The Astronomer first appeared in the short story "Pennies from Hell" by Lewis Shiner in Wild Cards II: Aces High, though his presence was implied in "The Long, Dark Night of Fortunato" in the first volume of the series.
Once the ritual is completed, the Astronomer is blessed with a huge energy reserve that allows him to utilize the following powers: astral projection, clairsentience, minor precognition, the ability to selectively erase memories, flight, invisibility from visual and mental senses, ego attacks, hand killing attacks, walking through walls, suppression of any single wildcard power directed against him, force fields, minor force walls, telepathy, and an assortment of energy blasts.
After later recharge and the aerial battle with Fortunato, which leaves both Aces almost powerless, the Astronomer drops into the Hudson River and escapes to the shore for his final encounter with his former associates Roulette and Demise.
He joined the Four Aces, and helped capture Nazi war criminals and topple tyrants; he even saved Gandhi from a fanatic's bullet, but back at home the political climate of America was changing.
Brain Trust (Blythe Stanhope Van Renssaeler) was a member of the Four Aces, appearing in the stories "Degradation Rites" by Melinda M. Snodgrass (who created the character) and "Witness" by Walter Jon Williams.
When Brain Trust was put on the stand, Tachyon telepathically mind-controlled his lover and accidentally drove Blythe insane, in order to prevent her from revealing information she had absorbed from him—information such as the names and powers of many Aces he had treated over the years.
Finally, during the subsequent raids carried out on New York by the Shadow Fists' "Jumpers" – vicious teenagers with body-snatching powers – an unlikely series of events led to Tachyon's departure from Earth and ultimate return to Takis.
However, this is the only time Tachyon has attempted outright suicide, likely prompted by the radical alteration of his/her self-image caused by the jump, Blaise's sexual assault, her subsequent pregnancy, and the reactions of others to her upon returning to public life.
Also the question of Tachyon's attraction to Cody comes up and the body-swapped alien replies that, aside from pregnancy reducing her famous sex-drive, "those troublesome hormones" generated by her new body (estrogen and progesterone, specifically) have failed to elicit any sexual response.
Placed in protective custody with House Ilkazam's other breeding females, including the biological sisters of her male form, Tachyon refused to continue research on the Enhancer (as Takisians called the Wild Card), but readily employed Kelly's two good hands to practice surgery once more.
Eventually, Tachyon escapes Raranna, defeats Blaise, and recovers her male body, though not before enduring childbirth, seeing the very foundations of Takisian society ripped apart in a bloody civil war, and fending off an attack by Network "carpetbaggers".
[9] Among Tachyon's plans for the future are the dissolution of Raranna, where he was confined while carrying Kelly's child, and a program to interbreed the psychic and "mind-blind" segments of the populace, thus creating a truly telepathic race better capable of fending off the Network.
It has been rumored that, after the war, Squidface became a member of the Joker terrorist group called the Twisted Fists, and was responsible for numerous attacks on "Nats" (naturals, a derogatory term for those without Wild Card mutations).
Son of an unnamed African-American soldier and his wife Ichiko, a Japanese woman his father brought back to New York after WWII, Fortunato was infected by the initial wave of virus-carrying spores released into the upper atmosphere during Jetboy's battle with Dr. Tod.
In the early 1990s, the Turtle makes two separate visits to the Rox, a street name for Ellis Island, which had become a stronghold for Joker criminals, rogue Aces, and a gang of body-swapping teenagers known as Jumpers.
Witnessing the torture and execution of some National Guard soldiers, Turtle uses his telekinetic power to protect those left alive and threatens to crush the victorious Jokers "like ants" if they do not cease and desist.
The upper limits of his powers are unknown, but some of his notable feats include lifting a battleship out of the water for several minutes, temporarily halting a Takisian starship in mid-flight, ripping off the leg of the second robotic Modular Man, destroying the Brooklyn Bridge, and creating a tidal wave to drown inhabitants of the Rox.
Outside his shell, Turtle's telekinesis is limited to levitating small objects, such as pencils and beer cans—or, when in a calm, confident state—objects about the size and weight of a bowling ball, including an alien teleportation device and the first Modular Man's severed head.
Though he is described as having had a brief career as a superhero named "Fatman" prior to his first appearance, Hiram quickly gave it up (the GURPS Wild Cards sourcebook contains the telling line "...as a crimefighter he is an excellent cook") to return to his first love, the gourmet restaurant business.
Tod decided to use this "germ-bomb" to perform blackmail on a massive scale; he obtained a multi-gasbag blimp and flew over New York City, announcing by radio that if he did not receive 20 million dollars, he would drop the device (wired with explosives) onto Manhattan.
With Latham's taste for teenage runaways and prostitutes (male and female), there was soon a small group of wild card criminals all sharing the same power, committing vicious acts of mayhem and robbery in the body of their chosen victim, then jumping away to freedom.
Based on The Rox (Ellis Island), protected by Bloat's Wall, and under the direct control of a deputy leader (first David and, later, Blaise Andrieux), "Prime" let his Jumpers do as they wished for the most part, occasionally selecting one or two of his more expendable creations for special missions.
Arnie Fentner was a normal kid, obsessed with dinosaurs and comic books, when the dormant Wild Card virus he'd inherited from his mother turned active, altering his DNA and restructuring his body.
The downside was that his body's mass remained constant, so he could only become a kid-sized version of a Tyrannosaurus rex, Pteranodon, or a Triceratops, not to mention the fact that he would burst out of his clothes when transforming, leaving him naked and vulnerable to the elements when he returned to normal.
With Latham's taste for teenage runaways and prostitutes (male and female), soon there was a small group of wild card criminals all sharing the same power, committing vicious acts of mayhem and robbery in the body of their chosen victim, then jumping away to freedom.
When he became infected with the Wild Card virus and found himself with minor shapeshifting powers, he developed an act of sorts, doing celebrity "impressions" at clubs, but his lack of success drove him to a nervous breakdown in 1965.
In September 1946, ninth-grader Croyd Crenson, native of an unspecified borough of the New York City metropolitan area, was one of the first victims of the alien virus dubbed "the Wild Card", which generates random mutations in humans, many times leading to an altered appearance, superhuman abilities, or both.
His unique sleep cycle and constantly altering appearance makes it all but impossible for Croyd to hold down a regular job, and he usually supports himself through criminal activity (though in later years he begins investing in the stock market as a supplement to his income).
Later, he continued to steal to support his family, as his father had suffered a fatal reaction to the virus and his mother had slowly gone insane from witnessing her husband's death, leaving Croyd the primary source of income for his brother and sister.
A masked, bow and arrow wielding vigilante, Yeoman was, for several years, a deadly menace to the criminal element of New York, especially the Immaculate Egrets and their parent organization the Shadow Fists.