Eclipse (Mira da Costa)
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Much of the information that follows is according to Eclipse himself; neither UNTIL nor PRIMUS has been able to confirm all details.
Contents
Background
Early Life/The August Years
Eclipse's family background follows a trend that more typically exists within fey creatures: He was substituted for a human child, notably one Mira da Costa, of parents as-yet unidentified. Mira developed far faster than expected, and by age two was the physiological and cognitive equivalent of a human ten-year-old. Eclipse has described the reaction of his parents as 'sad'; Mira was sent to live with foster parents in the United Kingdom.
In London, as Mira entered her relative teenage years, her development slowed considerably. She began manifesting supernatural qualities, and was inducted to a forming British teen hero team, woefully permitted to choose their own name. They were the "New New Heroes". Her chosen heroic identity at the time was 'August', and at the time was only learning to control her powers. She was rather confident she was invulnerable. The team trained under the London Watch's supervision, and it seemed initially that they would be both a big hit and good for the security of the United Kingdom.
Unfortunately for the team, and crisis zones in the UK, New New were not as attentive to their training and were more aimed at being media personalities. They were also rather eager, and engaged threats they simply were not prepared for. Of course, certain of these threats were patently ludicrous - New New fought evil nuns, Robocop impersonators, Haitian voodoo pimps, and even an lycanthropic alien disguised as the Queen of England. In the face of many of these menaces, they prevailed - despite their general ineptitude and, frequently, grievous injuries to themselves or civilian casualties.
Their popularity waned very quickly.
Two years after their formation, the group was forcibly disbanded on order of Parliament, in the wake of a disastrous event; New New fought a powerful telepath who had taken over the minds of many of the group's family members. A ship was parked atop a friendly rival heroine, August was dominated into pummeling her compatriots, and then flew into the atmosphere and plummeted into the ocean, near Sealand. Miraculously, paparazzi were able to capture every single embarassing moment of this debacle.
Terminal Velocity is Typically Just That
Mira's force field had subconsciously activated when the villain released her mind, just seconds before impact. She had no time to arrest her fall, and thus, she struck the cold ocean head-first and plummeted directly to the seafloor. Thankfully for her, she was comatose for much of the media frenzy following the affair, and awoke, unable to use any of her powers. Guilt-ridden and stricken with an overdeveloped sense of honour, Mira honed her hand-to-hand fighting skills and took to the night. As August, she was recognised as publicly powerless and was often accosted by citizens and police alike.
Over the next six months, she went through fifteen heroic identities. As little more than masked martial artists, none garnered much attention nor acclaim. Eclipse claims this to have been a great relief, and has mentioned it to be a time of 'great personal discovery'. Outside of media attention, Mira was able to devote much more time to her studies in university, and began studying biology and researching xenobiology to develop a greater understanding of herself.
Black Sea Bass and African Reed Frogs
Mira had taken a trip to revisit her parents in Brazil, in an attempt to bridge the gap that had only widened between them with time. At this point, her relative age and development approximated a seventeen-year-old girl; she'd become very accustomed to the hormonal equilibrium and phenotype she was working with.
For reasons Eclipse still does not understand, overnight while in Sao Paolo her body rapidly metamorphosed into his body. This is a trait known to exist among some fish and amphibians, but among mammals it is completely unheard-of. Needless to say, the event was very embarassing and strange. Eclipse has mentioned his parents do not really speak much to him anymore. Being that Mira is very clearly a girl's name, and he was already accustomed to answering to August, Eclipse has taken Agosto - the Portuguese equivalent of August - as his legal first name.
Primal Cosmic Power and MCU
Unlike many other heroes in the region, the draw for Agosto to come to Millennium City was, simply, the university. The Royal Holloway University of London did not and yet does not offer a degree program for xenobiology, and naturally, Agosto followed his academic interests. His academics led him to employment with Paragon EMS, Inc - a rapid-response team for superpower-related medical emergencies. His employment, in turn, led to an overwhelming psychic assault from PSI henchmen - an assault which somehow uncrossed the figurative psychic circuitry that controlled his powers. Something in the years between his time as August and then had changed in him, though - more than mere tactile telekinesis and defensive sheathes of telekinetic force, he was able to generate simple and animate forms of pure force, though each was a black shape with a visible corona. Not as up on his American heroic lore as he should have been, 'Eclipse' seemed like a natural choice of moniker. After an intense three-month regimen of the psychic equivalent of physical therapy, Eclipse re-registered with UNTIL as a superpowered combatant. Only later would he find he shared this name with a hero that had died in the battle of Detroit, a dozen years before his birth, and a known villain from another world.
