Geo-Force

32 years ago - Brion Markov is born the prince of Markovia, a small European country.

25 years ago - 7-year-old Brion's half-sister Tara is born.

20 years ago - 12-year-old Brion is placed under the care of Dr Helga Jace to develop his inherent metegene. He meets his half-sister Tara Markov, supposedly also under the care of Jace.

15 years ago - 17-year-old Brion's sister Tara Markov is sent away to live with her mother in America. He's told that she ran away.

11 years ago - 21-year-old Brion's father, the king of Markovia, dies. His brother Gregor takes his place as the ruler of Markovia.

8 years ago - 24-year-old Brion thwarts an overthrow attempt led by Kobra with the help of the Outsiders, and joins them as Geo-Force.

7 years ago - 25-year-old Brion becomes the new leader of the Outsiders when Batman leaves to lead the Justice League.

6 years ago - 26-year-old Brion & the Outsiders discover that Helga Jace has been harvesting metahuman DNA for her experiments. While trying to stop her, she triggers her hypontic control of Brion through his artifically enhanced Metagene. He fights the other Outsiders to a standstill before Violet is able to fully disable his powers, freeing him from Jace's control. The Outsiders are dispanded. Brion, now depowered, assumes the throne at the request of his brother. Violet remains in Markovia as his ally

Brion Markov was one of the three original characters created for Mike Barr's Outsiders. Built as he is specifically for a role within a team rather than as a standalone character, Geo-Forge isn't really intended for his own story to be able to carry the narrative weight of an entire series, but despite that he has some pretty interesting ideas in him all the same. We're obviously going to use him as part of our Outsiders, but hopefully we can let that small but interesting individual story have room also.

Geo-Force's Comic History

Geo-Force was one of the original characters invented to join the Outsiders, a new team for Batman to lead. They debuted in DC Sampler #1 in 1983, but of course their actual story begain in Batman and the Outsiders #1. The story of this first comic was set in the vaguely European country of Markovia, and in the first issue we meet the two princes of Markovia right as their father dies; Gregor and Brion Markov. The last name should be familiar, since their little sister Tara Markov had become the latest additon to the Teen Titans the year before (we were a still a year away from her betrayal in the Judas Contract)

Brion underwent the same procedure as Tara under the hands of the Markovian scientist Helga Jace to manifest their powers as members of the royal family. Brion was Tara's powers written in a more traditional superhero form; he wasn't maniulating giant hunks of rock or flying by surfing on boulders; instead he could manipulate gravity and shoot "lava blasts". He was shot and burried in a shallow grave in the first issue, but he was healed by his connection to the earth and was able to confront the villain trying to usurp his brothers throne, and join the Outsiders as they save the day.

Brion was a mainstay of the Outsiders. When Batman left the team, he became the new leader (he was the tall good looking white guy after all). With each new version of the original lineup of the outsiders (with the exception of the 2003 Jud WInick redesign) you could pretty much count on Geo-Force being front and center.

While this makes up the bulk of his appearances, He does have one very noteworthy appearance in the 2006 post-Infinite Crisis Justice League of America series by Brad Meltzer. He wasn't marketed as part of the team or considered part of their lineup, but he was inexplicably present for most of the starting story arcs.

Perhaps Geo-Force's most prominent role was as part of the Outsiders team as depicted in the third season of the animated Young Justice series. This version of the character was fairly faithful to his comic counterpart, with his role as ruler of his country playing a major part of the plot of the season.

Our Geo-Force Story

We made one pretty big change early in the whole relationship between Brion, his sister Tara. Rather than say that both he and Tara were granted their Geomorph powers from the same secretly evil scientist, Helga Jace, we're instead saying that Tara has actually manifested that metagene on her own, and Jace mapped it and used it to artificially enhance Brion's dormant Metagene.

Another change we'd like to make isn't really a specific alteration of the narrative, just and idea that we'd like to keep in mind; generally, in the comic, Brion isn't really depicted as the most competent leader, even when he takes over the Outsiders from Batman. He's extremely powerful... in fact in the case of some writers, you might say way TOO powerful... but that really should be the least relevant part of him. He should be someone that is raised to be a good leader even as the younger of the two princes... someone who is adept at making difficult, selfless choices, and at delegating tactical choices to those who know better, like Black Lighting or Katana. We want to wrap up the story of the original Outsiders by having Geo-Force be depowered and taking over as king of Markovia, and that really only works if he's already proved himself as the sort of man who can put his people before himself.

Geo-Force's Costume

Geo-Force is a really good example of the the importance of a character's design. There's nothing inherent to Brion's story or powerset that should have relegated him to essentially being a lower-tier character in the larger DC pantheon of superheroes. He has a cool base set of superpowers that could have been refined over time, but there's just never been that much interesting in him, and I think that's largely because his two main costumes; one using Tara's brown and orange color sceme, the other yellow and green with the kind of goofy 'GF' on the front, have just never done him any favors.

It should be pretty obvious what they were originally going for with this costume; remember that he debuted in 1983, right smack in the middle of the Chris Claremont run on the X-Men. He's clearly a take on Cyclops; the good-guy, high-school-quarterback, leader-of-the-team archetype that has gone on to be featured in a lot of teams in a lot of places, and that actually gives us a pretty solid basis for comparison for what a cool redesign for Geo-Force might look like. Consider the WildC.A.T.S.... Jim Lee's debut Image series that is only different enought from the X-Men as to be legally distinct... and the character Spartan. This is essentially the same exact mission statement; mimic the characterization and style of Cyclops, just done by one of the best character designers in comics. Just making the character more fun to look at like this could make him a much more prominent figure in the DC mythology.

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