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The Paradigm

The Plutonian aka Tony, Dan Hartigan

The series' main character. A mysterious man with incredible powers, he was once the Earth's greatest and most beloved hero. Then one day something snapped inside him, and he went on a murderous rampage with no apparent aim other than spreading maximum pain and suffering across the globe. He's now the greatest threat the world has ever faced, and nobody knows how - or if - he can be stopped.

• Alternate Company Equivalent: Superman, but with his powers deconstructed and lacking his pure and strong spirit
• Beware the Superman
• Big Bad
• Big Good: Before his turn.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • He didn't have the psychological strength to handle his super-senses - hearing literally every little snide comment about him drove him increasingly close to the edge.
  • His invulnerability is also so great that he Can't Have Sex Ever, since his body hairs would cut through a human rather than bend.
• The Cape (trope): When he was a hero. After he became evil he stopped wearing it.
• Changeling Tale: His origin
• Dark and Troubled Past: A mother who tried to murder him, several foster families who rejected him and a period where he lived outside the laws of man.
• Eleos Unaware: Played with. He knows naturally that he is superhuman, but he doesn't know why.
• Evil Costume Switch: The white parts of his costume get turned red and the red parts go black. Loses the cape too.
• Evil Is Petty
• Face Heel Turn
• Fallen Hero
• Flying Brick
• Freudian Excuse: He got tossed from one foster home to another after his families discovered his powers. Several rejected him out of fear, and one mother even killed herself
• Genius Bruiser: The Plutonium is very intelligent and manipulative, which makes him that much more dangerous.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Like Superman when he's angry
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: Went from windswept to a buzzcut
• Heroic BSOD: When he realises just how badly he screwed up with the sound virus.
• I Just Want to Be Normal
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope
• Mood Swinger
• Moral Event Horizon: Probably either lobotomising Samsara or destroying Sky City.
• Mysterious Past: Not even his friends know his origins, or even if he's really an alien.
• Omnicidal Maniac: He kills masses of people on a whim after his fall, including all of Singapore.
• The Perfectionist: His inability to handle criticism and the fallout from his own mistakes played a major part in his fall.
• Physical God
• Replacement Goldfish
• Samaritan Syndrome: Before he turned evil. At one point he flys to the moon just so he can enjoy a 15 minute break from the cries for help.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Doesn't last long though
• Secret Identity: Dan Hartigan
• Smug Super: After his fall.
• Strong as They Need to Be: Deconstructed. Tony's powers are psionic based, so he really is making himself as strong as he subconsciously restricts himself.
• Super-Hero Origin: Not even he knew what his origin was, possessing his powers as far back as he could remember. Eventually the extraterrestials the Eleos reveal that he was a probe they created from themselves to study the emotions of humans, which was drawn in by the maddened grief of a woman who'd just killed her baby and turned by her will accidentally into a replacement baby with the Eleos' powers.
• Superpower Lottery: He hit the jackpot big time. If even Superman pulled off some the stuff Plutonian does without even really trying, it would probably be declared an Ass Pull.
  • Batman Can Breathe in Space: With no apparent limits.
  • Eye Beams: That can carve lines in continents.
  • Flying Brick
  • Made of Diamond: His body hair's tough enough that it'll cut any human who touches it, and the only things that have even scratched him so far are literal magic powers and teleporting bits of him away. He can get knocked around like any other superbeing, but he's almost impossible to kill.
  • Super Senses: To an extent that he can read a person's thoughts by watching electrons travel through neurons in their brain and hear across hemispheres of the Earth.
  • Super Speed: When he really gets going, he's too fast to see and can perform fairly intricate actions while doing so.
  • Super Strength: He can squeeze asteroids into diamonds and throw them hard enough to sink islands, and shoulder-charge opponents through tectonic plates.
  • Reality Warper: His real power.
• Red Right Hand: He gains an extra finger on each hand like his parents after his powers evolve.
• Then Let Me Be Evil
• The Paragon Always Rebels
• Token Non-Human
• Unskilled but Strong: What allows him to be defeated by Orian and Survivor. He's simply not used to having to fight physically skilled fighters with powers on par with his own.
• Villain Protagonist
• Would Hurt a Child

Qubit

A Paradigm member with the ability to create any device he can visualise. One of the most peaceful and idealistic characters in the story, he alone views the Plutonian as capable of becoming a hero once more.

