MEET OUR CHARACTERS
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Vortex Man
Vortex Man is an ex-Navy Seal who, while on a mission to protect a top-secret experiment in the North Pacific Gyre, gained unexplained powers when blasted into the polluted sea. Now, he is capable of transforming the polymers and metals in his body as well as those around him to build anything he can dream of, including weapons, shields, and modes of transportation.
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Acid Jack
While working as a guard in the same E-Waste dump that spawned Exabyte, Acid Jack falls into a toxic pool of corrosive battery acid. Now, with his body infused with electrical components, Acid Jack can control any wireless system and shoot acid blood from his robotic arm.
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Admiral Netting
Admiral Netting is a humanoid mass of fishing nets inhabited and controlled by the mind of Admiral F. Northam, though he has now become quite mad.
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Agro
After an accident in a genemod laboratory, Agro becomes a plant/human hybrid with grasping tendrils and the ability to generate her own poisons while being immune to those against her.
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Atomic Shadow
Separated from his brother, Fukushima Dynamo, during the reactor meltdown, Atomic Shadow is recovered by Mr. Gray’s minions and placed into an iridium suit, under their absolute control, to wreak havoc on our heroes.
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Billy Mac
After swimming in a contaminated ranch pond where his father works, excess hormones caused uncontrolled growth for Billy. Now, well over 7 feet tall and bursting with muscles, the hormones move to his brain as he continues to grow, making him brutal and full of rage.
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Bottlenose
Swept into the same polluted whirlpool that created Vortex Man, Bottlenose suffers similar physical changes and now shares a telepathic link with our hero, able to warn him of danger and come to his aid.
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Bugsy
Bugsy’s body crawls with flies and bugs, which he can send toward enemies, smothering them, biting at their flesh, and sending them into a panic.
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Deathmetal
As an expert operator of the warbots for the U.S. military, Jeremy Denton’s intentions are to reprogram the bots for his own nefarious purposes. During a confrontation with a guard, however, both are bathed in molten metal, fusing with robotic skeletons and becoming something neither wholly human nor fully robot. Deathmetal is born, while the guard becomes the the Green Anvil.
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Dr. Jackie
A popular medical talk show host, she is engaged in a constant battle to keep herself from changing into the evil Dr. Ooze, an alter ego created by her exposure to a secret Pentagon program to develop super-soldiers ended in disastrous side effects.
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Dr. Ooze
A living horror born of medical waste and disease, Doctor Ooze lays dormant within talk show host Doctor Jackie. Any slip could result in the release of this creature that pokes used needles from her liquid skin.
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Exabyte
With a powerful robot body, Exabyte has the intelligence of 400 human brains and the ability to sense and manipulate wireless signals. While often feared, Exabyte is actually a force for good in the Universe.
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Fireball
The team medic, Fireball can increase the heat in any biomatter she touches, merely warming it or setting it ablaze.
She is one of more than 100 military volunteers that were given the same experimental treatment that had created Major Compost decades before. Only 7 survive, to become the Compost Corps.
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Frakk
While volunteering to test an experimental exoskeleton, Frakk is thrilled by the power it gives him and decides to steal the suit and go freelance, hiring out to the highest bidder. As long as he has a source of water, he can blast it into the earth, creating quakes, or hit enemies with his powerful chemically-infused hydraulic jets.
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Fukushima Dynamo
During a nuclear reactor meltdown, Professor Fukushima doses himself with the Vortex formula, knowing it helps protect against radiation. When the explosion breaches his radiation suit, it becomes melded to him, but not before giving him the power to absorb radiation and release it in powerful blasts.
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General D. Straw
After a bizarre accident, General D. Straw is alive but embedded with drinking straws. He has to ability to shoot them at incredible speeds, driving them through nearly any life form.
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Geo-Monger
Trafficking in a new generation of WMDs, Geo-Monger taps into the geothermal energy within the Earth’s crust through his arsenal of exotic weaponry capable of defoliating small countries, altering weather patterns, and tapping undersea magma as a naval weapon.
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Glass Ghost
After a storm carries his boat into an ongoing Navy experiment that attracts and transforms glass, Danny Padilla becomes a being of living glass, hurling deadly shards at his foes, liquifying to seep under doors and through pipes, and becoming completely transparent—the Glass Ghost.
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Green Anvil
After a struggle with Deathmetal at the Warbot Facility, Green Anvil gains the power to manipulate the metals of his body, morphing his hands into anvils or hammers, and altering any metals that he may touch.
