Simple Unicycle

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T H E Q U E S T I O N

Victor C. Sage, 26-27 (b. March 15th, 1941)
_{Vigilante based in Hub City, Illinois
Active since late November 1967}

Character Concept

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"I wish I could say I haven't seen these things for myself, but I think I speak for all the natives of my hometown when I say this: Hub City isn't a kind place. One night, it's a soft and warm mistress, seducing you with whispers of fortune and glory right in your ear, and the next night it's a rotten bitch, robbing you of all your money and throwing you in the gutter. Life ain't easy in The Hub.

"I walk down the street and see all sorts of depravity. Cops are kicking the shit out of minorities and arresting them for having the gall to look left instead of right. Men manhandling their wives in department stores because the little ladies decided to say that maybe, just maybe, their husband shouldn't buy his sixth case of beer in the last two days and binge drink it all as soon as they get home. Promising young men being arrested for toying around with recreational substances such as pot and LSD or, worse yet, getting drafted into the increasingly meaningless War in Vietnam to fight and die for a country that couldn't give less of a shit about them. All this happening while fat, rich pricks profit off our suffering. One of these rich pricks is Hub City's delightful mayor, Wesley Fermin, who uses his power to have the corrupt cops and his lapdogs in the Gospel of Sinners keep the people down.

"This isn't a problem exclusive to Hub City. This sort of crap happens all over the country: Gotham City, New York, Star City, Los Angeles. I'm just gonna say what I'm sure all my readers are thinking: these cities, many more cities and this entire country are going down the fucking drain. And I've just about had it. I want to see the proud, bright young men and women of this country rising up against our set-in-their-ways oppressors. The police, the government, the slothful rich. Fight the hell back! Make sure they see that we're fed up with their hokey-pokey bullshit and we won't take it anymore.

"How are we gonna do this? I don't got the answer to that. I'm simply asking you a question: how much longer can you sit around and watch your country be torn apart by the corrupt and the damned?"

- Excerpt from "America Is A Depraved Beast And It's Our Job To Tame It" by Victor Charles Sage, the cover story of the November 1967 issue of "Starrstruck Monthly" celebrating the magazine's first anniversary. Sage was arrested the following week for libel with his bail posted by the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Sam Starr.

I'm just gonna be honest: I love this character and it hurts me that I've never done a successful run with him in these Hype style RPs. You know what else I love? The 60s: the culture, the background of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement, the music. Everything about this RP hits every single nail on the head for me and I would be doing myself a disservice by staying out of this one. But the sheer excitement I have for this RP and what will come out of it is enough that I feel I can keep up with it this go around.

As for where I'll be taking the character, I intend on exploring my own unique take on the Question amidst the 1960s; one embroiled in the counterculture movement and facing down organized crime and political corruption. Serial killers, corrupt politicians, biker gangs, cults, mobsters, petty crooks: you name it, it's on the table. And hey, maybe hunting down a Soviet spy or two.

I'm hoping to start off with some small, self contained stories before opening the door for crossovers with other players and the like. I'm down for anything and everything with anyone and everyone. Punching crooks, fighting Soviets, tackling supernatural horrors. You name it, I'm down to be there.

Key Notes

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Backstory And Timeline

Backstory

Charles Victor Szasz was born in 1941 to a prostitute, Charlotte Szasz. His early life was rough primarily due to his family's poverty; otherwise, things weren't particularly bad, as his mother cared and provided for him as best as she could (sometimes to the expense of herself) and Charlie got decent grades in school. It all came crashing down in 1948, with the death of Charlotte at the hands of her pimp, who murdered her over two dollars and seventeen cents. Following this, Charlie was put into Charlton's Home for Problem Children, where he acted out and generally caused a commotion.

At sixteen, Charlie was kicked out of the home and left to fend for himself. He turned to crime to help feed himself: conning unaware passerby, breaking into cars to steal valuables, or even mugging people at knife point. He would have found himself going down the path of a hardened criminal if not for the intervention of one Aristotle "Tot" Rodor, a local doctor who took pity on Charlie and took him under his wing. With Tot's help, Charlie was able to graduate high school and go onto college.

In college, Charlie took on the name "Victor Sage", hoping to distance himself from his past. During his creative writing class, he met Myra Fermin, sister of aspiring politician and rumored gangster Wesley Fermin. Despite being wary of the woman due to her brother, he found himself growing closer to her, the two eventually finding themselves in a relationship. It continued after both had graduated and gone into their respective lines of work: Vic working as a journalist for The Hub City Gazette, Myra on her brother's PR team.

Vic's writing for the Hub City Gazette was short-lived, however, as he managed to pull some strings to get a particularly damning article about Wesley Fermin's campaign for mayor into the newspaper. The article slammed the elder Fermin as incompetent, corrupt, and stating that his only interest is "lining his own pockets and leaving the rest of us to rot." The article resulted in Fermin's lawyers suing the Hub City Gazette for libel, Myra leaving Vic for what she viewed as horrific lies about her brother, and Vic being fired from his job to save face.

