From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

"If I have to make one more Ice-related Pun, I'm gonna die."
Cryopulse
Player: @twelfth
Origin:	Mutant
Archetype:	Blaster (Blapper)
Security Level:	50 (Aug 01, 09)
Personal Data
Real Name:	Allison Gibb
Known Aliases:	Cryo, Sister Gibb, Allison Harland
Species:	Human Derived Mutant (Clone)
Age:	Early to Mid 30's
Height:	5'10"
Weight:	Confidential, thanks.
Eye Color:	Cerulean
Hair Color:	Brown
Biographical Data
Nationality:	American
Occupation:	Economist, Financial Advisor, Vigilante.
Place of Birth:	Empire, Colorado
Base of Operations:	Paragon City, RI, USA
Marital Status:	Single, Widowed, or Divorced
Known Relatives:	Available upon Clearance.
Known Powers
Cryokinetics, Endocrine Ultraflexion.
Known Abilities
Dry sarcasm, economic and fiscal analyst, skilled orator, novice cook, horse riding, retention of disbelief in romantic relationships; and notary public.
Equipment
Cryotech Armor, calculator, stock reports, balanced checkbook, stuffbelt.
Accreditations: BBA (1997), MBA (2002), CBM (2005). Additional information available upon authorized clearance.

Cryopulse is the codename for an American female freelance law-enforcement agent of the mutant origin, whose abilities conform to the “Blaster” archetype. While she believes herself to been a talented financial advisor from Colorado, her true origins are a secret to her. Her career as a superpowered hero is something of a coincidence and was not a path that the woman expected to undertake, particularly at a time in her life when career and establishing a family are principle goals of her peer group.

Contents 1 Personality 1.1 Ethics 1.2 Philosophy 2 Affiliations 2.1 Alliances 2.1.1 Inevitable Revolution 2.1.2 Other Alliances 2.1.3 Individual Allies and Associates 2.2 Rivalries and Feuds 2.2.1 Inevitable Evolution 2.2.2 Other Groups 2.2.3 Individuals and Agents 3 Powers 3.1 Cryokinesis 3.2 Endocrine Ultraflexion 3.3 Additional Powers 4 Weaknesses and Limitations 5 Equipment 5.1 Cryotech Armor 5.2 Other Equipment 6 Character History 6.1 Life and Career 6.2 Disaster and Rebirth 7 Trivia 8 Character Origins

Personality

Cryopulse considers herself best known for her intense compassion for other people, both regular citizens and extending to the common criminals she apprehends. However, due to her social interactions among the costumed populace of both Paragon City and The Rogue Isles, she is perhaps better known as a rather tactless and "uncompromising" individual due to her high ethical standards and moral expectations. More often than not these expectations are not unreasonable according to conservative interpretations of such values, but may considered so in comparison to the compromised moral decisions of "villains" or anti-heroic figures. This has often caused friction and outright hostility with those she has engaged in philosophical discussions and observations regarding their conduct. Indeed, Cryopulse has received many a cold shoulder due to her outspoken opinions.

Typically, she places her best foot forward to be friendly and accommodating to those around her, offering advice where she can and simple emotional support if nothing else can be done. This can occasionally be overwhelming as she can care a bit too fervently for friends and strangers. Cryopulse usually attempts to avoid direct conflict and violence if at all possible, preferring to keep her confrontations limited to debate and verbal barbs. She is not beyond admitting a mistake and acknowledging fault, however. Should this occur, Cryopulse is conscientious to absolve any offenses as quickly as possible.

Otherwise, Cryopulse differs from many cryokinetics who usually exhibit a demeanor of “cold and calculating logic”, “emotional frigidity”, or other such stereotypical tropes. Instead, what little "chilliness" in her personality is better described as "dry ice", a warmly laconic and chidingly sarcastic tone to her conversations. Allison does exhibit moments of intense pragmatism, displaying her talents for long-term strategy and honest, unsentimental assessments, these can hardly be considered as cold or calculating as they are often couched in a sympathetic tone.

