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Monday, September 26, 2011

Super-Fashion: The Birds of Paradise, part 1

The Birds of Paradise are a super-team, much like the Justice League or the Global Guardians. Their unifying theme is that they all come from Caribbean nations, and all have some sort of bird motif going on.

This team is too large to be covered in a single post, so I'm splitting it.

Dr. Hummingbird
Jamaica 

Shakira Martin was just a mild-mannered pre-med student when, while hiking through the Jamaican cloud forest, she was horribly injured when she walked off of a cliff.

As she lay dying, a Red-billed Streamertail, aka the Doctor Bird, came to her aid. Unable to heal her wounds, this bird -- whom the locals believe is a reincarnation of dead souls -- absorbed Shakira's soul and merged it with its own. In that moment, Dr. Hummingbird was born, a mystical fusion of bird and woman.

In addition to super-fast flight, Dr. Hummingbird can diagnose illness with just a glance; heal most wounds and diseases with but a touch; and see, speak to, and command spirits of the dead.


    Scarlet Ibis
    Trinidad & Tobago



    Gabrielle Walcott appears to be an ordinary woman, but she is not. Born under a blood-red moon to parents of  Egyptian ancestry, she is actually a vessel for Thoth, the ancient god of wisdom and the moon.

    She is a sorceress, though most of her spells revolve around divination and revelation, as well as a telepath of the highest order. She can shapeshift into a scarlet ibis, or assume a half-woman/half-bird form (seen above.) In either form, she can fly and swim at amazing speeds. She can also assume the form of a super-strong baboon (of scarlet hue), though she is reluctant to reveal this ability, as it is her "ace in the hole".

    The Scarlet Ibis is a sworn enemy of Set, and many supervillains with snake or voodoo powers are unwittingly in service to him.


    Two-Can
    Curacao



    Eva Van Putten is a genius-level scientist, engineer, and inventor, as well an amateur ornithologist who longed to fly with the birds she so admired. Researching the properties of minerals, she was able to synthesize a form of sapphire which produced an effect related to piezoelectricity: when put under pressure, the crystalline structure generates thrust according to the Biefeld–Brown effect. Modeling herself after the Blue Toucan, she uses her technological expertise, as well as ionicly-powered flight/super-strength/force fields/energy blasts to soar with the birds and fight crime.

    What is most interesting about Two-Can is her ability to appear in two places at once. Most people believe this is achieved with some form of teleportation, but some theorize that she has developed the ability to create an energy duplicate of herself, or perhaps bi-locate using a heretofore unknown loophole of physics.

    What these people do not realize is that she has a twin sister, Anna, who is using the spare Two-Can suit that Eva created. They take great pains to hide the fact that there are two sisters in two suits. (In fact, the press thinks her name is Toucan, not Two-Can.)

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