• Anti-Hero: Type I-II, despite his idealism and supposed pacifism.
• Expy: Of the Tenth Doctor
• Good Counterpart: To Modeus. Both are super-smart, have a deep personal investment in Tony, care nothing for conventions and seem keen on figuring out how people's powers actually work and then enhancing them, but Modeus takes all those qualities in horrifying directions.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: In the hands of an uber-genius like Qubit, his abilities verge on game-breaking even though he doesn't use them to make weapons.
• Insufferable Genius: A milder version.
• Messy Hair
• Nice Guy
  • But Beware the Nice Ones.
• Psychic Block Defense: The best on the planet, a strategy picked up due to combatting the telepath Burrows in his career.
• Science Hero
• Squishy Wizard
• Technical Pacifist: Right up until he kills Orian.
• Teleporters and Transporters: He invented them, and gets a hell of a lot of use out of them.
• The Smart Guy/ The Heart
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: A strong proponent of it, although he seems to value non-human life markedly less.

Charybdis aka Cary, Survivor

The twin brother and partner of Scylla, Charybdis shares his energy manipulation powers. The one problem in Cary's life before the Plutonian turned evil was that he was in love with his brother's wife, Kaidan. After Scylla's death Cary takes the name Survivor, and reveals that he is in fact the source of the brothers' powers, and has become even stronger. Even later it's revealed that they're triplets, with a third, retired brother called Elliott.

• Always Identical Twins: subverted, they're triplets.
• Anti-Hero: Type III-IV by the end of his descent
• Badass Abnormal
• Brought Down to Badass: Subverted. He's more badass, but he's only faking being weakened. He's now stronger than ever.
• Flying Firepower
• Hand Blast
• He Who Fights Monsters
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Up to eleven in his rematch against the Plutonian. Without one of his brothers sapping his powers, Charybdis can fight off Tony.
• Killed Off for Real
• Same Sex Triplets
• Sibling Triangle
• Smug Super: When he becomes powerful enough to fight off the Plutonian
• Theme Twin Naming: Their codenames are the names of the two monsters Ulysses sailed between.
• Took a Level in Badass
• Took a Level in Jerkass
• Twin Desynch
• Well-Intentioned Extremist
• Wonder Twin Powers: Played with. They don't share the same energy source, Elliott and Scylla are siphoning the energy off Cary to power themselves.
• You Killed My Brother

Scylla

Charybdis' twin brother with identical powers, and the lover of Kaidan.

• Always Identical Twins: subverted, they're triplets.
• And I Must Scream: In his brain-dead body.
• Back from the Dead
• Big Damn Heroes: Drags Kurne back to the spirit world to save Kaidan.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Blown up by the Plutonian.
• Flying Firepower
• Hand Blast
• I Cannot Self-Terminate
• Killed Off for Real
• Same Sex Triplets
• Sibling Triangle
• Soulless Shell
• Theme Twin Naming: Their codenames are the names of the two monsters Ulysses sailed between
• Twin Desynch
• Wonder Twin Powers: Played with. They don't share the same energy source, Elliott and Scylla are siphoning the energy off Cary to power themselves.

Bette Noir

Gilgamos' wife, and master sharpshooter who uses specalised bullets. It's later revealed that she's been having an affair with the Plutonian.

• All Girls Want Bad Boys
• Eleventh-Hour Superpower: Modeus possesses her and amplifies her power, allowing her to take on the Plutonian.
• Gravity Master: Her true power. When Modeus amplifies it, she also gains Super Strength.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Her aim is the best on the team. Justified in that her real power is to manipulate gravity on a minute scale subconciously, allowing her to guide her bullets.
• Physical God: After her power up
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: When Modeus boosts her powers, each punch is fuelled by a star system.
• Shiny Midnight Black
• The Hedonist: After she reaches her Despair Event Horizon
• Trick Bullet
• Your Cheating Heart

Gigalmos

The husband of Bette Noir and a two thousand year old Babylonian

• An Arm and a Leg
• Badass
• Determinator: He tears off his own wing to use the bones to pick a lock when he's imprisoned.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: A clear one of Hawkman
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Killing Survivor, thereby depowering Elliott instead of empowering him.
• Older Than They Look
• Smug Super: Entirely inverted. Bette says that his confidence in his powers makes him an incredibly warm, open and friendly guy.
• Super Strength
• Walking the Earth
• Winged Humanoid

