The Heroes of the Periodic Table

Prologue: The Founder of The Periodic Table

Dmitri Mendeleev, a chemist and teacher, was the unintentional founder of the Periodic Table. One late night, Dmitri was working on organizing the known elements into a chart. After working until just a few hours before sunrise, Dmitri went to bed. That night, he had a rather unusual dream about people possessing the abilities of each element. When he awoke, he immediately went to his laboratory to try to create a way for his dream to be a reality.

He worked with every known element, creating a liquid that could give elemental powers to whoever drank it. After years and years of developing the liquids, he realized that they could be a danger to society if put in the wrong hands. Dmitri reluctantly ended the work on the liquids, but after devoting so much of his life on them, he couldn't destroy them. Instead, he locked the vials and all his research away in a safe hidden in a secret room of his laboratory.

Dmitri went home that night, his thoughts on the vials he locked away. What if his secret room was discovered? What if someone drank a liquid and it turned them into a mutant monster? After all, Dmitri had never tested any of his liquids, so the outcome of drinking one was uncertain. He finally decided that the vials need to be destroyed. He made up his mind to get rid of the liquids first thing in the morning. They were never destroyed, however, because Dmitri took his final breath that night as he slept.

Years later, the laboratory was torn down for the construction of a new building. A construction worker named Harold Rogen found a rusted safe amongst the pile of rubble, and he decided to bring it home with him. Assuming that he would never figure out the combination to open it, he set it on the table, planning to smash it apart somehow. However, as he set the safe down, he noticed the door move slightly. He pushed against the door to see if it would open on its own, and the rusty hinges broke, causing the door to fall off.

Harold looked in wonder at the contents of the safe: vials of various colorful substances, each one with a number on it. Papers and notes were scattered in the safe. Harold took the papers out and read them, discovering what the vials were. Unable to contain his curiosity, he picked up the vial with the number 1 written on it and drank its contents. Suddenly, he felt a strange sensation of weightlessness and he realized that he was floating. Stranger yet, Harold was invisible.

"I've turned myself into hydrogen!" Harold exclaimed in amazement. It was at that moment that Harold decided he would continue the research left in the safe, eventually creating an entire superhero force that he named The Periodic Table.