The Public Eye
Eclipse has always been surrounded by controversy. As August, even above and beyond the collosal mistakes of the team as a whole, her being a foreigner in a British superteam often came into question. Even more of an issue for the tabloid press was her sexuality; from the get-go she was openly bisexual, which brought her unwanted attention in three forms: media criticism, male celebrity stalkers, and female celebrity stalkers. Upon his re-powering and assumption of an heroic identity, Eclipse went public with his personal identity - another item of controversy.
As such, Eclipse faces all of these issues once more, in addition to the even more intense scrutiny the media places on gender-shifted individuals. Even the music industry has chimed in; initially, interviewers often asked if he had needed to "relearn to sing" or if he was going to seek gender reassignment to become female again, for the sake of his singing voice.
Whenever the issue of his gender comes up, Eclipse tends to become very curt and presses a change in topic. It is worth noting he is typically quite friendly, even to many villains.
Captivity
For a time, Eclipse went missing. He resurfaced briefly to aid a coordinated assault on a notorious supervillain, then apologised and claimed he "had to return" or else "she'll tear my head off".
He has described his captor as an injured woman, who is quite beautiful. He refused to comment further on the matter, claiming only, "It's complicated". Evidently after his rescue by Brazen Bull and Victor, he and an ally arrested her in Carl's Gym, after an extended confrontation involving superpowered individuals who were giving a combat demonstration and general fight-off within the gym. Giga Gal notably aided in keeping the peace.
Afterwards, Eclipse spent some time investigating her further and speaking to the Israeli consulate and MCPD Chief Surhoff regarding her case, as she was being held but with no case - Eclipse refused to press charges. Calling David Smith in for a psychological profile and interview, they then sought her release from prison.
One expects he will compose an album regarding his recent experiences, and call it "My Life as a Facebook Page".
Recent Events
Eclipse has completed his MD and is now a resident at Mercy Hospital. His musical production has fallen by the wayside as he settles in to his new routine.
A mysterious letter arrived enticing Eclipse to join the Prometheus Union; it was addressed to Mira da Costa, a point that Eclipse found particularly confounding. Shortly after, he attended a few social gatherings of others within this group, and then flew to Venezuela to disable a relic factory of Dr. Zerstoiten's.
Eclipse has regressed from his blue colouration, evidently due to altering the way he treats his asthma. He is currently involved in an investigation of the recent VIPER assaults on various heroic groups and other structures following a path from the east coast to Millennium City.
After a co-ordinated assault on the flying carrier operated by the Silver Skull and several live performances with his band, Eclipse was seen drinking heavily at the S. S. Bayou Queen with friends Victor, Darius Phen, and Ursun. Afterwards, he was photographed - drunk - holding a boombox over his head on the patio of Hydra's penthouse apartment. Following a tense discussion, Eclipse proceeded to check himself in for observation at the Henry Ford Kingswood Hospital psychiatric centre. He was not been seen or heard outside of the hospital grounds for a period of two weeks, before being released and deemed mentally well. He has been visiting a therapist, since, simply because it's good to have someone to air things out with.
Checking hospital records, PRIMUS notes his committance and observation as regarding a question of dissociative identity.
Powers and Abilities
Eclipse generates psychokinetic fields, identical in most respects to conventional force-fields or telekinetic manifestations. However, some aspect of Eclipse's mind has tapped an ability to generate atypical energies in psychic phenomena; the fields thus created absorb most forms of kinetic and radiant energy, while themselves pulsating in an opposite, compensational harmonic frequency. Visually, they seem to 'eat' ambient light and form flat black shapes with brilliant coronas, formed by their light-harmonic response. In essence, these psychokinetic fields embody the theoretical black-body radiation that ties quantum physics to astrophysics. The ramifications of Eclipse's fields upon the study of quantum physics are beyond his knowing, but he does voluntarily generate them for study. If he at all cared for physics, his abilities' manifestations would likely be more artful and devastating than the simple lashes and projections he favours. He is frequently reminded of this, typically eliciting the response of "Well then, why don't you try it?"
He has also been known to have prophetic dreams, very rarely. Distinct from most oracular events, Eclipse describes these dreams as being 'visited by future echoes of [him]self'. Most agree Eclipse is likely not any form of clairvoyant and that these warnings are, in fact, being delivered by his future potential selves. Legal theorists posit this is a criminal use of time travel or projection through time, but being that the Eclipse of the present is the victim of the temporal manipulations of future potential Eclipses, taking any legal action will likely get absolutely nothing done. An additional implication of this influence from his future selves upon his present self is a vaguer one - it seems that, at some point in the future, Eclipse will develop the ability to telepathically influence individuals. Or, perhaps only himself. He has talked it over with one or two other psychics he knows, and the ultimate conclusion is that telepathic time-penetration seems pretty handy.
