Author's Note: I know I have some other things that could be in need of an update, but when I had the idea for this I knew I just knew I had to make it happen. This is the start of a new potential format that can be used to introduce new alternate versions of Marvel heroes into Infinity Crisis. I hope you enjoy it!
Earth-4500
Los Angeles, California
In the dead of night, a woman dressed in black from head to toe climbed up the fire escape at the back of a dingy, but serviceable apartment building. The rusty metal creaked with every movement she made. She knew she could've gotten in through the front, but she preferred not having to make up excuses for why she'd stay in the room she was renting for days and days at a time only to leave and be gone almost just as long. Just going up to her window felt easier to her.
"Home at last," she said to herself. "Unless I get orders to move. Again."
The woman opened the window to her apartment, climbed inside, and flicked on the lights to chase away the darkness. The apartment wasn't very impressive, but was hardly a mess, with only a small collection of personal items spread out across the standard furniture. The only exception was a desk that had a large gray sheet thrown over it and whatever was on top of it.
"Glad to see no one broke in." she said.
She set her black cap and sunglasses down on a sideboard, revealing that she had dark blue eyes and long strawberry blond hair that leaned more towards ginger. Her hair looked particularly messy due to it having been tucked under the cap all night, but she didn't care. She grabbed some clothes from a dresser and walked into the tiny bathroom. She emerged barely three minutes later, now dressed in an oversized white t-shirt with a poster for the 1975 film 'The Giant Spider Invasion' printed on the back, red sweatpants with a tear over the right knee, and brown slippers.
"I better check if the boss sent any messages." she said.
She pulled the gray sheet off of the desk, revealing a large computer with a very unusual, rather alien design. It was a washed out green and its texture looked more like stone or even leathery animal skin. Spindly spikes that vaguely resembled the spines of a sea urchin popped out at seemingly random places. There were coiling tubes full of faintly luminescent fog. The screen was a misshapen oval that was bordered by a substance that resembled violet moss. The computer whirred to life, the screen turning white and displaying a message in strange looking runes of many colors before turning into standard English in black.
'HELLO, JULIA CARPENTER. While I know that you have most likely just finished your latest assignment, I need you to look over our records on three individuals who could soon prove to be of greater importance than we initially believed. The likelihood in them becoming involved with Multiversal Encounters/Events has increased, so it could prove useful.'
Julia nodded at the screen as she read and pulled up her swivel chair. She sat in it crossed legged.
"I can handle a little reading," she shrugged and poked at the screen. "Okey dokey. Let's see who's first up…"
Subject: Earth-25's Aidan Rogers AKA Captain Ireland
Appearance: Rogers is an adult Irish male with short blond hair and blue eyes. While originally short and scrawny, he is currently tall, muscular, and in ideal physical shape. When operating as Captain Ireland, Rogers wears a suit that is modeled on the flag of the Republic of Ireland, consisting of a green shirt with a large Irish flag shield on the chest and white and orange sections on the sleeves and a tri-colored cowl/mask that follows the flag's pattern of green, white, and orange. The rest of the ensemble consists of gray-brown pants, gray gloves and knee pads, a black belt, and green and brown buttoned boots. He carries and wields a large disc-shaped shield that also bears the colors of the Irish flag, with a large golden yellow Celtic harp emblazoned onto the center.
History: In a small town in the Irish countryside, Sarah Rogers (née Glackin) gave birth to her first and second only son shortly after the untimely death of her husband, Joseph Rogers. The two had planned to immigrate to the United States of America via boat before she was to give birth, but losing him put an end to any such plans, and she instead found a home with her older cousin and his wife, who were sympathetic and happy to have a baby boy in the house, as they had never been able to have one of their own. Sarah named her son Aidan after a kindly man who helped her travel to her cousin's home, whom she regretted never seeing again after.
