Noble Causes

Characters

The Nobles

• Dr. Dudley "Doc" Noble: Patriarch of the Noble family. A two-fisted scientist seemingly more at ease with machines than with other people, Doc will nevertheless go to any lengths he deems necessary to defend his family. He has access to a vast supply of advanced weaponry and equipment, which he can access with simple verbal commands Doc was initially married to Gaia, but divorced her after discovering her involvement in a monster that terrorized the city. He later married Olympia, but experienced difficulties when he discovered that he still had feelings for Gaia. Olympia left Doc with an ultimatum of choosing either her or Gaia. The series ends with Doc making a phone call to an unknown woman telling her that she's the one he "wants to be with".
• Gaia Noble: The family matriarch. A sorceress from another dimension who can command the four classical elements, Gaia is also incredibly media savvy and is responsible for positioning the Noble family into the public spotlight. She’s extremely concerned with how things look to the public and goes to great lengths to ensure that the family's image remains intact. When the Blackthornes began to gain more attention than the Noble family, Gaia unleashed a monster for her family to fight and once again gain the public spotlight. This later backfired when Liz regained her memories, which included seeing Gaia give the monster instructions. As a result, Gaia and Doc divorced and Gaia spent multiple years in jail. Upon her release Gaia informed Doc that she intended to win back his heart.
• Russell "Rusty" Noble: Doc and Gaia's first-born child, Rusty's brain was placed in a robotic body due to a battle with a robotic assassin that would have otherwise killed him. Rusty dislikes being in the public spotlight, which contributed to his eventual divorce with Celeste Noble. He later dates Cosmic Rae, a young woman with magnetic abilities that was secretly an android. Upon discovering this, Rusty tried to find the "real Rae". His mission led him to a robotics genius who was a federal witness. The ensuing battle ended with a number of police officers being injured and the deaths of a news helicopter crew. Rusty spent some time in jail and was eventually freed, where he resumed working with the current roster of Nobles. Five years in the future it is shown that Rusty has become a seemingly emotionless being, only showing emotion when Frost is injured and when the widow of the man he killed attempts revenge.
• Frost: Gaia's son from an extramarital affair and the black sheep of the family. Aside from Gaia, each member of the family treats him with varying degrees of scorn. To the general public, Frost is something of an urban legend. He lives in seclusion in a large ice castle near the Aurora Borealis. Frost has the power of cold manipulation as well as the ability to transform into a cool mist, and always has an agenda when it comes to the Nobles. He even went so far as to have an affair with Celeste while she was married to Rusty. He often hires himself out as a troubleshooter, even doing jobs for the U.S and Canadian governments. It was revealed that his father was actually a parallel universe version of "Doc".
• Race Noble: Doc and Gaia's second-born son. Smart, handsome and charming, super-fast Race is considered the "golden boy" of the family. In the original miniseries, he was killed off while on his honeymoon. At the end of Noble Causes: Distant Relatives #4, he was returned to life in a twist similar to Bobby Ewing's resurrection. Now, he is the target of a revenge plot formulated by the Blackthornes, the Nobles' criminal counterparts. Years ago, during a fight between the two families, Race was battling Pierce Blackthorne when a misstep caused Pierce to fall to his death. Race failed to save Pierce and therefore was blamed by Hunter Blackthorne. The event haunts Race to this day. A recent attack by the super-powered assassin Widowmaker has robbed him of his super-speed abilities.
• Elizabeth "Liz" Donnelly-Noble: Race's wife and the only normal member of the family. An ordinary Georgetown bookseller, she met Race when he disrupted a signing at her bookstore. Possessing no super-powers or exotic background, Liz is the proverbial stranger in a strange land. Her only special gifts are common sense and a willingness to speak her mind. On more than one occasion, she has shown that she can go toe-to-toe verbally with any member of the family, particularly Celeste. Liz was recently the assumed target of the Blackthorne family's revenge plot. A mishap occurred in the experiment intended to restore Race's powers, causing her to be hit with a tachyon stream and vanish. While travelling along the tachyon stream, she visited a number of alternate futures. Afterwards, she awoke in the present with amnesia, unable to remember the Nobles.
• Zephyr Noble: Doc and Gaia's only daughter, and their youngest child. She has the power of air manipulation, and can be considered the wild child of the family, having once made a sex tape which was subsequently released on the internet. She later revealed to Liz that this tape was filmed while an innocent girl was being held at gunpoint, but due to the emotional damage Zephyr began a pattern of self-destructive behaviour which culminated in her becoming pregnant as the result of a tryst with her family's nemesis Draconis. Recently, she gave birth, but the baby was stillborn... or so she was led to believe. In reality, the doctor was paid by Necrona Blackthorne to help kidnap the baby. To escape from pressure caused by her public life, she has adopted an alternate persona. Zephyr often hangs out with Invincible, Shadowhawk and Firebreather. Eventually, as of issue #32, she was able to win Slate's affection, marrying him and turning her husband to the side of the angels.
• Celeste Noble: Rusty's ex-wife, a publicity-hungry diva who possesses stellar energy-based powers. Undergoing extensive cosmetic surgery and receiving her powers from a think tank known as the Winterbourne Institute, Celeste attracted Rusty's attention by staging fights with supervillains she herself hired. Celeste seems to have married into the family more for the status than for love. She even dallied with Frost behind Rusty's back. It's been revealed that Celeste, much to her own surprise, has genuinely fallen in love with Dawn Blackthorne, with whom she's been pursuing a clandestine lesbian relationship. Her relationship with Dawn ends after Celeste kills Kitty, Dawn's mother, out of pity, believing her condition could not be cured.
• Olympia Noble: Doc's second wife. Appeared in issue #32 as the second wife of Doc, she's superhumanly strong and beautiful, with an outgoing personality.
• Minutiae: Olympia's geeky daughter. She has powers similar to the DC Comics heroes Atom and Shrinking Violet in that she can alter her own mass and size, shrinking to subatomic level. She shares the same interest in science as Doc, helping him with his inventions.
• Surge: Olympia's son. He is the classical "angry young man" who would disagree with Doc if Doc told him rain was wet, a hothead with energy-based powers.
• Slate Blackthorne: The youngest of the Blackthorne family. Able to transform into a super-strong rock-like form with incredible resistance to harm, Slate has no real desire to follow in his family's footsteps, so he secretly performs good deeds. He is Zephyr's next door neighbor. Initially, both were unaware of each other's alter-ego. As of issue #32 they married, and finally Slate becomes able to leave his villainous ways to be the hero he wanted to.

