2: Peyne - 2000AD prog 559

Paraphrased from “Seizing the Fire”, by Dr Michael Peyne (Unpublished): Following the end of the Second World War a memorial service was held for Maximan. Peyne was sickened by the hypocrisy: “I hated mankind. I hated our pettiness, our greed, our ignorant cruelty. I dreamed of a purer world. And I vowed then and there to build that world.” He continued Government funded research into the Maximan Serum - injecting it into ten embryonic children. One was a stillborn sexless abomination: one was “an appalling skinless creature with a dozen mouths that whimpered and bit the midwives”: one, Chimera, “rose up in a storm of shapes, speaking in tongues” - this beast was locked up in an electro-magnetic field trap. The other seven were normal healthy babies.
Upon puberty the children discovered they had superhuman powers. The Government attempts to use them as a military group “Task Force UK” failed, as they rebelled and formed the hippy gang “Cloud Nine”. By the end of the Sixties however, things had fallen apart for the young superhumans: Zenith’s parents White Heat and Dr Beat vanished in ’68: Spook fell into a mirror in ’69: Lux disintegrated and Voltage, Mandala and Red Dragon lost their powers following a near-fatal illness. Peyne had to began again. He created two more superhumans: Shockwave and Blaze.