Ethics

Since there is no particular set code of ethics for the profession, Cryopulse does her best to maintain a high ethical standard for herself. It is not clear whether this ethical code is entirely genuine or just established in order to placate her sense of displacement now that she is a mutant (through maintaining as much cohesion with human society). This tempered with realism and her observations, which occasionally causes some unspoken conflict. Cryopulse has never formally written about this code, but consistent with her actions and spoken opinions, it includes:

• Cryopulse will not kill anyone, ever. She does not condone people who do (even for the sake of "justice") and considers such people exactly what they are in the eyes of the law: murderers.
• "Enhanced Interrogation" is Orwellian newspeak for "torture". Almost needless to say, Cryopulse would never practice or deliver a suspect to those who practiced such inhumane techniques. This has caused some trouble with authorities and government entities within the United States of America.
• Suspects are considered innocent until proven guilty by a court of law. Evidence, while compelling, cannot justify one acting as judge, jury, and executioner. Cryo delivers any of her suspects into police custody and endeavors to provide testimony toward prosecution.
• No cause, no matter how lost it may seem, should be abandoned to despair and desperation.
• Children, even those who are obvious felons or villains, should be protected and rehabilitated at all costs. This, of course, applies to adults as well, but is most commonly applied to the young children and teens who appear to swell the ranks of criminality and villainy.

Philosophy

Foremost, Cryopulse believes that social justice is far more powerful than “street justice” delivered with a fist or a gun. Without addressing the causes of crime, the baseline evils which cause the break from ordered society, pummeling and incarcerating street crime is unlikely to make any difference. This is not to say that she ignores this aspect of crime and criminality, but the battle is only treating symptoms rather than causes. In Cryopulse’s opinion, the greatest cause of this societal disintegration is the hoarding of wealth and the prevalence of poverty. While out-and-out communism or socialism is nowhere near her solution to the problem, progressive reforms in social security and services are the best start to building a better future.

In regard to law enforcement, Cryopulse tows the party-line for the most part. There is a need for law and order, and those who step outside the lines should get yanked back in line for their own good. This is not to say that she believes vigilantes and anti-heroes are indistinguishable from villains and madmen, but that such people are misguided and very much need to be reigned in before they instigate more trouble than they solve. Cryo tries to play the idealist in the real world. She knows it and accepts that there is no such thing as simple black & white. Yet, in a world in which there are so many obscurities, so much ambiguity, the only chance she feels there is to make a difference for the better is to set an ideal example and step up to the challenge of doing the right thing the right way. Violent reprisals, revenge strategies, hot-blooded vigilantism are the simplistic & flawed answers to a very real, very difficult problem.

Affiliations

Alliances

Inevitable Revolution

The legitimized adjunct to the similarly-named outlaw group known as Inevitable Evolution, Cryopulse was recently offered an administrative and supervisory position in this obtensively law-enforcing agency. However, since the organization appears at cursory glance to be little more than a front to allow the villains of IE to operate unrestrained in Paragon, Cryopulse is very interested in reforming the group with dedicated heroes and crime-fighters who might be able to accomplish the groups ideals without resorting to extremist tactics. Still, her position has yet to solidify beyond being the appointed "conscience" of the group - so it remains uncertain whether she will be able to see this goal to realization.

Other Alliances

She works closely with GIFT, as they are still attempting to train her in the use and development of her powers. This has led her to be paired up with several other novice and upcoming heroes, as well as established organizations. She has stated that her roommate (an internet model, burlesque performer, professional dominatrix, and student) apparently had a prior career as a superpowered agent, which gave her some support when Cryopulse first questioned whether she should join Paragon’s legions of powered heroes. Cryopulse has refused to mention who exactly this person is, citing that she has retired from “this silly business” and does not wish to draw more attention to her.

Individual Allies and Associates

Cryopulse has encountered a number of individuals in her career she has begun building some comeraderie with.

• Hallow Finish, "Holly": The first super-powered threat Allison encountered, and the symbol of everything Cryopulse is fighting for. The young lycanthrope is a constantly evolving focus for Cryopulse, representing what is most wrong with the super-powered community and the potential for transcending one's past. While the young woman has often bruised Allison's heart due to decisions Cryo feels are foolhardy, she also inspires the young hero to perservere in the face of despair.
• Jamie Savage, "Jamie": Another child who has earned a healthy portion of Cryopulse's self-assumed maternal instinct. Allison feels a responsibility to Jamie (as well as Holly) to keep him apprised of events related to his former foster family in IE. Cryopulse hopes to allow the child-soldier to figure out to be a child while he still has a chance to enjoy it. Jamie is also one of the few people in Cryopulse's immediate circle who is absolutely certain of her hidden origins. Although he has dropped hints to assist her recall, these have not led to an acknowledgement of the truth.
• Delinquent Behavior, "Spectra": While the two almost immediately attempted to hate each other and bickered frequently on matters of ethics and morality, a late night discussion over their common tragedies melted away all their prior animosity. Their perceived differences helped to fuse together their friendship more securely than if they had merely seen eye-to-eye before. Spectra's dedication to the Last Bastion and the children she oversees won Cryopulse's respect, despite the philosophical and political differences between the Bastion and Inevitable Evolution. Indeed, Spectra remains Allison's go-to when matters in her own organization require a balanced, if slightly criminal, point of view.
• Fyre Fli, "Cindy": A brash but capable teenager who surprised Cryopulse with her maturity and leadership when Allison assumed leadership over Inevitable Revolution. It was of considerable relief to Cryopulse that an established heroic group (although made up of teens) was willing to acknowledge IR's bid for legitimacy. Further encounters have revealed that Fyre Fli is a little less restrained than Allison originally believed, but the young woman remains a colorful and promising girl. Now if Cindy could only stop making passes at a woman old enough to be her mother...

