Hero is … um

Mindover Man

Little is known about the masked nitwit named Mindover Man. He used to be the star of a massively popular reality TV show which mixed his telekinetic abilities with hidden cameras in order to record the reactions of average people when he pulled pranks on them with his powers. He can move nearly anything with his mind, which also gives him the ability to fly and protect himself with what can only be described as a thought-powered force field. When he needs to use his ability for large efforts, he finds his focus is aided by singing bad ’80s music, the lyrics of which he generally — and obliviously —  butchers into mondegreens.

Wearing a flamboyant costume comes from Mindover Man’s days on TV (his show ended abruptly when his studio’s offices were destroyed by a supervillain he accidentally pushed over the edge). He sees himself as a superhero but his resume is filled with photo ops rather than actual deeds — much like President Obama and former President Bush.

The Interventionist

Jesse Marquez wants to be a simple family man but is burdened by the powers of super strength, invulnerability and flight he has had since he was a teenager. His wife Celia has been known to lament that he read too many comic books when he was young, which led to his savior complex. He is less of a relectant hero than an irritable one, feeling that his power requires him to act for those who cannot. He has long tried to operate in secret, especially at night, stepping in to help anyone he decided needed his special kind of help, sometimes regardless of what the law says.

One of the few times he was sighted, he was called The Interventionist by a TV reporter, partly because of his actions and partly because he happened to have been wearing a freebie t-shirt he once picked up an event staged by the (now defunct) Independent Fight League. Celia persuaded him to use the shirt as his “uniform” even though he thinks it impractical — his wife chooses not to bring up his dreadlocks. …

The Interventionist has carried out countless heroic operations — always with the goal/motto, “Nobody dies.” But his brusque way of dealing with people does little to inspire anything in people other than fear or reciprocated irritation.

Recently, the down economy has force both Mindover Man and The Interventionist to look for jobs, which are difficult to find even for superpowered beings who don’t really know how to be heroes.

Marv

Marv (aka Cap Zap) is the down-home former leader of the now defunct Just-Us League. He is able to conduct and control electricity after a freak accident that involved lightning him and a bug zapper.

Marv sees himself as a commonsensical sage from the heartland, but his frequent dispensing of wisdom usually reveals him to be merely a well-meaning hick or complete doofus. As the leader of the Just-Us League he often led monitor duty, guarding against such villains as teenagers with out-of-control bladders.

After a standoff with the Superhuman Extraction Organization, Marv’s team was disbanded and moved to the city with Mindover Man and The Interventionist, where they now perform heroic acts under the close supervision of an insurance company.

Aerobat

Shelly is the youngest former member of the Just-Us League, and sole female. She had been a high-school gymnast with Olympic aspirations when she failed to stick her landing on a vault routine – because she simply did not land. Instead she flew out of control and hit the ceiling of the gymnasium and was lucky to fall onto the mats below.

Marv and Moonie were in the audience that day, and much like Bruce Wayne witnessing Dick Grayson at the circus the night his trapeze-artist parents were murdered – except that Shelly was not a trapeze artists, her parents were not killed, they were at a gymnastics meet instead of a circus, and Marv doesn’t have nearly the money that Bruce Wayne does; but otherwise just like that night – Marv sought to console Shelly and give her a way to channel her power and anger for the sake of justice just like Batman trained Robin – except that the Just-Us league didn’t really do anything but wear costumes and hassle cow-tippers, and Marv didn’t really train Shelly, per se; but otherwise it was just like that other story. Marv’s main contribution to Shelly’s hero journey was to give her a costume with armpit wings and name her Aerobat, a name he proudly thought to be clever-times-two.

The Spleen Lantern

A man named Festus had been discontentedly living well beneath his expectations and abilities in a small Midwestern town when he was chosen by an alien being to wield a ring with the astonishing power. With just a bitter though, Festus can direct his ring to tap into the universe’s unseen, brown (“bile”) energy field and create constructs of pure energy in the form of anything he can think of. The ring also protects him from harm with a passive-aggressive field and allows him to be repelled by the earth and thus fly.

Whereas those who may wield similar, but green, rings are characterized by will, the Spleen Lantern is not nearly so heroic. Instead, he often stands aside and allows others to achieve and earn admiration while he quietly seethes in the background, consistent with his upbringing. On other occasions, he does spring into action and performs admirably then generally resents everyone else for leaving it all to him, and yet does not say anything – also consistent with his rural roots.

Moonie

The hulking figure named Buck (codename Moonie) is a quiet, simple former farmboy. When he was a young boy, a mysterious meteorite struck the ground near him, imbuing him with incredible superhuman strength, invulnerability and the ability to fly, but at the same time stunting his mental development, making him literally a super-man-child.

One early and amazing feat both revealed his incredible power and dimwittedness, resulting in his moniker, Moonie. He had been asked to help relatives deliver moonshine and flew to the moon to bring back a chunk for them.

The Boss

Edgar Worthingshire XVII, esq., is executive vice president of special projects for Republic Insurance Provision Of Farmland and Factories, and current overseer of the metahumans formerly allied with the Just-Us League.

Worthingshire originally became involved in the lives of superheroes upon hiring The Interventionist as a loss prevention specialist in charge of averting natural disasters and their ensuing insurance claims.

When The Interventionist and Mindover Man became involved in a standoff between the Just-Us League and the government’s Superhuman Extraction Organization, Worthingshire, representing his company and others as part of the Confederated Insurance Conglomeration, stepped in, ordering the government to back off (because, as we all know, insurance companies are the more powerful of the two) in exchange for his company relocating the Leaguers out of their backwoods lighthouse headquarters (don’t ask) to the city, where he would be able to keep a watchful eye on them and direct them into productive uses of their powers.

Zippy D. Doodad

Saddled with an unfortunate-to-everyone-but-him codename, Zippy D. Doodad, is the Pollyanna super-inventor for the metahuman population. He has no powers aside from his fifth-level intelligence but has invented numerous weapons and vehicles as well as a cornucopia of consumer products, including the Apple iPad.

His super-sunny disposition never fails to annoy The Interventionist.