Pacific City Chronicles

Star Man
Real Name: Rhikos Uteryu (Rick Young)
Powers and Equipment: Transtellar flight, super senses, greatly enhanced intelligence and the ability to channel cosmic energy into a variety of devestating effects.
History: A quasi-living andriod created as a sentient star probe by the energy beings of the Quiyen Galaxy, Rhikos found Earth in the early 1100's and infiltrated human society to observe and report back to his masters if the world was suitable for colonization. He was damaged in the Crusades by a Fosek energy spear and spent the next 800 years deactivated. When he was revived by construction work in 1967, he realized that much of his control programming was gone; he was truly a free-willed creature for the first time and able to access all his considerable abilities with no restraint. By doing so, he sacrifices his effective immortality by placing irreperable strain on his systems, but he considers the shortened lifespan a just trade to help his adopted world.

Maelstrom
Real Name: Dr. Ivan Luther Stromm
Powers and Equipment: Maelstrom is a mutant weather-controller, able to summon and control vast weather systems of any type from thunderstorms to hurricanes. He can create and manipulate air, water, and lightning to form a variety of effects. He uses his air control power to fly, for instance, as well as to draw breath from the lungs of his enemies. His control and summoning powers have grown greatly over the last ten years, to the point where he is a major world-wide threat. He has access to vast, seemingly limitless wealthy and a powerful organization that is bent on nothing less than ruling the world.
History: Nothing much is known about Maelstrom before he held the city of London hostage in 1992, only to be defeated by the Teens Supreme, something that still rankles the man to this day. Even though he managed to later kill two Teen Supreme members in retaliation for his embarrasement, he wasn't taken seriously as a threat until he found the Crystal of Ikos in a ruined Greek tempe. Said to be the essence of Zeus' lightning bolts, Stromm figured out a way to use it and permanently increase his power to almost demi-god levels. Since that time he has threatened the world a number of times but so far has thankfully been defeated by Earth's heroes.