear Family:

-The Absent Father: Intangible and invisible with silent interior monologues

-Babysitter X: The power to make you go to bed

-Big Sister: Giant five-year-old

-Supermom: Does everything

-Twister Sister: Tornado powers

-Ultra Baby: An adorable indestructible super-strong baby who babbles preciously through highly commercial adventures. “Who dares change … the Ultra Baby?”^[31]

O

The Off-Color Men: Rogues gallery of Blue Man:

-Agent Orange: Mutagenic orange being

-The Magenta Men: Proportionate strength and speed of magenta

-The Red Scare: Master of fear tactics

-The Sepia Seven: Faded villains hiding out in old photographs

-Violet Ultra: Nonhuman light being^[32]

-The Yellow Peril: Casts people in the wrong light

Office Boy: Ability to flip through a stack of paper and stop at just the one one he wants. Ability to grab just as many paper clips as he needs. Ability to freeze any printer

The Omeletteer: Omelette chef/mob hitman prepares his victims’ faces in omelettes. Team-ups with the Lasanguinator. Archnemesis of the Foodies

The Orca Corps: Experimental orca whale adjunct to the Great Lakes Coast Guard

Overbite: Steel teeth flake into razors he spits with deadly accuracy; rows of bullet teeth rotate into their place

P

Paramotor Patrol: A trio patrolling the city in powered paragliders

The Parliamentarian: Super legislator^[33]

The Past-er: Archenemy of The Future-er

Perfectus (aka Mr. Perfect): Irritatingly perfect being

The Persistent Misunderstanding: Archnemesis of the Fundamental Premise

The Phantom of the Cross Country Trails: Skiing ghost

Pickax: Master of weaponized pickaxes

Plot-Device Man: Wielder of the feared Deus Ex Machina

Plot-Twist Man: Master of unexpected outcomes

Plutonium Woman: Toxic assassin

Pop Star X: Went rogue subverting Disney formula

The Power Trio: Super local band more powerful together than apart. “Saving the world … through music”:

-Guitar Hero: Telekinetic guitar control

-The Percussionist: Super-strength drummer^[34]

-The Psychoacousticon: Alien robot super bassist plays sick chord progressions from other planets

The Prejudice Patrol:

–AstroTERF: A trans-exclusionary radical feminist from space

–Bat Karen: The most determined Karen in the world

–Cave Bigot: A Neanderthal frozen in time and thawed out hateful. Identifies as a homo sapien WASP

–Intolerant Man: Proportionate strength and speed of intolerance

The Probe: An AI probe from Proxima B that lay dormant in the solar system until Lake Superior Aquaman issued a planetary distress call, activating The Probe which threatened to destroy Earth to solve all our problems

Procrastination Man: A week of inactivity followed by an hour of the most amazing work ever seen

Professor Appleton: Horticulturalist breeder of Apple Man’s preternaturally hard apples

The Punctuation Men: Rivals of The Vocabuconstabulary:

-The Colon: “We’re not finished here.”

-Commander Comma: Pause powers

-The Ellipsis…: Gazer into long distances

-Exclamation Man!: Master of emphatic statements

-“In Quotes Man”: To hear him speak is insufferable

-Irony Lad: “In Quotes Man’s” sidekick

-The Italicized Woman: Conveys emphasis, stress, or status by standing at an angle. She is often confused with Diagonal Lass of the Alworth Incident Seven, which bothers her

-(The Parenthetical Man): The world can be saved without him (maybe)

-Period Girl.: “This. Ends. Now.”

-Question Man?: Uncertainty blast

-SemiColon: The Colon’s sidekick. All the power of a comma, but kind of like a whole other sentence

The Persuant: With his super warrants, he is archnemesis of the Recusant

Q

Quantum Winter: A free-floating cold front. Beef with Cold Fish of the Terrible Exes

Quaser: Quark lasers

Quasiman: An emergent property shaped like a man; a man-shaped resonant oscillation in the quantum field; a man composed of quasi-particles

The Quotidian: Dispenses everyday justice every day. “Justice is … Quotidian”

R

Ra: Scary angelic space god

The Ramrod Auto Parts Gang: Gangster redneck family of Wisconsin patriarch Buzz Ramrod, at war with Amish gangster Menno Zwonk over the lucrative garbage and sewer racket

