Red

Red is a villain introduced in the serial "Legion of Lawndale Heroes". He makes his first appearance in Volume 5, Part 1 ("Keeping Things Hidden").

First appearance
Red is a member of a group of mercenaries including "Black" and "Team Leader". He, along with his teammates, is hired by John Dynell in an effort to kidnap Legionnaires Jane Lane, Daria Morgendorffer, and Quinn Morgendorffer.

The group manages to break into the lightly guarded Legion compound. Red manages to subdue Quinn Morgendorffer by transforming into a special space-age ceramic that is resistant to electricity. The three Legionnaires are restrained and the mercenaries attempt an escape from Lawndale by armored car.

However, the remaining Legionnaires -- Sandi Griffin, Tiffany Blum-Deckler and Charles "Upchuck" Ruttheimer -- manage to catch up with the armored car. One of Sandi Griffin's self-clones crashes her yellow corvette into the armored car, forcing the vehicle onto its side.

Furious, Red takes matters into his own hands and transforms his body composition to the metal of the armored car. He attempts to kill Sandi Griffin, chasing her on foot. Charles Ruttheimer attempts to stop him but it takes a revived Jane Lane to hold off Red. Using her magnetic powers, Jane bends all of Red's fingers backwards and bends his right front foot up at a ninety-degree angle, causing him immense pain.

Red was taken to a special secret Elite hospital where he was last seen recovering. He had yet to transform out of his metal form, but his fingers and foot had somehow been restored to their anatomically correct positions, even though Red complained that his mobility had been impaired. It is unknown whether or not this impairment is permanent.

Powers/abilities
Red was give his nickname by Team Leader. He is named after his red hair, which he wears in a crewcut. Red despises this nickname, although he tolerates Team Leader and Black calling him "Red". He is a very physically fit male, muscular and with great endurance.

Despite the failure of Team Leader's group, Red is a talented mercenary-for-hire with some sort of special forces training, although it is unknown to which military branch Red belonged. It was remarked that Red's team had "a great kill list" and that the group was highly talented. Furthermore, Red was a member of the secret society of superpowered beings known as The Elite. It is unknown if Team Leader's mercenary team has Elite sanction, or if they operate independently.

Red has the ability to take on the form on any element or compound, transforming his body into a living form of that substance, complete with that substance's strengths and weaknesses. However, he needs to touch the substance to transform; he cannot automatically activate his ability. It is not known if there is an upper limit to his transforming power; he claimed that the ceramic form he changed to to subdue Quinn Morgendorffer was of a particularly complex composition. Furthermore, it appears that Red can maintain such a form indefinitely, even while sleeping or while unconscious.

Mercenary team
Red's relationship with Team Leader is particularly poor. At times, he has been tempted to kill Team Leader in the name of "collateral damage" and when Team Leader was injured, Red was particularly unconcerned about her health. His nickname for her is "The Wicked Witch".

Red has been reprimanded several times for sexually abusing (or attempting to abuse) females during the course of a mission, whether they be targets or bystanders. (Black has also received warnings, although Black does not appear to violate Team Leader's admonitions as consistenly as Red does.) Indeed, Red threatened to sexually abuse (and possibly mutilate) a captured Quinn Morgendorffer before being stopped by Team Leader.

Red is a generally angry individual who likes to "make things personal" when offended, eschewing firearms and killing using only his powers.

Weapons
It is assumed that Red is familiar with weaponry of all types due to his special forces training.

Red carries a canvas belt with several pouches, each pouch containing some threshold amount of substance. This belt covers his weakness of needing to touch a substance to transform; Red carries several substances/minerals/metals with him.

He carries a gun that seems to have the same transforming abilities that he does, a gun able to fire pure substances matching his own physical composition. It is unknown if any gun Red touches will have this power, or if this is a uniquely designed weapon.

His favorite battlefield weapon is a grenade launcher. Furthermore, he was given a thermographic detector by John Dynell to use on his mission to capture the Legion.