Sideshow: Whisper (Patreon)

Alright, next two Sideshow characters serve as the animal trainer acts of the circus: first up is Whisper, whom has the ability to communicate with all sorts of animals... by literally speaking their language.

ORIGIN

Part of the reason for the Tri-Ring’s circus’ financial troubles were due to the loss of their original animal acts. Traditionally, circuses were known for their grand animal acts, but due to growing animal welfare concerns and restrictions on certain animals most circuses had all but abandoned animal acts. It was Alvyn’s hope in revitalizing the circus as a superhero team that he could find a way to work around these restrictions and bring animal acts back into the family circus in some form. That way came from Alvyn’s discovery of a young animal shelter worker named Willow Luna, who had in her possession a curious beast known as “Zoolu”, an albino animal that could shapeshift into any animal on the planet or recorded history while retaining its albino features. But wherever Zoolu went, Willow went too, they were a package deal. And upon discovering Willow’s only unique neo-human superpower to communicate with all forms of fauna, Alvyn offered Willow a chance to become a member of the sideshow along with Zoolu, performing new animal acts and while allowing them to live out their dreams of helping the animals of the world.

Willow’s own powers were a curious one. Those who knew her describe it as a form of empathy that allowed her to connect and communicate with all sorts of fauna, be it human, animal or otherwise. But this communication took the form of adopting the animal’s language as her own, speaking essentially in their tongues through various grunts, growls, and noises animals made to communicate with each other. This effectively made her the ultimate animal whisperer, but alienated her from her peers due to the freakiness of her abilities. This left Willow with little options but to make friends only with the various animals she communicated with, eventually befriending Zoolu and becoming his caretaker. Joining the Sideshow under the callsign “Whisper” was not just her way of living out her dreams using her abilities to better protect animals and spread animal awareness, it meant that she could finally have some human friends.

Powers/Abilities

Omni Fauna-tongue- Whisper’s level of empathy allows her to communicate with all manner of fauna by adopting their language as her own. With it, she is able to communicate with animals and have them aid her in battle and rescue.

Animal acts were another iconic part of Circus that I thought would be interesting to turn into a freaky superhero concept. Problem is in real life most Circuses nowadays aren't allowed to have animal acts aside from horses or dogs due to animal welfare concerns, so I had to figure out a unique way of going about it. I created a technicality with Zoolu (which will be explained in his entry), and that lead to the idea of having a "trainer" who could communicate with him. But talking to animals isn't a new or very interesting superpower, certainly not freaky enough for a freak show superhero team. So what I ended up doing was thinking about how the communication is done in the comics- Whisper communicates with animals by perfectly replicating the sounds and noises animals make to communicate with each other. While this may seem cool, it actually freaks people out in times like when she communicates with cockroaches by making erie hissing noises, or when screaming like a howler monkey, or braying annoyingly when talking to donkeys. It can be very isolating. I actually ended up looking to the old Nickelodeon show Wild Thornberries as an inspiration. The rest of Whisper's character was actually inspired by Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter (a personal favorite of mine).

Big shout out to our artists Gaston and Danilo for their incredible design work on Whisper! Let us know what you think of this character with a comment below!

The Sideshow: The Greatest Superheroes on Earth © NRG Comics

Design by https://www.deviantart.com/sirhocuspocusfocus

Art by Danilo Cassonato