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general-sci β Resolve
Published: 2014-04-19 21:35:24 +0000 UTC; Views: 5727; Favourites: 15; Downloads: 39
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Description
The battle on the highway was intense. Maria and Arthur were able to disable every piece of hardware that was sent after them, but at great cost. Before the last gunship was taken out, Maria took a hit and was knocked clear off the highway to somewhere on the ground below. Arthur was able to board the craft and disable its engines. As the ship plummeted to the ground, Arthur took a desperate leap at the armored car carrying Doctor Hayashi. Finally, Arthur was able to shove his blade into the engine block of the vehicle. The car rolled to one side and then came to sliding crash into the AOC Spiritual Guidance Center.Arthur was able to pull himself out of the wreckage. He could hear Hayashi attempting to exit the vehicle. Before Arthur could arrive to pry him out he was confronted with Lieutenant Haggard.
The building burned all around them, "Let me get the doctor out, and I'll surrender myself!"
Haggard angrily barked, "You think you could be good with out God? You think you can be moral without guidance?"
Arthur, with little power left, made his case, "You fool, look around you! If we stay here we'll die!"
Haggard continued to approach with the broken piece of metal, "You should have submitted to the retraining courses like me! You should have at least lied about your beliefs like me!"
The two of them closed for the most certainly deadly exchange.
~Notes~
This is part of a series titled 'The Heretic'
You can find the rest of the Heretic here:
general-sci.deviantart.com/galβ¦
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Comments: 47
Any plans on making a story where Heretic is simply just struggling with her superhero career in general?
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I would think all of Heretic stories have some element of struggling with this new-found identity. The entirety of the first arch revolves around Gwen/Arthur accepting the role and task of being a freedom fighter. There are still more struggles ahead now that this hero has entered 'the special world' of being a super hero/freedom fighter.
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Kind of reminds me of the Unbreakable movie. You have all these superhero tropes, but done in a very subtle way.
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Unbreakable is one of my favorite films.
As for elements of the super hero, I reference a lot of Joseph Campbell's novel 'The Hero with a Thousand Faces'. That was a book that looked at two unrelated pieces of text (The New Testament and the Buddha) and compared the similar traits of what made those stories popular and emotional. In it, he outlines what he calls a 'mono-myth'. This mono-myth (also called The Hero's Journey) is regularly used in story and script writing today. When you know all of the steps within it, it changes the way you read novels and watch movies.
I'm using the three-act variant of it.
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Nice.
Again, it's good to see that you got your inspiration somewhere.
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I just want to verify that you're reading these in the correct order. Here's a link to the complete story outline:
(start with page two 'just a question' and work your way to 'Who he Is' on the first page)
general-sci.deviantart.com/galβ¦
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Thanks for the Outline.
In your Heretic Reboot starring Gwen Collins, will Shipton show up after Haggard is defeated, or sometime after?
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After Haggard, that's for sure. As for the exact point in the story, I know not.
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Darn. I was hoping for a brief brawl between Shipton and Haggard...............
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There will be other villains to have scraps with. Β
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Interesting.Β Β
Maybe an:
-Al Capone-esque gangster who wants to take advantage of the Divinity Party's Regime to continue expanding his crime empire?
-A Brotherhood-esque group of Mutants?
-A Blight/Derek Powers-esque villain who also has radiation-based powers and is a power-hungry business man?
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All of the 'super' villains will have their powers derived from either Eymenize or Garen technology. I also want to be clear that at no point will Gwen or Maria be fighting traditional comic book crime. Instead, you can anticipate the story staying solely focused on kicking over the Divinity Party's regime of the nation.
So, expect a lot of this:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=chqi8mβ¦
Interspersed with this:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=26KI6xβ¦
And ending with something like this (not so much the space battle but the speech and weight of the climax):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgGVyNβ¦
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So basically:
V for Vendetta meets Tron with a little hint of Babylon 5?
Impressive.
I'm sorry that I suggested incorporating mutant characters on another comment. I merely thought that mutants would fit the sci-fi theme.
