Uncovering lost wiki treasures Pt 12 - Gray Champion suit evolution

The following may be integrated back into the wiki at some point. An old "talk" page discussed the evolution of Gray Champion suits.

John's Outfits

Old Englishman

Debut: Of Angels and Icicles

There is little noteworthy anything to say of this. This was John's civilian outfit, around the time he found himself on his way to a new life in Lynn, as the Order of the Oraphim was founded, and the monarchy in England had no use for him.

In real life, this look for John was first drafted in 2017, for purposes of his backstory.

Man of Lynn

Debut: Of Angels and Icicles

The Man of Lynn outfit was John's default appearance during his life in Colonial Massachusets. There is little else about it that is noteworthy.

In real life, this look for John was first drafted in 2013, for purposes of his backstory.

Professor Mike Edwards

Debut: Freedom's Apparition

John was able to hide himself briefly, by becoming a tour guide for Hea's museum. Knowing firsthand about history and literature of the 17th century, only the vocal and beard similarities to John Domeck betrayed eventually to anyone that "Professor Mike Edwards" wasn't quite who he said he was. John's secret identity as a modern history professor had a short-lived tenure.

In real life, this look for John was first drafted in 2011.

Confederate Hybrid

Debut: Freedom's Apparition

John of course begins his journey in 2012 in his old outfit from the 17th century. After Hea Pang and Kyle Medsor's family assist him, he gets a high-tech black body glove to wear that augments his new abilities. This gets covered up by gray pants, a gray overcoat, a black-and-blue cape, some Puritan-era belt and scabbord for his sword Fishkiller, dark blue gloves and boots, a gray Pilgrim hat, and his signature black face mask with the yellow square "Eyes of Judgment" on it, with a slit to let his beard through.

This look comes to be his default superhero outfit, the Confederate Hybrid. This is because it is a fusion of Puritan and Confederate soldier styles into a single costume, created by Hea kitbashing together the look. It's slightly modified, and more practical, than the de-facto true 17th-century fashion he once sported. However, the evolution of his suit is still possible, given Hea's guiding principle in having John adopt the Gray Champion mantle: the words of Hawthorne himself on the matter:

But none could make reply. The fathers of the people, those of four-score years and upwards, were disturbed, deeming it strange that they should forget one of such evident authority, whom they must have known in their early days, the associate of Winthrop and all the old Councillors, giving laws, and making prayers, and leading them against the savage.

The elderly men ought to have remembered him, too, with locks as gray in their youth, as their own were now. And the young! How could he have passed so utterly from their memories--that hoary sire, the relic of long departed times, whose awful benediction had surely been bestowed on their uncovered heads, in childhood? ^[1]

Long story short, the Gray Champion's newest mantle, during the fourth turning of his calling, will always appear with fashion sense that's at minimum a few decades behind the population he arrives in. The general benchmark is 80 years, in keeping with Strauss-Howe generational theory.

However, John was plucked from the 17th century. Merging his Puritan fashion sense with that of a Confederate soldier, when the parts were spare parts from a history museum, was the most reasonable compromise.

Variants of Confederate Hybrid not only helped John deal with Eric Andro, and with Eqquibus; but were there for him in dealing with Blackveil, Chillingworth, Brackett, Hibbins, Korsicht and minions, and all of Terry Beliah and Halal Affadidah's goons sent after John. He also utilized this after joining the Sodality Western Militia. The Confederate Hybrid suit is the one most associated with John.

Confederate Hybrid is the Gray Champion suit that has been associated with John Domeck since September of 2001 in real life.

Homeless Militant

Debut: Shaken Dust

This "hobo" outfit was kitbashed together by John during the events of Shaken Dust. His Confederate Hybrid outfit was in storage, along with Fishkiller, as Hea was getting ready to move to Arkansas.

Being the most modern of John's hero outfits, Homeless Militant bears only the mask and body glove in common with the Confederate Hybrid. The outer garments are modern gray jackets and jeans, allowing him to appear like a homeless vagrant bearing the same spirit as the Confederate-Puritan Hybrid, but sporting a different look. This outfit also forced John to practice his shooting range gun training, as opposed to trying to rely entirely on Fishkiller to solve his problems.

Once out of bullets, John had to improvise some new sword weapons. However, he also had to learn to rely less on his electric field manipulation, as the power grid became sparse in Boston after Brackett and Hibbins aided Affadidah. Easy teleportation became difficult without a consistent electrical grid to fall back on, forcing John to have to scout his way about Boston the old fashioned way. He still had his enhanced strength and healing, levitation, invisibility, intangibility, and other phantomimicry powers. But without lightning bolts and fast travel, John found being a Gray Chmpion to Bostonians harder than ever.

John passed the test, however, in freeing Hea and Tina. Once in Jonesboro, however, he had to revert to his Confederate Hybrid and Fishkiller arrangement to defeat Brackett.

In real life, this look for John was first drafted in 2017. It was known he'd need an outfit modification as early as December of 2015; but this design didn't arrive until two years later.

Scandium Phantom

Debut: Sodality: Vindication

The Scandium Phantom was an upgrade made by Malestrom Industries, which sought to allow John to have improved resistance to "Tug" tech. It wouldn't have been able to help him against the one that the Chrome Kite eventually put around Arkansas; but it ensured that lesser Tug devices wouldn't be able to trap him while he went to Italy to thwart Rappaccini's evil plans, along with the rest of Team Spaghetti Liberation.

Anticipating that her being a political hot item would complicate matters, Dolly saw writing on the wall for her continued tenure of being able to be the Earwig full time. She knew that the time would come that she'd be too preoccupied with other business to be active in duty as the Earwig, so she bestowed partial Earwig tech on the two she trusted most with it: Candi and John.

Therefore, Candi was permitted an upgrade from Ciem to the Vanadium Centipede, although Candi only got to use the Vanadium Centipede armors a handful of times. John was given the Scandium Phantom outfit, though it was eventually destroyed in the Second Great Battle for Dephinapolis. This resulted in John reverting to the Confederate Hybrid once more.

In real life, this look for John was first drafted in 2015.

Roy's outfits

Roy Bernald arrived some time shortly after Arkansas was captured by the Chrome Kite. It wasn't long before John took Roy under his wing, seeing it as a sign from God that Roy was destined to eventually be John's replacement as official bearer of the Gray Champion mantle.

Gray Doughboy

Having come from the fields of WWI, Roy was destined to be a very different sort of Gray Champion. He tried to adapt his combat experience at first, as the Gray Doughboy. However, that name was no longer taken seriously in the 21st century, as the term "doughboy" had become too closely associated with the Pillsbury Doughboy. Roy's love of horses - particularly his steed Fellertooth (named after John and Orenda's long-deceased pet wolf Fellerfang) - resulted in Roy abandoning the Doughboy outfit.

Gray Rancher

The Sodality Western Militia had to scout the western territories reconquered from Netheel, in order to minimize Hebbleskin revivalist and Chrome Kite agent activity. They had a variety of safehouses set up for them in a network, and found the safest way to travel was often on horseback - reverting to 19th-century methods of doing almost everything.

Roy modified his attire accordingly, and his Gray Champion variant reflected more of a "wild west cowboy" influence as a result. The "Gray Rancher" identity was born.

References

1. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Gray Champion." ''Twice-Told Tales''. 1837.

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.