"There was no long-term, and trying to cling to one would only spoil it all."
This article contains spoilers regarding the ending of Worm and plot of the sequel.
| “ | I’m tough to hurt. Do you really want to test it? Sure. Why the hell not? |
” |
—Neil and Damsel of Distress, Eclipse x.5 | ||
Neil Pelham or Manpower was a member of New Wave.
Personality
Neil was reckless enough to play chicken with a previously unfamiliar parahuman.[8] That said, he immediately switched gears once his wife warned him about Damsel's danger.[9] When possible, Neil tried to be mindful of collateral damage.[10][2][11]
His training sessions, at least with his niece before and after she had powers, typically focused on sparring and fighting lessons.[12][13][14][15][16] Neil taught Victoria how to fight bigger and stronger individuals.[17] He also gave a lesson about the S.P.I.N.E. acronym (Schedule, Perception, Invitation, Necessary Information, Empathize), a tool to better deliver tragic news to people and for preparing people to grieve.[18]
Appearance
Neil was a powerful seven-foot tall man with an athletic build[19] and blond hair.[1] Wildbow speculated that the struggle/challenge of having a secret identity with this height might have been an inciting incident that led to New Wave's mission statement and his team's decision to unmask.[20] As Manpower in New Wave, Neil donned a primarily white costume with yellow lightning bolt designs[21] that followed the general pattern of the other team members.[7] He used a ridiculous amount of hair-styling products.[1]
Before his team's unmasking and Victoria's birth, he had a beard.[3][22] Neil appeared to have shaved this beard sometime later. During the Boston Games, Damsel of Distress did not describe him as having a beard,[1] whereas she did for his brother-in-law.[23]
Abilities and Powers
Neil's powers came from an ability to manipulate electromagnetism, though only at point-blank range.[24] He had a personal electromagnetic shield around his body[19][10][7] that significantly augmented both his strength and durability.[21]
His super strength[25] was greater than that of Victoria Dallon.[17] Neil could impart explosive strength[26] when he threw an object (i.e., a power common to both himself and Victoria[27][28]) to hurl it faster than what was possible with super strength alone.[29]
Neil had the ability to attract nearby metal objects to his hand (e.g., a store shelf).[29] He could also discharge his shield to deliver high impact or electrified hits.[7]
He was tough to hurt.[8] His shield allowed him to take consecutive hits from Marquis's bone scythe,[10] run into spears of bone,[30] and be thrown through a brick wall to little or no effect.[19] That said, his defense was not All-or-Nothing.[9]
History
Background
Manpower was a natural trigger.[31] His trigger entailed a physical confrontation with someone.[32]
Neil and Sarah met at the physical therapy, where he was recovering after his trigger and she from her riding injury.[33]
He was the leader of the Brockton Bay Brigade.[7]
At some point possibly had an affair with Brandish.
When Marquis asked Brandish why he would want to stand down, as he had beat the Brockton Bay Brigade in all of their previous encounters, Manpower told him that he had nowhere to run and that they had got him where he lived. Marquis told him that he had plenty of places to run and that it was just a house. He then advanced alongside his teammates before Marquis started to reach down after asking them if he could finish his wine.
Manpower and Brandish charged Marquis who then used his power to turn himself into a sea urchin. He managed to stop himself, but was unable to prevent himself from running into the spears of bone.
After Marquis shielded a closet from Lady Photon's attack, she asked him what he was protecting and Marquis told her that they wouldn't believe him. He then asked if they could change venues before Manpower told him that they should take every advantage they could. Marquis agreed that it would increase their chance of success if they didn't, but said that they shouldn't.
Marquis fought Manpower with a bone scythe he had grown from his wrist that he took with his electromagnetic shield. He didn't try to fight back because, if he didn't take the hits, Marquis would either hit Flashbang or Lightstar. He called for Brandish and told her to use the same plan, but with just him and her. After Brandish stepped in to block the scythe and Marquis broke it, Manpower charged him.
Marquis burrowed into the ground before he emerged between Brandish and the closet door. After Marquis fell, Manpower asked him if that was where he stashed his illicit goods. Marquis told him that he was protecting the most precious treasure in the world.
It was later revealed that treasure was in fact Marquis' daughter. Marquis told her that the Brigade would take care of her before telling them that he didn't want her falling into the hands of his enemies. Manpower told him that his enemies wouldn't need to know before Marquis told him that they would find out about her.