As a young adult, Aidan found that while he was less physically impressive than the other guys in his town, he had a keener mind, a stronger sense of morality, and even a braver heart. Because when the threat of Nazi Germany rose, Aidan insisted on joining the British Armed Forces despite his home country's neutrality. Though he was not alone in this, it nonetheless earned him and even his mother the scorn of many of their neighbors. But he didn't care, because he knew that the threat that the Nazis posed and the vile hate they stood for had to be fought. He was only accepted due to desperation on the part of recruiters and was swiftly assigned to acting as part of security for a small base hidden under a fake barbershop.
It was at this fake barbershop where Aidan's life would change even more than it already had. For it was here that he met and befriended Dr. Abraham Erskine, a Jewish German scientist whose research was the secret of the base, which housed his lab. He was trying to create a serum to create "super soldiers" for the Allies so they could defeat the Nazis who were ruining his country and murdering his people. Getting to know Dr. Erskine's story not only further convinced Aidan that he had made the right choice, but that he also needed to do more. So when their superiors in the British Armed Forces tried to shut the project down after prematurely deeming it a lost cause, Aidan grabbed the latest version of the serum and injected himself with it in the vain hope that it would show it was at least somewhat effective. It proved to be far more than that, and he transformed before them all into exactly what Dr. Erskine had hoped to achieve. Unfortunately, a stray bullet caused an explosion in the lab that killed Dr. Erskine and burned his journal, meaning this once rail thin boy from a little town in Ireland was now the only super soldier the Allies would have.
After a short time, Aidan was deployed as a soldier, fighting Nazi forces in mainland Europe. During this time, he didn't wear his costume, but was nevertheless given his superheroic moniker "Captain Ireland" as a nickname by his new brothers in arms. These missions included helping the French Resistance. Here he gained valuable leadership skills and truly felt he was making a difference. Alas, this was all cut short in a way he never saw coming. While on a mission to rescue Jewish prisoners who were to be deported to Nazi-occupied Poland and gassed, "Captain Ireland" encountered Paul Pierre Duval, a French chemist who was in favor of the Nazis occupying his nation due to his own fiery antisemitism. An experiment gone wrong had recently left Duval's right hand transformed into a stone-like substance. With a mere touch by this hand, Aidan was turned into a "statue" made of the same substance. Duval had just enough time to hide Aidan in a building where he planned to put more enemies of the Nazis, but he was rather ironically then arrested by Nazis who assumed he was a Jew due to his curly black hair. What became of Duval after this is currently unknown.
The screen displayed a portrait of sorts, which depicted Rogers getting turned to stone by Duval, who had a thin mustache and wore a dark blue jacket over a gray vest and pants. Julia thought about how likely it could be that Duval could be alive somewhere, after so much time. While most would dismiss such a possibility, she had seen things that made her think that nothing was completely inconceivable.
It wouldn't be until several decades later that Aidan Rogers was freed from his fate as a so-called statue. His salvation came in the form of Elizabeth Twoyoungmen, an aspiring sorceress who was backpacking through Europe and happened upon the statue. She could sense that he was alive and used her mystic abilities to free him from this state, bringing him headfirst into the modern world. Aidan Rogers was now a man out of time. He returned to Ireland to find that all his loved ones had long since passed away.
After spending a couple years establishing a new life for himself and adjusting to the modern day, Aidan decided he couldn't let the power he held thanks to Dr. Erskine's serum go to waste. Inspired by the news of the superheroes popping up in the United States, he decided to become one himself. He crafted himself a costume and became Captain Ireland, appropriating his old nickname so he wouldn't forget those he fought alongside. Thanks to his great strength and training, soon many came to know of Captain Ireland. This included Elizabeth, who had since become the Talisman, the Sorcerer (Sorceress?) Supreme of their world, who recruited Aidan to join a special team she was forming, who would become known as the Defenders, and help him carve his mighty shield from the wood of an ancient, powerful tree. Alongside his fellow Defenders, Captain Ireland faced villainous threats such as MODOX (Mental Organism Designed Only for eXpansion), the mercenary gang Bad Boyz, Inc. and even an order of undead ghouls.
