Kenneth Weismeyer never discovered a love for comic books—it was born with him. His father taught him to read from the classic adventures of the Silver Age, and soon he was bagging and boarding and trolling a paper route to pay for his weekly addiction. He dubbed himself “Norrin” after his favorite comic book hero, also an outcast, and took to broadcasting his proud geekhood with stickers, T-shirts and hats.

Norrin’s middle-class upbringing outside Pittsburgh was frustratingly uneventful. The son of a steelworker and a dog trainer, Norrin dreamed of a bigger future—a calling that would cast him into the role of hero. For a short time he thought he was the target of a secret hoax where he was transplanted to another dimension and everyone around him was an alien performing as his acquaintance. And then there was a month-long excavation in the woods behind his house, where he was sure evil aliens had begun burrowing to the Earth’s core.

Older, wiser, but no less a comic fan, Norrin attended Freese College hoping to raise his grades and transfer to USC for film school. He’d put the dreams of adventure behind him, until his fellow students housed in the science building were infused with superpowers upon the explosion of the Ax-Cell-Erator. Finally answering the call of duty, Norrin has taken his self-imposed mantle of leadership very seriously. He has constructed a suit of armor and various comic-inspired weapons, planning to strike fear in the heart of villains everywhere... but one of his first moves was to break his own nose with his grappling hook launcher. He hopes to somehow gain the respect of his hostile teammates, who simply won’t take their calling seriously, and his unrequited love, Annalee.

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