The first superhero I remember inventing was the Alpha Beast. I’m not sure how old I was. He was scientist named Brian Daniels who invented a machine that could de-evolve any living thing to an ancestral form. So, of course, he used the machine to transform himself into a superpowered reptile-simian. And then he fought crime. Because that’s what you do when you’re a genius who can transform himself into a completely non-existent ancestral form. He called himself the Alpha Beast because alpha=first. It surprises me that I knew that as a kid. I’m pretty sure I learned that from reading comics.
AB’s physical form was inspired by the monster Gog from Spider-Man #103. Brian Daniels had technology that prevented his brain from de-evolving with his body so he was both super strong and really smart.
It’s amazing what I learned from reading comics. Far more than I ever did in school, and some of it is actually useful…sort of.
I’d fight crime too if I was a genius, but I’m just not that smart, so I’ll settle for eliminating crime. How do you do that? Legalize everything.
I had such a good vocabulary as kid, mostly from reading comics. I’d have to hit the dictionary after reading one of Stan Lee’s Soapboxes.
I so hated looking shit up in the dictionary. Fact is, I rarely remember what the dictionary says.
I don’t think I ever developed a visual of Alpha Beast (sorry, the name sounds frightfully like Alpha Bits).
Back when I had that good vocabulary I’d remember the dictionary definitions pretty closely. But mostly I’d learn what words meant from context and then look something up to be sure I was right. “Excelsior!” never made sense, context or not, so I looked that up. I just had to look it up again because I never remembered what the dictionary said. It’s got a few definitions but the one Stan Lee probably was referring to was “Ever upward” in Latin.