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Master Darque – Original (Icons Writeup)

Master Darquedarkque_layton

Prowess 3
Coordination 5
Strength 3
Intellect 6
Awareness 8
Willpower 9

Stamina 12

Powers
*Magic – Darque Power 8
(Extras: Blast, Detect – Necromantic/Darque Energy)
*Immortality 3

Specialties
Mental Resistance (Expert +2 bonus), Occult (Master +3 bonus)

Qualities
Challenges make life more interesting.
It is my destiny to rule over all.
My beloved sister, my deadliest enemy.

Background

Master Darque is an extremely powerful necromancer who is obsessed with the dark arts. His only goals are to contribute to evil and to gain more power. He has had a run-in with about every hero in the Valiant Universe. He is an albino and has a twin sister named Sandria. He and Sandria have a complicated relationship – they are totally devoted to one another and yet they are the yin to each other’s yang, frequently coming to blows as Darque seeks to destroy the world and Sandria tries to protect it. Should one of them die, the other is fated to do so, as well.

Darque was primarily a foe of Shadowman but he also battled virtually every other hero in the Valiant Universe, particularly Solar and Doctor Mirage.

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X-O Manowar – original (Icons Writeup)

X-O Manowarxomanowar_old
aka Aric Dacia / Aric of Dacia

Prowess 6
Coordination 5
Strength 8
Intellect 8
Awareness 8
Willpower 6

Stamina 14

Powers
All powers are derived from the X-O Manowar Class Armor. Without the armor, his Strength drops to 5 and his Stamina is reduced to 11. His Intellect is reduced to 5 without the armor and his Awareness drops to 6. Aric is the only one that can command the armor because he wears the Armor Control Ring. The Control Ring has two powers of its own – Detection and Interface, both level 10 and both with the Limit: X-O Manowar armor only.
*Blast (100 MGHz pulsed ion beams) 8
*Dazzle (blinding light) 6
*Extrasensory Perception (Remote Eye) 2
*Flight 8 (Extra: Spaceflight)
*Force Field 6
*Gadgets 4
*Interface 8
*Life Support 10
*Immortality 2
*Regeneration 4
*Damage Resistance 5
*Super-Senses 5
*Telepathy 4 (Limit: Only functions with the wearer of the Control Ring)

Specialties
Aerial Combat (+1 bonus), Athletics (Master +3 bonus), Leadership (+1 bonus), Weapons – blades, bludgeons, and throwing (Master +3 bonus), Wrestling (Expert +2 bonus)

Qualities
“With this new skin, I am the strongest one! With this new skin, Aric rules!”
Hates the Spider Aliens
Conan-In-A-Can

Background

X-O Manowar is Aric of Dacia, a Visigoth barbarian with a powerful suit of high-tech armor. Aric was abducted from his people in the 5th Century by a race called the Spider Aliens, who took him on board their spaceship. Eventually he was able to escape after stealing a suit of X-O Manowar Class Armor, one of the most powerful weapons ever designed. Aric returned to Earth, but thanks to complications of space travel, found that several centuries had past and everyone he knew was dead. Using the armor to seize control of a corporation secretly being run by the Spider Aliens, Aric became the CEO of Orb Industries. With the assistance of his allies Ken Clarkson and Randy Cartier, Aric became a successful business and hero. Eventually, his friends and his company were destroyed by the villain Crescendo. There are multiple accounts of Aric’s end – in Rai # 0, the story of his eventual demise was recounted but in the final issue of his own series it was suggested the entire 60+ issue run was nothing more than a dream.

X-O is probably my all-time favorite Valiant hero but I put off doing this writeup for a long time because I wasn’t sure how to approach it. There were times that he seemed incredibly powerful but other times where he was portrayed at a lower level. Ultimately, I decided to go with some pretty powerful stats but a lot of how tough he would be portrayed in a battle comes down how to intelligently he uses his abilities.

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Mister Twist (Icons Writeup)

Mister Twistmrtwist

Prowess 5
Coordination 4
Strength 7
Intellect 4
Awareness 4
Willpower 4

Stamina 11

Powers
*Claws 4
*Affliction 5
*Regeneration 3
*Servant 4
*Ability Boost 4 (Extra: Usable on others)

Specialties
Occult (Expert +2 bonus)

Qualities
Pure Evil
No regard for human life
Likes the finer things

Background
Much of this comes from Valiant Fandom:

The demon known only as Mister Twist was a servant of the evil necromancer Master Darque. When Darque was trapped in the Deadside, he used Twist as his emissary on Earth. Twist was responsible for gathering souls to power the dark necromantic rituals needed to return Darque to Earth, but his plans were opposed by Shadowman and his allies. Despite opening the portal to the Deadside, Twist was ripped apart by dark spirits commanded by Shadowman, and Darque was trapped outside both the Deadside and Earth.

Mister Twist is your classic demon henchman. He serves a greater power but he also enjoys the trappings of power in his own right. He is able to summon demonic servants of his own and he can also gift ability boosts to humans. He could make a decent enemy for a moderately-powered group of heroes.