Finding himself blacklisted from Hub City's top newspaper and unable to get a job at any of the city's other newspapers, Vic found himself freelancing for magazines in the city, hopping around from magazine to magazine just trying to scrape by. During this time, Vic found himself experimenting with drugs, starting with marijuana before moving onto LSD and occasionally dabbling in heroin or cocaine. This was the doorway to Vic into the counterculture movement, the young man appreciating the open-mindedness and rebellion it represented.

Vic's big break came in the form of Starrstruck Monthly, a country-wide counterculture magazine owned by Hub City local Sam Starr that was comprised almost entirely of short stories and articles written by freelance writers and journalists. Writing the cover story for the November 1967 issue of the magazine, "America Is A Depraved Beast And It's Our Job To Tame It", Vic slammed the American government, organized crime, and the Vietnam War while praising the rebellious youth and drug usage. He also took this opportunity to drag his old "friend" Wesley Fermin's name through the mud once more.

Vic found himself garnering a cult following from the story, becoming a local celebrity in Hub City's counterculture scene while making himself quite a few enemies among Hub City's politicians, crooks, and police. He was arrested for libel a week after the article was published, with Sam Starr posting his bail under the condition that Vic become Starrstruck Monthly's first full-time writer. Vic agreed. Shortly after his release from jail, Vic found himself wanting to do something more to fight back against the tide of corruption he saw sweeping the nation, but he wasn't entirely sure what he could do. That answer came in the form of helping out his old friend and mentor Tot Rodor.

Tot had helped to design a bandage in the 1950s with a man named Arby Twain. The bandage, pseudoderm, was designed to be skin-like and tightly bind itself onto skin through the usage of a "bonding gas". It worked wonders... Or would have, were it not for the fact that the bonding gas, when introduced into the blood stream, was highly toxic. The bandage was never mass produced or sold for medical purposes until Twain decided to try selling it to the North Vietnamese government for a high price.

Tot wanted to stop Twain but had no idea how, and Vic decided to help him out. He couldn't blow the whistle on Twain as he doubted anything would come from it (after all, the usage of the bandage would have had a largely negative effect on North Vietnam and its forces, so why would the US Government want to stop it?), so he decided to take matters into his own hands. Having Rodor design him a mask using what little pseudoderm he still had, Vic went after Twain and took down his operation, leaving Twain bound in pseudoderm in front of the police station alongside a written confession.

Ever since that incident, Vic has taken to vigilantism, using his pseudoderm mask to go out at night to either fight street thugs, dig up dirt on the local government, or try to put a dent in the criminal dealings of the Gospel of Sinners. Over the last month and a half, he has slowly started to become an urban legend in Hub City, going by many names. No-Face. The Shape. Faceless Freak. But chief among them is one, which Vic has adopted as his own vigilante alias...

The Question.

Timeline

March 15th, 1941 - Charles Victor Szasz is born to Charlotte Szasz and a long gone client.

June 13th, 1948 - Charlotte Szasz is murdered. Charles is taken to Charlton's Home For Problem Children.

March 15th, 1957 - Charles is kicked out on his 16th birthday.

August 4th, 1957 - Charles meets Aristotle Rodor, who takes the troubled youth under his wing.

May 16th, 1959 - Charles graduates from high school. He changes his name to Victor Sage and begins applying for colleges. He is eventually accepted into Hub City University.

August 18th, 1959 - Vic begins attending Hub City University, majoring in communications.

October 23rd, 1959 - Vic meets Myra Fermin in his creative writing class and befriends her.

November 19th, 1959 - Vic and Myra begin dating.

June 2nd, 1962 - Myra graduates from Hub City University with a Bachelor's in Political Science. She is hired by her brother and put on his Public Relations team. She continues to see Vic.

June 2nd, 1963 - Vic graduates from Hub City University with a Bachelor's degree in Communications.

June 15th, 1963 - Vic gets a job at the Hub City Gazette.

November 14th, 1963 - Vic pulls some strings to get an article he had written about the mayoral campaign of Myra's brother, Wesley Fermin, into the paper, in which he damn's Fermin's perceived incompetence and alleged ties to the Gospel of Sinners.

November 16th, 1963 - The Hub City Gazette is sued by Wesley Fermin's legal team for libel. Vic is fired from his job to save face and the charges are dropped.

June 4th, 1964 - Vic smokes marijuana for the first time after being introduced to it by a fellow journalist. He begins to smoke it regularly.

April 9th, 1965 - Vic begins experimenting with LSD and other drugs and finds himself joining the budding counterculture movement.

December 28th, 1966 - Vic meets Sam Starr, owner of the recently established Starrstruck Monthly. He agrees to start working with Starr and writing articles for the magazine.

November 3rd, 1967 - Vic's most famous article, "America Is A Depraved Beast And It's Our Job To Tame It", is published in Starrstruck Magazine's first anniversary issue.

November 9th, 1967 - Vic is arrested for libel. Sam Starr posts his bail, which is $200 dollars, in exchange for Vic agreeing to become Starrstruck's first full time writer.

November 23rd, 1967 - Tot approaches Vic for help dealing with Arby Twain. Vic agrees to help and the two get to work on designing a mask.

