The New Horizons
[Nightwing/Cyclops], Night Vision: As a star pupil and alumnus of [Batman/Professor X]’s school of [meta/mutant] vigilantes, The New Horizons was his first charge outside the confines of the familiar student body, and the next step in following in his mentor’s footsteps. At the academy, as a student field commander, he was given a clear chain of command from [Batman/Prof.X] to him, to his underclassmen. But with the New Horizons, his goal was to form a team of peers, rather than subordinates, and with other young adult heroes in a transitional phase, like him, between adolescence and adulthood. The task would prove more difficult than he’d first anticipated...
[Starfire/Pixie], Fairy Fire: is the apparent lost princess of the [Indigo Tribe/Faeries of Avalon], sent long adrift in space far flung from her home planet in the system of the Pink/Violet Infinity Star. She is by way of fae magic, partially stripped of her memories, as punishment for having failed to fulfill the terms of a sacred contract. To regain them, and ultimately return home to claim her throne, she must make a pact with someone capable of fulfilling the terms of the contract and thus pay her debt. This contract is paramount to a vow of marriage.
Due to her fae contract based magical abilities and even basic physiology, Fairy Fire's physical capabilities are constrained by a two way door of verbalized consent, forming contracts of varying specificity. She can often navigate this hurdle with clever wordplay or by otherwise baiting an opponent into giving verbal agreement to very broad conditions. In dire circumstances she can even use third party contract terms to waive rights of a desired target. (i.e. if she makes a contract to protect one person, she gains the right to attack in defense of that person without gaining consent from her opponent.) And in classic fae fashion, she can also willing enter into contracts, the terms of which she knows an opponent will violate, and utilize her capacity to enact magical retribution as her real offensive.
Her reveal as the heir to the [Indigo Tribe/Avalon] however is an elaborate ploy concocted by those behind the false Infinity Star ruse, namely, [Blackfire/Lady Mastermind]; all part of an ongoing endeavor to lure and trap galactic explorers and conquerors in an infinite maze of extra-dimensional space, where the magical essence of their life force can be harvested.
[Cyborg/War-machine], Breacher: Son of a prestigious Tex Labs scientist, with [Lex Luthor/Tony Stark]’s power suit tech grafted to his injured body: a core unit build for modular attachments interchangeable with [Lex/Tony]’s own armor designs.
After having served in the field with [Lex/Tony] for a time, and becoming a subject of media attention, he becomes self-conscious about how people see him; As a human being, or a machine? As a hero, or a deadly weapon? He spends nights musing to himself in [Lex/Tony]’s armory that he’s more at home in a case with the other suits than on the street with people. He asks to be assigned more humanitarian missions that let him interact positively with the public, but [Lex/Tony] insists that sending his equipment into fires and disaster areas with be an unnecessary risk to the equipment, and that his legal battles over the authorized use of his arsenal is already problematic enough as is.
So, [Cyborg/War-machine] ditches the high tech and weapons grade attachments for more pedestrian prostheses. This of course rids him of many of his superhuman advantages, but he sees it as an opportunity to prove that he makes the hero, not the technology.
[Raven/Vision], Ghost Image: An android given life by dark magic by [Trigon/Ultron], himself an unholy corruption of technology brought about by [T.O.Morrow/Baron Mordo]’s magical sabotage of one of [William Magnus/Henry Pym]’s advanced A.I. programs. As [Trigon/Ultron]’s progeny she is of arcane magical and mechanical design, the depths of which conceal his dark plans to herald in a technological hellscape on the modern world. In shame she isolated herself from her “family” with [Magnus/Pym] and his [Metal Men], preferring isolation to bittersweet platitudes from her cold metallic family, who, as purely robotic entities, can never fully understand the consequences of her magical sentience. She leaves not only to brood over her existential crisis but to isolate herself in “meditation” to comb over her own programming to try and divine some meaning in her creator’s ultimate plans.
She and [Cyborg/War-Machine] have an awkward relationship at first, often butting heads over technical consulting matters. [Raven/Vision] being reluctant to open up to an organic life form about her identity issues. As the team grows closer she take solace in how many of her team mates can relate with her about having been the unwitting constructions of misguided, desperate, or outright malevolent "parents.”
[Beastboy/Rocket Racoon], Critter, was the adopted son of two world renowned geneticists who researching uses of animal DNA in counterbalancing the lasting effects of radioactive deterioration of genetic code, taken for study after being born of one of their patients. Or so he is lead to believe. In fact he is quite the opposite, an animal experiment spliced with human DNA as well as other animals to create a kind of universal genetic template on which to further experiment. But his human qualities inspired sympathy in his creators, and so they changed their plans, lied about his origins and raised him as their own. As he grew older however, latent problems in his physical form became apparent.
