Max Pepperwell, also known as Kid Sparkle, is a young superhero with the ability to shoot sparkle energy from the palm of their hands. They are a figure of empowerment for young children like themselves and commonly fight against adults who aim to make those children’s lives difficult in some form.
History[]
Origin[]
Max was born in America to his mother Theora and father Danny, who unfortunately passed away soon after his birth due to a tragic car accident. Later in life, Max would attend Cleverfield High School where he would commonly butt heads with the infamously strict Headmistress Welch. Max, although not usually intentionally, became a massive troublemaker in the school and found it in the interest of himself and the other children to rebel against Ms. Welch through highly mischievous methods.
One day, Max's science class was taken on a field trip to the Wring Laboratories corporate building, where they were toured by Albert Wring himself. During a showcase of one of the laboratories, Max and his friend Mina snuck off to take a better look around. They came upon a secret hidden lab and found a large red potion. They accidentally knocked over the potion and Max ended up spilling some of it onto himself whilst spilling the rest on the floor. Later on, Max found that he had gained the fantastic power to shoot a sparkly energy from his palms and from the bottom of his feet.
Max would decide to become a superhero named Kid Sparkle. He would use his powers to fight bullies and delinquents in their small town, first facing off against Barry Bonnigail, who was his schools toughest and meanest student. Max defeated him with ease, making a mockery out of him in the process by pulling his pants down in front of everyone.
Liberating Cleverfield[]
As Headmistress Welch began enforcing harsher rules through out the school, such as restricting any sort of fun or segregating the boys and the girls, Max took it upon himself to fight back against her tyranny along with his friends. Taking every opportunity to break her rules in rebellion and destroying the prized possessions which she valued more over the children. It all came to a head during the schools final exams when Kid Sparkle pranked her one more time by changing the questions on the tests to expose her cruelty to the school board, who were present at the time. After that, she had enough and armed herself with a large clamp net that she attempted to catch Kid Sparkle with. Max managed to get the better of her however, and she was subsequently fired.
Saving Cleverfield[]
The next big threat that Max would have to face was Alan Blime, a businessman who wanted to tear down Cleverfield High to build a parking garage in its place. Max used his powers to sabotage Alan’s plans, removing the bombs from the school as he was about to detonate them, and instead placing them in his own cherished vehicle, which subsequently exploded. Alan waged war with Kid Sparkle, throwing all of his resources into stopping him using a tactical squad who would utilise animal net canons to try and catch him, and Alan trying to have Max taken away from his mother by CPS by framing her as a neglectful parent, and it almost worked.
Max was taken away from his mother and placed in an orphanage, whilst his mother Theora was facing potential criminal charges and was getting ready to stand trial. Max broke out of the orphanage and gathered whatever evidence he could to clear Theoras name and discredit Alans claims. His plan worked, and soon he was reunited with his mother with her case dismissed. Alan had enough at this point, and afterwards attempted to battle with Kid Sparkle utilising a digger. His attempts proved fruitless however, and Kid Sparkle was able to overpower him. Alan would later be arrested and face trial himself for false criminal accusations and reckless endangerment.
Wring's Return[]
For a while, things had returned to normality once more. With the school saved from destruction, Max would attend as normal and would managed to excel in their classes. That is however until they were tracked down and kidnapped by Albert Wring, who discovered that he had gained powers from his potion and so he had come to reclaim the powers that he believed were rightfully his. Max was brought back to his lab, were he would remain trapped for a few days with Wring attempting to extract the powers out of his body. He was however, rescued by Mina and his other friend Joseph, and they soon escaped the laboratory. However, after the experimentations, Max had lost their powers and was unable to defend himself from whatever Wring had planned.
Wring would send his goons to recapture Max, and he would have to rely on his quick thinking in order to escape capture. He went into hiding and Wring, using his power and influence, managed to lock down the whole town under the guise that there was a deadly infection that needed to be contained. Max and his friends would tried to figure out a way to get their powers back, infiltrating Albert Wrings lab in an attempt to find the vial of the extracted powers. They were successful in finding the vial, but were discovered by Wring himself who fought with the children. During the fight, the vial was dropped and destroyed, losing any chance of regaining Max's powers. When all hope was lost, Max didn't believe there was any way they could stop Albert Wring and they would have to accept that they will be possibly killed. However, with support and love from both of his friends, they found that he managed to regain the smallest bit of power back when he had regained hope. They came to realise that Max is powered by hope, love and friendship.
