Dino
NAME: Rex Langstrom
KNOWN ALIASES: Dino
AGE: 25
OCCUPATION: Superhero
POWERS:
- TRANSFORMATION
Rex is able to shapeshift into a reptile-humanoid form that grants him various superhuman physical attributes and abilities.
Married couple Neal and Mary Langstrom were archeologists and paleontologists, who traveled the world studying ancient history through bio facts and artifacts left behind along ago. The pair often brought their young son Rex with them on trips to sites as they’d much rather have him close to them than continents away. This proved to be a massive error in judgment during an expedition in South America in search of The Timeless Isles, a mythic trio of tropical islands rumored to be somehow hidden from the rest of the world. Neal and Mary found mention of the islands in an ancient text they discovered and were determined to be the first ones to locate them.
In the jungles of South America they searched. After a year full of false leads and dead ends, they were almost ready to call it quits when they uncovered a cavern hidden behind a waterfall, covered in markings Neal recognized from the text they’d found years ago. In the cave, they found nothing but a giant monolith. While studying it, a sudden swirling of water rushed into the cave, flooding it and sucking Neal, Mary, Rex and the rest of their expedition team back out through the waterfall. Recovering and swimming their way back to the river banks, they determined they’d somehow been transported elsewhere. After much wandering they came to the seemingly impossible conclusion that they were no longer in South America, but had somehow been transported to what they could only assume were the Timeless Isles.
Shortly after arriving however, they were all beset upon by gigantic, seemingly prehistoric birds. Neal, Mary, and Rex were the only survivors, although Rex had been gravely injured. Before the couple could act they were captured and taken away by a band of massive, reptilian-humanoid warriors. They fed Rex a potion that healed him completely, but to his parents' horror, also transformed him into one of them. After a time though, Rex returned to normal, however he discovered he could shift back into that reptilian-human hybrid form at will. The warriors explained they were the Xari, and they were currently engaged in a savage war against the Kz'dali, massive intelligent bird-like creatures. In exchange for their conscription, the Xari leader vowed to send them back home.
It took ten years, but using military tactics Neal had retained from his time as a marine, he and the Xari were able to outsmart and defeat their enemies. In thanks, the Xari held up their end of the bargain; they opened a portal back to Earth, but in the time since arriving, Neal and Mary had grown accustomed to living in the tropical paradise that were the isles and chose to stay. Now a young man, Rex decided to return to Earth for a change of scenery, if at least for a while.
To save his life, Rex was fed a potion, a mix of sorcery and science, that grants him the ability to shapeshift into a superhumanly strong human-reptilian hybrid.
