Character Sheet
Peter Cannon... Thunderbolt ! (1960s)
Category : Comic Books
Subcategory : DC universe
Type : Hero
Game System : DC Heroes (Blood of Heroes S.E.)
Peter Cannon... Thunderbolt (1960s) v1
Source of Character: Chiefly the Charlton series of the same name (1966-67), but not the 1992 mini-series. Until fairly recently the character was considered a part of the DC Universe (he firmly is in the 1992 story), though his legal status changed since.
Helper(s): Frank Murdock
Reasons (1): After some head-scratching I have decided to stick for this writeup with P.A.M's original series, leaving the 1992 revival to be covered in another writeup. The 1992 version does present significant variants in Peter Cannon's origins and personality, and it is best for readers to have both versions to choose from.
Reasons (2): P.A.M.'s work on Thunderbolt is often mentioned as being one of the first non-racist portrayal of Asian characters in comic books. It is, I'm afraid, not the case - though the author certainly meant well, the adventures of Peter Cannon are almost a textbook example of Orientalism, and more specifically of the whole Romantic notion of "the East rejuvenating the West". While it's not blatantly offensive, it is clearly a product of its time and should be viewed in that context.
Reasons (3): Quotes in chronological order as usual.
"Somehow, it seems natural that the heavens should roar
angrily... as the forces of evil and greed conjoin in a terrible
destruction ! Only one man, a strangely clad figure, dares challenge
the awesome powers that offer, at best, only a horrible doom !"
Intro to the very first appearance of Peter Cannon...
Thunderbolt.
Game Stuff
Peter Cannon...
(His mantra) "I can do it... I must do it... I will do it !"
(Reading the paper) "Killing, violence, destruction ! Man's inhumanity to man ! Civilisation is nothing more than a jungle, Tabu, and I don't intend to get involved in its problems !"
"Your minutes are numbered, killer, and so are those of your men ! You will pay for your crimes !"
"I felt kind of sorry for those dinosaurs, Tabu. They weren't at fault ! It was greed that caused their being and destruction !"
"You'd really unleash... that kind of terror on a defenseless world ? On women... and children ?"
"This gift of mine... this power of will... isn't a cure-all for the ills of mankind ! The way I see it, it was meant to further the goals of a peaceful civilisation - not to fight its battles !"
"I'll find you, Mummy... and make you pay for your bloodthirsty schemes !"
"We almost fell victim to a very advanced application of black magic tonight, Tabu ! What warlock do we know with such great power ?"
"With all my heart I hate this costume... for every time I put it on, Peter Cannon dies so that Thunderbolt can live ! And Thunderbolt represents the failure of civilisation and the triumph of brute force !"
...Thunderbolt (1960s)
| Dex: 08 | Str: 06 | Bod: 06 | Motivation: Responsibility |
| Int: 08 | Wil: 08 | Min: 08 | Occupation: Freelance writer, later international reporter |
| Inf: 06 | Aur: 05 | Spi: 08 | Resources {or Wealth}: 006 |
| Init: 026 | HP: 050 |
Bonuses and Limitations: All Powers are Skilled Powers
Skills: Acrobatics*: 08, Animal handling (Horses): 05, Artist (Writing): 05, Martial Artist*: 08, Thief (Stealth): 06, Vehicles (Land, sea): 05
Advantages: Confidant (Tabu), Expertise ("all things Himalayan"), Headquarters (Extensive - his mansion, which connects to numerous secret passages to and under New York City), Iron Nerves, Language (Tibetan, Mongolian), Lightning Reflexes, Schtick (Master of chi, Power of will), Stabilisation
Connections: The High Abbott of the lamasery (High), Detective Palmer of the NYPD (Low)
Drawbacks: Secret ID
"I can do it... I must do it... I will do it !"