Later, Manpower said that they should call the PRT to get Marquis into custody and then, after Marquis requested it, medical assistance.[34]
Boston Games
Almost got himself killed.[8]
Story Start
When the Empire Eighty-Eight went on a rampage following the release of their identities, Manpower went out to confront them alongside his teammates. He was thrown through a brick wall and then struggled to his feet.[35]
Manpower later traveled to the meeting place alongside his teammates after Armsmaster and Dragon's program predicted that Leviathan would hit Brockton Bay. He listened as Legend addressed the assembled capes and then received an armband from the Brockton Bay Wards. He joined the group of combatants that thought that they could take a hit from Leviathan, led by Alexandria and Dragon. Manpower was eventually killed by Leviathan.[36]
His name was later added onto the Endbringer monument.
Chapter Appearances
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References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 “Big guy,” Damsel said. “Don’t pick on a girl half your age and a third your mass.”
The man turned her way. It was weird to see a cape without a mask. He was older, thirty-five or forty, and his blond hair was styled, slicked into position with something that hadn’t faltered in the heat of this skirmish. - Excerpt from Eclipse x.5 - ↑ 2.0 2.1 She went after the big electric guy, who was busy trying to duck through the aisle between the cashier’s stations. He couldn’t fly, for one thing, so he was easier to catch, and he was momentarily slower as he tried to avoid demolishing too much of the store’s property. - Excerpt from Eclipse x.5
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 My mom, startling in how she was younger than I was now, less tight and precise in her movements than I’d ever known her to be. Even with the brain injury, she moved with more control and less abandon.
Her hand reached up, fingers running through beard. And my dad had never had a beard. An Uncle Neil that was Tristan’s age pushed young Carol up against the wall, kissing her. - Excerpt from From Within 16.12 - ↑ Capricorn
Age: 17 - Visual notes: Team Therapy - ↑ My mom and Uncle Neil. Twenty-one years ago, if I had to guess. - Excerpt from From Within 16.12
- ↑ “Manpower… do try to keep up. The dumb brute stereotype persists only because people like you insist on keeping it alive. They’ll always know, they’ll always find out. You put that girl in foster care and interested parties are going to find out.” - Excerpt from Interlude 15.x
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Edit by Wildbow
Note that some of this edit is not canon. - ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 “What do you think I should do then?”
“Given the prospect of having to deal with me? Surrender,” she said, with a smile.
“You’re proposing I stop picking on her, half my age and a third my weight, and I pick on you, half my age and, what, a quarter of my weight?”
“I’m proposing you surrender,” she said. She flicked her hand out to the side, and her power activated, crackling at her right.
“I’m tough to hurt,” he said.
“Do you really want to test it?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said. “Why the hell not?” - Excerpt from Eclipse x.5 - ↑ 9.0 9.1 Another forcefield had materialized in front of where she’d been about to stumble, positioned to make her landing an uncomfortable one. The blast that she fired tore the forcefield to shreds. She stumbled back into a shelf near the registers, loaded with impulse buy items, including a ridiculous number and variety of protein bars.
She hurled herself forward.
“Neil!” the forcefield woman shouted, her voice nasal with her hand still at her nose. “Get back!”
Damsel blasted. The big guy was already getting out of the way, throwing himself into the ground in a roll. He collided with another shelf, and energy arced out, connecting with the metal shelves.
“That went through my field like it was nothing,” the woman said. “You can’t take that hit.”
Damsel smiled, as the man’s expression went cold. - Excerpt from Eclipse x.5 - ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 That left Marquis to duel with Manpower, striking the hero over and over with a massive scythe of bone that extended out from his wrist. Manpower was strong, and he was durable thanks to his electromagnetic shield – sparks flew as the scythe hit home over and over. Even so, the hero didn’t try to fight back.
It took her only a moment to realize why. Each swing of the scythe was calculated so that if the movement followed through, it would strike either the crippled Flashbang or Lightstar.
And Flashbang can’t shoot because Marquis will just armor himself before the sphere detonates. Lightstar is injured, Fleur needs her hands free to strike, and Lady Photon’s incapacitated.
“Brandish!” Manpower shouted. “Same plan, just the two of us!”
Right. Their battle plan wasn’t useless, now. Just harder to pull off.