Rivalries and Feuds

Inevitable Evolution

Shortly after learning of her abilities, Cryopulse attended a New York symposium in which IE founder and figurehead Jake Cross spoke extensively on mutant ethics and outsider political action. From her perspective, she found many of the recruits (and some of the recruiters) less interested in creating a progressive society than in pursuing revenge. Recently, she encountered one of IE's agents, a young girl sent to assassinate a pair of devious financiers who were funding unscrupulous ventures in Africa. The confrontation caused Cryopulse to seek out not only the girl, but the "monomaniacal monster" who sent the girl to commit murder. This lead her to engage Run Riot and several of the senior staff of IE directly, sparking something of a professional and philosophical rivalry which persists at this time. Her relationship with the group remains uncertain and subject to considerable turmoil.

Cryopulse had wondered whether there could be a politically active, socially conscious, and morally responsible alternative to IE's “ends justify the means” practice. Paradoxically, it is this very group which has recently offered her the resources and opportunity to do exactly that. Whether or not she has made a truly Faustian bargain with the group remains to be seen.

Other Groups

• Vahzilok – These gruesome ghouls are among the most disgusting villains Cryopulse has had to face. The harvesting of the dead for crude pseudo-scientific necroplasty is a discipline that Cryopulse finds overwhelmingly repulsive. While she takes no pleasure in dealing the necessary rough justice required to defeat their shambling horrors, Cryo does feel some small amount of satisfaction that perhaps the souls of the harvested dead might rest easier without such abominations walking the city streets and sewers.

• The Clockwork - While Cryopulse does not understand much of the workings of the Clockworks, she did assist Synapse in halting the machinations of the Clockwork King. It appears that his minions have not forgotten the insult. Cryopulse often finds herself besieged by the steamwork automatons, often being more of a nuisance than anything else.

Individuals and Agents

Cryopulse's outspoken and rather polarizing opinions tend to grate harshly with those who do not share her exceptional degree of personal responsibility. Indeed, she tends to argue that the ethical and moral standards expected of non-powered humanity and society apply even more stringently to those citizens of the world with super-powers or exceptional abilities. This has occasionally gotten her into trouble, but has not yet directly initiated any lasting emnity among her fellow heroes or even the criminal element. Such fortune is not likely to last, however.

Powers

Thus far, Cryopulse has only demonstrated a limited number of abilities and superhuman powers. However, as she only recently mustered her mutant genome, it is possible these will continue to expand and develop over time. Listed below are her abilities that have been documented by her therapists at GIFT.

Cryokinesis

Simply put: the ability to reduce the temperature and potential energy of an object or environment. The extent of her abilities is at this point drastically limited to bursts of intense endothermic manifestations of energy which can be projected over distances. However, her observation of similar abilities in other super-powered individuals makes her confident that with practice, she can expand and intensify her abilities. She does, however, have a fair degree of fine control of her abilities as to perform minor, “parlor trick” effects on a local scale (flash freezing of up to one gallon of water [or 0.5 ft³ of water vapor], condensation of water vapor into fog, milk into iced cream, temperate climate control of a 625.0 ft² room, etc).

Endocrine Ultraflexion

Cyropulse’s metabolism and endocrine system deviates from traditional human physiology in so far as it appears that with sufficient willpower, she has the capacity to greatly increase her own body’s physical output and efficiency. Through conscious control of her own natural endorphins and body chemistry (which itself is at least 50% or more efficient and potent than their normal, human analogs), Cryopulse can perform feats considered “superhuman” by traditional medicine and science. At this time, this is limited to her capacity to deliver physical blows of shocking power for her frame, along with the sharpening of her senses and fine muscular control to levels just outside the ideal human peak. However, these abilities are commonly very short-term and do not allow for more than a single action or task. For example, while her abilities might allow her to heave a vehicle off of a trapped citizen, it would be practically impossible for her to carry said vehicle across a football field.