Peter Cannon's ability to focus his willpower into great feats is
arguably superhuman ; in game terms his Master of Chi Schtick makes
him a specialist when it comes to Pushing his abilities. The effects
of the Schtick are as follow :
- The minimum number of RAPs the Action Check for the Pushing attempt can score is 1, even if it completely misses the mark
- The "Push fee" is diminished from 3 HPs per AP down to 2 HPs per AP
- Burnout only occurs on a failed roll of 7 or less
- With the GM's permission, this Schtick allows the Character to use his Martial Artist Skill for Power Tricks having to do with paranormal energies -- this explains a lot of the weird, one-shot chi stuff Thunderbolt has done. At one point, he even convinced the GM to allow him to conjure a live dragon (Animate Image) via 'extra-sensory materialization', but that was not the regular author writing.
Thunderbolt's other Schtick (Power of will) caps the cost of Desperation Recovery at 10 HPs, no matter what the Genre.
The sweetest Tabu
Tabu does not get much action screen time in the stories - he's basically Peter's Alfred Pennyworth, and I got the impression most of his Attributes and Skills were around 04 APs. He seems to have most or all of Peter's Skills at that rough level. Tabu seems to actually be an Indian - presumably from one of the Uttar states. He constantly wears a turban, but is likely not a Sikh (he does not carry any of the other visible symbols), so perhaps he's from Rajasthan and not an Uttar state... oh well, I'm almost certainly overthinking it.
Tabu is actually more proactive and moral than Peter ; as explained below he's usually the one convincing Peter that Thunderbolt's talents are needed. While he has no issue with being in the field and helping out, Tabu is aware that he has very few HPs and will only attempt to get things done alone if he has no other recourse.
Background
Marital Status: Single
Known Relatives: Dr. Richard Cannon (father, deceased), Mary Cannon
(mother, deceased)
Group affiliation: Former monk at an unnamed lamasery
Base Of Operations: Formerly an unnamed lamasery in Tibet, later a
mansion near New York City
Height: 6'1" Weight: 195 lbs
Eyes: Blue Hair: Blond
Powers and Abilities
Peter has been superbly educated in 'both the ways of the East and the West', in subjects ranging from Buddhist philosophies to standard model physics. He was also trained as a formidable athlete and hand-to-hand combatant, and possesses tremendous strength and endurance.
After studying many of the sacred scrolls, Cannon can, this being the late 1960s, unlock the power of the mythical "90% of the human brain that lay unused". This broadly gives the ability to enhance his ability through willpower, commanding even such involuntary functions as bleeding ; as the narration puts it "his magnificent body responds completely to his will". His speed, agility, strength, etc. are all peak human, if not beyond that. The power of will is also used with great efficiency for all the usual things - Pushing, Desperation Recovery and the like.
History:
Peter Cannon is the only son of Mary and Dr. Richard Cannon, who were both a couple and a dedicated medical team bringing modern medical relief to far-off lands. Reaching Tibet with their newborn, they discovered that the Black Plague was spreading anew in a valley, and started working from a local lamasery to contain and destroy it. Though many died, the medical countermeasures eventually worked, but the last two recorded victims of the terrible disease left baby Peter an orphan.
To honour the selfless sacrifice of his parents, the abbott decided to make the White boy the Chosen One, who could be the one person to study from the sacred scrolls at the lamasery. This resulted in considerable anger from the disfigured man known as the Hooded One, who was the previous Chosen One but was now forced to halt his studies of the scrolls. The abbott further had educative material procured from the US, so Cannon would be educated in both the ways of Tibet and America. In order to be able to benefit from reading the scrolls later, Cannon also received intensive fitness training from infancy onward. Eventually, Peter spent years deciphering the scrolls of the lamasery.
After Peter studied the scrolls, he had to face a number of challenges in his habitual red-and-blue training costume. Facing Himalayan bowmen, he escaped their arrows by leaping high above them ; facing a savage tiger, he managed to wrestle the powerful beast into unconsciousness. The third trial was simply an open door in the lamasery's outer wall - the trial was to return to America and live there. Cannon did it with great reluctancy, though - since he considered the lamasery to be his only home, and viewed Western civilisation and its "wars and hatred" with contempt. As he was packing to leave, his childhood friend Tabu asked to come with him, which Peter agreed to.
In 1966 they arrived to the US, and Cannon bought an isolated mansion with his parents's savings, then found work as a freelance writer on "all things Himalayan" for a Newsfront Magazine. He later graduated to the position of international reporter. Not wanting to get involved in the evils of civilisation, Cannon lived as a reclusive gentleman -- but unbeknownst to him, the Hooded One (using secrets from the scrolls that Peter never studied) was conspiring against him.
