Character Bio 3: Aleksei Dmitrievich Chekhov

Once upon a time in a small farming hamlet in the mystical land of Russia, there were a lot of unhappy peasants. They were unhappy because years of nuclear testing near their homeland had contaminated their food and water supply. As a result, many children were born with hideous mutations and few survived childhood. Sad times were had by everyone.

The Chekhov family was not immune to these sad times. Their eldest son, Aleksei, was born without eyes. Or even eye sockets. There was only a slightly depressed area in his face where eyes would be on a normal human. This, understandably, upset the Chekhovs greatly. They almost abandoned him at first. But he proved to be both healthy and endearing, and so his parents shrugged and figured that he could still probably be taught how to help around the farm with a little guidance.

Aleksei proved to hold more surprises for the family, however. By age four he could move around the hamlet without any help, claiming to be able to see. By age five he was rattling off disturbingly accurate predictions of the future. Even though he was young, he became a valued member of the community for his otherworldly gifts.

Word spread quickly of the blind boy who could see, and it wasn't too long before an underground communist party abducted Aleksei. It turned out that he wasn't nearly as alone in his abilities as everyone thought; nuclear testing throughout Russia had inexplicably caused many children to develop superpowers. And it was the goal of the underground communists to train an army of superhumans to overthrow the current government and spread communism throughout the world.

A few tests proved that young Aleksei was psychic and had potential to develop his abilities beyond premonition (and... well, whatever ability he used to see otherwise). Day after day, Aleksei faced grueling training of such abilities as telekinesis, telepathy and telephones. Although I might have made one of those up. Even when it became painfully obvious that he had no skills in any psychic abilities but special sight/premonition, they forced him to keep at it. Eventually he could move light objects with his mind, but that was about it.

At age thirteen, after spending over half his life as a prisoner of communism, he escaped. No one really knows how he escaped, and Aleksei's story changes every time. Sometimes he escaped by himself. Other times he had help from the reincarnation of Grigori Rasputin. Still other times, he and the other mutant children staged a revolt and then went their separate ways. However he escaped, the fact remains that he made his way to America, earning a little money from doing whatever work he could and picking up English along the way. Eventually he found himself in Nightmare City. The rampant superhero fever gave him a great idea: use his powers to fight evil, then take whatever evil happened to pick up and resell it on the black market. A sort of twisted Robin Hood, if you will. He decided to make his heritage his theme and became the Red Menace, mowing down evil with a hammer in one hand and a sickle in the other.

He's a good guy at heart, really. He's hardworking, intelligent, and just. It's just that circumstance left him unable to do anything else in the world, basically. He dreams of one day earning enough money to get out of the black market and of obtaining citizenship (although the latter is very unlikely at this point). He makes misguided decisions, though, and thus maintains the status quo.

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Next up... well I'd like to finish the vigilantes first, so maybe CHOD. Or Doctor O.