Myriad (Image Comics)
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| Myriad | |
 Myriad, from Dynamo 5 #1. Art by Mahmud A. Asrar. |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Image Comics |
| First appearance | Dynamo 5 #1 March 2007 |
| Created by | Jay Faerber Mahmud A. Asrar |
| In story information | |
| Alter ego | Spencer Bridges |
| Species | Superhuman |
| Team affiliations | Dynamo 5 |
| Abilities | Shapeshifting |
Myriad (real name Spencer Bridges) is a fictional comic book superhero, a member of the superhero team Dynamo 5, which appears in the monthly series of the same name from Image Comics. Created by writer Jay Faerber and artist Mahmud A. Asrar, Myriad first appeared in Dynamo 5 #1 (January 2007). Myriad is a shapeshifter, with the ability to alter the form of his body, his face, and the clothing he wears in order to disguise himself as anyone.
Contents |
[edit] Character profile
Following the assassination of Captain Dynamo, the much-beloved superhero protector of Tower City, his widow, former government agent posing as now-retired investigative reporter Maddie Warner, discovered from his personal effects that he had been unfaithful to her countless times. Despite her devastation at this discovery, Warner realized that without a full-time protector, Tower City would be vulnerable to Captain Dynamo’s legion of super-villain enemies. She used her skills to track down five people who could be Dynamo’s illegitimate children.
Bridges, is a promiscuous womanizer who has never held a job for more than two weeks, though he seems never seems to be without financial means. The third person contacted by Warner, he unsurprisingly agreed to join the team only because Maddie is paying him. Gathering all five of the children together, Warner exposed them to the same unidentified radiation that gave Captain Dynamo his powers forty years earlier, unlocking their powers. Spencer inherited his father’s shapeshifting ability. Donning a costume with the same color design as his father’s Bridges took on the codename Myriad, and works to protect Tower City with his newly discovered brothers and sisters, whom he is still getting to know.
Myraid is a loner who has grown up in various foster homes. Dynamo 5 creator Faerber has indicated that his shapeshifting ability will tie into his lack of direction in life, saying, “He inherited Cap's shape-shifting powers, and he can now become anyone he chooses. Maybe one day he'll figure out who he wants to be.”[1] According to Spencer, the people who took him and other children in did so only to receive a government check, and while he can remember all their faces, he cannot remember half their names, and feels that today he doesn't need anyone.[2] Unlike his brother Hector, who thinks of Captain Dynamo as "Dad",[3] and has a poster of Dynamo over his bed,[4] Spencer, who, having wondered all his life who his father was, was disappointed to learn it was Captain Dynamo, and thinks of the late superhero as "an enormous hypocrite and a horrible husband".[5] Despite Spencer's dismissive statements about his need for family, he underwent an eye-opening experience when Maddie Warner asked him to impersonate his brother Gage after Gage had fell into a coma, in order to quell suspicion on the part of Gage's family, who are unaware of Gage's superhero life.[6] The experience served to illustrate to Spencer what having a stable family was like, something he had missed all his life, but in getting carried away, he initiated a romantic overture with a schoolmate of Gage's, and when Gage, who had discovered he was capable of astral projection, witnessed the two in a romantic embrace, he saw this as an invasion of privacy, and later came to blows with Spencer. Spencer wondered if it was motivated by racism because the girl in question was black. Spencer apologized to Gage, but when he confessed how having a family for a small number of days made him feel, Gage, understanding of this, forgave him.[7]
[edit] Powers and abilities
Myriad has the superhuman ability to alter the form of his body, his facial features, and even the clothes he wears, in order to disguise himself as anyone he chooses. He sometimes practices his impersonations of certain people, and uses reference materials, in order to perfect his disguises.[8] Like his father, Myraid can alter the apparent size of his body, enabling him to disguise himself, for example, as an obese person.[9] Myriad has used this ability to disguise himself as people who appear to have greater mass than he does, as when he impersonates Captain Dynamo.[10] How he is able to do this, in light of the law of conservation of mass, has not been explained. When engaged in superheroics, Myriad does not wear a mask or helmet like his siblings, but instead disguises himself by erasing all of his facial features. How he is able to see, breathe, hear and speak without them has also not been explained. Myriad's ability to maintain a disguise is dependent upon his concentration; being punched in the face while disguised, for example, will cause that disguise to falter, though it will revert by default to his featureless appearance, rather than his true face.[11]
Myriad has also displayed some knowledge of martial arts and acrobatics.[12][13]
[edit] References
- ^ Weiland, Jonah; "Ain't Nothing but a Family Thing: Faerber Talks Dynamo 5"; Article on ComicBookResources.com; December 20, 2006
- ^ Dynamo 5 #4; Pages 14-15.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #9; Page 3 & Dynamo 5 #10; Page 19.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #9; Page 6.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #3; Page 8.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #8.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #9 & 10.
- ^ As when he used visual recordings of Captain Dynamo's public appearances to facilitate his impersonation of him in Captain Dynamo #3.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #1; Page 1.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #3; Pages 8 & 17.
- ^ As when Synergy punched him in Dynamo 5 #7; Page 12.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #7; Page 13; Panel 5.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #10; Page 2; Panels 1 & 2.
