This site provides writing advice. If you're writing a superhero novel or comic book, please also read our superhero writing articles.

Would you like to subscribe to our RSS feed?

Agent Orange (Hunter)

Hunter’s Plot Purpose

• With Oliver, he’s one of the two government guys trying to keep Rusty survive to see adulthood.
  • As the alien, he sticks out more, so he has to stay in the safehouse pretty much all the time.
  • He is always annoyed by Rusty and pretty cold, despite being tremendously friendly to human children. Rusty isn’t human, charming or harmless.
  • He won’t discuss this until very late, but he gets subtle signs that the kid is bad news, maybe even tremendously dangerous. His superiors might have thought he was just irritated about maybe being replaced… but they couldn’t exactly replace him on the mission (he has a strong track-record and they don’t have anyone who knows as much about aliens).
• He increasingly sees a conflict between his mission (keep Rusty safe) and his duty (keep the country safe). He cares about keeping innocents safe in a genuine, heart-felt way and maybe there’s no way to keep them safe without killing the kid.
  • The kid really IS vicious and maybe a prophecy interpreted one way suggests that he will eventually be a criminal of some notoriety
  • I’ve already ruled out them actually killing Rusty (that’d be WAY too dark… even mentioning that he’s thinking about it is pretty twisted, I think). But the main Hunter-Ryan conflict will be Hunter’s sense of duty vs. their mission.
• On a significantly lighter side, he pushes Dr. Fox to do something useful with whatever the hell he got out of the chemical explosion.
  • Early on, forces Fox to move back to his place. Gets real upset with Oliver for compromising their security.
  • First, cajolement. Then actual preparation. I think a mentor relationship would be WAY too cliche and implausible, so I’ll go with a “I’m too busy to bury your body” kind of help.
  • Also, maybe helping Fox realize that life isn’t the same. I think this is essential to showing that he’s changed more than just physically.
• As the Mallow plot advances, he’ll help investigate, maybe interacting with Tommy Thompson or the Belgian along the way.
  • Probably only after Lash gets killed. Until that point, he probably thinks it would compromise his mission.

Distinguishing Narrative Characteristics (how would this character act/perceive unusually in a given setting?)

• Two separate voices

1. Outsider. He overcompensates for awkward English by using entirely awkward, “refined” language. “Arduous” instead of “hard,” for example. He enjoys making outsiders feel a bit uncomfortable. He doesn’t give any stories you’d want to hear about, but he knows more than a bit about megadeath and other unsettling issues to creep anyone out. Rarely talks about himself. Jokes, but only garishly. He tends to overdress for strangers, showing no skin.
2. Informal. This language tends to come out either when he’s talking with friends or under stress, which suggests that it is more natural for him. He tends to sound more like, well, a comic book character or perhaps a military grunt. He’s more open, concerned, prone to telling stories, talking about baseball, etc. More associated with trench-coat and cape (which are more natural for him, if not for government directors).

• Driving curiosity that often overlaps with paranoia. Understands no normal boundaries of taboos– anything that might conceivably affect the mission is on the table.
• Unnormal senses.
  • Supernatural reflexes. When action happens, time just kind of slows down.
  • Visual orientated. Catches freakishly small details in visible spectrum, also sees in infrared (heat) spectrum.
  • Smell. But, in a city, actually attempting to make any sense of what he is smelling takes total concentration. Is that a particular person coming– who? Or is it smoke, exhaust, grass, an animal, blood, food, garbage, etc?
  • Law-sense. This is just a mystical sense that a felony is being committed somewhere close. Dogs feel earthquakes, he feels felonies (humans hate that analogy, but that’s their problem).
  • Memory. He tends to make unusual connections, long after a human would have forgotten.
  • Mental. Mentally speaking he isn’t very quick, which is easily mistaken for stupidity. His thought process is similar whether he’s dividing 100 by 10 or 8907432 by 179– either way, it’s just division, right?

Other Unusual Traits/Characteristics

• Noticeably jingoistic, idealistic, wildly committed to the American Dream.
• He doesn’t have a particularly well-defined sense of self. Consequently, the concept of “sacrifice” doesn’t really register, because sacrifice suggests that you’re giving up something that’s yours. He throws himself in the way of danger without hesitation because that gives him something (value) rather than threatening to take away something of value (his life). The only reason he’s lived this long is because he’s too suicidal to kill.
• Fatalistic, somewhat aware this isn’t particularly American.
  • He’s kind of hard-wired that way, though. He feels guilty anyway.
• Doesn’t feel particularly guilty about interpreting micromanaged orders. He knows what the objective is.
• Very traditional sense of honor (do what’s right, save the day, strategic and moral victory at any personal cost) and duty (to one’s oaths and commanders).
  • Doing what’s right may require lying, cheating or stealing but oaths can never be broken. Laws will only be broken in a minor way, deliberately.

