The Gray Ghost - The Phantoms of Piedmont

The Gray Ghost:

Real Name: Dr. William Weathers

Age: Late thirties. Nationality: American

Profession: Masked Vigilante/College Professor

Also Known As: The Phantom of Piedmont, The Dark Detective, The Ashen Avenger, The Gray Gumshoe

Skills: Genius-level intellect, master detective, expert hand-to-hand fighter, expert marksman, master fencer, highly-skilled in athletics and acrobatics, fluency in multiple languages, talented actor, extremely proficient stealth and gadget capabilities, highly-skilled inventor, expert driver and pilot.

Equipment: Goggles with Binocular and Night-Vision Capabilities, Multidart Gun, Collapsible Sword, Wireless Communication Radio, Utility Belt, Grapple Gun with Various Attachments, Smoke Pellets, Miniature Re-Breather, Advanced Lockpick, Multi-Tool, Detective Gear, Handcuffs. Boomerangs?

Biography: By day, Dr. William Weathers is a mild-mannered Professor of Criminology at the prestigious Piedmont University, but by night, he dons the mantle of The Gray Ghost – the Phantom Protector of Piedmont City. A master fighter and detective, and armed with a vast array of gadgets, The Gray Ghost wages a one-man war on the criminal underworld of Piedmont. But this crime is escalating and becoming ever-more bizarre – and The Ghost's solo crusade may not be enough to defend his beloved city…

References:
Main Appearance: The Ghost's design is obviously lifted from the existing character of The Gray Ghost himself, with some slight leeway for my, *ahem*, style of artwork…

Utility Belt: This is largely taken from the idea of Batman's utility belt, (and possibly serving as the inspiration for Batman's own belt...) While not present on the original Ghost, my argument is that he would create and don said utility belt at some point during the series, which in turn would make it easier to combat the ever-escalating crime in Piedmont City.

Gadgets: Like Batman, The Ghost has a series of gadgets to help and contains various gadgets and gizmos to help him combat crime and get around Piedmont City. These items include a grapple gun with various attachments, smoke pellets, and his trusty "Ghostblade", a collapsible sword which he uses to combat various enemies who would use bladed weapons against him, in place of the bladed bracers that Batman uses. The idea of The Gray Ghost being a master swordsman is also a subtle nod to Zorro, another of Bruce Wayne's childhood heroes.

Weaponry: In "Beware The Gray Ghost", The Ghost is shown on posters and in toy format to have at least one handgun of some sort. While looking somewhat like a Luger, this gun seems to be a lot more complex and advanced than an ordinary pistol. Based on this, and that it is unlikely that a hero who kills people would be unsympathetic (and definitely not admired by Bruce Wayne…), I have decided that (in this universe at least) that it is not a lethal weapon that The Ghost uses, and instead a device he calls a "Multidart Gun". This weapon is custom-made (much like Batman's gear), and fires small-but-powerful darts with various serums applied to them, including tranquiliser darts to stun or knock-out enemies, as well as a specialised truth serum which makes enemies more susceptible to The Ghost's interrogations. The idea for darts is partially inspired by Nightwing's Wrist-Dart from the "Arkham" series of games.

Authorial Musings:
Hello there! This is the first posting of my new series "The Phantoms of Piedmont", which is inspired by The Gray Ghost character and the DC Universe as a whole, and where better to start than with the main protagonist of the series, the titular Gray Ghost himself! Interestingly, he had a much less refined design until very recently, the tidy-up process having been put off time and time again while I worked on other characters for this project. When I came back to him about a week ago, I decided that the heroes of the series deserved a much more polished look than they had, which I think I've realised rather well here!

Anyhow, the format for these will be rather simple: a brief profile followed by the inspirations, references and nods I used to create said character, and finalised with my own musings on the character. I'm also planning to put together some sort of profile pages for the various characters at some point, both to expand on their stories and flesh out the universe as a whole, which should be fun!

Anyhow, thank you for viewing/reading this! I really appreciate it! ^_^ Also, I have a lot more planned for this project in the coming months, so, if you feel inclined to so, hang around and I'll do my utmost not to disappoint! On top of that, any comments would be greatly appreciated, as I love hearing what people think about my work and learning from you! :3

And as always, stay tuned!

(And for a final statement, and just to get it out in the open, I can't draw for toffee, and the best I can manage freehand are some very simple sketches. So this, and the vast majority of the rest of this project, has been designed in Microsoft PowerPoint 2007. Using Auto-Shapes and some spliced Clipart. Yep. That's what you're dealing with here… X'D)

[Disclaimer: The Gray Ghost and any fictional characters mentioned do not belong to me, but to their respective owners. So I guess that makes this fan-art? At least partially... Also, I can't see why anyone would want to steal this due to its mediocrity, but please don't, anyway! Thank you! ^_^]