This ability is not undocumented in non-powered humans, certain ascetic monks and practitioners of esoteric physical disciplines have shown the ability to perform feats similar to those which Cryopulse demonstrates. She herself seeks to continue her development by adoption of some of these disciplines.

Additional Powers

Although the process is not clearly understood, Cryopulse’s mutant physiology is extremely sensitive to instinctual survival stimuli. Even with completely incapacitated, subdued, or otherwise restrained, Cryopulse's abilities still subconsciously act out to protect her from harm until she can recover enough to consciously remove herself from danger. This capacity to defy the odds in favor of her continued survival is a curious adaptation to hazards of the natural world. In practice, this survival imperative has proved to be a remarkable asset as she lacks the recuperative abilities of other powered beings.

Cryopulse’s ability to consciously control her own body systems also allows her some minor capacity to accelerate her own immune system. This does not afford her any regenerative abilities, but does allow her to overcome illness quickly or preemptively. However, the effects of this ability do not diminish the symptoms of the illness, and can occasionally exacerbate them. Unfortunately, Cyropulse’s lack of expertise in medicine has led her to occasionally “pushing when she should be pulling” and causing herself worse symptoms than if she had just let the illness take its course.

Cyropulse has not commented in medical records whether this ability also allows her control over her own reproductive cycles or other, psycho-somatic conditions effected by mood, health, or nutrition.

Weaknesses and Limitations

Allison is insensate to cold and other minor temperature variations. This is usually not a problem and means that she can be comfortable in almost any environment. However, this lack of temperature sense often means that she does not know whether something is safe to touch or, for example, if food is prepared properly. This also does not prevent her from suffering injuries due to extreme temperatures of hot or cold. It merely means that she cannot feel them as temperature differences, only as sensations of pain due to tissue damage.

As mentioned above, her endocrine manipulation can be and occasionally is misused to ill effect on her bodily systems. Her abilities are also not durable and are limited only to very brief moments of activity and then relaxation. In no case have they been shown to provide any additional resilency or protection from injury or bodily harm. In that regard, she remains consistent with the endurance and consitution of a normal, average human.

Cryopulse has almost no training or defenses against psychic attack or intrusion, rendering her significantly vulnerable to those with such abilities. Also, despite her potential for dealing reasonable amounts of damage in brawling contests, she has nearly no formal training in martial arts or sophisticated defense techniques. Unfortunately, Cryopulse has some overconfidence in her abilities, leading her to occasionally get in over her head with combatants who are significantly more skilled in hand-to-hand combat.

Although it is an issue which rarely comes up, Cryopulse's psychological profile indicates that she suffers from some moderate claustrophobia. She is also hyperopic, requiring the use of corrective lenses for her far-sightedness.

Equipment

Cryotech Armor

A superlatively named outfit of limited body armor against melee weapons and small-arms fire. It is not significantly powerful or advanced, and thusly is prone to failure against extended attacks or advanced weaponry. Cryopulse has admitted that portions of the armor once belonged to her roommate, which accounts for some of its tight-fitting, pseudo-fetish accoutrements. It is simply designed from an amalgamation of heavy leather padding and Kevlar materials, with the lower leg shields comprised of a compressed-composite material designed to deflect direct physical strikes. It is not durable against extreme temperatures or radiation.

The armor's primary purpose is to protect Cryopulse from her own mutant powers. As she is no more resilient to bodily harm than a normal human being, the super-strength her endocrine ultraflexion provides would normally pulverize her bones and shred her musculoskeletal system when she contacted anything of even conventional durability (e.g. walls, cars, doors, etc). Tired of breaking her fingers when punching extremely resilent objects (and individuals), Cryopulse was able to have engineers with Freedom Corps redesign the armor's gauntlets so that impacts from her strikes are absorbed or redirected away from her bones. The remainder of the armor has been changed to provide additional joint and muscle support to prevent damaging strains, sprains, and tissue tears as a result of her overzealous kinesiology due to her advanced body chemistry. As before, the armor also provides excellent insulation against any unconscious radiation of Cryopulse’s temperature-altering powers, helping her to focus and limit unwanted expression of her abilities until she needs them.

