PERSONAL

Gender: Male

Kit: Normal

Location: The Dakota, Central Park West, NYC

AFFILIATION

Alignment: Villain

Team: Solo Villain

VITAL STATS

Strength: standard (rank 1)

Agility: standard (rank 1)

Mind: superior (rank 2)

Body: standard (rank 1)

Spirit: (rank )

Charisma: (rank )

RECORD

Infamy Points: 907

Personal Wins: 107

Personal Losses: 2

Team Wins: 0

Team Losses: 0

Tourney Wins: 0

Tourney Losses: 0

STATUS

Status: Active

Ivan

The full text of Sophia Martel's "Parva Sub Ingenti," the so-called Common Man's Manifesto, was only published once: by a short lived Populist party outlet in Paris, in the spring of '81. A half-dozen of the constituent chapters have made the rounds among private collectors. Occasionally full pages turn up in university databases, and a few broken passages appear here and there on the net, but no one complete copy has ever been found. The most popular quote attributed to Martel, of course, is "Miserables possedent les promesse" which- roughly translated- means "The Meek shall inherit promises." The common assumption is that Mme. Martel was implying that the meek shall inherit empty promises, that the hopeless state state of existence characterizing the lives of the poor and oppressed will continue to be hopeless, and that religion- specifically Christianity- fails to provide a fulcrum by which the meek can improve their lot in life. While this is far and away the most popular scholarly interpretation, it is also incomplete. Sophia equated evolution and revolution, and advocated force in both. While her words are often quoted in socioeconomic or sociopolitical contexts, Sophia's original intention was to address the posthuman problem created by the existence of superheroes. She thought that the promises of previous generations were also challenges to be fulfilled, that ordinary non-superpowered people had a responsibility to not only better themselves but to force ingenuity and innovation to keep the posthuman population in check. I don't have a copy of Parva Sub Ingenti, and if I did I'd sell it and take my million. I was, however, raised by Mme Martel in her spartan flat overlooking Metro Anvers in Montmartre. My father was a poor butcher in Amatrice who moved to Paris believing he'd get rich by investing in Air France. When he died he was still a poor butcher. My mother opened a small café upstairs, and Mme Martel would stop in and visit every single day and always order the same thing: black coffee, and a half-glass of red wine. She'd spend the better part of the afternoon scribbling away into her journal. Occasionally she'd get the Bucatini Amatriciana, because she said that in Paris only an Italian would go to the trouble of making soffritto instead of mirepoix. When the Jupiter League turned the café and everyone inside into a smoldering crater while saving the world from Grandmother Dragon, Madame took me by the hand and led me to her house, where I lived thereafter. When I turned sixteen she put me out on the street with a packed lunch, her old journal, and a head full of dangerous ideas.

Jean St. Caligula saw himself as a hero. I met Jean in Cyprus, although I didn't know it at the time. His target was the Bronze Wheel- a North African slave trade masterminded by a Turkish general whose heart and lungs were burning crystal constructs. The entire judo sub-philosophy of Sophia's book is excised or marginalized in most interpretations, but it formed a foundation for most of her writing. Without these ideas, she can only be considered another existentialist revolutionary. It was the focus on human/metahuman inequality that made Parva so important. Jean was living in the occupied north masquerading as a Sunni, but it didn't take long to discover that he wasn't Turk, Greek, or even a Cypriot. He was American, although he rarely spoke English. It was futbol that outed him- a real Turk would've recognized the game was a rerun. We became fast friends, and I learned from observing Jean's methodology. Here were the high points to fill the practical gaps in Sophia's philosophy. As much as he got it wrong with his typically American faults, (that love of theatricality and an obsession with the psychological,) his score is still very much ahead. Jean was the one who showed me the applied technical judo that exploited strength, leveraging and manipulating with scrabbling claws until a superhuman could literally be killed by his own power The microwave gun was a brilliant start, if an ultimately incomplete solution: variable settings allowed it to reach behind invulnerability and destroy the soft internal organs beneath diamond-hard skin. An easy modification let it warp and pervert cellular regeneration. All this built from simple parts that you could make or scavenge yourself, for under 400 dollars. Unfortunately it became a liability in North Camden and I had to discard it- I keep telling myself I'm going to build another one. Jean's weakness was in his bravado, in his recklessness, in his disregard for the safety of other innocents, but ultimately his greatest failing was the belief that his technical proficiency made him the equal of those he sought to bring down. I still regret it sometimes, my first. It isn't the greater good, or the common man I was concerned with that day, as much as I pretended. I wanted to see if I could do it, to take the life of another man, a man with noble intentions who earnestly believed he was doing good deeds. So much of who we are is wrapped in how we see ourselves, it wasn't until Jean that I really saw myself.

