Max Rad
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Once an experiment in creating a TV star and corporate mascot super hero, Max Rad found celebrity to be fleeting. Disillusioned and embittered, he turned to a life of crime.
Contents
History
Pilot
Maxwell Bland was a mutant, one born with extraordinary powers. His abilities first manifested themselves in his teens, with Max quickly discovering how to put them to use. He began using his powers to kinetically charge his skateboard, allowing him to propel himself at high speeds and pull off impressive, death-defying stunts. This, combined with his good looks and appeal towards the youth demographic bought him to the attention of Radikal Wear, a sporting goods division of Multicorp who saw in the young Bland an opportunity for corporate promotion.
Contacting Max, they impressed upon him the idea of using his powers to fight crime while working for them to promote their products. In essence, the corporation would gain the services of a full-time superhero that would not only protect their assets, but would also promote their goods and their corporate image. Max agreed, having a desire to find fame and fortune himself. The marketing division came up with the name “Max Rad”, claiming that it had tested very well with focus groups; Max liked the sound of it and agreed to use it both on stage and when fighting crime.
As an added incentive, Multicorp planned to launch a “Max Rad” TV series with Max in the lead role. Initially apprehensive about playing himself on TV, Max’s fears were allayed by assurances that secret identities were “a thing of the past” and that “all the cutting edge heroes were doing it”. The large salary, as well as movie options, didn’t help either. And so, in a blaze of publicity, Max Rad’s sponsored crime fighting career was launched.
Short season
Except things didn’t work out. Max’s lack of experience with his powers became obvious; while he was adept at using them to pull off skateboarding stunts, he was less then effective in combat; several times he had to be rescued by other superheroes. To make matters worse, the Max Rad TV series was a critical and ratings bomb, with Max’s acting drawing particularly harsh criticism. Re-tooled during its first season, the series was cancelled after only thirteen episodes.
The other Max Rad media properties fared just as badly. Launched in a blaze of publicity, the Max Rad comic, written and drawn by noted bad artist/writer Rob McFairfield, was critically savaged for its terrible art and shallow characterisation, as well as its excessive blood and gore. After suffering from terrible schedule slip, the book was cancelled after twelve issues, and has since become legendarily bad in comic collector circles. Similarly, the Max Rad: Xtreme Rush console game was a critical flop, savaged by reviewers with unsold stock cluttering shelves for months. Other tie in merchandise, such as action figures, were also poorly received and sold badly.
As if things weren’t bad enough, a battle between Max Rad and several supervillains was broadcast live on television in a desperate bid for publicity. The move backfired as Max was very publicly defeated by the Atomic Pimp, considered to be a joke villain by many in the media and Superhero community. Multicorp, realising that Max Rad was not working out for them, decided to cut their losses and fired Max.
Unfortunately, Max had developed something of a taste for fame and fortune, and decided that he wanted to be a hero regardless. Unfortunately, a combination of his insufferable attitude and lack of experience (as well as a certain desire not to be associated with such a fiasco) meant that he was rejected by every hero group that he applied to. His solo efforts weren’t too much better; while he was able to defeat common muggers, he rarely seemed to do very well against actual supervillains.
Embittered and angry at both the superhero community as a whole, as well as Multicorp for, in his eyes, setting him up to fail, he swore revenge on all those that he felt had betrayed him. He started a one-man crusade against those who had wronged him, determined that he would show them all what he was really capable of. If he could not be famous, then he would be infamous; if the world would not accept Max Rad, Superhero, then it would fear him as Supervillain.
Friday night death slot
Over the next decade, Max has gone out of his way to attack other heroes, doing his best to publicly humiliate them and make them look bad while, at the same time, trying to promote himself. This seemed to have had some degree of success; Max began to develop something of a following amongst the underground supervillain fandom, those who followed Supervillains out of the thrill of doing something supposedly “naughty”.
Unlike his acting days, Max began to realise his limits; he knew that he could never take down the world’s most powerful heroes, but, at the same time he felt that he could take out those on the way up. He felt that they should have their dreams and hopes crushed as his were, that he should deliver them a harsh lesson in reality. The truth was that he was simply envious of the successes of others, especially those that became successful by their own efforts, and lashed out at those he envied.
One group however caught his attention; a small superhero team known as the Lolcat Brgud, and especially one member, Skadi. Fresh on the scene and clearly new to the role of superheroes, its members were quickly becoming something of a popular phenomenon due to their combination of good looks and less then serious demeanour, as well as a few lucky breaks that had come about. He felt that they, more than any others he had encountered, were due a lesson in the fickle nature of fame.
Re-tool
With the aid of a gang of thugs who had a similar dislike of Superheroes, Max made several initial efforts to attack the Lolcat Brgud. His goons would stalk them and launch surprise attacks on the team, aiming more to grab their attention then to actually take them out. This, in turn, led them back to him, which was precisely what he wanted.
He directed them into a warehouse in Millennium City’s Westside, forcing them into a confrontation with him and his gang. What the Brgud were initially unaware of was that he was filming the whole thing, with the intent on posting it on the internet to garner some publicity. This didn’t quite work out as planned; Max was nearly defeated and only barely managed to escape by bringing the building down on top of the Brgud. To make matters worse, someone else found the footage, and posted it as “Lolcat Brgud fights some random guy, hey isn’t he from the 90s or something?”