Eclipse's time as a depowered hero has fostered a great deal of practise with his preferred martial arts, Krav Maga, Muay Thai, and CQC. These martial arts have reputations for extreme brutality thanks to their depictions in cinema and video games; Eclipse himself has registered no hand-to-hand casualties.
He is also a studied xenobiologist and geneticist, and is certified with Paragon EMS in rendering first aid and extended medical care to most known metatypes.
Eclipse plays the violin, cello, double bass and electric bass guitar with moderate skill but great enthusiasm. His musical style is described as 'moody, very experimental'.
Eclipse has never slept.
Weaknesses and Limitations
Despite being himself a psychic, Eclipse has a marked and curious frailty to telepathic influence. He also has very sensitive skin and very responsive nerves; any attacks that breach his protective fields have a tendency of incapacitating him from the pain. On the rare occasions Eclipse has succumbed to human disease, the effect has been astounding when compared to that of other aliens on the planet.
Sometime soon after he developed maleness, Eclipse began requiring a great deal more nitrogen in his system than the planet's atmosphere contains. An inexpensive and practical result has been to ingest nitrogenous fertilizer pellets; without this dietary supplement he becomes intensely asthmatic. As a side effect, the fertilizer has turned him blue. Apparently this is one of the key items in his decision to forego an identity secret; while means exist to disguise a blue humanoid among humans, he felt he didn't want the deceit, or the trouble.
Affiliations
Eclipse has been seen in the company of members of the Prometheus Union. He has yet to be drilled regarding this by any magazine interviewers. (Thank god.)
An interview excerpt (from, of all things, an interview with NME) regarding his previous, long-term lack of supergroup affiliation follows:
Eclipse: "Looking back, I think a big reason [New New Heroes] had so many cockups and got into so much trouble is, we were all very young. I mean, teenagers. You get a group of teens together, and they get friendly, they're going to throw around dares or challenge each other to do things, form their rivalries, you know.
But it seems like a lot of adults are like that, too. I thought, when I got my powers back, hey. I'm past a college degree. I should really think about how people look at me, as a hero, because I'm kind of responsible or something now. And I meet a lot of heroes, working as I do with Paragon EMS - it comes to some types, like the 'Oh I've got rock skin' guys, we're the ones doing the surgery in the end. And usually they're pretty thankful, and if you're a fellow hero working on them they tend to remember that.
So I'm not joining any team, at least for right now. I know I'm not the bloody queen or prince of anything, but I have fans - I think - and some of them might be pretty impressionable."
NME: "What if it were Dan le Sac and Scroobius Pip forming it, what then?"
Eclipse: <laugh> "Sure, maybe. While we're dreaming, let's throw in Squarepusher and Gandhi."
The interview goes on to discuss Eclipse's career as a medical professional and whether that will interfere with his caping or music.
Friends and Allies
Victor has fallen under Eclipse's wing, through UNTIL's hero mentoring program. This is a total surprise to Eclipse; not only did he not expect to have any assignees, but the one he did get is very intelligent and capable, to boot!
Enemies
Eclipse has many foes from his time as a teen heroine. Of late he has been battling the reanimated corpse of his own vehicular manslaughter victim, and has also been stalked by a svelte young woman calling herself Veritas.
Stated Views/Quotations From Some Magazines
- Hegemony - "I feel superpowered individuals indicate a concerning cultural development within most countries; where, once, conventional weapons of mass destruction were the influential hegemonic device, the superpowered individual is the focus of the current arms race."
- Super-Mecca - "Millennium City sets a dangerous premise; this one geographic location sees the largest accumulation of supers, globally. It is too well-protected, and it embarasses me to observe that I am as guilty of its super pop density as any other super. However, its facilities are best for what I does."
- Religion - "I've met gods, and they're all very impressive - but I mean, so are a lot of my friends. I've seen clashes between evil deities and chums of mine, where no ground is given between the two. Any sufficiently powerful metatype is a god of the new age. What? No, I wouldn't say I'm an atheist, just that I haven't met a god yet who hasn't felt more like a peer."
- Education - "Any hero operating without at least basic emergency response skills is failing the citizens he or she purports to protect. What good is a beatdown to an aggressor from the Black Aces if you do not at least try to stop a citizen bleeding from the throat?"
- Music - "If you can't lick out a solo, don't make your guitarwork a focal piece in a song. Its unique sound constructs danceable rhythms as well as any other instrument, excepting of course cowbell and triangle."
