[Pheonix] Speedster origins (feel free to chip in if you like comics)

[Flail_master]

now i know a lot of people definitely dont play this but anyone who is interested in comics feel free to give advice

ok basically, my character is a speedster, kinda a cross between batman rorschach and the flash, trust me it works, and his origin is 'biological' or genetic/DNA alteration, but i cant for the life of me think how he obtained these powers, i dont want him born with em, but i dont want the standard, 'he dropped in a vat of chemicals' or 'radiation'

the way he survives super speed is lubricated joints, stronger bones, much stronger tendons and the such, but hes not amazingly buff, still toned just not hench so its not pure body work making him go, i wanna hear how you guys think he could run at insane speeds, perhaps using 'science' at an atomic scale, and also how he isnt ripped to shreds by wind resistance

any help is much appreciated guys

[JohnnyCancer]

Marvel Comics had a short lived character called MVP (his real name being Michael Van Patrick) who was nearly superhuman but got his powers through a perfectly engineered diet and isometric exercise regime. You could go for something along those lines, maybe throw in some techno babble about increased levels of brown adipose tissue and decreased lactic acid.

[Set]

I had one flying / intangible character who could rob nearby atoms of their interatomic energies, using the power of the freed-up 'weak force' to strengthen his own atomic bonds.

Something kinda/sorta like this could allow your speedster to 'soften' the ground beneath him and push the air out of his way, using the energies he's stealing from the matter around him to help his own body survive the impact and force he's generating. When his feet slam into the pavement at ooh-how-fast, the pavement flexes beneath him, as he's robbing it of solidity to reinforce his own body, and as the air would tear into him, it's instead turn apart and sent flying in different directions away from him, less like a body pushing air aside, and more like a torch burning air out of it's path.

A side-effect might be that he leaves the air behind him torn free of oxygen, which is absorbed right into his body as fuel, while all of the other atoms go flying by on either side, never even contacting his skin, making him, effectively, frictionless to the presence of the air around him. (He would run with his mouth closed, having no need to breath through his mouth, due to this process.)

This process wouldn't work on living organic matter as well, due to the electromagnetic fields or some gobbledigook, so his touch wouldn't tear away at a person like an acid-wash or something, but it would leave materials not specially treated worn and pitted much more rapidly than one would expect (and, without a special costume, he'll burn through clothing in a hurry, as his powers eat away at them for 'fuel,' although his powers take the path of least resistance, and if he's carrying something 'soft' or 'weak,' perhaps in a backpack, it will get 'eaten' first, instead of something more durable, like an armored vest). In D&D terms, stuff with hardness 0 will get torn up first, so he can avoid costume damage by wearing a camelback full of water or something.

[mabriss lethe]

How about something like Flex Mentallo's Muscle Mystery?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flex_Mentallo

[Seffbasilisk]

Well, you could have him be a chemist and be struck by lightning....wait...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odU1bHaYNDQ

He saved an the life of a man from a higher-gravity world/plane of existance/whathaveyou, but was wounded in the effort. The man took him home, and used alien technology/nanobots/basic first aid to heal him. Upon returning home, he found that his body had adjusted to that higher gravity, and set. Now it's eternally compensating for a force not there, enabling him much mightier movements.

[Flail_master]

I had one flying / intangible character who could rob nearby atoms of their interatomic energies, using the power of the freed-up 'weak force' to strengthen his own atomic bonds.

Something kinda/sorta like this could allow your speedster to 'soften' the ground beneath him and push the air out of his way, using the energies he's stealing from the matter around him to help his own body survive the impact and force he's generating. When his feet slam into the pavement at ooh-how-fast, the pavement flexes beneath him, as he's robbing it of solidity to reinforce his own body, and as the air would tear into him, it's instead turn apart and sent flying in different directions away from him, less like a body pushing air aside, and more like a torch burning air out of it's path.

aaaaah i like this a lot, very detailed i like it, and now i have his origin story being that he volunteered for genetic experimentation being short on money, a painful process, and im not sure how it would be achieved by genetic modification but hey its comic heroes right?
and yeh i like the whole gravity on a different earth thing but it doesnt really fit with hs personality or origin :P and we dont really have an abundance of aliens currently i dont believe :P

A side-effect might be that he leaves the air behind him torn free of oxygen, which is absorbed right into his body as fuel, while all of the other atoms go flying by on either side, never even contacting his skin, making him, effectively, frictionless to the presence of the air around him. (He would run with his mouth closed, having no need to breath through his mouth, due to this process.)

This process wouldn't work on living organic matter as well, due to the electromagnetic fields or some gobbledigook, so his touch wouldn't tear away at a person like an acid-wash or something, but it would leave materials not specially treated worn and pitted much more rapidly than one would expect (and, without a special costume, he'll burn through clothing in a hurry, as his powers eat away at them for 'fuel,' although his powers take the path of least resistance, and if he's carrying something 'soft' or 'weak,' perhaps in a backpack, it will get 'eaten' first, instead of something more durable, like an armored vest). In D&D terms, stuff with hardness 0 will get torn up first, so he can avoid costume damage by wearing a camelback full of water or something.

also again i like, and its solved by me having an amazing costume as an ad, he grabbed it on the way out of the facility as he escaped when he was looking for clothes and it turns out it was a new experimental material made to be nearly indestructible to wear and tear, most stains disappearing within a second and nearly frictionless. It didnt just happen to be his costume however, there was a test piece of dark red material which he modified to his hooded cloak, some dark brown army trousers, the type with pouches all over em, and black army boots, good for running, and a stretchy close to kin tight black sleeved jumper which also comes up his neck and over the bottom half of his face, the mask he obtained later as with the leather, the gloves were also there

but otherwise i love this idea man, very detailed, is it ok for me to use it? and tweak in places?