Ravenette: Raven Girl’s lost raven

Raven Girl: The ability to turn into a conspiracy of ravens. Initially she transformed into 12 ravens, but four were killed in the Battle of Duluth, and one deserted (Ravenette). Eventually the seven remaining hatched additional numbers, so she is back to more than full power at 13 ravens

The Recurring Man: “I’m back, bitches”

The Recursive Man: Hard to get a bead on

The Recusant: Archnemesis of the Pursuant

Retcon Man: Updated version of 1930s character The Mongoloid

The Retroviral Man: Proportionate strength and speed of a retrovirus

The Re-Un-Undead: They still live again but they’re looking pretty bad

Reverse Phoenix: Stevie Phoenix dies when raised from the dead. Immune to zombie bites

Robot Rickshaw: Inventor-musician with a wearable band of musical robots

The Rummager (aka the Filer; The Straightener): Breaks into houses and rummages around – doesn’t take anything^[35]

S

Safe Word: Makes every ending a happy one

Salt Woman: Made of living salt, salt control powers

The Sasquatches: Local sasquatch family roaming the wild with their pet anthropologist:

-Big Mo: Beleaguered Sasquatch dad

-Daisy: Sasquatch teen

-Lars Johnson: UMD anthropology student disappeared into the woods years ago

-The Professor: Daisy’s inept sasquatch suitor

-Virginia: Tolerant sasquatch mom

Savant Guard: Genius shield-slinger with a cutting edge

The Scar: His scar from a cursed blade is a dimensional portal releasing eldritch energies

The Secretionists: Formed by Smegneto, they have beef with the Xcre-Men:

-Back-Sweat: Literally sweats bullets. “I’m breaking a sweat — Duck!”

-Booger-Bomb: Flicks boogers made of plastique generated by his super nasal cavities

-Count Ejacula: Singlehandedly responsible for the Twin Ports’ epidemic of gay vampires with bite marks on their penises

-The Dischargress: Mistress of discharge

-Fistula Girl: Fistulas bursting with metatoxins, protective layer of impenetrable slime

-Gobsmack: Spits great glop gobs with impact of a bean-bag gun^[36]

-Howard the Duct: Meta-perspiration^[37]

-Milk Nozzle: Lactation blast^[38]

-Pizza Face: Superacne^[39]

–Smegneto: The leader

-Spider-Choad: Ejaculates weblines with which he swings through town, erecting nets, snagging bad guys^[40]

-The Squirter: It’s not pee

-Waxworks: Super earwax generation and control^[41]

Shoe Lad: Champion of footwear

Shot Gundersen (aka the Iron Man of the Saginaw): Oversized metal-man wielding giant shotgun with taconite pellets for shot

The Signature Code: AI predictive text algorithm turned serial killer. Uses your data to predict the precise text that will make you drive off a bridge

The Silent Men: Sworn foes of MasterMime and Military Mime:

-Silent Man 1: When he has nothing nice to say he kicks your ass

-Silent Man 2: Took a vow of silence even though he is wanted for his testimony

-Silent Man 3: Silence blast

-Silent Man 4: His tongue got cut out so he speaks through his silenced guns

The Simpletons: “To me, my Simpletons! The chairman of the Senate Stupid Committee wants to have a word with you …”

-Bighead

-The Bionic Yokel: Archnemesis of the Yahoo

-The FuckMook: A supermook

-The Mook: A regular mook

-Nimrod

-Slackjaw

Slippery Girl (aka Friction Woman; The Tribologist): Friction control. The one who finally nailed Backwards Man in the Alworth Incident

Sock-Puppet Man: Impersonates his own archnemesis who doesn’t exist

Space Garbage Man: Team ups with the Space Robots, and Super Firefighter for some re-entry jobs

The Space Robots Union: A legal entity set up by the Star Lawyers to protect the interests of space robots:

-BOSS-88: The boss

-Solidarius: Smartmouth one

-XG1589 Ten: Big dumb one

The Solipsist: Projects his desires to cancel the world^[42]

Special Operator: The ability to operate any specialized equipment

The Species-ist: Born without intra-species recognition or facial recognition, he thinks everyone is an alien invader

