I'm very interested in the stories. And yours is great!
What about posting the full thing up on here for everyone to see?
You asked for it Hendybadger, so here you go!
The JabberwockReal Name: Alex Winters
Power/Abilities:
- Superhumanly strong, able to lift 75 tons.
- Extremely durable, and able to withstand ballistic impacts for most small and light firearms or a hundred pounds of TNT.
- Can fly using his wings for propulsion at speeds up to 60 mph.
- "Eyes of flame" - able to project fiery blasts from his eyes reaching temperatures in excess of 2000° F.
- "Claws that tear" - given the incredible durability of his hands, fingers and nails coupled with his incredible strength, The Jabberwock is capable of rending and tearing through many modern materials with ease.
Background:
Alex Winters was born to your average middle class family on Nov. 5, 1982. He spent his early childhood in the suburbs of Detroit; an only child doted upon by his two loving parents. Like so many other children who grew up with inquisitive minds and who were smaller and weaker than his peers, Alex was often the subject of bullying attacks on the playground. As such, Alex often retreated into either his academics, or the fantastical worlds he discovered through books. He loved to read anything he could get his hands on, but was particularly fond of fantasy, science fiction, and of course Comic Books. Alex would often console himself after the attacks he suffered by rereading his favorite Comics and reminding himself that bullies never really win, and that there are grander wheels of justice at work. It was probably during this phase of his life that Alex developed a deep seated desire to actually become a superhero. By the time he was eight, Alex had a working knowledge base of most of the known superheroes of the time (both fictional and non-fictional), as well as their various nemeses. The question that nagged him of course was how one actually became a superhero...
At the age of ten, Alex’s world was turned upside down by the destruction of Detroit by the super villain Dr. Destroyer. Alex had been away at the time visiting his grandparents in Grand Rapids when he was told of the attack and the loss of his parents. It is a loss that to this day Alex still suffers from. His grandparents died within another few years, and Alex eventually moved in with his Mom’s sister Gloria and her husband. His Aunt and Uncle were some of the few determined souls who had returned to the Detroit area, now Millennium City, to rebuild the city and its community in the wake of the attacks. Alex was determined to live up to the goals and dreams he imagined his parents had for him, and became a model student. In the back of his mind however, he always felt that if he had only had powers like the superheroes he idolized, perhaps he might have made a difference on that fateful day.
During his high school years, the wonders of puberty worked their magic, and Alex evolved from a ninety eight pound weakling on the playground, into the muscled body of a starting center for the high school football team. The many years of being beaten up on the playground had built up a lot of repressed aggression in the young man, not to mention the grief he still felt at the loss of his parents, and now he had a socially acceptable way to let that aggression out. By the time he was a senior, the young boy had been transformed by his experiences into a self-confident and physically fit young man. It was also during his senior year that Alex thought he had found his calling. Realizing over the years that one doesn’t just become a superhero without some extreme quirk of fate playing a hand (something most folks will never have happen), Alex had decided to become the next best thing, an agent.
Alex had done some research, and had found that the best candidates for acceptance into Primus and UNTIL field agent training programs were those with either police or military backgrounds, Alex signed up for the Marine Corps. His athletic abilities, academic performance and self discipline landed him in OCS, and eventually saw him training as a combat pilot. Being something of a conscientious objector however (code vs. killing) lead to really only one kind of combat aviator role for Alex - that of a medical search and rescue helicopter pilot. Alex served faithfully, and finally left the Marine Corps following the gulf war. His honorable discharge included 3 decorations for bravery during various rescue operations (Air Medal, Bronze Star, and Distinguished Flying Cross). UNTIL wasted no time signing up a dedicated pilot like him.
Upon finishing his UNTIL basic field agent training, and his UNTIL flight school familiarizing him with the more advanced UNTIL aircraft, Alex was assigned to work with a task force out of Great Britain. VIPER activity had reached an all time high in that area of the world at the time, and the task force was assigned the tracking, monitoring and foiling of various VIPER known super villain agents operating in the region. Needless to say, Alex was thrilled. While not exactly superheroes, UNTIL agents were some of the best trained and armed agents in the world, and being part of such a team was likely to be the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for him. He had no idea how true that would be...
