Future Force

[fairytalejedi]

A new (sort of) character for a soft reboot of the Future Force. Katara will join Kid Marvel and Wildstar. In this version she's one of the New Men, humanoid animals who were forcibly evolved by the High Evolutionary. Wildstar encountered a few other New Men in an adventure back in the FASERIP days of the campaign.

I especially like the new power Katara has. She sometimes gets a sixth sense about people and places, due to the fact that she's a cat and has nine lives.

KATARA

Brawn 3, Agility 3, Mind 2
Soak x3, Defense x5, Mental Defense x2

Powers:

Claws: Special Attack 2 (+2 DM) 2 pts
Cat-Like Reflexes: Danger Sense 3 pts
Heightened Olfaction: Keen Senses (smell x5) 1 pt
Athletic Build: Fleet of Foot (run 12 sq, jump 10 sq) 1 pt
Nine Lives Déjà Vu: Clairvoyance 1 (past) 1 pt

Skills: Athletics x3 (Climbing), Outdoor x2 (Tracking), Pilot x3 (Atomic Steeds), Science x2 (Genetics), Stealth x3 (Prowling)

Advantages: Appeal, Super Vehicle

Disadvantages: Freak, Outsider, Public ID

Mental Malfunction: Birthed and raised among the New Men of Wundagore Mountain, Katara is unused to the outside world, but has a cat's natural curiosity.

23 points (16 stats, 8 powers, 2 advantages, -3 disadvantages)

Katara's Atmoic Steed: B2, A3, M1 Powers: Hovering (12 squares) 1 pt, Flight 4 (20 sq) 4 pts, Super Speed 3 [limitation: movement only] 2 pts, Disadvantages: Open, No Seatbelts. Total: 18 pts


* pic from BASH! Ultimate Edition p.114

An example of an atomic steed:

[BASHMAN]

Katara is from one of my favorite pictures from the book. Oddly enough there was one I liked better that was also a cat-lady (a jaguar in this case). Unfortunately we couldn't use the picture because the resolution was not high enough.

But both were by the same artist, Thom Chiaramonte, who did the cover to BASH! Sci-Fi as well as a few pictures in BASH! UE.

[fairytalejedi]

I'd love to have seen the Jaguar pic a few years ago. She might have made a good villain for my Mexican hero, El Guarda Volador.

[fairytalejedi]

Future Force Vol. 3, #1: "Regenesis"

The new Future Force (Kid Marvel, Wildstar and Katara) gets introduced in an adventure of cosmic proportions!

Background: In the MC2 universe, Uatu the Watcher was killed by a herald of Galactus during the Last Planet Standing mini-series. Since then, Earth has been without a Watcher...

As the adventure begins, a massive electrical storm is wreaking havoc. The Future Force saves some innocent bystanders, and Kid Marvel comes up with a plan to dissipate the storm; Wildstar uses power stunt/X Mastery to create a hard light electromagnet and absorb the storm's energy.

The team investigates, and determines that unusual solar flares are responsible, and they're not random. It appears that a signal from the moon has provoked the solar flares, directing the energy specifically toward the moon. The Earth just happens to be in the line of fire.

At the suggestion of SHIELD, the Future Force continues their investigation with the help of the International Lunar Expedition. By comic book coincidence, they were getting ready to launch a mission to the moon when the solar flares started happening.

The project is led by a Russian scientist Victor Ivanoff, but his real name is Victor Ivanovich Kragoff, son of the infamous Red Ghost! He's in league with AIM, who launch an attack on the base. The Future Force fights off AIM henchmen - Katara in particular has fun wrestling minions. But the distraction allows Kragoff to steal the lunar shuttle, hoping to weaponize the technology that's causing the solar flares.

The Future Force pursues him to the Blue Area of the moon, where a huge alien device is sucking up energy from the solar flares. The device is about to go critical, but Kragoff won't abandon his obsession. Wildstar protects the team with a force field, but Kragoff vanishes in a blinding energy discharge.

As the light dies down, the alien device opens and from it emerges - a baby Watcher! Cue Richard Strauss music.



The Star-Child identifies himself as Earth's new Watcher, Watotu (taken from a Swahili word for children ). Triggering the solar flares was necessary for his incubation process. But now the danger has passed.

The Future Force returns to Earth, knowing that whatever their future adventures may bring, Watotu will be watching.

[fairytalejedi]

A new MC2 character.

SHE-HULK II (Ellie Walters) is the daughter of the original She-Hulk and Hercules. Ellie was orphaned at a young age when her parents disappeared on a mission with the Avengers. She was rasied by a cousin, who was a police officer like her maternal grandfather. Ellie's powers began to emerge during adolescence, and she took up her mother's mantle as She-Hulk.

