#mister bones

Green Lantern #22 - "Highway to Hell" (2025)

The story of the supervillain group known as Helix is really a case study in the kinds of catastrophes that can be brought into the world by a combined lack of medical ethics and a lack of protection for children in a system that sees metahumans as either less than human or too invulnerable to be harmed in the human fashion.

Eight young women were lied to at a low and vulnerable point in their lives by a seemingly trustworthy medical authority. An authority that, far from having the best intentions at heart for either mother OR child instead saw the latter as disposable and the former as test subjects.

And it all leads back to the macabre experiments of one Dr. Benjamin Love.

(An informal "wanted poster" showing the members of Helix. Clockwise: Mr Bones, Wind Walker, Tao Jones, Baby Boom, Kritter and Penny Dreadful)

Dr Love was a geneticist who had come upon the position of primary care for a family services clinic in southern California. Being made case manager for 8 young mothers who had come to the clinic for help in preparing for the birth of their children. In what Love claimed to the mothers were standard medical interventions, he injected volatile mutagenic chemicals into the women. Studying them carefully for the time when their children would arrive.

Two of the women were actually Mexican nationals who returned to their country of origin, the births taking place far outside Love's reach. One of the mothers was killed when a bout of postpartum depression caused her to attempt to drown her mutated child, only for the child to last out and kill her first. That child would eventually be known as the mutated criminal Carcharo. No one knows for certain what happened to the eighth woman OR her baby and they may have fully escaped the grasp of Love's intentions for good and for all. We can only hope.

The remaining six babies were stolen by Love shortly after birth, the mothers informed that their children had been still born. The children in turn brought up being told that they had been abandoned because of their metahuman mutations. "Raised" by Love with no grasp of right and wrong, or the responsibility that came with their powers, they were kept separated from human society at large until Love faked his own death if only to see what the sextet would do without him. They began to rampage, using their powers flagrantly and dangerously in this new world they were both entranced by AND deeply resentful of, leading to an extended series of clashes with young super team Infinity Inc.

The battles came to an end when Love returned, attempting to "reclaim" his "charges". Taking control of 5 of the 6's minds only to lose control when he ordered them to kill Mr. Bones. Reduced to a charred skeleton by the children he had tormented they were taken into custody and, in an impromptu judicial hearing due to their minor status they were taken as wards of the State of California where their path splits more or less 3 ways.

Mr Bones

Bones is, as you said, undoubtedly the most famously of the Helix members in the modern day. Originally joining up with Infinity Inc he was party to the group's disbanding when a villain used his lethal "cyanide touch" to take the life of Sylvester Pemberton, then Skyman but more famously known as the original Star Spangled Kid. Leaving the superhero cause he joined up with the DEO, the Department of Extranormal Operations.

All things considered the DEO is the most transparent and trustworthy of America's "metahuman response/intelligence agencies" which is a bar somewhere in Satan's septic tank. Some credit Bones himself and his remaining personal connections with the community for keeping the DEO more or less on the level in comparison to anything with Amanda Waller's stink all over it.

Arak Wind Walker & Penny Dreadful

Able to control wind and shoot blasts of electrical energy, respectively, these two were unable to shake their lack of moral tether. They remained problem cases inside the California foster system for a few years before aging out and becoming low level superpowered mercenaries. They popped up a few times here and there before they were taken under the wing of the ever dreadful Prometheus.

Due to internal squabbling, Penny Dreadful killed her "brother" before herself losing her life in a scuffle with the Justice League leading up to Prometheus' violent attack on Star City. When pressed on their deaths, Prometheus reacted in surprise, as he had forgotten he had hired them. Whether this is true or just another one of Prometheus' many cruel and callous taunts is unknown and probably never will be with the man's death soon afterwards.

Baby Boom, Kritter & Tao Jones

No one knows for certain what became of these three, and for the best possible reason. The trio responded well to therapeutic intervention and settled into the foster system. There's records of all three gaining their GEDs but any further education or work credentials is unknown to the public (one assumes because they at some point took on actual legal names).

Reaching out through my "work contacts" I received a short email from Atom Smasher of all people. He reassures me that the JSA, and especially the former members of Infinity Inc check in on the trio every so often but that they all have private lives now and have no interest in being disturbed for the sake of historical posterity. He said they were all WELL past the need to worry for their "progress" and were simply among the thousands of metahumans who retreat into the background using their abilities for whatever they find truly important in life.

[ID: Fanart of Helix from DC Comics, posed like the Mystery Gang looking up from a book. End ID]

infinity Inc Week Day 6 - Helix / Friendship!

usually we'd stay uninvolved, but today we've got a mystery to solve!

@infinity-inc-events