A selection of Marvel super-villains reimagined as turn-of-the-century Occult Villains.
Ermintrude Frost, commonly known as "The Lady in Alabaster" in the newspapers, is the infamous proprietress of the Boston Gentlemen's Club (commonly known as Boston's Hell-Fire Club). As the owner of the private burlesque-house and brothel, with a clientele of some the most influential men in America, Miss Frost enjoys a lavish lifestyle-- one that she defends at all costs. The Lady in Alabaster is a brilliant manipulator, and there are tales told that she may augment her "natural" skills with some decidedly "un-natural" skills. Her personal library is rumored to contain some of the rarest grimoires and mystical folios in existence.
Erich Eisenhardt, (born Lev Magnus) is among the foremost members of the radical labor movement in America and abroad. His "International Brotherhood of Workers" seeks to tear down capitalist tyrannies and replace them with a workers' paradise founded on the principles and knowledge of the growing para-natural revolution. Born in Tsarist Russia, terrible pogroms against the country's Jews forced his family to flee to Germany and from there to America. Young Erich was an intellectual prodigy and quickly immersed himself in the political thought of the period, gravitating towards social anarchist utopianism and becoming a labor organizer for a Virginian coal mine. When Pinkerton agents intentionally collapsed a tunnel on Erich and his compatriots, his outlook became harshly radicalized. They found their way out through what appeared to be an ancient network of man-made caves which housed a vast disassembled mechanism. It was there he found the Lodestone, an immensely powerful electromagnet that can somehow be controlled by the human mind. Needless to say, the Pinkertons suffered a crushing defeat, and Erich Eisenhardt became a symbol of armed resistance against authority.
The Silvern Herald claims to be one of the original Atlanteans, come to warn of the impending encroachment of a weird infra-dimensional being known as "Ghal'ak'thus" to his people, a phrase roughly translating to "The One Who Hungers". With the all the strange things occurring in these strange times, many governments have sent their supernatural experts to convene on the imminent threat.
When Victor Van Allen perished in the conflagration at his Estate in the summer of 1895, no one was surprised when the body was never found. The fire had burned very hot and the house had been quite large-- easy for some bones to go unnoticed in the charred rubble. Certain curiosities may have been piqued when a few months later a badly burned man in a mask and wig appeared on the political stage as the flamboyant and enigmatic "Baron Doom". Reid Richard and his Phantasmal Four may have thought they had escaped the Baron of Doom by the courage and sacrifice of their unfortunate fifth seance member, but they were wrong on both counts! The Baron has traveled to our side of the Veil by inhabiting the mind of poor Victor Van Allen, and he intends to have his horrible revenge.
The Green Goblins Gang are one of several smaller fraternal organizations based in the American South (alongside the more national FOH) that grew out of the now defunct and outlawed Ku Klux Klan. Their stated purpose is to maintain white southern political power and protect their cities and towns from carpetbaggers, Negroes, Jews, Catholics, and the Para-natural Menace. They frequently clash with nefarious Negro-rights agitator and vigilante, the Spider.
Superheroes are great starting point for this sort of thing. Characters tend to be big personalities, based on cultural archetypes. It's fun re-imagining them in a different context, with different archetypes. I'd been reading some Mignola comics, with their Victorian flair, and it inspired me to try something in that vein. I thought that steampunk had pretty much pumped that well dry (as far as scifi Victoriana was concerned), so I decided to use the slightly later time period of the early 1900s as my setting, with magical/occult themes instead of science fiction. It's also inspired by Neil Gaiman's marvelous 1602 work, which also recontextualizes familiar characters in a historical setting.
Mignola isn't he from Dark Horse? also i really do like how you incorporated the occult/pulp/weird fiction feel to them. i really like the take on magneto. and i also agree Gaiman's 1602 is one of the best most refreshing takes on the franchise. i also like how you went jazz age with DC considering the Noir feel with some of their comic series major kudos dude
You're good at this. I like your redesigns, they're all both really creative and faithful to some of basic elements of each character. Also, oh mah god... GALACTUS IS AN ELDRITCH ABOMINATION! Well, he was already. BUT NOW HE'S CTHULU!
Well, I made some rules for myself, decided on a set time period and theme (1900-1915ish, occult/gothic). I like to try to find the essential aspects of the original source material, then try to line those up with corresponding elements from the chosen time and theme. For example, Magneto is essentially a radicalized mutant-rights leader, so that fits well with the real-life political turmoil at the turn of the century. It helps to read a lot about the original source and also the time period/theme. I mostly used wikipedia for swift and easy research, trying to be sure to cross-check things I wasn't sure about. It's a lot of fun once you get started, and I found that things built upon one another, just like the Marvel Universe that inspired it.