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Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Uncovering Lost Wiki Treasures Pt. 11 - The Evolution of John Domeck

Somewhat unnecessary now, the following is an old list of versions of the John Domeck Gray Champion's various incarnations throughout the history of the Gerosha Multiverse, detailing how the character evolved as a concept over time, departing from who he was in Earth-G0.

Earth-G1

Unlike in Earth-G0, Earth-G1 John was made still-living, and bonded with the Marlquaan, instead of a spirit trapped in it. This came as the result of a need to:

  1. Make the character more vulnerable and
  2. Make the Marlquaan's nature more universal and applicable to other characters.

A lot of this change was necessitated by a decision to merge John's story into the greater budding Gerosha mythos, where it needed to share space with the Meshalutian Trilogy and and eventually with Ciem mythos. However, he would remain largely under-developed at the time, due to greater emphasis in the fall of 2002 on 90 Has No Secant, which was in-turn inspired by The Ring.

The decision to replace Verdabbin with Eqquibus came after the Dozerfleet founder watched 2002's Spider-Man in theaters. Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin became the inspiration for a newer, more fleshed-out and more personable villain. From there, pictures of horses and one of an incubus that featured on Google Images inspired the idea of a man who was merged with a horse and an incubus.

Earth-G2

John was to be a canon figure, along with other cast members of his continuity family, in Earth-G2. However, very little was changed apart from what were already included in Earth-G1's changes. Emphasis was placed in this version on the Rintels and the Flippos.

Earth-G3

Test Gerosha, had it taken off, would have eventually tried to merge the Gray Champion's continuity together with that of Stan and Shalia Flippo. Instead, all it accomplished was to define Marissa Hood better - as well as much-reduce the size of Shalia's original family. Her brothers were erased from the timeline this time, making Shalia an only child.

Earth-G3.1

Immediately following Test Gerosha, Gerosha "Prime" (first proper Gerosha universe) became the first-ever attempt at telling The Battle for Gerosha. This cemented both the continuity family's title and the Flippo family's central importance to greater mythos. However, emphasis on defining Ciem through an early Candi Levens meant that pursuit of a reconciliation of Gray Champion and Ciem continuity was delayed. Further delay came in the form of side projects in disconnected universes, such as When Bikes Argue.

However, Ciem's story being spread out over three webcomics provided some fixed timeline for Gray to connect with.

Earth-G4

One more time, Gray Champion continuity development was sidelined, this time to build a better Ciem continuity. This first attempt was doomed, partially by software and hardware issues. However, the problems with 2006's Ciem webcomic led to better things a year later. It was first in 2006, however, that sketches were attempted of Eqquibus, officially having him replace Verdabbin as Gray's initial adversary in Freedom's Apparition.

Earth-G5

In Classic Gerosha, there was an attempt to make the Gerosha universe even more inclusive, which resulted in Volkonir and Grillitan Diner Easter eggs in Ciem. There were even plans, ultimately rejected, to fuse the Bison and his mythology into Classic Gerosha. Instead, all that was done about that was a movie poster Easter egg near Miriam's bed featuring the Bison.

Since then, the events surrounding Volkonir and the Bison were moved into a universe of their own. The Grillitan Diner was moved to being canon to the same universe as The Trapezoid Kids and Camelorum Adventures.

John's battle with Eqquibus was moved in setting from Grand Rapids to Boston, but few other changes were made to his role.

Ciem was released to Mod the Sims, with chapters being published from 2008-2009. There were plans to immediately follow it up with Ciem 2, but this was canceled due to health and college activity reasons.

Blood Over Water was made instead, which would become a starting point for a complete revamp of continuity. Life in the dorms at Ferris inspired the Dozerfleet founder further to consider making Sorbet a story. The inability to get by on mere free webcomics alone came to the desire to pursue more commercial and profitable novels, which would require much more planning before being written. This would give way to the entire Classic Gerosha timeline being abandoned in favor of Comprehensive Gerosha.

Earth-G6

In Comprehensive Gerosha, John's mythology would be refined further. "Heeshwa Pwong" became Hea Pang, and her unnamed mother was named Dae Pang. Eqquibus would become slightly more clever, and use cheap lines less often. Gray's first superhero tale was going to simply be called Gray Champion, after the Hawthorne story. However, it soon became obvious that a more distinct title was needed.

That added distinction came on September 28th of 2011, when the Dozerfleet founder watched a YouTube video featuring footage from the trailer for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. It suddenly became obvious that a subtitle on that order was needed. Since the novel adaptation of Ciem became Ciem: Vigilante Centipede, Gray's first story in Dozerfleet was renamed The Gray Champion: Freedom's Apparition.

More work was done to expand his family background too, including to Orenda "Kicked Deer" Domeck being his wife, and Marge "Mapacha" Domeck-Ramirez being his daughter. Plans existed back in Earth-G1 for Mapacha, but were never pursued until G6.

Earth-G7

Comprehensive Gerosha plans for the Gray Champion trilogy were only slightly revised for Cataclysmic Gerosha. Gray's role in Abolition was rewritten slightly to make it conform to the season 4 plot for Sodality.

In late 2015, real-life news events inspired Shaken Dust. The desire to make John Domeck have his own Gerosha-continuity-building trilogy also arrived as a result of reimagining the character some more. Comments on DeviantArt that he was basically "Puritan Thor" have led to a desire to pursue playing up the similarities.

Shaken Dust was to be the final part of John's adventures in modern Boston, in much the way that Thor: Ragnarok was to be the final movie in the MCU's Thor saga (that is, until Love and Thunder was greenlit.)

