Guido
10-15-2006, 05:17 PM
Information from UncannyXmen.net, Wikipedia, X-Factor #87 and X-Factor Annual 8
.: VITAL STATS
Codename: Strong Guy
Real Name: Guido Carosella
Alias/Nick: None
Age: 30
Height: 7’0”
Weight: 750 lbs
Hair: White
Eyes: Blue
Place of Birth: Rhinebeck, New York
Relatives: Mr and Mrs Carosella (parents, deceased), Louis (uncle), Lois (aunt), Anthony (cousin).
Group Affiliation: (UX, NM, XF, or XC) XF
.: MUTANT/EXTRAORDINARY ABILITIES
X-Factor: A deformed and expanded muscle mass gives Guido superhuman strength and durability. Strong Guy also has the mutant ability to absorb kinetic energy from an impact and use it to further augment his physical strength. However, he cannot store the energy he absorbs for very long; as a rule he must expend it within 90 seconds to prevent the enormous amounts of energy from permanently distorting his body.
Depending on the amount of energy absorbed, Guido can lift approximately 60 tons. His upper strength limit is unmeasured, but the more energy he absorbs, the more strain he puts on his heart.
Skills/Weapons/Other: Due to training, as well as years of experience, both as a member of X-Factor and as bodyguard for mutant rock star Lila Cheney, Guido is formidable at "street fighting"-style hand-to-hand combat.
Guido is also a multi-talented actor and stand-up comedian.
Weaknesses: Ever since his mutant ability first emerged, during a childhood accident, Guido has suffered from constant agony due to his disfigurement. This pain has been described by Guido as being like a burning sensation in his muscles. Guido hides this pain from his friends behind a façade of cynicism and jokes.
Excessive strain caused Guido to have a heart attack. He currently has a pacemaker, but overuse of his power could cause further heart problems.
Guido is nearsighted and wears corrective "bottlecap" lenses.
.: PERSONAL DETAILS
Physical Description: To describe Guido as a mass of muscles would be an understatement. The disfigurement to Guido's body is a result of not expending the excess kinetic energy after an impact with a bus during his childhood. An unusual percentage of his body mass is stored in the upper half of his body, causing him to appear top-heavy and thus very imposing. Guido stands at a massive 7'0'', with huge shoulders that cause his head to look small by contrast.
Guido is bald except for a tuft of white hair above his forehead, of which he is extremely proud. He always wears a pair of circular glasses and more often than not can be seen with a huge grin covering his face. When not wearing his X-Factor uniform, which he constanly updates, Guido usually wears something semi-smart, like a short sleaved shirt or even a suit. As one of the members of X-Factor who enjoys a lot of the media attention, Guido feels that he should dress well. Only someone on government pay could afford suits in Guido's size.
Personality: Guido thinks of his teammates in X-Factor as being the first real friends he has had. The last thing he wants is for them to feel pity for him, so Guido continues to act the clown to disguise the fact that he is in constant pain. He always has a silly remark on the tip of his tongue for any situation. That said, as Guido has gotten closer to his teammates, he has been known to let his guard down on occasions. Guido's antics are also a way to hide his pain from himself as much as from others. To keep him from descending into a spiral of self-pity.
Certain events while with X-Factor, such as the death of his closest friend, Jamie Madrox, have caused Guido to mature somewhat. While he is still the jester he was, he makes an effort to be more aware of those close to him. Guido is caring and generous in nature. He wouldn't think twice about putting his life in jeopardy to help others.
History: Born in Rhinebeck, New York, Guido Carosella was an only child raised in a small town. His parents were extremely tight-fisted, never spending any money on luxuries. By the time he reached middle school, Guido was a self-confessed "nerd." Though he was highly intelligent and scored well in all his subjects, young Mr. Carosella had difficulty relating to his classmates. To compensate for his insecurities, Guido became the class clown, frequently playing practical jokes on both his teachers and his fellow students.
