Mister Monday (Max Harbin, Lab Rat no more)
Origin: Half-Human Class: Fighter Level: 2 Alignment: Neutral
STR 18(+1) AC 6/13 HP 10 Attack +1 (+1 melee) Move 12 Leap 36 ft.
DEX 10 Save 16 , +3 Poison, Missles, +1 Science, Plot
CON 12
INT 11 Current Karma: 1 Current XP: 2500 Current Funds: $450
WIS 9
CHA 10
Background: Despite the holes in his memory Max retains his full knowledge of Structural Engineering, Noticing Hidden Details, density, gravity and tensile strength of alloys and composites-and also how best to Wreck them, +1 where applicable.
Languages and Skills (1D6): Max has perfect command of his native English, and he still remembers his days as a Cycling champion (+1 Endurance and Speed on a Bicycle, and to repair same). His former command of Latin, Esperanto and Higher Mathematics though...he remembers having them once before the drugs and surgery burned them away...
Hangups: Academic Burn-out (Penalty Die on Reaction Rolls in Collegiate/Academic setting) Teetotaler (even more so than before-who knows what even coffee could do to him now?) Abnormal metabolism (constant hunger and a low-grade fever are the New Normal so far...).
Origin Abilities: The Miracle Gland-his altered Pineal Gland is somehow feeding his body with a constant drip of 0.00001% of an Adenosine Quad-Phosphate (Miraclo) variant. AC of 6/13 with Helmet Bonus, a Vertical Leap of 36 ft and near-superhuman Strength.
Class Abilities: May use any weapon or armor he cares to. May fire Guns to deadly effect without a Save vs Plot. Gets 2 attacks per Turn against Mobsters of <1 Hit Die.
Equipment
A half-dozen casual ensembles suitable for public use and a straw boater for the sun.
A very modest 3 room cottage at 277 North Venture in Lakefront City.
His Bachelor's in Structural Engineering, hard won at great cost.
Two bookshelves full of his old college curriculum, only one-third that he can still understand.
A 1929 Columbia Cafe Racer, with reinforced pedals and chain, dynamo lighting, portable tool pouch and twin cargo baskets added.
Two First Aid Kits.
A Messenger Bag full of nuts, dried fruits and jerky.
Pocket Camera. Does not yet have his own darkroom.
Pocket Radio.
A bag of 30-40 steel ball bearings. in addition to other uses, Max can toss them up to 30ft hard enough to crack a skull (1D3+STR Bonus).
Mister Monday's Working Duds- black steel-toed workman's boots, thick grey coveralls,Lineman's Utility Belt for his hold-outs, midnight blue half-mask covering chin to nose, safety goggles to hide the eyes and a battered grey fedora to complete the look. Sturdy boiled leather gloves hide metal Impact Plates to terrify jawbones and doors alike (1D6-1 melee).
A one-eyed, three-legged tuxedo cat Max has named 'Lucky', slowly gaining back some weight and content to never go outdoors again.
Description: A medium-sized man in his early twenties but who looks older, with piecing blue eyes and nearly black hair with premature grey at the temples and a lean but fit body cabled with thin, powerful whipcord muscles. Max isn't as light on his feet as he was just a year ago, his hands still tremble slightly at rest and neither his wits or his easy way with people are what they used to be-but he gets by-and the scars at the back of his head are nearly gone now, hidden by the hair...
Mister Monday hunts down his foes like a (barely) Human Wrecking Ball. Hoodlums and doors alike fear his fists and grip. He once dispersed a dozen-man gang by tossing a 500lbs engine block at them, second-story windows are an open invitation to him-and if you're dealing drugs? Just ask Gianni Torrio about that, he's in Room 227 in a full body cast and needles stuck everywhere...not a nice guy,this Mister Monday...
Editor's Note: Anybody seeing Max Harbin and Rex Tyler together will swear that there is a family resemblance, first cousins maybe? Could be a coincidence-but the similar phenotype might just have saved Max's life...
Issue Zero: Max was found on the steps of the Crown of Thorns Lutheran Church on a Monday morning, with nothing but a blanket and a note written in lipstick. Such things happen sometimes in this cold and lonely world.
The New Dawn orphanage wasn't one of the better places to grow up, but Max wasn't afraid of a little honest toil-and once you understood the Rules you could deal with things. The food wasn't the best, and far fewer kids got adopted than you would think-but several of the Deacons who had found him visited weekly, gave him pencils and notebooks, treated him as if it mattered...it made all of the difference.
Max endured New Dawn like a patient prisoner, supported by friends though never adopted, until his 18th birthday-and he walked away with two sets of clothing in a battered suitcase, a last name picked from the phone book, a lifetime of good study habits and a Fiver in his pocket. Six hours later he had a job slinging hash, a cheap room at Mrs Fuller's boarding house, an invitation to service every Sunday at Crown of Thorns-and a plan. He applied to every college he could find, and the exams were child's play to his hungry brain...by the end of the Spring three colleges had accepted him-and one of them, Appleton University, offered a Full Ride Scholarship.
Upstate New York was an entirely different world for Max, a world full of academic freedom...and girls. He joined the Cycling Club for fitness, Esperanto for its artificial perfection, electives as needed and wanted-but the Main goal, always in sight, was Structural and Materials Engineering, the gateway to Aeronautical, Naval, Automotive and Civil Engineering. Max was going to be a Builder. His Term papers were well received, his Written Exams went flawlessly. The Orals were next week, and Max took the night off to celebrate with a quiet cup of coffee at the local hangout and a ticket to The Magic Flute...but when he left the restaurant the world began to spin...and he never made it to the show.
