Profile
The terror of the airwaves! The radio rat king! Owen Maxwell-Pierce (known better to the public as the infamous Hijack) is a nasty, narcissistic supervillain with a love of the 80’s and one dangerous voice. He’s mean and green and more hair than man, and if there's limelight to be had, he better be in it. When not committing grand larceny or kidnapping government officials, you’ll find him broadcasting live and loud from his rundown radio tower. Tune in, if you can catch the frequency. Hijack loves new listeners. ;)
Appearance
Owen might could be considered the epitome of “sexy in a rat kind of way.” He’s tall, 5’11”, but his out of control cascade of wavy, chestnut hair makes him seem even bigger. He’s woefully underweight, though, his legs especially long and limber, and every inch of his scrawny frame is tremendously hairy. His face, meanwhile, is striking, with a large nose, dark, almost black eyes, and a short-trimmed beard he takes meticulously good care of. He is a very expressive man, and the Hijack smile is a crooked tooth-grin he rarely offers in flavors other than “malice.”
When running around committing crimes, you’ll find Owen wearing a neon green Thriller jacket and the rest of his supervillain getup. Any time else, though, all bets are off—he’ll wear anything that isn’t a t-shirt or sneakers. Masculine, feminine, and everything in between, if it’s flamboyant and fashionable, it’s in Hijack’s closet. He completes his look with whatever hairstyle he decides on for the day, be it a braid, a ponytail, long and loose, anything really…except cut short, of course.
- Has a visible scar on his throat
- Wears oval-shaped glasses, but can get by without them, and often takes them off before going out (or when in Hijack mood).
- Has two pairs of silver earrings on each earlobe.
- His eyebrows are bushy and thick
- Has a small tattoo along his right collarbone reading "#K285"
- His hair length can be anywhere to his mid back to the floor in length
- Also has one particularly long, curly "ahoge" of hair always visible.
- The swirly goggles he wears with his Hijack outfit protect him from hypnotic eye beams or other light-based powers. He prefers to wear them on his forehead rather than over his eyes, though. :/
Personality
- Charismatic
- Vain
- Lively
- Vindictive
- Erratic
- Just Plain Mean!
Having shed the soft-spoken shyness of his youth, Hijack wields his loud, big personality like a deadly weapon. He loves to ham it up, to go fast, all wild gestures and boisterous taunts at any cop or superhero within range. Even without his powers he’s a charmer, albeit tremendously hard-pressed to ever stop talking…especially about himself. A clinical and inescapable narcissist, it's not exactly hard to fathom, because, frankly, he doesn’t care much about other people. Why should he? They don’t care about him! Their lives are insignificant specks of dust compared to his. They aren’t worth his time. Owen feels that he deserves to be the permanent center of attention, and every second he’s not is a problem.
But for all his egomania and peacocking, it hides a bitter, insecure rat underneath. Owen is motivated by a crippling, spiteful need to hurt those who’ve hurt him, enacting disproportionate revenge on anyone who’s ever made a “slight” against him, no matter how minor. He’s fickle and rude to even the small handful of people he loves, and flies into screeching fits at the drop of a hat. And to call him out on his behavior is a useless endeavor; he’ll deny doing anything, lie to your face, wave you off and leave. He lets pleasure, vice, and rage guide his hand while his relationships, his mental state, his entire identity crumbles around him, and he just stands by and lets it happen.
Maybe it’s because he doesn’t know how to fix it. Maybe it’s because he’s scared to fix it. After all, when you’re a bad person at your core, how can you even try to be anything else?
Likes
- 1980's music, pop culture, and aesthetics
- Rats
- Arguing
- Aggressive, over the top mannerisms
- Alcohol and cocaine
- Chicken Ceasar salads
- Muppets
Dislikes
- Criticism
- Just about any other animal
- Subtlety
- Having short hair
- Ice cream
- 99.5% of music that came out after 1990
- The United States Government
Skills & Abilities
Hijack's vocal cords have been replaced with experimental synthetic ones, which allow him to mind control people with his voice. In order for it to work, he has to prefix his commands with certain "initiator phrases," the sounds of which produce inaudible tones that overwhelm his victims' willpower and leave them (temporarily) hyper-suggestible. His powers only work on living things (humans, some humanoids, and some particularly intelligent animals) capable of hearing his initiator phrases and understanding his given command, and his hypnotic hold wears off rather quickly, usually fading once his command(s) have been fulfilled. His voice also only works in person or over a live broadcast; past recordings will have no effect. They don't work on robots, either, though Owen wishes they did.
