Nolan Void Archenemy: Precursor by NRGComics on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

IT'S TIME!! After so many years, we're please to introduce to you the first batch of villains for Nolan Void's Rogues Gallery! First up is Precursor, the Past Master who discovered and perfect Time Travel within the NRGVerse, who seeks Nolan Void to further her reach across time!

ORIGIN

One of the most astounding discoveries Nolan Void made as he ventured across multiple timelines of the past, present and future, was that time stream itself was, essentially, alive. All alternate timeliness that created their realities steamed from one continuous timeline, theorizing that it originated from the Nullverse but had long since broken free since the original reality’s disappearance. It was a living, temporal organism that continuously evolved, starting from the original single thought or action that created life and moving forward like a shark. And the alternate timeline that branched from everyone opposite possibility, thought or action were spawns creating the vast omniverse. But like all living beings the timeline could be hurt, specifically when beings of realities with great temporal capabilities attempted to rewrite history, they created a wound that cause the timeline to heal itself by rewriting its own temporal DNA to heal, to ensure history kept moving forward from that point in time to keep up with the present. And it fell on Nolan, the Paladin of the Omniverse, to properly heal these wounds.

To his horror though, Nolan discovered that many, if not most, of the temporal wounds that rewrote history were all done so to find and capture him. Having traced the trail of rewrites to the modern day timeline in the Alphaverse, Nolan discovered the person responsible was a villainous scientist called Emily Chung. Emily declared she was once a meek, mousy scientist who had made a breakthrough in tachyon energy and “discovered” time-travel within the Alpha First. A history nerd at heart, Emily originally had kept her travels in time to the past, both as research and to satisfy her interest and curiosity in viewing the worlds of the past as they evolve, and meeting the figures of history who shaped the world as she knew it today. However, her discovery soon drew the attention of more scrupulous individuals who sought to use time travel for nefarious needs or personal gain, and feeling she had a sense of duty Emily to protect the timeline Emily began using time travel to keep her research secure and in the best interest of people. Emily must have lived years to keep the timeline of the present for her research safe and in do she grew more knowledgeable of the time stream, but her one mousy personality grew more overly confident and villainous in itself as she began using her growing mastery of time less to protect herself and others and more to create the perfect life she always wanted. Eventually Emily’s knowledge allowed her to create a form of immortality, and she declared herself a Past Master who would rewrite and control history for the betterment of mankind, but really more for how she wanted it to be.

There was always one problem though- While Emily had master time traveling over yesteryear, she was constantly hindered by the universal law that she could never travel forward in time to the future beyond her present, as the future had not happened for her yet beyond the time period she was born into. Eventually learning that only temporal beings from periods in the future could ever travel forward beyond her time period because that is where she was from, she began obsessively seeking out travelers from the future across history on the chance that one of them could unlock the future for her. And when she learned of the Paladin of the Universe who lived outside the laws of time and space, it became her immortal goal to capture him and take his powers for herself, history be damned if need be.

Powers/Abilities:

WHEW! That was a lot to get into. Honestly, Precursor's origins are perhaps to most expansive and world-building I've ever done for the NRGVerse. A lot to touch up on- how time travel and the concept of time itself works within the NRGVerse, Precursor's origins and then her motives for continuously threatening Nolan Void. A lot to cover, and I only hope I got all the major plot points and magic system rules of time travel covered.

But yeah, so for now Nolan Void's biggest planned enemy is someone who not only discovered time travel within the universe, but also perfected it for her own ends. Originally, Precursor was planned to be a much bigger universal threat in the NRGVerse, namely to our main superhero team like a lot time-based villains typically are; and she may still end up fighting the GSG at some point. But Ultimately I realized that because Nolan Void fills the role of time-traveling superhero in my universe the decision was obvious to make Precursor a major enemy to Nolan. In fact, I'd say most if not almost all of Nolan's time travel-based stories are going to involve Precursor in someway.

When it came to time travel and various time lines in the NRGVerse, obviously I wanted my take on it to be unique enough to stand out. Time travel is a pretty universal concept, as every fictional universe has their own form of it, but it's a tough concept to really write for unless you have a set magic system. The biggest issue I had to figure out was how to avoid falling into the trap that is if a villain had access to time travel, why couldn't they just go back and time to prevent my heroes from being born or something else? This is what eventually led to my idea of the timeline itself being a living thing, that when ever someone tries to rewrite history for their own purposes no matter how big or small, the timeline essentially heals itself in the form of patch job to correct the difference made in it's future. The best way to think of it is like certain events in history, while not set in stone, are important enough that it needs to exist in some form or another. Like if Precursor were to go back in time and stop Toonman from coming to the human world, he wouldn't be there to stop her plans sure but the timeline would "repair" itself so that a different cartoon character instead takes his place to fill his role as a superhero and stop Precursor. So Now Precursor has to find other means to take out the heroes.

This is what I realize made her a perfect enemy for Nolan Void, as since he exists outside the space-time continuum, he would always be the only one unaffected by Precursor's rewrites. But while it was a good excuse to have him constantly fight her, I felt I needed a stronger motivation for Precursor to antagonize Nolan with. This eventually led to my second rule of time travel- Traveling to the future is impossible unless your from that era. I had this fun idea that while traveling to the past would be easy because it already happened, I felt that traveling to the future would be equally harder if not impossible because it actually hasn't happened yet. People from the future would be able to take people from the past to their own timelines, but they wouldn't be able to go any further from that because the future to us would be their present. And for someone who has "mastered" time travel in the past, I figured it would be frustrating for Precursor to be continuously stuck at the roadblock. But when she hears of Nolan Void who can travel to alternate futures (if by accident), she becomes obsessed with capturing him to harness that same potential.

A lot to take in I know, but I hope you guys like this new NRGVerse villain! Let us know with a comment below!

AND DON'T FORGET- NRG's Kickstarter for Toonman Issue 1 ends next week! Don't miss your chance to support this awesome crowdfund and get your own copy of Toonman: the Animated Ace: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nrgcomics/toonman-the-animated-ace-issue-1

And you can also support NRG on Patreon and get exclusive months-early access to awesome new content, comics and characters like this: https://www.patreon.com/c/nrgcomicstm

Nolan Void: Paladin of the Omniverse © @NRGComics

Art by @Bilcassonato

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