Pete Stanchek is a psionic of extraordinary power who was once a student of Toyo Harada, the world’s most powerful Harbinger and the founder of the Harbinger Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides an environment where people with special abilities and talents can achieve their potential. After Toyo arranges the murder of his best friend, Joe Irons, Pete escapes with his girlfriend, Kris Hathaway, and sets out to thwart Harada's dreams of a better world.
History[]
Mindscape of A Messiah[]
Growing up in a broken home, Pete Stanchek spent his childhood dreaming about Kris Hathaway, the most popular girl in school, and wishing his parents would stop screaming at each other. Scarred by his father’s abuse, Pete grew into an indecisive weakling, but as his powers emerged and he felt like he was in control for the first time in his life, he matured into a true hero.
The Beginning[]
On February 17th 1991, Pete Stanchek and his best friend, Joe Irons, made their way across the school parking lot when Joe asked Pete if he received an answer to a letter he wrote to the Harbinger Foundation. As Pete replied that he was still waiting and expressed doubts about their legitimacy, Joe stopped to tie his shoe and asked him if he wanted to go down to the dump and practice his powers. While he gazed across a fence at Kris Hathaway, the most popular girl in school, Pete told Joe that he was going home. With a grin, Joe patted Pete and told him that guys like them could never get girls like Kris, but, as he walked away, Pete said that he could.
Three days later while Pete and Mrs. Stanchek, his mother, had an argument, Rachel Hopson, a Harbinger Foundation recruiter, came over to their house and asked him to go for a walk. During their stroll, Rachel told Pete that they were glad he wrote them because the foundation was set up specifically to help people like him, then she offered to pick him up the next day when he got out of school to take him to their office in Pittsburgh. Excitedly, Pete accepted Rachel’s invitation. When Pete returned home, his mother angrily asked him where he went. With a gleam in his eye, Pete told his mother to shut up, and, to his surprise, she became quiet and vacuumed the room.
The next day at school, Joe jokingly accused Pete of staring at Kris through the entire class and dared him to ask her out, when then Pete told him that he was just was about to do and walked over to her. When Pete asked Kris to go out with him on Saturday she intended to reject his invitation, but then his eye gleamed and, after she slurred for a moment, she told him that she would love to go out with him. Much to her friend's wonderment, Kris then took Pete's hand in hers and they walked away together, while Joe expressed his disbelief. After school, Rachel picked Pete up in a limo. Oblivious of Joe’s calls, Pete got in and met Eel and Weasel, two members of the Eggbreakers, a group of Harbingers who acted as Toyo Harada’s enforcers.
Later that afternoon in an interrogation room in the Harbinger complex in Pittsburgh, a Harbinger executive told Pete that they wanted him to feel at home, and that their meeting was just to learn a little about him and answer any questions he might have about the foundation. Somberly, the executive told Pete that they referred to those who were different like him as Harbingers, and that it was their goal to help him better understand and control his talents as there was much good Harbingers could accomplish and they wanted to make the world a better place. When the executive asked him to tell him about himself, Pete reiterated what he wrote in his letter. Later that day, Pete met Toyo Harada, who told him that, as a Harbinger like him, he had experienced much of what he was feeling at that point and offered to help him if he would let them. Keenly, Pete accepted Toyo’s offer.
Two months later in Pete’s house, Joe told him that he had become a jerk and warned him that the Harbinger people were bad news, but Pete accused him of being jealous and lonely because he had a life and a girlfriend. As Pete walked out of the house to wait for Rachel, Eel, and Weasel, Joe went after him and accused him of doing whatever they said and forcing Kris to be his girlfriend. When Joe pulled Pete back, Weasel shoved him and left him crying on the ground, while Rachel got Pete in the car and they left.
That day, Pete was unable to focus while he attempted to lift a car with his mind, so Toyo took control and set it down. Ruefully, Pete said that he had to leave to think, and even though Toyo told him that he reminded him of how confused he felt after he lost his parents at a young age and his powers made him feel like an outcast and urged him to trust him, Pete said that he needed some time alone and left.
That night at Kris’ house, Pete lamented that he let the foundation turn him into a jerk and believed in Toyo, but then Kris seductively moved towards him and told him not to think about them and focus on her. As Pete slid his hand inside Kris’ blouse, he realized that his attitude was not the foundation’s fault and released her from his control. Though Pete apologized for using his powers to influence her, Kris angrily told him that what he had done was evil and that she never wanted to see him again. When Pete went to Joe’s house looking for absolution, he found his best friend dead on the floor. In tears, Pete ran to Pittsburgh and apologetically asked Toyo to forgive him. Soothingly, Toyo assured Pete that they would help him.
Two weeks later, as his suspicions about the foundation grew, Pete called Kris, and, after he apologized to her, he told her that he felt very confused and she was the only person he could talk with. Forgivingly, Kris urged Pete to relax and assured him that she would be at the Harbinger complex soon. While Pete waited for Kris, Rachel came to his room and, discreetly, tried to shoot him in the back of the head because Toyo had deemed him too dangerous to remain alive, but soon as she pulled the trigger, his subconscious mind released a massive energy wave that destroyed the building and killed thirty two people, including Rachel. Shortly, Pete rescued Kris from Eel and Weasel and they ran away together as far away as they could.
