Blue Manta

Blue Manta: Wil Scott always wanted to change the world, and he always loved the sea. Growing up as the son of a Florida fisherman, he worked his fathers boat the Manta when he could while he effortlessly flew through school. He was endlessly fascinated with the life the nets brought aboard, asked a million questions of the fishermen and divers and earned himself the nickname “Little blue” (from some wit who called him a walking book of the Big Blue).

His fascination took a different turn when he was awarded a scholarship at Miami State and aced a double major in Marine biology and Sciences in two years. People noticed, including a government run special projects Lab. A young Wil was offered what he thought was the opportunity of a lifetime – to work on cutting edge marine science special projects. He saw it as a way to finally follow his dream and make the world a better place.

He should have known better.

Shortly after completing a project for deep sea operation suits that had been stalled for years, he was inducted into project MU. At the heart of this project was a study on adapting workers for long term underwater mining. What Wil didn’t know was the source of the genetic templates he was working on – a captive Atlantean. He discovered this when he was working late one night and the Hero known as Stingray broke into the facility. Initially scared into submission, he was horrified to discover that his “work” was being extracted from a young Atlantean girl named Alora, whom Stingray had come to free.

There and then his world crumbled, and his fury at being used led him to help Stingray get away with the girl. In the process, he destroyed all of project MUs research, crashed the mainframe and faked his own death in the resulting explosions.

A year later, the hero known as Blue Manta appeared. Coincidentally, a young businessman and inventor named Scott Williams founded a company that developed new methods and technologies across a wide range of marine industries and sciences. Marinetech is a young company, still shaky, but is making big noises.

Blue Manta was, until the Civil War, a relatively unknown hero, although he had worked alongside a few of Floridas’ local vigilantes. He has disrupted the local drug and gun-running trade enough that the Cartels have put a bounty on his capture, dead or alive. He has also visited Hydrobase and Stingray more than once and managed to meet up with Alora again during one of his adventures. They have a tentative relationship, complicated by politics and their own differing physiologies.

When the Civil War erupted, Blue Manta disappeared. However, some time after the dust settled, he reappeared and registered. The government knows him as Scott Williams, an identity carefully crafted to bear examination-if not looked at too deeply. Meanwhile, Wil Scott leads a triple life as a registered hero, up and coming CEO of a promising company and, deep inside, a young man who still wants to change the world for the better.

The M.A.N.T.A. suit (Marine Augmented Nanomesh Training Array)is Wils earliest creation at Project MU. Originally created as a test-suit for his more radical technical innovations, he stole it on the night he fled. Nanomesh is already known to S.H.I.E.L.D. and other agencies, and was one of the big patents that help found his company. The big secret designs he has incorporated into the suit are the result of his second big breakthrough – NanoDNA (NDNA) an artificial form of blending and creating a variety of effects mimicking those of the natural world, but amplified many times. NDNA bonds with its user when worn, and responds as if “part” of the user. A unique fusing of biological and cutting edge nanotech, the suit mimics life and living functions without being alive.

The potential for NDNA is enormous, and something Scott Williams still hasn’t fully comprehended. He does know, however, that he doesn’t want S.H.I.E.L.D getting hold of the technology

Note: I’ve made one minor change to the character (apart from the Flatfooted thing) I’ve given him a mental block (Mind Shield) that only blocks his old identity Wil from being noted. He doesn’t even know its there, but it does make his early life very hazy, even to him. He had this done by Voudon, a local (unregistered) arcane hero, and involved a six week ritual where he literally changed the way he walked, moved, etc. As far as Wil Scott is concerned, he is Scott Williams.

Complications Secret: False identity Responsibility: to his young company; a lot of people depend on him for a living. Secret: Links to other minor unregistered heroes Relationship: Alora, young Atlantean. Honorable: Has an idealistic outlook Secret: Unpatented tech, must keep from prying government eyes. Enemy: Local cartels.