From there, John would go on to play a role in Augmentation, Vindication, Battle for Metheel, and even have some significance to Centipede + 49. After meeting Roy Bernald, he quickly concluded that the latter would one day be a worthy replacement for himself. He would continue to play roles in the background during Swappernetters, though Tabitha Pang would take center stage by that time as the new main character.

The Society of the Icy Finger became much more significant this time around, quickly gaining power after Eqquibus' stunts to rise up as a formidable global threat on par with and even exceeding that of the Hebbleskin Gang. Their brief alliance meant that John would have to cross paths with characters from Ciem mythos even before the two factions were joined in the Sodality of Gerosha years later.

Events in Chillingworth's Revenge would inspire the Hebbleskins and Icy Finger to recruit Drop-In and Eric Korsicht as liaison mercenaries, as well as competing with the Kerpher Gang's leader Victor Nanale by taking on Clyde Spendelworth of Gleeful-N'-Young, at one point the regional manager of Sleet Mountain Lower Northern. However, that also meant that the Purge-Flare would leap from the pages of Blood Over Water and join in with the not-yet-officially-formed proto-Sodality to take on these common threats, inspired in costume by Extirpon.

More so, Eqquibus' experiment that brought John into the year 2012 is also credited with creating Extirpon, Slip-Sadie, Cocklebur, Extirwraith, Nematode, Spoliat, and more. Events in Ciem: Inferno would therefore inspire events in Shaken Dust to happen, which would in turn inspire events in Ciem: Ash Cloud and Ciem: Caldera. And those events would in turn lead to a young Tabitha's hero-worship of Ciem.

Not only did the Ciem and Gray Champion myth arcs get to finally connect, they actually indirectly affected each other's immediate successive progressions.

Earth-G7.2

In Sodality: Battle for Metheel, John Domeck returns. He, Hea Pang, Tabitha Pang, and a few others are captured by King Morzhuk's invading forces on Earth. However, the ship transporting him is intercepted by Phaelite warriors.

John is rescued amidst the ordeal, but is stranded on Phaeleel. He and his friends defend a scientist named Desulon, while Hea travels back in time to destroy the Grand Ultimate's Ruby with the help of Kicked Deer and Hester Prynne. John gets to battle a new villain named Bosom-Serpent, named after a different short story by Hawthorne. He later joins Extirpon and other Sodalists on Metheel to bring about the overthrow of Morzhuk and establishment of restored freedom to Metheel.

The only major difference between this version and his Cataclysmic Gerosha counterpart in the same exact story, is the exact choices of actions taken during the fight to bring about the outcome. What specifically he does would depend on the player's decisions, as opposed to their minutiae being author-dictated. More or less, however, G7.2.0 continuity attempts to adhere as strictly as possible to G7.0 continuity.

Earth-G7.2.1

Percolation

Percolation marks the first explicit appearance of the John Domeck version of the Gray Champion in a form of media not canon to any prior Gerosha continuity.

This fanfic for Marvel: Avengers Alliance explains how it would be possible for Extirpon to be temporarily exported to that game's version of the Marvel universe, where he'd partially lose his powers and be forced to become a SHIELD agent operating under the moniker of "Agent Opendi."

Jubilee and the Danny Ketch version of Ghost Rider find themselves switching universes with Extirpon and Anarteq temporarily. SHIELD and SCALLOP would eventually find a way to establish contact with each other, and negotiate how to get Extirpon and Anarteq home.

However, the two displaced Marvel heroes initially arrive in Boston. They are attacked by Janet Phillips, the Icy Finger, the Crooked Rainbow, and Boston police. Hea Pang and the Gray Champion intervene to save them. Hea contacts Darius, and has the displaced heroes sent to SCALLOP headquarters until something can be done about their predicament. From there, she and Gray further monitor activity related to their new friends, as SCALLOP agents request them to. This story takes place a short time after the events in Extirpon and Freedom's Apparition, happening roughly in early 2013 right as Hea first discovers she is pregnant with Tabitha. This was also, according to some players, the moment when Avengers Alliance reached its peak of popularity on Facebook. However, Percolation as a story wasn't a significant deal in Dozerfleet continuity until late 2013, when the founder of Dozerfleet started playing Avengers Alliance and needed to name his in-game agent.

John's clone in the MAA fanfic universe was elaborately described and laid out in the hopes that Marvel would take interest and want to integrate him as an actual character for Avengers Alliance on Facebook, along with many other heroes. However, the Dozerfleet-to-Marvel project was abandoned in 2016 when it was announced that Playdom was going to take Avengers Alliance offline. In addition to John, Candi got an entry. Several members of the Camelry were also given entries, including Lemon Witch and Maddening Rod. There were even plans to include the Knights of Cortascius and the 20s Altered Judo Iguanas.

Percolation: Legends

This story documents how John and others became cloned into being long-term parts of Earth-12131-F. It was essentially a tie-in for ''Avengers Alliance Tactics''. However, its further pursuit was dropped when that game and the original Avengers Alliance were taken down by Playdom. The short-lived mobile app of Avengers Alliance 2 also failed to justify a return of the Gray Champion to pursuit within Marvel.

Camelorum Adventures

John is recruited to the Percolation Warriors by a joint effort with Lex Philippine, Fred Hanom, and Stan Woudean to save the entire multiverse from the Triumvirate. He finds himself initially working with Emeraldon, Pablo, Anna, Ion Boy, Lightning Hobo, the Judo Iguanas, most of the Knights of Cortascius, and Extirpon to deal with certain pocket dimensions that are endangered by Triumvirate activity. Also joining him are Roy, Tobias, and Sarah. Hea and Tabitha are sent to the other unit: Team "F-Pod." They work with Ciem, Sniperbadger, Maddening Rod, Semaphore, Lemon Witch, and Kayla Tarington to resolve the other issues.

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