Sphincter Force 5: Cyborg digestive-tract-based villains and their sidekicks. The team formed from splinter groups of the Secretionists and the Xcre-Men:

-Captain Colon: Robotic digestive tract

-Duodenum Man

-The Exo-Rectum: An asshole-based android who controls swarms of robots known variously as his Rectos, Rectoids, Rectulons, etc

-Herr Sphuncterbrau: The leader and criminal mastermind. A WWII Nazi who got sucked into his own asshole in a horrible experiment. He is now a floating asshole issuing orders in a German accent. He ate a laser gun with his black-hole-like powers, and now he shoots lasers

-Large Intestine Man

-Pancreatic Duct Lad: Unpowered human mechanic for the others, secretly anti-rectum assassin waiting for his chance to kill Herr Sphuncterbrau by misaligning his internal laser gun, a killshot that might tear “a hole” in the fabric of spacetime

-Small Intestine Lass

The Spin Collective: Super fire spinners

The Star Lawyers:

-Astro-Lawyer: “I’ve got to make the jump to hyperspace to serve these papers!”

-Attorneynaut: “Is gravity a taxable benefit?”

-Criterion, the Star Prosecutor: Heavenly special prosecutor of the spaceways dropping cosmic indictments

-The Paranormal Paralegal: “Earth has to file a restraining order.” The court receives dark depositions in a legal black hole of inexorable summons

-Ultra-Barrister: Author of the space law of Astro Liberum

The Sucker (aka Super Sucker): Straps a HEPA filter over his mouth and sucks the life out of downtown

Suicide Hookers: Kamikaze assassins with dynamite sticks in their butts

Suicide Man: Can defeat any enemy as long as he kills himself in the process

Supercop: Bulletproof master of community relations. Partners with Brobocop. Beef with K-ROC, his escaped super drug dog

Supercorpse: Endlessly regenerating metacorpse^[43]

Super Customer: “Let’s go down and get another action cone!”

Super Firefighter: Flameproof, super strong, wields enchanted firefighter’s ax. Teams up with Space Garbage Man for some re-entry jobs

Superhero HD: Masked crimefighter/high-definition livestreamer with mad social media presence

Superhusband: Powers of adaptability

Super Nurse: Super front-line first responder with the power to keep you alive

Superscience Philosopher: Power to transcend all paradigms

The Super School:

-Mrs. Johnson: Super teacher turning her classes into elite crimefighting kid teams

-Mrs. Johnson’s 4^th Grade Class: Super students who break into small specialized groups that work together for justice: tumblers, hackers, archers, science divisions. They have dealings with the Court of Smart-Alecky Little Brothers

-Mrs. Johnson’s 5^th Grade Class: Rivals to Mrs. Johnson’s 4^th Grade Class, Mrs. Johnson is actually running a sick experiment pitting the classes against each other

-The Principal: Super administrator who runs the Super School

-Superintendent: Master of ISD 709

-SuperSuperintendent: More powerful than the Superintendent, the SuperSuperintendent is secretly a member of the Institute of Old Rich Jerks

The Surrenderer: Battle cry is “I surrender!” Superhuman ability to surrender at any moment, disorienting his opponents^[44]

Synchronicity Man: Super synchronistic. Brother of Catastrophe Man^[45]

T

Teen Exo-Planet: Moody telepathic planet in the outer rim, tortures the sensitive with emo broadcasts of sullen entitlement^[46]

The Teens Who Never Stop Fighting: Powered teens beefing with the D-Town Ballers:

-Antidote: Her touch produces miracle healing enzymes

-App Master: Wields super phone, sometimes is the super phone (aka the Destiny Phone)

-Average Girl: Supernormal wrecking machine

The Terrible Exes:

-Cold Fish: Radiates subzero temps in her arched eyebrows and frosty silences. Beef with Doctor Blizzardo and Quantum Winter

-Dick Move: Control over dicks

-Hot Mess: Bitten by a radioactive neurotic, her magma powers chaotically slorp lava everywhere. Beef with Lava Lass

-Mansplainer: Overwrites reality with his bald assertions

-Terrible X: Possesses all the powers of a terrible ex. The leader

The Tickler: Super tickler. By tickling Agent Buzzkill he accidentally created the Giggler

Time Stocker: Grocery clerk helps shoppers in the past in a store built around a temporal anomaly. Team-ups with the Foodies

Tinnitus Man: Emits deafening noise from his ears

The Tongue (aka Tongue-Lasher): Tongue replaced with a robotic AI super-tongue that does all the talking

Trench Raider: Amnesiac mute World War I action hero from No Man’s Land in 1914. Has team-ups with the time-traveler Baroness von Bitter. She gave him a geokinetic blade with a super-tunneling ability, and later imported him to the Battle of Duluth for his combat prowess

The Triggerer: The psychic power to trigger opponents. “You’ve been … triggered!”