A second portrait then showed Aidan in his complete Captain Ireland garb, standing triumphantly among the other founding Defenders; Talisman was a beautiful, steely eyed First Nations woman with long dark hair and wore a maroon dress with light brown trimming and a cape lined with white fur. The others consisted of a man in a face concealing, form-fitting suit of bright white and azure blue armor with large 'wings' that evoked sea rays and an otherworldly woman with glittery silver skin, flowing black hair with silver highlights and glowing eyes who held a silver surfboard that had an aura around it.
"Mmhmm. 'Earth-25's Mightiest Heroes', they say," Julia nodded to herself. "Good thing they found a couple more Defenders after that, because their world would certainly need 'em."
Current Status: When the actions of Thanos of Earth-199999 resulted in a massive Multiversal crisis, Captain Ireland was among the few members of the Defenders who was turned to dust. He and his teammates stuck together in the realm they then found themselves stranded in, hiding in a secluded spot for safety under the orange sky until they were restored after Thanos and his forces were vanquished. Thankfully, the other heroes of Earth-25 had managed to keep things together in the interim. Since then, they have focused on being prepared for any other crisis that may come in the future.
"We should probably look into this world more," Julia noted. "Some new heroes could've popped up and even joined Captain Ireland and the other Defenders since we wrote this."
After taking a minute to grab a can of iced tea from her mini fridge, Julia moved onto what they had on the next subject.
Subject: Earth-9919's Peter Park AKA Spider-Man
Appearance: Park is a young man of Korean descent with short, slightly wavy black hair. He wears a pair of large glasses, which he originally needed to see but now only keeps to hide that his senses have been significantly enhanced. Both before and after becoming Spider-Man, Park was a very unassuming young man who wears plain clothes such as baggy white undershirts and gray and blue jeans and sweatpants. As Spider-Man, his appearance has some differences from those worn by his most well known counterparts. While the mask, torso, and upper arms are still a bright red, the suit has white portions extending from the 'legs' of the prominent jagged black spider insignia on his chest. They extend from down his chest and over his shoulders and down his back to white pants that then transition to black around the knees. The red on his arms also transitions to black, around the elbows. The feet and hands both have a bright blue webbing pattern on them. The other red portions such as his mask also have this webbing pattern, though there appears to be more of a lilac color. Aside from that and the addition of a black color with white trim, the mask resembles the Spider-Man we know so well.
History: Peter Park was born in Queens, New York City, NY, USA. His father Chul-woo and uncle Byung-joon immigrated together from South Korea to the United States when they were both fairly young men. They brothers anglicized their names to Richard and Benjamin Park as they both pursued their respective careers. Ben Park would go on to develop a serious relationship with Maybelle "May" Lee, a third generation Korean American. It was at Ben and May's wedding that Richard first met Mary Ok, the sister of one of May's male friends. It turned out she was involved in the same career as he was. For the sake of simplicity, we'll "fast forward" to years later. Richard and Mary had married, had a son they named Peter, and would rely on Ben and May to babysit whenever they had to travel out of state for their jobs. It was during one of these outings that the couple died in a train crash, the cause of which remains cryptically undetermined. Young Peter was subsequently taken in by his aunt and uncle.
Years later, the teenage Peter went on to attend Phineas T. Horton High School. While he was always an exceptional learner, it was here where he proved to be truly academically gifted, especially when compared to a good amount of his peers. However, he struggled socially and became an easy target for students who wanted someone to bully, tease, and exclude. Some of this was no doubt fueled by casual racism and anti-intellectualism, the latter of which was a rather ironic problem to have at a school named for the genius inventor of the Human Torch, a fire flinging android turned superhero who is adored by the general public (and who here never got shut down or dismantled, nor succeeded by any variant of Johnny Storm). About the only person who would openly be friendly to Peter was Franklin Ha, a fellow Korean American student who was often too busy caring for his younger siblings to ever participate in any school clubs or social events outside of school.