Children of The Eight-Day[]
On June 2nd 1991 near the Washington national airport in the district of Columbia, Pete Stanchek startled his girlfriend, Kris Hathaway, when he levitated her car after he noticed that two men on a WJJQ News chopper were staring at them. Worried that they knew who they were, Pete confronted the reporters and asked them who sent them, and when they refused to tell him, he forced the helicopter to land. Moments later, as the reporters told Pete that a guy who claimed that he was with the FBI paid them to spot cars to catch drug dealers, Kris spotted Eel, Lump, and Weasel coming down the road .
While Weasel knocked Pete off his feet and pinned him down, Eel warned Kris to stay by her car or she would electrocute her. After Pete swatted Weasel off, Lump picked him up with one hand and almost tore his head off his shoulders, but then Pete, regrettably, yanked on his optic nerves and blinded him. Though Kris told her to back off, Eel warned Pete not to use his powers against her, but then he moved the car so she could not use it as a conductor and slammed Lump with it. After Kris punched Eel in the stomach and ran towards Pete, Eel released an electric bolt that ignited the gasoline from the car’s gas tank and set off an explosion. As a wave of heat slammed into Kris, Pete moved them real quick and they escaped, while the Eggbreakers suffered the blunt of the blast.
Hours later, Kris and Pete landed outside the Moonlight Motel in Richmond, and, though it scared them when he did what she called “his Jedi mind trick”, Pete forced the clerk to give them a room after he refused to due to their age so Kris would have a place to rest. While Kris griped about her ragged hair in the bathroom and offered to wash their clothes on the sink, Pete fell asleep on the bed.
The next morning, when Pete found an advertisement from the Harbinger Foundation like the one he answered while they had breakfast, Kris said that Eel, Lump, and Weasel were their age, and that if they had met them at a dance they might have liked them. Certain that the foundation convinced other kids like them that they were on a mission for goodness and right, Pete and Kris decided to intercept the letters people wrote to it to save them from falling for their indoctrination. That night, when Pete and Kris broke into the post office, Kris expressed her hesitation at committing a federal offense, but even though Pete told her that if she did not want to get involved she could leave, she promised that she would never desert him. After they found the foundation’s PO box and took the letters inside it, Pete and Kris fled just as the police arrived. At the hotel, Kris found a sincere letter from Faith Herbert and they decided to visit her.
The next day, when Kris knocked on Faith’s door, Faith’s mother, Martha Herbert invited them in and said that Faith would be delighted to see them. As Faith came downstairs, Pete asked her if they could speak in private and she reluctantly invited them to her room. When Faith asked her what they wanted, Kris showed her the letter, which mortified Faith, who thought they wanted her to beg them not to show it to everyone in school. As Faith lashed out, Pete rose off the floor, and told her that he wrote a letter like hers and that the foundation had killed his best friend and tried to kill him. When Faith thought that the foundation was a school for mutants, Pete warned her that if she could do what she claimed they would try to use her as well. Though Faith insisted that she could fly, when Pete looked into her mind he discovered that she was normal, so he told her that they just wanted to warn her about Harbinger and then he and Kris left.
As Pete and Kris could not stop giggling at Faith’s wild claims and pop culture-induced images of grandeur in her mind, Faith suddenly flew out of her window and started them. As Faith cheerily floated in midair and asked if she could help them since people like them had to stay together, Pete pondered that he had triggered something in her mind when he looked inside it. After Faith changed into a bright blue costume and packed a trunk with her stuff, she, Pete, and Kris flew to the Moonlight Motel, where the police were waiting for them.
That night, while Pete, Kris, and Faith hid in an abandoned van in Eberhardt's Auto Salvage, Faith asked Pete and Kris if they could huddle to keep warm, but Kris refused and told Pete that if he wanted to sleep with Faith they could have each other. When Faith accused Kris of being jealous because she was just an ordinary human and Kris called Faith a cow, Pete made them lay down beside him, but he then immediately released them from his control and apologized. While Kris recoiled, upset that Pete had controlled her again, and Faith complained that her head throbbed, Pete said that he did the kind of thing that Toyo Harada would have done. As Kris asked Pete if he was forcing her to be his lover and he said that he was not, she asked him if he knew that what he did was evil and warned him that if he ever did it again she would kill him. Determined, Kris told Pete and Faith that they were going to find more people like them and stick together as a team, and, someday, become an army and pay everyone they owe. After she openly declared war against Harada and everyone else who played God, Kris relented and allowed Faith to huddle besides them so they could go to sleep.
The next day, when Pete walked into the foundation’s office in Atlanta, he met Charlene Dupré, a fiery Southern Bell who was on her way to meet with the foundation executives. Concerned for her safety, Pete told Charlene what he knew about the foundation. While Charlene waited for him in the elevator, Pete forcibly broke into the office’s file room, when then Todd Bevins, a chief executive, startled him. Calmly, Todd told Pete that people like him were special and that he faced unusual pressures that made it seem like everyone was against him, then he urged him to look at the crimes he committed, like the murder of his best friend, and offered to help him before it was too late. When Todd warned Pete that they were not his enemy unless he made them so, it sickened Pete, who swatted him aside and left with a bag full of files. Though Todd told him that he was not as all-powerful as he thought, warned him that they had ways to neutralize him, and urged him to sit down to talk with him before he headed for disaster, Pete ignored him and left with Charlene.