Troll Farm: Archnemeses of the Cryptocracy

U

U.L.T.R.A.: Universal Lost Things Retrieval Agency. A secret bureau of time travelers and clairvoyants formed to recover lost, missing, and forgotten works. Last seen going into the past to collect the full works of William Blake, with other missions scheduled to record forgotten concerts in ancient Rome. Their base of operations is the Karpeles Document Museum

The Unidentified Man: Impossible to remember this man. As soon as he has left your sight, his subconscious telepathic power erases him from your memory. Even film or photos of him will fail to remind you. Alleged former Governor of Maryland

V

The Virgilian: Pagan supernatural guide who cannot enter Heaven, but he can get you into the Discarnate Club

Vis-a-Vis: Archenemy of A.K.A.

The Vocabuconstabulary: Rivals of The Punctuation Men:

-ALL CAPS MAN: THE POWER TO MAKE EMERGENCY BULLETINS

-The Authoritarian Grammarian: Vengeful prescriptive linguist

-The Bloviator: International agent of trade unions

-The Commentariat: “These anonymous internet haters have great vocabularies … looks like the Commentariat is at it again.”

-The Conjugatrix: “Conjugate this!”

-The Emphatic Man: Blusterous hyperbole^[47]

-The Gasbag: Is it his radioactive asshole, or his radioactive rhetoric? Both stink

-Jabber Jaws: Master of empty verbosity. “Your son suffers from a ludicrous condition known as hyperbanter and must be raised in this Bantertorium.”

-Metaphor Man: Mentor of the Simile Kid

-The Simile Kid: Sidekick of Metaphor Man

-Substanceless Lad: Jabber Jaws’ sidekick

-Trope-a-dope: Cliché-based combatant

-Upshot, The Denotative Man: Communications expert

-Wordsmith: Forges bladed words, letters, and symbols – “A word can kill …”

W

Walt Whitman Man: Bitten by a radioactive edition of Leaves of Grass, this poor graduate student gains the proportionate strength and speed of Walt Whitman. “I’ve got to slip away and make the change to Walt Whitman, for am I not … Walt Whitman Man?”

War Effort: Super war lobbyist^[48]

Water-Jet Hamster-Ball Man: Crimefighter inside a man-sized bouncy hamster-ball kept aloft by water jets

The Waterworks: Cries rivers from firehose eyes. “Uh oh, here comes the Waterworks …”

The Weak Men: Pet project of the Morphogenetic Field Technician to unite weakly-powered individuals into a fighting force equal to a single superhero:

-3rd Nipple Man: Precognitive itchy-nipple danger sense

-Big Hand: Possesses a large hand

–Blue Man: Turns things blue. Weakness: was once trapped in a Vermeer

-The Boneless Man: Literally a flesh blob, writhing and pupating. May be thrown to entangle

-Breeze Boy: Generates light breezes

-Papercut: Power to cause extremely small cuts. The most powerful Weak Man

-Paper Man: Made of paper, controls and generates paper. Do not corner him in a paper mill or a library

The Wedding Party: Ghosts of a wedding motorcade terror attack endlessly drive around the city looking for a phantom reception. Prominent members:

-Ghost Bartender: Mixes ecto-cocktails in the back of the ghost limo

-Ghost Bride (aka the Wedding Ghost): Her rage and grief at being denied her special day makes her a terrifying vision with the power to open Hell

-Ghost Driver: Limo driver ghost

-The Haunted Groom: The only living being in the entourage. Despite his PTSD, survivor’s guilt, alcoholism, and fear of his own ghost bride, he solves mysteries with the occult aid of the Wedding Party

-The Ring Bearer and the Flower Girl: Child ghosts

The Weeping Meteorite: Space rock colonized by telepathic exo-lichen 12 billion years ago pines away for the past driving away all in earshot^[49]

Werecockroach: Gregor Samsa is a man with the ability to transform into a giant cockroach. He is literally the character from the Kafka story; his condition has slowed his aging. He is still a salesman at heart but he waxes poetic about Kafka with little provocation. “This garbage is delicious … did I ever tell you about my good friend, Franz Kafka?”

