Vanguardians Villain: Roswell (Patreon)

Alright! Got a few Sci-fi villains to introduce to you guys next! First up is a brand new villain for the Vanguardians- Roswell, the leader of the Malkins with a grudge against humans!

ORIGINS

The next incident that brought the Vanguardians together was the invasion of the Malkins. Grayish aliens in flying hovercrafts with mastery over telekinetic-graviatational technology, the invading armada had arrived not long after Earth’s encounter with the Unicorps and Magnat, claiming they had come to ensure that Earthlings never breached the limits of their solar system and brought their so-called “sadism” to other species that had blacklisted them from the Parliament of Planets years ago. As the Malkins laid waste or captured any human they encountered on earth, including human superheroes and villains, the Vanguardians extended their alliance to every non-human hero on the planet and led the charge against the invaders, saving humanity once again but at a heavy toll.

The Malkin invasion had been a long time coming, as their leader had a personal grudge with humans dating back to Earth’s very first encounter with extraterrestrial-life back in 1940s New Mexico. At the time, the lone Malkin, once a research scientist named Xal’Kyr, and his research team had been studying earth on behalf of the Parliament when certain events caused them to crash down to the planet. Hoping to seek aid from the human they were studying, a series of misunderstandings about their intentions and their advanced technology led to the research team being captured and tortured by the US government under fear of a threat. Only Xal’Kyr managed to escape capture and torture while his fellow scientist were dissected by US scientists, his reportings on the incident eventually leading the Parliament to declare Earth to divided and xenophobic to be accounted amongst life amongst the stars after further studies.

This declaration was to be the last that the Parliament ever would deal with earth, but the trauma Xal’kyr experience on the planet was too great, turning his fear of humans into an obsessive hatred as he closely monitored them. And when Earthlings began making strides in space exploration and colonalization, Xal’kyr grew fearful that others like his people would one day experience the torture he endured at the hands of humans. Leading a small group to taking over his planet and militarizing their once peaceful planet, Xal’kry spent the next years preparing to wipe out the Earthlings, taking a new name that he would be sure Human would remember as their conqueror… “Roswell”.

Powers/Abilities:

Roswell is a Malkin, an alien species of great and advanced scientific knowledge and technology, notable for their telekinetic-gravitational technology they have weaponized to conquer earth.

So remember how a couple dozen characters ago I established that NRG's Earth had been blacklisted by other aliens due to an incident in 1940s New Mexico? Well, for those who guess correctly (if you did) that incident was the famous Roswell incident from history with earth's supposed first encounter with extra-terrestrial life. I try to find certain famous incidents in history often used in pop culture to use for NRG, and I've always wanted to do something with the Roswell incident because I feel it's an underused moment in most superhero comics. So here what I have have done with that moment is create a total misunderstanding that goes horribly wrong that ultimately showcases just how xenophobic early modern man was to extraterrestrial life that eventually deems humans unfit to interact with other species amongst the stars. And the sad part is given society life now there is the real possible chance something like this could and may have happened for Earth in real life.

But yeah, Roswell is a survivor of the Roswell incident and has never forgotten what happened, and now fears Human's making paths to space travel will leads to others to suffering as he and his team did. And yes, Roswell is a classic gray alien used in pop culture, which is intentional. While comics use a lot of creative design choices for aliens in their stories, I've always felt that no one has ever really taken the opportunity to bring iconic Gray Aliens into their universe as actual characters. They're iconic enough that could offer great storytelling, so I wasn't going to let that opportunity pass. So I've built up Roswell and his people around a lot of iconic alien pop culture iconography. I just thought it would be ironic if Earth was actually invaded by the very alien pop culture they've loved for so long.

Fun Fact: Roswell was originally going to be a Nolan Void villain primarily, but at some point I realized I already had too many alien-based enemies for Nolan Void compared to time travel or alternate reality enemies. So I decided to move him to being an enemy of the Vanguardians and have him be one of their big bad that brings them together in rare cases. IDK, I just like the idea of the team fighting threats that are largely non-human in nature, such as zombies and aliens. Probably has to do with the fact most of the Vanguardians are not human themselves.

Anyway, hope you guys are excited for NRG's newest alien enemy! Let us know what you think with a comment below!

Vanguardians © NRG Comics

Design by TonyTempest

Art by Danilo Cassonato