At the abandoned Holmes-Standard Textile Mill, Pete introduced Charlene to Faith and Kris, and while Kris disliked her due to her overt sexuality, Faith eagerly asked her what she could do, and, at Pete’s behest, she set herself ablaze to demonstrate her control over fire. When Charlene charred her clothes, Faith found her something to wear in her trunk while Kris chastised Pete for not helping her stop. Moments later, as they read the files Pete brought over, Kris found a folder with thousands of names marked investigated/negative, except for Charlene’s, which was marked Class A, when, then, Faith found the file of a guy named John Torkelson marked investigated/inconclusive -- Class D and suggested they go find him. While Pete said that it would be a waste of time because if he were special the foundation would have found out, Kris thought that they should check it out, and when Pete insisted that it might be a long shot or a trap, she walked out and accused him of only wanting to check out other girls. Relenting, Pete agreed that they should all go.
Hours later Pete and the others found John at his work in Sonny's Garage, and while at first he sent them away, when he heard that three of them were girls he turned his attention towards them. When Pete asked John if he wrote a letter to the Harbinger Foundation, he told him to leave before he beat him up, and while Pete dragged Kris and Faith away with him, Charlene stayed to flirt with John. As Pete rushed off, he told Kris and Faith that he looked inside John’s mind long enough to know that he was illiterate and someone else had written the letter to Harbinger about him, but then Kris told him that she figured that out just by looking at him and accused him of not looking in his mind. Just then, Charlene and John drove up to them in his mustang, and while the girls left with them, Pete stayed to sulk.
That night, Pete stood watch over the mill from afar while his friends had dinner with John. After dinner, Pete returned to the mill and pushed Kris and Charlene apart when they started to fight over John. When Pete accused John of working for the foundation and he denied it, he forced himself into his mind and realized his mistake. Enraged, John lifted his car over his head and threatened to kill Pete, but Faith made him realize what he was doing and he set it down. Rueful, Pete apologized to John for acting like a kid and told him that the things he saw in his mind of what people did to him when he was kid were unspeakable.
Suddenly, as Pete jerked back and fell to his knees with his hands on his head, Li Yan, the Eggbreaker code–named Thumper, leapt out of a chopper and landed besides them. As Kris urged John to help them protect Pete and shielded him, Faith tried to shake off the Foundation Troopers as they repelled down, but she was too slow and they shot Kris in the back. After Faith rendered a Harbinger who suppressed his abilities unconscious, Pete recovered his senses.
After Pete dispatched the troopers and destroyed the helicopter, Todd contacted him through a trooper’s radio and warned him that he had crossed the rubicon and declared war against the foundation. Before he ended the transmission, Todd urged Pet to realize that they had the power to destroy him, and told him that if he cared about his friends he would not drag them down with him. Dismayed, Pete loomed over Kris’ body and had no idea of what to do, while John wanted to take care of Kris and then rip the troopers’ throats out. While neither Charlene nor Faith wanted to stay behind, the latter said that being a hero was not as she thought it would.
The Root of All Evil[]
On the early hours of June 6th 1991, Pete Stanchek, Faith Herbert, Charlene Dupré, and John Torkelson barged into the Saint James Hospital ER and demanded medical assistance for Kris Hathaway. While John followed him with Kris, Pete demanded to see a doctor. When Lawrence Heyward walked into the ER, Pete threatened to rip his lungs out unless he helped Kris, but he dared him to do it and warned him that he did not work well under death threats. When John told him that Kris was barely breathing, Pete went inside Lawrence’s head to make him treat her, but when realized that his pushing him could screw up his skills, he pulled out as fast as he went in and left him with a headache. In the hope that he could help Kris, Pete gently ripped the bullets out of her back while the others watched in dread, and after he was done, Lawrence could see that she was in shock and offered to help her long as they behaved.
Tense hours later, Lawrence told Pete that Kris’ condition had stabilized and that she would be fine. When Lawrence asked Pete how he did what he did, Pete offered to return someday to pay their bill and tell him. Despite the doctor’s objection, Pete lifted Kris as gently as he could and left before the people that shot her would find them. Soon as they came out of the hospital, a group of snipers took a shot at them, but Pete shielded them. When Faith and John tried to steal a car, Lawrence tossed them his keys and told them to be careful with it. To Lawrence’s amazement, Pete levitated the vehicle and it flew out of sight. Shortly, while the kids debated where to eat dinner, Lawrence called them on his car phone and told Pete to take a map to his summer house out of the glove box and meet him there.
The next morning when Kris woke up, Faith eagerly told her they won their first battle and defeated the troopers that tried to kill Pete, who urged her to relax and told Kris that Dr. Heyward fixed her and he would tell her everything that happened after she rested. As Kris passed out from exhaustion and urged him to keep them together and not let them fall apart, Pete promised her that they would stay together forever. While Kris slept, Lawrence told the kids to make themselves at home and asked to speak with Pete in private.
