Dynamo 5
Dynamo 5 is a comic book superhero team created by writer Jay Faerber and artist Mahmud A. Asrar, which appears in an eponymous series published by Image Comics. The team first appeared in Dynamo 5 #1. The monthly series ended with issue #25. The team later appeared in a 2010 miniseries, Dynamo 5: Sins of the Father, and the one-shot Dynamo 5 Holiday Special 2010.
Dynamo 5 is a spin-off of Noble Causes, a previous comic book series created by Faerber set in the Image Universe, which also explores the dynamics of a superhero family.
Publication history
Dynamo 5 is a spin-off of Noble Causes, another comic book series created by Faerber and published by Image Comics, which likewise explores the dynamics of a superhero family. Faerber created Dynamo 5 with the intent of making it more action-driven. The team is composed of five young men and women, each of whom inherited one of the five superhuman abilities of their father, the late superhero Captain Dynamo, and their mentor and leader, Dynamo's widow, Madeline "Maddie" Warner, who assembled the team following Dynamo's death.Faerber explained that his inspiration for the series came from a conversation with editor Andy Helfer, in which he was asked what made the Teen Titans unique. When Faerber opined that the Titans were like a family, Helfer pointed out that all superhero teams could be described as such. From this, Faerber devised a team that was a biological family but did not act like it. Another influence, he said, was his parents' divorce.
Artist Asrar came at the suggestion of Invincible artist Ryan Ottley. Invincible writer Robert Kirkman, whose work on that title was influential on Faerber's writing, assisted Faerber during the development stage with advice on production and marketing. Asrar was the regular artist on the monthly series for its entire 25-issue run.
The team next appeared in the 2010 miniseries Dynamo 5: Sins of the Father, illustrated by Julio Brilha. It next starred in the one-shot Dynamo 5 Holiday Special 2010.
The sequel miniseries featured crossover appearances by Invincible, Malcolm Dragon, and Angel Dragon, as well as the first group appearance of the Primaries, a government superhero team that included a clone of Captain Dynamo. Each issue also included a back-up story featuring Notorious, a costumed vigilante who in his civilian life poses as a member of the mob whose activities he foils in his costumed identity.
A US$1.00 reprint of the monthly series' first issue was published in May 2011 as part of Image Comics' "Image Firsts" line. A time-traveling Scrap is featured in 2023's Local Man: Gold by Tim Seeley and Tony Fleecs. Other members Slingshot and Myriad appear towards end in their first versions.
Fictional team history
The focus of the series alternates back and forth between the private lives of each of the five team members, who maintain their separate lives in their home cities across North America, including their respective supporting casts, and their adventures as costumed superheroes.Captain Dynamo was the much-beloved protector of Tower City for forty years following his exposure to an unidentified form of radiation that granted him superhuman abilities, and husband of Maddie Warner, a former agent of a government superhuman monitoring organization known as F.L.A.G., who used the cover of an award-winning investigative journalist, now retired. Dynamo is found dead, naked in a hotel bed, murdered by poison, though the details of his death are not released to the public. He was assassinated by Widowmaker, who was hired by unknown persons. Although Warner initially does not know this, she does suspect that the condition and setting in which his body was found was not natural, but arranged by whoever murdered him in order to further tarnish his image. In sorting through his personal effects, Warner discovers detailed information on countless incidents of infidelity on his part. Although devastated by the extent of her late husband's indiscretions, Warner is faced with the problem of Dynamo's numerous enemies, who will now take advantage of Tower City in his absence. Although other superheroes attempt to pitch in to keep the peace, Warner decides that Tower City needed a permanent protector.
