Apus

Real Name: Unknown

Identity/Class: Mutant human

Occupation: Vigilante

Affiliations: None known

Enemies: Terrorists

Known Relatives: None known

Aliases: None known

Base of Operations: New Zealand, c.2017

First Appearance: Southern Tribe (Corbeau Comics, 1995)

Powers/Abilities: "Apus" is a superb martial artist with the abillity to instantaneously transfer matter / teleport. Her irises fade to white when her powers are active or when she is summoning her powers and preparing for battle.

History: "In 1993, four pregnant New Zealand women were abducted by a group of aliens and their children were experimented on in utero. One of the women awoke during the process as her child was subjected to the Breeding Program, but her memory of the event was subsequently erased. The children had their psychic and physical potentials maximised by the aliens before the women were taken back to their homes.

Twenty four years passed. In 2017, New Zealand is under constant terrorist attack. The Police have so far been unable to discover the leader of the terrorists, nor a clear motive for the attacks, save that they cause chaos whenever possible.

Rising up to face this threat are Southern Tribe - a team formed by the leader "Odin's Raven" and comprising of the four altered children (the other three being Apus, Raze and Fox). The Southern Tribe team unofficially supplements the Police, using vigilante tactics. They are feared and respected by the public because of the damage they cause in battle and the lives they manage to save.

Southern Tribe first encounter the aliens that altered them in "Southern Tribe #1". The warrior-like aliens explain that they are fighting a desperate intergalactic war and are suffering many losses. They have travelled to other planets to enhance lifeforms to their ultimate potential and enlist them to their cause. The members of Southern Tribe have suffered abuse all their lives for being different and were branded as dangerous freaks. When presented with the ones responsible for what they have become, Fox lashes out. The aliens reply in kind and during the escalating fight, kill Raze. The aliens retreat, regretting having to kill one of Southern Tribe and teleport away.

Once they have gone, Raze is reincarnated into a new albino inhuman form. He tells them that his American Indian god has blessed (and possibly cursed) him with new life.

In subsequent issues, it is discovered that the members of Southern Tribe were not the only children experimented on, the enemy of the aliens crash lands in the mountains of the South Island of New Zealand and begins a search for dominant lifeforms, the Government reveals its ways of dealing with the genetic menace of enhanced humans, the true motives behind the terrorist attacks become apparent, plus the aliens return to see if Southern Tribe will aid them in their war."

Comments: Created, written, drawn and self-published by Craig Peterson - check his site here. Quentin Hansen did the lettering, Rachel Dimery did the speech balloons and Craig Schulz was the guest cover artist on issues 3 and 4. The series ran four issues, with a conclusion appearing in the Armageddon Convention magazine in 1998.

Craig kindly provided the detailed synopsis on the Tribe's background and powers given above.

CLARIFICATIONS: None

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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