Synergy

Publication history

Dynamo 5 is a spin-off of Noble Causes, another comic book series created by Faerber and published by Image Comics, which likewise explores the dynamics of a superhero family. Faerber created Dynamo 5 with the intent of making it more action-driven. The team is composed of five young men and women, each of whom inherited one of the five superhuman abilities of their father, the late superhero Captain Dynamo, and their mentor and leader, Dynamo's widow, Madeline "Maddie" Warner, who assembled the team following Dynamo's death.

Faerber explained that his inspiration for the series came from a conversation with editor Andy Helfer, in which he was asked what made the Teen Titans unique. When Faerber opined that the Titans were like a family, Helfer pointed out that all superhero teams could be described as such. From this, Faerber devised a team that was a biological family but did not act like it. Another influence, he said, was his parents' divorce.

Artist Asrar came at the suggestion of Invincible artist Ryan Ottley. Invincible writer Robert Kirkman, whose work on that title was influential on Faerber's writing, assisted Faerber during the development stage with advice on production and marketing. Asrar was the regular artist on the monthly series for its entire 25-issue run.

The team next appeared in the 2010 miniseries Dynamo 5: Sins of the Father, illustrated by Julio Brilha. It next starred in the one-shot Dynamo 5 Holiday Special 2010 (Dec. 2010).

The sequel miniseries featured crossover appearances by Invincible, Malcolm Dragon, and Angel Dragon, as well as the first group appearance of the Primaries, a government superhero team that included a clone of Captain Dynamo. Each issue also included a back-up story featuring Notorious, a costumed vigilante who in his civilian life poses as a member of the mob whose activities he foils in his costumed identity.

A US$1.00 reprint of the monthly series' first issue was published in May 2011 as part of Image Comics' "Image Firsts" line. A time-traveling Scrap is featured in 2023's Local Man: Gold by Tim Seeley and Tony Fleecs. Other members Slingshot and Myriad appear towards end in their first versions.

Fictional team history

The focus of the series alternates back and forth between the private lives of each of the five team members, who maintain their separate lives in their home cities across North America, including their respective supporting casts, and their adventures as costumed superheroes.

Captain Dynamo was the much-beloved protector of Tower City for forty years following his exposure to an unidentified form of radiation that granted him superhuman abilities, and husband of Maddie Warner, a former agent of a government superhuman monitoring organization known as F.L.A.G., who used the cover of an award-winning investigative journalist, now retired. Dynamo is found dead, naked in a hotel bed, murdered by poison, though the details of his death are not released to the public. He was assassinated by Widowmaker, who was hired by unknown persons. Although Warner initially does not know this, she does suspect that the condition and setting in which his body was found was not natural, but arranged by whoever murdered him in order to further tarnish his image. In sorting through his personal effects, Warner discovers detailed information on countless incidents of infidelity on his part. Although devastated by the extent of her late husband's indiscretions, Warner is faced with the problem of Dynamo's numerous enemies, who will now take advantage of Tower City in his absence. Although other superheroes attempt to pitch in to keep the peace, Warner decides that Tower City needed a permanent protector.

Scouring through the information she gleaned from her husband's belongings, she locates five young people she believes could be his illegitimate children: Vancouver, British Columbia high school geek Hector Chang, Washington DC law student and activist Olivia "Livvie" Lewis, aimless ne'er do well and ladies' man Spencer Bridges, Hollywood, California theater employee and NYU Film School graduate Bridget Flynn, and Eastbridge, Texas high school football star Gage Reinhart. Gathering them together, Warner exposes them to the same radiation that Dynamo had been exposed to forty years earlier, unlocking their own latent superhuman abilities, with each one manifesting one of the five powers that their father possessed. Donning costumes, the five of them carry on his legacy as the superhero team the Dynamo 5, while coming to terms with learning about the father they never knew, and the four new half-siblings they each now have. Although the five are unaware that Warner is a former agent of F.L.A.G., she is determined to mold them not only into a team, but into a family as well, and functions as their mentor and "unofficial sixth member", calling the shots from the same headquarters once used by Captain Dynamo, and keeping in constant remote contact with them during their missions.

Cast

Team members

Hector Chang / Visionary / Smasher

Hector Chang was the first of Captain Dynamo's children contacted by Maddie Warner. An intellectually curious 15-year-old Vancouver, British Columbia high school geek with a history with bullies and guidance counselors, Hector, who is the youngest of the Dynamo 5 siblings, inherited his father's vision powers, which include laser vision, X-ray vision, and telescopic vision. Visionary's mother, Jennifer Chang, eventually discovers his double-life as a superhero, and forbids him from continuing it, though he does so anyway. He later switches powers with Bridget, becoming the superstrong and nigh-invulnerable hero Smasher.

