Ten years ago, Emmett Tolan was delivered a chilling portent by a mysterious man called Augur: a young girl named Laurel Warren, Augur said, was destined to grow up to become a superhero who would save the world from an extinction-level event. But for that to happen, Emmett had to kill her parents. Emmett took Augur’s words as gospel, and did the dirty deed. And even though he did what he believed to be the wrong thing for the right reasons, this one horrific act set Emmett down a path of darkness. The death of Laurel’s parents made Emmett realize just how great an impact the taking of a life could have. And if killing an innocent couple could be such a boon to the world, imagine what strides could be made if Emmett turned his gun on people who truly deserved it. So it was that Emmett donned a red mask and devoted his life to saving the world by doing what no one else would, eliminating the corrupt CEOs and politicians whose greed holds the world in a stranglehold.

Laurel Warren is better known to the world as The Orphan, the blue-haired hero who patrols the streets of L.A. by night in search of wrongs to right. Ten years ago, Laurel witnessed her parents’ grisly murder in an L.A. alleyway, and from that day forward she decided to devote her life to helping the helpless. What Laurel doesn’t know is that her boyfriend and the man who murdered her parents are one and the same. Nor does she know that Emmett has an alter ego of his own, the masked super villain called Fury of Solace.

President and CEO of pharmaceutical giant Mason International, Max Mason is something of an enigma. His company’s many and varied charitable donations and philanthropic initiatives are offset by unproven but long-standing accusations of corruption, bribery and flagrant violations of domestic and international law. It is on account of the latter that Fury of Solace has begun waging a campaign of terror against Max Mason and his empire.

The man who answers to the online handle “Uroboros” is a renowned hacker, and the proprietor of a conspiracy blog called “The Flashlight.” Not a superhero or a supervillain in the strictest sense, Uroboros wears his crude mask purely for the sake of anonymity. After stumbling upon a conspiracy involving Mason International, Uroboros devotes “The Flashlight’s” full resources to uncovering the truth and bringing Max Mason to justice. But unlike Fury of Solace, violence is nowhere to be found in his bag of tricks.

DAMIAN DURAND

Damian Durand is Mason International’s head of security. His career was nearly derailed by a superhuman security breach, and since then there’s been no love lost between him and the superhero community.

Starla Carter is the right-wing host of the popular, L.A.-based superhero news program “Crisis.” Her agenda is clear: she doesn’t think superhumans should be persecuted because they are different from other people, she just feels that those among them who would prowl the city as vigilantes should be held accountable to the same laws as ordinary people. As far as Starla is concerned, if superheroes can’t work from within the system, there is no place for them in contemporary society.

Harlan Stone is one of four police commissioners in the greater Los Angeles area. His claim to fame is his recent progressive proposal to incorporate superhumans into the LAPD. This has yet to be approved by the L.A. city council.

Temperance Jones is a noted psychologist, and author of the ground-breaking book “The Superhero Complex,” which delves into the history, psychology and philosophy of the superhero phenomena. She has also been known to provide one-on-one counseling for L.A.-based superheroes.

Very little is known about the man called Augur but that he claims to be able to see the future. His prediction accuracy is such that he is embraced as a legitimate oracle by both the superhero and super villain community alike. He is very selective about what future information he doles out, and his motives are his own.