Everything in Peter's life changed when he went on a school field trip to the New York state branch of Rodriguez Genetics, an acclaimed company which Peter viewed as a potential future employer. Because of his unpopularity, Peter was the only student on the trip without a "designated buddy" and ended up being left behind by the rest of the tour group while he stopped to tie his shoe. While looking for the others, he wandered into a room full of spiders in terrariums, which were all sealed except for one. A lone spider crawled out and bit Peter as he was exiting the room, causing him to feel queasy, so he ran out of the pristine building to vomit outside. In front of all his classmates on the trip, who laughed at his expense the whole ride home.
A new portrait then appeared, depicting the fateful moment when the spider bit the young Peter Park and his startled reaction to it. The tiny creature was red, blue, white, black, and violet, which made it really pop out compared to everything else.
"Heh. Some things never change, do they?" Julia smiled and yawned. "I think I've got a good idea where this is headed."
The following day, Peter woke up to find that his body had changed. He felt stronger and nimbler and could cling to his walls, even being able to climb onto the ceiling. The spider that bit him had been anything but ordinary; It was a genetically engineered creation of the scientists working for Rodriguez Genetics. Peter tried to look up whatever he could find online, with basically no results. Despite hearing him freaking out, his Aunt May nonetheless called up to him with words he always feared he would hear; 'You missed the bus'. After hurriedly getting dressed and grabbing his bag, Peter gave chase. His new abilities came to him so naturally that ended up jumping and clinging to several buildings before managing to catch up and get on it. When his tormentors tried to gang up on both him and Franklin at lunch that day, he managed to swerve wherever they aimed and made fools of them.
Afterwards, Franklin encouraged Peter to do more with his "new skills", which led the latter to do something his uncle and aunt had always warned him not to do; Pick a fight. He went to a seedy establishment where an audience could place bets on strangers who would fight in a wrestling cage. They only let him participate as a joke, assuming the crowd would like seeing a "snot nosed nerd" get pummeled, but he won against every man they threw at him. Alas, the organizers refused to pay him his fair and showed him the door. Which Peter gladly held open for a drunk man whose picture he saw up on a wall under the word 'Banned!'. The door was locked from the outside, so the man wouldn't have gotten in if not for Peter. The two even shared a wink. But then it all went wrong when Uncle Ben pulled up in his car. He had followed Peter so he could punish him for sneaking out at night. The two started to have a serious talk there on the sidewalk. Peter tried to say that he had become powerful and wanted to show it off, but Ben told him that great power should also come with the responsibility to use it correctly. Then the same man from moments before charged out of the building with a duffel bag stuffed with stolen cash in one hand and a pistol in another. He shot Ben multiple times without a second thought, stole the car, and drove off.
A second portrait showed Peter frozen in shock, standing over the dying Ben Park. Next to that, it showed him cradling his uncle and clutching his hand as he passed away, too late to do anything.
An enraged Peter began to chase his uncle's car…only for the thief to drunkenly drive it right into the side of an ambulance. Miraculously, the paramedics inside were uninjured. A paramedic by the name of Jane Foster hopped out and found Ben Parker's killer dead at the wheel, covered by a blanket of bloodied green paper. When Peter saw this, he fell to his knees and cried. That was the moment that he realized that his uncle had been right.
After this, Peter Park took a vow to use the powers he gained from the spider to help people and save them from both danger and those who wished them harm. After fashioning his costume and developing a pair of web shooters (we don't know where he got the material for it all), he debuted as a spectacular hero who the public would soon dub Spider-Man. Over the next two years, he would gain a number of foes both in his own neighborhood and beyond, such as the lightning manipulating Electro, the powerful leaping Kangaroo, the super strong brute Man Mountain Mao, and the Tarantula, a masked menace with powers that Peter suspects originate from more of Rodriguez Genetics experiments. All the while, he's made some allies in the wider superhero community, including a recent team up with the Taiwanese vigilante Shadow Shell.
