I've remade my Justice League of Canada idea for the hopefully last time. I added two new characters and got rid of an old one. But I think I am finally okay with what I've got written. And I'm glad about that.
Justice League Canada: Originally conceived around 1988 or 1989 when the Justice League Detroit gets a mission in Canada. The mission goes well, and the Justice League gets some contacts in Canada. A year or two after this, the Justice League loses a fight in disastrous fashion and their public reputation sinks even lower. Knowing that the United States has turned on them, the Justice League use their connections in canada to keep the team running. Only one requirement: the team will have some oversight by the canadian government. Nothing too severe. But there will be some oversight and guidelines.
They serve as a Justice League branch solely isolated to Canada and (occasionally) the US states on the Canadian border. In those cases, they closely work alongside the revived Justice Society of America.
Justice League of Canada Founding Members:
1. Martian Manhunter (J'onn J'onzz): When the Justice League Detroit moves from Detroit to Ottawa, only two members of the Detroit team come to Canada: Martian Manhunter and Gypsy. Martian Manhunter acts as the team's leader again, the same way he did back in Detroit. He moves his private detective practice as "John Jones" from Michigan up to Ottawa, giving him a convenient excuse to be in Canada.
He's with the team for their first year or two. If this were an actual comic, he'd be on the team for the 10-15 issues. But after a year or two with the team, J'onn leaves to head back to the states. He's gotten an offer from Harley Quinn and Captain Cold to supervise their team of reformed (or semi-reformed) supervillians, and he couldn't say no to the offer. Especially since his brother was on that team.
2. Blue Beetle (Ted Kord): Ted Kord is known as the Canadian Bruce Wayne. Well, maybe not explicitly by that nickname, but that is the type of character he shall be. I wrote so much for his origin that it needed it's own seperate post/note. Which I did make. He's also just going to be a better character than Bruce Wayne, no ifs ands or buts.
3. Aqsarniit: That's supposedly the Inuit word for the Northern Lights. So that'll be my placeholder name (if not permanent name) for this character. They're some Norse and/or Inuit demigoddess or nature spirit with ties to the northern lights. I want something to match Wonder Woman, except with more of the beautiful mystique of the snow and aurora, as well as with more respect paid to the indigenous communities of Canada. I have a well formed image of this character because this is a character type already beaten to death (honestly), but I think we could find a way to make it unique.
Oh, one thing that makes them different: they're either gender-fluid or two-spirit or something. Being a nature spirit who looks like the personification of the northern lights, they don't really have any traditional gender.
Aqsarniit is a founding member of the team, but they aren't actually there very often (in those early issues, at least). Being a spirit of the aurora, Aqsarniit is often far busier with their own affairs then to help the league. Kind of like a combo of Thor and The Hulk. Like Thor, she's tied to mythology. But like the Hulk, they leave the team by Issue #2 or #3.
4. The Red Bee (Richard "Rick" Raleigh): Richard "Rick" Raleigh is a crown attorney in Victoria, British Columbia. Known for his brilliant legal mind and steadfast devotion to justice, the mob desperately wished to dispose of this man. They hired a mad scientist to help them kill Rick. This scientist decided to play upon Rick Raleigh's hobby of amateur beekeeping to kill him, in a bit of dramatic irony. He'd spray him with a shrinking gas and trap him inside his beekeeping equipment.
Locked inside the box where he kept his bees, Rick has to think fast and save himself from the attacks of his bees. And he does this in a most ingenious way. Rick tricks his bees into trying to attack him, and manages to get them to accidentally tip his beekeeping box over. Now that him and all his bees are free, Rick baits the bees into attacking the mad scientist and his goons. From here, Rick manages to find the antidote to the shrinking gas in the scientists pockets, and he becomes normal sized again.
But knowing that the gangsters who tried to attack him are still at large, rick begins working on a way to combat them. And he finds his way to do so. He manages to duplicate the growing and shrinking serums used by the mad scientist. He studies the communication methods of bees and learns to speak with them on at least a rudimentary level. He also builds himself a jetpack and a stinger gun (basically just a taser) to help him fight crime (both of these items shrink with him). Using all these skills, he manages to catch the gangsters by sneaking into their hideout in a costume! And just like that, The Red Bee was born!
I'd like to think that Blue Beetle and the Red Bee have a rivalry going on. They're both named after insects, and they both are founding members of the Justice League Canada. I think it'd be funny if there's some resentment between the two.
5. Captain Marvel/Shazam (Billy Batson): I saw someone say Captain Marvel was from Minnesota. I don't know if that's true, but I'm rolling with it. Mostly because I've seen jokes online before that Minnesota is the US state most like Canada (or at least I swear I heard that somewhere), and now I need to roll with it.
