If you read Part One: Building the Engine, you know the intense architectural work that goes into designing the Purgatory Magazine and enabling new and aspiring writers to jump onboard. But a perfect story engine means nothing without compelling human stakes. We don’t focus on invincible superheroes; we focus on the terrifying, street-level collateral damage. Here is a deep dive into the character briefs we have built and exactly why these ordinary people will hook our audience.
7. RARE CHARACTER BRIEFS ONE:
I created three writer briefs that focus on the gritty, street-level beginnings of lesser-known associations of major IP villains and characters.
I deliberately stepped away from the invincible superheroes to focus on the terrifying street-level collateral damage. I chose these specific characters because they allow me to explore pure psychological horror and gritty survival, without the safety net of a cape swooping in to save the day.
SPIDER-MAN | The Chitin Prison (Mac Gargan/Scorpion)
• Why this character:
Mac Gargan is traditionally portrayed as a simple thug in a mechanical suit. I wanted to explore the visceral body horror of the exact moment he loses his humanity.
• The Audience Appeal:
The audience gets a claustrophobic medical thriller rather than a standard comic book fight. The second Sam Raimi directed Spider-Man, presented a similar concept with Alfred Molina’s portrayal of Dr. Otto Octavius. There are many truly remarkable and inspiring scenes and sequences in this movie.
I think it would be also incredibly compelling to watch Mac Gargon, a desperate man, willingly walk into a biomechanical trap, only to slowly realise the cybernetics are permanently fusing to his spine.
X-MEN | The First Tunnel (Callisto)
• Why this character:
Before the Morlocks became an established underground community, they were terrified runaways. I chose Callisto in order to strip away the colourful mutant tropes and focus entirely on brutal subterranean survival.
• The Audience Appeal:
The tension comes from the hostile environment rather than supervillains. The audience will be gripped by the tragedy of a reluctant leader who is forced to sacrifice her own morality and commit ruthless acts of violence just to secure a dark home for her people.
BATMAN | The Monster’s Wife (Francine Langstrom)
• Why this character:
Kirk Langstrom transforms into the terrifying Man-Bat, but it’s his wife Francine, who is the one who obligated to clean the blood off his shirts. I wanted to completely ignore the vigilantes to focus on the domestic horror of living with a monster.
• The Audience Appeal:
It turns a classic comic book origin into a tense Hitchcockian nightmare. The audience is drawn into the suffocating paranoia of a brilliant woman desperately trying to cure her husband, while locked inside a house with an apex predator.
8. RARE CHARACTER BRIEFS TWO | FOCUSED ON FAMILY AND FRIENDS:
I created three writer briefs that focus on the tragic, untold stories of family members and friends of super-powered characters:
SPIDER-MAN | The Final Drop (Richard & Mary Parker)
• Why these characters: Comic books usually treat Peter Parker’s parents as a passing footnote. I wanted to shift completely away from superpowers and focus on the raw Cold War espionage of their final mission. They are elite spies who are also terrified parents.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 movie did touch on this pretty well, but I have created this brief as an invitation to any writers who wish to expand on their backstory.
• The Audience Appeal:
It turns a superhero origin story into a high-stakes espionage thriller. The audience gets a devastating emotional hook as they watch two lethal professionals fight a hopeless battle, ultimately sacrificing themselves to protect an infant son they will never see grow up.
X-MEN | The Quiet House (John Grey)
• Why this character:
Professor X makes telepathy look like a gift but I wanted to explore the horrific reality of an ordinary father trying to raise a telepathic child. John Grey has to deal with a ten-year-old girl who can hear his every dark thought and frustration.
John Grey is explored slightly in X-Men Dark Phenix, but again I created this brief to invite writers to dive deeper into the father daughter relationship before the car crash, before he had to do something about his ‘mutant daughter.’
• The Audience Appeal:
It plays exactly like a psychological domestic horror. The tension is incredibly relatable but pushed to an impossible extreme. The audience will feel the suffocating terror of a man who must constantly police his own mind and suppress his own humanity just to keep his daughter safe.
