Complications

From the Streets: Born and raised “on the streets”, Footloose has great difficulty shaking the marks this past has left on him. His mannerisms, speech, and ability to trust others are all rooted in street culture.

Real Name: Derek Pungel

Aliases: Derek Punk, D-Pop

Threat Level: Gamma

Age: 24

Height: 5 feet, 4 in.

Weight: 152 lbs.

Native Language: English

Occupation: Professional criminal

Base: Apartment

Appearance

A young black man, Footloose wears a costume that is a mix of hip-hop and super-villain cultures. He is otherwise entirely unassuming, except for his infectious smile, and can easily blend into most city crowds.

Personality

Despite his less than noble goals, Footloose is cheerful and light-hearted, preferring to carry out his operations without seriously harming anyone. He also enjoys putting on a show for the public, especially if there are television crews present at his crimes, during which he’ll show off his flashy dance moves and charm.

Powers & Abilities

Footloose has no true powers. Instead, all of his abilities are the result of combining his dancing and martial arts talents. Using principles from both disciplines, he can perform some extraordinary feats, however, such as building kinetic energy with his dancing and then channeling it into the ground to create micro-quakes.

Allies

Derek has plenty of friends on the street, especially among other performers and urban charities. He does not like to work with other criminals, however, as he sees himself removed from them and their goals.

Enemies

Footloose has crossed several criminals in his day, usually by refusing to work with them. He is also sought by the police for his crimes but otherwise has few true enemies.

Background

Having grown up in economically-depressed urban America, at a young age Derek saw there were few legitimate ways out of the ghetto for a black man of limited means. He turned to music and street dancing as an escape.

A natural, it wasn’t long before Derek was able to use his talent to earn money as his reputation as a skilled street performer spread. Unfortunately, with such a reputation comes the attention of less talented thugs who prefer more direct methods of acquiring money. This included regularly demanding the young entertainer turn over most of his earnings in exchange for “protection.” Derek refused.

Because he was unwilling to turn over the money, Derek received beatings on a regular basis, prodding him to take self-defense courses. Realizing the discipline of fighting was paradoxically both as choreographed and spontaneous as was dancing, Derek sought ways to combine the two. The result was a form of urban martial arts that merged his street dancing with combat practices.

Honing his techniques on the streets in actual fights, with his superior reflexes, physical conditioning, and imagination, it wasn’t long before the thugs learned to leave Derek alone. To his family’s dismay, however, the lesson Derek learned from his success was that his unique skills made him dangerous. He believed he could use this to find the sort of fame and money needed to escape and find the lifestyle he’d always fantasized about. He became a criminal.

Focusing on money-making crimes after assuming the name “Footloose,” Derek has taken on something of a Robin Hood mystique to the public. He anonymously donates portions of his ill-gotten gains to charities, especially those that benefit neighborhoods like those he grew up in. The romantic idea of Footloose being a “good class of criminal” is further underscored by the lengths he’ll go through to avoid harming the public during his crimes. Still, he keeps most of what he takes to “live large,” and so, ultimately, is driven by his own selfish desires rather than any ambition to help others.