Captain Marvel/Shazam aids the team, but he's not actually living in Canada (like the other team members). Nobody knows why Captain Marvel isn't in Canada, let alone a Canadian citizen. Nobody even knows why he asks strangely naive questions or never stays around too long after missions. Well, maybe Martian Manhunter knows. But the secret is safe with him..
6. Gypsy (Cynthia Reynolds): I know that there's a good chance Gypsy was DC's ripoff of Scarlet Witch, so let's take it one step further. Let's embrace the mild plagiarism. Her and Red Tornado will have a brief romance (although theirs crashes and burns a lot faster than Vision and Scarlet Witch's relationship).
When the Justice League Detroit disbands, only three members agree to head up to join the Canadian branch. Martian Manhunter, Gypsy and Captain Marvel/Shazam. The rest of that team stayed back in the states or were otherwise too busy to agree to join the new team.
Additional Members:
7. The Angel of Dawn/Ange de L'aube (Samantha Guizzon): Samantha Guizzon is a highly skilled CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) Agent. She's one of their best agents, known for her skill with research, espionage and for her very detailed knowledge of non-lethal combat.
Oh, and she's also got metahuman abilities. She can generate and manipulate light. She got her nickname (Angel of Dawn) because she can use her light powers to form shining hard light wings upon which she can glide through the air. She can also emit blinding light from her body, not unlike a miniature solar flare.
Samantha was assigned to the team to represent Quebec and Canada's francophone community. The people of Quebec were deeply upset that the team had no francophone founding members, so the canadian government had to assign Samantha to the team to quell criticism. Originally from Montreal, Samantha is proud to represent Quebec on the team.
8. Booster Gold (Michael Jon Carter): Michael Jon Carter is from Edmonton. But I get really bogged down in backstory. So much so that I had to give him his own seperate post/note. Because I wrote like 7 to 9 paragraphs, too many to share here (especially when I'm trying to write about a whole roster of team members here, not just one).
9. Red Tornado: Although not really Canadian (being an android created in the United States), the Red Tornado is asked to join the team as a personal favour by the Martian Manhunter. Moving to Ottawa and taking on a human identity as university professor "John Smith", the Red Tornado becomes the team's heart and soul.
10. The Geomancer: This is a placeholder name for now, but I have a backstory. Daughter of a PEI farmer, young Emily Harrison is a metahuman with the power to control earth (and more specifically, dirt and soil are her specialities). Emily took over running the farm when her father had to retire, and she now runs it with her dad's best friend, an old, burly acadian man named Jean.
Emily never intended to be a superhero. She was content to just till her fields using her powers, and never have to worry about anyone judging her for them. But then one day the Justice League Canada came to PEI. Because the villian the Justice League was chasing also kidnapped her father, Emily and Jean help the Justice League stop him. This brings her to the notice of the Justice League.
This later, when Martian Manhunter, Captain Marvel and the Angel of Dawn all take absences from the team, they ask Emily and Jean to join the team. Emily was pretty reluctant to join, until she managed to get a promise the league would send her someone to help with the farm when she's doing super hero work.
11. Jean Boudreau: Jean is an acadian man from New Brunswick. A while ago, he moved to PEI to get a job as a farm hand. There he met Emily's dad, and began working on his farm. When Emily inherited the farm, Jean has already been working there for 10 years. He knows Emily the same way he knew her dad, and he wants to help protect her from the judgement of the world
When the Justice League comes to PEI to stop the villian who kidnapped Emily's dad, Jean is outraged. That's his old friend they kidnapped, and Jean will go to the ends of the earth to save him. Similarly, Jean follows Emily onto the Justice League when she joins them to help protect her.
Jean has no superpowers. He's just a strong, older man with all the physical abilities that entails. He does take martial arts training while he's on the league, though. He's also one of (if not) the only member of the team with no secret identity. He's just Jean.
12. Green Lantern III (Guy Gardner): I actually like what I skimmed of Guy Gardner's backstory off of wikipedia. That being said, I'm still going to make a reinterpretation post. Because there's a few extra details I'd add to get him on this Canadian team. I'm not changing the core components, but I will mess around with his early life to get an explanation for him going from Baltimore in the comics to Vancouver (where I'll have him be raised in my reinterpretation).
13. Captain Newfoundland: There used to be a superhero called Captain Newfoundland in some old comic strips. I know little about him, but he looks super cool. And I want to take him, add some cool new details, and bring him to a wider audience. I'd add elements of Captain Universe and of The Phantom Stranger.
The last relic of an old alien race which came to earth eons ago, Captain Newfoundland and his kin were the original settlers of Newfoundland. Except back then, it wasn't Newfoundland. Back then, it was called Atlantis. This ancient race of star beings settled on Atlantis. They made it a paradise on earth, lush and beautiful. But then Atlantis fell to a massive volcanic eruption, and all of Captain Newfoundland's people either died or fled back into space. But not him.
