Stupendo

The Astounding Stupendo is a seemingly new, ostensibly magical, superhero, though in fact he has made appearances before, as Phantasm. He maintains a secret identity as Phil Guest, a high school student.

Description
As Stupendo: The Astounding Stupendo stands just over 6 foot tall. He is dressed very much as a retro stage magician, in a top hat and immaculate long-tailed suit with white gloves; he even carries an obvious magic wand. His lower face is masked with a large red silk handkerchief, but his dazzling blue eyes and short black hair are plain to see.

As Phil: Phil stands 6'1", rather tall for his apparent age of 16 or so, with an athletic build. His eyes are blue, his hair a slightly messy sandy blonde, his features well-defined (but not exactly "chiselled"). He's good looking, in the "all-American" sort of way, but no model. He dresses, when the situation does require otherwise, pretty casually, typically in jeans and t-shirt with boots or sneakers; his look is neither completely up to date nor totally out of fashion.

As Phantasm: Phantasm is humanoid, of medium height and build and similarly unremarkable face. It wears no clothes, but then shows no sexual characteristics. Its skin is an unblemished light grey; the only variation in this colour is at the black pupils of its eyes. It is hairless.

Origin
The omega child had to die. It was too powerful: some predictions suggested it could change the whole world at a thought when it was old enough. If such power could be controlled, then the world was theirs, but in the opinion of the new management the child's loyalty could not be guaranteed. In particular, he doubted the child had any loyalty to him personally.

And so all the years of work that led to the creation of the omega child, the millions spent on research, the effort at giving it a seemingly normal upbringing lest it feel no affinity to humanity, were wasted. The child had to die before it was too powerful.

And so, at the management's word, it died. Almost in time.

The Omega Child project was in fact the culmination of a VIPER psionics programme of the first decades of the 21st century; however, Stupendo is unaware of this or even of how old he is.

Powers
Stupendo is a "protopath", theoretically capable of psionically rewriting reality itself, not strong enough to do this except on a small scale. For the most part this means merely placing illusions in people's minds, though these illusions can have enough reality to cause genuine damage. But he can also make "tangible" illusions perceivable to everyone, and even "sprites", small illusions that can operate independently for short periods.

Stupendo's body is now truly human, making it rather more susceptible to harm than it used to be, but for all that he can protect it from some harm by force of will, and reality-bending power. He can also translocate to any space he can clearly visualise - generally, see well. So far he cannot do this with other people, perhaps because he is a lot more familiar with the body he made for himself than with other bodies. For the same reason, he has great control over his own appearance, running much deeper than his illusions do. And at need, he could bring himself back from the dead again.

Stupendo's powerful mind is also aware of psionic activity in his vicinity.

He no longer has the ability of astral travel, having bound himself firmly to the material plane again.

Personality
Stupendo is above all delighted to be alive. He has struggled for years to return to the living, and has spent the last few years watching the world and wishing he could be part of it, to touch it. And now he can! In fact, he is prone to overindulging, and is easily distracted by new sensations. This is even more true now he has made himself fully human.

Not only curious about the world, Stupendo is curious about his former life, wanting to recover his lost memories too.

Though it remembers little else of his old life, Stupendo does recall the terror and pain of its death. In consequence he abhors killing, feeling no one should have to go through that. At the same time he hates those who would harm the weak. Ironically, this may be unhelpful, because the anger makes him more likely to harm the wrongdoer than help the victim.

He is perhaps over-eager to make friends, without really knowing how to go about it. This can lead to him doing awkward or embarrassing things - not that this is all that remarkable in an apparent teenager.

Relations
Stupendo doesn't really know anyone. He doesn't remember his childhood. He has some dead friends of a sort in the City of Lost Souls, but no can no longer reach that city. And as Phil or Stupendo, he hasn't made any friends yet.

Phil has appeared as a student at CHHS, ostensibly having moved to Colonial Bay from Springfield (people seem less certain which Springfield).

History
The omega child was dead, but refused to die. It already had enough power to keep itself close to the material world on the astral plane, though it lost much in the effort, including most of its memories. Unsure of anything but that it wanted to live, it wandered the astral plane for years, eventually coming upon the City of Lost Souls, a place inhabited by ghosts who, though not bound to a particular place, cannot or will not pass over. There it developed again as a 'person', albeit still without its old memories. But it left, still seeking a way back to life.

It was the Rift Crisis that gave it guidance. The walls between worlds were thin at Colonial Bay, and it learned to see and hear the material world, and to continue to do so even once the barriers were restored. For years it haunted Colonial Bay, watching, listening, learning, and gathering strength to make the passage to the material world.

But when it could finally cross over, it found that it was not accepted, even among the hero community: they seemed to consider it a ghost, not truly alive. So it again gathered strength, bending reality to its will, and made itself a completely human body: that now recognisable as Phil Guest or the Astounding Stupendo.

This transformation came at a cost: Phil now shares human frailties, and has lost access to the astral plane. But he hopes that being able to interact with other humans as equals will compensate. He is enrolling in school as Phil Guest and is adopting a stereotypical magician guise as a hero, on the theory that many illusions are more plausible if someone present might just be a real magician.