One day after school, Guido awkwardly tried to flirt with his "big crush," Sheila McCann, and ended up lying flat on the sidewalk thanks to her boyfriend. All the abuse up to this point finally made Carosella snap, and he lunged at his tormentor. This only led to a mob of the tougher boys ganging up on him, and at this exact moment his mutant power decided to kick in. All the kinetic energy from the beating was processed into sheer power to increase his musculature, expanding his right arm into a grotesquely large shape. In a panic, Guido stumbled out in front of a school bus, absorbing even greater amounts of energy, which warped his body even further. All this kinetic activity flowing through his system overloaded Carosella's mutant ability -- his power was designed to only hold on to kinetic energy for brief periods before releasing it, and the fact that he hadn’t done so left Guido horribly disfigured. He would be in constant pain for the rest of his life, and his upper body muscle structure was abnormally and permanently "supersized."
At some point, his parents were killed in an accident when a satellite fell out of the sky, and Guido acquired a small fortune for himself in settling with the manufacturers. After this he lived with his aunt and uncle in Rhinebeck.
After moving out on his own, Guido bought a fancy house in or around the Washington D.C. area and lived the high life for a few years until some "bad investments" left him unable to pay his bills. In order to keep the money flowing in, Guido took a job as hired muscle for Lila Cheney and her rock band. Working for Lila, Carosella lived out of her place in Malibu, California and traveled all over the galaxy while she was touring. It was during this time that he first came in contact with some of Professor Xavier’s students, as Cannonball of the New Mutants was a part-time boyfriend for Lila at the time.
When Lila shuttled the X-Men off into deep space to deal with a problem in the Shi'Ar Empire, Guido found himself at loose ends. With nothing else to do until his boss came back, Guido felt an irresistible desire to travel to the mutant research facility on Muir Island. Moira MacTaggert, the island's proprietor, had recently established her own set of arena games for the isle's occupants to test themselves against each other in physical combat, and Guido enjoyed being a part-time gladiator. Unfortunately, the behavior patterns of Guido, Moira, and everyone else on the island was being influenced by the powerful telepath known as the Shadow King. The malevolent telepath was using his powers to bring out the more violent and primal urges of his targets, corrupting them until they were "willing" servants against his arch-nemesis, Charles Xavier, and the X-Men when they returned. A strike force consisting of X-Factor and many other past and present X-Men finally managed to defeat the Shadow King and free Guido and the rest of his pawns from telepathic control.
With X-Factor making the decision to disband and rejoin the X-Men, Val Cooper decided to recruit an all-new, all-different X-Factor team to replace Freedom Force as operatives for the United States government, and she invited Guido to become one of the charter members. Along with two other former residents of Muir Island, Polaris and Multiple Man, Guido relocated to his old mansion in Washington D.C. To quote their press release, X-Factor was designed to be "a special task force required to deal with assignments needing mutant expertise." Before X-Factor held their first press conference to publicly announce their formation to the media, it was suggested that Guido adopt a codename for himself to fit in with the crowd. Fitting with his sense of humor, Mr. Carosella decided to call himself "Strong Guy." He even managed to coin a new politically correct term for mutants -- genetically challenged, or "geecees" for short.
Jamie Madrox, Guido's best friend and partner in practical jokes in X-Factor, discovered that he had contracted the Legacy Virus. For reasons of his own, Jamie kept his condition to himself until it was ultimately too late, and he died of the virus's effects. Jamie's evasiveness did nothing to assuage Carosella's guilt over not having done something to help his friend. Guido felt horrible for having missed the signs that something was seriously wrong with Jamie, and blamed himself for not being a better friend when it really counted.
Strong Guy began having health problems. It started with a tightness in his chest after he absorbed too much kinetic energy in a heavy demolition brawl with the Blob at Dulles International airport. During the battle, he not only had to absorb the impact of a fall from a great height, but also he took the brunt of a plane heading towards him at full speed. The problem was only made worse when X-Factor were transported to Madripoor to help Guido’s former employer, Lila Cheney, against some dangerous aliens she had upset. In order to save Lila and his teammates, he absorbed the full force of an exploding bomb with devastating results: Strong Guy suffered a heart attack and could not be revived.
For the next several months, Guido‘s life hung by a thread at the Hidalgo Research Institute in D.C., where he was being held in suspended animation in an amniotic fluid, giving his heart muscles time to recuperate.