(Alternate) History

• 1915. Paingod, Hunter and a few other aliens crash-land on Earth after captain gets murdered. The crew splits up into two factions over the meaning of the orders (”conquer” or “contact” Earth’s lifeforms?) Paingod frames Hunter for the captain’s murder, and Hunter jumps ship figuring he’ll capture PG later. Hunter tracks PG down a few months later in the Kaiser’s Germany as WWI rages. Paingod has already created a group of ubermensch and Hunter fails miserably, so he turns to US for help. US not particularly open at that time, but the battlefield accounts of Germany’s super-men are too gruesome to ignore. Hunter joins up, Allies win war but PG gets away. Hunter agrees to stay until PG caught.
• 1919. Geneva Conventions regulate the use of chemical/gas weapons but also the use of supernatural soldiers. They can still be used, but essentially only against each other. They have to be distinguished from regular soldiers. To integrate these soldiers and use them lawfully, the Marines add on the Cape Corps. Hunter is essential to the recruiting of superheroes– he actually creates them– but doesn’t hold a particularly high-ranking position. Originally, the MCC anticipates a role where he just reworks recruits stateside. He anticipates something a bit closer to the action.
• 1926. A Southern segregationist and Northern Marine chaplain improbably cooperate to create what becomes known as the first “comic book,” American Man, which told a series of stories about the near-crippled Marine who was selected to make sure Hunter didn’t get into trouble with any of the other soldiers. Based loosely on the “real-life” Silver Shooter, the protagonist proceeds to prove himself worthy of superpowers after attempting to sacrifice his own life to save another Marine in the Yangtze Patrol Service. The comic becomes a sensational smash, so much so that Gallup Poll’s inaugural set of “most respected men” polls places the Shooter at #2 and Hunter in the top 15 in the nation’s esteem. Take that, Lindbergh.
• 1945. Admiral Yamamoto’s transport plane experiences “technical difficulties” and all hands are lost, presumed dead. Hitler commits “suicide,” as do most of his bodyguards. So did the Soviet coroner that verified that Hitler’s body did not, in fact, have six-inch-deep claw gashes sliced through his abdomen. The American government maintains that the body had to be quickly cremated so that there Hitler’s many, many venereal diseases wouldn’t spread. Hunter has no comment.
• 1945. WWII won. Paingod is actually captured and executed, but Truman asks Hunter to be assistant director of Office of Special Investigations, a body designed to counter the growing communist threat. He accepts (so he’s thinking about US as more than just a business partner at this point). He supports Patton’s call for immediate march on Moscow– Hunter assumes USSR will become nuclear within 50 years and the ensuing nuclear standoff will destroy the world.
• 1947. After two years of rumored sightings, a photograph of Paingod is recovered from a CIA agent’s camera in Tegucigalpa. The CIA agent is never located, that agency’s first death in the line of service. In the ensuing uproar about whether Paingod has begun assisting the USSR, the US government informally nixes the idea of executing supervillains (killing PG’s impostor helped him pull the ruse off).
• 1952. After Americans land at Inchon and rout North Korean attack on South Korea, Allied Commander MacArthur indefinitely assigns Hunter to the Pentagon. He doesn’t want there to be any confusion about who deserves the credit for Allied success. When China attacks, American forces are surprised and outgunned. The United States government maintains that China’s caped “Chicommandoes” indiscriminately attacked normal American forces but these allegations remain contentious. Eisenhower personally orders Hunter back, but the American war effort could not regain its lost momentum. The war ends in stale-mate.
• 1954. Senator McCarthy and the Committee on Un-American Activities escalate investigation of who exactly lost the Korean War. They settle on, among other individuals: the Director of Special Investigations, the Postmaster General, high-ranking Army officials, scientists researching floridation for Crest Toothpaste, most of the State Department. Additionally, McCarthy implicated an editor of Washington Comics who actually did steal secrets and sell them to the Soviets (the comic-book industry hasn’t yet forgiven McCarthy). The Director of the Office of Special Investigations was forced to resign because of connections between his brother-in-law and a communist-affiliated union. Eisenhower appoints Hunter as Director with the mission to end McCarthy’s career. After Hunter then declined to speculate which superheroes might be communist spies, McCarthy turned up the heat. Nielsen Media estimates that 55% of the American electorate watched the committee proceedings as Hunter unleashed what McCarthy later called the “crocodile tears from hell.” McCarthy’s career was finished– who makes a superhero cry? OBVIOUSLY a supervillain. That’s why Congressmen don’t make soldiers burst into tears anymore. Take that, CSPAN.
• 1982 (bet you thought I would have something from Vietnam, right? HAHA sucker).
• 1971 (just kidding). Washington Comics discontinues American Man, citing pathetic sales and lack of interest in bloodless, black-and-white, pro-American story-lines. They begin converting old comics into new, more “culturally relevant” ones. Comics are “culturally relevant” if they have heavy amounts of alcohol and psychotrophic drugs. Additionally, relevant characters often stick it to The Man, a supervillainous entity usually personified by bank guards and grocery cashiers. The Man is not to be confused with the author of Superhero Nation, who is just a Man.
• 1972. Polk Comics launches with the Adventures of Agent Orange, a somewhat bizarre, completely horrific but vaguely sympathetic account of the war.
• 1966-72. Vietnam! Nothing particularly important happens to Hunter. Uhh… he fights a lot. I mean, a LOT. Let’s just say he earns the Agent Orange moniker.
• 1972. Che Guevara gets fatal case of syphilis. This actually wasn’t Hunter, but Soviets blame him anyway.
• 1973. Social Justice League formed, mostly with disgruntled hippies and other people of questionable hygiene.
• 2001. September 11.
• 2004. NSA intercepts satellite phone communications thought to belong to Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora. He goes “missing,” which is accurate in the “never seen again” sense. The American government maintains it is “still looking,” which is accurate in the “he’s sliced so thin we’ll need a while” sense.
• 2005. Yasser Arafat dies of AIDS. This actually was Hunter, but the plot was too bizarre for even Palestinians to believe. Not even the Israelis know how he did it, but AIPAC is still working on him.
• 2011. US attacks Iran, Somalia.

