Project Xenn

 

Project Xenn was a non-comic I did a few mock-covers and group sketches of a couple decades ago. This featured a team of the adventuring/superhero style characters essentially "borrowed" from my comedic cartoony universe of Krazy Komix. That is to say I don't believe it was canon to that world, as this was something I was sketching up after leaving the AEP Multiverse behind. You can see some of these drawings in this post of old art.

Despite my numerous attempts around the time to come up with comic book ideas, this one was explicitly never planned to become something. I was mostly just doodling around trying to figure out what characters of mine I actually could draw with any sort of consistency and reliability. This was an interesting and fun group to draw just because they actually had some interesting design style while being characters I was actually capable of drawing.

However, I always drew them in black and white, and now that I'm finally doing a color render of them after all this time, yikes do they have a really boring pallet! I had to half-improvise with some of the colors, but I totally forgot the sheer amount of gray this team was wearing! And it's funny most of them have yellow highlighting. Almost makes me want to attempt doing a tri-color comic with a black-white-yellow color scheme! :V

If there was to be a story behind "Project Xenn", I think it would be a case of mad science being used to bring to life various inanimate objects as characters, be it robots, golems, or sketches. Naturally, the team breaks free from the lab they were created in and decide to team up to fight crime! Or at least retain their freedom while occasionally stopping to help out people in trouble.

From left to right, top to bottom, the team consists of:

Mr. Mechanical-Man - A living robot, meaning he is a purely synthetic being, but somehow managed to acquire sapience and possibly a soul. He was originally from the Power Universe of all places, but was destroyed there, only for an alternate version to be built in the Krazy Komix world. In Project Xenn, he would either have been an action figure brought to life, or probably a full-scale robot brought to life. He would ostensibly be the team leader, a tactician with a dry sense of humor. His powers were typical of robots in superhero comics: strong armor, high strength, rocket boots for flight, laser blasts, and computer-enhanced intellect. As a robot, he does need to breathe or eat, though he does need to recharge himself, either by resting so his internal battery can recharge on it's own, though if he's drained too much, he'll need an external power source to make up the difference.

Power-Bat - A bat-like alien with mechanical wings, Power-Bat is basically a superhero character who somehow ended up in the Krazy Komix setting instead of the Power Universe. I don't know why. He was mostly a pretty serious, straight-man character with a somewhat aggressive personality, but I suppose that meant he was the foil to the other goofier characters in the setting. Power-Bat has superhuman strength enabling him to lift 10 tons, has superhuman durability and stamina (though only bullet resistant), has enhanced senses of sight and sound. I don't think he has any sort of ranged attack, but his strongest ability is his metal wings which enable hyper-sonic flight. He can use them as shields (enough to bounce off tank mortars with ease), can use them as large slashing weapons (can slice said tanks clean in half), and rocket through the air at multiple mach speeds. He might even be able to briefly fly through space. As for his origins in Project Xenn, I would be torn between him still being an alien that the Project managed to capture and study, or him being an action figure or cartoon that was brought to life. In any case, despite being the most overtly powerful of the team, he does require all the normal mortal needs such as food, rest, air, and sleep which most of his teammates don't need to worry about.

Stretcho - One of my more "iconic" Krazy Komix characters, he was a silly superhero type, competent  and heroic at his job, but with a slap-stick style of combat and a quippy one-liner or comeback always at the ready! His powers were overtly cartoony, having an elastic, completely pliant body that could stretch great lengths without losing strength. He could also summon mallets, and was virtually indestructible by way of his body simply bending around impacts and buffering kinetic forces, as well as recovering quickly from chemical and fire damage, and mostly immune to electrical damage. I don't think he needed to breathe, either, and he could go a long time before he really needed food or rest. For some reason, he also wore a balloony costume, which he could inflate further on command in order to float. In Project Xenn, he would have been brought to life off a drawing, making him a literal living cartoon.

Triango-Man - I never quite solidified his exact origins, but he was essentially a golem made of numerous tempered wood triangles/pyramids. This came about as either that he was a golem built for a specific purpose who later gained sapience, or he was a man whose soul now possesses the triangles. Either origin would work for Project Xenn, though keeping in theme, he would probably be an animated set of blocks that gained self-awareness. In either case, he is a highly agile, highly skilled swordsman, and part of his mass also forms the sword he wields (which I suppose means he is able to directly control it somewhat). Despite being made of wood, he is fantastically durable, bullet and grenade proof and even fire proof. He is stronger than the average person, though not quite superhuman in that regard, but his body's numerous pointy edges make him dangerous to grapple with. He also does not need to breathe, nor does he need to eat or drink. He does have trouble swimming, usually sinking straight to the bottom of water, and if he takes physical damage, he needs to go into a rest state to regenerate from it. Although he doesn't put on airs about it, acting pretty casually most of the time, he is a noble knight type figure. Going by some of the sketches, he has something of a romantic relationship with Stencil.

Stencil - Actually an original for the "series" concept, as I wanted to have a female character in the group and didn't really have any such adventuring women from Krazy Komix who would fit. Stencil was indeed a doodle that was brought to life, literally a quick sketch someone made, probably for initial testing during the early stages of the Project. From a few sketches, she strikes me as a bit down on her situation, feeling like even compared to her fellow animates, she was half-formed and forgotten. She forms a romantic connection with Triango-Man who helps pull her out of her funk as she learns to accept herself as she is. Powers-wise, Stencil is sort of another elastic-themed character like Stretcho, but her power is more overtly shape-changing in nature. Whereas Stretcho's body can "stretch and squash" like a cartoon, Stencil's body can almost liquify in a mass of scribble-matter that can warp itself into any shape. She can stretch and expand some as well, but to a very limited degree compared to Stretcho. By contrast, she has a much easier time being able to fully flatten her body to form blades or fine-tune tools out of her limbs, and she can heal quickly by morphing away the damage. She can also shed a quick burst of black dust from her body, mostly useful as a distraction. While she does not need to breathe, sleep, or eat, and is fire and electricity proof, she has a weakness in that she has a harder time maintaining a shape while in water; it doesn't damage her, but if her body is completely soaked, her form is sloppier and harder to control. Fortunately, once she gets out of the water, she can quickly squeeze it all out of her. Like most of her friends, she does not need to eat, either.