There's several "initiator phrases" that Hijack cycles through depending on his mood, including:
- "What if, you, like..."
- "I suggest you..."
- "If I were you, I'd..."
History
Adopted as a toddler, Owen spent his childhood moving around the county with his government-employed mothers, bouncing from military base to military base, sheltered from modern culture and at the constant mercy of his bullying peers. He grew up obsessed with radio, with the larger-than-life personas of the stars from his VHS tapes, and found the shaky confidence to broadcast his own pirate radio show as a young teenager! But then, when he was 17, his life changed forever when something became wrong with his throat. A cyst on his voice box, perhaps. He was losing his voice and coming down with a high fever. Thankfully, his mother Cynthia is a doctor!
She was able to help him, cure him, by way of replacing his damaged vocal cords with artificial ones of her own design. Initially, he was thankful, though mildly upset and self conscious about his new voice, speaking quietly and nervously from there on. He wouldn’t find out about his new superpowers until years later, living in Virginia, when he accidentally killed the boss at his lowly office job and discovered his voice could do incredible things. Combine that with meeting some new, equally powerful and morally questionable friends, and you have the Hijack genesis, as Owen crafted his perfect villain façade and started to get real, real invested in doing crime. In being… evil.
His start to supervillainy was great, up until a botched heist landed him in the Harold M. Cobalt Memorial Penitentiary for a year. There he learned that in the eyes of the U.S. Government he was but an object, government property with government tech lodged inside his throat. To them he wasn’t Owen, but United States Government Asset #K285, and they were eager to have him back in their possession. They wanted to “reprogram” him, to turn him into an emotionless weapon, and if he hadn’t been busted out of jail by his friends, they would have succeeded.
The Government suits sent one of their finest Assets, #J667, to recapture Owen, and she eventually became his “handler” when he was subdued and unwillingly enlisted in Project “Hidden Patriot”—a secret project to brainwash supervillains and have them perform American-backed heists in other countries. Owen toured the world for eightish months, brain fried and will straining against J667’s increasingly tight leash, until finally he was able to come briefly to his senses and flee back to Virginia. Emmy took care of J667, and Owen spiraled down a deeper and darker path.
He bought an abandoned radio tower deep in the West Virginia wilderness, turned it into a base of operations, and began to invade the late night airwaves with his frenetic broadcasts. Hijack has let villainy and hysteria overtake him at this stage, and he relishes in his darkness, capturing and torturing his enemies with sadistic, bloodthirsty glee. As alliances and relationships shift, his trust remains tense and wary, but with the government still keen on reclaiming their missing #K285, he really needs all the support he can get.
Trivia
- Owen has a Bachelor's degree in Audio Engineering. He went to college in Connecticut.
- He's afraid of heights
- He doesn't meet his birth parents until his late 20's, and can't really connect with them beyond a surface level. Struggles with a lot of internal resentment towards them.
- One of his prized possessions is his car, a red 1975 Corvette Stingray named Rosanna.
- Had a pet rat named Bella when he was a child. She was his closest friend at the time.
- Is fluent in Morse code.
- Get genuine enjoyment and satisfaction out of eating burnt toast.
- Taught himself how to play the piano, but he's not very good at it. His favorite songs to play are "I'm Still Standing" by Elton John and "Songbird" by Fleetwood Mac.
- His all time favorite movies are Labyrinth and The Secret of NIHM.
Due to the nature of how his voice works, it's nearly impossible to nail down a perfect voiceclaim for him. Tone and inflection wise, though, he definitely sounds like Glenn Howerton.