"Oh yeah. That's right," Julia nodded. "That's actually when he first came to our attention, during the disturbance caused by that team-up. Man, who knew Shadow Shell was that high-powered?"
Current Status: When the actions of Thanos of Earth-199999 resulted in a massive Multiversal crisis, Peter Park was among the half of his universe who were spared. As Spider-Man, he helped the other surviving heroes deal with the situation and helped rescue civilians left in precarious situations. This included one Glory Grant, a vivacious fellow student at Phineas T. Horton High. When he rescued her from falling from a damaged bridge, she pulled up his mask to give him a kiss and was surprised to see that the resident was Peter Park. He was equally shocked; They didn't have any classes together and he considered her out of his league, so he figured she didn't even know he existed. After the crisis was ended everyone was returned, and the dust settled, the two decided to go on a date (which left Glory's social circle baffled). It was unfortunately interrupted by the debut of a new villain, Graviton, who used his powers of gravity control to wreak havoc. When Spider-Man swung in to put a stop to it, he took one long look at Graviton and gasped when he recognized as none other than Franklin Ha. The battle caused interference with our ability to peek into Earth-9919, and we have yet to learn what happened afterwards.
One last portrait was displayed, which showed Spider-Man swinging through the air on random objects which were levitating due to Franklin Ha, aka Graviton. He was a fairly handsome, clean shaven young man of Korean descent with intense dark eyes, thick eyebrows and very long, messy black hair with dyed red tips. His costume as Graviton consisted of an indigo bodysuit with pieces of chunky metal armor held onto his chest, shoulder, forearms and forelegs with white belts. He also wore a long, billowing white and gray striped scarf. He was pointing straight at Spider-Man, commanding a cable truck, a newspaper box, a fire hydrant, and several pieces of broken pavement to hurtle straight towards the wall crawler. Glory was outside the restaurant she and Peter had been in, wearing a simple pink dress and dodging debris that was just grazing her head of thick, beautiful afro curls.
"Holy crap," Julia sat up. "...I hope those crazy kids are okay. Someone should figure out how that played out…"
She took one last swig of her drink and then clicked to see who was the subject of the third record she had to read.
Subject: Earth-713's Farouk Khalil AKA The Punisher
Appearance: Farouk Khalil is a tall, strongly built adult man of Palestinian origin. His hair is a dark brown that borders on black and is kept in a buzzed crew cut and a long stubble beard. His eyes are a slightly lighter shade of brown. He has an unmistakably gruff and cold demeanor, to the point one may assume his serious glower to be his default expression. He has a number of scars on his body those gained from bullet grazing and knife wounds. His gear as the Punisher consists of heavy duty black jackets, cargo pants, hiking boots and leather gloves, all lined with some form of protective padding. This is typically worn over plain white shirts or black ones with the large white skull insignia associated with other variants of the Punisher. The skull is also present in the form of a large belt buckle he wears and patches he has sewn onto the shoulders of some of his jackets.
History: We know unfortunately little about the past of the man known as Farouk Khalil. In fact, we cannot even be one hundred percent certain that this is the name he was even given at birth or merely an alias that may have adopted later in life (Though since we don't have any confirmation that it isn't his real name, we shall use it here). Regardless, what we do know is that he was born somewhere within the Palestine Territories, though whether this was in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip is unclear. Whatever the case, his large family was repeatedly forced to relocate from one home after home due to the presence of the Israeli military. With each move came more and more hardship and tragedy. Farouk would grow up seeing many members of his family die in accidents or be killed in the crossfire of conflicts that his parents were desperately trying to keep their children out of. Yet even worse was when some of his uncles, aunts, siblings, and cousins were instead simply taken away by strangers, never to be seen again.
