A mass of fluid (such as a liquid) with a whirling or circular motion is called a vortex. Due to the vagaries of grammar, two or more such masses are vortices. Write that down, there could be a test later! Welcome to Ten Things: Ten Vortices!

Whooshman-Bicarbonate Films, in conjunction with An Amateur Comics Historian and Rodrigo spending the better part of a season of Critical Hit correcting our pluralization of “vertex”, Presents:

TEN THINGS: TEN VORTICES!

10) VORTEX

A veteran of the war in Vietnam, Jeff Murphy died of asphyxiation while on duty with the Coast Guard. An elemental spirit then chose him to become his avatar on Earth, literally bringing Murphy back from the dead as Vortex. Working in concert with three other Elementals, Jeff used his command of the air to become a superhero and defeat the powerful wizard Saker. When not embroiled in the affairs of the supernature, Vortex can become disinterested and disengaged from everything, which gives living people the creeps. I mean, you can’t actually blame them, as he and his partners are, in fact, very VERY dead.

9) VORT-X

After her brother was targeted and his back broken by the vigilante Shadowhawk, Tajana Juarez swore to get her revenge. With the help of a local crime lord, she gained her own super-powers over the wind. Vort-X became a member of the mercenary squad, The Regulators. After clashing with Shadowhawk, they went freelance as a sorta/kinda super team, becoming antiheroes in the process.

Her current whereabouts are unknown.

8) VORTEX

Formerly known as Zebra-Man due to his stripes, Vortex (real name unknown) clashed with Batman before being sprung from Arkham Asylum. Dosed with Fear Toxin and Venom, he ran rampant through Gotham before being remanded to the custody of Arkham Asylum. Later recruited for The Suicide Squad, he survived that trial only to die when the cosmic forces of the universe were freed by The Flash.

The only way to reconcile ALL his appearances is to posit that there were actually TWO Zebra-Men.

7) VORTEX

An energy being who hails from the far future, Vortex (real name unknown) has been hypothesized to be the ultimate evolution of the human form. Whatever lies beneath his mask has been seen to drive the human mind to insanity, and he can project waves of pure force from his “mouth”. Vortex’s iteration of the Doom Patrol was explicitly affected by the reality alterations of Superboy-Prime immediately before the Infinite Crisis, and I *think* the resulting #SpaceAndTimeTravelShenanigans wiped them from existence.

6) VORTEX

An immortal time-traveling man of mystery, Michael Auburn’s origin is offensive as hell, and I shan’t be conveying it here. Feel free to Google, but don’t say I didn’t warn ya. Imbued with the power of Christian Heaven (seriously, he meets Jesus), Vortex returns to Earth to battle demonic forces. His outer skin is made of something called cyberplasm, but there’s no explanation for why his head has bigger fins than Elvis’ pink Cadillac.

Well, I mean, no explanation other than “because it looks cool.”

5) VORTEX

Abandoned as an infant on the steps of a monastery, Vor (his only name) was raised to adulthood by a sect of Templars in upstate New York. He and his siblings then discovered that they were actually not human, but beings called Hellbent, Hybrids of man and demon-ish folk. Going on the run with his powerful wind abilities, Vortex and company became known as The Cadre, allying with Spider-Man and Moon Knight to find their evil father before disappearing off the face of the Earth.

4) VOR/TEX

After installing a cybernetic chip to help him to walk again after being shot, Tony Stark found himself targeted by an artificial intelligence designated the Virtual ORganism / Turing EXperiment. Lured into cyberspace (UUUUGH), Iron Man was left fighting in a programming loop while VOR/TEX took over his body and entered the real world. The A.I. fell prey to human weaknesses, finding and killing its creator, only to be confronted by Stark, operating an experimental telepresence armor. The battle of the Iron Men ended when Tony targeted the weaknesses of his own body, causing a horrified VOR/TEX to delete its own programming rather than deal with the pain of an organic body ever again.

Everybody in their fifties can relate.

3) ALI “LIGHTNING” BOMBAY

An Indian American member of M.A.S.K. (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand), Ali Bombay is a motorcycle racer by trade. That gig is partly a cover story for his anti-terrorist activities against the forces of V.E.N.O.M. (Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem) using his transforming Bullet hovercycle. Codenamed Lightning, Ali wears a special powered mask, like all the operatives of the Kommand, which gives him additional powers beyond those of his transforming personal vehicle. Codenamed Vortex (THERE it is!), the mask allows Lightning to control and channel winds while in battle. While he does have the requisite exaggerated cartoon accent, Bombay’s is at least somewhat subdued, especially for the 1980s.

2) VORTEX

A self-styled master of time, Vortex of the Agents of Atlantis (real name unrevealed in their single appearance) could shift back and forward temporally, a power that comes in useful when he saves a commercial airliner from crashing. He also has the power to fly, as do most of the other AoA, whose headquarters is an underwater biodome not unlike Sealab 2020, the origins of which aren’t much explored due to the sheer number of characters in his debut issue.

1) VORTEX

A member of an unnamed alien military force, the creature known as Vortex grew tired of destroying worlds and went rogue. Settling on Earth, he used an alien God Machine in the hopes of kickstarting the human population into an army of superhumans capable of fighting off his own people. Unfortunately, his lab was located in the Nevada desert and was destroyed by a nuclear test circa 1947, which eventually led to the rise of most of the superhumans of Comics’ Greatest World. Vortex himself was also transformed, becoming a mysterious and unpredictable player in that reality.

Once again, this week’s topic, Ten Vortices, is all me, but feel free to follow along @MightyKingCobra to suggest a topic of your own! There’s always more Ten Things madness on my Twitter or check out the full Twitter archive here! As with any set of like items, these aren’t meant to be hard and fast or absolutely complete, if only because words with the letter V or X are just so much fun to say. Either way, the comments section is below for just such an emergency, but, as always: Please, no wagering!

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