Hunter: “Pokemon? Is that some kind of horror movie?”

Oliver: “You JUST made a reference to Terminator. How could you not know what Pokemon are?”

Hunter: “Yes. I watch science fiction and horror pictures. And comedies, as long as there are dragons.”

Oliver: “How many dragon comedies are there?”

Hunter: “Well. Dragonheart… and… and… Reign of Fire.”

Oliver: “Reign of Fire? That wasn’t a comedy!”

Hunter: “It wasn’t? Damn.”

Miscellaneous Details I’ll Dump Here So I Can Maintain Character Consistency
Language

• Language: slang from last fifty years (he’s served with a lot of young soldiers). Many adverbs and advanced diction. Pacing is like an immigrant’s (English isn’t his first language)– slower, and more conscious. Some words don’t make sense–he uses an awkward thesaurus.
• Tells many stories, particularly those revolving around a wholly sympathetic protagonist (a hero).
• Non-standard idioms:
  • seriously loaded (crazy, off the mark)
  • words that have the wrong ending (deweedifier, assistatory)
  • leading by the tail (to manipulate someone because you think he’s not mature), deriving from adult dragons letting their sons run ahead even though they can’t stray too far away (because they’re held by the tail).

Super-powers (Italics denote something that might alter the character’s perspective, what he might notice, how he might perceive something, etc).

• His body is resilent but after taking enough abuse can collapse, leading him to “die,” after which his body will reform itself.
• Supernatural reflexes– time slows down. His limbs move extremely quickly, but walking speed is well below-average.
• His body can liquify, making him theoretically able to shapeshift (not so easy in reality), regenerate wounds.
• Super-sight (including thermal) and smell (frequently picking up people’s scents, blood, sweat, car exhaust, ect.)
• Felony-sense and a bond with spirits of the law.
• Flight, around as fast as a high-speed chase (roughly 75 mph, for two to three minutes… it would require a vast amount of energy to sustain that speed)

History
Pictures

• He’s slightly cartoonish but clearly less so than his son.
• I toned down his leg muscles from the first shot (below).  My model was from a cartoon show.
• This took me around 4 hours of work (mostly coloring).

Trackback URI | Comments RSS