Lame example and summary of a plot:
The Rikiti have conquered Earth and Paragon city is their global headquarters. Mankind has been enslaved for almost 250 years and Paragon city is used as a staging area for further dimensional conquests as well as a research facility for human experimentation. Slave races are only good if their are usefull and humankinds vast maleability both mystically, genetically, chemically and cybernetically make them an infinately valuable tool.
As an extention of their research work on humanity, the Rikti emply various altered humans as gladiators in the Arena. Humans are pitted against each other for the Rikti's amusement and wagering as well as to combat test any modifications or experiments done on them.
All humans are tattoo'd at inception of life with their thrall code over their heart and in their backs, in a Rikti version of scannable bar code. This is the thrall's designation (name) for the duration of their lives.
As various 'gladiators' gained fame with continued wins they would often be 'sponsored' by differing research divisions or military cadre's that were responsible for their creation. Gladiators who fought well were rewarded, like pets, with perks and privilages not normally allowed to normal Thrall's.
By and large mankid is kept almost universally ignorant. None have any schooling or training beyond what is required for their service roles. Mankinds historym, while recorded in the great control systems of the rikti, is unknown to the race that created it.
One gladiator, Thrall T'Chek, is a result of genetic alteration and selective breedin to maximise resilience and agility. He is regularly pitched in the arena for combat testing and has so far been undefeated in almost 3 years of battle. He has suffered various extents of wounds in those combats and as a result has had some extensive cybternetic repairs. While medical technology was sufficient to regenerate any lost parts the Rikti were interested in man amplification via cybernetics and as such he was chosen for further experimentation along these lines.
For his success in the arena and flair for showmanship, his rikti masters made availabnle to him various perks. Among these was training in reading. As a more advanced experiment they decided to see what his maximum capabilities could be with proper training and education. If successful he could be cloned and made into an extermely effective type of expendable shock troop for use in their conquests. Better to have dead humans than dead Rikti.
What they did NOT count on was just how fast he would learn and to what extent he learned without them knowing.
Occasionally favored 'pets' were allowed to roam for afternoon's outside the force walls in the 'wilds'. There the earth had reverted to a more primordial state, no humans survived outside captivity. On one of these afternoon's Thrall T'Check stumble upon the ruins of the Paragon Central Library. exploration of the upper ruins was fruitless but upon examination of some of the lower regions he found sections still intact. While time and weather had destroyed th great majority of the facility he did happen upon a time capsule, left in the last days of the rikti invasion by the libraries chief librarian. It it were datapads, packed with disks on history, philosophy and some of the more important works of makinds literature. Man's technology was nothing compared to the Rikti's at that time but even so they could pack an amazing volume of information into such media.
Thral T'Chak slowly learned of mankinds legacy. Of his races history, it's nobility and it's villainy. Of it's philosophy and of it's aspirations, hopes and dreams as a people. In all his time as a Thrall, his entire life, he had never known such a pain and longing to be free. He had never even known it was a possiblity, born into slavery and service the concept was alien to him. His hatred of his masters had been a part of him since he was old enough to think and this hatred grew a 100 fold when he discovered the extent of their villainy to his entire race.
Once the spark of freedom was lit him it flaired brightly inside him. He vowed to himself to escape and to try to oppose his 'owners' at every chance.
Finally one day after a match he was being brought in for post battle evaluation and repairs. What he had noticed this time, was that as he passed through the force dome that sealed the arena from the maintenance area's, his cyberetics and weaponry did not automatically power down as they usually did. He could only assume that the control shunt had been damaged or destroyed in the combat while leaving his combat systems somehow intact.
As soon as he was pulled through the force dome into the repair lab proper he acted. He had been armed with internal disruption devices they had implanted into his cyberarms for the battle. While they tended to disintegrate inert matter they caused a vicuous cellular explosion affect on organic targets.
He wasted no time. Knowing this was his one chance he made a break and in the ensuing running battle, managed to break into a neighboring lab running temporal portal experiments.
Thrown through the active portal by an explosion caused by the battle he started he was shunted 300 years into the past. the portal was far frmo perfected and it played havoc with his control systems and gene code as he spanned the ages. He ended up falling out of a rikti assualt portal during the rikti war in Paragon city.
This Paragon is a parallel timeline to his own. It's history is different enough from what he read that he knows this.
At some point in the comic he even contemplates joining the freakshow before realising thaty they doctrine of personal freedom and self empowerment is at the cost of any who do not follow their ways and as such he finds them an equal threat to man as the Rikti.
Recognizing himself as one man in a legion of hero's who seek to safeguard mankind, he takes the hero name of Legionaire.
His own name, his personal one he takes in honor of the man who, to him, introduced him to concept of freedom, the head librarian of the Paragon Library, Restin Dane.
The comic would cover his life from this point onward. His attempts at integration into human society after a lifetime of slavery, his fumbling with human social interaction due to his near total lack of such in his own life. His voratious appetite for more knowldge, especially philospohy and classical literature as well as his love for 80's punk rock and style and his need to keep mankind free, initially from the Rikti, but then from any force or entity that would limit mankinds freedom.
And of course his ever consuming war on the Rikti, those who made him and remade him, into the warmachine known as the Legionaire.
