Golden Beetle

Context

This character is an original creation. We often call these “homemades” or “homebrewed” – think home cooking or craft beer.

Many of these characters were created to take part in tabletop role-playing game sessions. Others were invented as a creative writing exercise, often as part of a community event.

This specific character is part of “Wink World”, a campaign setting created by writeups.org contributor Mike. He’s a version of Booster Gold.

Background

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Powers and Abilities

The Golden Beetle is an experienced warrior. He also wields an amazing array of devices of a both technical and magical nature.

His Beetle Scarab “won’t let him die” (see history). It also provides him with a charged particle field he can use to fly, for protection, and to attack.

His Battle Suit is made from a radically different technology, and of materials that shouldn’t even be able to be made. Its onboard computer is different than any other computer ever seen by the league. The suit is more of a utility than a combat function but does allow him a great deal of physical protection.

He is also prone to use devices of both familiar and exotic design as needs must.

History

Much of the Golden Beetle’s history is lost, both in a literal and personal sense, to him. He was in the process of traveling through time at the end of a long quest to save “Ted”. But a crisis of some variety occurred, destroying several time streams and altering others.

Michael remembers only fragments about the time he came from as well as why he was traveling backwards to save Ted. Ted, by extrapolation, was another meta-human who had befriended Michael at a time of need in his own past and was going to be killed unless GB could travel back to stop it. Ted is associated with Michael’s Blue Beetle Scarab in some way.

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Another Earth

The Golden Beetle arrived on this Earth, during the last days of the Hatani War. He was piloting some kind of time ship that was severely damaged by the crisis causing his arrival.

The time ship, when later examined By Superman and the FBI seemed to operate on some esoteric principals that didn’t function on this Earth. It stopped here because it had to. Once it crossed into this space it no longer worked.

Michael’s mind was greatly damaged by his arrival and the time-tossed effects of the universe resettling. He spent months reconstructing not only his devices but his sanity. GB learned that the Beetle scarab he carried had purposes for him and healed his injuries, at least once fatal ones.

During his recovery he discovered that the scarab had some kind of consciousness and an agenda for him. It also withheld its powers once when he acted cross to its own mysterious purposes.

He made several abortive attempts to contact Justice Leaguers before realizing that they were shadow versions of the people that he knew. They were similar but not the same.

Impulses

The state of his overlapping memories made this a decision that was months in the coming. Eventually he contacted Impulse after using the powers of his Battle Suit to deduce his secret identity.

GB and Impulse fought a dozen skirmish battles against the Hatani scouts and penetration troops in the aftermath of the Hatani war. It was in the moments directly preceding the Thanagarian Invasion that Golden Beetle was introduced to Wonder Woman. It was with his help that she entered the first fray against the Thanagar.

In the time since the Thanagar invasion Michael has been obsessively learning Thanagarian, Green-Energy-Defender, Hatani, and native Earth technology and assimilating it to his own knowledge. His psychological instabilities have kept the other leaguers from trusting him completely, but his powers and technical understanding have proved an asset to them since his joining.

Description

Golden Beetle is a tall blond man with actor’s good looks and a surfer’s muscle, until you look at his eyes. Michael is haunted. He wears a Blue and gold Battle Suit with a big star on his chest and a helmet like Ted wore. But he has no idea what that means.

Personality

GB is a study in contradictions. He is a fun guy who loves a silly joke until he remembers what he has lost. He talks about making big bucks until some corner of a memory reminds him how money hurt him. The Beetle is bothered by not making it back to save Ted more so than the destruction of the rest of his world.

He associates with Impulse when he can, and Darkest Knight when he must. He manages to have several good hours when he and Impulse are seeing the bright side of life. The Knight is a constant reminder of how much he has lost.

Michael is nearly obsessive about understanding the technologies of his new world. If he wants to construct a new time machine or just looking for a way to understand something about his life is not yet known.

The Beetle talks to himself, freezes up, and has the annoying habit of comparing his JL brethren to the fragments from his memories ( “My Superman would handled this by himself”, or “My Bruce didn’t need to use energy toys, bare handed he was the most dangerous man alive”)

DC Universe History

If the Golden Beetle could find someone from the main stream DCU that could help him with his memory holes he would do anything. Meeting himself he would avoid for both causality loops and to not have a similar experience to meeting the WW Justice League. Meeting Ted Cord would change everything about his life. Meeting Dan Garret would fascinate him and frustrate him.

It could be fun to have his memories come clear about infinite crisis as soon as he enters the DCU or meets someone from there. Golden Beetle would abandon his league in a heartbeat to set time right or to complete his original mission.

By Mike Winkler.

Source of Character: An alternate take on the JLA.