You see, Captain Newfoundland was an exile amongst his people. He was friendly to the humans and animals of earth. He took it upon himself to watch over them and care for them. Since his people felt this made him too tender-hearted for his own good, they exiled him to the farthest tip of Atlantis. Funnily enough, this tip was the only part of Atlantis that survived the explosions. It never fell to the seas, and became the place we now call Newfoundland.
Nowadays, Captain Newfoundland is the humble protector of "The Rock". There's just one catch: he needs a host body. Kind of like how the Spectre needs a host body to do his thing, Captain Newfoundland needs a human host body to serve as a conduit between him and humanity. His current host body is an old Newfie, Brian Wellford (name subject to change if I think of anything better).
Captain Newfoundland is not a permanent member of the Justice League Canada. Kind of like the Phantom Stranger, he comes and goes wherever he's needed. Also, he doesn't often leave his stronghold on the east coast.
14. The Question (Vic Sage): Vic Sage was a popular television host in the montreal area. He had his own investigative journalism tv series, syndicated both in quebec and across canada (since he was bilingual and proficient in both english and french). Besides this new angle of him being French-Canadian, I think his backstory would remain much the same as it is in the comics (I skimmed his wikipedia page earlier, and it seems his backstory is fine as is).
15. William Nielsen: William Nielsen is the team's second android. I wrote my own note about him earlier To make him different from Red Tornado, William is both more lifelike and more anti-heroic.
William found out the truth of his identity after almost 2 years travelling the world searching for answers. He was built to be the ultimate soldier, one in a long line of mindless drones for his power mad creator's army. But his creator died while creating him, so William ended up a lost amnesiac in the woods. Or well, his creator almost died. But instead, he narrowly managed to transfer his essence into a computer. And now that William's stepped into his lab, his creator plans to steal his body and use the power to conquer the world.
William manages to narrowly escape from his creator, but only after his creator managed to move his essence into a duplicate of William's body. So William flees to the Justice League's headquarters in ottawa, where he runs into The Question and Willow. Together, these three defeat William's creator and earn their way onto the ranks of the justice league.
William's story arc is particularly interesting, and it all comes back to him, Willow and The Question. William started as an amnesiac android, but he slowly becomes more jaded and bitter towards humanity once he joins the team. It's only once a friend of his nearly dies in combat that William learns the art of humility. Willow trains him along this path, since she sees so much of her old self in him.
William probably ends up leaving the team to become a nomadic traveler. He can't let himself be violent and arrogant anymore, but he can't be around humans much either. He just wants to be alone. He's like a robotic, more humanoid version of The Hulk. Also, Willow may have shared her knowledge of the many universes with him. So William almost definitely is aware of the Marvel universe. May even travel there with Willow sometime. Hell, Willow may bring the whole team with her sometime. Who knows?
16. Willow: As we all know, Mantis was an Avenger in the 70s. She became the Celestial Madonna and then went off into space and wasn't seen again for a decade. We also know that Mantis showed up under the name of Willow in one 70s Justice League story. So let's play with that, and reinterpret it a bit.
Shortly after the Justice League Canada falls to their lowest possible point, Willow randomly breaks into their headquarters. This is when she meets The Question and William Nielsen. Initially seen as just some weird woman with martial arts prowess and an aura of deep mystery, she helps the team defeat some incredibly deadly foe and then ends up invited to join the team (alongside The Question and William, of course).
Also, Willow has met the team before. Her one adventure with the original Justice League of America did happen here, but nobody remembers it. The only JLA members she met then were Aquaman, Elongated Man and The Atom. None of them are on the team now, so nobody recognizes Willow.
And the fact that Willow would be working with Red Tornado and/or William Nielsen would give me (or anyone writing this) ample excuses to hint at her true identity. Red Tornado reminds her of The Vision and she would have ample opportunity to subtly draw comparisons. While William reminds her of herself years ago, back when she was a haughty, arrogant woman dating The Swordsman. So she takes William under her wing, and they form a deeply personal bond.
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on one hand I want to write some crap about homestuck nerds as dragon riders. On the other, even only using the kids that's so many characters. SO MANY.
(via Secret Microsoft policy limited Hotmail passwords to 16 characters | Ars Technica)
For years, Microsoft engineers have quietly limited Hotmail passwords to 16 characters, a revelation that has surprised and concerned some users who have long entered passcodes twice that long to access accounts.
One such user is Costin Raiu, the director of the global research and analysis team at antivirus provider Kaspersky Lab. On Friday he reported receiving a new error message when he entered the same 30-character passcode he long used on the Microsoft site. When he typed in the first 16 characters, as the error message directed him to do, he was able to access his account just fine. The change concerned Raiu, because it meant that for years his Hotmail account hadn't been as secure as he was led to believe.
"To pull off this trick with older passwords, Microsoft has two choices," he wrote. Choice one: "Store full plaintext passwords in their [database]; compare the first 16 [characters] only." Choice two: "Calculate the hash only on the first 16; ignore the rest..."