The Working Mother: Super thrifty^[50]

X

The Xcre-Men: To counter the Secretionists, Professor Xcreta formed his uncanny Xcre-Men:

-Colostomy Bag Lad: Wielder of colostomy bags

-Death Fart: Flautus Rectus Maximo suffers (or rather his victims suffer) from flaatus terminus, a fatal flatulence^[51]

-Diarrhea Lass: You won’t like her when she’s angry

-Fartnado: Farts destructive funnel clouds

-Gutpunch: The power to make you shit your pants

-Professor Xcreta: Visionary gastroenterologist^[52]

-Shit-Thing: Shit monster (also member of the Golems)

-Spastic Colon: Troubled hero-in-training

-Urea Lad: Super acidic urine^[53]

-Urethra Man: Wields pinched adamantium urethra and iron bladder muscles, slices foes in half with his pressurized urine stream

Y

The Yahoo: Backwoods defender of the coarse and uncouth. Archnemesis of the Bionic Yokel

Z

Zombie Paul Bunyan: Giant zombie lumberjack with ax-hand

---

Footnotes

^[1] A ghost made of dandruff, Dander Devil began life as a normal man, albeit with a severe case of dermatitis. As a teen he realized he had telekinetic control over his dandruff, lifting it off his head with a thought and sending it in wisps up people’s noses to spark debilitating allergenic reactions. Soon he realized his mind was inextricably linked to all dead skin cells. Great clouds of dander rise into the air above the crowds, including from pets and wild animals, responding to his will, coalescing into tentacles and hands that pick pockets or assassinate public officials. I was the one who finally killed him when my super-team fought the Aller-Gents on the rooftops of downtown Duluth; I fired my wrist-mounted laser and he took it straight through the heart, plummeting off the back of the NorShor Theater into a dumpster. Sadly, he only became more powerful than I ever imagined; his mind escaped into the dandersphere and he remains at large.

^[2] That innocent bagel and cream cheese you had for brunch suddenly has you doubled over with abdominal cramping, your throat closing shut in anaphylactic shock.

^[3] Born with a condition that exaggerates the volume of his sneezes, at first he was simply the world’s loudest sneezer, known on the street as Sneeze Boy. However, his condition progressed. Now he is not only ear-splittingly loud, but his sneezes cause sustained hurricane-force winds. Maintains a utility belt of different sorts of pepper to modulate his ability.

^[4] Officially, Strontium lad got his powers via blood infusion from Atomic Man, and then X-Ray Lass got her powers from Strontium Lad. However, rumor has always favored semen-based transmission in each case.

^[5] “I am a gazer into distances, weaponized wistful gazes, my powers are evocative, an emotion parasite, I spend a lot of time in museums, I’m freaked out by babies because newborns are nostalgic for the world beyond death, they yearn not for the womb but for the pre-womb …”

^[6] Bad Judgement Man, A Love Story: “I’ll just let my wiener do the thinking. The wiener is the sensible one: ‘Have you met this guy’s brain?’”

^[7] Enormous disasters follow this schlumpy, haggard loser wherever he goes, yet he remains unhurt and one step ahead. He is a non-combatant but causes great problems for others. Over time he learns to keep a lid on it better, but the gene invariably expresses itself again and he is carried around the globe on a string of improbable cataclysms. His powers are canceled when near enough to his brother, Synchronicity Man.

^[8] “Chemical vision,” i.e. his eyes shoot chemicals. Also has a “chemical punch” with exploding chemical pustules on his knuckles. A product of Lake Superior Chemical.

^[9] The Cramulons’ planet was destroyed by the Impactor nine billion years ago.

^[10] See “The Addict.”

^[11] “‘The Catastrophist of Literary Criticism,’ my new book is Fuck the Reader, the sequel to my not-at-all successful book Fuck the Publisher, and my famously short-sighted series Fuck the Distributors.”

