Back in the Victorian Era, William was a simple little man, he lived with his mother, wanted to be a poet, and had his sights on wooing a pretty young woman who had no affection for his at all. Then he met a woman named Drusilla, a vampire. She sired William, now William the Bloody (soulless and evil), and the two of them began their relationship as they travel the world with Darla and Angelus. During his time as a vampire, William earned the nickname Spike because he killed people with railroad spikes and he killed two vampire slayers.
In the 1990's Spike came to Sunnydale, where he met Buffy Summers and he attempted to kill his third slayer. Every attempt to kill the slayer over the course of three years failed. He was captured by The Initiative, a secret government organization for capturing and studying Demons. The Initiative implanted a cerebral microchip deep in Spike's brain which causes him pain every time he harms or attempts to harm a human, but he learned that he could still hit demons. He escaped from The Initiative and went to Buffy and her friends for protection. During his time with Buffy's gang, Spike attempted to commit suicide by staking himself, provided information (for cash of course) to Buffy and her friends, and he fell in love with the slayer. Once again, the girl failed to return his affections.
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| The Vampire and the Vampire Slayer |
Spike ventures to Africa to find a demon shaman who makes Spike undergo several difficult trials in order to 'prove himself.' Spike passes all of the trials and earns back his soul. He returns to Sunnydale and eventually he and Buffy's relationship still has its issues but they do become emotionally close with each other. Soon after, Sunnydale and the world is threatened to be destroyed by The First Evil. Angel (the vampire who had a soul first, and used to be Angelus) brought Buffy a magic amulet that he got from the evil law firm, Wolfram and Hart. Angel was the one who was supposed to wear the amulet but Spike took it instead. Inside the Hellmouth, Spike wore the amulet and it began to glow, which caused all the demons inside there to burn up, allowing Buffy and everyone to escape and flee Sunnydale. Spike was destroyed by the amulet along with the town, dieing once again after he was initially sired.
“What's this? Sittin' around watching the telly while there's evil still afoot? It's not very industrious of you. I say we go out there and kick a little demon ass! What, can't go without your Buffy, is that it? Let's find her! She is the chosen one, after all. Come on! Vampires! Grrr! Nasty! Let's annihilate them, for justice, and for... the safety of puppies... and Christmas, right? Let's fight that evil! Let's kill something! Oh, come on!” - Spike
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| Spike saves the world |
The amulet was dug up from the debris of Sunnydale and mailed to Angel at Wolfram and Hart in Los Angeles, California. It revived Spike, but only as a ghost and he was confined to the city of LA. Spike was eventually restored to his undead vampire self, soul and all and help Angel to pull one final assault on the Senior Partners to show them that the forces of good won't ever give up. This caused the Senior Partners to send LA into a post apocalyptic state with demons of all kinds running around all over the place. Spike continues his fight for good against evil.
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| Spike: After the Fall issue 1 |
“We like to talk big, vampires do. 'I'm going to destroy the world.' That's just tough guy talk. Strutting around with your friends over a pint of blood. The truth is , I like this world. You've got dog racing, Manchester United, and you've got people, billions of people walking around like Happy Meals on legs.” - Spike
Chris you've got some great in depth work here! I love that you looked at 5 heros who are diverse and could be argued that aren't all heros.
ReplyDeleteYou might want to consider for future long blogs like this splitting up the blog into individual posts so they don't seem so long and unwieldy. You could do each of the heros as their own post, but that's up to you.
So far in this one you've hit on 4 characters that I know little or nothing about and you've done a wonderful job explaining them so that even I can understand. Great stuff! Keep it up!