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Gyra
A sort of mythical being brought to life. Is she a genetic experiment gone wrong, or one of an ancient race now damaged by a careless humanity?
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Kata
The team’s demolisher, Kata can dissolve biomatter from afar, using her martial arts skills to find her enemy’s weakest link. From burning their flesh to dissolving their shoes or dropping a tree on their heads, she has many ways to disable an opponent.
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Korrupt
A captured Cold War spy is used as an unwilling test subject for an experimental preservative, which seemingly kills him, his heart bursting from his chest. Years later, he rises again, seeking the flesh of those changed by the Vortex formula to counteract his body’s ongoing decay.
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Kujira
This massive mammal, transformed by the same event that created Vortex Man, joins the squad of heroes, using his sonic vibrations to hinder an opponent, dive miles beneath the ocean surface looking for information, or surprise an enemy.
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Litter Beetle
Dr. Harry Danville, a roboticist working for DARPA, is given access to the Y-formula and uses it to bond tiny robotics to beetles, with the aim of using an army of such beetles to easily clean up litter. Unfortunately, he was secretly using the same nanobots on himself, and lost control the experiment, becoming a melding of a man, beetle, and robot. Driven insane by the experience, he now lives to spread trash everywhere.
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Loggerhead
Caught in the same explosion that creates Vortex Man, this large sea turtle becomes more powerful, biting through cables and swimming vast distances at incredible speeds and using the Earth’s magnetic field to help Vortex Man find hidden foes or lost allies.
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Lt. Filterberg
A Nazi spy in postwar London, Lt. Filterberg hides out in the sewers only emerging at night for food and cigarettes. One night he comes across a “Fatberg”–a huge mass of grease and oil mixed with pieces of plastic. When it suddenly bursts, Lt. Filterberg is engulfed in viscous yellow fluid. When he wakes he is no longer human
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Lt. Green
Leader of the Compost Corps (and grandson of Major Compost), Lt. Green has honed his ability to break down biological material until he can control its every atom, shaping wood—or any biomatter—into tools or weapons.
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Major Compost
Major Compost has biodegrading powers that, given enough time, enable him to break down anything organic, from kitchen waste to an entire forest. He could even do this to a human foe, but he would never do something against the rules of war, as he sees them.
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Mercu
Trapped in a pool of mercury deep beneath a collapsed Egyptian tomb, archaeologist Hassan Taleb is transformed into a being of liquid metal. More dense than lead yet able to flow like water, he demolishes all he strikes with his liquid fists.
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Methane Menace
The only survivor of Project Green, Lieutenant Carla Green is a creature of composed methane gas. With effort she can take solid form, move silently (and often invisibly), and is able to release violent explosions. She lurks in landfills, mad, feeding off the methane gas, waiting for revenge.
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Mr. Gray
Head of a secretive multinational, his associates include a powerful U.S. Senator, a 4-star General, and several industrialists, all working behind the scenes to transform the Earth for their own mysterious ends.
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Mr. Gum
Two of Mr. Gray’s minor operatives, Man and Wife, are fatally wounded in battle, and have their minds implanted into bodies grown from a mixture of genetically modified gum and living plastics extracted from the captured Vortex Man.
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Mrs. Gum
One of Mr. Gray’s minor operatives is fatally wounded in battle, and has her consciousness implanted in a body grown from a mixture of genetically modified gum and living plastic extracted from the captured Vortex Man. She lures the unwary into her cool embrace, where they become stuck and completely incapacitated.
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Oil Slick
Born with autism, his parents enrolled him in a medical trial that ultimately was a cover for experiments with the Vortex formula. The result? A sensitivity to oil and an obsession with fire. Now he is capable of pulling oil from the depths of the Earth, setting it aflame, and hurling it at any enemy.
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Origamist
When Dr. Hidoku Shiwa develops a biological process for breaking down paper and dissolving it into a reusable mush for recycling, the paper came to life. With ninja training that helps keep him hidden, The Origamist folds living paper into various shapes, which he can weaponize and control from afar.
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Polymera
After swimming into a mass of ocean garbage near a secret U.S. Navy site, Polymera becomes exposed to the Vortex formula, melding the mylar and other plastics to her body. She now possesses the ability to deliver electric shocks and shoot netting from her hands to hinder her enemies.