- VIPER - "VIPER is, at least, an organised cadre of villains with a noteworthy agenda. They're a little cutthroat, but I don't hate dealing with them - they want to rule the world after all. So, they accumulate emergency supplies and - at least, their higher ups - try to avoid civilian casualties. They're a bit like 1917 Prussia without the empire, aren't they? I don't think many of the henches really see their leaders' big picture, though."
- Destroyer - "Megalomaniacal, evil, yes. He ruled the world for a few months and destroyed Detroit. But... I have to say, the man has taste." Upon noting a distinct lack of Eclipse's own music within a sealed vault of Destroyer's artistic holdings.
- Takofanes - "I really hope, if I ever last past my own death and become intensely bored with my own existence, my concept of entertainment is not to pitch an endless horde of zombies against the denizens of this world. I wonder how one strikes that idea."
Miscellaneous Info
The Music
Eclipse's band, Ask Mira, got its name from a confused bandmate after their first show. A music journalist asked, "What do you call yourselves?"
- Naturally, Eclipse felt this hilarious and has stuck with it even in spite of his transition to the male gender. Their studio albums are Maybe She Knows, Or Else, Ask Agosto!, and Something Confusing.
- Two albums were cut as a woman, two as a man.
Eclipse's musical efforts can be compared to Trent Reznor's; the album work is all performed and produced by Eclipse, who maintains a live band for performances. The band's sound is a little closer to Massive Attack meets an eclectic blend of early goth and other, more classic influences.
Trivia
- Recently, Eclipse finished a series of performances as Sweeney Todd in the stage musical of the same name. This is his first acting experience outside of music videos. He has described the experience as 'exhilirating'.
- Eclipse has published an exercise tape, Buns of Questionite, detailing his own exercise routine. It is grueling and intense, a mixture of resistance training, yoga, and endurance training.
- He quotes American Psycho in the introduction: "I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I'll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now."
- The video itself was initially only the cost of shipping; it is now available freely on Eclipse's website, which also has a list of his favourite healthy recipes.
- Eclipse is a vegetarian.
- Eclipse wears ten silver rings in his right ear, and none in his left. He has worn them in this fashion since before he, as Mira, joined New New Heroes. Evidently his comm unit and a directional mic are hidden somewhere in these earrings.
- Eclipse grew three inches after transitioning genders, and turned blue sometime after.
- Eclipse was voted Mr. Millennium, the handsomest man in Millennium City, in 2010. He is dating the winner of Ms. Millennium, Hydra. They are a very fetching couple.
- Eclipse's favourite movies are silent films, from the '20s and '30s... and really shitty movies from the '70s.
- Eclipse is a huge fan of 21 Jump Street. Why? It is a mystery.
Rumours
Rumour has it that...
- ...The next time Eclipse nears a male of his species - whatever that is - he will turn into a girl, molting in the process. (GROSS!!))
- ...Eclipse is a Mandaarian mutant, we just haven't seen the cat eyes because his eyes are freaking glowing all the time.
- ...Eclipse once punched a guy, with his mind, across an entire football field.
- ...Eclipse is already telepathic but has emo brain damage or whatever and has scar tissue in that part of his brain.
- ...Eclipse is ineligible to even serve with MCPD at all, not being a US citizen or even human. But he was still in Meta-SWAT!
- ...Eclipse is not the former heroine August - merely someone who thinks he is.
Metadata
Theme Songs
Way Too Obvious: Aerosmith - Dude Looks Like a Lady ...just to get that out of the way.
Main Theme: Massive Attack - Butterfly Caught
Personality: The Cure - Fascination Street
Laaaaadies/Geennnntlemen: That Handsome Devil - Miss America
Motivation: Orbital - The Box
Current Status: Einstuerzende Neubauten - Sabrina as much for the video as the song.
Tropes
Gender Bender - Born female, mysteriously molted into male.
Even The Guys Want Him - He really, really is just that good looking. Mira still has a great many admirers, as well. If he were more promiscuous, he would very easily be a Memetic Sex God. And of course, his rigourous exercise regiment conveys a Heroic Build.
Sharp Dressed Man - Good god he has more custom suits of tights and an entire wardrobe full of tailored clothing. Everyone has their vices; Eclipse's is looking good.
Hero With Bad Publicity - His teen years, as August, were essentially a comedy of errors and bad press.
Achilles Heel - The villain's telepathic! Welp, I'll stay here then. This also led to being Brought Down To Badass - When without powers, August studied several martial arts and kept on heroing.
Live Action
Character Actress (f): Mira Aroyo
Character Actor (m): Romulo Pires