November 26th, 1967 - Vic goes after Twain and dismantles his operation, leaving Twain bound in pseudoderm at the nearest police station with a written confession. Vic continues using the Pseudoderm mask to fight crime as "The Question".

January 1st, 1968 - Present Day.

Districts of Hub City

Hupert Square

Named for the founder of the town, Hupert Square is the primary business district of Hub City. No one goes there unless it's to go to work. Filled with office buildings, law firms, and clinics. In the center of the district is Gaston Hupert Memorial Park, a small park dedicated to the founder of Hub City, Gaston Hupert, who was killed by Native Americans not long after founding the city. A statue of Hupert laying claim to Hub City is erected in the center of the park.

Jury Street

Once a residential street officially part of Hupert Square, Jury Street has grown enough to become its own district, extending out into the city limits. Primarily composed of high end housing with mansions further out of the city, this is where most of the criminal elite and politicians in Hub City live. The size of some of the houses are only matched by the decadence of the residents.

The Wedge

Officially Meadowview Heights, a residential district of Hub City filled with townhouses, apartment complexes, and locally owned stores. The Wedge is nicknamed as such because its shape on most municipal maps is like a wedge of cheese. The district was primarily a multicultural boiling pot at the turn of the century, where all the blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics and Irish lived. The grandchildren of these many cultures have formed the counterculture movement of Hub City, and now The Wedge is the unofficial home of it.

Hell's Corner

Officially Gordon's Corner, named for Gaston Hupert's right hand man Isaac Gordon, who took over the title of the city's mayor after Hupert's death, the district has garnered the nickname Hell's Corner for its reputation as a hotbed for criminals, be they biker gangs, human traffickers, ruthless murderers, or all three. It is composed of brick tenement buildings and condemned businesses. Most people stay away from Hell's Corner out of fear for their lives. A lot of the low level associates in the Gospel of Sinners live here.

Hupert River

An industrial district stretching out for a few miles beyond the city, Hupert River is named as such because of the river that flows straight through it. Composed of factories, power plants, and rail yards, not far from these factories are houses and trailer parks, home to the workers and their families. At night, it's a popular spot for criminals to conduct business. Dumping bodies into the river, drug deals, weapon trades; you name it, it's happened.

Chinatown

Officially Logan's Port, named for Arthur Logan, the man who pushed the Union Pacific through Hub City, Chinatown is named as such because, well... You get three guesses and the first two don't count. Originally a campsite for the Chinese railroad workers, Chinatown was built up into a series of tenement buildings, apartments, and even some houses over the years. Its population has a 50 to 1 ratio of Asian Americans to any other race. A hotbed for the Triads.

Organizations of Note

Starrstruck Monthly

Est. November 1966
A magazine founded by Sam Starr, meant to counter mostly conservative newspapers by offering a more liberal alternative with no claims of being an unbiased opinion, Starrstruck Monthly is popular around the country among members of the counterculture movement for its no-holds-barred approach to news. Its writing staff consists mostly of freelance journalists and writers with a chip on their shoulder and a lot to say about the state of the country. The magazine's main office is a convenience store turned into a studio located in The Wedge.

Gospel of Sinners

Est. July 1928
Established by Reverend Hatch and Max Bine after splitting off from the Chicago Outfit, the Gospel of Sinners is a criminal syndicate with claws embedded in the throat of Hub City and quickly extending its reach to the rest of the country. While the name implies religious convictions, the only member to share them are Hatch, who believes he is doing God's work by "filling the Earth with sin, so that He may revel in striking us all down come Judgement Day". Wesley Fermin is a member and rose to power thanks to his affiliation with them.

The Depraved MC

Est. May 1946
Founded by a group of World War II veterans that struggled to adjust back into a normal life, The Depraved is officially a motorcycle club for those who live and die on the road. In reality, it's a gang of criminals looking to leave its mark on Hub City and constantly wrestling with the Gospel of Sinners to do so. Several chapters have appeared across the states in various cities and towns.

Characters of Note

Notable Hub City Citizens

Doctor Aristotle "Tot" Rodor

47-48 (b. June 13th, 1920)
Vic's closest confidant and mentor. The closest thing Vic has to a father figure, having taken the young man in and setting him on the path to college and, eventually, his career as a journalist. Inventor of pseudoderm and the gas used to apply it. Served in the US Army as a Combat Medic during World War II and opening his own clinic in Hub City after the war ended.

Samuel Strickland (AKA Sam Starr)

35-36 (b. August 23rd, 1932)
The owner and editor-in-chief of Starrstruck Monthly, as well as Vic's boss and friend. Worked as an editor for various magazines across the country, making friends along the way; when the time came to establish his own monthly magazine, he used his contacts in the industry to get some articles and ensure Starrstruck Monthly would be on every newspaper stand and magazine rack in the country.

Wesley Fermin

37-38 (b. October 19th, 1930)
The mayor of Hub City, who seized power through manipulation, blackmail, and a bit of help from the Gospel of Sinners. His affiliation with the Sinners is an open secret in Hub City; everybody knows it, no one wants to talk about it. Loves his sister Myra dearly and tries to keep her out of his criminal lifestyle. Has a vendetta against Sage both for Sage's attempts to drag his name through the mud and his past with Myra.

