Sideshow: Scrapper (Patreon)

So, this next character is actually both a villain and a hero. Meet Scrapper, a founding member of the Carnival of Killers who later defects to the Sideshow, with the power to fuse flesh and metal.

ORIGIN

One of the first original members of the Carnival of Killers to fight the Sideshow, the rebellious Canadian-born delinquent Duncan Midas was also the first of the killers to defect to the Sideshow. Raised in abusive motorhome adjacent to a family-owned junkyard by his alcoholic father, pain had been the only constant thing throughout Duncan’s childhood into his adolescence, his beatings from his father eventually turning inward towards self-harm and extreme body piercing as a form of comfort to deal with his emotions as an endless cycle of pain continued with Duncan’s rebellious nature and streak of delinquency growing with maturity, even more so when his sexuality was discovered. His life changed forever when on his 18th birthday Duncan began venting his frustrations on what he thought was some crazy motor engine, but instead turned out to be a strange device of alien origin that bathed Duncan in strange energies and granted him the ability to transmute metal with flesh, a process that was extremely painful but gave Duncan a chance to get back at his abusive father during their last confrontation in the afterman. 

When he finished his final meeting with his dad, Duncan ran away from home a wanted man, living on the streets using his powers to rob people and vent his frustrations while avoiding the police who were hunting him. Ultimately saved from prison from Tora Fanner, she felt his upbringing and his painful powers made him a perfect candidate for the Carnival of Killers. Had it not been for the fateful meeting between Duncan and Diego Roberto Lopez in their first battle, where the two immediately felt a mutual attraction for one-another, Duncan most likely would have gone down the path of a cold killer for sure. Instead, the two began meeting outside their battles as much as during them, which led Diego to see Duncan as a kindred soul in pain who just needed love that he had been denied his whole life. Eventually, Duncan was convinced by Diego to betray the Carnival and leave them, convincing the Sideshow to let him into the team - if only probationary - where he began using his powers for various metal-based circus acts for their audience. 

Powers/Abilities:

Scrapper’s main ability is to mold metal and flesh together. Can further fuse more scrap metal to his body to create jagged armor, bladed weaponry, or launch it in the form of projectiles. He is also the best fighter in the whole Sideshow.

So yeah, one of my original planned members for the sideshow is still going to be a member of the team later on, but is starting off as an enemy first. Kinda a lateral move all things considered, but Scrapper was one of my favorite ideas for the Sideshow whom I had a lot of character development and stories planned for, especially involving his future relationship with Goofball, and I had always planned on keeping it. I just realized that having start off as a villain to the team first allowed for more powerful storytelling with everything I wanted to do.

But yeah, Scrapper is meant to represent extreme body-modification sideshow acts in circuses, as well as acts involving metal like knife throwing, dartboarding, etc. He's kinda like the Wolverine of the team, in that he's had such a hard life and his powers are more of a curse since they're painful, so he channels this through some sort of self-harm involving his powers with his addictions to piercings. He's kinda inspired by Nico from the Runaways who originally had to cut herself to obtain her Staff of One, which was at a difficult time in her difficult life. And yeah, he and Goofball are planned to be one of NRG's LGBTQ couples. IDK, I just like the idea of a rebellious human pin cushion dating a self-inflating comedian of the team, with their relationship built off helping each other heal from their life of pain. A lot of ships in fandom I like are like that.

Hope you guys like this new Sideshow/Carnival Character! Let us know with a comment below!

Sideshow: The Greatest Superheroes on Earth © NRG Comics

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Art by Danilo Cassonato