Enraged at this failure, especially the way that it made the Brgud look good while putting him down, Max looked for other ways to get the attention and publicity that he so desired. It was this obsession that saw him begin a slide to actual supervillainy as his plans became more and more grandiose; first stealing genetic samples from a research facility, and then attempting to recover a lost nuclear weapon from the ocean floor. In each case, he had no idea what he would do with these devices; he just simply saw them as a way to make himself known.
Hiring the villain group known as The Underworld, he planned a rather daring – nay radical – course of action. Stealing information from the PRIMUS facility in Millennium City, he located a secret PRIMUS facility in the remote wilderness. With the aid of the Underworld, he seized control of the base, aiming to not only steal the plans for an experimental particle beam satellite, but to execute the PRIMUS staff simply to show how “bad” he was.
Again, the Lolcat Brgud were able to track him down, infiltrating the base and effortlessly slipping past Max’s inept goons. Once inside, they took the occupying forces by surprise, quickly freeing most of the prisoners and liberating the base. True to form, the Underworld were quickly incapacitated, with only She Devil managing to escape. Max himself put up a brief fight before making his own getaway, realising that he was again outnumbered and outmatched.
As a final insult, footage from the battle was again posted on the internet as “Lolcat Brgud fight looser supervillain team and some other guy as well”
Jumping the Shark
Angered and humiliated by this turn of events, he plotted a way to prove that not only was he still dangerous, but he could be a world-class threat to boot. Reading up on the hero team that had defeated him in past, he found out about the mass mind-control ray that Mind Master had tried to use to take over the world. He figured that he could reconfigure the weapon to amplify his kinetic energy powers, turning him into a one-man weapon of mass destruction.
As he gathered the components that he needed to rebuild and modify the device, he accidentally stumbled across the supervillain Serious Business who had similar plans for the same weapon. While he was initially wary of this newfound competition, he changed his mind when he found out that Serious Business shared his hatred for the Lolcat Brgud and its members. The pair of them decided to form a partnership to strike down their mutual foes.
Working in concert, they recaptured the power core that Mind Master had used before; however, as with Mind Master, they also wound up leading their mutual enemies – Skadi and Uglyhat - back to their volcano lair, with the pair of them simply following their minions back through the teleporter that they had used to enter the bank in the first place.
Realising what had happened, Serious Business worked as fast as he could to get the Death Ray working, while Max Rad rallied their minions to hold them off. Neither effort worked; the two superheroes defeated their footsoldiers and again destroyed the Death Ray. Max and Serious chose to make a desperate last stand, but were both defeated.
As he was carted off to Stronghold, Max felt confident that, while he was defeated, he had finally gained the recognition that he had so craved, and had been seen as a world-class threat, one that would be held in respect and awe. Instead, he found that the fight had again been captured on film and released on the Internet as “Serious Business and his minions with death ray.”
Powers/Abilities
Max has the power to imbue (or “charge”) objects with kinetic energy. Typically, an object that he imbues becomes potentially explosive, allowing him to throw them at enemies like grenades or missiles. Similarly, he can charge objects he holds to allow him to land devastating punches. Another use of his power is to charge objects and then ride off the energy he imbues them with, able to propel himself at high speeds and “bounce” off objects.
It was this ability that was his signature; Max used a skateboard as his method of transport, one that he would charge before activating to take off at high speeds, then further charge to leap incredible distances or perform stunts. To his day, he retains the skateboard, albeit with a deadly edge; the board now has a sharpened metal edge, allowing him to use it as a deadly weapon.
In addition to these abilities, Max has a variety of Telekenetic powers; he is able to create bolts of telekinetic energy, levitate objects and project telekinetic shields. While most telekentics have no visible signs of their powers, Max gives off a distinctive yellow aura when using his powers; furthermore, his eyes glow bright yellow.
Personality
Once rather enthusiastic and outgoing, Max has become a rather embittered man who tends to blame the entire world for his situation. He has somehow become convinced that he was better off not being found by Multicorp, earnestly feeling that he could have made a career out of being a professional skateboarder. As a result, he is obsessed with revenge against those who put him in this situation; Multicorp and the Superheroes who he felt deliberately mocked him and “wanted him to fail” because they were all “envious of his success”. That Multicorp asked him to use his real name on TV and play himself hasn’t helped the issue, knowing full well that he will always be recognised, regardless of the situation.
At no point has he considered his own flaws – his insufferable attitude, overblown ego and inability to act – to have been an issue. Nor does he acknowledge the fact that it was his choice to appear on-screen as himself and blow any chance he may have had of maintaining a secret identity. Everything that ever went wrong in his life is always blamed on someone else.
Despite this, Max is more than happy to work with other supervillains, especially those who claim to have been wronged by others and are motivated by vengeance more than anything else. While he usually targets Multicorp or engages in deliberate acts to provoke superhero responses, he also works for money. One of the few things he does fondly remember about his time as a TV star is living a luxurious life, something he wants to recapture. Max particularly hates those superheros that seek publicity and the media spotlight, simply because he feels that he should be there instead.
Appearance
Max Bland is a handsome man in his early 30s with long brown hair usually worn in a ponytail and blue eyes. He often seems to be somewhat unshaven. He has a lean, athletic build. In battle, Max usually wears his suit from his TV hero days as a way of mocking his foes; the suit is red, yellow and orange, and is topped off with a jacket; he does not wear a mask.