Myra Fermin

27-28 (b. February 23rd, 1940)
A politician like her brother, though much less corrupt. Vic's estranged ex from college and Wesley's sister. Doesn't know of her brother's criminal affiliations and, while she loves him deeply, she finds herself growing suspicious of him with every passing day. Occasionally runs into Vic when he goes around hounding politicians for interviews, she finds herself wishing more and more to just give him that interview, if only so he'd leave her the hell alone and stop hounding her brother, too.

Isidore "Izzy" O'Toole

36-37 (b. May 19th, 1931)
A police detective in the pocket of the Gospel of Sinners. Despite his affiliation with them, he holds no love for them, and the arrangement is simply a mutually beneficial partnership: O'Toole turns a blind eye to the crimes they commit and they reward him handsomely for it. Lord knows he needs it, what with a wife, two children, and a third one on the way that he has to support. Even while ignoring the Gospel of Sinners, O'Toole still gives it his all to put every other criminal in his city behind bars.

Reverend Jeremiah Hatch

69-70 (b. April 20th, 1898)
A British-born man who fought in World War I on the Western Front and was sent home after being severely wounded by mortar fire, forcing him to use a cane to walk for the rest of his life. The horrors of war corrupted him and his faith in God, and he became a reverend not to atone for his past sins, but to revel in them in the belief that he is doing God's work. He made his way to America in 1924 and stayed in Chicago from that point forward, embroiling himself in the criminal underworld of Illinois. In 1928, he and some likeminded associates of the Chicago Outfit split off from the Outfit to establish their own syndicate in Hub City, the Gospel of Sinners. Hatch has ruled the underworld of the city since.

Maxwell Bine (AKA "The Banshee")

62-63 (b. December 3rd, 1905)
A notorious mobster hailing from Chicago who split off from the Chicago Outfit in 1928 with Hatch to establish the Gospel of Sinners. Brutal, ruthless, and cunning, Bine is primarily a businessman whose various casinos, hotels, and restaurants throughout the States are all either financing the Sinners or acting as fronts for illegal businesses. He is looking to extend his reach to Vegas by opening a hotel casino there.

"The Hub City Strangler"

Late 20s-Early 30s (b. approx. 1935-1940)
A spree killer operating in Hub City, with most of his killings occurring in The Wedge or Hell's Corner. Targets seem to be selected at random but are most often young, unmarried women. His MO is strangling, using no weapons save for his bare hands.

Ongoing & Upcoming Arcs

The Hub City Happening

Young women are turning up strangled to death in Hub City. Word on the street is that a spree killer is at large. Vic decides to investigate while butting heads with Detective Izzy O'Toole.

Oh Danny Boy

The Question goes after Mayor Fermin and his corrupt crew of twisted politicians, mobsters, and crooks... Which ends with him taking a bullet to the head and a dip in the icy Hupert River.

Fear And Loathing

Vic takes a trip to Las Vegas to cover the opening of a new hotel and casino, the Siren's Call. The owner: one Maxwell Bine, a mobster known across the Midwest as "The Banshee", whose opening of the Siren's Call hides a more sinister agenda...

Born To Be Wild

When The Depraved MC burn down a building in The Wedge and the police do nothing to stop them due to lack of evidence, Vic takes it upon himself to infiltrate the biker gang. Pretending to be interested in writing a piece about them for Starrstruck Monthly, Vic works subtly to take them down while writing up that piece to meet his deadline for next month's issue of the magazine.

Playlist

Just some bops to set the mood.

References / Sample Post

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For your consideration, here are three posts I consider to be the best pieces I've written for the Question:

• Sample Post (Justice League Unlimited Vol. 2)
• Triage At Dawn (DC Universe: Genesis - Justice For All)
• Night Driving Avenger (Absolute Comics - Justice Rising)

I believe my above character concept could also be considered a sample post as article excerpts written by Vic are something I want to incorporate into my posts going forward, so I'd like to posit that as my sample post.

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@Bounce

Strange way of spelling Cassandra Cain.

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P L A Y L I S T

Stealing Bounce's format that he stole from Mao Mao.

The Question: Human Enigma

_{Vic Sage Theme: The Who - My Generation
Vic Sage Theme (Alternate): Simon & Garfunkel - The Sound of Silence
The Question Theme: The Doors - People Are Strange
The Question Theme (Alternate): Carpenter Brut - Night Stalker
Hub City Theme: Charles Mingus - Moanin'
Ending Theme: The Band - The Weight}

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what is this rp about?

@Pantie Sniffer

Not too sure Mr. Pantie Sniffer, I'm wondering that myself. I wonder if the GMs can shed any light on the situation.

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Finished up my CS with a backstory and some reference posts. Hope it's up to snuff.

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I swear to God, MGS3 cursed me with the inability to climb a ladder without humming Snake Eater to myself.

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@Hexaflexagon
Something something Nadia has to climb a long ass ladder to escape a laboratory she infiltrated that's located thousands of feet underground.