One such villain the team was monitoring was Wyvern. Wyvern had been making a series of raids upon museums and the holdings of certain minor nobles and wealthy members of society in a seemingly random fashion. In each case, only single objects of questionable significance had been stolen. None of the many other valuables were taken. After extensive research, the team managed to learn that all of the artifacts once belonged to Charles Dodgeson, and had been acquired during an expedition he had supposedly made to the southern continent some time in 1861. Other than this connection, the artifacts seemed unrelated. It was Alex who finally realized that Charles Dodgeson was in fact the real name for Lewis Carroll . Dodgeson had taken the penname when publishing his works Alice and Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and Alex recalled the fables from the many books he had read as a child. Once the connection was made, it became clear that all of the artifacts had some connection to the Carroll stories, appearing in various guises within the fairy tale pages. Through additional research, the team learned the apparent final target of Wyvern, the one cataloged artifact not yet stolen from the various objects d’art: a single dressing mirror featured as the looking glass through which Alice had supposedly plummeted during her adventures.
Quickly, the team mounted up, and Alex piloted their craft towards Surrey and the ancestral home of the Dodgeson family, now preserved as a museum dedicated to his tales and life as both mathematician and children’s story author. As the team flew near Surrey, contact with the Wyvern was made, and an aerial combat ensued. At the battle’s end, the UNTIL strike craft was badly damaged, and Alex was hard pressed to bring the ship to ground not far from the Dodgeson Wonderland Museum. The team disembarked, and given the damaged status of their craft, Alex joined the strike team as they hurried to put a stop to whatever the Wyvern was planning.
The true genius of Charles Dodgeson/Lewis Carroll was finally revealed as the 12 man team caught up to Wyvern in the halls of the museum. His stories were not merely stories at all! As the team entered the hall, Wyvern had already used the stolen artifacts to open a portal through the looking glass mirror to the strange realm of Wonderland. The eccentric mathematician and logician had some how managed to construct a portal to another dimensional plane far in advance of the technology of his day. The creatures that inhabited the world he dubbed "Wonderland" were clearly actual accounts of inhabitants he had encountered during his "expedition to the south continent", and which he later recorded as children’s fables . Before the strike team could react, Wyvern dove into the portal, taking with him the artifacts he used to open it in the first place. Unable to close the portal without the necessary artifacts (even if they knew how) the team relayed their status to UNTIL’s command structure and gave pursuit, leaving two team members behind to guard the entrance until further reinforcements could arrive to secure it against dimensional incursion.
The official reports regarding this encounter with Wyvern and Wonderland give no indication as to the true nature of Wyvern’s objectives. Alex Winters was the only team member to return alive and sane from their journey into Wonderland and who remained active during the entire jaunt, finding the creatures there even darker and more horrifying than the children’s tales indicated. According to the eyewitness accounts of the reinforcement deployment stationed at the mirror, Alex Winters returned through the looking glass eight hours after entering the Wonderland dimension. The reinforcement division, including three heavy weapons groups, had been hard pressed during the intervening period to hold the gate, as strange creatures appeared one after the other and attempted to wreak havoc upon our world. Winters returned bedraggled and weary, dragging the Wyvern behind him, before returning again through the glass to Wonderland for a moment to retrieve the only other survivor of the ill fated mission, Field Agent Myles Sepansky who was unconscious when brought through. The villain Wyvern had apparently taken quiet a thrashing during his subdual, which Winters accredited to the valor of his fallen teammates. Sepansky while wounded in the arm, was otherwise physically fine. Upon his return, Alex directed one of the heavy weapons platforms to destroy the artifacts and seal the portal.
That’s the official account...
