Dynamo 5 is a comic book superhero team appearing in their self-titled monthly series by Image Comics. Created by writer Jay Faerber and artist Mahmud A. Asrar, the team first appeared in Dynamo 5 #1 (January 2007; published March 2007). Dynamo 5 is a spin-off of Noble Causes, a previous comic book series created by Faerber, which also explores the dynamics of a superhero family. Unlike Noble Causes, Faerber has stated that Dynamo 5 will be more action-driven. [1] The team is composed of five young men and women, each of whom inherited one of the five superhuman abilities of their father, the late superhero Captain Dynamo, and their mentor and leader, Dynamo’s widow, Madeline “Maddie” Warner, who assembled the team following Dynamo’s death.
History
Dynamo 5 in action against The Veil. From Dyanmo #1 (January 2007). Art by Mahmud A. Asrar.
Captain Dynamo was the much-beloved protector of Tower City for forty years following his exposure to an unidentified form of radiation that granted him superhuman abilities, and husband of Maddie Warner, 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 law student 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 with the same color scheme and design as their late father, 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. Although the five are unaware that Warner is a former agent of F.LA.G., she 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”, calling the shots from the same headquarters once used by Captain Dynamo, and keeping in constant remote contact with them during their missions.
In their first published adventure as a team, Dynamo 5 went up against The Veil, a paramilitary organization that attacked Tower City with numerous soldiers, tanks, and even powered armor suits. Although Dynamo 5 acquitted themselves well against the Veil, Visionary was captured by them and spirited away before the battle was over. He was brought to the Veil headquarters, and interrogated for information on the team by the Veil’s leader, who calls himself The Superior. Injected with a serum to compel him to answer their questions, Visionary divulged everything about the team and how they were brought together by Warner. Before Visionary could answer the Superior’s question about the nature of the radiation that gave them and their father their powers, Warner and the rest of Dynamo 5 arrived and captured The Superior and his lieutenant. Ordering Dynamo 5 back to headquarters, Warner revealed that she was a former agent of F.L.A.G. and shot both the Superior and his lieutenant with gunshots to the head.