Alpha Ray & Glitch week, day 7

“Screw you, I’m a superhero!”

Name: Miyu Tanaka

Alias: Alpha Ray

Birthday/Age: May 4, 26

Height/Weight: 5’5”, 132 lbs.

Relatives: Daisuke Tanaka (younger brother), Kohta Tanaka (father)

Occupation: customer service rep., part-time superhero

Interests: sci-fi, sociology, mechanics

Powers/Equipment: helmet and visor with different vision modes, shoulder armor, reflective suit, laser gun, protective gauntlet, gravity-defying boots

Weaknesses: sharp items, reflective materials, get rich quick schemes

Bio: In order to understand Alpha Ray, her father must be elaborated on first.  Kohta Tanaka was a humble man, into technology and working for a prestigious robotics company in Japan.  However, going deeper into the company, he exposed some dark secrets to the public, which got him promptly fired and the company under tighter watch.  Unfortunately for Kohta, the “secrets” he uncovered weren’t all the company was hiding, and other suspicious activities went on unnoticed, though a little slower than before.

It came back to bite him when his two children were abducted by the company in an act of revenge.  Miyu and Daisuke were out of school and on their own by that point, but it still affected the family deeply.  They were to be used for a cyborg experiment, but Miyu managed to get out unharmed, with the help of her now-cybernetic brother.  They escaped to the facility’s basement, where Miyu stole some unused equipment.  In a fit of rage for what they had done to her brother, she fled the building, but not without giving it a few fires and damaged walls first.

Paranoid the company wouldn’t let them go free so easily, and unable to realize alternatives, she immigrated with Daisuke on a boat to the United States.  Through a few mishaps of trying to get a job and trying to settle down, the Tanakas made their way east, finally finding Fort North.  Once there, Miyu quickly picked up on the “superhero” craze, looked at her stolen equipment, looked at her brother…and got a devilish little idea.

Due to her life being suddenly turned on its head, she desperately searched for her niche, and she thought superheroics might be it.  But to her, superheroes seemed like any other celebrity; that is, primarily working for the fame.  After a few tweaks to her equipment, Miyu became Alpha Ray, with Daisuke—who she renamed “Glitch”—as her sidekick.  She doesn’t work with anyone else, thinking it’s a sign of weakness, and fakes her backstory to the public, not mentioning anything of Japan or a robotics company.  At her core, she’s a showoff, and that gets her into trouble time and time again.  However, “Alpha Ray” is just a constructed personality.  With the helmet off, she’s cynical and dry, if a little pessimistic.

Character History: Alpha was inspired by The Chemical Brothers’ song “Come with Us,” more for the sound of the song than the lyrics.  I zone out and daydream to music a lot, which sometimes brings new character designs to mind.  She’s a fairly new character, and she was created during a time where I was just getting into American superheroes.  Thus, another one of her inspirations is Booster Gold, a DC Comics hero who initially used the superhero shtick as a get rich quick scheme (his equipment is stolen, too).  He quickly became my favorite for his character development, and I had to pay homage to him somehow.  I’m thinking the “backstory” Alpha Ray makes up for the public would involve time travel, in a sort of wink-wink-nudge-nudge reference.

“…”

Name: Daisuke Tanaka

Alias: Glitch

Birthday/Age: September 19, 23

Height/Weight: 6’1”, 212 lbs. (due to metal internal structure)

Relatives: Miyu Tanaka (older sister), Kohta Tanaka (father)

Occupation: part-time superhero

Interests: computers, manga, calculus

Powers/Equipment: superhuman strength and resistance, gravity-defying alterations in feet

Weaknesses: electricity, spiders, Miyu

Bio: Prior to his abduction and subsequent mechanical modifications, Daisuke was a typical shy, geeky guy.  He enjoyed comics and cartoons, did well in school, and would avidly anticipate new technological developments.  This would become painfully ironic, as the robotics company experimented on him, turning him into a strange, TV-headed cyborg.

Why a TV head?  He doesn’t even know; he was too set on his sister at the time, breaking out of his room when none of the scientists were present and sneaking around the floor in order to find Miyu.  He did find her, indeed, but it took her a while to recognize him—the experimentations also left Daisuke mute, unable to tell Miyu who he was.  He picked her up, ran down the halls, and endured a few bullets from guards.  His metal enhancements left him with no more than dents, and he made it to an elevator headed to the basement.

After the Tanakas fled to America, Daisuke became painfully shy, moreso than he was before, and for obvious reasons.  The only time he feels confident in public is when he’s acting as his sister’s sidekick, and even then, he’s a tad scared to do heroics as he feels something bad will happen to her, or himself.  He has many a surgical scar hidden under his suit, and will thus try to cover them, even in hot weather.  The contrast between his personality and his sister’s can be related to how they experienced their abductions: Miyu was rescued and got to cause damage, making her feel overconfident, while Daisuke was modified to be inhuman and was attacked, hurting his self-image.

Nevertheless, he tries to get by.  He does still communicate through writing, and his body language is getting more expressive the more he relies on it.  His main dislike is how his sister tends to write off Hurricane.  Glitch really wouldn’t mind teaming up with other heroes, but Alpha won’t hear any of it.  Since he lives with her and she does his errands, he knows if he tries to argue with her too long, she might kick him out.  He definitely doesn’t want that.

Character History: As weird as this sounds, Glitch was inspired by this Mae shirt I have.  However, he’s an older character than Alpha, and first appeared in my robot-centered story called Blackout.  He originally looked more unique (in comparison to the shirt), with a tall, skeletal appearance.  He could also make himself look like other people (via hologram powers), and imitation was the only way he could talk.  This was an oddity in that story, as well—Glitch has always been something of an outcast.

I’m not sure how I decided Glitch should be Alpha Ray’s sidekick for II, but he clicked, and the suit look that the shirt had seemed appropriate, as well.  In Alpha’s fake backstory for them, she’ll probably try to pass him off as a “robot buddy” of sorts.  From the FUTURE!

Oh yeah, and I own a TV that looks like his head.  Just sayin’.

Next week: the big bad!