  The Blackthornes

• Hunter Blackthorne: A dark sorcerer and the patriarch of the Blackthorne family. Just released on parole, Hunter is plotting an elaborate revenge scheme against Race, whom he blames for the death of his son Pierce. That plan resulted in Race losing his super-speed and the public now viewing the Blackthornes as being reformed. After Kitty's death, he accepted Race's offer to reunite him with her and Pierce in an alternate reality.
• Katherine "Kitty" Blackthorne: The matriarch of the Blackthorne family. In order to bolster her natural feral abilities, she drank a special elixir of Hunter's creation. If she took too much, she would mutate into a savage cat-like beast. Unfortunately, she developed an addiction to it. In her cat-beast form, she terrorized the streets of Crowns Pointe at night. Eventually, the elixir became part of her system and she was transforming without it. A cure was created, but too late as, after a rampage, she begged Celeste to end her misery. Reluctantly, Celeste decapitated Kitty with a stellar energy blast.
• Mercury Blackthorne: The oldest of the Blackthorne children. After Pierce, Mercury's younger brother, died, he became mute. Mercury can alter his body's density from diamond-hard to intangible.
• Necrona Blackthorne: Krennick's long-lost half-sister, current ruler of the Underworld and secretly Mercury's wife. It was revealed that Draconis had often ordered any daughters he had sired to be immediately put to death. Necrona's mother managed to spirit her away to a distant part of the Underworld. She made herself known when Krennick was suspected of murdering Gretchen Lewis. She kidnapped Zephyr's baby under the pretense that it was stillborn, raising it as her own. Like many of her people, Necrona possesses superhuman strength and durability, in addition to the ability to project fire.
• Dusk and Dawn Blackthorne: Twins who can manipulate darkness and light respectively. Dusk resents Dawn, who, in her eyes, is the family favorite. She has also shown rather impulsive behavior, such as when she ambushed Zephyr Noble in the neighborhood she recently moved into. Dawn, on the other hand, values her family and her love life and keeps them very close to the vest. She works hard to keep her family together although she sometimes struggles to protect her secret lesbian relationship with Celeste Noble, which has since ended due to Celeste's mercy killing of Kitty.