When Strong Guy finally woke up, Forge perfected a surgical device to strengthen Guido's heart against further damage and stress from his powers.
.: PLAYER INFORMATION
Name: Toby
Contact Info: email: toby@shat.freeserve.co.uk
.: SAMPLE ROLEPLAY
Guido Carosella sat uncomfortably at a table in a small café. The occasional customer would come in to order their early morning wake-me-up cup of coffee before work. Guido had waited a short while, but now he knew his steaks were coming. He could smell them. A man in a white apron placed the plate of steaks in front of Guido. “Whoa, smells good!” he said as he took in a deep breath through his nose. “I sure hope Val don’t find out I’m eatin’ steaks. She says she wants me on a sensible diet for the team, but I’m pretty sure the Government’s got better thing to be doin’ than keepin’ tabs on what I eat.” He checked over his shoulder, but he was fairly certain that he didn’t see any spies.
The café proprietor squinted at the huge customer as if he was trying to place a face. “Hey, ain’t you been on TV?” he asked, “Yeah, you’re that guy from X-Force, right? Muscle Man or something, isn’t it?”
During the time it took for Guido to finish the mouth-full of steak, he managed to convince himself to go easy on the guy for his mistake. “Actually that’s X-Factor,” he corrected, “an’ it’s Strong Guy. Got it?”
The proprietor shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ll let ya off this time,” Guido continued, “since I’ve been out of the public eye for a while. But being a super hero’s sorta like riding a bike. Once ya learn how it’s done, ya never really forget.”
Guido was always glad of the chance to pass on some of his worldly knowledge, so he continued to talk between mouth-fulls of food.
“Course, the big problem’s the public image. Yeah, sure, I was a big time super hero before the heart problem, but I’ve gotta make sure I stay cutting edge. These days ya can only make it big if you’re one of them ‘angst-ridden-loner-heroes’. But I don’t think a guy with my good looks could pull that off convincingly.”
Guido studied his reflection in his knife and adjusted his tuft of white hair. “That’s why I’m writing my autobiography. I though ‘Strong Guy: The man behind the myth’ would be a big seller. An’ a line of Strong Guy action figures would be good, y’know, for the kids.”
.: VITAL STATS
Codename: Strong Guy
Real Name: Guido Carosella
Alias/Nick: None
Age: 30
Height: 7’0”
Weight: 750 lbs
Hair: White
Eyes: Blue
Place of Birth: Rhinebeck, New York
Relatives: Mr and Mrs Carosella (parents, deceased), Louis (uncle), Lois (aunt), Anthony (cousin).
Group Affiliation: (UX, NM, XF, or XC) XF
.: MUTANT/EXTRAORDINARY ABILITIES
X-Factor: A deformed and expanded muscle mass gives Guido superhuman strength and durability. Strong Guy also has the mutant ability to absorb kinetic energy from an impact and use it to further augment his physical strength. However, he cannot store the energy he absorbs for very long; as a rule he must expend it within 90 seconds to prevent the enormous amounts of energy from permanently distorting his body.
Depending on the amount of energy absorbed, Guido can lift approximately 60 tons. His upper strength limit is unmeasured, but the more energy he absorbs, the more strain he puts on his heart.
Skills/Weapons/Other: Due to training, as well as years of experience, both as a member of X-Factor and as bodyguard for mutant rock star Lila Cheney, Guido is formidable at "street fighting"-style hand-to-hand combat.
Guido is also a multi-talented actor and stand-up comedian.
Weaknesses: Ever since his mutant ability first emerged, during a childhood accident, Guido has suffered from constant agony due to his disfigurement. This pain has been described by Guido as being like a burning sensation in his muscles. Guido hides this pain from his friends behind a façade of cynicism and jokes.
Excessive strain caused Guido to have a heart attack. He currently has a pacemaker, but overuse of his power could cause further heart problems.
Guido is nearsighted and wears corrective "bottlecap" lenses.
.: PERSONAL DETAILS
Physical Description: To describe Guido as a mass of muscles would be an understatement. The disfigurement to Guido's body is a result of not expending the excess kinetic energy after an impact with a bus during his childhood. An unusual percentage of his body mass is stored in the upper half of his body, causing him to appear top-heavy and thus very imposing. Guido stands at a massive 7'0'', with huge shoulders that cause his head to look small by contrast.
