Maddie Warner

Superherobox


caption = Maddie Warner calling the shots in Dynamo 5's headquarters. From "Dynamo 5" #1; Art by Mahmud A. Asrar.
character_name = Maddie Warner
publisher = Image Comics
debut = Dynamo 5 #1 March 2007
creators = Jay Faerber
Mahmud A. Asrar
alter_ego = None
full_name =
species = Human
homeworld =
alliances = Dynamo 5
aliases =
supports=
powers = Expert in government espionage; investigative skills, journalism, etc.

Madeline “Maddie” Warner is a fictional comic book character, the mentor and leader of the superhero team Dynamo 5, who appears in the monthly series of the same name by Image Comics. Created by writer Jay Faerber, Warner first appeared in "Dynamo 5" #1 (January 2007).

Character history

Warner is the widow of Captain Dynamo, the much-beloved protector of Tower City for forty years, and a former agent of a government superhero monitoring organization known as F.L.A.G., who used the cover of an award-winning investigative journalist, now retired. Dynamo was eventually found dead, naked in a hotel bed, the cause of death attributed to some type of poison on his lips, though the details of his death were not released to the public. He had been assassinated by Widowmaker, who had been hired by Hunter Blackthorne. Although Warner did not know this, she did suspect that condition and setting in which his body was found was not natural, but arranged by whoever murdered him in order to further tarnish his image. In sorting through his personal effects, Warner discovered his little black book, which was filled with detailed information on countless incidents of infidelity on his part. Although devastated by the extent of her late husband’s indiscretions, Warner was faced with the problem of Dynamo’s numerous enemies, who would now take advantage of Tower City in his absence. Although other superheroes attempted to pitch in to keep the peace, Warner decided that Tower City needed a permanent protector.

Scouring through the information she gleaned from her husband’s belongings, she located five young people she believed could be his illegitimate children: Vancouver, British Columbia high school geek Hector Chang, Washington DC lawyer and activist Olivia “Livvie” Lewis, aimless ne'er do well and ladies’ man Spencer Bridges, Hollywood, California theater employee and NYU Film School graduate Bridget Flynn, and Eastbridge, Texas high school football star Gage Reinhart. Gathering them together, Warner exposed the five to the same radiation that Dynamo had been exposed to forty years earlier, unlocking their own latent superhuman abilities, with each one manifesting one of the five powers that their father possessed. Donning costumes and codenames, the five of them carry on his legacy as the superhero team the Dynamo 5, while coming to terms with learning about the father they never knew, and the four new half-siblings they each now have.

Personality

Warner is determined to mold them not only into a team, but into a family as well, and functions as their mentor and “unofficial sixth member”,Faerber, Jay; "Dynamo 5" #1; January 2007] calling the shots from the same headquarters once used by Captain Dynamo, and keeping in constant remote contact with them during their missions. Although she must deal with the fact that they are constant reminders of her late husband’s infidelity, she is insistent that they act not only as a team, but as a family as well. Visionary has described her as "a hard one to warm up", "no nonsense, all business", and "more of a drill instructor than a den mother."

Warner has also been depicted as a long-term tactician willing to resort to creative solutions to problems, including those that might be considered ethically questionable. Two weeks after Warner began training Dynamo 5 to act as a team, the team began to chafe under her strict demands, and insisted that they were ready for their first mission. In response she sent them to Tower City, where they were soundly beaten by a quintet of villains who, unbeknownst to Dynamo 5, were really Warner's allies, the Noble Family, in disguise, whom Warner enlisted to prove her point to the team that they were not yet ready.Faerber, Jay; "Dynamo 5 Annual" #1; April 2008]

Warner's use of radical, even dangerous ideas, extends to life-threatening situations. Following the defeat of the reptilian monster known as Whiptail, she absconded with several vials of the serum that transforms humans into the creature."Dynamo 5" #2; Second Printing; May 2007] She saved these vials for a "rainy day", and later injected herself with a vial of the serum when she was about to murdered by the villainesses Chrysalis and Synergy, even though being transformed into Whiptail renders a person completely feral, and lacking in their human intelligence or judgment. [At the end of "Dynamo 5" #6; August 2007] Although Dynamo 5 had been captured by F.L.A.G. at this point, and Warner had no way to plan the scenario beyond using the serum to escape her would-be murderers, their battle took them from Chrysalis' mountain hideout to Tower City, where the escaped Dynamo 5 eventually intervened. After Warner was rendered unconscious by Scrap, she reverted back to her human form. ["Dynamo 5" #7; September 2007]

Despite her matronly role and demeanor with the team, Warner can be ruthless with enemies that she perceives to be threats, and will not hesitate to kill them, as she did with The Superior, the leader of an organization called The Veil, that had kidnapped Visionary, even though Visionary had been returned, and the Superior had been captured. Remarking on the fact that the team is unaware that she is a former agent of F.LA.G., she commented ominously in "Dynamo 5" #1, “Kind of makes you wonder what else I never told them, doesn’t it?” Warner's uncompromising willingness to achieve her goals have also brought her into conflict with members of the team and their loved ones. Gage's difficulty in finding time for both his high school career and his superheroics, has led to sleeplessness, and tension between him and Warner. Jennifer Chang, the mother of Hector Chang (aka Visionary), after discovering his son's life as a superhero, was angered at learning that Warner exposed her son to a heavy dose of radiation to unlock his powers, and after having Hector introduce them, she threatened to report Warner to the authorities for what she regarded as child endangerment and possibly kidnapping. Warner insisted that because his children shared Captain Dynamo's DNA, the radiation posed no risk to them, and speculated that Jennifer's ire was motivated more from feeling abandoned by the man who seduced her, but Jennifer was not amused by this statement. ["Dynamo 5" #10'; January 2008]

References

External links

* [http://www.dynamo5.com Dynamo 5 Home page]