TURBO

 

TURBO

Real Name: Michiko Musashi

First Appearance: The New Warriors (Vol. 1) #28, October 1992

History/Powers: Michiko "Mickey" Musashi is a baseline human and the latest in a line of heroes who have worn the Torpedo suit, a turbine-powered flying armor.

It was designed by Yugoslavian scientist Michael Stivak, who was working for his uncle, United States Senator Eugene “Kligger” Stivak. Kligger was secretly in league with the Dire Wraiths, hostile evolutionary offshoots of the extraterrestrial Skrulls. The Dire Wraiths had hoped that a combination of human and Wraith technology would be a counter to their longtime foes, the Galadorian SpaceKnights. Though intended for military use, Kligger was actually a leader of the criminal organization the Corporation and planned to use the suit to attempt to take over the United States. Angered by this betrayal, Michael had deliberately designed less powerful battlesuits (the “Rocketeer” armors) to present to his uncle. Michael's uncle learned of the real Torpedo suit, and planned to steal the suit's only existing plans.

Attempting to destroy the plans to prevent duplication, Michael was mistaken as a criminal by Daredevil. During a battle, a building collapsed on Michael, fatally injuring him. Insurance salesman Brock Jones accidentally stumbled onto the battle and witnessed the building collapsing onto Torpedo. Jones frantically dug Torepdo out of the rubble, and Torpedo explained to Jones the history of his suit. As Torpedo died, Jones felt a responsibility to don the armor and become the new Torpedo, stopping Senator Stivak's plans. As Torpedo, Jones began a career as a part-time costumed crimefighter. He became an ally of the Galadorian SpaceKnight ROM and a hated enemy of the Dire Wraiths, who ultimately killed Jones during a battle when they overran his small-town home in Clariton, West Virginia.

The Wraiths who killed Jones were a mystically-inclined faction, indifferent to technology and unaware of the Torpedo armor’s significance, so they left it behind. With Jones dead and his immediate family in hiding, Brock’s belongings (including the Torpedo armor) were packed and sent to his cousin, Phillip Jeffries. Years later, Phllip’s then-college student son, Mike, stumbled upon on the armor while searching for a costume for his school’s Halloween party. Giving it to his best friend, journalism major Mickey Musashi, when she donned the helmet, its activation was discovered by a group of scientists who’d worked in the lab that produced the Torpedo armor. Donning the Rocketeer armor, they crashed the party, attacked Mickey and tried to steal the costume. Mickey quickly learned how to use the suit and overpowered the Rocketeers. Unaware of the armor’s origins, Mickey and Mike decided to take turns using it under the super-hero alias “Turbo”. While Mickey was a natural in mastering the suit’s basic functions with ease, Mike’s command of the suit was clumsy and far more limited.

The Torpedo (or “Turbo”) armor is a skintight bodysuit controlled by micro-circuitry and cybernetically responsive to the wearer's thought waves. It enables the wearer to fly at 5,000 miles per hour via small, nuclear-powered jet turbine units attached to the suit’s wrists and ankles; the wearer can maintain a top speed for up to six hours before the suit’s power runs down. A wearer can use the suit’s turbines to generate powerful gusts of high-speed wind; a wide-angle wind blast covering a large area can reach 50 miles per hour within a range of up to 500 feet, while more concentrated, narrow-focus wind blasts can reach 100 miles per hour within a 200-foot range. If timed properly, the turbines can release a series of short, high-speed air blasts that strike with tremendous concussive force, a “hyperblast”. By applying a similar turbine setting while throwing a punch, the suit’s wearer can deliver a powerful “hyperpunch”. A double “hyperpunch” strikes with force equivalent to blows from beings of Class 100 superhuman strength; however, Turbo can moderate the force of a “hyperpunch” to avoid injuring her targets. By reversing the motion of her turbine fans, she can create powerful suction to draw objects toward her. She can also use her suit’s turbines to create short-lived cyclones or water-sprouts by accelerating and directing large masses of air in her immediate vicinity, but she tends to avoid this tactic since the results can be unpredictable. The suit possesses a self-cleaning function that removes inks or dyes automatically and Turbo can also reconfigure her armor’s appearance at will, notably changing its overall color or the shape of its helmet and turbines; though the suit’s functions seem to remain the same regardless of such superficial alterations.

The armor augments Mickey’s strength, enabling her to lift nearly 20 tons (far stronger than other human operators of the armor). The suit constantly generates an invisible field that disperses most forms of energy directed against it, including lasers, microwaves, temporal energy, and various superhuman bio-energies; the suit can also absorb huge amounts of hard radiation and dissipate it harmlessly. If need be, Turbo can expand this radiation-dissipation effect to protect others in her immediate vicinity. The suit’s force field protects the wearer from the adverse effects of high-speed motion such as friction, and it processes oxygen to enable unhindered breathing during high-speed flight. While the suit is immune to most energy attacks and seems to absorb high-speed impacts, it’s sometimes vulnerable to physical penetration, notably by bladed weapons wielded with sufficient force.

The armor is cybernetically controlled through its helmet and is almost impossible to remove unless its seals and locks are cybernetically disengaged by the wearer. The helmet contains a radio system, and a tracking system able to trace specific energy signatures. The helmet’s visor has telescopic sights and is charged with special energy enabling the wearer to identify Dire Wraiths no matter their form.

The armor’s efficiency is dependent on how well the wearer’s brain patterns interact with the suit’s technology. Apparently more compatible with the suit than its other human wearers, Mickey Musashi can only tap into roughly half its potential power, while Brock Jones and Mike Jeffries only reached about 30%. As the suit was designed to be used by female Dire Wraiths in their human forms, their physiology can tap the suit’s potential power more completely and more easily, and so humans cannot so far use it to its full abilities. Worn by a female Wraith, the armor is far more powerful and much more versatile, capable of shape-shifting, self-enlargement, energy manipulation, and the ability to interface with and control outside computer systems.

A highly intelligent trained journalist, Mickey Musashi has a bachelor or arts degree in journalism. Fluent in English, Spanish, and Japanese, she is inventively resourceful in crisis situations She has some experience in unarmed combat and extensive training in self-propelled aerobatics. She seems to have a natural aptitude for operating cybernetic control systems.