https://moordereht.com/
n the first run, I never really explained how the characters got their powers; we just hand-waved it as a formula or algorithm.
I knew that was not Wretched enough. I wanted to offer a plausible explanation for how superpowers worked and tie that explanation into the running thread that links all the other Wretched books together.
The Beyond.
What is the Beyond? It's not hell or outer space; it's not heaven! So, what is it, another dimension, another universe? Is it the land of a fairy or that unfathomable primordial darkness that exists beyond the far edges of the universe?
Who knows? It is the intangible bogyman whose presence looms over and affects all of our products. I leave it to each of you to find your own explanation for the Beyond.
The fine art of superhero baking.
I knew I wanted to link the superpowers and the beyond together for this. I was inspired by the story of Science City 0 from Planetary (comics) - Wikipedia by Warren Ellis - Wikipedia.
Planetary is a beautiful subversive read that explores and disassembles much of the superhero mythology. In Planetary Issue # 8, Ellis introduces Science City, Science City Zero (Location).
" The 1950s were a difficult time for the United States. Post-war internationalism, coupled with a fear of Communism's spread, forced the American Government to go to extreme measures to protect itself. One of these measures was Science City Zero.
Science City Zero was a top-secret research installation in the American Southwest. Human subjects were brought in—usually political dissidents, reactionaries, vagrants, drinkers, and, well, anyone who was disapproved of—and used to test the limits of biotechnology and the human body.
Subjects were rendered invisible, grown to giant sizes, had their brains replaced with energy fields, and resurrected from the dead, for starters. Atomic dogs and giant ants patrolled the grounds, and getting out was impossible.”
Inspired by Area 51 and the mythology of the Edgewood and MKUltra programs, this idea felt like a perfect fit for Wretched Vigilantes, the reboot.
I wanted the new origins to be visual, to describe how the scientists tortured the volunteers to death over and over again in the hopes it would trigger the Beyond into giving them some superpowers.
"They killed us, over and over again, just because they could."
That line stuck with me because we know the Government has conducted experiments on people here in America; they happened at Edgewood Arsenal (Edgewood Arsenal human experiments - Wikipedia) they happened at the Tuskegee Syphilis Study - Wikipedia, they happened at MKUltra - Wikipedia and Stargate Project - Wikipedia. Who's to say that somewhere in some black site, some vanished person is not being experimented on today to see how far we can push technology and the human body?
Now add these chilling ideas to what we know about Wretched. Cybertechnology and Bioengineering exist, and the science is more advanced than IRL. Psychic powers and magic also exist in the Wretched universe, and the Warden Group already has an established history with the beyond, as discussed in several other Wretched verse products((moordereht. com))
Trying to create superhumans does not seem that far of a stretch now.
So, Imagine your young Susan Rivers strapped to a table in a cold room as masked men perform one plastic surgery on you after another. They give you a dozen nose jobs, they put in and take out silicon from your breast over and over, they lift your chin and forehead, inject Botox and steroids into every part of your body, peel your skin off, and replace it.
Over and over again, day after day, they do this to you. If your heart stops from the pain, it brings you back, and all the while, you are being force-fed LSD and steroids, isolated from sight and sound. Then they crack open your skull, strip your amygdala, and then replace it. All this while you are awake and aware and after months of this. And you're awake, trapped in your own body, feeling this pain.
During this, something happens: somewhere deep in the psychic anguish they are forcing on you, some dark, primordial power from beyond all sanity and reason seeps into our world, into your body, brain, and soul, and changes you. It takes you apart and puts you back together a hundred times in 10 seconds.
And you scream!
And then, after months of this, it stops.
Then, they use drugs and hypnosis to erase your memory. And you're alive and beautiful, and you have powers to read people's minds and charm them into doing your bidding.
You are a superhero, a goddess, and they love you! Till they stop loving you, stop having a use for you.
And then, you remember everything. Every moment, every second of unfathomable pain.

That's what they did to make the superhumans, over and over again.
That feels pretty Wretched to me.

"Wrteched Vigilantes"