CHARCOAL (Charlie Burlingame)
Created By: Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicieza & a Wizard Magazine Reader
First Appearance: Thunderbolts #19 (1998)
Role: Team Strongman, Victim of Copywrite (aka "Rom Syndrome")
Group Affiliations: The Thunderbolts
PL 9 (109)
STRENGTH 1/7/9/11
STAMINA 1/6
AGILITY 1
FIGHTING 7
DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 0
AWARENESS 0
PRESENCE 0
Skills:
Deception 4 (+4)
Intimidation 4 (+4, +6 Size)
Perception 2 (+2)
Ranged Combat (Fire) 4 (+8)
Advantages:
Improved Grapple, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 4, Startle
Powers:
"Take Any Carbon Form"
"Incendiary Form" (57) -- [59]
- AE: "Charcoal Form" (50)
- AE: "Diamond Form" (42)
Alternate Forms- Move Action [-1]
"Charcoal Form"
Growth 4 (Str & Sta +4, +4 Mass, +2 Intimidation, -2 Dodge/Parry, -4 Stealth) -- (12 feet) (Feats: Innate) (Extras: Permanent +0) (9)
Enhanced Strength 4 (8)
Enhanced Stamina 2 (4)
Protection 5 (5)
Fire Blast 9 (18)
Regeneration 5 (Feats: Regrow Limbs) (6)
-- (50 points)
"Diamond Form"
Growth 4 (Str & Sta +4, +4 Mass, +2 Intimidation, -2 Dodge/Parry, -4 Stealth) -- (12 feet) (Feats: Innate) (Extras: Permanent +0) (9)
Enhanced Strength 6 (12)
Enhanced Stamina 2 (4)
Protection 6 (Extras: Impervious 9) (15)
Enhanced Advantages: Withstand Damage (1)
Regeneration 4 (Feats: Regrow Limbs) (5)
Reduced Defenses 2 (-4)
-- (42 points)
"Incendiary Form"
Growth 4 (Str & Sta +4, +4 Mass, +2 Intimidation, -2 Dodge/Parry, -4 Stealth) -- (12 feet) (Feats: Innate) (Extras: Permanent +0) (9)
Enhanced Strength 2 (4)
Enhanced Stamina 2 (4)
Protection 5 (5)
Flame Aura 6 (24) -- (25)
Flight 5 (60 mph) (10)
-- (57 points)
Senses 4 (Detect Pieces of Himself, Ranged 2, Acute) [4]
Offense:
Unarmed +7 (+1 Damage, DC 16)
Incendiary Form +7 (+7 Damage, DC 22)
Charcoal Form +7 (+9 Damage, DC 24)
Diamond Form +7 (+11 Damage, DC 26)
Fire Aura +7 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Charcoal Fire +8 (+9 Ranged Damage, DC 24)
Incendiary Fire +8 (+10 Ranged Damage, DC 25)
Initiative +1
Defenses:
Dodge +7 (DC 17), Parry +7 (DC 17), Toughness +1 (+11-12 Alternate Forms, +5 Impervious Diamond), Fortitude +3 (+8 Alternate Forms), Will +5
Complications:
Involuntary Transformation (Sludge)- If struck by great quantities of water while in Charcoal Form, Charcoal will turn into sludge.
Total: Abilities: 20 / Skills: 14--7 / Advantages: 7 / Powers: 62 / Defenses: 13 (109)
-Charcoal is pretty neat, very original, and has a distinct history about him. He was created for a
Wizard Magazine (remember when they were relevant? Or even existed?) "Create a Villain" contest, in which the winner would get his character into a comic, and he was snapped up by
Thunderbolts. He was a villain at first, but soon joined the team as a newbie trying to reform, where he became close friends with Jolt and argued with some of the others, such as Hawkeye, about what they should be doing. However, he was quickly killed by Graviton. The idea was to bring him back, but as writer Fabian Nicieza has stated, the legalities over his ownership came into question thanks to some iffy legal-writing by
Wizard (Seriously? They didn't think copywrite issues would turn up?), and a failure to give the creator all he'd asked for. The creatoro, feeling undercompensated, decided to try and legally-claim Charcoal for himself, so Marvel kind of nudged Fabe to "just forget about him", and so the character vanished. Too bad, really- he seems part Brick/part Blaster, and was quite unique for that. And thus a combination of
Wizard's incompetence and human spite, a potentially-interesting character has never turned up again.
-This is as much as I could glean from the bios regarding the guy- they barely even mention super-strength, but I recall him being super-big, so it's implied. He can take three different "Forms" of carbon- burning ash/charcoal, diamond and flaming incendiary, gaining three semi-distinct power-sets around it. To meet his caps, his Diamond Form is a bit less mobile, he can throw out some pretty big Blasts in various forms, Fly in one, etc. He's a pretty cheap PL 9, but he's still a newbie- there's a lot of places he could have gone and "grown" in to.