Guido is bald except for a tuft of white hair above his forehead, of which he is extremely proud. He always wears a pair of circular glasses and more often than not can be seen with a huge grin covering his face. When not wearing his X-Factor uniform, which he constanly updates, Guido usually wears something semi-smart, like a short sleaved shirt or even a suit. As one of the members of X-Factor who enjoys a lot of the media attention, Guido feels that he should dress well. Only someone on government pay could afford suits in Guido's size.
Personality: Guido thinks of his teammates in X-Factor as being the first real friends he has had. The last thing he wants is for them to feel pity for him, so Guido continues to act the clown to disguise the fact that he is in constant pain. He always has a silly remark on the tip of his tongue for any situation. That said, as Guido has gotten closer to his teammates, he has been known to let his guard down on occasions. Guido's antics are also a way to hide his pain from himself as much as from others. To keep him from descending into a spiral of self-pity.
Certain events while with X-Factor, such as the death of his closest friend, Jamie Madrox, have caused Guido to mature somewhat. While he is still the jester he was, he makes an effort to be more aware of those close to him. Guido is caring and generous in nature. He wouldn't think twice about putting his life in jeopardy to help others.
History: Born in Rhinebeck, New York, Guido Carosella was an only child raised in a small town. His parents were extremely tight-fisted, never spending any money on luxuries. By the time he reached middle school, Guido was a self-confessed "nerd." Though he was highly intelligent and scored well in all his subjects, young Mr. Carosella had difficulty relating to his classmates. To compensate for his insecurities, Guido became the class clown, frequently playing practical jokes on both his teachers and his fellow students.
One day after school, Guido awkwardly tried to flirt with his "big crush," Sheila McCann, and ended up lying flat on the sidewalk thanks to her boyfriend. All the abuse up to this point finally made Carosella snap, and he lunged at his tormentor. This only led to a mob of the tougher boys ganging up on him, and at this exact moment his mutant power decided to kick in. All the kinetic energy from the beating was processed into sheer power to increase his musculature, expanding his right arm into a grotesquely large shape. In a panic, Guido stumbled out in front of a school bus, absorbing even greater amounts of energy, which warped his body even further. All this kinetic activity flowing through his system overloaded Carosella's mutant ability -- his power was designed to only hold on to kinetic energy for brief periods before releasing it, and the fact that he hadn’t done so left Guido horribly disfigured. He would be in constant pain for the rest of his life, and his upper body muscle structure was abnormally and permanently "supersized."
At some point, his parents were killed in an accident when a satellite fell out of the sky, and Guido acquired a small fortune for himself in settling with the manufacturers. After this he lived with his aunt and uncle in Rhinebeck.
After moving out on his own, Guido bought a fancy house in or around the Washington D.C. area and lived the high life for a few years until some "bad investments" left him unable to pay his bills. In order to keep the money flowing in, Guido took a job as hired muscle for Lila Cheney and her rock band. Working for Lila, Carosella lived out of her place in Malibu, California and traveled all over the galaxy while she was touring. It was during this time that he first came in contact with some of Professor Xavier’s students, as Cannonball of the New Mutants was a part-time boyfriend for Lila at the time.
When Lila shuttled the X-Men off into deep space to deal with a problem in the Shi'Ar Empire, Guido found himself at loose ends. With nothing else to do until his boss came back, Guido felt an irresistible desire to travel to the mutant research facility on Muir Island. Moira MacTaggert, the island's proprietor, had recently established her own set of arena games for the isle's occupants to test themselves against each other in physical combat, and Guido enjoyed being a part-time gladiator. Unfortunately, the behavior patterns of Guido, Moira, and everyone else on the island was being influenced by the powerful telepath known as the Shadow King. The malevolent telepath was using his powers to bring out the more violent and primal urges of his targets, corrupting them until they were "willing" servants against his arch-nemesis, Charles Xavier, and the X-Men when they returned. A strike force consisting of X-Factor and many other past and present X-Men finally managed to defeat the Shadow King and free Guido and the rest of his pawns from telepathic control.
