Mannie von Frankenstein's Story (Tobyverse)
Gentlemen and ladies, I'm here to ask you a question. What is power? Some of you might say that power is position. If you're a CEO or Senator or Director of something, that's power. But that isn't YOUR power, its the office. Some of you might say wealth. You come from families of unimaginable riches, or carved out your fortune all on your own. But wealth only facilitates other kinds of power. And some might say knowledge. Knowing is half the battle. But violence is the other half, ladies and gentleman. You know what power is? POWER is power. The ability to hurl a bus, to not fear bullets, to hurl and shape the very elements of creation themselves, that is what power is. And today, I'm here to offer it to you.”
SOME TIME LATER
“A magnificent performance sir.”
“Lotta bullshit though.”
Manfred “Mannie” Von Frankenstein (never call him Manfred) comes from a very famous, very dangerous family. While his illustrious ancestor was never one of the founders of Atlantis, the family did eventually come to live there for a period of time, until Karl Von Frankenstein's involvement with the Nazis got them into trouble with a very shadowy individual who burned down his lab, blew up his experiments and shot his bodyguard. The message was clear, and the family fled to the United States, using fake passports to gain entry. Eventually Karl, and then his son, Dietrich were able to do enough favors to get themselves citizens, and Manny considers himself a true-blue American. Up to a point. Growing up in what was essentially the Addams family, but less fun, everyone expected Manny to become a dark and troubled child. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Mannie was a cheerful boy, always smiling and if there was some talk among his peers of deals gone bad or strange things offered, well, that was just children's gossip.
When he decided to double-major, with Biology being the first focus, everyone watching got a little nervous. The university couldn't afford to have fiasco like the dead walking or an angry mob burning down the science labs. But when the other half of the equation turned out to be Business Studies, they breathed a sigh of relief. How dangerous could someone with a business degree be?
After college Mannie continued his education into certain other dangerous fields, such as chemistry, medicine and the one that terrified everyone, physics. It wasn't that he seemed to be a genius, or a protege, he just soaked up all the information. He also began working for the Prometheus Foundation. In the future Mannie would describe his time working there, and his meteoric rise and equally quick fall as one of the most educating experiences of his life. He has stated that the course he put himself on today was directly because of his work for Hiram Gilgamesh, and that he wishes the old bastard the best of luck. Because Mannie didn't really fit in at Prometheus. To him, there were too many layers, to much misdirection. The things they were creating were fantastical, incredible, but most never saw the light of day. Mannie wanted to change that.
With money he got from somewhere, he began his own little startup research company. And while its day-to-day products were run-of-the-mill, it wast the after-hours work that paid the bills. Mannie and his small staff had perfected a process that would, for a short time, give you the strength of six men and feel no pain. It was quite popular among the local thugs, gangbangers and bouncers. But that was only the beginning. Soon they were offering different treatments, for more people, and opening branches in different cities and towns. The money kept pouring in, and they began taking new contracts. An individual, paying in cash of course, would come to them and say, “I want a gun that shoots toads, that then explode!”. And they'd build him an exploding toad gun. And Mannie sat in the middle of this web, still genial, still smiling, always with exactly what you needed. He even began seeking customers out, offering them whatever tech or weapons or powers they needed that he could give, but at a price. Mannie's company grew and grew. They bought out shipping companies and factories. They began opening dojos, that on the surface were just there to teach the locals but were actually there for gangsters and super-villains to train up their henchmen. They hired the best scientists, athletes and designers money could buy. Today, Power International is a well-known company, highly successful due to its shadow activities and able to make even more off of the legal by-products of their super-tech research. Some say Mannie is walking a dangerous line, and that the likes of Baldur will soon take him down. He tells them...
“They are welcome to try.”
Power International offers every product a supervillain could need. Lair setup, tech, weaponry, connections to groups of disaffected youth easily molded into minions, the works. They have everything from Instant Ninja Just Add Water to flying deathships. But all for a price.
And as for Mannie, well he's a bit like David Sarif from Human Revolution, a genial guy who has read all the corporate hand-books and seems like a bit of a jock. He rarely loses his cool and even if the time comes to punish his employees, he always seems a bit sad because of it. Some people say he seems a bit fake, but they're just jealous of his success. Really! And he's in his element when he's offering someone the world. One of his wider-read employees said it reminded them of the devil, every time.
