Visionary (comics)
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| Visionary | |
 Visionary, from Dynamo 5 #1. Art by Mahmud A. Asrar. |
|
| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Image Comics |
| First appearance | Dynamo 5 #1 March 2007 |
| Created by | Jay Faerber Mahmud A. Asrar |
| In story information | |
| Alter ego | Hector Chang |
| Species | Superhuman |
| Team affiliations | Dynamo 5 |
| Abilities | Laser vision, x-ray vision, telescopic vision |
Visionary (real name Hector Chang) 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, Visionary first appeared in Dynamo 5 #1 (January 2007).
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 a 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 and the information she discovered to track down five people who could be Dynamo’s illegitimate children.
Hector Chang was the first of Captain Dynamo’s children Warner contacted. Hector is an intellectually curious Vancouver, British Columbia high school geek of Chinese descent who was a victim of school bullying. When Warner appeared before him offering to change his life, Hector was initially skeptical, stating that he had heard such things before from guidance counselors. 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. Hector inherited all of his father’s vision-related powers. He took the codename Visionary, and works to protect Tower City with his newly discovered brothers and sisters.
One month after gaining his abilities, Visionary and his siblings fought the paramilitary organization known as The Veil. Although he and the team acquitted themselves well against that foe, Visionary himself was kidnapped during the fracas, and brought to The Veil’s base, where he was injected with a serum to make him amenable to interrogation by The Veil’s leader, who called himself The Superior. Visionary divulged everything about himself and his siblings, how they inherited their powers, and how Warner assembled them, but before The Veil could make use of this information, Visionary was rescued by Warner and the rest of Dynamo 5, who had tracked him using Scatterbrain’s telepathy.[1] His powers have also proven useful in reconnaissance, as when the team investigated the reappearance of the creature known as Whiptail,[2] and as a weapon against adversaries such as Quake.[3]
[edit] Personal life
Hector was conceived during a one-night stand between his mother, Jennifer Chang, and Captain Dynamo, who at the time, was disguised via his shapeshifting power as a Chinese man. Jennifer never knew that the man was Captain Dynamo, and never saw him again. She raised Hector as a single parent, and although Hector's maternal grandfather has also been a positive presence in his life, Jennifer has lamented the lack of a male role model in Hector's life, as Hector tends to think of his father when Father's Day approaches.[4] Despite never having known his father, he thinks of Captain Dynamo as "Dad",[5] and a poster of Dynamo hangs over his bed.[6] This is in contrast to his siblings, Bridget, Gage and Olivia, who were raised by adoptive fathers,[7] or his brother Spencer, who, having wondered all his life who his father was, only to be disappointed to learn it was Captain Dynamo, thinks of the late superhero as "an enormous hypocrite and a horrible husband".[8]
Hector's life as a costumed superhero initially created difficulties for his home life, particularly when his capture, along with the rest of Dynamo 5, by the U.S. government superhero-monitoring organization known as F.L.A.G.,[9] kept him away from home for two days, causing Jennifer to panic and call the authorities. This required Hector to devise a false story about his whereabouts, and resulted in his being grounded,[10] though Jennifer ultimately discovered Hector's secret accidentally when she walked in on him as he attempted to use the teleportational device known as a Jump Portal, that the team uses to assemble for missions.[11] Hector revealed the full truth to her about Captain Dynamo, his siblings, and his superhero life. Jennifer was angered at learning that Maddie Warner exposed Hector to a heavy dose of radiation to unlock his powers, and after having Hector introduce them, she threatened to report Warner to the authorities for what she regarded as child endangerment and possibly kidnapping. Warner insisted that because his children shared Captain Dynamo's DNA, the radiation posed no risk to the children, and speculated that Jennifer's ire was motivated more from feeling abandoned by the man who seduced her, but Jennifer was not amused by this statement.[12]
Since gaining his powers, Hector has exhibited greater confidence in the face of bullies at school,[13] but his social awkwardness and virginity has been a source of embarrassment in light of his half-siblings' greater range of experience. Although Gage and Spencer have placed greater importance on this status, his sister Bridget has been more understanding.[14][15]
[edit] Powers
Visionary has superhuman abilities related to his eyesight, which include laser vision, x-ray vision, and telescopic vision.[16] His laser vision is used as an offensive weapon, and can be used to neutralize human opponents, and large objects such as armored tanks, though unlike his father’s laser blasts, Visionary’s are yellow instead of red. His x-ray vision allows him to see through solid objects. His telescopic vision allows him to see great distances.[17] The upper limits of each of these powers is not yet been revealed. The helmet Visionary wears includes a visor that focuses his laster blasts, making them more concentrated. This advantage served to nearly defeat his half-sister Synergy in when the two of them engaged each other in a laser vision standoff in Dynamo 5 #7, as she lacked such a device, though she was saved by the intervention of her mother, Chrysalis.
[edit] References
- ^ Dynamo 5 #1.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #2.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #3.
- ^ The circumstances of Hector's conception were revealed in Dynamo 5 #4 & 9. Jennifer's name was revealed in Dynamo 5 #10.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #9; Page 3 & Dynamo 5 #10; Page 19.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #9; Page 6.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #4; Page 14.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #3; Page 8.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #5-6
- ^ Dynamo 5 #8; Pages 1-3.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #8; Page 20.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #10.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #3; Page 6.
- ^ Dynamo 5 #2; Page 12.
- ^ Dyanmo 5 #3; Pages 4-5.
- ^ Weiland, Jonah; "Ain't Nothing but a Family Thing: Faerber Talks Dynamo 5"; Article on ComicBookResources.com; December 20, 2006
- ^ Dynamo 5 #1; Pages 3 & 4.
