NPCs - Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, maybe Green Arrow (if nobody does anything with him)
Just tagging everybody who submitted a CS or showed interest! Been a long week with all of the snow but I should have the OOC finished soon. There's still plenty of room if anyone wants to reinvent a DC character or make a somewhat fusion of concepts which I think is what most of this has turned into LOL. I'll try and get a discord going as well so this RP doesn't overtake my Liberty City channel...
Appearance - Once an ordinary man with blond hair and blue eyes, he has been permanently transformed into a hulking man-spider. A vaguely humanoid seven foot two powerhouse with six arms, a spider's face, a small tail-like abdomen, and covered in sandy brown fur. With the body of an arachnid monster, he dresses as a warrior, wrapping his arms and nether regions in cloth to give the impression of a barbarian martial artist.
BRIEF Bio - Jonathan Law is a name found printed in large sharp angular letters on the covers of thousands of paperback mysteries, crime dramas, and suspense thrillers about corrupt police officers, gangland criminals, unexpected heroes, and dashing vigilantes. A celebrated author in a niche Genre, he was able to afford a comfortable, quiet life in the suburbs, a big house, a kind German housekeeper, and a couple of nice cars. He had everything but a family. He'd been in relationships, but had never married and had no children. Yet he learned for a wife and a family. So of course, being a red blooded American bachelor, he was often preoccupied by looking for a woman to marry. And that's where it all went wrong, you see.
He should have listened to Olga, his housekeeper, and found a a nice Christian girl at church. Instead he prioritized finding a romantically and sexually compatible young lady on dating apps, at bars and in clubs. This culminated in him behaving as a serial dater, engaging in a series of short term flings, one night stands, and chaotic situation-ships. One night in particular couldn't have gone more wrong. He found himself dancing and flirting with a wild young Japanese girl. She was dressed in a manner which could only be described as goth. And she acted bratty and teasing towards him from the moment he showed interest. That night was exciting at first before everything went black. Afterwards... strapped to a table... goth girl standing over him... laughing evilly... injections... dreams... fighting... was that Wonder Woman he was fighting? definitely a dream... ... and finally some kind of explosion...
When he awoke, he felt like he had the worst hang over on the planet. And he could not speak. He was confused and lost in a downtown area. Wandering through unfamiliar alleyways in the afternoon light. And everyone who saw him, those who weren't drunk or high, ran away in exaggerated fear. But only when he finally caught sight of his own reflection did he finally understand why. He was now a seven foot tall spider monster!
After a while of reflection and flirtation with despair, Jonathan began to realize that he was now especially well equipped to be like some of the best protagonists he'd ever written about. He could now go toe to toe with mobsters and terrorists, intimidate them, sneak into their lairs, the works. Besides, what was there to lose? It's not like he was ever going to have much of a social life now. Or a family. What then did the money from his books mean anymore?
And so he began to be the hero he would have written about. And he also did write still. He corresponded with Olga about his home and finances. And he corresponded with the press, pretending to be normal citizens, regarding the emergence of a strange new hero. He developed a plan to keep Olga taken care of by making her the director of his finances, while traveling form city to city, fighting crime. But after a few months his old housekeeper began to insist that he return home. He warned her that he was now "hideously disfigured", but she replied that "physical appearance is of little value to our eternal fate," and that he "should spend more time worrying about the beauty or disfigurement of your soul." Eventually he did return home, and found the German woman shockingly accepting of his new appearance and willing to aid him in his new purpose.
Notes - Firstly, the missing details: Jonathan doesn't know that the Japanese chick from the club was actually Dr Poison. He doesn't remember the procedures that were done or chemicals administered to him that turned him into Tarantula. And he doesn't quite get that he really did fight Wonder Woman in a battle that ended with an explosion, after which he was left for dead.
And Secondly, I was hoping to incorporate an npc of a young child version of Catalina Flores for Tarantula to rescue and eventually form a bond with.
@Neziul I dig the changes. Puts me in the mind of Goliath from the Council of Spiders in the pre New52 Red Robin series. I like the inclusion of Dr. Poison as well. Just remember if he fought WW, its a version of WW mixed with the Gods & Monsters version so she's more like a New God than a traditional Amazonian. They're still fierce and female, but now they possess Motherbox tech and teleportation capabilities.
EDIT: Just saw you had Goliath in the top of the CS and I completely missed it LOL
@Neziul I dig the changes. Puts me in the mind of Goliath from the Council of Spiders in the pre New52 Red Robin series. I like the inclusion of Dr. Poison as well. Just remember if he fought WW, its a version of WW mixed with the Gods & Monsters version so she's more like a New God than a traditional Amazonian. They're still fierce and female, but now they possess Motherbox tech and teleportation capabilities.
EDIT: Just saw you had Goliath in the top of the CS and I completely missed it LOL
I was going to say "it sounds like you're picking up what I'm putting down," lol. But yeah, I knew I wanted to make Tarantula into a man-spider akin to Goliath (only more spidery), but keep the good guy personality. So I was looking for a way to induce the transformation. Then I read about how Dr Poison made Richard Agoras have random transformations into a giant spider monster who would fight WW, and so I just threw it all into the same stew.
Now I'm not too familiar with Gods and Monsters or New Gods. Like at all. But if that means WW is now a God-tier WMD of a superhero then I think we can safely rely on the old comic book trope of heroes becoming inexplicably more powerful when they turn to the dark side to explain away how he was able to keep up with her in a fight.
Because what I'm thinking is that Dr Poison made him a monster for the purpose of defeating Wonder Woman and hoping theat he would catch her in a web for the classic villainous reason of capturing a superhero as a part of an ev8l scheme. And I figured the explosion could have damaged him so bad or caused him to bump his head or destroyed a device or whatever so that the mind control wore off.
I’m considering pulling Speed Demon and replacing them with an Aquaman or something else. Got too many ideas floating around.
Interesting. And here I was looking forward to some fun moments of narrative tension between the pious Christian and the profane occultist. Still be cool to see what you come up with next though.