Olivia Lewis / Slingshot / Menagerie

Olivia "Livvie" Lewis is the daughter of a high-priced Washington DC lawyer, and a junior at Georgetown University. The second oldest of the Dynamo 5 siblings, she is a driven activist involved with half a dozen different volunteer organizations. Livvie inherited her father's ability of flight. She is respectful towards Warner, whom she always addresses as "Ma'am", or "Mrs. Warner". Scrap sees Slingshot as the team's leader, to whom they look to for example, but Slingshot vehemently rejects this idea. She later gains Spencer's powers, becoming the shapechanging heroine Menagerie. While Spencer used his power to gain different human disguises, Olivia is able to change herself into different animals, exhibiting a fondness for aviarian creatures, bestowing on her a variation of her former flying powers.

Spencer Bridges / Myriad / Wraith

Spencer Bridges is the half-human, half-extraterrestrial child of Captain Dynamo and an alien woman conceived when Dynamo visited the alien woman's planet. Because of a taboo on raising half-breeds on her planet, his mother eventually brought the infant Spencer to Earth for Dynamo to raise, but Dynamo left Spencer in the custody of F.L.A.G. research facility, where his shapeshifting powers were unlocked. He bonded with a female researcher named Bridges, who eventually smuggled him out of the facility, and left him in the care of child services. Spencer led an unhappy life in a series of foster homes, and grew into a promiscuous womanizer who has never held a job for more than two weeks, though he never seems to be without financial means. He only agreed to join the team because Maddie is paying him. Spencer inherited his father's shapeshifting ability, and functions under the name Myriad. A loner who has grown up in various foster homes, Faerber has indicated that his shapeshifting ability will tie into his lack of direction in life, saying, "He inherited Cap's shape-shifting powers, and he can now become anyone he chooses. Maybe one day he'll figure out who he wants to be." Spencer has a cynical, distrustful view of life. He assumes that the deference and respect Slingshot pays to Warner is an attempt to "suck up". Having wondered his entire life who his father was, he is especially disappointed to learn it is Captain Dynamo, who he views as "an enormous hypocrite and a horrible husband." He keeps his half-extraterrestrial nature and appearance a secret from his siblings, but when they find out a year after the team is formed, it shakes their trust in him, and contributes to the temporary dissolution of the team. He later gains Gage's powers, losing his ability to shapeshift but gaining powerful telepathic powers, and takes the name Wraith. As a side-effect however he's stuck again in a superstrong, alien body, unable to blend with humanity.

Supporting characters

Maddie Warner

Madeline "Maddie" Warner is the widow of Captain Dynamo and step mother to the Dynamo 5. She assembled his five children, and acts as their leader, mentor, and "unofficial sixth member", keeping in constant radio contact with them during missions from their headquarters. Although she must deal with the fact that they are constant reminders of her late husband's serial infidelity, she is insistent that they act not only as a team, but as a family as well. Despite her matronly role and demeanor with the team, she can be ruthless with enemies that she perceives to be threats, and will not hesitate to kill them. She is a former agent of the government superhuman-monitoring agency known as F.L.A.G., which she has not disclosed to the team, adding ominously in Dynamo 5 #1, "Kind of makes you wonder what else I never told them, doesn't it?" She maintains the cover of a retired reporter for a newspaper called The Journal.

Augie Ford

Augie Ford, who first appeared in Dynamo 5 #2, has been an agent of F.L.A.G. for 30 years, and is Warner's ex-partner. His current partner is Nicole Nakamura. Ford has long-harbored a romantic attraction to Warner, feelings which still linger. He first appears in Dynamo 5 #2, in which he pays her a visit to ask her if she is associated with this new team using her late husband's name, but she denies it. Because this visit occurs during a series of rampages by the villain Whiptail, he also tells her that F.L.A.G. is trying to reverse-engineer Whiptail's serum in order to track him by scent.