By the time Farouk reached young adulthood, all the other Khalils were either deceased or were presumed to be. Since he had nothing left keeping him in the latest area where he had been living, Khalil took whatever money or valuables he had to pay a group of smugglers to take him as far away as they could. This went unexpectedly well, as he did at least get out of Palestine and Israel. It is unknown to us exactly what happened right after this, but Khalil would resurface a few years later, having amassed an arsenal of weaponry and the skills and training to use it as an international mercenary.
During his days as a mercenary, Khalil would become known for only taking jobs where he would go after targets that he felt deserved to be targeted. This included terrorists of any creed, human trafficking rings, members of other criminal organizations and even fellow mercenaries, namely the ones who were all too willing to harm innocent bystanders. Just a handful of notable mercenaries who were ultimately killed by Khalil include the machete swinging Ferdinand Lopez, the violence addicted Carlton "Crippler" Stricklan, self proclaimed cutthroat Daniel Leighton, the game obsessed Janice Yanizeski, cartel member Elaine McLaughlin and former HYDRA agent Vladimir Korda. Other mercenaries whom Khalil encountered and even briefly worked with on shared jobs include martial artist and weapon Đức Nó Tránh, technologically gifted marksman John Greycrow, self described empath "La Bandera", the code talker-inspired mission coordinator A.G. Bell (Definitely an alias referencing Alexander Graham Bell), and others.
Eventually though, this time in Khalil's life seemingly came to an end when he settled in a small berg in New Jersey state and settled down with a good natured woman named Marwah. Using his connections, he buried as many records of his past as possible and found work at a halal butcher shop. He kept his previous profession a secret from Marwah. This choice would've most certainly backfired on him or at least caused problems in their relationship had the hatred of others hadn't reared its ugly head; Mark Hazzard, a semi-retired mercenary who was working with the local police as a "consultant", took one look at Khalil's workplace, deemed it to be a den of terrorists. It was on one fateful morning when Marwah had popped in to tell Farouk some exciting news that Hazzard had decided it was time to "save America from the invaders" and charged in, guns blazing. After the police arrived and disarmed Hazzard (after waiting for far too long and beating up and arresting some random onlookers), Marwah was confirmed to be among the casualties. She had come to tell Farouk she was pregnant.
Though Hazzard was ultimately found guilty of his crimes and was given two life sentences, he was glorified by alt-right social media personalities whose screen names and profile pictures alone would make you want to bash your head against a wall and then take several showers. This inspired copycats, and that was where Farouk decided enough was enough, dusted off his old gear and took to the streets the Eastern Seaboard's many cities, utilizing his mercenary skills as a vigilante targeting aspiring mass killers. Word of the 'Punisher' quickly made a name for himself in the criminal underworld after he took down Burt Kenyon, who was widely considered the most wanted hitman in North America. Khalil embraced the Punisher moniker and continued his one man war; He put a stop to a planned attack on a historic synagogue by the Neo-Nazi gang calling themselves the 'Master Men', fought members of the Maggia working for Joseph "Hammerhead" Martello, and more.
The first of the portraits was then displayed. It showed Farouk Khalil in a worn out white undershirt and striped boxers hunched over some of his black jackets on the floor. He was applying white spray paint from a can on them with plastic stencils to get the skull design just right.
"It's like a behind the scenes look." Julia looked at the jackets.
This caught the attention of a shadowy, unidentified figure who sought out the increasingly feared Punisher. By both misrepresenting facts and doctoring images to suit his purposes, this unknown individual manipulated the Punisher into taking on a new target; Robert "Robbie" Baldwin, AKA the teenage superhero Speedball. Believing him to be a criminal only posing as a superhero, the Punisher attacked Speedball, leading to a fight that ultimately resulted in Speedball proving the truth to the Punisher, who realized he had been duped by someone who had it out for Speedball. After that, the Punisher made it a point to acquire a secondary arsenal, one that would be less lethal. Just in case he had any doubts.