Other than the gauntlets which were retrofitted by DATA, the entire armor is relatively inexpensive, costing perhaps less than $5,000.00. Most of that cost is due to the need to specially tool and tailor the kevlar and leather armor to Cryopulse's measurements. Contrary to what the name suggests, the "Cryotech" armor does not actually do anything related to cryokinesis or cryonetics in general. It is simply an inaccurate catchphrase.

Other Equipment

• Balanced Checkbook - Watch 'em, She gone make it to a Benz out of that Datsun - She got that ambition, baby, look in 'er eyes.

• Stuffbelt – Cryo also carries a belt filled with “handy tools and stuff” which can be of use while in the field. These include reinforced handcuffs & riot cuffs, notebooks, a miniature flashlight, low-powered miniature binoculars, a GPS, pepper spray, mutagen accelerant, her cellphone, contraceptives, and approximately $300.00 in cash (among other things).

Character History

Life and Career

Allison was born in Empire, Colorado; a moderately-sized city about ninety minutes southwest of Denver. She had an utterly uneventful childhood and did respectably well in school. Like many other children her age, she was in awe of the superpowered demigods who ruled the news and crime reports, and shuddered to think of what the world might be like without them. Allison showed quite a bit of aptitude in mathematics and oration, with some meager skill in literature and composition. This allowed her to attend accelerated courses, but never caused her to be near the top of her class. She attended undergraduate university and watched as her friends grew up and matured, and learned the lessons that life’s cycle provides. Her relationship with her parents and siblings were complicated, as they always are, but sincere on a foundation of love and (sometimes strained) friendship. She took degrees in business administration, political science, and international finance, with an internship with a major finance think-tank and the goal of joining a respected institute as an economic scholar.

While working on her bachelor's degrees, Allison met a young Marine who had caught her eye while out on a night of celebration. After an intense, whirlwind romance, she married Corporal Andrew Harland on Easter Sunday, only a few months before earning her degrees. The two travelled for some time as Andrew was transferred from base to base, causing some difficulty for Allison to pursue her graduate studies. Andrew was called into Active Service when the United States during the First Rikti War, which he was fortunate enough to survive. The Christmas after his discharge, Andrew was killed in a car accident when Allison lost control their car off during an ice storm. The vehicle tumbled off an embankment and into a rural pond, drowning Allison's husband. Allison herself was unresponsive to resuscitation for several minutes, but was eventually revived by paramedics.

Allison underwent counselling, suffering from survivor's guilt for several years following the incident, believing her borderline alcoholism was responsible for her loss of controlling the car. However, Allison was able to work through her grief and guilt, eventually earning a supplimental accredication in her field of business management. She moved from job to job, attempting to rebuild her life in the wake of her widowing, slowly working her way back to normalcy.

Disaster and Rebirth

During the 2006 holiday season, Allison was flying from New York to her family’s home when her airliner encountered a sudden, catastrophic weather pattern. Despite all of the crew’s ability, the jet shuddered and splintered, shredding the airframe into dozens of pieces and sending the fuselage plummeting into the Rocky Mountains and certain doom. The arrival of the Freedom Phalanx did little to halt the disaster, and were resigned to search futilely for survivors. Allison herself has a vague memory, clouded by her dim oxygen-starved consciousness, of the face of Ms. Liberty clawing at her cabin window in a vain attempt to save the passengers. Later reports would show that The Freedom Phalanx were in a desperate battle with Arachnos forces headed by Sirocco, who generated the storm as a diversion to escape justice.

With the debris spread over such a large area, it took several days to locate any survivors, which were precious few. Allison was not among them, as she spent nearly two weeks in the wilderness, surviving on snow for water and eating whatever she could find that might be edible. Impossibly, as the rescue workers discovered once her trail was found, she had not suffered any hypothermia despite the lack of shelter and her meager clothing. In fact, outside of some mild malnutrition (again, much less than expected), she was in surprisingly fit health. Follow-up tests suggested that the shock and trauma of the crash and subsequent dire battle for survival had unexpectedly triggered the manifestation of a latent mutant RNA-retrovirus in her system. Her physicians and geneticists concluded that had it not been for the exceptional circumstances and her overwhelming subconscious survival instincts, this latent mutant genome might have never manifested in her life.