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Ended up scraping my original idea and came up with something a bit more interesting. [Wanted to push myself beyond street level again lol] Still need a sample post, but I'll try and get that up this weekend.

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WASP

Nadia Pym, Age 16 (b. 1952)
_{Based in The Red Room, Undisclosed Location, USSR
Active since approximately 24 Hours Ago}

Character Concept

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In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, Dr. Henry "Hank" Pym became a spy for the USA, using his recently developed Pym particles to sneak beyond the Iron Curtain. One such mission saw Dr. Pym trying to flip a known KGB agent known as Maria Trovaya, a known member of the Soviet's secretive Black Widow Program. The two quickly fell for each other and it was perhaps those feelings that made them sloppy. On the night that the pair was bound for Constantinople via a cargo ship in Odessa, they were caught by Red Room agents. Pym was able make it out alive using his Ant Man technology, but Trovaya was captured. What neither of them knew at the time was that Trovaya was pregnant.

Head researcher at the Red Room Doctor Lyudmila Antonovna Kudrin was curious to see the effects of in utero exposure to her super serum as up to this point it was believed that the serum caused complete infertility and requested that the embryo inside Trovaya be extracted before her execution for treason. In time that Embryo placed inside a biological containment chamber would grow into Nadia.

Thus, from her "birth" onward, Nadia one and only home was the secretive compound that the Red Room ran its operations from. From a young age two things became apparent, Nadia was gifted with both her Father's superior intellect and had trace remnants of her mother's super serum in her blood. And so, like her mother before her Nadia was to be trained in the Black Widow program.

Nadia along with twenty other orphans including one Ava Orlova - who she quickly became friends with - were posed to be the next generation of Widow agents. The thinking under Khrushchev and later Brezhnev being that a modern cohort was needed to represent a Post-Stalin USSR that could truly position itself as a global superpower against the Capitalist West. Alongside her regular combat and espionage training, Nadia's handlers sought to fine tune her intellect with Doctor Kudrin personally taking Nadia under her wing seeing Nadia as the only one worthy to inherit her position as head of the program.

A week ago, Nadia passed her last examinations and was declared fit for active duty having been given the codename: WASP. However, when her first mission leads her on the trail of Professor Grigor Ivanovich Pchelintsov, a former Red Room scientist and an associate of her Father. The past that the Red Room desperately tried to keep from her will finally catch up. And Nadia must then face the question of where do her loyalties lay?

Generally, my plan is to mix a Cold War spy drama mixed with some more classical super heroics. I've always liked Ant-Man as a character and he and his supporting cast tend to get underutilized at times. Our Cold War setting though allows me to hopefully fix that problem by working form the prospective of Nadia. Her whole abducted by the Red Room and raised by the Russians fitting perfectly with the setting. Allowing for the moral quandaries of such classics as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold to hopefully shine through, though admittedly tonally I'm going much more for Snake Eater or an Atomic Blonde than I am le Carré.

After Nadia defects to America in search of answers at the end of her first arc. I hope to be able to get involved with other players especially the other young superheroes out there. As I feel that Nadia's position will make an interesting fish out of water dynamic compared to the Americans she will be running into.

Key Notes

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Central Cast

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Dr. Henry "Hank" Pym

_{Nadia's father currently MIA.[Is willing to work around this if there are any Ant-Man players out there]}

Janet Van Dyne

_{Shield Agent and Hank's on-off again girlfriend. Currently investigating into Hank's disappearance by looking into his past. This will lead her on a Collison course with the Red Room. [Omnce again see above notes. I'm willing to not use Janet or Hank completely if another player really needs them :3]}

Maria Trovaya

_{Nadia's mother. A former agent of the Black Widow program. DECEASED}

Doctor Lyudmila Antonovna Kudrin

_{The Head of the Red Room. See's Nadia as the daughter she never had.}

Ava Orlova

_{Another up and coming agent of the Red Room. Nadia's best friend.}

Aleksey Lebedev

_{The original Red Guardian. Now combat instructor at the Red Room.}

Yelena Belova

_{A Gen-1 Black Widow and Espionage instructor at the Red Room.}

Professor Grigor Ivanovich Pchelintsov

_{A professor with ties to the Red Room and Hank Pym. Nadia's first target.}

Current Plot Threads

From Russia With Love

Nadia is sent to track down Professor Grigor Ivanovich Pchelintsov, a Professor with connections to her past.

References / Sample Post

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Working on it!

@Hexaflexagon

You had me at "Snake Eater".

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With this many martial artists, I await the League of Assassins Tournament Arc that seems to keep coming up in the comics.

Uatu the Watcher can referee the 1968 totally-not-Mortal-Kombat.

Also, since 1968 is the year this show first debuted nationwide in the US... my money is on Mister Rogers winning the tournament.

@Bounce

"The Champion stood, the rest saw their better: Mr. Rogers in a bloodstained sweater."

E: It is only after posting this that I realize you linked The Ultimate Showdown in that post lol.