Once he had gained some small bits of power after quietly reuniting with Theora and having support from the rest of their school, he started to fight back against Wrings henchman. When Wring saw that Kid Sparkle was back, he brought out a machine he had been working on for quite some time known as 'The Mad Monster Machine', which he piloted and fought against Kid Sparkle with in one final battle. When Kid Sparkle was getting overpowered, the support and cheers from the gathering crowd of the towns civilians made him more powerful and he was able to defeat Albert Wring by charging a ball of sparkle energy and tossing it into the machines core, destroying it. Wring was arrested afterwards and Kid Sparkle was deemed a hero of the entire town.
Halloween Festival[]
October rolled around, and the town was preparing for the annual Halloween Festival hosted by the towns mayor, John Basil. With the main event being the costume competition that Max was going to take part in, deciding to dress up as a shower or 'the Invisible Man'. However, things started to go ary when people all over town started to report sightings of a 'green goo monster' roaming the woods. This monster had also been eating the local farmers crops and ruining various Halloween decorations with its green goo.
Max and his friends decided to look into it, and found the monsters cave. When they entered, they were attacked and encased in a cocoon, where it was then revealed that the monster was actually Dean Arlow; a local menace that was known to be a complete shut-in most of the time, but when outside, was a miserable trouble causer that despised everyone in the town. He told the children of his plans to remake the town in his image, by removing all the cleanliness and covering it with his gunk and forcing everyone to work as his slaves. When he left, Kid Sparkle and his friends broke free and fled.
When the festival arrived, Dean had eaten so much food that he had stolen over time and had grown into a large gooey monster and was referred to as 'Mean Green Dean'. He arrived at the festival and started to destroy it, and so Kid Sparkle arrived to do battle with him. Max managed to gain enough energy and support from the people to create an even larger sparkle ball than before, and he threw it into Deans mouth. When Dean swallowed it, it exploded from the inside and blew him up.
In the aftermath, Kid Sparkle used his powers to clean up the remaining green gunk and the festival continued as normal. Max's friend Mina ended up winning the competition, and received a heavy round of applause for her costume.
Death[]
Kid Sparkle was assigned as one of the targets for Rajah by VIR. During the opening of a brand new arcade, Kid Sparkle attended as a main guest that would cut the rope and give a speech on the great things that the arcade will bring for the children of the town. During the flight home, he would suddenly be ambushed and tackled by Rajah, who would attempt to kill him. The pair would do battle with each other, Max not knowing how to deal with such a ruthless and overpowering killer.
It eventually ended when Rajah was able to shoot Max in the ribs mid-flight, which sent him crashing down into a barn. As Max laid on the ground, clutching his wound in pain, Rajah would stand over him and point his pistol at the boys head. Max would plead with Rajah to not kill him, but it fell on deaf ears, and he was ultimately shot in the head.
Appearance[]
Max was a Caucasian young boy, with slightly long brown hair and blue eyes. He has a thin build and stand at 3'5 inches tall. In his regular clothes, he wears blue jeans and a variety of striped sweaters. His superhero costume is a bright pinkish red, with a large sparkle symbol engrained in the centre chest area and two other sparkle symbols on large cuffs around the wrists. There are similarly large cuffs around the feet as well, and these may serve the purpose of better controlling the sparkle beams. His outfit also has various shoulder, elbow and knee pads for extra protection. The look is completed with a cape that serves no functionality other than looking cool.
Personality[]
Max is known for having a wonderous and wholesome personality, he wants what is best for the people he loves and is willing to do everything in his power to bring them more joy. He has never been known to lose his temper, not get very emotional, although there have been occasions during dire situations were he has expressed sadness or a hint of hopelessness such as during the battle with Albert Wring. Most of the time, he is very joyous and possesses a happy-go-lucky attitude.
He can be quite cheeky and mischievous when he wants to be, and uses this to gain the upper hand against or taunt his foes. He may not be cocky, but he will take every opportunity he can to poke fun at his enemies at their expense to damage them emotionally.
Powers & Abilities[]
- Sparkle beams - Max has the power to shoot sparkle beams out of his hands and feet. These beams can be utilised for various different purposes;
- Flight - He can use the force of the beams to propel himself in the air and fly around.
- Sparkle blasts - He can fire non-lethal beams at enemies, packing a punch as strong as a heavy rock.
- Restoration - The beams can be re-utilised and be fired at rusty or messy objects which will then be cleaned as if they were brand new. They can also bring dead plants back to life and restore rotten food.
- Sparkle balls - Max can charge up a ball of energy, which can grow large in size depending on how much hope and love he can gather from the people around them.
Trivia[]
- He is based upon live action children's movies centred around high school such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid, All-Star, High School: The Worst Years of my Life and the Horrid Henry Movie
- His first name is derived from Mighty Max, an 80s cartoon and toy line series centred around a young boy who has a magic cap and goes on similarly whacky adventures.
- Max's Halloween costume is a reference to the costume that Daniel Larusso wore to a party in the original Karate Kid.