Scouring through the information she gleaned from her husband's belongings, she locates five young people she believes could be his illegitimate children: Vancouver, British Columbia high school geek Hector Chang, Washington DC law student and activist Olivia "Livvie" Lewis, aimless ne'er do well and ladies' man Spencer Bridges, Hollywood, California theater employee and NYU Film School graduate Bridget Flynn, and Eastbridge, Texas high school football star Gage Reinhart. Gathering them together, Warner exposes them to the same radiation that Dynamo had been exposed to forty years earlier, unlocking their own latent superhuman abilities, with each one manifesting one of the five powers that their father possessed. Donning costumes, the five of them carry on his legacy as the superhero team the Dynamo 5, while coming to terms with learning about the father they never knew, and the four new half-siblings they each now have. Although the five are unaware that Warner is a former agent of F.L.A.G., she is determined to mold them not only into a team, but into a family as well, and functions as their mentor and "unofficial sixth member", calling the shots from the same headquarters once used by Captain Dynamo, and keeping in constant remote contact with them during their missions.
A year after Warner assembled the team, Warner and Jennifer Chang, the mother of Visionary, are taken hostage by the team's enemies, Widowmaker, Voltage, Bonechill, Brains and Brawn, at the Aquarium, the team's underwater headquarters. Widowmaker reveals to Warner that she killed Captain Dynamo. As Warner and Jennifer Chang are rescued by Dynamo 5, the Aquarium is flooded, Warner falls into a comatose state, and Myriad is revealed to be a half-extraterrestrial, with an alien physiognomy. These events led to the dissolution of the team. Although the Noble family drains and repairs the Aquarium, only Scrap decides to maintain her duties protecting Tower City, and eventually recruits other superheroes to replace her four siblings, and Augie Ford to replace Warner. Scatterbrain uses his telepathy to bring Warner out of her coma, during which he learns that she is a former F.L.A.G. agent. They assemble the rest of the team, and come to the rescue of Scrap and the replacement teammates, one of whom, Vigil, is revealed to be Myriad in disguise. The new team sustained serious injuries during their battle with Widowmaker and her team of mercenaries, but the villains were defeated by the combined forces of the heroes.
In a 2009 storyline in issues 24 and 25 of the series, the team was attacked by their other half-sibling, the supervillain Synergy, who used a weapon to erase the team's abilities and capture them. The team freed themselves, and used the weapon to restore their powers, but they manifested different abilities than those they previously had, and took on new code names.
In the 2010 miniseries Dynamo 5: Sins of the Father, the team faced off against the three sons of Dominex, a bellicose extraterrestrial who years earlier, had come to Earth to fight its most powerful champion, lest he destroy Earth. He left Earth after being narrowly defeated by Captain Dynamo, Supreme and Omni-Man, and his three sons now wished to regain their family's honor by similarly challenging Earth's heroes. The combined might of Dynamo 5, Invincible, Emily Reed, Malcolm Dragon, Angel Dragon, and the Primaries, a government superhero team that included a clone of Captain Dynamo secretly controlled by F.L.A.G. director Sandy Colvin, failed to defeat the three sons. After one of the sons critically impaled Emily Reed, her boyfriend, Dynamo 5 member Hector Chang, borrowed the Strong-Suit, a uniform that magnifies a wearer's strength created by the Winterbourne Institute, thus amplifying his already superhuman strength, allowing him to kill two of the sons. However, when he killed the third son, who had impaled Emily, even after that man had surrendered, he shocked bystanders and television viewers watching the battle and caused much consternation among his teammates. His relationship with Emily and her mother, who blamed Hector for Emily's injuries, was also threatened.
In the one-shot Dynamo 5 Holiday Special 2010, the team confronted Lumina, the daughter of escaped supervillain convict Luminex. The story also established that Gage Reinhart and the Primary member War Chest were involved in a romantic relationship, and featured four epilogues depicting the aftereffects of Sins of the Father pertaining to the Firebirds, Sandy Colvin, and the villains Synergy and Voltage.
Cast
Team members
Hector Chang / Visionary / SmasherHector Chang was the first of Captain Dynamo's children contacted by Maddie Warner. An intellectually curious 15-year-old Vancouver, British Columbia high school geek with a history with bullies and guidance counselors, Hector, who is the youngest of the Dynamo 5 siblings, inherited his father's vision powers, which include laser vision, X-ray vision, and telescopic vision. Visionary's mother, Jennifer Chang, eventually discovers his double-life as a superhero, and forbids him from continuing it, though he does so anyway. He later switches powers with Bridget, becoming the superstrong and nigh-invulnerable hero Smasher.