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Some Faceless Bastard

T H E Q U E S T I O N

Victor C. Sage, 26-27 (b. March 15th, 1941)
_{Vigilante based in Hub City, Illinois
Active since late November 1967}

Character Concept

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"I wish I could say I haven't seen these things for myself, but I think I speak for all the natives of my hometown when I say this: Hub City isn't a kind place. One night, it's a soft and warm mistress, seducing you with whispers of fortune and glory right in your ear, and the next night it's a rotten bitch, robbing you of all your money and throwing you in the gutter. Life ain't easy in The Hub.

"I walk down the street and see all sorts of depravity. Cops are kicking the shit out of minorities and arresting them for having the gall to look left instead of right. Men manhandling their wives in department stores because the little ladies decided to say that maybe, just maybe, their husband shouldn't buy his sixth case of beer in the last two days and binge drink it all as soon as they get home. Promising young men being arrested for toying around with recreational substances such as pot and LSD or, worse yet, getting drafted into the increasingly meaningless War in Vietnam to fight and die for a country that couldn't give less of a shit about them. All this happening while fat, rich pricks profit off our suffering. One of these rich pricks is Hub City's delightful mayor, Wesley Fermin, who uses his power to have the corrupt cops and his lapdogs in the Gospel of Sinners keep the people down.

"This isn't a problem exclusive to Hub City. This sort of crap happens all over the country: Gotham City, New York, Star City, Los Angeles. I'm just gonna say what I'm sure all my readers are thinking: these cities, many more cities and this entire country are going down the fucking drain. And I've just about had it. I want to see the proud, bright young men and women of this country rising up against our set-in-their-ways oppressors. The police, the government, the slothful rich. Fight the hell back! Make sure they see that we're fed up with their hokey-pokey bullshit and we won't take it anymore.

"How are we gonna do this? I don't got the answer to that. I'm simply asking you a question: how much longer can you sit around and watch your country be torn apart by the corrupt and the damned?"

- Excerpt from "America Is A Depraved Beast And It's Our Job To Tame It" by Victor Charles Sage, the cover story of the November 1967 issue of "Starrstruck Monthly" celebrating the magazine's first anniversary. Sage was arrested the following week for libel with his bail posted by the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Sam Starr.

I'm just gonna be honest: I love this character and it hurts me that I've never done a successful run with him in these Hype style RPs. You know what else I love? The 60s: the culture, the background of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement, the music. Everything about this RP hits every single nail on the head for me and I would be doing myself a disservice by staying out of this one. But the sheer excitement I have for this RP and what will come out of it is enough that I feel I can keep up with it this go around.

As for where I'll be taking the character, I intend on exploring my own unique take on the Question amidst the 1960s; one embroiled in the counterculture movement and facing down organized crime and political corruption. Serial killers, corrupt politicians, biker gangs, cults, mobsters, petty crooks: you name it, it's on the table. And hey, maybe hunting down a Soviet spy or two.

I'm hoping to start off with some small, self contained stories before opening the door for crossovers with other players and the like. I'm down for anything and everything with anyone and everyone. Punching crooks, fighting Soviets, tackling supernatural horrors. You name it, I'm down to be there.

Key Notes

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Backstory

Charles Victor Szasz was born in 1941 to a prostitute, Charlotte Szasz. His early life was rough primarily due to his family's poverty; otherwise, things weren't particularly bad, as his mother cared and provided for him as best as she could (sometimes to the expense of herself) and Charlie got decent grades in school. It all came crashing down in 1948, with the death of Charlotte at the hands of her pimp, who murdered her over two dollars and seventeen cents. Following this, Charlie was put into Charlton's Home for Problem Children, where he acted out and generally caused a commotion.

At sixteen, Charlie was kicked out of the home and left to fend for himself. He turned to crime to help feed himself: conning unaware passerby, breaking into cars to steal valuables, or even mugging people at knife point. He would have found himself going down the path of a hardened criminal if not for the intervention of one Aristotle "Tot" Rodor, a local doctor who took pity on Charlie and took him under his wing. With Tot's help, Charlie was able to graduate high school and go onto college.

In college, Charlie took on the name "Victor Sage", hoping to distance himself from his past. During his creative writing class, he met Myra Fermin, sister of aspiring politician and rumored gangster Wesley Fermin. Despite being wary of the woman due to her brother, he found himself growing closer to her, the two eventually finding themselves in a relationship. It continued after both had graduated and gone into their respective lines of work: Vic working as a journalist for The Hub City Gazette, Myra on her brother's PR team.

Vic's writing for the Hub City Gazette was short-lived, however, as he managed to pull some strings to get a particularly damning article about Wesley Fermin's campaign for mayor into the newspaper. The article slammed the elder Fermin as incompetent, corrupt, and stating that his only interest is "lining his own pockets and leaving the rest of us to rot." The article resulted in Fermin's lawyers suing the Hub City Gazette for libel, Myra leaving Vic for what she viewed as horrific lies about her brother, and Vic being fired from his job to save face.

Finding himself blacklisted from Hub City's top newspaper and unable to get a job at any of the city's other newspapers, Vic found himself freelancing for magazines in the city, hopping around from magazine to magazine just trying to scrape by. During this time, Vic found himself experimenting with drugs, starting with marijuana before moving onto LSD and occasionally dabbling in heroin or cocaine. This was the doorway to Vic into the counterculture movement, appreciating the open-mindedness and rebellion it represented.