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Livewire (Icons Writeup)

Livewirelivewire
aka Amanda McKee

Prowess 6
Coordination 6
Strength 4
Intellect 7
Awareness 6
Willpower 7

Stamina 11

Powers
*Remote Technomorphing 7 (Extras: Interface, Images, Gadgets)
*X-O Nano Suit – Damage Resistance 3, Flight 5, Blast 7)

Specialties
Aerial Combat (+1 bonus), Athletics (+1 bonus), Leadership (+1 bonus), Martial Arts (Expert +2 bonus), Mental Resistance (Expert +2 bonus), Power -Remote Technomorphing (Master +3 bonus), Technology (Master +3 bonus), Weapons (Expert +2 bonus)

Qualities
Lives by a code of honor – bushido, the way of the warrior.
“I have yet to meet a technology I couldn’t understand.”
Willing to question orders.

Background
Much of this comes from Valiant Fandom:

Livewire is Amanda McKee, a powerful Psiot with the ability to control machines. She is a member of the Harbinger Foundation loyal to Toyo Harada, but has also worked against Harada when she believes his power needs to be checked. She has also been a member of the superhero team Unity.

She is a psionic technopath, able to control computers, and micro-circuitry with her mind.

Amanda McKee was orphaned at a young age. Taken in by the billionaire visionary and founder of the Harbinger Foundation, Toyo Harada, Amanda grew up devoted to Harada and his mission assuming. Assuming the name Livewire, she rose to the highest level of the Foundation rank’s. Harada raised her to be his personal samurai and taught her the philosophy of bushido.

All that changed when Peter Stanchek joined the Harbinger Foundation. Confronted by Peter’s sheer power and his rebelliousness, Harada’s façade of control began to fray and his domineering tendencies became clear. Though she still believed in Harada’s vision, Livewire believed she needed to counterbalance Harada’s immense power. Livewire aided Peter in his escape and went into exile.

Months, later when Aric of Dacia claimed Romania and his people’s homeland, Harada asked Livewire to join Unity, the elite strike team he was forming to stop Aric and avert a large scale global conflict. Using her control over machines, Livewire stripped the X-O Manowar armor from Aric, donned it herself and easily subdue his people, ending the conflict.

Bonding with the armor enhanced Livewire’s abilities, permitting her to now access nearly the full extent of the Harbinger Foundation’s records. With Harada’s darkest secrets now exposed to her, Livewire learned the true extent of his evil, and quickly marshaled the Unity team against her former mentor. Leaving the Harbinger Foundation behind completely and committing herself to the path of the ronin (a masterless samurai), Livewire joined Ninjak, The Eternal Warrior, X-O Manowar in the newly formed Unity team.

During the team’s mission to stop Dr. Silk and his hybridized memetic-biological virus capable of completely rewriting an infected individual’s mind, Livewire discovered she alone was immune to the effects of the Silk virus. During the subsequent Armor Hunters invasion, Livewire learned this was a result of bonding with the X-O Manowar Armor. The armor infectious property of slowly replacing portions of the bonded host with herself had altered her physiology. Using her psiot abilities, Livewire suppressed the armor’s urge to replicate, ceasing its infections of both herself and Aric.

Following the Armor Hunters’ invasion, Unity went public, Livewire took on the public role of team leader, and the team secretly adopted the Armor Hunters sentient alien spacecraft GIN-GR’s behalf. After facing threats from the War-Monger and the escaped Armor Hunters called Helix, the Unity team ultimately disbanded. The group was driven apart by the events surrounding the apparent death of their teammate, The Eternal Warrior.

Now working solo, Livewire joined the international effort to stop Toyo Harada in his attempts to declare a psiot nation on the Somali coast. While teamed with Major Charlie Palmer’s H.A.R.D. Corps team to investigate Harada’s hacking of P.R.S.(Project Rising Spirit) satellites, she discovered Harada’s plan to import supplies for his space elevator program under the cover of humanitarian aid. Livewire’s plan now is to turn opinion against her one-time mentor by exposing to the world the high-tech contents of the aid shipments to the Foundation Zone.

Personally, when it comes to the category of “Which Valiant character has been improved the most from VH1 to the current Valiant Universe?”, there’s a clear winner for me: Livewire. She’s got a great visual, she has an awesome personality, she’s easily one of the coolest heroes Valiant has, AND I think that she’d translate well to film or television. As a player character or NPC, she’d be fun, as well, given her connections to Unity, Harada, etc. I mean, she’s worn X-O’s armor… she and Ninjak have been lovers… she was trained by Harada… the storytelling possibilities are endless.

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Savage (Icons Writeup)

Savage savage
aka Kevin “KJ” Sauvage, Jr.