After Warner had been captured by Chrysalis and Synergy, and four members of Dynamo 5 had been captured by F.L.A.G., Augie encountered Slingshot at Warner's apartment, at which point he learned the truth of Warner's involvement with the team. Ford proposed to help Slingshot free her siblings by having her pose as a fellow F.L.A.G. agent when returning to F.L.A.G. headquarters, but when they encountered Ford's superior, Special Agent Sandy Colvin, Ford turned Slingshot in. In Dynamo 5 #7, He then knocked Colvin unconscious, and helped Slingshot free her siblings, later telling Colvin that the man who attacked him must have been a disguised Myriad. Ford has continued to aid the team when possible, as when he contacted the Noble Family after Dynamo 5 rescued Warner from a hostage situation, during which she had fallen into a comatose state. He served in Warner's place as the team's tactical eyes and ears until she came out of this state.

Adversaries

The Veil

A month after the team was formed, they confronted the Veil, a paramilitary terrorist organization that attacked Tower City with numerous soldiers, tanks, and powered armor suits. Although Dynamo 5 acquitted themselves well against the Veil, Visionary was captured by them and spirited away before the battle was over. He was brought to the Veil headquarters, and interrogated for information on the team by the Veil's leader, who calls himself The Superior. Injected with a serum to compel him to answer their questions, Visionary divulged everything about the team and how they were brought together by Warner. Before Visionary could answer the Superior's question about the nature of the radiation that gave them and their father their powers, Warner and the rest of Dynamo 5 arrived and captured The Superior and his lieutenant. Ordering Dynamo 5 back to headquarters, Warner revealed that she was a former agent of F.L.A.G. and killed both the Superior and his lieutenant with gunshots to the head. Approximately a year later, a Veil cell composed of corrupt F.L.A.G. agents is defeated by Dynamo 5.

Whiptail

Bernard Dempsey used to transform himself into a large humanoid lizard through the use of a serum he developed, and was a formidable enemy of Captain Dynamo. He was eventually diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and was relegated to the Evergreen Nursing Home for five years. In Dynamo 5 #2, the team learns that Whiptail is again going on rampages in Tower City, but concludes that this new Whiptail was someone else using the serum. Warner is paid a visit by her old partner, Augie Ford, who tells her that F.L.A.G. is attempting to reverse-engineer Dempsey's serum in order to track Whiptail's scent. During a stakeout one night, the team confronts this new Whiptail, and after knocking the creature unconscious, it reverts to its human form, that of Nicole Nakamura, Augie's current partner. The team escapes before the arrival of the authorities, including Ford, who confiscates the stash of serum found on the rogue agent. He gives the stash to a female agent named Johnson, who is really Myriad in disguise, and gives Warner one of the vials. Warner later injects the serum into herself and transforms into Whiptail in order to escape Chrysalis and Synergy, who had captured her and threatened to murder her. She later returns to human form after being rendered unconscious by Scrap.

Chrysalis

Chrysalis is a female supervillain who wears a suit of powered armor, and who was Captain Dynamo's archenemy for at least twenty years. Despite this, she was also his lover, and mothered another illegitimate child of his, a daughter named Cynthia who goes by the name Synergy. Chrysalis and Synergy enacted a plan whereby Synergy would pose as the apparently resurrected Captain Dynamo to draw out Warner, even stealing Captain Dynamo's corpse from his grave to complete the appearance that he had returned from the dead. They were defeated.

Equipment

Dynamo 5 uses a number of highly sophisticated devices. The individual members of the team wear special watches that act as communication devices, allowing Warner to alert and assemble the team in an emergency, and keep in constant contact with them during such situations. The watches also possess a function that can instantly transform the civilian clothing worn by the team members into their Dynamo 5 uniforms.

The team is headquartered at the Aquarium, a high-tech lair underneath an industrial pier that was formerly used by Captain Dynamo. The Aquarium's resources include equipment with which Warner can monitor the police radio for watch words that trigger an alert to the team of a possible emergency, and with which she can summon, monitor, and communicate with members of the team during engagements with hostile forces. The team also utilizes a teleportation device called the Jump Station, which allows them to travel instantly across the continent to meet with one another. The team can activate the Jump Station by manipulating a device on their costumes. The Jump Station can only transport persons from the station itself to another location and back, but not effect transportation directly between two other locations. The Aquarium also features a training simulator room that can present a number of threats to the team, and be programmed for a number of difficulty levels, which the team refers to as the Shark Tank, as well as an office used by Warner. One year into the team's existence, the Aquarium was flooded during the team's rescue of Warner and Jennifer Chang from a hostage situation, but was later drained and sealed by the team's ally, Doc Noble, after which it resumed function as team headquarters.