Philosophy

     Tactician: superior (rank 2)

Miss Bengough was an American and a psychologist- and with those two strikes against her it's a wonder we ever became friends. A philosophy and a methodology are both worthless without practicum experience. The time she and I spent together in Arnhem proved invaluable, and I have no doubt that if she hadn't come to trial in an election year her life's work might have been published just like Sophia's. The entire Benelux region is so desperate to achieve any manner of international acclaim that scientific research is generally only restricted by finance. Bea taught me to be scientific, methodical, and observant- to account for and control all circumstances, and to always record your results. You might've heard that The Jupiter League's Mighty Sollus died in an asylum in the Netherlands while patiently waiting for the proper legal channels to clear. Yeah, that was us. The investigators lost two coroners and a very expensive robot before they called off the autopsy. Depending on what you believe Sollus' corpse is now either buried in a bunker in Siberia, powering the Pentagon defense grid, or being used to purify wastewater on the new International Space Station. So yes, Bea holds a very special place in my heart because even though I hunt vigilantes, I had to go through that revenge experience myself in order to really understand the concept for vengeance. She talked me through the emotional catharsis as we used Jean's inventions to strip-mine layers of Sollus' stomach lining. I'd say I owe her, but Bea was never not working, and I was as much an experiment to her as any of the patients we treated. Orchestrating her miscarriage broke her more than I expected, but it was the one piece of mercy I could manage- to spare that unborn child the misery of an existence with the two of us as parents. She lost touch with the science after that, she became unnecessarily cruel and sadistic. I left Arnhem a full year before the now-infamous police raid, but I'll always look fondly on my time there. The scientific detachment I gained allowed me to reaffirm my commitment to such a blasphemous cause. I am not simply seeking vengeance. I am a hero killer by design.

Methodology

     Illusion Control: superior (rank 2)

I spent nearly a quarter century married to the research, avoiding the inevitable. Study the art of killing superheroes long enough, and you will come to the same conclusion I faced: to really get anything done, you need to live in America. As a Parisian my options here were limited. I became a New Yorker, where my Italian accent and eye for detail made me a perfect candidate for the NYPD's fledgling Metahuman Investigations Division. I also got the chance to feel like I was giving back- I got to apply all of it; the theoretical and the practical, and hunting superpowered thieves and murderers allowed me to fully experience the self-righteous bloodlust of the heroes I hunt. At the same time, it is a detective's job to hate vigilantes, to curse their names openly and shoot at them whenever the chance presents itself. That pantomime seemed tailor made for a guy like me. I got the best of both worlds, and as a police detective I had unprecedented access to information and resources. It could've ended there, with my days and nights spent in perfect lock-step, killing heroes and villains, slowly making the world a safer place for the common man. I saw a chance for more. The first promotion came inside of a year, I made captain in three and I was the head of the division by '97. I received a medal of commendation from the Jupiter League's October Queen a month before I investigated her death. We were able to pin it on Penny Dreadful, which in retrospect was a windfall for the department since most of us were on Penny's shitlist. We had succeeded where the League had failed, in finding the October Queen's murderer and bringing him to justice. Designing the clues was a thrill, I can see why some guys become obsessed and choose that life. The October Queen thing taught me another important lesson though- nobody is invulnerable to bad press. While we were transporting Penny Dreadful to a maximum security facility, most of my guys bought it in a firefight with Beacon, who was attempting to avenge his teammate. More bad press for the League who, lacking options, reluctantly handed him over to attempt a degree of damage control. The public felt betrayed by their heroes, the League felt like it had betrayed itself, and when Penny and Beacon both showed up on a slab in the same week, there wasn't much anyone could do but murmur about how far the Jupiter League had fallen. The trauma of taking a couple bullets and losing my men, coupled with the controversy surrounding October Queen gave me a good excuse to wash my hands of it all. I retired with full benefits. It was time for a career change anyway. Did you know that you only need to have been a citizen for nine years to run for U.S. Senate?

Practicum

     Psychic Vampire: superior (rank 2)

It has become popular recently to say I won my first re-election because I had the balls to stand up to the Jupiter League on the Benedict Sanction. It didn't pass, of course, but I never expected it to. The idea was planted, and to be honest the media did a great job running with it. Eight months later, when the satellites fell, I looked like a martyr and the League looked dangerously incompetent. Similarly, it has become popular for my opponents to claim that I won the second re-election with a pity vote. It's true, the hired assassins who took out my metahuman bodyguard with Beacon's signature wing-thread bullets certainly helped quite a bit. It looked like someone in the League was trying to send a message. Obviously this endeared me to the general population, but to be honest getting rid of Captain Courage was well worth the price on its own, even if the operation to dig those old bullets out of my femur left me with a limp. There are a bevy of reasons that seem to guarantee my continued employment , but if I had to guess, I'd say it was actually youtube. The video of The Mighty Sollus, deranged, damning all mortals and promising violent retribution was something I thought I'd only ever be able to privately enjoy. As it turns out, Sollus' rage was a more effective driving force than any publicly demonstrable action I could take. The other reason I keep winning, the secret reason, is this journal. Sophia never fully grasped how to use it, and I suspect the rough draft of Parva found its way into these pages- a clue as to why that book is so elusive. Whatever is written within becomes invisible to all but the author, and no amount of psychic prying will uncover any thought that has been written on its enchanted pages. Truth be told, even without all these benefits, there's a good chance I still would've taken it. People are ruled by their emotions, and polarizing voters is part and parcel of the electoral process. Emotional decisions don't carry a lot of rationale or logic, but the world doesn't run on logic. Once my constituents saw the Benedict satellites burning up on re-entry, heard the tearful farewell of the astronauts trapped inside, and decided the Jupiter League was to blame, I knew I had a job for life. The League disbanded last year, and of the four surviving members, three now work for this government. The fourth, Dr. Gemini, disappeared a month ago without a trace. It's funny, I've always told myself I would rebuild Jean's microwave emitter someday, but it took having someone to use it on to really get me motivated.