Name: Isaiah Elphicke
Alias: The Man-Machine
Age: 25
Appearance: 
[hider=The Man-Machine in Costume]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/qVif7vx.jpeg[/img]
[/hider]

Power/Skills: Powers: Super Dense skin and bones that can ward off all but Lightning and exploding mortar shells, speed to outrace an express engine, strength to throw Boulders like basketballs, bend steel with his bare hands and lift up a fully loaded trolley, legs that can hurtle a 30 story building and leap one 1/5 of a mile at a time. Enhanced Hearing, Smell, Sight, Taste and Touch, Lungs capable of holding air without breathing for no less than 5 hours and filtering out certain low-level poisons and an inbuilt danger sense in his brain. Skills: Marksmanship, Disguise, Enhanced Memory, hand-to-hand combat.

Equipment: Costume, belt with various compartments for maps, pills, food, evidence, etc.

Personality: Hopeful, Kind, Brutish, Cunning, Lonely.

Brief Bio: By the early years of the 20th Century, Dr. Beauregard Elphicke was one of the leading Radiobiologists in The United States. His study of Radiation Therapy, in particular, his frequent experiments in increasing the effectiveness of Radium Bath treatments, had earned him a great deal of admiration and respect in the Scientific community of Steel City, of which he was a native. Elphicke was a wise man, however. By the year 1905, he had theorized that the power of the atom would bring either untold glory or unspeakable horrors upon the human race. It was the ethical duty of those with knowledge of the effects of Radium to steer humanity toward the latter.

To this end, by 1910, The Doctor had come up with what he believed to be a sound theory. That Radium Water, when combined with certain levels of Radio and Ultraviolet rays, combined with a High Protein and Carbohydrate Diet, would not only restore even the sickest person to health but then bring them beyond the current peak of human perfection and evolution. Radiation was the key to this weird, evolutionary theory. And so it was in the June of 1911, that Dr. Elphicke would, while taking a late night drive on the rural outskirts of Steel City, come across his perfect test subject for his endeavor. A test subject that would also prove to be, his greatest joy and gift to all.

This test subject was heard crying in an overgrown blueberry Bush outside a derelict farm. Upon exiting his Car, Elphicke would find a sickly, emaciated, one-year-old baby boy. Practically a Skeleton. Alive, but barely so. Upon taking the infant home, Elphicke would put his theory into practice, simply to save the child's life. Over the course of 4 and a half months, the child recovered and was restored to full health and yet, the Radium Baths and the diet persisted. During this time, Dr. Elphicke and his wife, Lindsay, had adopted the boy as their own son, soon christening him "Isaiah."

Two years went by. By the time Isaiah was 3 years of age, the effects of his father's Radium baths had begun to reach their full potential. The boy's unintentional feats of strength, speed and senses amazed his parents and yet, nevertheless, were a source of concern for them. Both feared that, should his great physical facilities ever be revealed, Isaiah would be persecuted for them. As a result, Isaiah's parents encouraged him from that point on, to try and keep his powers a secret from the rest of the world, informing him, when he was old enough, that only when the time was right should he reveal his full potential and even then, only for the good of his fellow man.

And so, per his parents' wishes, Isaiah did his best to conceal his Radium-Born abilities from his fellow man. Sadly, these efforts proved damaging to the boy throughout his childhood. Feeling as if he lived in a world made of Papier-mâché, he became withdrawn and isolated and was soon labeled as a social outcast. During his 3rd to 6th-grade years however, Isaiah's status as an outcast and loner led him to develop a social circle with other children of the same label and, given his own strength and ability over the bullies that relentlessly tormented them, he was compelled, by moral choice, to defend his peers from harm. 

After an accidentally strong kick during one such confrontation in his 2nd year of Junior High, leading to one bully ending up with a broken leg and Isaiah with a two-weeks suspension and a trip over his Mother's lap, the youth tried his best to stay out of trouble. With help from his father, he was able to control his great strength, honing and refining each punch and kick to perfection during his free time. By the time he returned back to School, Isaiah was almost entirely in control of his strength, his speed and his jumps. 

