BABOOM!

BABOOM! (click to enlarge)
BABOOM! (click to enlarge)
Real Name: Babi Bushmeat
Identity: Secret
Group Affiliation: Simian Squad
First Appearance: THE NEW SIMIAN SQUAD #22
Quote: “Babooooooooooom!”
Personality: Baboom is obsessive, intense, and has an explosive personality to match his powers. He enjoys being a superhero despite the fact that his powers are prone to cause collateral damage.
Powers and Tactics: Baboom enjoys coming on to the battlefield headfirst, “with guns blazing.” Baboom can expel highly explosive radiation in the form of focused blasts and to propel him through the air. When necessary, he can spend all his stored up energy in a single massive explosion, though doing so leaves him drained and vulnerable. Baboom requires the use of his super-suit to properly focus and regulate the energies that emanate from his person. Without this regulator, Baboom’s unpredictable discharge damages everything he comes in contact with.

 

History:

 

Babi Bushmeat was the founder and president of the Astromandrill Fanclub. He was obsessed with the hero, appearing everywhere Astromandrill made public appearances.

 

At an event called Powers for Peace, Astromandrill was asked by the sponsor, Kookaburra-Kola Beverage Company, to be the Grand Marshal of the Peace Parade. At that same event, the beverage giant unveiled its new product, Extreme Zazzparilla Energy Drink. Bushmeat naturally was present at the event, taking photos and handing out flyers for his fanclub. Unfortunately, Astromandrill’s arch-nemesis, Death Wattle, used the Peace Parade as a platform to decry and attempt to kill the leader of the World Wildlife Federation of Justice.

 

In the titanic battle, Death Wattle tried to drown Astromandrill in a huge tanker truck of Extreme Zazzparilla. It was Bushmeat who took the initiative and jumped into the driver’s seat of the truck and crashed it into a nearby cement pillar, splashing the truck’s delicious contents onto the street. Enraged, Death Wattle attacked Bushmeat with his ‘death beam’ but with everything and everyone saturated with Extreme Zazzparilla the energy was somehow attenuated. Bushmeat took the brunt of the blast but was merely stunned. Astromandrill capitalized on the distraction and recovered from the drowning attempt. The superanimal conflict resumed but once again Death Wattle gained the upper hand, and again Bushmeat came to the rescue. This time, Bushmeat found himself charged with a strange energy–some mysterious fusion of Death Wattle’s cosmic beam and the chemical formula of Extreme Zazzparilla Energy Drink. In an enormous release of heat, light and force Bushmeat rendered Death Wattle unconscious. This release of energy, however, also left Bushmeat comatose, and still leaking strange energies uncontrollably.

 

Astromandrill took the body of Bushmeat to Star-Nose Technologies where scientists could study and harness the destructive energy emanating from the baboon. They contained Bushmeat’s body in a special vessel that controlled the radiating energies and nursed him back to health. Unable to quelch the production of mysterious energy, they developed a special suit that Bushmeat could wear to control the release of the energy on his own terms. Bushmeat viewed his new powers as a sign that he too could become like his hero Astromandrill, and adopted the persona Baboom.

 

Though he petitioned to join the WWFJ many times, he was rejected on the grounds that his powers and personality were too volatile. At this time he was approached by a representative of Kookaburra Kola named Asa Griggs Antler, who offered Baboom the job of spokesperson for the now disfavoured Extreme Zazzparilla. Baboom took the job, but became temperamental, conflicted with his desire to work with Astromandrill and his constant rejection by same. When a minor disagreement emerged over catering during Baboom’s first TV commercial, the ape went berserk and destroyed much of the studio.

 

The bad press from this incident was enough to end the Zazzparilla beverage line, and the

BABOOM! early sketch
BABOOM! early sketch

company sued Bushmeat. Scorned and unable to live a normal life, Baboom skirted the edge of supervillainy, lashing out violently at anything that crossed him. Luckily, during one such incident, he was defeated and apprehended by Shaolin Monkey, and his fanboy nature was galvanized by the power and beauty of the heroine. Baboom developed a crush on Shaolin Monkey, and he promised her that he would become a proper hero. Rather than surrender Baboom to the authorities, Shaolin Monkey brought Baboom to meet the Simian Squad. There, he finally found a place to fit in, and though Shaolin Monkey’s religious vows precluded a romantic relationship they have remained friends ever since.

Baboom is still finding his footing as a working superhero, but his attitudes and powers have stabilized with the continued support of his allies.

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