Kaidan aka Keiko

A Japanese woman with the ability to summon figures from stories she reads, Kaidan is Scylla's lover and one of the younger members of the Paradigm

• Necromancer: Of a kind, as she can summon/recreate her dead friends to fight for her.
• Necromantic
• Sibling Triangle: Stuck in the middle of one
• Summon Magic: She summons samurai, warriors etc. by telling their stories. She can also summon her deceased comrades.
• Token Minority

Volt

One of the Paradigm's more recent recruits, and a member extremely devoted to the Plutonian

• An Arm and a Leg
• Alternate Company Equivalent: Of Static and Black Lightning.
• Everything Is Racist
• Flight
• Killed Off for Real: By Modeus in Samsara's body
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: His admission that being a black man with electrical powers isn't exactly original.
  • "Why couldn't I have been a super-speedster? A black guy who runs really fast...that wouldn't have been too racist, would it?"
• Power Incontinence: At first he short-circuited every electrical device he touched
• Shock and Awe
• Token Minority
• Touched by Vorlons: His powers came from the Vespa experimenting on him.

Samsara aka Sam

The Plutonian's Indian teenage sidekick, Samsara is Tony's best friend, and possesses immortality and the manipulation of mystical energy due to a jewel embedded in his forehead.

• Broken Pedestal: Samsara losing his faith in the Plutonian was one of the major factors in his fall from grace.
• Buried Alive
• Dead Sidekick: As close as Samsara can get. Samsara cannot be killed due to his mystical jewel, so Tony does the next best thing and lobotomises him with heat-vision before Samsara can reveal his secret. Samsara is now brain dead, and has even been buried by his teammates.
• Empty Shell
• Fate Worse Than Death
• Power Crystal
• The Reveal: Modeus has been hiding in Samsara, possessing his body.
• Twofer Token Minority: Indian and teenaged.

Hornet

A former policeman who uses his incredible skills and gadgets to fight crime.

• Alternate Company Equivalent: An obvious one for Batman. He has no powers, his base is in a cave under his house, and his best friend is The Plutonian, Superman's equivalent.
• Badass Normal
• Crazy Prepared: He creates a deal with the Vespans to return to the planet to take out the Plutonian in case he ever turns evil. This was based solely on a single incident where the Plutonian mentioned the Hornet's wife's name in passing, when the Hornet had never mentioned it to the Paradigm, revealing to the Hornet that the Plutonian had been spying on his teammates.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Grows out of it though when he is accepted as a hero in his own right.
• Good Parents
• Killed Off for Real: In the first issue
• Overshadowed by Awesome
• The Smart Guy: Not as smart as Qubit of course, but the Hornet is a skilled tactician.
• The Team Normal
• Weak but Skilled: The Plutonian allied with him at first specifically because Hornet can act with more precision.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: We find out a bit more about him in flashbacks though.
• What the Hell, Hero?: He brought the Vespans' loyalty by giving them teleportation technology and the coordinates of defenceless planets friendly to the Paradigm, so that they could conquer those instead of Earth.

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Other Characters

Max Damage

The Plutonian's rival and former supervillian, he pulls a Heel Face Turn after seeing him destroy a city. Him and his sidekick Jailbreak then do all they can to bring him down.

• Arch Enemy: To the Plutonian.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: His wanted poster says that he's wanted manslaughter, terrorism, armed robbery, conspiracy and interstate flight.
• The Atoner
• Awesome McCoolname
• Big Good: At the least, he's trying to be this.
• Blessed with Suck: He gets stronger and more invulnerable in proportion to how long he's awake. Of course, this makes him unable to smell, taste, or feel anything.
• Break Her Heart to Save Her: What he tries to keep Jailbreak out of harms way.
• Bullet Seed: Catches a bullet in his teeth, then spits it out.
• Complete Monster: Arguably when he was a villain. At one point he intended to release a supervirus that would kill thousands, including possibly himself.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Part of what lead to his Heel Face Turn. Even he-Especially he-is horrified by what the Plutonian is doing.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: In the beginning of his hero career, he just did the opposite of his supervillian instincts. He gets better though.
• For the Evulz: When he was a villain
• Genre Savvy: He knew that with Plutonian evil, there was no one stopping all the other dangers the world faced.
• Heel Face Turn
• Hero with an F In Good: Subverted. He becomes a better hero as time goes on, but a huge chunk of his Character Development is spent trying to overcome his previous status as a villain who was already pretty close to crossing or had already crossed the Moral Event Horizon.
• The Insomniac: Out of necessity to increase his powers.
• My God, What Have I Done?
• Sociopathic Hero
• Thou Shalt Not Kill

Modeus

A mysterious supervillain who was the Plutonian's most feared opponent. Not heard from for years before the story begins, he comes out of hiding once Tony's rampage starts and slowly reveals a horrifying plan for him...