Calling upon the aid of associate scientists in other fields, a serum was created to try and stabilize [Beastboy/Rocket]’s dramatic mutation growths. This left him with the ability, or perhaps merely tendency, to transform between many different animal forms, returning to and maintaining his own humanoid form only when the serum was ingested. Until one day the serum lost its potency, perhaps as the result of some development in his pubescent body, perhaps as his rapidly changing form mutated an immunity to it, or perhaps as a natural diminishing return effect came from its frequent use, and he found he could not return to a human form. His parents never told him the truth of his origins, so he still believes he can one day regain his “original” form as a human boy.
(there is so much shenanigans going on with Critter between Doom Patrol, and Titans, and Guardians of the Galaxy...)
[Terra/Satana], Tombstone: One of twins (with her brother, [Geo-Force/Hellstorm]) conceived of a diabolic deception, the truth of the children’s nature drove their mother mad. After having grown up with her abuse, [Terra/Satana] took it upon herself to kill their mother as a teenager and the two were placed in foster care, adopted by separate families. While [Geo-Force/Hellstorm] would eventually grow up to be an occult super hero of great renown in his own right, [Terra/Satana] found herself compelled to follow in the footsteps of the father she never knew. Her sinful lifestyle, even as a young teen, quickly drew her into the wicked underworld of mankind, where she would eventually find her way to her father, who would groom her to be his agent on Earth. As such she would infiltrate the New Horizons, spy on them and leak information of their activities to their enemies, and eventually try to destroy them herself.
(There are of course also the original Teen Titans members to consider, but I think they’ve long since taken a backseat to the iconic New Teen Titans roster. Still...)
[Speedy/Havoc], Outburst: the interim between his time with [Batman/Prof.X] and [Green Arrow/Multiple Man], his inability to properly control his powers, the low status it affords him within the school, and [Batman/Prof.X]’s apparent unwillingness to help him fuel the angst that drives him and his brother [Nightwing/Cyclops] to start the New Horizons together. He is however quickly frustrated by his brother’s ability to thrive in the new team setting, while he continues to struggle. It is during this time feeling pressured to keep up with the rest of the Horizons team that he begins his drug abuse as a means of quieting the chaotic white noise of his psyche.
[Kid Flash/She-Hulk], Hormone Flux: After first awakening their powers in a moment of crisis, they are encouraged by their supervising doctors, [Bombshell/Mockingbird] and [Rampage/Ms.Marvel], to explore the limits of their curious new powers. Unlike their predecessor, [Flash/Hulk], their powers are affected not by anger, but by confidence, and stifled by their persistent dysphoria. While embracing their transformation does help to alleviate the dysphoria and build their power while transformed, the issue of transforming at will becomes a matter of maintaining the sense of acceptance while in civilian form too. To this end their friends prove indispensable aids, and as they gain control of their powers they find that more and more little features of their transformation are retained even after the powers fade.
[Aqualad/Patriot], Diluvius: A son of a well to do noble house of Atlantis, his pursuit of social work over politics was at first a disgrace to his father, but his opinions changed slightly when [Aqualad/Patriot] took up the mantle of a Champion of Atlantis, as Atlanticus’ sidekick. After serving with Atlanticus for so long, his mentor advised the boy step out of his shadow some, and appointed him an ambassador of Atlantis. In this new capacity, [Aqualad/Patriot] would represent Atlantis in the global hero community, starting with his admittedly brief time with the New Horizons. He would however maintain his position as a liaison between the Horizons and Atlantis well past his tenure with the team.
[Wonder Girl/Paradox], Miracle: A magical golem made in the image of her mentor, [Wonder Woman/Doctor Strange] Wyrd Woman. When the deranged stage magician turned serial killer, [Prof.Pyg/Mysterio], began his life of crime, he did so compelled by a meticulous obsessive lust in the pursuit of his “perfect woman.” He would butcher women he hired as stage assistants and stitch together his favorite parts. But when he first encountered Wyrd Woman, he became obsessed and began stalking her going so far as to assume a super villain identity in order to confront her openly. It was through his obsession that he discovered that she was sculpted, not born, and so he sought to create his own. [Wonder Girl/Paradox] was that replica, brought to life by dark magic before Wyrd Woman could stop him. She is very much like Wyrd Woman herself, but the dark magic that drives her gives her an unusual temperament by comparison.
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