Characteristic

Cost

END

Cost

1

1

4

8

30

Cost

11

Cost

10

6

3

0

3

17

8

3

-28

2

13

47

3

2

15

20

10

15

20

20

20

15

1

1

1

1

1

5

15

Saul Numen was always curious and naturally found his way into scientific endeavors. He first met Chloe during college when they both took an anthropology class, for different reasons. But they both were consumed by their passions for their work and went their separate ways.

Saul received his MD/PHD training at the University of Texas in the laboratory of Dr. Harold Jackson then went on to do his internship at Johns Hopkins University where he became involved with the genetics group's Ubergene Expression Study.

He became involved with the group Doctors Without Borders and took with him the portion of the 'superman report' that required cataloguing the variety of metahuman phenotypes around the world. It was on a trip to Nigeria in 1984 that he met up again with Chloe, who was there working with a human rights group. The two reminisced about their college days, and then fell deeply in love.

Six months later at a temple in Tibet, the Dalai Lama pronounced the two man and wife. They continued to travel the world together, Chloe to continue her work with international and human rights groups and Saul to carry out his work in genetics. Sure, there was danger traveling to areas where political and economic upheaval occurred, but the shared adventure was something that both Saul and Chloe valued deeply. However, when Chloe became pregnant, they tried to settle down in Baltimore where Chloe entered law school. Their first child, Samantha, was born in the 1985.

In 1987, Saul and his co-authors published the Johns Hopkins Ubergene Expression Study. In the next few months, Saul and Akemi Kanemaru of the study patent the Numen-Kami test, which tests for the presence of ubergenes. In 1988, Saul developed and patented the portable Numen-Kami test device. In the same year, Saul and his partner Dr Akemi Kanemaru opened the first Numen-Kami Institute in Vienna, Austria. Royalties and licensing fees from the patents yielded a good nest egg for the family, which now numbered four with the birth of Balthasar in 1989. Chloe’s shrewd investments led to wealth.

[ The ubergene inheritable. Offspring of persons bearing a given phenotype will exhibit similar phenotype once the offspring's metagene becomes activated. Occasionally, a polarity switch modifying gene, still unidentified may cause a phenotype inverse to that of the parent. For example, in a case study reported by Nichols et al (Reference 24), patient T.A.'s uberhuman phenotype allows for pyrogenic effects while her child, patient, I.A. has a phenotype that allows for cryogenic effects.
- Excerpted from Kanemaru, A., Mehta, A., Numen, S. G., and Jacobs, T. R. 1987. Johns Hopkins Ubergene Expression Study: III. Inheritance of ubergene alleles. Journal of Uber-Genetics, vol 2, issue 1, page 1-15. ]


In 1992, Saul and Chloe took their families to eastern Turkey on a trip with three purposes. The first purpose and the primary reason for going was to seek out Arshavir Madrian, a mystic who purportedly could turn water into oil. But not being one to overlook secondary purposes, Saul was prepared to do a field survey study of the ubergenes of Armenia. A third purpose was the second field test of the Gene Alteration Ray Projector (a.k.a. the 'Gene Gun') as part of a project, sponsored by the Twist Foundation, to cure the son of a village mayor - a wolf-boy that was terrorizing the region's inhabitants.

As they were flying over Lake Van, Saul went to the minilab in the back of the plane to work on the Gene Gun since it was likely that curing a wolf-boy would be quite complex. It was then that a missile struck the craft and sent it in a twisting fall into the lake. The Gene Gun activated during the tumble and broke free of its lock-down bolts. Saul, the three children, Chloe and his sister Alsana, were struck by the uncontrolled, pulsating beam which altered their genes and inserted ubergene plasmids into the nuclei of their cells.

What resulted defied the assertion made by Saul and his colleagues that claimed a discrete pattern of ubergene inheritance and phenotype expression. Saul, Chloe, Alsana, and the three children came out of the lake each with a different mutant power.

The family continued to travel the world making documentaries about natural history and sociology. And Saul continued his side projects - research collaborations with his colleagues at Johns Hopkins and the Numen-Kami Institute, and carrying out the work of the Twist Foundation. But things were different. In some countries, their family's superhuman abilities give them a celebrity status. In others, they are treated as persona non-grata. Still, the New Men tried to do good wherever they went.

The decision to board the children in secret to school them was a tough one. Both Saul and Chloe valued family togetherness. But the lesson of Maximum Force brought out a degree of protectiveness in both parents that neither realized that they had. Education and sheltering seemed to be most important now.

But, the children, born into a life of adventure and with wondrous powers that made them different than other children, had, as Chloe put it 'ants in the pants'. Balthasar, especially, could not stay put.

Finally, deciding that it was better to hold their children close to those that most desired them and their safety, Saul told Chloe, "We need to bring them home."

Chloe nodded her head for their thoughts were akin, "Yes, home wherever in the world we may be..."

New Man has remarkable regenerative powers. When he takes damage, even the biofiber of the uniform struggles to keep itself intact as fast as his own body does. Minor wounds close up in a second as do damage to his sense. Lost limbs bud out of the stump within a minute. He has even been killed four times already.

Saul is also a genetics expert and has extensively modified his original Gene Gun into a powerful arm-mounted weapon. On one setting, it can cause ubergene regression or enhancement; on another it can temporarily grant a weakened version of a number of well known uber genes, such as the strength ubergene or Saul's own healing ubergene. On yet another setting, the Gene Gauntlet causes direct genetic damage.

Finally, Stella Numen, as any mother might, was fearful for her son and his family especially with the nature of their life of adventure. To (at least somewhat) calm her fear, Saul studied aikido, working the lessons into a documentary about pacifist movements in East Asia, even before the incident that created the New Men.

For the little time that he spends grooming himself, Saul appears remarkably clean cut. While not flashy or especially handsome, he does have a certain camera presence. When not in his team uniform, Saul wears soft collared shirts and docker pants. In hot weather he prefers to sport a legionnaire style hat, while in cooler weather he is found with a sweatshirt bearing some sort of logo. As New Man, he wears the New Men team uniform, designed by Samantha when she was a young girl.