SKETCHED IN STONE

With a Webcomic version of The Adventures of Lucky Vega now in thumbnailing, I decided it was time to have a set of final master drawings of the lead characters of The Environauts, both as they will appear when they acquire their super-powers and become Earth's most awesome adventurers, and as they'll appear in the prequel.  For this and the next three posts we'll see the official model sheets for the Nauts.  These model sheets are in the process of coloring right now, but I'm giving them a preview here.

The powers of the Environauts reflect the spheres of the natural environment through which life has evolved (or will evolve as man advances), from Ocean to Land to Sky to Space.

Biracial Illinois native Lionel Marshall, the stupendous STONE, is the "Land" character, both the super-strength member and the gay member in the group.  Lionel's African-American mother is a physician; his Irish-American father is a University Dean.  Lionel started out as just black; I've evolved him in this way as a response to the growth and change in my own family and to what's happening in American society in general.  America is turning varied shades of "brown" before our eyes, a fascinating process to watch.  Lionel is a prep-school graduate and a college boxing champion whose romantic life hooks him up with at least two other major characters:  hardbody martial-arts expert Travis Roykirk, who becomes the super-hero World Champion; and super-powerful time traveler Prince Declan Draco, a.k.a. Draco Rex.  

Belying cultural expectations and assumptions about large, physically intimidating black men, Lionel, an English major in college, is the most urbane, erudite, articulate, and cultured of the Environauts, and is the appointed spokesman and media representative of the team.  But as noted above, the voice of the Nauts is also the muscle of the Nauts.  In his super-powered role as the Stone, Lionel can become a body of indestructible, super-strong living marble.  Imagine a certain Russian mutant in another comics universe, but in marble instead of steel.  Strong enough to lift 85 to 90 tons, invulnerable enough to resist heavy artillery, and skilled in hand-to-hand combat, the Stone is one of the most formidable members of the Quantum cast. 

LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE BOYS

The central characters of the Quantum Comics universe are, how shall we say, fantastic “for” a number of reasons.  They are Earth’s most celebrated and loved adventurers, the Beatles of the heroic world:  the Environauts.

The origin of the Nauts, as they’re often called, takes the origin of another very famous comic-book quartet and turns it upside down.  Lorenzo “Lucky” Vega, super-rich super-science genius and the smartest kid in the world, takes his three best friends out for a submarine ride to test an experimental technology that catalogues the sounds made by marine life.  While they’re out there, they discover something that has never been recorded before--because it belongs to no ocean on Earth!  It captures them and tries to transform them into the vanguard of an alien invasion.  The intervention of an alien female (whom we’ll be meeting in the future) saves the boys, leaving them still human but super-powered--and making them the only thing that can save mankind from conquest by oceanic beings from another world.  (Meanwhile, Olympic gymnast Travis Roykirk is battling the same invasion, a battle that will result in his becoming the World Champion.)  Lucky’s brilliance and the four friends’ powers make them the explorers, discoverers, and protectors of Earth’s future; the world’s leading super-science heroes and pillars of the superhuman community.  These four boys are the pioneers of everything that is “super”.

The Environauts are so famous and so popular that in the Quantum Comics world you can’t turn on your TV or computer, or open a magazine or look at a newspaper, without seeing, hearing, or reading something about them.  And going out in public?  Remember how the Beatles couldn’t do a thing without being swarmed by screaming girls?  Imagine mobs of screaming girls and guys hurling themselves at you wherever you go.  It can make the business of saving the world even more complicated than you’d expect.

This group shot is the result of my latest tinkering with the team uniform.  As you can see, the Nauts wear the same suit in individual colors with individual symbols as well as a team symbol.  (There’s also an equally sleek-looking “dress” version of the suits, which I’ll have to show you sometime.)  Earth’s greatest heroes are (from left to right) openly gay, biracial Lionel Marshall, aka The Stone, who can transform his body into super-strong, invulnerable living marble; Roger Blaisdell, aka Aquarius, who becomes a figure of living liquid and does all manner of watery power stunts; team leader Lucky Vega, aka Lucky Star, with the power to become a body of living plasma, as in a neon sign or the Sun; and Roger’s big brother Warren “Trey” Blaisdell III, aka Cirrus, who becomes a body of living water vapor and charged particles, a human storm system that can produce all sorts of weather effects.  The powers of the Environauts are meant to reflect the spheres of the natural environment through which life has evolved.  Life as we know it began in the ocean and moved onto the land, certain creatures took to the sky, and man has uniquely begun to reach into space.  So the Nauts are figures of Ocean (Aquarius), Land (The Stone), Sky (Cirrus), and Space (Lucky Star).  

We’ll have individual posts for each of the Environauts in weeks to come.  In the meantime, let’s hear it for the boys.