Time moved once more and throughout his teenage years, Isaiah became more popular and likable due to his kind and helpful nature. Every so often however, in particular during physical education and sports, a burst of power would display itself and while in high school, his games teacher encouraged him to hone his seemingly godsent prowess through the world of professional sporting. But it wasn't long before Isaiah realized just how much of an unfair advantage he had over his peers. Suppressing his skills on the field only helped to make him feel repressed, withdrawn and abnormal, leading him to drop out of sports altogether. 

Inevitably, Isaiah found himself back to his old school social status, with only a few friends for company. Upon deep reflection on his life and his powers, he came to view himself less as a human being and more as a kind of "Machine made of flesh." His frustration and loathing manifested as resentment towards his father for his radium experiments all those years before, blaming him for running his life, wishing that he'd been left to die in those bushes. 

After High School graduation, Isaiah felt no desire to enter College. Instead, he went out into the world with the skills he had, working odd jobs to support himself. At the age of 20, he found himself a job within the ranks of the Steel City Police Department as an Officer. Usually, during his career, he would find himself stopping petty crimes, burglaries and disturbances of the peace, usually using his powers in small bursts while unseen. At first, he was content that he had found a way to use his powers of good at all, but before long, a sense of monotony and repetition overtook him. Although Isaiah was able to stop smaller, pettier evils in his position, the larger crimes of the underworld, gang violence in the streets and the corruption within the PD was always out of reach. Coupling this with his need to use his powers in the shadows made it impossible to truly use his abilities to their fullest effect. He began to wonder if, perhaps, it wasn't enough to just be a man fighting evil. Prehaps, what the city and the world needed, was a symbol of something greater. It was this realization that pushed him to make the costume.

Of course, Isaiah was aware of the growing trend of masked vigilantes that stalked the night throughout steel city. Few, if any, were superhumans and their activities made them just as much targets of the law as the criminals they hunted. Their use of handguns, their choice to mostly operate by night and their frequent use of lethal force made them both admired and feared by the populous at large. Inspired, Isaiah realized the major flaw within this newfound breed of "Hero." This being their overall secrecy and reluctance to act in the light. Most of them were symbols of fear, not hope. 

Seeing an opportunity to finally put his powers to better use, Isaiah began fashioning himself a disguise, based on the then contemporary aesthetics of the Streamline Moderne style. Using leather, tights, and cotton, complete with a bright blue cape to complete this theatrical image, he created the guise that he would use as his symbol of Justice. Inspired by his own musings about himself and his status as a ''Human Machine'', he christened this new aspect of himself "The Man-Machine" as a way to keep his identity secret and completed it with a winged broach of gold-leafed tin upon his breast. Emblazoned with a capital letter M. 

In the 4 years since that crucial decision, The red, brown and blue image of The Man-Machine continues to be a frequent sight in Steel City, bounding across the rooftops of the Metropolis, batting corruption and terror in his own brutish, no-nonsense but kindly and well-meaning way. Saving citizens from both fatal accidents and disasters, combatting corrupt businessmen, politicians, robbers, murderers, crooked law officials, gambling dens, fraud, war profiteers and wife beaters. The career of this Urban Overseer, often nicknamed "The Living Diamond" is still relatively new, however, and time has yet to tell whether or not it will last.

Notes: Yeah, so, as you can tell from the use of Watchmen's Captain Metropolis as an Appearance, The Man-Machine is a straight-up costumed hero. Based on Hugo Danner from the 1930 Novel ''Gladiator'' albeit with a Streamline Moderne look that, coincidentally, combines Old School pulp with traditional Golden Age Superheroics. Danner is said to have been the basis for both Superman AND Captain America. So, in the tradition of all three, I have combined elements of their origins into one.