"We were also doing something because we believed in it. We were attempting, through our personal efforts, to make our country a safer and better place to live in. Individually, working on our separate patches of turf, we did too much good in our respective communities to be written off as a mere aberration, whether social or sexual or psychological..."

Hey, look, more Minutemen art! And it's coloured, gasp! I'm on a roll! Hurrah!

This is a "surprise" gift for fellow WatchFriend, V.M.L, based upon our on-going RP with "Golden Age" Nite Owl (Hollis Mason) and her wonderful character, Lily Appleton. I really love her character! She plays Lily with these nuisances and subtleties that really speak volumes about her personality. I cannot believe this was her first time going a "serious" RP session; it's like she's been doing it for years:

After graduating high school, her family moved to the New York City and the small-town Lily felt lost and uncomfortable in the many comings and goings of the chaotic metropolis. It is a place where only the strong survive here and the weak get eaten alive. She came off, in the beginning, a shy, awkward, self-conscious, and paranoid individual, living life as a survival from day to day, without her sight in the future. But, as we get to know her, she's certainly not as "plain" and "simple" and "innocent" as she appears to be, hiding a vivaciousness, intellect, and wicked wit that's all her own.

The original Nite Owl (Hollis Mason), as I perceive him, is a larger-than-life character, the great hero, crusading adventurer, or so he was described by the press; but under the cowls and tights, he is the unassuming, unremarkable guy-next-door — a square — who donned a mask in order to make a difference, to see justice done when the law could not finish. He is practically a geek with a "knight in shining armour" mentality of slaying dragons and rescuing princesses, but with a heart of gold and a light-hearted, self-deprecating sense of humour. Even he knows he looks rather ridiculous in that outfit, hahaha!

The year is 1939. The formation of the Minutemen has begun and it's the "Golden Age of Superheroes." Their lives collide at an apprehensive times of their lives. Lily has no friends, knows no one, does not reach out to obtain one, and is constantly controlled by her own fears, feeling like a chicken in a field of wolves ready to gobble her up. Hollis stretches himself thinly — a beat cop at day, a mask at night — where it's all about the people and his duties to them, yet his own self doesn't really factor into the equation. He's been Nite Owl less than a year (roughly nine months), the charter league of Minutemen had just formed, and his misgivings about the team and of himself (whose still fairly new at vigilantism) are apparent and stressed.

They're both isolated and alone, searching for meaning in their lives, a purpose, so it's going to be interesting how it all turns out.

(If you're a fan of superhero comics, you'll know this is a jab to Spider-Man. It seems to fit him. I modelled Lily Appleton on 1930/40s actress, Olivia de Havilland, because she's really the only actress of that period I could think of that epitomised the role the best. For Hollis, of course, is Clint Carleton who will be playing Young Nite Owl in the film. I'm really looking forward to seeing him in this role; he looks fantastic as Hollis and is a splitting image of a young Stephen McHattie. And the fact that he's super cute looking isn't too bad either... )

Lily Appleton © V.M.L.
Nite Owl (I) © DC Comics.