After learning to control her powers to the most basic extent, Allison returned to the East Coast and looked for employment in her field. Unfortunately, economics and finance has rarely been the most liberal of careers and most employers would not consider her on the basis of her mutant physiology. The risk of reprisals or preemptive strikes by either villains or overzealous vigilantes were the excuses she received most often, although Allison knew that they were equally terrified that she might snap and do something “terribly melodramatic”. As such, she had to content herself with doing temporary work with a small accounting firm and picking up CPA jobs as she could. In the meantime, she moved in with a friend from college (a former heroine herself) who was working in the mish-mash of red-light entertainment industries while pushing herself back though the higher education she abandoned years ago to pursue “justice”.

Feeling unfulfilled in her job and lacking anyone to whom she could express her feelings about her newfound powers, she engaged in countless hours of conversations regarding her roommate’s prior exploits. While both exciting and frightening, she never found any reason to pursue a career in heroism until her co-worker was fired for financial insolvency and irresponsibility. Her co-worker, destitute from the burden of raising her children without a penny of child-support from the estranged father, had gambled heavily with company funds and lost it all. Having known the woman to be a competent worker and otherwise honest person, the emotional breakdown Allison witnessed was heart wrenching. She vowed to do what she could to bring the years of arrears into solvency by tracking down the deadbeat dad, a Hellion gang boss.

The search took hardly a week, since the Hellion had hardly made any effort to conceal himself from Paragon’s police – feeling he was immune to prosecution due to some arcane trivialities of law. Beating one of his lieutenants into a pulp (and nearly crossing a line she knew then she would never cross), she gained access to the hideout and defeated the gangbangers with the help of her roommate (who came out of retirement just long enough to cover Allison’s rank inexperience). With a flick of her fingers, Allison glued the Hellion Boss’ feet to the floor and called the Paragon Family Courts to apprise them of the prodigal father’s whereabouts. It was hard to say which was more satisfying: the Paragon DA’s office’s commendation for giving them a case they could successfully prosecute, or the severe and unyielding tongue lashing she gave the Hellion before the police arrived to apprehend the deadbeat.

The pride she felt in making the world a little better was indescribable, and her roommate knew instantly that she had caught “cape-fever”. With a little adjustment and assistance from her roommate, Allison crafted a new costume to start her career as “Cryopulse”.

See Also: Secret Origin of Cryopulse (Spoilers).

Trivia

• Allison’s prefers to drink cocktails. A list of her favorites: Greyhound (gin, grapefruit juice, soda), Martini (gin and vermouth), Cosmopolitan, Whiskey Sour, Gimlet, Seven & Seven, and the Tequila Popper (tequila and ginger ale). Cryopulse, obviously, makes excellent frozen drinks, specializing in the margarita and mudslide varieties. She hates beer, unless it is an especially good imported variety.
• Allison’s favorite song is “Fire Woman”, by the Cult. Irony abounds.
• Allison is an atheist, so she has cognitive difficulties in understanding or grappling with supernatural or magical creatures or events.
• Cryopulse’s eyes usually “smoke” or “fog up” with a fine mist of condensation when she activates her powers or is being very emotional. Her aura effects are intended to mimic this.
• The identity of Cryopulse’s roommate was recently revealed to be the retired hero Tessa "Lady" Burlesque. Allison is a little upset that she has to play the role of the "hot girl's friend" when they go out on the town.

Character Origins

Cryopulse is derived from a character I believe was my first success in creating a serious comic book character for actual publication. She had a serious backstory, a decent personality and psychology, no stupid costume, and would develop much like a normal person in her situation would. She was later adapted as a supporting character in a tabletop RPG outside of the superhero genre, where her day job and the kernel of her “secret history” was established. CoX required some further tampering with her backstory to fit within the online game’s canon, and adapted her personality to make her far more vulnerable and human than in prior iterations. In all these prior interations, Allison was simply known as “Cryo”, but that name was of course already taken.

Cryopulse was envisioned more by what I did not want more than what I did want in a character. I wanted a female character who: did not have a skimpy & revealing outfit, did not hug "battle princess" tropes as a way of not looking "weak", did not hug "crystal princess" tropes so as to appear "feminine", was not promiscuous but was also not a "ice princess". I wanted a character who was more comfortable using her words and values to fight crime than her fists. I did not want a "dark and gritty" character, but I did not want someone who was blinded by their own "four-color morality" and virtue. I wanted someone naive about being a hero, but was wise enough to apply real-world observations to the situations around her. I wanted a character who wasn't always right, who wasn't always wrong, who wasn't cursed by fate, and a hero who actually was worried about making her rent as much as saving the world.

As it turned out, I was making a character to prove that having "Heart" wasn't such a crappy power after all: a character who could demonstrate that a smile often solves lots of problems that a super-computer never could. And be non-sarcastic about it.