Strength 10d

Agility 6c

Intellect 4x

Willpower 6d

Hand Size: Edge:

4 (25) 2

Powers:

(none)

Equipment:

Long Bow: Dan could use this instrument as a +2 weapon, generally inflicting a whole lot of damage with each deadly shot. He was very good with it, and as such, could use it to devastating effect, often utilizing various trick shots to confuse and befuddle his foes.

Hindrances:

(none)

Skills:

Archery: his weapon of choice, Dan can use the bow with incredible accuracy. He can make attacks, trick shots, and other actions with a bow as if the difficulty were one difficulty level lower than normal. He can also use a crossbow, technically, but has never been shown to do so.

Ricochet: this skill allows Dan to bounce a weapon (usually his arrows) off of one or more objects, in order to strike either multiple targets with one projectile or a single target by surprise. These secondary or ambush attacks occur as a contingent action.

Survival: Dan is a true outdoorsman, and can easily keep himself alive in a variety of environments, including savage deserts, arctic wastes, and even the urban jungle. He can even use this skill to recover his bearings should he lose his sense of direction, or to find food if he lacks it.

Wrestling: if he managed to damage a target in unarmed melee combat, Dan can make an average difficulty Strength (Strength) action to hold onto his foe. He can maintain this hold every exchange with a similar action, inflicting a like amount of damage until he lets go or is dislogded.

Calling:

Adventurer: Dan is a true hero at heart, wishing to do good deeds. Though he has been quested with the accomplishment of one hundred good deeds, to be specific, he does his duty with glee. This is, of course, because Dan has always wanted to be a hero, and went to great lengths to earn his identity...

Costume:

As the Black Marvel, Dan wore a black stretch fabric suit, coupled with black shorts over the stretch suit, a yellow belt, yellow gloves, yellow boots, a red cape, and a black half-hood that covers the man's eyes but leaves the rest of his face visible.

Personality:

Dan Lyons, the Black Marvel, seemed dead-set on becoming a hero. In fact, he made a solemn vow to the tribal chief that gave him his heroic persona to do good deeds and to constantly mantain his worthiness to the Black Marvel title. As such, I have to count him as a truly valiant hero, who would go out of his way to help anyone in need.

Real Name: Dan Lyons
Occupation: adventurer
Legal Status: American citizen with no known criminal record
Marital Status: single
Alias(es), if any: none
Group Affiliation: none (in the Vintage Age), the Slingers (in the now, as a mentor)

Height: ?
Hair: ?
Eyes: ?, now gray
Weight: ?
Other Distinguishing Characteristics: none

Story:

After the three last viable candidates fail the tests of worth, tribal outsider Dan Lyons asked the dying Black Feet chief if he can take the tests as well. Since his father had helped the chief out in the past, he saw no problem with this, and shortly after, Dan passed all three trials of speed, strength, and stamina.

Having done so (and how!), Lyons is given the costume and bow of the Black Marvel, and is admonished to maintain the honor that comes with the super persona. Lyons vows to do this, fighting crime, injustice, and evil all the way!

His first adventure led him to an electrical plant, stopping some thugs from destroying the place, even though they've already cut power to the city (whatever city the plant serviced). The Black Marvel discovers the true plot by interrogating the thugs, and leaves at once!

You see, the thugs cut power to the city to cover their looting of the local armory. Making his way there a.s.a.p., the Black Marvel spots the criminals raiding guns from the place, and interrupts by beating the miscreants up... a lot.

Apparently, the head thug died from the beating the Black Marvel gave him. Before he departed this mortal coil, however, he revealed that a criminal consortium was forming, a consortium that needed those guns. However, he didn't say who was behind the dastardly plot.

After this, the Black Marvel has a wide assortment of adventures. He protected a refugee from Germany from death at the hands of hypnotized Nazis. He ended the rampage of a mad scientist that drank a potion that made him a monster. He stopped the schemes of an evil diamond mine owner.

Also, he helped convince an ex-con to stay an ex-con, rather than returning to the life of a common criminal. This was, of course, the last anyone would see of the Black Marvel, until the early nineties, when he attended a sort of Golden Age Heroes reunion hosted by the original Angel.

While there, he (along with other old heroes like the Thunderer) somewhat helped to end the threat of Zeitgeist, who was slaying super-folks because he thought they diminished accomplishments of mere normal men and, he believed, that the original heroes would be a good place to start.

Eventually, however, Dan was shipped off to a retirement home, where he bitterly awaited his demise at the hands of natural causes. However, this wasn't meant to be, as Dan was approached by none other than the dread Mephisto, who had an offer in mind for Dan. An offer he couldn't refuse...

You see, in exchange for his immortal soul, Mephisto offered him significant power to utilize as he saw fit, for good or evil. Using this power, Dan (in addition to making his body useful again) created four distinct super-powerful identities, which he gave to four promising youths.

He began to mentor them in the fine arts of heroism, until they caught him in the act of burning down a hotel. Now demented at this point, Dan did this in order to allow himself one last chance at heroism, but this failed - miserably. Soon after, Mephisto came to collect his bounty.

Dragging Dan down to his Lower Depths, Mephisto soon after sucked Dan's charges, the so-called Slingers, right in afterwards. The demon lord then gloated about his grand scheme to the heroes, and gave them the means of releasing Dan from his contract - they had to forgive him for his manipulations.

The end of this story has yet to be told, so Dan's ultimate fate is still, as of yet, unknown...

Using the Black Marvel in other stories:

Well, this is easy (for once). As the Black Marvel, Dan Lyons was far from completing the goal set for him by the Black Feet chief (the one hundred good deeds thing). As such, he easily has a motive for further adventure: doing good deeds!

That may sound kind of hokey, but that was what Lyons was out to do, so he's easily motivated in that area. If a random encounter with a Vintage age archer is necessary, well, the Black Marvel is an easy man to plop into such a tale!

In the modern age, he can appear as the mentor of the Slingers, a relatively new team of heroes who he empowered, thanks to his contract with Mephisto. However, depending on the time in which such a tale would be told, the Black Marvel may not necessarily be their ally...