While Faith, Charlene, and John stayed in the living room, Lawrence took Pete out to the veranda to talk and asked him why they called him Sting. When Pete said that he got his name from the way it hurt people when he forced his way into their heads unless, Lawrence failed to understand until he forced him to pick up an ashtray and abruptly pulled out of his head. When Lawrence asked Pete if he made the car fly, Pete made the water in the pool float in mid air to demonstrate his power.
That night, Pete figured that Faith had returned to the Holmes-Standard Textile Mill to retrieve her trunk after he noticed that she had left the house. When he arrived at the mill looking for Faith, Pete saw as two troopers grabbed her. After he pushed the troopers off Faith his mind, Pete told her that they were supposed to be a team and she should not go off on her own without telling anybody. While Faith told Pete that they were not much of a team since they did not have a name and she was the only one who wore a costume, a trooper tossed a grenade at them, but Pete pushed it back and contained the explosion. Though they refused to tell him anything, Pete pulled out all the information he could from the troopers’ minds.
After Pete and Faith dropped the troopers into a pile of sludge, they followed an address he gleamed from their mind to a specialty clothing store. While they checked out the place, the owner rushed in with a gun and warned them to put their hands up or else he would shoot, but Pete slammed him against a pile of boxes and disarmed him. After Pete discovered that the owner’s gun was a water pistol and apologized for slamming him, Faith found a box full of Harbinger uniforms and an invoice with the address to the world headquarters of Eight-Day Inc., a front office of the Harbinger Foundation. When the store owner asked them if they worked for Eight-Day Inc, Pete and Faith pretended that they did, and got him to give them three boxes full of custom-made uniforms of different sizes and then they left.
Two days later, while Faith keenly told Charlene and John that she could alter the uniforms to make them look more like a team, Pete suggested that they raid Eight-Day Inc., but John insulted him and Charlene refused. Confused, Pete told John that he thought he wanted to help him get the guys who shot Kris, but John told him that he was not going to go look for trouble with him watching his back. Just then, Kris told John that she could see through him and could tell that, while he had Superman’s body, he was a lonely boy who never had anyone on his side. She then told him that he liked being with them, but he could not believe anyone could accept him, so he tested them to prove that they did not care, but they were already the closest thing he had to a family and the reason he was against the raid was that he did not want them to get hurt. As she came into the living room, Kris told John that families could support him, but they could also let him down, that they can be there for him but he could also loose them. As she told John that he had to be brave, Kris told him that if he was one of them he was going on the raid wearing one of the costumes.
Very early the next morning, Pete took the others flew to the worldwide headquarters of Eight-Day Inc. in the World Trade Center in New York City aboard Dr. Heyward’s car. On their way there, John asked Pete what they were after, and as he told him that they were after anything they could get, he reminded them that Dr. Heyward said they could only say with him until Kris was better. While John and Charlene waited in the car, Pete and Faith went inside the building and found the Eight-Day Inc. office on the 47th floor.
Shortly, the four of them took the elevator up to the office, and while they looked around, Pete wondered how they came up with the name Eight-Day and Charlene told him that it came from the Bible in reference to God’s creation of man. Just then, Faith uncovered a hidden elevator behind a bookcase and they decided to take it down to the bottom floor. On their way down, Faith hoped that they would find a secret sub-basement crawling with armed guards and deadly super-foes where Harbinger trained people like them and kept a danger room where they honed their powers to combat readiness, and her zeal made Charlene very nervous.
When the doors opened, Pete and the others came upon a large group of troopers who were expecting them. As Pete ordered a retreat, the others lost consciousness and collapsed on the floor. From above an observation deck, Toyo Harada told Pete that he put his friends to sleep and would try not to harm them, while his power and irrationality endangered the world. After he urged Pete to make it easy on himself and let the first shot kill him, Toyo ordered the troopers to open fire. As Pete blocked the bullet with his mind, Rock, Sparrow, Swallow, and Weasel came into the open and attacked him. While Pete used Charlene to disarm the troopers and kept four Eggbreakers back with his telekinesis, he drenched John and Faith with water from a pool to wake them up and they defeated the Eggbreakers.
After he dispatched the troopers, Pete challenged Toyo to fight him one-on-one without his troops, but then Weasel distracted him and Toyo escaped. When Charlene woke up in Pete’s arms, he apologized for pushing his way in and using her and thanked her for saving them. Shortly, after the four resistance fighters boarded the elevator to escape, they came out into a penthouse office, where, while Pete brought the car up to them, Faith found a wall safe and John broke it open. As they flew back to the Heyward summer house with countless wads of cash, Pete and the others serenaded Kris over with phone with We’re In The Money.
One Small Step...[]
On July 6th 1991 at the Heyward summer house, Pete Stanchek urged the others to hurry so they would not miss their plane as he came down the stairs, then he asked if anyone had seen Kris Hathaway or John Torkelson and Faith Herbert offered to go find them. When Pete found Charlene while she covered the black eye Kris gave her with makeup and urged her to hurry, she told him to leave without her since nobody would miss her. Though Pete assured Charlene that she was part of the team, she said that she was not and that they did not even ask her if she wanted to go, they just assumed she would tag along with John, who did not care about her either. Worried for her, Pete told Charlene that she had to take care of herself and that being one of them made her special, then, when he told her that he thought she was beautiful, she warned him not to let Kris hear him or she would pound both her eyes shut. When Kris and John came upstairs from the gameroom and Charlene joked that they disappeared for a long time, Kris told her that they just lost track of time.