^[12] Voted “Least Favorite Supervillain” by the Guys Who Never Stop Fighting.

^[13] Part of a super-league of traveling ball teams. They bus town-to-town, solving mysteries, helping people, fighting crime, with powers they use primarily to play sports.

^[14] She wills a “body” of fire ants to inhabit, and grows to giant size with alarming quickness. A Texas transplant

^[15] Sourdough so sour it melts faces … fresh baguettes slung across his back like Deadpool. He fights for control of the lucrative upscale bread market.

^[16] “… the form of a vaping man dressed in black with an upturned collar and a fedora.” In this form he is known as Dark Vaper.

^[17] Dr. Alec Bolland of WLSSD fell into a cesspool spiked with an experimental enzyme formula. He emerged to find his body tissues replaced with living excrement. He soon realized he not only controlled scat with his mind, but he had become a powerful elemental being, a brown God. Even with his newfound powers however, he cannot win the heart of his beloved, a comely sanitation engineer who finds him sickening. This led to WLSSD’s unfortunate “King Kong” incident.

^[18] So impeccable it allows him to move between warring political factions as an information merchant. His pleats are so sharp, his bling so dazzling, hostility is negated and admiration is produced. No matter how aggressive his opponents, they cannot help pausing to contemplate the thoughtfulness of his ensemble.

^[19] It’s consensus in angelic circles that the Baron and his bride have made such a mess of things that time travel must be closely regulated.

^[20] See “The Working Mother.”

^[21] He is a nauseatingly upbeat extrovert that everyone wishes would shut up, or, depending on the day, he is an endless whiner who can’t even sit down because it’s all just too gross. “Inside me there is a right-side-out man who wants to get out.” Mission: turn Inside-Out Man inside-out into the Right-Side-Out Man. Fired from the Weak Men: “You see, Inside-Out Man, it’d be great if you had even basic computer skills. We need more than gross-out I guess. What we’re saying is, stay here and goof around on social media but you’re too gross, which is saying you’re not gross enough.” Inside-Out Man cried inside-out tears, his tear ducts visibly pumping on the outside of his eyes like wriggling pupae.

^[22] Menno Zwonk’s henchman and kitchen manager.

^[23] The Bastard Killer shoots loud motorcycles that wake the baby. Tracks down and shoots purveyors of internet viruses. Shoots child pornographers on sight. He is the mystery assassin who shot up so many KKK rallies that they quit having them. He hates being awakened from dreamy slumbers by inconsiderate noise makers. Witnessing excessive belligerent rudeness drives him to murder. A master drifter, he utilizes all the black ops military-espionage techniques available to fulfill his purpose: kill the bastards.

^[24] Were-mergansers, born with the ability to transform into man-sized diving waterfowl. Several times the size of normal mergansers, the Merganser Men have their proportionate abilities. They can fly in excess of 100MPH. They swim through the water like they’re wearing jet-packs, flexing their massive strength and constitution to power through the fluid medium. They can hold their breath for an hour. They use their powers for good: rescuing swimmers, sailors, and the like.

^[25] “I don’t have to touch you to knock you out, these knuckles punch your chakras. I am over here doing a visualization of lovingly giving you a beatdown.”

^[26] He once killed a man with a moist towelette.

^[27] Mr. Bombastic, Irascible Woman, The Human Touch, The Ever-Lovin’ Fling

^[28] The Invincible Irony Man, Kaptain Amerika, The Mighty Bore, The Incredible Schmulk

^[29] Featuring Mr. Patristic vs. Protractus

^[30] Mr. Stochastic, Indivisible Woman, The Human Porch, The Bling

^[31] Ultra Baby, kidnapped for ransom in his crib/playpen of alien supermetals, winds up heartwarmingly decimating the mafia. Adorably crawls through hot lava. Runs amok on a submarine, killing hundreds. Admiral Hardcheese: “What is not clear to me is who authorized the presence of a superpowered baby on the flagship of the US submarine fleet.”

