Now that you've read the first issue, you have a lot of questions I'm assuming.
Like why is the world run by heroes? Why was the world in complete & utter chaos?
Just who is Grey Eyes & how did a powerless flightless normal human boy become the worlds greatest supervillain?
And why in the world is he dating his arch-nemesis?!
Welcome to his origin story. His VILLAIN STORY.
Now let's be quick, we want to get to the good stuff as soon as we can.
It all begins in the era of the second hero amongst the history's #1, the peak of the Hero economy, the time of the blue flame wonder, trillion dollar miracle man, IGNITRO.
Ignitro was the perfect example of a hero amongst the time, he was tall muscular, had a blue visor placed perfectly on his symmetrical face, & a classic blue & white super suit with his logo "I" and the symbolic eternal blue flame on it, he inspired a new era of hope after an era of darkness from the 1st Hero War.
To the general public apart from his melanated brown skin due to frequent overusage of his fire power, he was everyone's idealistic hero. However he never believed he was good enough, nor did he believe the stocks were accurately representing his true value.
Ignitro was indeed a man of great principle & value in his worth. He took immense pride in his job, maybe the most pride of any hero.
His pride however was burning deeply into the roots of corruption.
His arch-nemesis, the start of the 2nd Hero War, Ignitro was trying his best to prevent such a catastrophe.
After all it's always a war that brings the new times, new heroes, new #1s. Ignitro wants nothing more then to stay at the top for the rest of eternity.
So he burns villainy to the ground, every little shred of it. Despite villains being outnumbered & outclassed by the modern advancements brought from the 1st war. It still wasn't enough, he needed to be sure, that a revolution would never happen.
You see the heroes weren't just saving everyone, people eventually live in peace after war. So the heroes took ownership of everything to prevent it from going into the wrong hands. You can see why this is a bad idea.
The government treats the heroes as money making machines, they pump hope, brand deals, motivation & a face to worship when times are tough. Now all they needed was a face to blame when things went wrong.
They got their face, but they also underestimated him.
You see the worlds #1 supervillain at the time wasn't so much a villain as Ignitro was a hero.
Ironically his name doesn't suit him at all.
After Ignitro began burning remnants of previous villains, echoes of the past, not giving time for remorse, development, pushing the wars to everywhere except for the UHS.
A villain rose against him, matching him in his immense power.
This legendary man wore a red collar suit with an even bigger physique than our hero, he had grey ash color skin and his face was missing a nose and the features of a human, as if it were all burned off.
He wore a gold crown. He was hailed as a king. The VILLAIN KING.
With a bounty reaching the trillions from intervening with government trade, fighting the corruption of the UHS head on, he embraced the lies they told to the public as if it were his badge.
He lead the Legion of VILE. Vile was simple, (Villains International of Lawless Earth) all hail the lawless earth!
They believed in a lawless world without power & without heroes or villains or any kind of brand to determine one's worth.
The VK (Villain King) & his wife Empyrea (Villain Queen) were at the fore front of this revolution, uniting the rest of the world to band together & defeat this tyrant of a country, aswell as bring down the trillion dollar legend that is Ignitro.
Ignitro had created the very thing he feared, his hopes of creating an eternal world worshipping him were shattered, but he wasn't giving up, he wanted vengeance, he will burn VILE & the VK down, no matter how many lives are at stake. For him it was never about saving people, for him it was about purging "evil" whatever that means in this context.
Now you're probably wondering where is our protagonist? Isn't this just some background lore of a different generation of heroes before our own?
Yes but you'll see why it's important very soon.
Ignitro flames down to his corporation skyscraper towering over the citizens of UHS, Central City, the capital & town square, where every citizen can be reminded of who the people are "protected" by.
DvineTech, the company that funded Ignitro, in the company HQ Dvine Tower, the top floor was where he lived & watched over his city.
There he is greeted by his assortment of butlers, clerks, nurses, Hero specialists, doctors, etc. They do a standard check. One of the butlers has been trying to get Ignitros attention for awhile now.
"Sire…your heroness…"
Ignitro is too focused on himself to notice, as he winds down & his servants prepare him for a bath.