Plus, I do recall that you mentioned that there mutant-based characters in Heroes Unlimited that never made the cut?
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No, not mutant characters made the cut, unfortunately. As I said earlier, most were derivative of the Punisher. My story doesn't really speak on the topic of vengeance outside of Maria's brief stint while she was under the influence of the Darkling.
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I don't mean adding Punisher expys.
What I was suggesting would be maybe you could add X-men-esque mutants into the Heretic Universe?
I don't mean in terms of the powers, those could be original but maybe in terms of them having a gene similar to the X-men's?
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While mutants would certainly be a sci-fi concept, I'm sure you've seen that the population of 'supers' are actually rather low. What's also worth noting is that, outside of the concept for Cathryn, each of the supers is using something that is unusual to the people of the time but is actually a normal item. Gwen's power suit was a standard issue battle-armor in a war. There were thousands of Garen equiped with such a thing. The darkling parasite armor is also standard issue for the time of that war. Prophet uses technology in order to perform what the people of the time would describe as magic, but he'll only be using technology that you and I take for granted.
For Cathryn's concept, the only mutant in the setting, she was made that way intentionally by cloning and genetic splicing with a darkling. While the method was unusual that created her, she still draws her powers from a thing that would have been considered normal during a certain time frame.
X-Men styled mutants draw from a different concept. For the X-Men, their powers serve as metaphors for what might set normal people apart (People correctly assert that mutants in general is like a metaphor for being homosexual: no one chooses it and there should be no shame in being it, yet there are people who crusade against them as if its wrong for them to be existing in the first place). However, mutants (In the Marvel Universe and would be in mine) are a relatively new advent. It occupies a lot of people's time when thinking about how to deal with the various problems that creep up because of it. To include mutants into the scheme of things in my story would require a massive re-write of the origin story to make note of them and the elements that surround them.
If there are to be mutants (similar to Cathryn) they would be rare, and few (and might not posses entirely beneficial mutations... Like Cathryn).
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I see.
Will Cathryn face prejudice over her mutation?
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She will try to conceal it. When she is ultimately outed for her abilities, people will treat her like a witch. People will think she is evil, and a messenger of 'the end times'.Β
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Oh dear.
Kind of does have an X men-like feel to it............
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Ah, so Haggard is the Bertrand of this universe.
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Haggard is actually named after Ted Haggard, an evangelical and homophobic preacher who was caught soliciting sex from a male prostitute.
My Haggard is a person who spends his life imprisoning and punishing atheists, even though he's one himself. He's also meant to be a reflection of Arthur had he not come to terms with his own disbelief.
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I compared this Haggard to Bertrand because, like Bertrand, he is a hypocritical Christian villain that took advantage of the power his organization gave him to pursue his own personal goals. (Bertrand was a hypocrite in that he wanted to kill all the superhumans of his universe, while being a superhuman himself, and Haggard was a hypocrite in that he violently opposed atheists, while being one himself.)
Still, it's good that you explained to me what you actually based the Haggard character on. Thank you, General-Sci.
I wonder if you'll ever pitch these ideas to Marvel, DC or any other comic book company?
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I haven't to finish illustrating the graphic novel first before I can make a pitch. Approaching Marvel or DC is currently impossible, to get an idea published through them there must be a reputation, connections or both. I have neither.
Perhaps Image will give my book a look, considering that they represent independent artists and the like. Like everything else, they have to see the value in the story and art in order to produce it. Only quality work like 'The Walking Dead' get picked up, and I'm not sure if my art stands up to that standard.
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Hmm, yeah, Image Comics would probably be your best bet since you are currently working independant.
Maybe after Image Comics, you could maybe go on to one of the big two afterwards?
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Well, just getting published or having the book become successful would meet my wildest expectations of the thing. As for it getting picked up my Marvel or DC... I don't know. Heretic's setting is rather specific, while the heroes of Marvel/DC fit a very broad setting (Superman could be punching it out with a werewolf and Wolverine could give the middle finger to God, etc).