B4, A2, M2
Soak x6, Defense x2, Mental Defense x2

Powers:

Natural Toughness: Armor 2 2 pts
Immunity (disease, poison) 2 pts
Bred for Battle: Special Attack 3 [variable: atk/dmg for unarmed combat, range to indicate thrown objects using Brawn as base dmg] 4 pts
Amazing Leaps: Teleportation 2 [limitation: must be somewhere she can jump to] 1 pt

Skills: Athletics x3 (Surfing), Computers x2 (Gaming), Streetwise x2 (Gut)

Advantages: Never Surrender

Disadvantages: Freak, Public ID

Mental Malfunction: Ellie is new to the superhero business, with a tendency to leap headlong into danger.

24 pts (16 stats, 9 powers, 1 advantage, -2 disadvantages)

[fairytalejedi]

Meanwhile, in the MC2 universe...

All-New Future Force #1: From A Distant Star

Our new team of Kid Marvel, Wildstar, and She-Hulk II are making a public appearance and are approached by a high school student named Sam, who says he's their biggest fan and begs for an invite to their HQ. They turn him down, but he's not to be dissuaded.

Sam, in fact, is an exiled alien prince - none other than Star-Kid from The A.D.E.L. File He has a little bulldog pendant on his key chain, which is able to morph into a large robot bodyguard dog named Sprocket.

Sam orders Sprocket to create a distraction in downtown L.A. which will draw out the Future Force, giving Sam an opportunity to sneak into their HQ. Unfortunately for him, Sam doesn't count on the HQ's defense mechanisms, which stun him.

Meanwhile, the Future Force is scrapping with Sprocket when an alien spaceship appears overhead! It's piloted by a guy calling himself Acquisitor Helvar of the Chronum Confederation.



Helvar claims to have tracked a dangerous enemy of his people to Earth, but soon finds himself in a fight with both Sprocket and the Future Force. Sprocket then abruptly vanishes, and Helvar breaks off the fight with the PCs to follow him and apprehend his real prey - Star-Kid.

The PCs are having none of that. They pursue Helvar and find out what's really going on. The Chronum Confederation are enemies of Star-Kid's people and want to eliminate him before he comes of age and claims his birthright.

The PCs defeat Helvar and take away his main power source, his Cosmic Scepter. Helvar reluctantly agrees to leave Earth and not reveal Star-Kid's location. It seems that Acquisitors who fail to capture their prey when they have the chance are sent to a deep, dark prison planet to contemplate their failure. So it's in Helvar's best interest to report that his Earth lead turned out to be a dead end.

[MrJupiter]

Awesome FUTURE FORCE story! I'm honored that you included STAR-KID and SPROCKET and love the key-chain idea. Thanks.

[fairytalejedi]

Thanks, Mr J. I'm glad you liked it.

Sprocket was quite a handful! I figured since he can teleport, he could store most of his mass in a pocket dimension so Sam could carry him around unobtrusively.

[MrJupiter]

Thanks, Mr J. I'm glad you liked it.

Sprocket was quite a handful! I figured since he can teleport, he could store most of his mass in a pocket dimension so Sam could carry him around unobtrusively.

That is a brilliant idea. He already does something of the sort posing as an small imitation of a real dog. Your idea seems like a more natural fit for Star-Kid.

[fairytalejedi]

All-New Future Force #2: Yesterday Is Tomorrow

She-Hulk is competing in a surfing competition, with her teammates rooting her on, but freak seismic activity causes dangerous whirlpools to form and the PCs help save people.

Similar anomalous events are being reported all around the Pacific rim. The energy signature correlates to magneto-seismic technology that was being developed by Altamente Industries.

The PCs investigate. Altamente's mysterious founder won't meet with anyone in person, but only communicates via video phone. His name is Avell Mennas; unbeknownst to the heroes, he is the time-traveling villain known as Arch-Mentus !

Mennas claims his company abandoned the magneto-seismic research when SHIELD tried to claim it and weaponize it. But this doesn't jive with what SHIELD says, so the suspicious heroes decide to sneak into an Altamente's industrial park to see for themselves.

There, they discover that the magneto-seismic reactors that were supposedly disassembled were in fact shipped out to various locations around the Pacific. The PCs discover that these reactors were placed in order to create pressure on one point in particular - the Yonaguni Monument off the coast of southern Japan.