The Hooded One
Soon, those plans resulted in New York City being simultaneously hit by a crime wave, dinosaurs and a storm. Whilst Cannon did not want to get involved, he could not let innocents die either, and Tabu came up with a solution by adding a mask to Cannon's old training uniform. Soon, the masked Peter Cannon found himself killing dinosaurs with sticks of dynamite, and taking out looters and criminals secretly organised by the Hooded One. The press nicknamed the dynamic hero "Thunderbolt" after a description by a policeman.
For his next attempt on Cannon's life, the Hooded One used his power of 'mental telepathy' to set in motion the return of the evil witch ruler of ancient Egypt... Princess Evila ! Returning to life, Evila soon used her hypnotic power to carve a criminal empire in America, spurring Thunderbolt into action. Soon, Thunderbolts found Evila's HQ, took out all of her henchmen, evaded all of her traps, defeated a crocodile in a savage underwater fight, then seemingly destroyed Princess Evila in an hypnotic duel of wills.
Others adventures followed - against Eric Gore the Man-Ape (see his writeups.org entry), and against the Tong and his borer machine. Eventually, Peter ran into the Hooded One again, when he returned to the Himalayas to find a cure for the deadly Sleeping Sickness Tabu had caught. Entering into the mythical cave where the Hooded One was now living, Peter found a lost world (complete with... dinosaurs ! And Pigmies !) and eventually the herbs he needed to save Tabu.
More adventures followed -- the mysterious Mummy ! The nefarious Cobra, using deadly venoms to turn men into slaves to be sold ! The magician and warlord called the Dragon, taking over the whole of the Himalayas ! Peter and Tabu then returned to the lamasery to rescue a damsel in distress. Said woman was the daughter of a pilot who had crashed his plane into the lamasery years before. It had been during that accident that the Hooded One had been disfigured, caught into the explosion of the plane as he heroically rescued wounded monks.
The pilot's daughter was looking for her father's grave, and Peter has to rescue her from the deadly perils of the lost world to which the Hooded One's cave led. Thunderbolt fought pterodactyls, lions, and tribesmen, was captured, found that the daughter was also a prisoner of the primitives who considered the Hooded One their king, fought a giant ape in the arena, then successfully escaped back to the mountains beyond the lost valley with the young woman.
Later adventures and retirement
Peter and Tabu later crossed the pond to report on a parliamentary session in the UK, and the Hooded One struck again -- trying to eliminate them using lifelike wax figures of famous criminals that he animated with his mental powers.
Peter Cannon's flight to Australia was then hijacked by the men of the Dragon Master, a crime lord of the Chinese Mafia. Thunderbolt escaped, called the authorities and thus forced the Dragon Master and his men to flee. Content with this, he left the Australian police handle the rest, but asked Tabu to investigate an odd clue about the Chinatown in New York City.
Tabu, of course, was kidnapped while investigating.Thunderbolt rescued him, and the Dragon Master was accidentally killed while trying to murder Thunderbolt.
Feeling guilty over this death, Peter Cannon then decided to retire his Thunderbolt identity for a while. That was 1967, and the end of that Peter Cannon... Thunderbolt ! run.
Description:
See illustrations.
Personality
Cannon views the Western civilisation with contempt, thinking it too brutal and greedy ; but he can not let innocents die either, and found himself compelled to act to save lives. With Tabu's help (or rather, unrelenting nagging and encouragement), he increasingly came to reflect on how his considerable power meant considerable responsibility.
While his distaste for the jungle of modern life is strong, his unique heritage and abilities mean that he is the one best- placed to struggle for such missing intangibles of modern life as tranquility, brotherhood and peace amongst men. Still, he's at best a reluctant hero, as illustrated by the quotes.
Thus adventures followed a steady pattern of Peter refusing to get involved as Tabu brought him the news, Tabu nagging and convincing Peter to act as they trained, and the dynamic Thunderbolt jumping into the fray and solving the situation as a 1960s action hero would. He'll almost certainly fight some kind of dangerous animal in doing so.
