#9 Lightning Rod
Here is my ninth character for this challenge from a project I am working on. Intended to be a tongue-in-cheek twist to the genre, here is Lightning Rod:
Rodney Fasano was all brawn and no brain. Clumsy and awkward in many ways, he loved to exercise and lift weights on the shores of New Jersey. Always stumbling into a fall of some kind, accident proneness was his specialty. Ever the great hope of football and basketball coaches, Rodney always dropped the ball and tripped over his feet. Adding to his accidents was his attitude that got him into extra trouble. Always covering for his clumsiness by agreeing to carry out idiotic dares, Rodney never really knew the joke was on him. Thus, when he was dared to lift the front end of a sedan over his head, he just wouldn’t quit trying until he eventually slipped and fell, dropping the front of the car on top if his head. Crushing his skull and breaking his arms, Rodney had to have metal plates, rods and pins implanted into his body. His luck didn’t run out there. Shortly after leaving the hospital, Rodney was feeling depressed during a rainstorm. To cheer himself up, he decided to go outside and play in the puddles. While jumping into a particularly large and muddy puddle, the lightening in the air was drawn to his inner metal and struck him there in the puddle. His eyes rolled back as the voltage coursed through his body and shot out through the rods in his arms. His hair stood straight up and he pooped himself. He survived and found that his body suffered no damage. His head plate and inner metal had charged with electrons to become a sort of electromagnet. In time, he discovered he could willfully collect and charge electrons in the air even when no storms were present, and then shoot this lightning through his hands. He also discovered that sometimes when he was falling or tripping over something that the jolt off fear from falling would involuntarily cause the lightning to shoot out as well. Thus, Rodney became a liability. He was arrested by super heroes when he innocently blew up a car that he accidentally walked in front of while going to a health pill store. Rather than imprison an innocent man, the heroes took him in and have since been working exhaustedly to help him control his powers and use them for good. Happy to feel like he is helping, Rodney does his best as the electrifying personality known as Lightning Rod (a name he gave himself believing it to be clever).
Sweet design! He looks like how I’d imagine a young Zeus!
Thanks 🙂