Read The Art of Neo-Man :: Villains Pt. 1

Drillmonger was the character I created with probably the least amount of thought and most amount of intuition for the story. He's scruffy, irritable, and always wants to be in charge. But over time, I thought he could be a little more complex, showing what may be interpreted as grief for the loss of most of his men on one of his more reckless missions...or could it simply be that he realized that his gang is nothing without people other than him, causing him to question his own motivations. Either way, grief, value in life, finding purpose, etc. are core themes of the story, and we're simply seeing it through the lens of a bad guy, however twisted it may be. I hadn't really considered that sentiment until writing about it here, so now I feel a little more proud of his arc.

Drillmonger's design is pretty interesting. I love the idea of drill arms and his construction stripe trenchcoat goes pretty hard. But most of all, the hard hat with a light becomes his cycloptic eye. The further down he goes in his villainous path, losing sight of his original vision, the less of his human face we see, symbolizing how monstrosity ultimately dominates his humanity.

It goes without saying that King Crab goes on a thematically similar arc to Drillmonger, albeit much more on-the-nose. Of all the animals I could have chosen as a base for a mutated villain, why crabs? Well, technically, he's a hosh-posh of all kinds of crustaceans and their fascinating real-world attributes that when combined make for a pretty intimidating freak of nature. I love crustaceans and learning about them without inserting some of their trivia into the story seemed impossible. Horshoe crabs are living fossils, remaining virtually unchanged for millions of years; they have blue blood which is being used for medical research. Many non-crab species are beginning to be more crablike, which scientists theorize is due to a crab's ideal evolutionary properties. Lobsters have been labeled "immortal" because they can't seem to stop growing and can live for a long time without any biological aging detriments we're familiar with. Pistol shrimps have this claw that closes shut so fast it fires a bullet of vapor with temperatures comparable to that of the sun to kill prey (I made this King Crab's signature move, but it's so hard to believe I have to nerf something in real life so Neo-Man wouldn't get fried!). So yeah, crustaceans are awesome. And even after I wrote his story around experimenting on crustaceans to find a cure for his wife's cancer, I learned the crab is the zodiac for cancer. What a fun coincidence, even though it's not the same kind of cancer.

Ol' Crabcakes here was an especially difficult character to design. I wanted the perfect ratio combining humanoid and crustacean elements that didn't look too goofy and not too uncanny either. He was always going to be blue, as opposed to the commonly perceived red or orange most people associate with crabs and lobsters and the like. There aren't any other heroes or villains in this universe that are dominantly blue, so that makes him stand out. Blue lobsters are pretty rare in the real world, so it tends to give off something exotic or tropical. Since Eden is loosely based on Baltimore, my fellow Marylanders can definitely see the connection to the blue crabs associated with the city. All that aside, blue is just cool.