The truth, known only to Alex Winters, is far more revealing. The Wyvern had been sent to recover the mystical Vorpal Blade referenced in Carroll’s poem The Jabberwocky . Viper had apparently grown tired of many of the super heroes that had become such thorns in their side, and after learning the truth of Dodgeson’s exploits into Wonderland, believed that with this blade in the proper agent’s hands an untimely end might be brought to the interfering heroes. Most of the team that accompanied Alex through the looking glass was killed during their pursuit of Wyvern. Only four, including Alex, actually made it to the castle home of the mythical figure whose exploits are described by the poem . At one point, as the remaining four battled Wyvern, Alex was knocked clear of the battle for a few moments, crashing headlong into a display case of various hunting trophies and war like artifacts. Stunned, and lying amid the jagged mess, his hands came to rest upon a belt made from the skinned remains of the mythical Jabberwock slain by the Vorpal blade. Alex later claimed that the belt seemed to call to him, and that a voice instructed him to don the belt in order to help his comrades . Even as he came to his senses and placed the belt about his waist, the Wyvern killed the last of his teammates and was about to seize the mystic blade from its resting place. Something compelled Alex to recite the words "Beware the Jabberwock, my son!", and as he did so, Alex’s life long dream of becoming a superhero finally came true. Suffused with the magical energies of the Jabberwock, Alex’s body swelled in size, wings sprouted from his back, and power rippled throughout his body. Within moments, Alex Winters was gone, and in his place stood Jabberwock, possessed of the abilities of the mythical beast he would later take for his pseudonym.
Returning to the battle, Alex, now as Jabberwock, defeated the Wyvern, and eventually returned to the portal created by the Looking Glass. Realizing he couldn’t just stride through the portal in his new guise, he hesitated and considered the awkward explanations that awaited him in his new form. Thinking that if one line from the poem transformed him into Jabberwock, perhaps another might turn him back, Alex struggled to recall the remainder of it. After trying several lines, his "normal" form was restored by reciting "So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought." From here, the official and unofficial accounts are identical, as Alex returned to our world, dragging the slumped form of Wyvern behind him .
Upon his return, Alex successfully managed to convince the shrinks of UNTIL that he had been traumatized by his experiences in the otherworldly realm of Wonderland. He accepted a medical discharge six months after his return, and went home to Millennium City. Jabberwock would appear for the first time on the crime fighting scene two months later.
Upon his return, Alex used his UNTIL pension to purchase a taxi cab, and has since set himself up as an independent cab driver within the city. His cover as a cabbie provides him the freedom he needs to follow his true calling as a crime fighter, while remaining consistent with being a traumatized former UNTIL agent brought down by his last case. While things get tight from time to time, Alex is reluctant to change this second professional role for several reasons:
- He feels an obligation to fight crime to prevent tragedies like his parents’ deaths from happening to anyone else;
- The network of contacts he has established with various street elements in this role often provides him leads for various cases he works on;
- He has yet to find anything else that gives him the freedom of hours needed for his true occupation.
Alex initially believed that his powers came directly from the belt he returned with and kept concealed beneath his uniform. It wasn’t until after several adventures, that Alex found that all that was required to elicit the transformation into his superhero persona was to recite the line from Jabberwocky. He has even consulted with various magical experts to verify that the belt has since gone inert. Apparently the acquisition of these new powers is permanent. Alex still retains the belt however, and keeps it locked away in a safe within his brownstone home in Millennium City. Secretly he fears his childhood dreams may disappear and he will one day be stripped of his superhuman abilities.
End Note: It should be pointed out that while the artifacts Alex ordered destroyed sealed the Looking Glass portal, but the glass itself remains intact. It has since been turned over to UNTIL scientists for further study. Alex tries to keep tabs on it through his remaining friends at UNTIL, fearing that the portal might some day be reopened. Additionally, the Looking Glass is not the only portal suspected of existing to Wonderland. Lewis Carroll’s writings also describe the infamous "rabbit hole" through which Alice tumbled. While this second portal has not yet been discovered, given the accuracy of the other Lewis Carroll writings, one can only assume that such a portal does exist some where in the world waiting to be discovered.
19 September 2007, 12:40:42 PM