Spectacular Squad

The Spectacular Squad consists of four superheroes who work together to adventure and protect the world from evil. They're also a family and each member has their own unique powers. They all have one thing in common: their love of adventure. Their adventures take them across the globe and even to other far flung worlds, where they face new challenges every day.

Their headquarters were located on the top floors of a skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles called the Bennett Building though these days their members are split around the world engaged in other pursuits.

## Members

### Mr Spectacular

A super genius with density shifting powers who isn't very creative with names. He now spends most of his time in his orbital laboratory- far away from his responsibilities as a father or superhero.

### Mirage

A psychic who can project powerful illusions, wife of Mr Spectacular, she is the only member of the team still living in California working with many charities as well as balancing the responsibilities of motherhood for her two children with Mr Spectacular- Aaron and Brandon.

### Captain Alloy

Captain Alloy is a close friend of Mr Spectacular who served as the military's liaison before the event that gave them their powers. He has the power to shift his body into metal at will and he continued to be a member of the military as official US liaison to the Spectacular Squad at a time when the US public was against superheroes.

### Deep Dive

Mirage's brother, he was permanently transformed into a being made of water in the event that gave the Squad their powers. Deep Dive has seen his powers as a curse over the years but more recently has been working with charities in Africa to find aquifers and underground water for wells

### Former Members

#### Professor Phantom

A colleague of Mr Spectacular's civilian identity who went missing under mysterious circumstances. Mr Spectacular brought the squad to investigate- together they discovered his dimensional shifting machine had transformed the professor into a living ghost- only halfway in our dimension and half in a spectral world. He can phase between dimensions and generate ectoplasmic energy.

When Mr Spectacular and Mirage took leave to raise their children he joined the team on a provisional basis, he took the team on many interesting adventures into the adjacent dimensions but when Mr Spectacular was ready to return he couldn't move fast enough to get back to his quiet life as an academic.

#### Inca Princess

The superhero known as Inca Princess was once offered as a sacrifice to the gods by her own father, the emperor, in exchange for protection against their enemies. She was drugged, wrapped in fine cloth and left to die on a mountain, the extreme physical stress on her body triggered her metagene and she unwittingly formed a chrysalis around herself. When it opened, she had become an immortal with incredible powers. She has superhuman strength, durability and regeneration. She was discovered by the Spectacular Squad and taken into their care. They trained her and taught her how to use her powers properly. As they were unable to find out what her real name was at first, they gave her the name Mummy Girl. After some time, as her memories returned to her they learned her name was Qullana and that she was an Inca Princess.

She didn't use the name Inca Princess until she joined the Spectacular Squad in the 2000s while Mirage and Mr Spectacular took parental leave. She left the squad when Mirage came back- as she like Professor Phantom had only ever planned on being a temporary member.

### Unofficial Members

#### King Khoral

While never officially joining the squad, King Khoral spent a lot of time adventuring with the Spectacular Squad, in particular their earlier underwater adventures. It was King Khoral who told the Spectacular Squad about the myth of Hyperborea. He and Mr Spectacular had a falling out as a result of their large egos and Khoral's infatuation with Mirage.

## History

### Origins

The Spectacular Squad were originally a research team funded by the US military to find evidence of Atlantis, what they found instead was a mysterious alien artifact that they accidentally activated through proximity- this was the event that gave them their powers.

### Atlantis

Shortly after receiving their powers the Spectacular Squad met King Khoral for the first time. He brought them to Atlantis where they worked together to save the city long thought lost or mythical.

### Acceptance

The Spectacular Squad surfaced and quickly found themselves embroiled in standard superheroics, these quickly became televised and the public was split- vigilantes and metahumans weren't at the top of anyone's favourite people lists in the 90s but the inclusion of Captain Alloy- a charismatic member of the US military put the American public more at ease. The Spectacular Squad opened the way for superheroes to return to popularity and were instrumental in public acceptance of the later Alliance of Heroes.

### Blank Slate

A bank robber who erased security footage and left all witnesses with no memory was rocking Los Angeles. The Spectacular Squad split up to cover the four most likely banks he'd target- Mr Mnemonic ran into Mirage. He tried to use his power against her to erase *all* her memories, but she reversed his power on him. He was reverted to a blank slate and was interred into a mental health hospital as a John Doe.

### Challenger's Breakdown

Maxim Challenger, a contemporary academic of Mr Spectacular and Mirage at Empire State University sought to prove himself the better of the Spectacular Squad- he had been the number one scholar on Atlantis until it was proven to actually exist and suddenly a lot of his theories were totally disproven. He took his own submarine down with no crew except his own robots and had to be rescued by his sworn enemies after suffering severe hypoxia. His expensive submarine lost to the ocean and robots proven to be without utility he tried to sell his designs to weapons corporations to recoup the losses and buy a new submarine. But for that, the buyers would need a demonstration of the robots combat capabilities.

### Hyperborea

Having heard of the mythical land of Hyperborea from the Atlanteans, Mr Spectacular began studying the Aurora Borealis, believing it held the key to the gateway due to it's unique intersection of solar radiation and Earth's magnetic field. He successfully opened the gateway from the Earth side and the squad passed into Hyperborea- for what is understood to be the only time in history. The squad were attacked and apprehended by the warriors of the Silver Path and were imprisoned for little over an hour before Hyperborea was attacked by an extradimensional beast known to the Hyperboreans as Ygmal-Zaroth. The squad helped to protect innocents and forced the abomination to leave Hyperborea and earned the respect of many in the city including the Stormlord. While receiving hospitality from the Stormlord, Deep Dive left the Stormlord's young son his CD player and his "Best of Rock" CD.

### On Ice

A frozen caveman was used as part of a marketing ploy, bad event planning lead to him defrosting during a busy conference. The caveman reacted predictably but fortunately the Spectacular Squad saw the commotion from the Bennett Building. After the Spectacular Squad came to the scene of his rampage and succeeded in communicating the situation they found that he was in fact a genius for his time by the name of Brokgar- he even claimed to be inventor of the wheel.

### Nathea

While testing a portal system designed to take the squad to Mars, a malfunction (caused by a ripple of cosmic energy) spit the squad out on Nathea soon after it's shattering.

The Spectacular Squad arrived on the devastated world a shadow of the magical utopia it had been. They helped the Ondru repel the pirates and built a planetary force-field to protect from future incursions, additionally Mr Spectacular oversaw several engineering projects before leaving- unwilling to travel home knowing these people would be forced into additional hardship. He had intended to stay longer but Mirage broke the news that she was pregnant and he relented, finally accepting the Ondru gift that would transport them back home.

### Parental Leave

Mr Spectacular and Mirage left the team for a few years to raise their children- Aaron and Brandon. Going so far as to create new secret civilian identities to protect their children, they changed from the Reeds to the Greys: a nice boring, mundane, grey family. In their place Professor Phantom and Inca Princess (formerly Mummy Girl) joined the team.

### Other Adventures

Some time after re-joining the team Mr Spectacular and Mirage had other adventures- making new friends and saving people around the world.

#### Crashed Lifeboat

An alien vessel fell from the sky into a park, there was one alien aboard but they died during the crash landing. Many in the vicinity were targeted by the ship's malfunctioning repair systems which sought to protect the organics from the planets atmosphere- not recognising the organics as already being in a suitable atmosphere. This process of mechanisation lead to several animals being transformed into cyborgs that panicked and began causing damage further than the crashed ship already had. Mr Spectacular helped a boy named Darius who had been bonded to by an alien nanomachine swarm. The squad then helped prevent further mechanisation by deactivating the ship.