Counter (from the Mizfits)

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Note: Taking a break from “Western Road Trip” (although the source material has plenty more if I need it). More villains for the Mizfits!

Counter (62)

Project: Comic (The Mizfits)

Known as: Counter

Real name: Jeremy Loast

Group affiliation: CounterAct

Physical description: Counter is usually in an oversized hoodie with the hood up (and his face in shadow). When someone gets a full view, his face is unremarkable (the most dominant feature is a prominent nose). His hair is brown and usually unkempt. He is tall, and his confidence gives him more presence than you would expect if you saw him walking down the street. He is thin and unmuscular.

Personality: Counter is a contrarian. He is ready for a fight at any time and about anything. If you assert that the sky is blue too strongly around him, he’ll debate it (what about when it is gray? At night?). He is (at least) low-grade angry and annoyed with the world and those in it all the time. Those who are around him for long enough will eventually hear him contradict himself. It’s not that he has passionate positions he holds; just that he’s passionate about arguing.

His most stable opinions tend to be on things that society most agrees upon. His tastes lean towards what people like the least. Surprisingly, he has drawn followers around him (those frustrated with the status quo). Even he has trouble disagreeing with people who agree with him. Several of his followers just want to take apart the status quo and others are just the oddballs that have nowhere else to be (e.g., the MinOnion).

History:  Jeremy Loast has reasons for not having faith in the system. His parents lost custody of him for drug and alcohol abuse, and drugs and alcohol were not the only things that they abused. An angry child he went from foster home to foster home. At school, kids found him an easy scapegoat for any misdeed they wanted to avoid blame for (the surely kid seemed like a plausible suspect). Once his reputation was established, he ultimately decided that if he was going to do the time, he might as well do the crime. Still, he took the fall for someone else on a theft that landed him in juvie.

In juvie things were worse. He wasn’t the angry kid – he was the weak one. Picked on an abused it never even occurred to him to complain to those running the facility. After all, no one in authority had ever helped him before. After he cleared juvie he went back to school but left before finishing high school. This led to a string of unsatisfying jobs. His nature made it difficult for him to hold a job where he had to interact with customers. So, he mostly worked manual labor jobs but even those didn’t tend to last (invariably he’d run afoul of his bosses).

He was a night janitor at an office building when All Saint’s Anarchy struck (when Boost’s powers amplified Random’s and the laws of reality got reshuffled). He came out of the event with an amazing power – he would instantly develop any power or skill necessary to counter any force used against him. At first, he was thrilled with the power but he soon realized that it was limited when he ever took the initiative. If someone tried to punch him in the face, then he would get super speed or invulnerability to avoid it. But if he punched the person first then his power failed him when he got punched back.

Never the point, only the counter point he ultimately realized he would need followers to take advantage of his abilities (he would never see them as comrades). Fortunately for him, his anger resonated with those who felt society was unfair to them and several of these had gotten gifts of their own. He became Counter, and started a group known as CounterAct. Their focus was to bring down the status quo while not believing in anything themselves.

Role in the narrative: Counter is the leader of one of the group of bad guys the Mizfits will have to deal with. He is sort of Puzzle’s opposite number. Where she is hopeful (because she sees how things go together), Counter mostly wants to break things apart.

Abilities: Counter has a very strange ability. If he did not initiate the conflict, he automatically develops any power or skill he needs to counteract any force or initiative against him. He doesn’t cancel or neutralize powers per se – he just develops a counteracting power. Were Swap to switch places with him, he’d just instantly develop the power to swap them back. If Break tried to hit him, he might become intangible. While he cannot control the what power he gets, he is able to use any power bestowed instinctively to counter his opponent.

At times his power is subtler. For example, one of the ways he remains in charge of his group is that any challenge to his leadership results in him developing the ability to speak or lead to maintain his leadership. However, his power fails him if he is the aggressor, which means exploiting his power is especially hard for him (the contrarian). For example, if he wanted to make sure he’d be immune to any bullets during a bank robbery, he needs to be careful to not be overtly threatening to anyone with a gun (or anyone, really – which makes bank robbing tricky).

It is possible to overload his power if enough assaults come simultaneously (especially if someone like say, Puzzle, can come up with a combo where the powers to counteract would be in conflict with one another). Another reason the Mizfits need to learn to work together.

Inspirations: I’ll give a shout-out to Nemesis Kid (from the Legion of Super Heroes) who developed any power he needed to beat an opponent. There was also a character in the Doom Patrol who was safe from any attack directed at him (but not from “splash damage”). Also, there is some Joker here (some people just want to watch the world burn). My Cousin Vinnie for loving arguing, maybe? A dash of Rebel without a Cause?