Fear-Master II

Melvin Blume was saddled with a geeky name, an intelligent mind, and a thin, unimposing physique, making him the target of bullies and cruel taunts. He quickly lost interest in school—despite his considerable intelligence—and got more and more involved in the Goth subculture, a reflection of what he considered the pointlessness of life. He became a fan of dark and nihilistic music, literature, and art, as well as horror movies and fiction. In his heart, Vin (as he preferred to be called) dreamed of becoming one of the monsters from those stories—a force of terror able to strike back at the people who tormented him all his life, to give them a taste of fear.
He decided to attend the The Freedom School for the Arts as a music major ,and his skill in electronic music was enough to gain him admission. Blume often clashed with his teachers because of his obsessive mania for his particular brand of disturbing performance. He had no interest in the classics or the styles of other artists. He accused others of not understanding his genius. He wanted to provoke feelings with his work, but not pleasant ones. He wanted to stir up fear, disgust, and terror. He deliberately went for shock value and maximum offense.
Vin went beyond lyrics and melody in his pursuit of freaky music. He stumbled upon subliminal sonic frequencies that could stimulate the fear centers of the brain, inducing unreasoning terror and even hallucinations, that could be fine-tuned in all sorts of ... interesting ways. When he figured out what he was capable of doing, Melvin Blume created a costume for himself based on his stage persona, adopted the name Fear-Master, and set out to give Freedom City a true taste of terror.
Fear-Master quickly ran up against Raven II, who put a stop to his revenge scheme and sent Blume to the South River Correctional Facility for a ten-year stretch. Prison only hardened Blume and made his Fear-Master persona that much more prominent. When he managed to escape from prison, he tried to get his revenge on Raven and continue his reign of terror. Fear-Master has become increasingly obsessed with making other people, especially heroes, afraid of him, and he has expanded and refined his arsenal of fear-technology over the years.
Fear-Master generally works alone, although he has teamed up with some of Raven’s other foes on occasion. He has also encountered some of Freedom City’s other heroes, particularly Foreshadow. On one occasion he managed to make everyone in Freedom City afraid of superhumans, to the point where the Moore Act was nearly reinstated and superhumans outlawed, but the Freedom League exposed the manipulation and destroyed Fear-Master’s broadcast device.
Melvin Blume has encountered the original Fear-Master, Dr. Arthur Levitt, a criminal psychologist and foe of the original Ravenwho used bio-chemical devices to induce fear. He stole some of Levitt’s technology and attempted to drive him to madness, convincing Levitt he was secretly the new Fear-Master due to a psychotic break, but the Raven thwarted his plans.
Fear-Master and the Maestro know and despise each other for their incompatible tastes in music and their similar accomplishments in the field of sonics. The Maestro has accused Fear-Master of stealing his inventions, although Blume made his discoveries on his own.
Fear-Master has taken time to research true occult and supernatural lore, seeking power to match his fearsome persona but, to his disappointment, discovered that he has no potential for the mystic arts whatsoever. This led him to reject the notion of magic altogether, choosing to believe magicians and mystics are deluded charlatans, rather than admit to any deficiency on his part.
Recently, The Foundry arranged to break Fear-Master out of prison in exchange for samples of some of his technology. The dreadful criminal has been in hiding since, rebuilding his arsenal and working on new plans to get his revenge on everyone who has crossed him. Freedom City may think it has seen fear, but it hasn’t seen anything yet!

Physical Description

Apparel & Accessories

Fear-Master has no powers of his own, apart from being fairly intelligent and inventive, but has a particular expertise with fear-inducing technology, some of it of his own invention, other elements stolen from his predecessor, the original Fear-Master.
His most common technology emits subsonic signals, subliminally audible to the human ear, stimulating the fear centers of the brain in particular ways. Over the years, Fear-Master has refined the emitters, allowing him to pick from a wide range of different fear-based effects.
Fear-Master also has access to various chemical fear compounds. These fear-chemicals can be spread in an invisible gas, a visible fog (often part of a special-effects fog-machine), in food or drink, or even by surface contact, and Fear-Master sometimes mixes them to affect the largest number of targets.

Mental characteristics

Intellectual Characteristics

Fear-Master is a classic abuse victim turned abuser: Tormented and bullied for years, he uses fear and psychological manipulation as tools to help him feel powerful and in control. He has become addicted to the rush of power he gets from his influence over people, and his “hit list” of vendettas is so long that it will never really be satisfied.
Like many bullies, Fear-Master is something of a coward: Lacking the kind of physical abilities needed to take on superheroes directly, he relies heavily on stealth and the range of his fear-inducing technologies, along with hired thugs or members of his occasional “cult of fear” to do his dirty work.
He makes liberal use of prepared locations mined with his fear projectors, and often what heroes think is Fear-Master’s physical presence is nothing more than a fear-induced hallucination that seems to have powers he does not, often with an “invulnerable psycho-killer” theme. He seems to be everywhere at once, able to appear and vanish at will, and immune to attempts to stop him.
New heroes who cross Fear-Master’s path are almost certain to end up on his ever-growing list of targets, and he’ll seek to exploit their fears and weaknesses in such a way that they know who is responsible, but are unable to do anything about it.