I didn't get to this last time I posted artwork of Megan, so now I'm going to give a brief bio on her and what she's about.
Megan O'Donnell, is on the staff at the U.S. Dept. of Superhuman Studies as our resident engineering and electronics expert. She also serves the role of contact and dispatch between the superhuman agents "in the field". In other words, she serves the very same role as DC's Barbara Gordon when she was Oracle. If you saw that Megan has red hair, green eyes, and a last name that starts with "O' " and yet haven't grasped that she is of Irish descent, then you need "-less" added to your "clue"! >.<
Megan is the daughter of a well-to-do family. Her father is a successful businessman in the field of computer technology and her mother is a socialite. In fact, Megan's mother had hoped that she would follow in her footsteps onto the social scene, and that might have indeed happened if not for a certain book that came into Megan's life about the age of seven.
Megan was visiting her cousins Maya and Lee Maldonado (Megan is related to them through their mother, Mary). She was browsing Cousin Maya’s extensive library, and among her books was a book on how to build radios. As she flipped through the book, she realized that she could build a radio, and it was like a light switch flipped on in her mind. Something in her 7 year old reasoning told her to stash the book in her backpack rather than ask Maya if she could borrow it, and once she got home, she ran to her father's workshop where he has all kinds of electronic parts, and looked for the materials listed in the book.
It took several visits to her father's shop before she recognized the necessary parts to build the radio. Once she had all the pieces, she took them to her room and assembled the radio, and it worked on the first try. When her father heard the radio, he came into her room and saw the obviously cobbled-together device, and asked where she got the parts. When she admitted that she got them from his workshop, he then asked how she knew how to build a radio. She then confessed to having taken Cousin Maya's book. The very next day, Megan's father drove her to Cousin Maya's house to return the book and to apologize for taking it. A very remorseful Megan approached Maya and apologized, and handed her the book.
Maya took the book, and then saw the radio that Megan had built. She was impressed. She then accepted her apology, and handed the book back, saying "Let's see what else you can do." While Megan's father disapproved of Megan's taking the book and the parts, inside he was impressed as well, and was glad to see that his child seems to have inherited some of his engineering talents. Megan still has that book and that radio, tucked away in her closet.
As Megan grew up, she spent more and more time in her father's lab learning engineering skills from him and taking on more responsibility as her engineering abilities grew. She managed to finish high school at age 17 and went on to college. After having received her Master's degree, she went to work for her father for a couple of years before a position working for the DSS opened up, and Cousin Maya invited her to apply for the job (since it’s been awhile since I’ve mentioned her, Cousin Maya is Dr. Maya Maldonado, whom I have mentioned before).
After Megan talked with her father, he decided that it was time for her to go out on her own; and also to make some connections that might be beneficial to the family business later once she comes back to run the company. Megan has found working for the DSS to be every bit as exciting and challenging as she expected it to be, and despite the stress the job comes with, Megan has never been happier working at a job.
Other notes:
Along with being an extremely gifted engineer and electronics geek, Megan is also very much a nerd. She plays World of Warcraft as a gnome mage, and one of her mage's professions is as an engineer. One of the few hobbies that she has outside of computers and WoW is collecting various garden gnomes, and the construction of steampunk-themed animals. The mechanical animals’ gears and other parts work with such precision that Megan could have been a clockmaker in the pre-computer days.
Anyway, a big thanks again to Rick Celis for the awesome artwork, who captures both the tension of the moment as well as Megan's cool-headedness in a very stressful situation. I just love the contrast between the dark background and the lighted keyboard and screens. If you'll notice, the screen she is pressing is of me calling in, and in the profile pic is the artwork that Damo made for me!
Below that screen is another screen with Rick's own character, Hazelel. Hmm. Is this artwork hinting at something? Stay tuned, true believers!
And now to put this to my FB album! :-D
No comments:
Post a Comment