BATMAN | Midnight Triage (Dr. Leslie Thompkins)
• Why this character:
Batman spends his nights breaking bones but Leslie is the one who has to stitch the vigilante back together in an underfunded slum clinic. I chose her to highlight the visceral, bloody aftermath of Bruce Wayne’s crusade.
I am not familiar with the huge variety of Batman comics, so this has likely been touched on to some extent before. But with only my knowledge of the movies, I’ve wondered if it wasn’t only Alfred who stitched up Bruce.
• The Audience Appeal:
It delivers a gritty medical drama right in the heart of Gotham’s worst neighbourhood. The audience gets to see a young, reckless Bruce Wayne through the eyes of a cynical, exhausted doctor who has to outsmart corrupt police officers using only a scalpel and sheer attitude.
9. RARE CHARACTER BRIEFS THREE | UNSEEN PERSPECTIVES:
I created three more writer briefs that focus on the terrifying, untold stories from the point of view of ordinary people dealing with super-powered characters:
BATMAN | A Coat of Ashes (Matches Malone)
• Why this character:
Everyone knows the alias Batman uses to infiltrate the underworld but nobody ever thinks about the actual man who died so a billionaire could steal his jacket.
I am not familiar with the huge variety of Batman comics so the real Matches Malone has likely had his story told before. But with only my knowledge of the cinematic universe I have always wondered about the original guy who owned that name. I chose him to show the unforgiving, desperate reality of Gotham’s lowest tier and the man whose life mattered less than his coat.
• The Audience Appeal:
It delivers a tragic, grounded crime noir. The audience follows a desperate man simply trying to save his brother from the mob. The tension comes from ordinary, terrifying gangsters hunting him through the slums. It turns a convenient billionaire’s disguise into a poignant sacrifice and shows the true street-level cost of surviving in Gotham.
SPIDER-MAN | Hazard Pay (Damage Control Worker)
• Why this character:
Superheroes smash up the city and swing away but underpaid blue-collar workers are the ones forced to sweep up the radioactive rubble. I am not familiar with the vast comic book history of Damage Control but from what I have seen in the movies they are usually portrayed as a faceless government bureaucracy or a punchline. I wanted to look at the guy holding the shovel. I chose this character to explore the crushing financial desperation that would drive a father on the ground level to steal an unstable super-weapon just to pay his rent.
• The Audience Appeal:
It is a high-stakes working-class thriller infused with sci-fi psychological horror. The audience will completely relate to a father pushed to the absolute brink by a city that does not care about him. They will be gripped as his desperate attempt to save his family using alien technology slowly corrupts his own mind.
X-MEN | The First Directive (Trask Industries Technician)
• Why this character:
Before massive killer robots hunt mutants across the globe they are built by bored mechanics and programmers on a corporate assembly line. My knowledge of the X-Men is based entirely on the cinematic universe where we usually only focus on the billionaire mastermind behind the Sentinels. I chose a timid software technician because I wanted to explore the banality of evil and the terrifying, quiet corporate bureaucracy required to plan a genocide.
• The Audience Appeal:
This plays out exactly like a claustrophobic corporate thriller. The audience experiences the suffocating tension of a quiet employee trapped in a sterile office while armed security sweeps the floor. It transforms a faceless worker into an unexpected martyr who burns down his own workplace just to buy innocent people a little more time.
10. RARE CHARACTER BRIEFS FOUR | UNSEEN PERSPECTIVES CONTINUED:
I developed another set of three briefs, each of which focuses on the crushing tension of the average citizen who has to deal with the collateral damage caused by the actions of gods, vigilantes and the destruction of the timeline:
SUPERMAN | The Blind Sky (Air Traffic Controller)
• Why this character:
When gods fight in the sky the people on the ground are the ones who have to prevent a massacre. I chose an air traffic controller because they are completely powerless against Superman but entirely responsible for thousands of civilian lives.
