Movie Rage

My indiscriminate rage at all of the upcoming "comic book movies" is growing cold. I find my cynicism growing more powerful by the day. Between Ann Hathaway revamping Cat Woman to Spider-Man (is this technically #4 or #0 or #1v2?) coming back from the manure grave, there is a glimmer of hope. But I draw the line at another Hulk movie, that and a movie version of Marvel's Civil War. Seriously, Hollywood, you could well end up a victim of your own creation if enough shut-in's watch Revenge of the Nerds...

The Omniscient

General: A technopathic youth of roughly 26 who has, over years of luck and hard work along with the occasional quid pro quo assassination, established a network of satellites, relay stations, informants, and hacked computers around the world that allow him to monitor all public broadcasts, all communications on land-lines, cell phones, the internet, and to access the contents of any electronic device that has an outside network of any kind. Living in the Silicon Valley area of California he works as a low-profile computer programmer, making the majority of his money through stock trading and funneling a few dollars out of most of the wealthy bank accounts around the world, the young man known as Lucas Wentworth blends into crowds like a chameleon to a tree. Lucas is often known to don a hoodie and jeans and take a stroll around town, listening to his giant headphones and seeing the world through modified versions of the Diving Goggles that resemble simple wrap-around sunglasses, but when the issue of super villainy comes to a head he’s quick to let the “Blind, cape-wearing, crazy-looking, hard-punching, fast-running idiots of Heroes” rush into battle while he stands back and checks stats, casting the occasional bet on the fights outcome. Lucas isn’t much of the hero type; he’s more of a profiteer with morals. Disliking seeing innocents harmed, Lucas has no qualms with disabling anyone that tries to, say; topple a building for any reason.

Physical Features: Standing at 5'6" and a near-emaciated 115lbs the young Lucas has pasty white skin, though no blemishes, and slicked back blond hair. His eyes, afflicted by partial Heterochromia, are icy blue with golden corona around the pupils. Lacking all but the most basic of muscle mass, Lucas is almost incapable of physical combat, but his psychokinetic talents for manipulating the electronic world around have given him other defensive and offensive options:

Defensive Capability: A special electromagnetic tattoo on the back of his neck, drawn to look like a kite shield with swords crossed behind it, can be activated at will to encase his body in a 1in thick repulsive shield that's designed to shock organic life, deplete projectiles of their momentum, and disable electronics.

Offensive Capability: For when standing in a near-invincible mobile force field isn’t the best option, the tattoo can focus its capabilities to form an E.M.P. capable of knocking out a New York block, but it cannot shield while attacking and vice versa. This attack, obviously, wouldn't work very well against a low-tech enemy, but the Omniscient does very little actual fighting, so the lack of combat-ready technique and gadgets suits him fine.

Crime Fighting Style: Using his Network, The Omniscient tends to be at the right place at the right time for whatever purpose he needs to accomplish, and he rarely ends up resorting to physical fighting. When he just needs to look up, oh say, Russian ICBM launch codes a normal PC will work just fine, but for operations requiring more finesse he has devised special armor for direct interface with the ethereal networks and webs that contain all the data of humanity.

Armor: Designed to amplify his technopathic abilities, The Omniscient’s armor is known as his Diving Suit because of its bronze coloring, the running of cables and pipes over the metal sheeting, and the large steam punk goggles that make it powerful. When Lucas dons the suit it makes him so powerful he could make every phone in America stand up and say hello, so generally he uses the goggles and a pair of DJ headphones that are wired into a tiny, MP3-like device, that’s linked into the subliminal, secretive, and near-legendary Network that makes the Omniscient as all-knowing as he is.

Weapons: The Omniscient does very little fighting, but he’s got the weapons to stock an army. All of his weapons are hi-tech and futuristic in design and function.
Hyper-Sonic Rifle: A sniper rifle capable of firing a bullet at Mach V speeds, which is 5x the speed of sound. This weapon is modifiable with a large number of barrel types, ammunitions, scopes, and can even be changed into other kinds of firearms, notably an SMG and an automatic pistol.
Nerve Disruptor: A small patch that, when attached to any unarmored skin on organic life, disrupts all synaptic messages from brain to body, leaving the target conscious but paralyzed.
Diving Suit: The suit that allows Wentworth to amplify his powers also has a light-warping magnetic field for stealth, can withstand the actual pressure of being a mile underwater, and is flight-capable with anti-gravity boosters. The giant bathospheric helmet is optional.
M.I.A. “Mini Intelligence Agent”: Small, hyper-modified Secret Agent Barbie’s that Wentworth gave artificial intellect to, as well as fully articulated robotic skeletal systems, and a utility belt full of gadgets-in-miniature; a taser, a self-winching grappling hook, and they can basically stick their hand into a port and download the entire computer onto The Network.

Powers: Technopaths can empower themselves, or be empowered by others, in any of a million ways, from giant robot attacks to being given neural implants, but one of the rarest ways is how Wentworth became what he is, through being born. Lucas can basically control anything electrical, his power growing stronger the more complex the device is, i.e. a cell phone might give him a 2/10 but a high school computer lab’s gonna register more like a 6/10. His interface is subconscious, but he has to choose to make it, meaning that Wentworth can’t sift through the information at will; it comes to him like a memory. The Diving Suit allows him to push the information forward in his mind, view it like a floating LCD and choose what he wants to read. Data Collection and Device Control are almost two separate powers, according to Lucas, Collection is an interface with the source, a symbiotic relationship, but Control is a dictatorship, “Mono supremus Machina” Man above Machine. Interface is a mental relationship, but physical contact makes it exponentially stronger, the electromagnetic field of the apparatus interfacing with the nerves and synapses of Lucas’ body making the bond easier to foster.

