Glad to see the Ooc finally up! I hope I can keep pace when we all get going: It looks like the pattern has been one of frenzied activity during the hours I can't normally be on.

[hider=Edward Montag]Real Name: Edward Montag

Alias: Salamander

Age: 39

Gender: Male

Place of Birth: Norfolk, VA

Occupation: Ex-Fireman, now a janitor at an elementary school.

Physical Appearance: Edward, or "Big Ed" as he was known at work, is a monster of a man, towering above most of his team at 6'3". He's bulky, with door-filling shoulders and a bit of a belly, easily weighing 250 lbs. Though he's not the fastest, he was the first one called to a heavy job, and usually the last one out. He dislikes shaving, and as a result often has a bit of dark black stubble on his face and neck. His face, slightly uneven from the occasional barfight, has a strong, jutting chin and a flat, bent nose. His eyes are blue and watery and his skin is surprisingly pale.

Costume:
[img]http://jeffersonparkhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/firefighter.jpg[/img]

The Salamander is decked in an old firefighting helmet, painted over with streaks of orange. Underneath, he wears a bright orange bandana over his mouth and neck, and welding goggles. He also wears a leather duster, haphazardly fitted with a few steel plates around the chest, and lifting gloves to provide rudimentary protection, as well as thick work boots. A crude image of a fire-breathing lizard is emblazoned on the back of his coat in the form of sewn-on strips of blaze orange cloth, which also ornaments his sleeves and the end of his jacket. 

(Sorry, the idea was pretty good, but I couldn't find a good image to back it up.)

Skills: Taking enormous amounts of punishment, muscling through a situation with brute force, difficult to phase. He is less of a trained, artful worker and more of a blunt instrument, though he knows his way around doors, basic architectural knowledge (i.e., the stairs are probably this way, there might be a maintenance shaft over there...) and, of course, knowledge of how to both beat and use fire.

Equipment/Resources: He hefts around a 15 pound sledgehammer for close encounters, but it is normally hung, somewhat awkwardly, from a loop inside the coat. Rather than carry a gun, he has found his old hunting slingshot to be more than capable of downing most foes without grabbing so much attention, and ammo is much easier to come by in a pinch. Finally, he carries a zippo lighter and a few homemade explosives, though they have little more than shock effect.

Weaknesses: Edward is not particularly quick witted or creative, and he also has very little concern for himself: He has already had several close calls, putting himself in harm's way to attempt to protect idiotic bystanders. He can be fairly easily led along, because he has difficulty seeing much further than one or two steps ahead.

Base of Operation: The Salamander has taken up shelter in a long-forgotten drainage complex beneath a derelict factory that has been officially declared, "Condemned, Demolition Imminent" for the entire time he's lived in the apartments a few blocks over:

Biography: Edward never set out to be a masked defender of the public. He'd had an average upbringing in the suburbs outside of Norfolk, made it through school with average grades before going into training and becoming a firefighter, moving to Champion fresh out of high school. He got his own place, made friends, and settled down for what looked like an average healthy life. The job met the bills and paid for his comfortable house in the satellite communities outside of Champion.

 Years went by. He met his wife-to-be at church, fell head over heels and had what she described as "a textbook courtship." Whether it was his dogged determination or something charming in his inability to see when he was out of his league, she fell for him too. They got married, had several years to themselves, and finally decided to have a kid. He would have had a son, Edward found out from the police. His wife's car had broken down in the city on her way home, and she had been robbed, presumably raped, and beaten to death. His entire world came to a halt.

Desperation replaced all of his previous hobbies and thought. Never a drinker before, he hit the bottle, [b]hard[/b] and with a vengeance; anything to forget what he'd lost. Eventually, his friends from work tried to stage an intervention, causing a brawl that ended up with hospitalized firemen and Edward being cut from the force. He served a bit of time, but it left no impression. When he got out, he sold his old place, packed up a few keepsakes of his previous life, and settled for an apartment in the inner city. He found work as a janitor, but time had not washed over his injury, as his friends and family hoped.

It had hardened his sorrow into rage. Hearing reports of a supposed "Green Skull," he decided that it was high time someone took it to the scum who had robbed him of everything. Over the course of several months, he pieced together an arsenal and started a reign of terror in the blocks surrounding his apartment. Gangs found their men, legs smashed to jelly, weeping and bloody, tied to light-poles in plain sight. The occasional thug would turn up with severe internal trauma from dart-wounds. Once police bothered to turn up at the scene of a reported rape. The rapist was found, burnt to a crisp in the middle of what must have been a gasoline spill. The woman, when questioned, said that the rapist had "Tripped" and accidentally burnt himself to death. Residents of the neighborhood banded around the mysterious figure, and the few sightings that the police managed to gather all led nowhere, though the counter-thuggery shows no signs of slowing.[/hider]