Olivia Lewis / Slingshot / Menagerie
Olivia "Livvie" Lewis is the daughter of a high-priced Washington DC lawyer, and a junior at Georgetown University. The second oldest of the Dynamo 5 siblings, she is a driven activist involved with half a dozen different volunteer organizations. Livvie inherited her father's ability of flight. She is respectful towards Warner, whom she always addresses as "Ma'am", or "Mrs. Warner". Scrap sees Slingshot as the team's leader, to whom they look to for example, but Slingshot vehemently rejects this idea. She later gains Spencer's powers, becoming the shapechanging heroine Menagerie. While Spencer used his power to gain different human disguises, Olivia is able to change herself into different animals, exhibiting a fondness for aviarian creatures, bestowing on her a variation of her former flying powers.
Spencer Bridges / Myriad / Wraith
Spencer Bridges is the half-human, half-extraterrestrial child of Captain Dynamo and an alien woman conceived when Dynamo visited the alien woman's planet. Because of a taboo on raising half-breeds on her planet, his mother eventually brought the infant Spencer to Earth for Dynamo to raise, but Dynamo left Spencer in the custody of F.L.A.G. research facility, where his shapeshifting powers were unlocked. He bonded with a female researcher named Bridges, who eventually smuggled him out of the facility, and left him in the care of child services. Spencer led an unhappy life in a series of foster homes, and grew into a promiscuous womanizer who has never held a job for more than two weeks, though he never seems to be without financial means. He only agreed to join the team because Maddie is paying him. Spencer inherited his father's shapeshifting ability, and functions under the name Myriad. A loner who has grown up in various foster homes, Faerber has indicated that his shapeshifting ability will tie into his lack of direction in life, saying, "He inherited Cap's shape-shifting powers, and he can now become anyone he chooses. Maybe one day he'll figure out who he wants to be." Spencer has a cynical, distrustful view of life. He assumes that the deference and respect Slingshot pays to Warner is an attempt to "suck up". Having wondered his entire life who his father was, he is especially disappointed to learn it is Captain Dynamo, who he views as "an enormous hypocrite and a horrible husband." He keeps his half-extraterrestrial nature and appearance a secret from his siblings, but when they find out a year after the team is formed, it shakes their trust in him, and contributes to the temporary dissolution of the team. He later gains Gage's powers, losing his ability to shapeshift but gaining powerful telepathic powers, and takes the name Wraith. As a side-effect however he's stuck again in a superstrong, alien body, unable to blend with humanity.
Bridget Flynn / Scrap / Supervision
Bridget Flynn is a NYU Film School graduate, aspiring screenwriter and Hollywood, California theater employee when Maddie Warner first contacts her. She is in her early twenties, and is the oldest of her Dynamo 5 siblings. Bridget inherited her father's superhuman strength. A year after the team is formed, following Warner's descent into a coma, the flooding of the Aquarium, the team's headquarters, and the discovery that Scrap's brother and teammate Myriad is a half-extraterrestrial with an alien appearance, the team falls apart, but Scrap is the one member who remains in Tower City to protect it, and eventually recruits allies of the team to act as replacements for her siblings. She later switches powers with Hector, losing her enhanced physique but gaining his vision powers, formalizing her leadership under the new sobriquet of Supervision.
Gage Reinhart / Scatterbrain / Ramjet
Gage Reinhart is a 17-year-old Eastbridge, Texas high school football star who led his division in tackles for the entire season, and is the darling of both his female schoolmates and college scouts. Gage inherited his father's telepathy. Faerber has described Scatterbrain as "a popular, arrogant jock who never gave a damn about what anyone thought - until he can literally hear those thoughts. And he may not like what he hears." He and reformed criminal turned government agent War Chest enter into a romantic relationship by Dynamo 5 Holiday Special 2010. He later gains Livvie's powers, becoming the flying hero ace Ramjet, a human battering ram.