Leo Winters

Origin

Leo is a cop working in San Diego who quickly grows tired of watching the world crumble around him at the hands of super-powered villains. He finally has enough when his partner is injured on the job by a gang of villains and seeks out the source of super powers in order to become a hero and take revenge on the rampaging villains.

Creation

Created by writer Mike Carey and artist Elena Casagrande in 2013, Leo is the main character of the Boom! Studios monthly series Suicide Risk.

Major Story Arcs

Grudge War

After a gang of supervillains, including Grudge War, Memento Mori, Doctor Maybe, Diva, and Voiceover, take a group of hostages during a bank robbery, Leo and his partner, John Ha, are amongst the police officers called in to free the hostages and capture the villains. Unfortunately, the groups powers make it extremely difficult to subdue them and the police suffer massive casulties. Sneaking around the action, Leo and John try to free the hostages only to find that the group had left Memento Mori to guard them. By the time they arrived, most of them were dead, victims of Mori's death touch. The two opened fire on her, but their bullets did essentially no damage. Angered by their attempts to her, Mori's boyfriend and teammate, Grudge War, charged the duo and crushed John's arm at the socket.

Luckily for them, Grudge War was prevented from killing them by the arrival of a hero, Extended Remix. At first, it seemed like he might actually be able to defeat the villain, but then Doctor Maybe intervened, using his telepathy to lock the hero in one place long enough for Mori to kill him. Diva then linked all the villains together with her force fields and started to escape.

Unwilling to let them all go after all the damage they had wrought, Leo charged the villains and managed to break through the last barrier in the chain, which held Doctor Maybe. Before he could use his powers, Leo knocked him out with a quick punch to the head. In his report after the fact, Leo notes how lucky he was that it was him at the end and not one of the other villains, and that the police officers suffered massive casualties during the robbery. The interviewer then gives Leo two weeks off for a psychiatric evaluation, which Leo claims he doesn't need or want, but is given regardless.

Leo then goes to the hospital to visit John, who took the brunt of Grudge War's wrath during the battle. He is told that the injury damaged the bones in his arm so badly that they'll need to be replaced and that he'll be taken off of active duty. Leo then goes back to the precinct to review Doctor Maybe's possessions, including a note with a strange message written on it. Leo decodes it and reveals that it's a telephone number. When he interviews Doctor Maybe about it, he claims that it's to the man who supplied him with his powers.

Going home finally, Leo spends the evening celebrating his son Daniel's tenth birthday with his extended family. He has a lengthy discussion with his father-in-law, Mitesh, about the current supervillain problem. Following the party, Suni, Leo's wife, later spends some time comforting him about his surviving while others died.

After his wife has fallen asleep, Leo calls the number on the paper and arranges a meeting with the voice on the other end. When he arrives at the meeting place, Leo meets Hailey and Jed, the people who have been supplying the heroes and villains with their powers. Leo pulls his gun on them and forces them to give him powers, which they do after some arguing. When his powers kick in moments later, Leo is electrocuted and knocked unconscious, after which Jed takes his wallet and Hailey kicks him. A police cruiser pulls up to investigate and interrupts the beating, but they initially believe Leo to be dead rather than unconscious.

Meanwhile, Leo briefly forgets who he is and about his family, but quickly remembers them and dismisses the incident. Using his powers for the first time, Leo knocks out the cops and escapes back home, where he proceeds to lie to Suni about where he has been. Leo spends the following day trying to control his new powers and gathering information about the gang members, especially Voiceover. During the night he has a strange dream about a tattooed woman he has never met named Aisa, and is abruptly awoken by his wife who jokes about Aisa being Leo's mistress.

Leo then goes Los Angeles, pretending to be patching up his strained relationship with his brother, Marty. Secretly, he has tracked Voiceover there through his girlfriend, Anne. He follows her back to their shared apartment and allows him in, believing Voiceover will be able to take care of him. Unluckily for Ernest, Leo is able to supress his powers and a fight breaks out between the two, during which Anne hits her head on a wall and slumps to the ground. Leo then loses control of his powers and blows up most of the floor of the building.

Leo escaped the wreckage and snuck into his brother's apartment, but they are unable to speak due to Leo's earlier battle with Voiceover causing nearby sound to be dampened. The next morning, Paul, Marty's boyfriend, and Marty eventually allow Leo to stay with them briefly, despite Leo's callous treatment of him earlier. The two reconnect over the incident at Voiceover's building, although Leo leaves out the specifics. He also apologizes for his treatment of Marty after his arrest for felony possession.

Afterwards, Leo quizzes his brother for information on Memento Mori, and her various medications. The trail leads them to a friend of Grudge War's prior to his becoming a villain, named The Alchemist. Two officers from Leo's precinct show up to question him about Grudge War and Mori, but are sent away due to Joel's abilities. The two show up in the night in order to stabilize Mori's mind, but Leo drains all the power from the house. Mori, panicking, kills one of Joel's dogs, which sends him into a rage and he forces Grudge War to kill Mori and then go after Leo. Leo blasts him with some of the power stored from earlier but this has no effect.

Diva then arrives and flings Stuart away before kidnapping Leo to an unknown island. She takes him through the jungle to a temple which she has appropriated for a mysterious two headed goddess called Samthi and Kel, depending on the face. Once inside the temple, Diva triggers another encounter with Aisa by saying a phrase which a man, who looked like Leo but was called Requiem, said. Diva believes these to be memories, but Leo disagrees. Diva then hands him a knife and tells him to make a sacrifice to the goddess: his father-in-law Mitesh.

Leo refuses to kill Mitesh and Diva threatens his family, which causes Leo to punch her but the blow has no effect on her. Diva claims that the goddess protects her as long as her statue stands in the temple. Leo persuades Diva into leaving and getting John Ha, claiming that his death would be the most meaningful as it was what started Leo's quest to begin with. Diva agrees and leaves, but not before telling Leo that if he leaves his family will die.

When she returns to the temple, Leo pulls his gun and tries to arrest her, to which Diva scoffs and points out that the goddess protects her. However, while she was gone Leo nullified gravity around the statue and launched it into orbit. Diva accuses him of sacrilege and is about to attack, but Leo shoots her and she dies. Unfortunately, the recoil from Leo's earlier gravity effect causes the temple to crumble and collapse on top of them, leaving Leo, Mitesh, and an injured John trapped beneath the rubble.

Nightmare Scenario

It is revealed that the trio survived the aftermath of the temple's destruction thanks to Leo, who hastily erected a force field around them. Unfortunately, John is near death and won't last long if he doesn't get to a hospital. However, a group of new superhumans arrive on the scene looking for Leo. One of them, a man named Sockpuppet, temporarily takes over John's body to confirm that Leo is still alive, before reporting back to the groups leader, Prometheus. They quickly free Leo and introduce themselves as Nightmare Scenario, comprised of Prometheus, Sockpuppet, Cage, Plane Jane, Just A Feeling, and Transit.

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