#3 – Kriton by Beausephus

CHARACTER NAME:  Kriton

ORIGINALLY CREATED : 1988

BASIC CONCEPT : An Alien trapped in our galaxy has to serve as a bounty hunter in our solar system in order to pay off an intergalactic crime boss to pay for the promise of a way back home.  Eventually he begins to accept that he may never get home and develops a grudging acceptance of his role and his inherent value in what essentially a bottom feeding type of job/existence.

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In 1988 my childhood best friend had an High School age brother who got our Elementary School minds obsessed with the Marvel Comics Role Playing Game.  In reality, my friend and I just rolled up characters and came up with story ideas… this is a common motif in my creative evolution…

So my pal wanted to make comic books out of our characters to sell at his school.  So we did, and these 20-30 page pamphlets featured 7-8 stories on hand-folded and stapled black and white photocopies of pages crammed with far too many panels and far too little storytelling.  ARKON COMICS (the name was my friend’s idea) featured some stories featuring my character, “Kriton.”  I was really into the Kirby Silver Surfer/FF stories, the concept of the Green lantern Corps, The Guardians of the Galaxy and the rest of the 1970s Marvel Comics “cosmic” story lines.    The main basis of “Kriton” however was Martian Manhunter.  Always one of my favorite characters Martian Manhunter, to this day, is one of the most under-used and underestimated characters in the DC Comics universe.  The core of Kriton was the flip side of Martian Manhunter – what if J’onn J’onzz hated the fact that he was trapped on earth?  What if there was a way out but he had to essentially whore himself out, debase his lofty morals, just to pay the ever-escalating price just to get home?  Kriton was angry, but not grim…he was pissed off at his station in life and the choices he was fully aware he made to get where he is.  Ho can such a character find peace, or at least acceptance?  Does the dream of going home ever actively become just that and not something to actively work toward?

The version of the character above represent the soul of the original design…in essence the costume is and alien with an egg shaped head encased in basic grey armor wearing what essentially was a sleeveless orange jumpsuit with big, puffy, silver, Reebok style 1980’s high-tops.  I added some small details and made some of the styling more dynamic…. however in the piece above I feel I got away from the absurd whimsy and naive visual design sense of my grade school self.  But here it is.

Day 4’s post will focus on one of Kriton’s co-stars in ARKON COMICS and the only character he liked enough to team-up with in other stories.

Thanks for checking my stuff out.

-Beausephus

Category: 2011, Scifi, Superhero