Another portrait showed the Punisher and Speedball in the aftermath of their fight, shaking hands after coming to understand what must've happened. Speedball was a nimbly built young Anglo-American man with somewhat messy blond hair. His form fitting costume was a vibrant blue with a bright orange mask, belt, gloves, and boots with an odd craggy swingle pattern. The mask also had large bulbous lenses. The sheer contrast between the two was so blatantly apparent that Julia didn't even note it to herself.
"Who would've wanted that young man assassinated?" she wondered briefly, before continuing.
Current Status: When the actions of Thanos of Earth-199999 resulted in a massive Multiversal crisis, Khalil had been in the middle of a hunt for a dangerous serial killer, who he had yet to learn the real name of. This was all brought to an abrupt stop when he was among the half of his universe who were taken. Upon being restored, he was dismayed to discover that the killer he was hunting was among the half who weren't taken. During that short period of time, his newest enemy had nearly doubled their reported murder count. Tracking this murderous menace has since become the Punisher's top priority. We can only hope that by the next time he'll have succeeded by the next time we study Earth-713.
One last portrait showed the Punisher looking over a motel suite that had been left a grisly crime scene with blood soaking into the carpet, a victim's limp, lifeless hand poking out from the sheets on the bed. Julia winced.
"Here's hoping," she closed the file, stepped back from her bizarre computer and gagged a little. "Yuck. Talk about a bad note to end on."
The strawberry blonde went over to her cupboard and pulled out a candy bar. While she chewed on her sweet treat, she wondered to herself if she should voluntarily read a couple more of the files on Multiversal heroes that she had access to, just to lighten the mood. Before she could really decide on that, there was a knock at her door.
"Juffaminuff!" she responded through a mouth still full of chocolate and nuts.
Julia hurriedly tossed the big gray sheet back over her desk and computer, swallowed everything left in her mouth, took a moment to make sure that nothing was peeking out of her oversized B movie pajama shirt, and opened her door. Instead of it being the building superintendent or one of her neighbors, Julia was instead met by the sight of a stranger dressed in a long trench coat and brimmed hat.
"Uhh…Can I help you?"
So, in case you couldn't guess, the overall theme of Backgrounds is to feature variants of Marvel Comics superheroes who are of different ethnicities and/or nationalities than they are traditionally. There can be some wiggle room down the road, of course, but that's at least what the original idea. This is very much a case of me putting ideas out there to see what other writers may want to do with them. Not only does this apply to the characters introduced and their stories/place in the IC Multiverse, but it's also true right down to the format; Anyone is free to write new "Volumes" of Infinity Crisis: Backgrounds, if they have any interest in doing so. Which I honestly hope does happens, because this is a creative little community that I'm glad to still be a part of.
Some Notes:
- This version of Julia Carpenter first appeared in the Totally Spies!/ChalkZone crossover chapter of Glimpses, where she was posing as blind at the Beverly Hills High class reunion while working undercover. She is a native resident of Earth-4500.
- The idea for Captain Ireland stems from an art piece of the same name by Gaston25, the same DeviantArt user who created the Judo Beetle design. I essentially took his design and applied it to Steve...er, Aidan Rogers.
- If you're wondering why he's named Aidan instead of Steve, I thought I'd change it to sound, I dunno, just a little more Irish and also to just give him a bit more of an identity than other alternate Captain Americas.
- Peter Park was inspired by a drawing by Twitter user CreeesArt ( creeesart), which reimagined Peter as Korean American. Like with Captain Ireland, the rest of what was established here were my ideas for such a character.
- I previously alluded to Peter Park in Fathers and Daughters, where his existence was referenced by the Peter Parker of Earth-92131.
- As for where the idea of a Palestinian Punisher? I just randomly mentioned it once in a conversation among many other ideas. I guess the idea just stuck with me.
- And yes, he's "only" one universe away from the Squadron Supreme.
I guess that's a wrap! I'd be happy to know what you think of what I've done, so please feel free to share your thoughts in a review. Even if not, thanks for reading.