I wanted to write a more character-based story, about how my superhero team interacts with one another. This story focuses on Remi “Dammage” Vitoux, when he was first learning to be a superhero. Basically, the idea is to parallel a problem with Remi's civillian art training with one in his superhero training.

I find that when I try to write this kind of stuff, it tends to get very long and exposition-y. So I revised it a million times, and finally settled on it being mainly from the perspective of Identity, the team leader, piecing together what the problem is and trying to solve it. I wanted to show her using reason and understanding to achieve her goal, not just superhero violence...of course, the solution itself involves superhero violence...but she does at least use reason and understanding to get there :D.

There's a little flirtation, but no sex, and there's only one action scene near the beginning, in which Dobes fights powers-stealing leopard supervillain The Black Mark. (Whom I haven't drawn yet.)

There's a character named Piers Yerflander in the story, who represents a “technical perfection above all else” artistic mentality. So I really, really don't want this character to be a strawman villain. Most of his dialog is either paraphrased or directly quoted from comments I've actually seen online. Or received myself. Also, if I ever get around to writing Part Two, I am going to mention that he's a good artist himself and picks good work for the art show.

One of the things I wanted to show is how, in Dobes' experience, aggression is required to survive, while in Remi's experience, even disagreeing politely can be viewed as overly aggressive.

The setting of the fight scene is “Prague” for only one reason – I liked how it sounded there :D.

I Q*bert-ed out the one swear word in Remi's thoughts. I tried the line with no swearing and it just didn't work, but I didn't want to mature tag the story for one word.

Part of me thinks this might work better as a “B plot” to a more traditional superhero main plot. But for now, here it is.

PART 2 IS NOW UP:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/32670435/