"Your son is missing sire."
"I SAID YOUR SON IS MISSING!"
Everyone looks dumbfounded at the servant. Surprised he raised his voice, nobody is allowed to do that.
"So? Let him be. He can be dead on the street for all I care. He has a home if he wishes to abandon it that's his decision."
"But sire he's only 10…"
And 10 he was during this time.
With a grey shirt and the G logo that looks like it was drawn with a permanent marker, on top of Dvine Tower is that young little boy.
Ignitro's son. Shivering, whimpering, crying with tears of rage.
Pulling up his shirt to reveal a burn mark that is aching him like crazy.
He remembers how he got it.
"This just in, we bring you live with Hero News! The Legion of VILE strikes again, The Villain King has made another appearance this time at the Congo mines, freeing it's inhabitants from what seems to be a chained work environment-"
Damion is slapped halfway across the room off the couch as hot steam follows behind his trail.
"What are you doing?"
"I-I'm watching the news-"
"I KNOW. WHY?"
"I can't watch the news?!"
Ignitro burns the couch and the remote to a crisp.
"You don't even understand how lucky you are, and your wasting it watching them milk that terrorists name for views."
"You're just jelous he's racking up more views than you ever did."
Ignitro sends a tiny fireball right in his lower stomach, bringing him to his knees.
"Listen here you little sh*t. I was born to protect this world, I was born to liberate it from evil with my flames, you were born for nothing, you were born with nothing, all you are is a dead weight on the greatest shoulders humanity will ever come to possess. You're lucky I even kept you. You powerless trash."
To Ignitro a man whose entire existence was based off his superpowers, his son being powerless made him all the more a monster of a father as he was a hero.
"What… are you without your powers?
"What is anyone without their true burning purpose? Garbage. Like those terrorist scum, and like you, my worthless trash son. The worst thing I ever did, & my one & only regret."
Damion curls up into a ball. Trying his hardest not to give him the satisfaction of seeing his tears & an excuse to just call him weak again.
This was his life, it was torture, it was painful, and his mistake? Being born in a world that had far outpaced a society of people without superpowers.
Superheroes weren't just celebrities, they were the norm, your powers determined your destiny in life.
If you had healing powers or mind control you were in hospitals or therapy. If you had super strength or telekinesis you were in construction. The very top was actually the least work, being the superhero, but it was the most important, the symbol, the hope it gives other heroes that one day they can reach the status of "super". But this little boy was neither super nor a hero, he didn't even have powers.
He did however have a dream.
To be the next Villain King.
And defeat his father, not with superpowers but with his brain.
He did have a keen interest in engineering & robotics. In his spare time he was leveraging the advanced technologies that his father never uses from sponsorship deals & tinkering with them to build himself a machine that could rival the superheroes.
But whenever he got back home he'd find one of the staff who clean the home have reported it to his father & has it burnt to a blue crisp.
He gave up. He's on the top of the brutalist tower now, if he jumps, the world will see him for what he truly is.
It should be so easy. He can finally rest easy now. The pain of the burns will fade, and the justice towards his father will finally be served.
Yet… he can't bring himself to do it for some reason.
He then remembers a time where Ignitro had captured a villain from VILE.
It was just a goon, nobody of great importance or status in VILE.
Yet Ignitro had tortured him to the very bone, and not a word came out.
"WHY WON'T YOU TALK? THIS WILL NEVER END? THESE BURNS SHOULD BE AGONIZING!"
The villain whimpered back.
"All…hail…the…lawless…earth."
"SHUT UP!"
"All…hail…the VILLAIN KING!"
Ignitro snapped and burns his head off. The little boy peering through the door.
He's never seen him snap like that, he realized now even his mighty powerful dictator father had a weakness.
So he decided to become just like his idol, his fathers arch-nemesis.
To see his father frustrated in his becoming of greatness.
That was his fuel, and so he gets off the ledge, but a gust of wind blows his scrawny little body off.
As he plunges to his death he remembers his mother. She had passed when she conceived him, he has memories of her holding him covered in his blood.
His mother was very ill, but he remembered some of her words.
"… my little grey eyes… staring back at me."
…
He wakes up.