Though Lawrence offered to take them to the airport, Pete flew them there in a car that he bought them with the money they liberated from the Harbinger Foundation. During their flight to Seattle in first class, while Kris showed Pete an article about ESP, a flight attendant asked John to put out his cigarette and then obliquely made fun of him when he used a shrimp fork to eat his meal. Upset, John bent the fork and accused the attendant of trying to make him feel ignorant, but then Kris told him that people like here were ignorant and asked him if it matter to him what the attendant thought or what she did, and while John did not say anything, Pete looked at them suspiciously.
That evening in the Lake Union Mall, Pete and the others met Ax, an obnoxious self-professed computer wizard with a natural affinity for electronics who Faith called after they found his bulletin board notice to help them break into locked-up disks they took from the foundation. When Ax took them to his father’s company, he impressed them when he figured out the keypad code and let them in. When Pete told Kris to give Ax the disks, he charged them $500 USD and Kris told him that having a talent did not made up for his being a lowlife, but then he told her that to get over in the world she had to either give it or take it the hard way.
An hour later, as Ax was unable to break into the disks’ encryption, he said that he would only try once more and he was keeping the money. When Kris asked Ax why they called him that, and he said it was because he played his guitar as if he was wired into it, she and Pete agreed he had the symptoms of someone with Harbinger potential. Though Pete wanted to unlock Ax’s ability so he could crack the disks, Kris worried that if he turned on his power he might do terrible things with it. Pensively, Pete thought that Ax’s introversion, which reminded him of how he felt before he popped, as if something was wrong, was what made him so annoying, so he decided to rummage around his head to figure out if he was one of them or not.
After Pete popped him, Ax could hear a buzzing from the computer, while the disks told him how to open them. When Ax opened a file labeled extraterrestrial landing sites, Kris thought it was a joke, while Pete believed it was a code word, and Faith suggested they go check out one of the addresses. When John asked what they were going to do with Ax, Faith said he was dangerous and could tap into NORAD and start World War III like in War Games, while Kris asked Pete if he could un-pop him and he told her that he could make him forget what happened. Pleadingly, Ax asked Pete not to take his ability away as he had spent his entire life looking at the world through a keyhole and now the doors were wide open. While Faith thought they could harness Ax’s power for good and Pete believed he deserved a chance, Kris and John were certain he was insane. When Pete asked Charlene what she thought, she did not want to voice her opinion, but he coerced her into voting and she said that everyone deserved a chance.
That night, Pete and the others followed a map to a clearing by a waterfall in the Olympic National Park, and while they looked around before it got dark, an electronic hum that came from a tree told Ax that the stump concealed a landing beacon inside. At Ax’s suggestion, the group stayed the night to wait for something to land, unaware that the Spider Aliens, a race of blood-thirsty extraterrestrial aliens, were watching them. After Faith returned with burgers from McDonald’s and they ate dinner, John wondered how long they were going to wait and Ax accused him of being afraid of the dark. While Faith told Ax that he did not have to be a jerk all the time, he suddenly got the feeling that something high-tech was coming their way right before a Spider Might opened fire on them.
After the smoke cleared, Pete and the others laid safely behind a shield he raised when Ax warned them. After John destroyed the tank while Pete covered him, Ax shot one of the aliens in the back with his own gun while they ran away much to the other’s chagrin. Coldly, Ax said that no one would miss the alien, then he pushed a button on a unit in the alien’s belt that had been screaming at him that activated a subterranean hangar, and as the earth trembled, a Spider Alien Transport vessel emerged from the ground. As they made their way inside the ship, Kris asked Pete if he really thought that it came from another planet, and while Faith was certain that it did, Pete suggested that they leave before the aliens came back. Enthralled with the alien technology, Ax activated the ship’s engines, and as the vessel shot up into space, the auto-pilot took them on a pre-programmed course. Though John threatened to rip Ax’s throat out unless he took them down, he told him there was nothing he could do.
Two hours and thirty-six minutes later, the vessel headed to the dark side of the moon and Kris saw the Spider Alien Moonbase glistening in the sun. While Pete dreaded the trouble Ax got them in, a door opened up and a docking clamp pulled the ship inside. As they walked off the ship, Charlene told Pete that she was terrified and wanted to go home, but he told her that, while he could not promise everything would be all right, they were a team and took care of each other. When the door to the base, Pete suggested that they look for a way to open the docking bay so Ax could fly them out, but then they all lost consciousness and collapsed. While Pete was out cold, a group of Spider Soldiers took him and the others to an exam funnel, while Rexo, a Vietnam veteran the aliens transformed into a bionic enforcer, grabbed Ax and said that he might be useful.