Past: Simple upbringings are often the soil, from which the greatest trees grow, and Lucas Wentworth is a three thousand year old redwood. Nobody expects two middle class white people from Eureka to birth a pseudo-hero, but Clem and Bethany Wentworth did just that. A simple upbringing in northern CA, his family living off the meager paycheck his fireman father garnered and the tips from his mother’s diner waitress job. Lucas learned of his powers at the ever-so-innocent age of eight when he, being a loner from birth, wished his Speak & Spell could have real conversations with him. Within the hour the two were discussing Apple Juice vs. Grape Juice, Lincoln-Douglass style. Wentworth told his parents what he could do and they believed him only after making his Game Boy shoot lasers out of its pixilated screen. They encouraged him to hide his powers, and he did…for about two years. When his father hit a jackpot in the California State Lottery the family stayed in Eureka, but the small town was too abuzz with people seeking the $2,000,000 the family now had.

They ended up in Sacramento, much to Lucas’ delight; this meant he now had more freedom, fewer people to call him a freak, and above all the ability to sneak in a touch of techno-trickery here and there. Learning early and fast that life in the big city is nothing like living in a small town, he was mugged his second day in Sacramento and suffered a broken arm. Lucas then began his rigorous study of the spy game, watching all the Bond movies, reading everything from the Maltese Falcon to the declassified CIA manuals at the library. Starting small, the youngest Wentworth began collecting intelligence on classmates and teachers, trading candy for tips and listening closely to rumors Lucas soon had a catalogue on his peers thick enough to bribe, blackmail, threaten, make, or break any student or teacher at his middle school.

Then he went to high school. His network now harder to maintain, he had to work hard at it until he realized that the school had a computer lab, then it all got very easy. The government influence in the city was demanding electronic record keeping on everything from library books to schools grading system, and Lucas knew it. He was in the computer lab every day, working on honing his powers by hacking into school systems and taking careful notes on the other students. His omnipresent knowledge pushed the other students away, cooled the faculty’s shoulders to him, and left him back in his outcast role. Lucas knew he could never be the social one, never have the cheerleader girlfriend or be the star quarterback, but what he could do was know things, control things, use his power to be above the world. Technopaths are normal people, they want normal things, and react in normal ways when they are denied those things, Lucas just wanted friends and when he couldn’t have them he decided he wanted power, and that he wouldn’t be denied. Money, power, and most importantly, knowledge were all his by his junior year, but not a friend to speak of. He graduated, walking alone, as the class valedictorian, and nobody knew that the principal had embezzled almost $10,000 from the schools art program.

Lucas got his job in Silicon Valley programming computers, without any college degrees of any sort, and was living happily, making his normal pay as well as repairing electronics out of his house, and amazing everyone when he could fix anything with circuits no matter the condition. He saw a news report on a villain holding the whole state hostage with an earthquake machine over the San Andreas Fault line and decided that he needed to do something. At the young age of 20 he started his career by using his techno-telepathy to search the internet for every mention of Harbinger, a small-time bad guy with a dramatic flair, and find mention he did. That’s story for another day, suffice to say that was the day that The Omniscient was born inside of Lucas Wentworth. From then on he devoted himself to the gathering of information for the greatest good, himself. He developed quid pro quo relationships with people in the inelegance communities in every major country around the world through electronic means, as well as an occasional international outing for a face-to-face with a spy or foreign minister.

By age 24 Wentworth was wealthy, connected, and still humble in his quest to know everything. He had his arsenal of weapons well developed, his powers getting stronger every single day, his mind expanding by leaps and bounds, his web of informants growing constantly, and his influence in the world around him still going unnoticed by many. Then Harbinger returned. Wentworth, through series upon series of events, was forced to actually fight him, and ended up tapping into a power most people will never understand, he took control of Harbinger’s neural network and linked their minds, forever creating an archenemy that he understood as well as he understood himself. This scared Lucas into hiding for months until one of his few true friends, a teacher named Susan DuPre, was killed in a massive explosion at her school, which only 12 people out of 800 survived. This jolted Wentworth with the knowledge that life is too short to mope around and be afraid all the time, and it pushed him to anonymously donate huge sums of money, not all of it his, to various charities, as well as start to do things for a greater good, but only small things.

Now, at 26 years old, Lucas Wentworth is still a technopathic genius, he still doesn’t fit in, and he still dislikes most people, but he is still rich and generous, he still keeps his humble job, and when the need is great and the options few, he is still The Omniscient.

New posts!

The come this night! I gave up on my attempt to write an article on Dr.Fate, for three reasons; I couldn't feign that much interest, that's got to be one of the most convoluted histories I've ever read, and I really really really dislike the idea of any comic that presents me with three separate alternate endings. But I have retribution in the form of self-gratifying delusions of grandeur! I will, this night, post two profiles-in-progress of characters I'm attempting to work out. I am, by no means, a comic book artist, but I often fancy myself a writer, so I have characters. I welcome all comments and criticisms, I can only get better for it.