This would take some courage. - Excerpt from Interlude 15.x - ↑ A car was coming down the road. Traffic must have been cut off for the area to have so few cars and people around. Still, this old sedan had slipped that perimeter. Not J’s car. Not Bar’s.
“Go around!” the big guy shouted. “Situation in progress, there’s danger!”
The car started its halting, three-point turn.. - Excerpt from Eclipse x.5 - ↑ I got a grip on the shoulder of his v-neck shirt, and used flight to wing around him, twisting up his shirt and putting my arm part of the way around his neck. I started to pull my arm into a proper headlock. He knew how to break it.
Had I used my strength, the Wretch would have torn him to shreds. This was the scenario Uncle Neil had been preparing me for when he’d sparred with me. - Excerpt from Gleaming 9.3 - ↑ I’d fought big before. I’d grown up roughhousing with Uncle Neil. Manpower. - Excerpt from Polarize 10.13
- ↑ You’re forgetting your lessons, I told myself. You had this exact same sensation as you tried to spar with Uncle Neil, and he recovered too quickly.
[...]
Remember the lessons Uncle Neil taught you about fighting, and stay inside their reach. - Excerpt from Blinding 11.8 - ↑ I’d been through enough sparring lessons in my life. With my mom, with my dad, with uncle Neil. - Excerpt from Breaking 14.1
- ↑ If we balked, if we stopped… we lost. Hesitation when parrying an incoming strike was death. My early sparring with Manpower had taught me that much. - Excerpt from Last 20.8
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 “In my old sparring matches with my uncle Neil, before I had powers, and even after, he taught me how to fight someone bigger and stronger than you. If you’re fighting someone like Ashley, like Swansong, you can’t take what she’s dishing out, so what do you do?”
“Pray,” Rain said.
“You get out of the way,” Chris said. - Excerpt from Infrared 19.10 - ↑ S.P.I.N.E. A plan for going about this. I was pulling from lessons imparted by my family again. This particular lesson had been from Uncle Neil, and my heart was heavy with the memory of how he’d died, and how it tied into the acronym.
‘S’ stood for schedule, setting the context for the discussion. It was what I’d spent the most time wrestling with over the past few days. How to approach this. All at once? One at a time? What was the best venue for it? Schedule mattered the most because I could do everything else right and screw up here, and group dynamics, interruptions, or the tone of things could spoil it all.
[...]
P. Following the scheduling, ‘S’, was perception. See where others were at, restate the known, and get them in the right frame of mind to think and talk about it. Forgetting ‘P’ was to risk dropping something on someone right away.
[...]
“He’s an asshole, but he was our asshole,” Tristan said. “Then he wasn’t, and it’s getting to me that we don’t know why. Did you figure out why?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I figured out why. I think you guys need to know, and I guess the question is how you want to know. I can dish it all out here, or I can tell you enough that you can give some input on how we approach the others.”
Tristan asking like he had helped to shortcut things. I didn’t have to figure out how to approach ‘I’ in the acronym. Invitation. Asking if they want the information, empowering them to handle the situation.
[...]
In the S.P.I.N.E. acronym, the ‘N’ was for ‘necessary information’. The meat of things. Uncle Neil had told me to stick to the facts, to be blunt.
I wasn’t as blunt as I could’ve been, but I was still blunt.
[...]
The last letter in ‘S.P.I.N.E.’ was E. Empathize. Leave room for others to feel, to process.
[...]
“This is going to do a number on the others.”
He wasn’t wrong. Uncle Neil had taught me about the S.P.I.N.E. acronym because as heroes, we were often on the front line for tragedy. It was a tool for delivering the worst kind of news, and for preparing people to grieve.
The Chris we knew was gone. - Excerpt from Blinding 11.2 - ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 A crash behind me made me duck. Manpower, a powerful seven foot tall athletic figure decked out in white and yellow, had been thrown through a brick wall. Maybe more than one. He seemed unhurt, but he was a fairly durable guy. Personal electromagnetic shielding, if I remembered right. He was still struggling to his feet after we left him behind. - Excerpt from Buzz 7.9
- ↑ Ridtom: https://www.tumblr.com/victoriadallonfan/747392654642479104/the-idea-of-manpower-having-a-secret-identity
Wildbow: One might even imagine it was an inciting incident- if they can't hide, why not try being open? Why not make that a mission statement? - Comment by Wildbow on Discord - ↑ 21.0 21.1 Manpower, Neil Pelham (Deceased) – Lady Photon’s husband. Had an electromagnetic augmentation allowing for superstrength and durability. Wore a white and yellow costume with a lightning bolt motif, but perished in the Endbringer arc. - Cast (In-Depth)
- ↑ “You have so much of your mother in you, and so little of me,” he said, in response to my silence.