• Arch Enemy: To the Plutonian.
• Attention Whore: His ultimate fantasy is to be the only other being in the Universe apart from Plutonian, so that he can have his undivided attention.
• Body Snatcher
• Body Surf
• Brain Uploading: His bodies have included the lobotomised Samsara, a robotic duplicate of himself, Cutter and Bette Noir. He tries to take over Qubit, but apparently Qubit contains him with his psychic shields.
• The Chessmaster
• Child Prodigy: He was just as much of a genius when he was younger. In fact he helped imprison the Plutonian's parents.
• Complete Monster
• Depraved Homosexual: Played with. He's in love with the Plutonian's power, so he doesn't seem to be attracted to any other men.
• Evil Counterpart: To Qubit. Both are super-smart, have a deep personal investment in Tony, care nothing for conventions and seem keen on figuring out how people's powers actually work and then enhancing them, but Modeus takes all those qualities in horrifying directions.
• The Evil Genius
• Foe Yay: Taken in weird and unsettling directions. It also deconstructs the idea, as we see just what sort of twisted mind it takes to be a supervillain fighting a superhero, and yet be in love with them.
• Grand Theft Me
• Manipulative Bastard
• Sealed Evil in a Can: His attempt to possess Qubit backfires when he is trapped by Qubit's psychic blocks.
• The Sociopath: He cares for nothing but himself and the Plutonian.
• Took a Level in Badass: He was scary enough when he was 'just' an ordinary human. Several levels later, he's an ungodly nightmare.

Orian

An extraterrestial (or possibly a demon) that has fought with the Paradigm before. The US government summon him to defeat the Plutonian and prevent the Paradigm from going rogue.

• Alternate Company Equivalent: He's a murderous, twisted version of Mr Mxyztplk that is in no way played for laughs.
• Aliens Are Bastards
• Body Horror: To summon Orian, you read an alien script. At that point Orian crawls out of your mouth, tearing you in two.
• Card-Carrying Villain
• Complete Monster
• Eldritch Abomination
• Enemy Mine: Allies with the US government, Survivor and the Paradigm to kill the Plutonian
• For the Evulz
• Killed Off for Real: Whatever was in that wax bullet, it killed him just fine too.
• Take Over the World: His plan when he kills the Plutonian.
• The Sociopath

The Plutonian's Allies

A collection of insane and extremely powerful aliens that the Plutonian gathers around him on the planet Genhom in order to escape the intergalactic lunatic asylum they've been imprisoned in.

• The Alcatraz: They're escaping from it.
• Bedlam House: See above.
• Body Snatcher: Cutter is possessed by Modeus.
• Five-Bad Band
  • Big Bad: The Plutonian
  • The Dragon: Auroran/ Mallus
  • The Evil Genius: Auroran
  • The Brute: Kurne/Mordanse
  • The Dark Chick: Cutter
  • Team Pet: Mordanse
• Flying Brick: Auroran
• Game Breaker: Cutter can One-Hit Kill pretty much anyone just by dragging a finger across her throat. Mordanse is a Flying Brick with a sonic scream that can incapacitate Survivor and his entire second Paradigm. And Kurne might be even tougher than Tony, given his effortless tanking of Survivor's energy blast.
• Green-Skinned Space Babe: Cutter
• Hearing Voices: Subverted with Kurne. At first it seems that he's hearing voices, as everyone believes he's insane. Turns out that he actually has tiny mouths whispering to him all the time.
• Legion of Doom
• Make Me Wanna Shout: Mordanse
• Psychic Powers: Auroran
• Self-Harm: When Cutter slices herself, at which point the cut appears on her foes.
• Super Strength: Kurne and Mordanse
• The Symbiote: Auroran
• Time Travel: Mallus can send people through time by punching them.