Fast forward a decade later. His phone blasting him awake. The two girls right and left of him embrace him tighter as he tries to get up.
21 missed calls from…THE HERO HOSPITAL?!
He rushes out with his Akira style bike, he was heavily inspired.
He blazes through traffic on his bike putting on his black muscle fit shirt & silver chain while on autopilot, messing up his black shiny hair and a robotic arm putting a blunt in his mouth.
He rushes to reception, the secretary asks his name.
"Damion Grey."
"No record sir."
"Damion Von Ferno…I'm Ignitros kid."
He hated saying that. But the system never changes his last name for some odd reason.
"Right this way sir."
"Say are you new here? When are you off work have you ever seen a flying yacht?"
"Ignitro, emergency care unit, he's pretty close to death, they say this might be the last time you can talk to him."
"Ah yeah, thanks. So no to the flying yacht then?"
"We tried the best we could."
Damion never felt so ignored. But he understood, to her it was a very difficult situation but to Damion it was freedom.
He walks in, his father, once a constant dominant force now weak shriveled up and mummified in bandages.
"What's…up old man."
"…"
Ignitro wouldn't speak a word to him.
"You know I just made another deal with the big corpos the other day, GreyEyes is now the fastest growing startup company in the world."
"…"
"Sure it's not a trillion dollars but without any powers, I've done more than most…"
"…"
"I have dinner with some of the most important investors on the planet…the government in the palm of my hands…and oh…so many woman."
"…"
"I have billions in the greatest assets in the world, the fastest cars in the world, the fastest jets, the most powerful artillery, the largest trade investments across the globe…my net worth will surpass your trillion in no time."
"…"
"I have everything old man. You have nothing now & I have all this world can offer."
"…"
"Everything…everything but your respect. Why won't you even look at me?"
"…"
Ignitro raises his hand, Damion hopeful tries to hold it.
"…the…villain…king…"
"I didn't follow in his footsteps don't worry, everything I did is legal & legit."
"…is dead…I killed him…"
Damion's face went from hope to dread. So that's why he called him here.
"I…won…"
None of the greatest achievements in the world mattered to his father at the end of his life, he was still only obsessed with one thing.
His pride.
"You will never change old man."
"…"
Damion rips out the plug.
"YOU…FOOL!"
"Just a vPhone charger…of course you wouldn't know. I'm out of here, you can rot and die in this bed alone for all I care."
Remembering when those words were once spoken to him.
"…"
Damion looks back hoping his father would say something. Anything so his last words wouldn't be so cruel.
"…when you fell…"
"Yeah off the skyscraper when I was 10, I remember that. I know you saved me…thanks… for that."
"…I should've let you die."
Damion was at a loss for words.
"…you always think it's some competition huh?."
"…"
"Fine. I'll surpass your $1T. I'll even reach $1 Quadrillion. I'll become the next Villain King, and I'll tell the whole world I'm your son!"
"…"
"You can die knowing everything you worked your whole life for…will be for nothing!"
"…"
"…"
"…but I… couldn't…"
"…and why's that?"
"… you were the only thing left… of your mother."
Damion stops his ranting. He sits back down in silence. As hours go by until his fathers last heart monitor beep slowly fading with the night.
…
Damion stands outside his grave after the paparazzi and fans leave. He brought the only memento he had of his mother, a picture of them as a family when he was an infant.
He throws it on the eternal flame "I" symbol grave.
He thought that despite his monstrous nature he still loved his mother deeply, and maybe that was a reason for his hatred towards him, as his birth was the final nail in his mothers coffin.
But now here he was, at his fathers coffin. As the rain poured in, Damion vowed to himself.
"I'll become the next Villain King. I will show you what true justice looks like old man. What true greatness looks like. A true legend."
A tear falls from his face. Maybe he cared for the old man even just a tiny bit.
Never mind it's just rain. There was no emotion left in this boy. Just a hunger for vengeance…or validation?
Maybe both.
Tune in next time for Issue#3 ULTRAGIRL (A.K.A Verity Von Ultra) to find out where his future girlfriend is during all of this.
As always thanks for reading, and please bare with me, it only gets better from here.