The image that jumped into my head was of my mom and Uncle Neil kissing, hands finding the zippers or buckles in their old Brockton Bay Brigade outfits. - Excerpt from Sundown 17.9 - ↑ A flicker of light to her left drew her attention.
Another one of the heroes. This guy had been outside. He had red-blond hair and a beard, and his costume had black sleeves and legs, with a star at the front. Two glowing spheres hung over his head, and another hung at elbow height on either side of him. - Excerpt from Eclipse x.5 - ↑ Manpower – Member of New Wave, Lady Photon’s husband. A manipulator of electromagnetism, primarily at point-blank range. The ‘bruiser’ of the team. - Cast Page
- ↑ He advanced on Angel, shoulders alternating back and forth as he walked. There was a lightness to his step that suggested super strength. - Excerpt from Eclipse x.5
- ↑ Our mother-host discarded the greater shape of her inviolable defense. Our father-host discarded explosive strength and power. - Excerpt from Heavens 12.all
- ↑ Anger and instinct fed into my actions, as I went with the flow. I wanted a weapon and I didn’t even have the buckler or armguard. I patted pockets, found small change, and extended my hand. I let go of it, and it collected within the forcefield.
Then, just as easily, it escaped the forcefield. A mouth or other cavity yawned open. The change leaked out and found another invisible trap to fall up into, one or two coins being lost in the process.
I’d thought about this, a long, long time ago. As a ‘what if’. In reaching for the change, I hadn’t even consciously recalled the memory. It was only when I realized what was happening that I connected the thought.
The change moved, then disappeared.
I saw the violence, heard the impact of change striking car doors and icy road. I’d been plunging toward my caricature and now I changed course. My caricature was dead. A coin dropped from the top of the tallest building in the world wouldn’t kill someone. A handful thrown with the kind of strength and force that could lift trucks had a treatment like a low-impact shotgun.
Fuck the ‘wretch’, I thought, the thought punctuating the full collapse of her body onto the road. - Excerpt from From Within 16.4 - ↑ Hands gripped the side mirror, and I twisted as the Wretch did the same. The mirror was flung so fast I had trouble tracking it with my eyes. It hit Trophy Wife, hard, and flew off with enough speed still driving it that it shattered a car window, striking ragged side first.
Trophy Wife was tough, and we’d hit her where the trophy rack was attached to her back. But that was a hit that would have been bone-breaking without the armor, if not purely lethal. - Excerpt from From Within 16.4 - ↑ 29.0 29.1 He twisted his hand around, and the shelf snapped over, the thicker midsection of the shelf slapping into the palm of his hands, fingers gripping it.
He hurled it, and it wasn’t just that he was strong enough to treat it like it weighed nothing- he used his power to thrust it out. Damsel aimed to shoot it out of the air, but with the speed it flew, it connected with her hand a moment before the power annihilated it. Flecks of shelf struck Damsel’s face and shoulders. - Excerpt from Eclipse x.5 - ↑ Manpower wasn’t so adroit. He managed to stop himself, slamming one foot through the mahogany floor to give himself something to brace against, but it was too late to keep him from running into the spears of bone. Shards snapped against his skin and went flying. - Excerpt from Interlude 15.x
- ↑ Comment by Wildbow on Spacebattles
- ↑ “When Sarah triggered, she hurt people, badly. I did the same.” - Excerpt from Infrared 19.9
- ↑ “Neil had the accident, which you know about” my Aunt Sarah said. I knew. They’d met in the physical therapy after. Her for a riding injury, him for his trigger. - Excerpt from Infrared 19.9
- ↑ Interlude 15.x
- ↑ Buzz 7.9
- ↑ Extermination 8.4
| Leader | Lady Photon (Unofficial) |
|---|---|
| Members | Brandish • Flashbang • Fleur † • Glory Girl ‡ • Laserdream • Lightstar ‡ • Manpower † • Panacea ‡ • Shielder † |