Gadget

The Garbage Man

Gateway Station

Genetic Engineering

Advances in genetic engineering since the year 1970 have enabled scientists to totally rework animal and plant life.  While scientists still cannot create a life form from nothing, they can take an existing life form and change its attributes.  The best-known example of such animals is the herd of pygmy elephants currently on display in the Tokyo Zoo.  These elephants average a foot and a half tall at the shoulder, and weigh an average of forty pounds apiece.  Likewise, several zoos now have on display animals that were extinct up until recent years (the best example being the small herd of mastodons kept at the Moscow Zoo)..

Research into human engineering is a subject not widely encouraged, though some pharmaceutical companies are trying to get permission to begin creating biological replacement organs for people who need heart, liver, or eye transplants.  In addition, some governments have looked into genetically enhanced soldiers.

The Geneva Protocols

Coming from the US/USSR 1985 Summit, the Geneva Protocol bans the use of supers in any nations armed services, militia, or paramilitary unit.  Their employment by law enforcement and intelligence agencies for internal security is not prohibited.  This has led some nations to be very creative in the labeling of government-supported superheroes.

Gin

The Global Guardians

The Global Guardians are headquartered in the Watchtower, an orbital facility in geostationary orbit orbit above New York City.

The Gods of Mythology

The Grand Gulag

The underground "meta-prison" known as the Grand Gulag was originally founded by Joseph Stalin in 1927 as a forced labor camp after the discovery of catalyte near Tunguska in Siberia.  Over the intervening  years, the Soviet Union dug deeper and deeper into the frozen ground, forming a large catacomb of tunnels.  Once the catalyte ore was played out, the tunnels were transformed into a massive maximum security prison.  Stalin christened this facility "the Grand Gulag"; if it ever had any other designation, its has been lost to history.

When the first metahumans arose in the Soviet Union in 1939 and 1940, Stalin had them imprisoned until their loyalty to the Soviet state (and to him) had been proven.  Those whose loyalty had been proven became agents of the government; those whose loyalty remained in question became permanent residents.  After the fall of the communist government in Russia, the Grand Gulag was converted for use as a metahuman prison full-time.

The prison has a reputation for being escape proof.  The facility is almost entirely underground with tightly controlled access, and the nearest signs of civilization is a village of 54 peasants who still haven't quite made it to the 20th Century, let alone the 21st located almost three hundred miles away.  Of the seven people the Russians acknowledge as having successfully escaped from the Gulag, six were later found dead on the Siberian tundra.  No trace of the seventh prisoner has ever been found, but authorities assume he also died in the attempt.

The Great and Powerful Oz

Tunde Adebule (1974-1996), better known as the Great and Powerful Oz was a street performer in Times Square, New York City.  Originally from Senegal, he was an active metahuman with the power to cosmetically transform himself into various characters from the film The Wizard of Oz.  His street show consisted of recitations of entire scenes of dialog from the movie, accompanied by appropriate changes in appearance.  He was killed during a mugging in January of 1996.

The Great Bermuda Punchout

A popular name for the International Fighting Championship, held each year in Hamilton, Bermuda.

The Guardsmen

The Guardsmen are a galaxy-spanning group who are charged with enforcing the Laws of U’tua the Gardner.  Created in one of U’tua’s final acts they were gifted with costumes that drew upon a seemingly unlimited source of power, able to tapped no matter where one was in the Galaxy.  The Guardsmen were able to project force in ways limited only by the individual’s imagination, and limited in power we are assured by the consensus of all Guardsmen.  The few occasions where a Guardsmen has shown the unlimited power they are capable of the whole galaxy trembled.  Though at times accused of caring more about the big picture than individuals the Guardsmen ensure life is protected, and sentient species are not wiped out.

The first Guardsmen of the Sol System is Pierre Montblanc, who has already earned the wrath of several nations.

Hamilton, Bermuda

By dictate of Lord Doom, no one in Bermuda is homeless, hungry, or unemployed, and Hamilton is his personal social engineering laboratory.  Within the city, all labor is performed by domestic robots, while the citizenry is "encouraged" into high tech, scientific, artistic, and athletic pursuits.  Adults spend three months of every year in intensive training in their professional pursuits and one morning a week in "social instruction".  Failure to score well in mandatory yearly aptitude testing results in "counseling" and potential "career reassignment".  The population of Hamilton is the best educated of any city in the world.

Heatwave

The Heroes of Filmland

The Hsax

The Hsax (pronounced "hizzakks") on Earth are a former Xorn slave-species who have been freed or had escaped during the Xorn Invasion of 1984.  As Xorn slaves, the Hsax were used to increase the numbers of combatants in set piece battles.  Early in their conquests, the Xorn realized the need for fodder.  Honorable personal combat was not to be had in large scale, set piece, or siege assault battles.  And such battles were necessary to conquer worlds.  To fill in the ranks, they targeted the Hsax, whose natural warlike tendencies were somewhat similar to that of the Xorn, but who showed the ability to work well as a coordinated horde.  The conquest of the Hsax home world was bloody and costly to the Xorn, but superior technology minimized the losses for the conquerors.  The conquered were slaughtered, but within two short generations their fecundity had restored the population.  By that time, however they were indoctrinated as Xorn slave-soldiers.  With each generation, the Xorn bred the Hsax to be more ferocious, to be better followers, and to reproduce more quickly.  The Xorn had learned the lesson taught by their own overthrow of ZhizhHsin.  They did not forget how to fight themselves, and implanted in each Hsax at birth a micro-bomb attached to their aorta.

The Hsax appear to be a fusion of a human and a giant black-furred rat.  There is a large amount of sexual dimorphism of this race.  Males stand low to the ground and are about a meter in length with and equivalent length of leather-like tail.  Females are roughly 50% larger than males and have no tails.  Furthermore, they are never combat trained since they are usually pregnant or nursing.  In addition to this, their skeletons are very pliable, allowing them to slip through small places.  The current generation of Hsax carry four to six developing pups in utero for roughly 18 weeks before giving birth.  Hsax pups are weaned from their mother at the end of their first year when they are put into either combat camps (male) or nursery camps (female).  They reach full size and sexual maturity in roughly six years.  The natural average lifespan of a male Hsax is estimated to be 30 years, but in their role as slave-soldiers, this was seldom reached.  Female Hsax have an average lifespan of 45 years.

Because of their bloodthirstiness, most of the male Hsax on Earth are incarcerated.  Surprisingly, those few female Hsax who survive the insanity that seems to occur when they are not pregnant or nursing actually can fit into human society to a limited extent.  With proper grooming, they are treated in a similar manner to metahumans in many places.  Recently, a rash of abductions of male and female Hsax has been occurring, and while many point their finger at Communist China, there is no strong evidence who is behind it.