Five months later, Ax tried to stop Faith while she tried to wake up Pete from stasis after he woke her up to keep him company while he helped the aliens build a ship big enough to get them out of their solar system. After Pete rendered Ax unconscious and he and Faith woke up the others, they left Ax cold on the floor while they went to look for their ship, but when they turned a corner, they ran across Rexo and the Spider Soldiers, who blocked their path to the ship. When Rexo fired a volley of aerial bombs at them, Pete disabled the missiles, but then Rexo snared Kris and Faith with his tendrils and captured Pete when the strain of the battle got to him. After Rexo captured the others, the soldiers swarmed over John he shouted for Charlene to help him, but she cowered in fear and could not move. Enraged, John called her a slut right before he lost consciousness and Rexo snared him with his tendrils.
Though Rexo offered to let kill Pete and the others, Ax told him to let the aliens eat them, especially Charlene, who reminded him of all the girls who thought they were too good for him but let any jock or preppy have their way with them. Pleadingly, Charlene told Ax that she wanted him to go with them and that she honestly thought he was cute. As she told him that she could have had her if he wanted to, Charlene threw herself at Ax’s feet and said that she could make him feel good. As Rexo ordered the soldiers to drag her and the others away to have their blood drained, Charlene burnt Ax’s testicles and stood up to confront Rexo, who ordered the soldiers to kill her.
Where the Love Light Gleams...[]
Inside the Spider Alien moonbase on the far side of the moon, Charlene Dupré lit herself ablaze and warned Rexo to stay away from him, but he called her a slut and threatened to skewer her for what she did to Ax and carve all her goodies off before he killed her. Frightened, Charlene warned Rexo that she would burn him, but he mockingly said that all the heat she was making would cook her friends before it did him major damage and then slapped with a blade that cut her face and told her that he hated girls and had no use for them since he was 90% bionic. While Rexo joked that Charlene made him a favor when she burnt Ax and made him more like him and now they had a lot more in common, she softened the floor beneath him and fell through it.
While she freed Pete and the others from the tendrils, Charlene hoped she had not burned them before she figured on making the heat go into the floor. Worried that they were not safe, Pete said that they had to find the ship that brought them to the moon and ordered John to bring Ax with them. Shortly, Pete and the others boarded the vessel, and, as John warned Ax to take them home or he would take his face off, he activated the autopilot. When Ax fell on his knees in excruciating pain, Pete wondered if his injuries were severe and Kris, Faith, and Charlene looked at them and gave him first aid. As the ship neared Earth’s atmosphere, Pete worried that the aliens were waiting for them where they found the ship, so he carried it the rest of the way home, a feat that impressed Faith. On their way back to Savannah, John tossed Ax off the ship near Waycross, Georgia, and though Pete thought that it was kind of nasty to drop him in the middle of nowhere when he was hurt, the others told him that he was a traitor and no better than Rexo.
After Pete found Dr. Heyward’s house, he hid the ship beneath the water in case they ever needed it. As they flew inside the house, Faith lamented that, without Ax’s electronic power, they could not fly the ship, while Kris wondered why it was so cold outside. As they went in and Pete noted that the house looked closed for winter even though it was July, Faith shivered and said that it did not feel like July. When Faith turned the television on to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation, an ad for the Parisian that announced there were only three days left until Christmas made her realize the aliens kept them in suspended animation before they escaped and they had been gone for over five months. Dismayed, Faith told Pete that she missed her Senior year, but he did not know what to say other than to apologize. As Kris noted that they were all exhausted, she suggested that they figure what to do the next morning.
That night, Pete told Kris that things had gotten crazy, and that, while it was not bad enough that they had to stop the Harbinger Foundation from taking over the world, they now had to worry about aliens. Certain that they could handle it, Pete reiterated to Kris that all they had to do was stick together like she always said, and told her that with John’s muscles, Faith’s flying, Charlene’s heat, and his head they were unbeatable. As Pete told Kris that as long as he had her he could face anything and pulled her close to him, she turned her back to him and told him that she was going to miss her graduation as well and did not feel like making love to him.
The next morning, Pete found Charlene in the kitchen and asked her where everybody else was. As Charlene told Pete that Faith went home and she was leaving too, she gave him a note Faith left him and told him that she learned a lesson on the moon, and had been lint on John’s sleeve long enough and she had more to her than being trash, but he ignored her and asked her where Kris was. Minutes later by the pool, Pete witnessed as John kissed Kris while she helped him to learn how to read and the sight of them together angered him. When Pete asked Kris how far she went with John and told her that she might as well tell him since he could read her mind if he wanted, she told him that when John kissed her she wanted more and he did not own her. Angered, Kris told Pete that she did not need to read minds to know he had the hots for Charlene ever since she showed up and he turned into a drooling boob every time she wriggled hers, and that for all his power he was still an immature brat. As Kris stormed off, she told Pete that the Harbinger Foundation might be right about him and he was like a child with a loaded gun, and she hoped he would grow up for the world’s sake.
Three days later, while Pete came inside the summer house with bags of groceries he bought to make up for all the stuff they had used, he found Kris waiting for him in the kitchen. When Kris noticed a couple of school books on a table, Pete told her that she made him think that, while he could not graduate, it did not mean that he could not learn and he got a part time job in town. When Pete asked Kris why she came back and she told her what she saw, he said that a lot of it was his fault and apologized as they embraced.
