Split Sides

A Fictional Character of My Own

So I was watching this History Channel show called Superheroes Decoded and they were discussing the influence of the chaos at the end of the Vietnam War and the turmoil of the 1970s and how it filtered into character creations. One of which was the rich arms inventor called Tony Stark (also known as Iron Man) and the other is a character who first appeared in a Spider-Man comic in 1974 - Frank Castle, also known as The Punisher. A Vietnam War vet, he takes up arms and wages a one-man war against the Mafia for gunning down his family by mistake in New York's Central Park. So it gave me a couple ideas for one of my own:

+ A remarkable thing about him is that he has no superpowers. Much like Harvey Dent (Two-Face), he's an ordinary individual with extraordinary skills that can still be attainable by the common man. He doesn't need to be an alien or a government experiment gone bad, he's a grounded character who uses his skills the best way he knows how, despite it being terrible for mankind in general. People can aspire to characters who resemble them a lot.

+ I propose a new character. Not a villain or a superhero but an antihero, one who has a differing idea of good and evil compared to society at large. Someone who people can see is bad, but can be justified by their background and attitudes. The Punisher murders criminals because justice was denied to him. Two-Face is a split character due to the abuse he suffered as a child that he's incapable of forgetting.

+ This character is a student/graduate of psychology or history who was bullied and picked on relentlessly when growing up. So he/she turns to books and drugs to deaden the pain and try to get to the bottom of his/her strife. At one point, he/she purchases a bottle or serum of a mysterious liquid from a shadowy dealer who smuggled it out of a laboratory. He/She goes into an abandoned museum/railway station/decrepit historical building to get lost in drugs when the building is knocked down and demolished by unsuspecting contractors and unwittingly gets trapped inside. Crushed by debris and close to death, he/she swallows the liquid and gains the ability to move and lift objects using force of will and mental rage.

+ This character has the power to stare deep into enemies and surface their deepest and darkest pain from their memories and play it over and over in their heads until the anguish breaks them and drives them insane. This will be the primary power of the character in question. Not through physical prowess but mental and psychological willpower. Not all heroes are buff guys and crime-fighting gymnasts.

+ This character cannot and will never be a pure moral hero or an abhorrent villain who commits genocide and fraud in their spare time. He/She can only be an antihero because such people are a demonstration of the corruptible or fluid morality of people. Why do we love Niko Bellic despite him murdering people for money? It's because he's a reprehensible human being who tries to shake the blood-stained shackles of his past while trying to fulfill and live the American Dream with his cousin. A character of contrasting values can be related to by everyone.

+ Lastly, this character should have a name that matches their power. Probably a name like Trauma or Anhedonia, something psychological in nature that can be likened to the teachings of Freud or Jung or Erikson. I need to devise a better name for this character.