Prowess 5
Coordination 5
Strength 4
Intellect 4
Awareness 5
Willpower 4

Stamina 9

Powers
*Dinosaur Claw Daggers 4
*Spears 3

Specialties
Athletics (Expert +2 bonus), Martial Arts (+1 bonus), Stealth (Master +3 bonus), Hunting (Master +3 bonus)

Qualities
“This is my kill, stupid monster!”
Feral wild child
Dinosaur Hunter

Background
Much of this comes Valiant Fandom:

Savage, real name Kevin “KJ” Sauvage, Jr., is a warrior who battles dinosaurs. His parents are celebrity soccer player Kevin Sauvage and supermodel Veronica Sauvage. After a plane crash, they were stranded on a mysterious island populated entirely by dinosaurs when KJ was an infant.

Being a toddler at the time of the plane crash, Kevin wasn’t old enough to remember his father’s death, which was caused as he searched for supplies for his unwell wife. Kevin grew up being taught how to survive by his mother Veronica, who often told her son that one day they would leave the island and go home. Things took a turn for the worse however when his mother was killed by the leader of a group of men living on the island, leaving the young boy alone.

For an unspecific amount of time, though not a long one, Kevin perfected his hunting skills and ability to kill, becoming an enemy to those who lived on the island. Eventually he decided to try escaping through the portal that the island inhabitants use to get new supplies, killing them all and their leader. Taking the dead body of the leader with him, Kevin went through he portal and found himself in a city.

Due to the harsh conditions of the island he was raised on and the things he had to do to survive, Kevin is very brutal and bloodthirsty, often seen enjoying the killing. After the death of his mother, Kevin has grown obsessed with finally leaving the island forever and going “home”, as his mother promised they would, despite not truly knowing what to expect.

If Savage reminds you a little bit of another Valiant ‘dinosaur hunter,’ you aren’t far off. Since they no longer have Turok, we now get Savage – who is an interesting character in his own right. Keep in mind that he was only fifteen years old at the time of the first Savage series — so those stats you see above? They’re only going to get better.

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Doctor Eclipse (Icons Writeup)

Doctor EclipseDoctor_Eclipse_(Valiant_Comics)
aka Fred Bender

 

Prowess 3
Coordination 4
Strength 4
Intellect 4
Awareness 6
Willpower 5

Stamina 9

Powers
*Energy Control – Darque Power 8 (Extras: Blast, Flight, Binding, Dimensional Travel, Energy Drain, Growth {-2 to tests to hide, +2 intimidation}, Illusion, Phasing, Stretching; Limit: Doctor Eclipse is weakened by the presence of silver – he takes +2 damage from silver-based attacks)

Specialties
Investigation (+1 bonus), Stealth (+1 bonus)

Qualities
“Normal?! Maybe I didn’t like things normal! You think you’ve got a monopoly on godhood, Seleski?!”
“Oh, yeah, that almost hurt! Haw! You pansy! C’mon, big boy, give me all you’ve got!”
Absolutely insane.

Background

Fred Bender wasn’t the smartest of men but he was good at piecing together the truth. He was able to dig into Phil Seleski’s background and figure out that he was actually the red-suited superhero known as Solar. When he demanded that Phil give him a portion of his power, Solar made the foolish decision to show Fred that omnipotence wasn’t all it was cracked it to be. He briefly gave Fred superhuman power and then took it away – his goal was to frighten Fred back onto the straight-and-narrow. Unfortunately, the experience left Bender out of his mind with desperation to achieve godhood once more. When Master Darque came to him and offered mastery of the necromantic energy dubbed ‘Darque Energy’ in exchange for servitude, Fred leapt at the chance and renamed himself Doctor Eclipse. In this form, he battled Solar several times, as well as clashing with the Secret Weapons team.

Doctor Eclipse is incredibly powerful but a close comparison of his stats against those of Solar show that he’s ultimately not quite the equal of his foe. He is, however, more than powerful enough to terrorize innocents and quite a few superhumans. Eclipse is a total lunatic now, frequently cracking jokes while killing or attempting to kill his foes.

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Ravenus (Icons Writeup)

Ravenusravenus
aka Dr. Raven

Prowess 2
Coordination 3
Strength 3
Intellect 5
Awareness 4
Willpower 3

Stamina 6

Powers
*Energy Absorption 7 (Extra: Blast; Limit: Constant – Ravenus feels like he is starving the longer he goes without absorbing energy)
*Radiation Suit – Life Support 2 (internal oxygen supply and radiation resistance)

Specialties
Science (+1 bonus)

Qualities
“Incredible! I’ve become some sort of… parasite!”
“Help?! I’m not the one in need of help, you pathetic little twit!”
Desperate for new and more powerful ‘energy highs’

Background

Ravenus is not a complicated man. A scientist that came into contact with some of Solar’s energy particles, he was transformed into a parasite in constant need to absorb energy. He didn’t give Solar much of a fight, given the fact that Solar is able to produce incalculable levels of energy while Ravenus has a limit — in their first battle, Solar simply overwhelmed him with more energy than Ravenus could handle. Later, Ravenus teamed up with Doctor Eclipse in another attempt to defeat Solar but once again, he failed miserably. As is, Ravenus might provide a minor threat to most hero groups but he’d probably be much more dangerous if paired with other villains.