Later that night, while Pete and Kris prepared for dinner, Faith and Charlene knocked on the door and Faith joked that two and a half of the world’s mightiest super heroines were in their doorstep and asked them if they wanted them back or if she had to sit on them. When Kris asked what made them change their minds, Faith said that it was hard to get excited about pretend super-heroes once she had battled aliens on the moon, while Charlene said that, once she straightened out what she had to take care of, she could not think of a better place she would rather be. As Kris wished that John would come back as well and Faith shouted that he would be back because he needed them, Charlene noted that he was too stubborn to admit that, but then Pete suggested that they go find him themselves.
An hour later, Pete and the others discovered John’s burnt shanty and found Ax and the rogue Harbingers in an empty tree lot. As Kris wondered who the men with Ax were and Faith feared that if they knocked John down they were tough, Pete knocked Ax out just as he was about to hit John with a hammer. Even though Donald W. Tietz, a sociopath with sadistic tendencies, skewered him with his electromagnetic javelins, Pete refused to stay down and then knocked Donald out when he threatened to put a javelin through his brain. With Pete’s help, the resistance flew away from the lot and left Ax and his rogues in the ground while the police arrived on the scene.
The next morning, as Faith passed out Tylenol, ace bandages, and mercurochrome as if they were Christmas gifts, Kris wished everyone a merry Christmas. When Pete noted that Christmas with his friends was the best he ever had, Charlene asked God to bless them all.
King's Crossing[]
On March 1st 1992 outside the Chrysler Building in New York City, Pete Stanchek and the Harbinger Resistance gathered to discuss their discovery that Toyo Harada hired Karl Breznoff, the mercenary called Sniper, to attack Aric Dacia, a 5th Century Visigoth lost in the modern age who possessed the Manowar Class Armor, the most powerful weapon in the universe. When Faith Herbert told the others that Toyo arranged to meet Aric in New Orleans, Pete Stanchek proclaimed that Toyo’s presence in the States was their opportunity to stop him before he became a dictator. When John Torkelson reminded the others that Toyo played for keeps, Kris Hathaway told Pete that he had to kill Toyo and reminded him that he was the only one of them who could take him on. While Faith worried Aric might try to stop them, Pete told her they would politely ask him to step aside because they were the good guys.
That night in New Orleans’ French Quarter, Pete and the renegades watched as Toyo took Aric and Ken to the La Bas Jazz Club and kept their distance while they waited for the right time to strike. Shortly, while Toyo, Aric, and Ken listened to Jack Boniface, a jazz player, the renegades waited in the bar for Toyo to become inebriated before they attacked.
Later that night, as Toyo took Aric and Ken to Bourbon Street, Pete and the others attacked. While Toyo called his guards, Aric attacked John, who punched him through a wooden fence. As Aric donned the Manowar armor and dispatched John and Charlene, Pete deflected his lasers and tossed his in the air where Faith tackled him. As John grabbed Aric’s ankles and tossed him against a shed, Charlene climbed down to check up on him, but then Aric used a broken water main to douse her flames. In a huff, Charlene evaporated the water around them and created a curtain of steam that hid Aric from her and allowed him to punch her out and defeat Pete and John. Suddenly, Kris drove up to the club and the renegades escaped in her car.
As their car sped out of the city, Pete told the others that they would get another chance to get Toyo, but that they would have to lay low for the moment until he gave them another opportunity. Troubled, Pete worried that they now had two powerful enemies to deal with.
All For One...[]
On March 5th 1992 in New Orleans, Pete Stanchek and the other renegades took a team photograph, a picture damaged by a beam of light which covered John Torkelson that Pete remarked would remind them of their first vacation together. While Kris Hathaway paid the photographer and clarified to him that they were not students, Charlene Dupré said that she had never been on vacation, except for a revival meeting in Tallahassee with her mother, and Faith Herbert told her that she had been on lots of vacations and they were the best.
After Kris reminded them that they were meeting at a Mexican restaurant for dinner, Pete went off on a walk, Faith flew away shouting Up, Up, and Away despite Kris’ concern that people would see her, John left to check a strip joint, and Kris and Charlene went to an art gallery.
After Pete bought an ice cream bar and sat on a bench to look at the photograph, a kid asked him what he was doing and he told him that he was searching for a dangerous super-villain named Harada with his super-telepathic powers. When the kid asked him if he was going to eat the ice cream all by himself, Pete used his telekinesis to buy another bar with a dollar from his pocket and gave it to him. As the kid ran off, he asked Pete what his name was and Pete told him that they called him Sting and that he had to get back to work.
That night in the restaurant, Pete got an image in his mind and sensed that Harada was on his way there. While Pete pondered that something must had happened that shook Harada and made him let his guard down, Faith pointed to a TV just as a report about an explosion that destroyed one of the tallest skyscrapers n Dallas came on. Silently, the renegades listened as the reporter explained that, while the police cordoned off the area, even from his position he could see the incredible destruction, and that, in his opinion, though the police refused to comment on the possible cause of the catastrophe, he believed that they just did not know what happened yet.
Hours later, aboard a charted aircraft over Dallas, Pete asked Captain Smith, the plane’s pilot, if he might recognize the facility they were looking for if he showed him what it looked like. As Pete used his powers to insert an image of the research facility into his mind, the captain told him that it was a factory on North Road a couple of minutes from the airport that he always passed on his way home. After Pete told Kris that he found what they were looking for, he got the captain to fly them right over it. Minutes later, much to the captain’s surprise, Pete and the renegades jumped from the plane.
