#255: Shadow-Prophet (Raz Alters)

(The Shadow Prophet himself, in his signature single-eyed suit. The Hopper-XN device is built into the belt buckle, hence the colored wires squiggling about.)

     I love how intentionally and hilariously self-serious the old-school '80s Ninja Turtle comics were. I rented the first big chunk of them today at the library, and 17 pages in, I've already seen 100% more dismembered hands than pizza slices. My whole world has been flipped on its head. Speaking of comic books, the elephantine geekdom jamboree known as Comic-Con just happened and, while I wasn't able to actually go, it dominated my weekend nonetheless. It even inspired me to sketch up the following crimefighter in the first place. I present to you the Shadow-Prophet! JC-Earth is home to an indisputably grand assortment of unorthodox heroes, and whenever some insane, off-the-scales evil threatens everything, one of them is always their to save the day. But while that's fantastic and all, when push comes to shove, not all the JC-Verse's evil is, well, "off-the-scales". Sure, the place overall is bat-poop off-its-rocker (much like its creator, if we're being perfectly honest) but it still has plenty of real-world-esque tragedies peppered throughout--and most of the aformentioned heroes are too large-scale to notice them. I say "most of" very intentionally, however, mainly because of one well-known, highly illusive hero in particular. But first, some backstory. Having grown up with sketchy characters surrounding him at every street corner, Razael Alters was forced into familiarity with crime and tragedy from the time he was a tyke, like two nasty bullies that gang up on you in unison. Once he turned 18, Razael decided to delve into the underworld of criminals, searching rigorously for the most efficient way of making them pay for their unthinkable acts--until eventually, he realized he didn't have to. If the acts never happened, that is. Using a scrapped U.N.D.E.R.O.O. brand time machine blueprint he tracked down and ripped from the black market, he constructed the Hopper-XN: his very own portable all-access pass to almost any point in the past. And after that, the rest is history. Or rather, the reconstructing of it. To this day, Raz is the first line of superpowered defense against everyday evils on JC-Earth, wiping away the worst crimes after they've happened and protecting the grief-stricken from the pain he knows so well--all as the vigilant vigilante, the Shadow-Prophet. (Man, I've done two dramatic tales of heroism in a row. Maybe I should make the next post something light and completely absurd, just to keep things nice and balanced.)