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Recon
The group’s scout, unknown to his teammates, uses his power to dissolve the flesh right off of any enemy he comes across, killing them in a horrific manner.
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Red Tide
A Vampiric creature who cheerfully absorbs the lives of her victims, leaving behind a glowing husk, feels regret after taking each life and hides from the public, feeding only enough to keep herself alive.
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Sludge
During an early offshoot of the Vortex Project, Hector Kazan was caught in a massive spill while repairing a leak. Now, suffused with chemicals and garbage, this sewage man-monster lurks in the sewers of the city, emerging when a hero is needed.
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Smolder
A mountain of garbage comes to life, burning within, seeking anything it can consume to feed its continual growth.
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Solar Flare
This mysterious being watches over our planet from her platform in low Earth orbit. Her costume is woven of millions of tiny organic solar cells, and her skin is studded with technology unlike any seen on Earth.
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Soot
Able to transform his body into any form that carbon can take, from a cloud of gas to a hard diamond, and everything in between.
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Spora
The head of communications, Spora sends forth a cloud of fungal spores, which quickly break down biomatter. She uses this power carefully, as she doesn’t want to kill anyone with her deadly abilities.
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Steven Seagull
After being rescued by Major Compost, this young gull serves as his scout and occasionally as a weapon. With metal-tipped wings and acrobatic flight, Steven Seagull is formidable alone but can also summon a flock of ordinary gulls to attack an enemy.
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Styro
A living mass of styrofoam, he can dissipate into tiny particles, drifting away on the wind, or mass together into a gargantuan, able to smash and smother his small human prey.
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Tar Sand
After being attacked one evening and thrown into a pit, a mysterious formula transforms his body, turning him into a being of tar and sand—alive, but no longer human. He now has the ability to break down into granules and move about undetected, and generates explosive oil grenades to hurl at enemies.
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The Glow
As a cosmetics researcher, she develops a skin creme using fluorescent polyethylene microspheres to give skin a youthful glow. After her mysterious boss adds a final ingredient, her body is consumed by a swarm of microbeads, which she can mostly control. She has the power to dissipate into a glowing mist and engulf her enemies.
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The Hemptress
This human/hemp hybrid can make any plant grow rapidly and then use its roots and tendrils to trap an enemy. The Hemptress can also release a psychoactive mist that incapacitates anyone within range, either to remove their threat or heal their bodies.
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The Smothering Shroud
A living mass of old shredded plastic bags inhabited by a vengeful spirit, or is there a more rationale explanation? Either way, what seems like a ghostly apparition is all to real, descending on their victims and suffocating them where they stand.
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The Ultimate Baler
This villain, an ex-military contractor, creates an exoskeleton of expandable metal straps with which he can trap his enemies and then goes on a crime rampage.
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Toxina Bloom
After diving into a red tide of toxic algae to save her cousin, Toxina Bloom is swept out to sea, where she is trapped in a bed of kelp exposed to the Vortex formula which causes her to transform into a human/seaweed hybrid able to use her rope-like appendages as whips.
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Vitrea
This atomic-powered woman, made of dark glass, has awesome strength but must be very careful when using her power, as a break in her glass skin would result in a release of radioactivity, killing all within a wide radius.
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Vulcanator
After a huge storm sweeps a man onto an island of tires, multiple lightning strikes fuse him with the rubber mass. Half human, half vulcanized rubber, this resilient hero can swim for miles, jump long distances, and deflect incoming bullets.
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Waste
Waste, an ex-Navy Seal, is caught in the same explosion as Vortex Man, but with more raw power and less control, making him a very dangerous foe. Waste consumes the plastics and metals around him, feeding on their energy and releasing it in explosive bursts.
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Worms
An expert in covert ops, his body is composed of worms, which he can control individually, sending them out on spying missions. They can also group into a rope strong enough to strangle an enemy.
![Headshot of Issac Shweky](https://vortexuniverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Headshot-Issac-Shweky-Founder-President.png)
“I started to think of cartoon or comic book characters that could be part of a universe that would educate children on how to properly recycle all the products we use in our daily lives.”
Isaac Shweky, Founder/President
- Date
- November 2, 2021
Vortex Man is an ex-Navy Seal who, while on a mission to protect a top-secret experiment in the North Pacific Gyre, gained unexplained powers when blasted into the polluted sea. Now, he is capable of transforming the polymers and metals in his body as well as those around him to build anything he can dream of, including weapons, shields, and modes of transportation.