As Pete lowered the others down to the facility, he said that the whole time they were in New Orleans he felt Harada like an itch he could not scratch, especially after their run-in, and Kris remarked that this time they would scratch him for good.
Once on the ground, Pete and John deal with the security guards while Charlene melted a lock on a door into the facility. During the fight, as Pete commented on the lack of security in spite of Harada’s presence, Kris mused that, if Harada traveled there as abruptly as he believed he had, that maybe he could not bring his usual army.
As the renegades broke into the sub-basement through a hole that Pete ripped on the wall, Pete ordered the others to take care of the guards while he dealt with Toyo. As John pushed a scientist and threw a bodyguard across the room, he tossed the guard’s Uzi at Faith.
While Pete and Toyo silently faced each other amid a whirlwind, an executive told Seymour that it made no sense for them to fight anymore since their security men were down, and that it all was really on Toyo’s shoulders, and once he dealt with Pete, the others would present no problem. Troubled, yet confident, Seymour reminded the executive that Toyo was still keeping Puff aloft, and then, though he wondered if he could win with his attention divided that way, he cheered for Toyo.
Standing on the sidelines, Charlene asked the others whether they should help Pete, but Kris did not think they should interfere and told them that it looked like Pete was winning. Just then, however, Li Yan, who worried Toyo was in trouble, tackled Pete to stop him.
After Li Yan tossed Faith at Charlene and Kris, she tossed John against a wall with one punch and threatened to smash his skull. While John stared in shock at the glass shards protruding from the wall, Li Yan told him that she was going to break Charlene’s neck, and as she punched him in the stomach, she said that she was going to kill all of them so Toyo had nothing else to worry about except saving Robert.
Fed up, John grabbed Li Yan by the neck and pushed her off him. Curious to how someone as small as Li Yan could hit as hard and feel like she weigh a ton, John removed her coat and discovered that she was wearing weights under her clothes. As John punched Li Yan on the floor after he got rid of the weights and threatened to rip her throat out, Pete urged him to leave her alone.
Suddenly, Robert released a massive discharge that evaporated part of the floor and caught everyone’s attention. As the renegades and Li Yan gathered around Robert, Faith told them that she hurt one of Toyo’s men really bad and that she was not feeling well and was shaking all over. Though Faith begged them to leave, Pete told her that they first had to find out what was happening to Robert.
Worried for Li Yan’s safety as he felt himself starting to lose control again, Robert urged her to leave, but she refused. As Pete levitated Robert above the ground as he had seen Toyo doing, Robert told him that he made things disintegrate, but he had lost control and was in danger of blowing up anything solid that he touched. As Robert told Pete that he had forgotten how to control himself and suggested that he dump him out in the hills or kill him, the phone rang and Kris answered it.
As the operator told Kris that a caller on one of the outside lines said that it was important that he spoke with Toyo, she asked her to connect the call and, all of a sudden, Phil Seleski, the energy entity called Solar, came out through the phone demanding to see Harada.
When Pete wrongly assumed that Solar was one of Harada’s Eggbreakers, John rallied the others to attack him, but then Faith assured them that he was a good guy, a super-hero. As Faith gleefully told everyone that there used to be a comic book about Doctor Solar a long time ago, she asked Solar what he was doing in real life, but he told her that it was a long story and asked her what was happening.
Nervously, Pete told Phil that they went there after Toyo, but he escaped and they were trying to help Robert not blow up even though he and Li Yan were Eggbreakers. As he got the drift of the situation, Phil reminded Robert that he had told him before that his ability to interfere with molecular cohesion was tricky business, and he had to have fine control to prevent violent explosions.
As Phil told Robert that once he lost control he could start to get a mental block and that he wished he could coach him but he could not begin to describe how he did it, Pete asked him to demonstrate using a piece of rock. As Phil disintegrated the rock, Pete went inside his head and got a mental image of how he did it that he relayed into Robert’s mind.
While a thankful Robert embraced a relieved Li Yan, Phil chastised Pete for extracting information from his mind and angrily asked him whom he thought he was, when, just then, Harada returned to the sub-basement accompanied by a squadron of Foundation Troopers. Pleased to see the other two most powerful beings on the planet, Toyo sarcastically told them that there was much to settle among them.
Personality[]
There is no information about this character's personality recorded yet.
Powers and Abilities[]
This character has no powers or special abilities listed.
Equipment[]
This character has no special equipment listed.
Notes[]
Homosexuality[]
- There is no evidence in the published comic books that Peter Stanchek is homosexual. Jim Shooter might have had plans for the character to finally realize he was gay, however, Shooter was forced to leave the company and his plans for the character were abandoned at that point with a different creative team being in charge for the character's further development.
Appearances[]
Gallery[]
Quotes[]
- Harbinger is a big, powerful organization. They killed my best friend in the world. They're trying to kill me. If you fall for their crap, they'll trick you and use you... that is, if you really can do, you know... special things.
- -- Peter Stanchek[src]
References[]
This section is for footnotes and citations.