Name/Alter ego: Rhodri Maddox
Work Place: Chef at Wondercafe
Personality: Rhodri is an all-around nice guy, would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. Has a passion for the preparation and artistic decoration of food, much like his brother’s passion for latte art. Although, he also enjoys being able to make a difference in the world under the guise of a superhero’s mask. He tends to get frustrated when he momentarily loses control of his powers, or when things don’t come out just so. Perfectionism is the primary form of his own worst critic: himself. He does not like letting people down, or being thought of as a freak for having superpowers (the latter occurring throughout most of his and Zayne’s childhoods). It may take a while to get Rhodri angry, but when it happens it’s not a pretty sight. He’s not perfect, and he knows it.
Overall, however, he is very outgoing and nice toward people, caring a great deal about the populace at large. He likes to see the good in people, occasionally to the point of believing even the bad can turn good. If he didn’t believe that, it would tear down the foundation upon which he built the bond of brotherhood with Zayne in their earlier years, even though they’ve sort of gone their separate ways now.
Supername: Taliesin
Powers: Teleportation, Combustion, Light Manipulation
Weaknesses: Maddox Family Ring – Without it, Rhodri can’t teleport. It also won’t work with anyone that doesn’t have Maddox Family blood in their veins (though Rhodri can transport people with it).
Powers can slip in times of extreme stress, e.g. can make things spontaneously combust. Alternately, like his brother, said powers are generally often at their fullest potential when triggered by emotion. Could potentially have a power ‘outage’ or be rather touch-and-go on not-so-great days.
Has an irrational fear of darkness despite being a grown man... something he is teased by his brothers about relentlessly.
Far too trusting for his own good.
Superhero or Supervillain: Superhero
Archrival: None yet
Appearance:[Drew Fuller]
History/Backstory: Rhodri and his brothers were born in America to parents of Slavic, Welsh, and English ancestry... with a dash of Italian somewhere in there. Their grandparents had lived in Gotham. When Rhodri’s parents became adults they all packed up and moved to Superville. There are a grand total of four Maddox boys on this branch of the family tree:
Brock, the eldest at 36. He was born without superpowers.
Jake, the next-oldest at 34, was also born without a speck of latent super-talents in his veins.
Then was Zayne, the self-proclaimed Black Sheep, now 30. He has been gifted with powers since childhood.
And finally came Rhodri himself, the youngest at 27, who also has had superpowers since a young age.
From the moment Rhodri and Zayne learned they were different, their older brothers had noticed as well. Jealous, they heckled the younger siblings as most children did at that age, to the point of being bruised by the bullying simply for being different. In plain sight of their parents, Brock and Jake were well-behaved... the moment they turned their backs, however, was when all hell generally broke loose. Unlike Zayne, Rhodri did not have the heart to do unto others what had been done to him by his brothers, unless there was a way to turn it into harmless teasing. Despite being the youngest, he is the most responsible of his kin.
It infuriated Rhodri’s brothers when it came to babysitting, having to watch two little tykes flit about with their superpowers... Rhodri, sensing this, often bent rays of light to his advantage, making it appear as though he had vanished. How they had missed out on powers while Zayne and Rhodri hit paydirt simply baffled them, and what confused them only served to resent them even more with each passing day. Often they tried to get Rhodri and Zayne into trouble. Sometimes Rhodri went through with the favors they asked of him merely to get them out of his hair... others because he didn’t want to see his brothers get into trouble. Just because he went through with certain things didn’t mean he had to enjoy doing it... because he certainly didn’t. Like Zayne, he feared retaliation.
Ever the optimist, Rhodri managed to find a good friend in his older brother in the face of sibling adversity. It was clear Zayne was on a darker path than he, but this was in large part due to how each brother handled the bullying. Rhodri has since made it his goal to attempt to gently steer Zayne back on the straight and narrow, although with his reputation for trouble the young man realizes he will have his hands full...
It had been Rhodri that found Zayne tied to a tree, shaking, as though torn between freezing and burning. The knots had been tied good enough to make it nearly impossible to undo. Zayne’s pyro powers had not yet spread to the ropes and it didn’t look like the fire would last too much longer. Angry at his brothers’ cruelty and panicked at the thought of losing the only brother he really felt close to, Rhodri tried at first in vain to untie the ropes. At the end of his wits, and after much shouting and cursing, Rhodri had worked up enough stresses for his power of combustion to focus. Okay, so yeah, he ended up burning the whole friggin’ tree... but at least his brother was immune to heat and that Zayne was now free. Generally trying to be the good Samaritan, Rhodri allowed Zayne to wear his coat the rest of the way home. He might’ve caught a little cold because of it, but at the time he felt his brother had needed it more than him.
Despite their childhood closeness, the boys have since drifted apart. Yet somehow he manages to sense when his brother is about to try something foolish – like do in Brock and Jake – and barely talk him out of it. It’s one thing Rhodri prides himself on, and considers that perhaps his choice to be a Hero spared him from at least some of the same teasing Zayne received. Villains were always ‘picked on’ it seemed to him, though is well aware that if left unchecked villains would make the world an unpleasant place, indeed.
Although there was that one time Brock and Jake pushed him down a well, which led to his fear of the dark... So perhaps it wasn’t just the supervillains that were to blame all of the time. Just 99.9 percent of it...
Upon graduation, Rhodri was given the Maddox Family Ring by his grandfather, who had been a Hero in his prime. The ring contained the power to teleport to any place in the world (or to any person in the world) purely by thinking about them and allowing oneself to travel faster than the speed of light to that location.
At present, Rhodri is looking into getting a job as a chef at the Wondercafe. He’s seen the proprietor back in the kitchen during a few brief moments, but never had much of a chance to speak with her. It is his hope that he’ll make a good first impression both as a potential employee and perhaps as someone to hang out with once the day’s work is done...
But first he has to turn off that damn alarm clock and get out of bed!