Vic's big break came in the form of Starrstruck Monthly, a country-wide counterculture magazine owned by Hub City local Sam Starr that was comprised almost entirely of short stories and articles written by freelance writers and journalists. Writing the cover story for the November 1967 issue of the magazine, "America Is A Depraved Beast And It's Our Job To Tame It", Vic slammed the American government, organized crime, and the Vietnam War while praising the rebellious youth and drug usage. He also took this opportunity to drag his old "friend" Wesley Fermin's name through the mud once more.

Vic found himself garnering a cult following from the story, becoming a local celebrity in Hub City's counterculture scene while making himself quite a few enemies among Hub City's politicians, crooks, and police. He was arrested for libel a week after the article was published, with Sam Starr posting his bail under the condition that Vic become Starrstruck Monthly's first full-time writer. Vic agreed. Shortly after his release from jail, Vic found himself wanting to do something more to fight back against the tide of corruption he saw sweeping the nation, but he wasn't entirely sure what he could do. That answer came in the form of helping out his old friend and mentor Tot Rodor.

Tot had helped to design a bandage in the 1950s with a man named Arby Twain. The bandage, pseudoderm, was designed to be skin-like and tightly bind itself onto skin through the usage of a "bonding gas". It worked wonders... Save for the fact that the bonding gas, when introduced into the blood stream, was highly toxic. The bandage was never mass produced or sold for medical purposes... Until Twain decided to try selling it to the North Vietnamese government for a high price.

Tot wanted to stop Twain but had no idea how, and Vic decided to help him out. He couldn't blow the whistle on Twain as he doubted anything would come from it (after all, the usage of the bandage would have had a largely negative effect on North Vietnam and its forces, so why would the US Government want to stop it?), so he decided to take matters into his own hands. Having Rodor design him a mask using what little pseudoderm he still had, Vic went after Twain and took down his operation, leaving Twain bound in pseudoderm in front of the police station alongside a written confession.

Ever since that incident, Vic has taken to vigilantism, using his pseudoderm mask to go out at night to either fight street thugs, dig up dirt on the local government, or try to put a dent in the criminal dealings of the Gospel of Sinners. Over the last month and a half, he has slowly started to become an urban legend in Hub City, going by many names. No-Face. The Shape. Faceless Freak. But chief among them is one, which Vic has adopted as his own vigilante alias...

The Question.

Districts of Hub City

Hupert Square

Named for the founder of the town, Hupert Square is the primary business district of Hub City. No one goes there unless it's to go to work. Filled with office buildings, law firms, and clinics. In the center of the district is Gaston Hupert Memorial Park, a small park dedicated to the founder of Hub City, Gaston Hupert, who was killed by Native Americans not long after founding the city. A statue of Hupert laying claim to Hub City is erected in the center of the park.

Jury Street

Once a residential street officially part of Hupert Square, Jury Street has grown enough to become its own district, extending out into the city limits. Primarily composed of high end housing with mansions further out of the city, this is where most of the criminal elite and politicians in Hub City live. The size of some of the houses are only matched by the decadence of the residents.

The Wedge

Officially Meadowview Heights, a residential district of Hub City filled with townhouses, apartment complexes, and locally owned stores. The Wedge is nicknamed as such because its shape on most municipal maps is like a wedge of cheese. The district was primarily a multicultural boiling pot at the turn of the century, where all the African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, Irish Americans, and Asian Americans lived. The Wedge is the unofficial home of Hub City's counterculture movement.

Gordon's Corner

Gordon's Corner was named for Isaac Gordon, Gaston Hupert's right hand man who took over the title of the city's mayor after Hupert's death. Another residential district composed of brick tenement buildings and rundown houses, Gordon's Corner has become known as a hotbed for criminals, be they biker gangs, human traffickers, ruthless murderers, or all three. Most people stay away from Gordon's Corner out of fear for their life. A lot of the low level associates in the Gospel of Sinners live here.

Hupert River

An industrial district stretching out for a few miles beyond the city, Hupert River is named as such because of the river that flows straight through it. Composed of factories, power plants, and rail yards, not far from these factories are houses and trailer parks, home to the workers and their families. At night, it's a popular spot for criminals to conduct business. Dumping bodies into the river, drug deals, weapon trades; you name it, it's happened.

Organizations of Note

Starrstruck Monthly

Est. November 1966
A magazine founded by Sam Starr, meant to counter mostly conservative newspapers by offering a more liberal alternative with no claims of being an unbiased opinion, Starrstruck Monthly is popular around the country among members of the counterculture movement for its no-holds-barred approach to news. Its writing staff consists mostly of freelance journalists and writers with a chip on their shoulder and a lot to say about the state of the country. The magazine's main office is a convenience store turned into a studio located in The Wedge.