The PCs are caught snooping, and Arch-Mentus appears and monologues about his identity and his devious plan. He's discovered that the Yonaguni Monument contains an ancient artifact known as the Ascension Engine, which the Celestials used to create the Deviant and Eternal races eons ago. Arch-Mentus plans to raise the Yonaguni Monument to the surface and take possession of the Ascension Engine, using it to recreate humanity in his image to create his perfect society.

Arch-Mentus splits into multiple versions of himself in order to delay the heroes while the prime Arch-Mentus travels to the monument. The heroes dispatch the duplicates in short order and hastily fly over to Japan.

The tumultuous activity has raised the monument, and Arch-Mentus is powering up the Ascension Engine. The heroes stop him, but he vanishes and energy continues to build up. Wildstar creates a force field around the device to protect the surrounding environment, and Kid Marvel and She-Hulk are able to prevent a catastrophic explosion. But the sudden reversal of polarity causes the Yonaguni Monument to sink down into a deep magma crevasse that's opened up beneath it, and the Ascension Engine disappears down into the abyss.

[Sijo]

Great story! And thanks for introducing me to the Yonaguni monument, I hadn't heard of it and whether natural or not, it's amazing such a thing really exists!

[fairytalejedi]

Thanks, Sijo. I like to use real life unusual locations and work them into comic book mythology.

[fairytalejedi]

All-New Future Force #3: Revenge of the Red Phantom

SHIELD has shut down Altamente Industries, and the PCs are helping them investigate various Arch-Mentus tech he left behind and remove it for safekeeping. They are interrupted when a squad of flying robot monkeys swoops in, some distracting the PCs with a fight while others steal a Temporal Phase Inverter™ and fly off with it.

The PCs suspect that Arch-Mentus is trying to steal some of his gadgets back, but when they examine one of the downed robot monkeys, the clues point in a different direction. The robot resembles a satellite repair drone that was designed by Victor Kragoff - the villain who disappeared on the moon during the Regenesis story.

Kid Marvel modifies a robot monkey so they can track the control signal, and it leads them to an abandoned warehouse. There they find a scientist named Dr. Romanova, a former colleague of Kragoff. She explains that she doesn't think Kragoff actually died in the lunar explosion; as the son of the Red Ghost, he had latent DNA which would enable him to become intangible. Romanova believes he survived the explosion but has been unable to regain physical form, so she engineered the theft of the Temporal Phase Inverter in the hopes of using it to bring Kragoff back.

SHIELD takes her into custody, but she breaks away and runs for the device she had set up. A SHIELD agent fatally shoots her in the back as she manages to activate the device - and it actually works! Kragoff materializes and vows revenge against the PCs, saying that in honor of his father, he will henceforth be known as the Red Phantom. Kragoff then escapes as more robot monkeys and larger robot gorillas keep the PCs occupied.

[fairytalejedi]

All-New Future Force #4: The Incursion Paradox

A violence-free issue wherein we focus on character development and world building.

First we turn to She-Hulk's friendship (and possible romance) with another surfer girl named Angie Cho. Elsewhere, Wildstar is engaged in a televised round table discussion which also features Sheriff Joe Arzano, a strict law & order type from a border county who's a well known opponent of super hero activities. Wildstar pretty much demolishes him in the debate.

Meanwhile, Kid Marvel has been pondering recent events. In between Regenesis and All-New Future Force #1 an incursion event occurred, in which a parallel Earth almost collided with this Earth, which would have destroyed both realities. This incursion was stopped by the Fantastic Five and some other heroes and entities, but they died in the process.

Since Red Phantom was brought back, Kid Marvel has been wondering whether it might be possible to bring back the heroes who seemingly died stopping the incursion. To find out, he modifies the Temporal Phase Inverter technology in order to create a window in time back to the incursion event. But what he finds is that the incursion apparently never took place, even though everyone remembers it.

To solve this mystery, he needs highly specialized equipment, so the Future Force travels to Geneva, home to a supers team known as the Euronauts. With their help, Kid Marvel is able to run an experiment using the Large Hadron Collider nearby. He is able to recreate the incursion event on a microscopic scale in order to study it, and what he discovers is a seemingly impossible paradox. It seems that the universe they are now living in both is and is not the same universe that existed prior to the incursion that both did and did not happen.

The is the first in-universe hint that something like a multiversal collapse and rebirth occurred.

[MrJupiter]

More great FUTURE FORCE adventures! Awesome plot involving ARCH-MENTUS and the Ascension Engine and great carry-over with that villain's tech being appropriated for another individual's plot. The down-time sub-plots were great story building elements; as was the revelation of the apparent multiverse-rebirth! I look forward to reading more of these great comic-book stories as they unfold.