With X-Factor making the decision to disband and rejoin the X-Men, Val Cooper decided to recruit an all-new, all-different X-Factor team to replace Freedom Force as operatives for the United States government, and she invited Guido to become one of the charter members. Along with two other former residents of Muir Island, Polaris and Multiple Man, Guido relocated to his old mansion in Washington D.C. To quote their press release, X-Factor was designed to be "a special task force required to deal with assignments needing mutant expertise." Before X-Factor held their first press conference to publicly announce their formation to the media, it was suggested that Guido adopt a codename for himself to fit in with the crowd. Fitting with his sense of humor, Mr. Carosella decided to call himself "Strong Guy." He even managed to coin a new politically correct term for mutants -- genetically challenged, or "geecees" for short.
Jamie Madrox, Guido's best friend and partner in practical jokes in X-Factor, discovered that he had contracted the Legacy Virus. For reasons of his own, Jamie kept his condition to himself until it was ultimately too late, and he died of the virus's effects. Jamie's evasiveness did nothing to assuage Carosella's guilt over not having done something to help his friend. Guido felt horrible for having missed the signs that something was seriously wrong with Jamie, and blamed himself for not being a better friend when it really counted.
Strong Guy began having health problems. It started with a tightness in his chest after he absorbed too much kinetic energy in a heavy demolition brawl with the Blob at Dulles International airport. During the battle, he not only had to absorb the impact of a fall from a great height, but also he took the brunt of a plane heading towards him at full speed. The problem was only made worse when X-Factor were transported to Madripoor to help Guido’s former employer, Lila Cheney, against some dangerous aliens she had upset. In order to save Lila and his teammates, he absorbed the full force of an exploding bomb with devastating results: Strong Guy suffered a heart attack and could not be revived.
For the next several months, Guido‘s life hung by a thread at the Hidalgo Research Institute in D.C., where he was being held in suspended animation in an amniotic fluid, giving his heart muscles time to recuperate.
When Strong Guy finally woke up, Forge perfected a surgical device to strengthen Guido's heart against further damage and stress from his powers.
.: PLAYER INFORMATION
Name: Toby
Contact Info: email: toby@shat.freeserve.co.uk
.: SAMPLE ROLEPLAY
Guido Carosella sat uncomfortably at a table in a small café. The occasional customer would come in to order their early morning wake-me-up cup of coffee before work. Guido had waited a short while, but now he knew his steaks were coming. He could smell them. A man in a white apron placed the plate of steaks in front of Guido. “Whoa, smells good!” he said as he took in a deep breath through his nose. “I sure hope Val don’t find out I’m eatin’ steaks. She says she wants me on a sensible diet for the team, but I’m pretty sure the Government’s got better thing to be doin’ than keepin’ tabs on what I eat.” He checked over his shoulder, but he was fairly certain that he didn’t see any spies.
The café proprietor squinted at the huge customer as if he was trying to place a face. “Hey, ain’t you been on TV?” he asked, “Yeah, you’re that guy from X-Force, right? Muscle Man or something, isn’t it?”
During the time it took for Guido to finish the mouth-full of steak, he managed to convince himself to go easy on the guy for his mistake. “Actually that’s X-Factor,” he corrected, “an’ it’s Strong Guy. Got it?”
The proprietor shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ll let ya off this time,” Guido continued, “since I’ve been out of the public eye for a while. But being a super hero’s sorta like riding a bike. Once ya learn how it’s done, ya never really forget.”
Guido was always glad of the chance to pass on some of his worldly knowledge, so he continued to talk between mouth-fulls of food.
“Course, the big problem’s the public image. Yeah, sure, I was a big time super hero before the heart problem, but I’ve gotta make sure I stay cutting edge. These days ya can only make it big if you’re one of them ‘angst-ridden-loner-heroes’. But I don’t think a guy with my good looks could pull that off convincingly.”
Guido studied his reflection in his knife and adjusted his tuft of white hair. “That’s why I’m writing my autobiography. I though ‘Strong Guy: The man behind the myth’ would be a big seller. An’ a line of Strong Guy action figures would be good, y’know, for the kids.”