Gospel of Sinners

Est. July 1928
Established by Reverend Hatch and Max Bine after splitting off from the Chicago Outfit, the Gospel of Sinners is a criminal syndicate with claws embedded in the throat of Hub City and quickly extending its reach to the rest of the country. While the name implies religious convictions, the only member to share them are Hatch, who believes he is doing God's work by "filling the Earth with sin, so that He may revel in striking us all down come Judgement Day". Wesley Fermin is a member and rose to power thanks to his affiliation with them.

The Depraved MC

Est. May 1946
Founded by a group of World War II veterans that struggled to adjust back into a normal life, The Depraved is officially a motorcycle club for those who live and die on the road. In reality, it's a gang of criminals looking to leave its mark on Hub City and constantly wrestling with the Gospel of Sinners to do so. Several chapters have appeared across the states in various cities and towns.

Characters of Note

Allies

Doctor Aristotle "Tot" Rodor

47-48 (b. June 13th, 1920)
Vic's closest confidant and mentor. The closest thing Vic has to a father figure, having taken the young man in and setting him on the path to college and, eventually, his career as a journalist. Inventor of pseudoderm and the gas used to apply it. Served in the US Army as a Combat Medic during World War II and opening his own clinic in Hub City after the war ended.

Samuel Strickland (AKA Sam Starr)

35-36 (b. August 23rd, 1932)
The owner and editor-in-chief of Starrstruck Monthly, as well as Vic's boss and friend. Worked as an editor for various magazines across the country, making friends along the way; when the time came to establish his own monthly magazine, he used his contacts in the industry to get some articles and ensure Starrstruck Monthly would be on every newspaper stand and magazine rack in the country.

Myra Fermin

27-28 (b. February 23rd, 1940)
A politician like her brother, though much less corrupt. Vic's estranged ex from college and Wesley's sister. Doesn't know of her brother's criminal affiliations and, while she loves him deeply, she finds herself growing suspicious of him with every passing day. Occasionally runs into Vic when he goes around hounding politicians for interviews, she finds herself wishing more and more to just give him that interview, if only so he'd leave her the hell alone and stop hounding her brother, too.

Enemies

Wesley Fermin

37-38 (b. October 19th, 1930)
The mayor of Hub City, who seized power through manipulation, blackmail, and a bit of help from the Gospel of Sinners. His affiliation with the Sinners is an open secret in Hub City; everybody knows it, no one wants to talk about it. Loves his sister Myra dearly and tries to keep her out of his criminal lifestyle. Has a vendetta against Sage both for Sage's attempts to drag his name through the mud and his past with Myra.

Reverend Josiah Hatch

69-70 (b. April 20th, 1898)
A British-born man who fought in World War I on the Western Front and was sent home after being severely wounded by mortar fire, forcing him to use a cane to walk for the rest of his life. The horrors of war corrupted him and his faith in God, and he became a reverend not to atone for his past sins, but to revel in them in the belief that he is doing God's work. He made his way to America in 1924 and stayed in Chicago from that point forward, embroiling himself in the criminal underworld of Illinois. In 1928, he and some likeminded associates of the Chicago Outfit split off from the Outfit to establish their own syndicate in Hub City, the Gospel of Sinners. Hatch has ruled the underworld of the city since.

Maxwell Bine (AKA "The Banshee")

62-63 (b. December 3rd, 1905)
A notorious mobster hailing from Chicago who split off from the Chicago Outfit in 1928 with Hatch to establish the Gospel of Sinners. Brutal, ruthless, and cunning, Bine is primarily a businessman whose various casinos, hotels, and restaurants throughout the States are all either financing the Sinners or acting as fronts for illegal businesses. He is looking to extend his reach to Vegas by opening a hotel casino there.

Ongoing & Upcoming Arcs

The Hub City Happening

Young girls are turning up brutally murdered in Hub City. Word on the street is that a spree killer is at large. Vic decides to investigate and finds a little more than he bargained for: a cult worshiping a demon known as "Mephisto" and run by a drugged up lunatic.

Oh Danny Boy

The Question goes after Mayor Fermin and his corrupt crew of twisted politicians, mobsters, and crooks... Which ends with him taking a bullet to the head and a dip in the icy Hupert River.

Fear And Loathing

Vic takes a trip to Las Vegas to cover the opening of a new hotel and casino, the Siren's Call. The owner: one Maxwell Bine, a mobster known across the Midwest as "The Banshee", whose opening of the Siren's Call hides a more sinister agenda...

Born To Be Wild

When The Depraved MC burn down a building in The Wedge and the police do nothing to stop them due to lack of evidence, Vic takes it upon himself to infiltrate the biker gang. Pretending to be interested in writing a piece about them for Starrstruck Monthly, Vic works subtly to take them down while actually writing up that piece to meet his deadline for next month's issue of the magazine.

References / Sample Post

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For your consideration, here are three posts I consider to be the best pieces I've written for the Question:

• Sample Post (Justice League Unlimited Vol. 2)
• Triage At Dawn (DC Universe: Genesis - Justice For All)
• Night Driving Avenger (Absolute Comics - Justice Rising)

I believe my above character concept could also be considered a sample post as article excerpts written by Vic are something I want to incorporate into my posts going forward, so I'd like to posit that as my sample post.