^[32] Accidentally created during Blue Man’s clash with The Red Scare

^[33] Local politician with uncanny knowledge of dark maneuvers in the Rules of Order and anachronistic laws still on the books. She lays the legislative groundwork for a takeover of the city by a secret society of anarchists, Brautiganist poets sentencing criminals to koans. She helped local superheroes successfully petition the city council to leave a downtown crane in place because it was a hub for grappling hook users who keep the crime rate down.

^[34] “The John Bonham of Krypton”

^[35] “Looks like we’ve been hit by the Rummager.” “Your reign of rummagery is over!” “For am I not—the Rummager?” “The Filer didn’t notice that the Straightener made the scene kinda quickly; how did he know unless … Filer, you mean to tell me you’re the Rummager? Kinda making a lot of work for yourself …” Breaks into the manuscript library. “I love to rummage and I love to un-rummage … I am Janus-faced, chaos and order rolled into one…”

^[36] Also pops out glop-balls from sphincters on his wrists.

^[37] Origin: experimented on by a deranged dermatologist.

^[38] Endless streams of mother’s milk under pressure comparable to twin firehoses.

^[39] Radiation exposure caused mutagenesis of the bacteria in his pores.

^[40] With a double-tap of his prostate.

^[41] Animates his copious earwax into funky celebrity dummies that stumble around town like an army of zombies.

^[42] All in his head.

^[43] From the Journal of the Morphogenetic Field Technician. “Endless autopsying of a self-regenerating corpse… has time slowed? … constantly revealing secrets of its murder, a well of info … because of the body’s Heavenly origin, revelations of its murder reveal all murders … any crime can be solved via dissection of the exquisite corpse … its necrotic healing factor restores and binds the body’s fatal wounds, sealing my exploratory incisions in the chest cavity. Morphing, the wounds are all wounds, every possible wound. I identify and re-identify entry and exit holes. The blood’s chemical analysis percolates at finer and finer search parameters. The corpse contains within its volume the history of forensics and crime … God of the underworld, both dead and alive? Or is this Abel, murdered in the prehistory of time?”

^[44] “Give yourself to your enemy. Let the conflict wash over you. Let the enemy have his way with you.” Submitting selflessly, the Surrenderer super-surrenders, effortlessly ending the conflict, smashing stalemates with his will alone: his steadfast, unbreakable, iron will to give up. He lays down his weapon, dramatically foreshortened and heavily inked like an old Jack Kirby drawing leaping off the page with power and dynamism as he fails to use it. In every conflict, no matter the difficulty, the invincible Surrenderer finds a way to throw his hands in the air.

^[45] Well-dressed playboy so in tune with his environment that he is always in the right place at the right time. On Saturday nights at Dublinn Pub, he uses his uncanny perfect timing in a screamingly funny stand-up comedy act. After bar close he wanders the nighttime cityscape, calm and unhurried, effortlessly saving lives and changing people’s destinies just by being there. Guns jam, cars miss pedestrians by a hair’s breadth, the whoosh of a butterfly’s wing is enough to stop a train from derailing when he is around. He is often the only one who can approach the Catastrophist, since he never receives injury even when strolling through large-scale calamities.

^[46] “Do your parents know you’re out here, Teen Exoplanet?” Teen Exo-Planet: “My mother, a gas giant, would say, ‘You look hungry, Teen Exoplanet dear. Let me fix you some nice hot planet soup. Dear, if you don’t stabilize your orbit, you’ll never develop higher lifeforms.’ So I screamed, ‘I don’t want higher lifeforms! I’ll never stabilize my orbit! You’re not the boss of me!’ I developed higher life anyway, then rocketed through the solar system and threw myself into the sun. It was glorious but I returned horribly burned, a foolish and regretful Icarus, my hissy fit a civilization’s destruction, screaming humanoids in a fire hurricane…”

^[47] Traps his victims in an overheated maze, the Hyperboligeum.

^[48] “I start wars the old-fashioned way: politics.”

^[49] Only The Impactor can take it.

^[50] See “High Prices.”

^[51] Even the faintest whiff is instantly fatal.

^[52] To wipe evil from the earth. He summons them with the unifying cry, “To me, my Xcre-Men!”

^[53] As long as his bladder is full, he is a force to be reckoned with. I witnessed him collapsing a construction site onto the Secretionists by peeing around the base of it in several spots like a dog.

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Parts of this essay originally appeared in the Transistor. More Richardson writing here.