Perhaps if DC's Vertigo comics were to pick it up. They published a pair of my favorite graphic novels ('V for Vendetta' and 'Transmetropolitan'). That way it would still get DC support, but it doesn't have to be integrated with the main lexicon of DC.
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Actually what I mean is maybe have a crossover were someone like Booster Gold (future character) or Terry McGinnis (again, a future character) somehow stumbling upon the Heretic Universe?
I picture the AOC being good villains for DC's future heroes, especially Terry McGinnis, for some reason. (Maybe because of the high-tech futuristic settings?)
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Well, I can't cook up any cross overs at this time (outside of perhaps a single frame of anything). Terry would probably treat Heretic as if she were a criminal, some one as bad as the Penguin or Mr. Freeze. He'd try to capture her (he's a vigilante who enforces the law, Heretic is labeled a terrorist by the AOC).
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Hmmm.......since Heretic is now gender swapped, will Maria Montoya be gender-swapped too?
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No, Maria is still a woman. Both she and Gwen are also straight. I'm currently testing out ideas for love-interests for the two characters.
I want to retain character conflict between these two, so you can expect both to be interested in a single person (love triangles are always rough on people).
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Hmmm, how's this idea?:
How about they are both interested in a Tony Stark-expy character? (An Ironman-expy works in a sci-fi world, doesn't it?)
Also, how about if said Ironman expy would compare Gwen to Pepper Potts, and Maria to Maria Hill.
Do you plan on making this love triangle comic relief, or a serious subplot?
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I do have an idea for a fellow who happens to be a detective to be a love-interest. One of my friends here on DeviantArt took a crack at illustrating an exchange between Gwen and this new character named Detective Shipton. You can find it here:
fav.me/d7xpso7
As for whether it's going to be comic or serious, aren't all love triangles a mix of the two? I'm going to use the triangle as a means of testing loyalty and honesty between the three characters, each are going to make mistakes that will agitate or infuriate the other two. The love-triangle will also serve as a 'micro stage' for larger story elements (meaning, you might see the whole point of the plot play out in the first act before the three of them are sucked into an adventure).
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Is Detective Shipton's name supposed to be a reference to the term "shipping"? (since, if this were an officially published comic book, and if the Shipton-Collins-Montoya love triangle were to become popular, fans would start making fanfics pairing up who they want paired up.)
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Actually no, I have a rule with protagonist names: no one asks to be named what they are. Right now Shipton is a working name of sorts because I'm heavily referencing a fellow that briefly appeared in an episode of Doctor Who.
Here's the video here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFJLT-β¦
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Does that rule apply to the superhero aliases too?
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The alias thing is something I had struggled with over the years. For a long time, the hero name I used for the protagonist was 'The Wind Claw' primarily for the fact that back in 98' Arthur had blades that could be described as claws and ran exceptionally fast (120mph).
Later, I settled on going with a more thematic name that would reflect the theocratic backdrop, thus I settled on calling the protagonist 'The Heretic'. The story itself was also renamed to 'Virtue' as many of the stories that I have planned revolve around what makes a person social or anti-social.
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Did Arthur have an alias before you came up with one?
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The Wind Claw was Arthur's original alias.
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Hmmmm......
Wind Claw kind of sounds like the name of an Airbender character from the Avatar series.
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I always thought 'Wind Claw' sounded more Native American. In fact, when I did a google search for that name I wasn't disappointed.
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Yes, you're right, that name also sounds Native as well.
Though, with the word "Wind" added to the mix with "Claw", it also sounds like the name of an Airbender who likes using claw-based weapons or something like that.
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Damn, Haggard's a right asshole. Kick his ass Arthur!
Teh plot thickens!
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The next one will be a doozy. Hold fast!
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"You should have at least lied about your beliefs like me!"
That says it all about him. :/
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Indeed. In the full-fledged story you'll find that Arthur and Ted Haggard have a very similar background.
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