Max didn't remember everything-and maybe the doctors were right, maybe he'd hallucinated his screaming, suffering fellow patients. But after he was found in an alley with a pulse so faint he was mistaken for dead,the evidence of the cranial surgeries were made clear-Max hadn't imagined the holes they'd bored into his skull nor the tampering inside. Max had been transferred to Alice Hyde Medical Center burning with high-grade fevers, losing entire days in a fugue state, talking to people who weren't there-and with the most severe withdrawal symptoms the staff had ever seen...but from what? There was no morphine, heroin, cocaine, alcohol or any other recognizable drug in his body-out of options, the staff decided to treat with methadone...and miracle of miracles the symptoms began to lessen.
Less than two years after his acceptance to Appleton University, Max was on the bus to Lakefront again. His hands shook constantly, he stuttered when he spoke, sometimes there were dizzy spells, his memory had holes you could drive a...something through. And his scholarship had been revoked. The Dean at least, had understood-he'd read both the Police blotter and the medical reports. And the Admin at Alice Hyde had torn the Hospital bill into pieces for the rights to publish the patient's files-anonymously.
His friends at Crown of Thorns were immensely supportive, and in less than a week Kevin Grady put the young man to work at Grady's Salvage, and Mr Grady didn't care if it took longer for him to pry out a transmission or unbolt a panel, he knew a hard worker when he saw one...and bit by bit, the labor began to work wonders in Max. A month into the job the dizzy spells stopped entirely. Six months later the tremors lessened to near imperceptibility, Max could thread a needle again...eight months at the job and his stutter all but vanished, then completely gone at the end of the year. Memories flickered back to life bit by bit-and if some of those memories were of things that Max would rather forget, he'd just try not to scream too loudly when the nightmares came...and he found solace in old textbooks. Max's comprehension wasn't as quick or clear as before, nor the retention as complete, and where he'd once danced with the math Max felt now as if he were wrestling the numbers to the floor and choking them into submission...but slowly his knowledge was retained. One year after his stay at Appleton had ended Max sent a telegraph to the Dean of Appleton-and was invited back to present his Oral Exam.
When Kevin Grady met him at the Bus station Max couldn't stop crying-or smiling. He'd passed the Oral-just barely. Max had his Bachelor's...and the realtor had accepted Max's low, low bid on a rather run-down cottage on an irregular patch of land...nobody else had wanted it-and what was a little hard work for a man who had earned a college degree after invasive brain surgery? Steak dinner was on Kevin, no arguments...
Except that when they left the restaurant some thug the size of a bear knocked Kevin out with a blackjack and a smaller man pointed a gun directly into Max's face. "In the van Lab Rat," Sneered the thug as-
LAB
RAT
-and the big one tried to shove the youth into the car but it was like moving a fireplug and Max turned around lazily and shattered the man's jaw with a single blow and bullets went off everywhere and somehow missed and then the smaller man went face-first into the windshield and then all was still and and and-
Max looked down at his hands that had shoved a man through thick plate glass-and not a scratch on them. And there were bullet holes in his coat. The youth checked Kevin to make sure he'd live-already the man was stirring-and made a decision, slung the smaller thug over his shoulder and strode away...
Max Hardin couldn't do what needed to be done (found on a Monday) he needed to call the Police (Monday has a nice ring to it) and he couldn't quite remember how he'd gotten to the top of this tall, tall building (Monday's Child needs a face) or how he was going to get the answers he needed...but Mister Monday could do it. And DID.
Bannerman Chemicals. Someone from Bannerman Chemicals did this. And if that criminal scum wasn't lying through their broken teeth then that Someone put at least eighty or more people to slow, torturous death. But Max let Monday chew on that as he made his way back to the steak house-he'd claim to have wandered off in a daze, make sure Kevin was safe, then Max needed to finish fixing up the cottage...whatever needed to be done about the Someone at Bannerman, a cunning and careful plan was going to be needed. And maybe some self-testing to see what his limits actually were now...
Editor's Notes: I rolled up a Fighter with 16 STR and 8 INT, bought down WIS and DEX to boost it to absolute maximum (more to play to the cliche than for game effect)...and then at Level 2 he maxed out his Advancement for INT and gained 1 CHA-so much for playing Lennie from 'Of Mice and Men'!
And of course my brain, fattened on a lifetime of trivia, sought fit to remind me that modern DC lore mentions both Venom and Tar as street drugs derived from an imperfect version of AQP/Miraclo sold by a Bannerman mole before it became TylerCo-and hints that the drug that created borderline superhuman yet unstable super-soldiers Deathstroke the Terminator and Ravager also derived from the same root...
The AC 6/13 came from the Big Bang Deity Origin-taking the Bulletproof option from the H&H Alien would have made Mister Monday even more effective-and yet I didn't ever foresee this hero ever being Rex Tyler's equal in power. Now a single level of Superhero would definitely push Monday into at least early Hourman territory...
Also, this Origin didn't really need to be War and Peace, but sometimes when a concept falls in place it sits up on the Lab Table and just won't stop talking......