• The Audience Appeal:
It is a suffocating locked-room disaster thriller. The audience will feel the unbearable, sweat-inducing tension of a professional trying to blindly navigate commercial airliners while superhuman shockwaves shatter the control tower windows and fry the radar grid.
DAREDEVIL | Triage in Hell (Paramedic)
• Why this character:
The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen beats criminals to a pulp but somebody has to reset their broken jaws. I wanted to focus on an exhausted paramedic to show the bloody, visceral aftermath of vigilante justice.
• The Audience Appeal:
It strips away the romance of crime-fighting to deliver a gritty medical drama. The audience follows a cynical first responder who does not care about masked heroes; she only cares about stopping arterial bleeding in rain-soaked alleyways while dodging mob hit squads.
THE FLASH | The Mandela Effect (Forensic Technician)
• Why this character:
When a speedster runs back in time to fix a mistake the universe quietly rewrites itself. I chose a forensic technician with an eidetic memory to explore what happens when an ordinary person notices the timeline shifting.
• The Audience Appeal:
It is a pure psychological gaslighting mystery. The horror comes from the subtle details: evidence changing, dead people returning and personal histories altering overnight. The audience will be terrified as the technician slowly realises he is the only person immune to the timeline shifts.
11. RARE CHARACTER BRIEFS FIVE | UNSEEN PERSPECTIVES CONTINUED:
I developed three more briefs, each of which focuses on the frightening level of collateral damage caused by some of the lesser-known villains, to the average worker, the average landlord and the average estranged spouse:
POISON IVY | The Root System (Parks Department Landscapers)
• Why these characters:
After Poison Ivy is locked up, the city has to clear away her mutant vegetation. I focused on an under-equipped crew of city landscapers to explore the visceral horror of nature fighting back.
• The Audience Appeal:
This is an intense eco-horror survival story. The crew thinks they are just dealing with stubborn weeds but the audience watches them walk into a claustrophobic, predatory alien jungle right in the middle of Gotham.
THE PUNISHER | The Upstairs Tenant (Landlord)
• Why this character:
Frank Castle needs places to sleep between massacres. I chose an elderly, exhausted landlord who runs a dilapidated apartment building to explore the terrifying reality of housing a one-man army.
• The Audience Appeal:
It delivers incredible urban siege suspense. The landlord is just trying to keep the heating running but the audience gets to watch him frantically use the hidden pipes and maintenance shafts of his crumbling building to survive a heavily armed mafia hit squad.
SANDMAN | The Hourglass (The Estranged Wife)
• Why this character:
Flint Marko became a villain to save his sick daughter but his physical body is losing its cohesion. I chose his estranged wife to focus entirely on the heartbreaking logistics of a super-powered fugitive trying to maintain a domestic life.
• The Audience Appeal:
It is a devastating emotional tragedy mixed with intense claustrophobia. The audience will be gripped by a mother fiercely protecting her child from a husband whose unstable molecular structure turns their tiny apartment into a suffocating, gritty sandstorm.
JOIN THE CREATION TEAM
The above is only a fraction of the briefs and ready to go lore we are building in the background.
To join as a contributor, may this be as a writer and or illustrator, please join our Patreon’s Writers Tier. You will be granted full access to the Manifest for both the Purgatory Magazines, monthly and Collector’s Editions, containing many story briefs, master prompts and our upcoming writing tools.
THE PROFIT SHARE BREAKDOWN:
Each monthly edition contains twenty stories. The Payout is 2.5% per story. This is due to there being forty stories published per month, though half of these will be fan fiction, which make use of IPs owned by external parties.
We kindly request that writers submit stories using original IPs for the Original Anthologies monthly publication, along side their fan fiction submissions for the Fan Fiction Fulfilment monthly publication, though this is not mandatory.
Please follow the AP Progress Blog and keep an eye out for the launch of our official Patreon.
