Socialist Red Guardsman

Gu Lao was a devout soldier during the Cultural Revolution who volunteered for one of China's earliest and most dangerous metahuman advancement programs. The experiment was a success in granting him power but a failure in stability, transforming him into a living solar battery. He became the most radioactive man on the planet, his body constantly generating lethal energy that would kill anyone in his vicinity and eventually burn him out from the inside.

To contain this volatility, he was encased in a specialized suit of armor reverse-engineered from crashed Durlan spacecraft technology. This life-support system allowed him to become a founding member of the Great Ten, China's premier superhero team. Within the group, he serves as the grizzled veteran and ideological hardliner, often representing the strict values of the past against the modern, globally-minded perspectives of his younger teammates.

Despite his status as a national hero, Gu Lao's existence is a slow, agonizing march toward death. The very radiation that grants him his devastating plasma attacks is poisoning him, rotting his body within the suit. He fights with the fatalistic knowledge that he is a weapon with an expiration date, willing to sacrifice what remains of his life to protect the state, viewing his service in the Great Ten as the final duty of a soldier who has already given everything.

Appearance: Socialist Red Guardsman has fair skin. He is enclosed in armor. His face is enclosed within a large, transparent blue-tinted glass dome set into the upper collar of a bulky red metal suit. A circular aperture in the center of the chest emits a bright yellow light. Large, rounded red pauldrons cover the shoulders, with a yellow five-pointed star inside a yellow circle visible on the left side. Thick grey hoses connect the back of the torso to the arms. The forearms consist of massive, segmented silver gauntlets that end in oversized metal fists with visible rivets. The upper thighs are clad in pale greyish-green plating marked with dark, cross-hatched scratches. Heavy red boots cover the lower legs, secured by three horizontal silver clasps running up the shins. The boots feature thick, heavy treads on the soles.

Personality: Gu Lao is a man out of time, a staunch ideological hardliner who adheres strictly to the principles of the Cultural Revolution. He views modern China's shift toward capitalism and globalism with disdain, often clashing with the younger, more progressive members of the Great Ten whom he views as soft or corrupted. This bitterness makes him a grumpy, volatile elder statesman, quick to criticize and slow to trust.

Beneath his prickly exterior lies a grim, fatalistic sense of duty. He knows his powers are slowly killing him, turning his body into a decaying nuclear vessel. Consequently, he fights with a reckless disregard for his own safety, viewing himself as a weapon to be spent rather than a man to be saved. He is deeply patriotic in the old sense, willing to endure agonizing isolation and eventual death to protect the state that created him.

Gu Lao is the most radioactive human being on the planet, constantly emitting lethal levels of radiation that must be contained. This condition makes him entirely dependent on his technological support; without his suit, he uncontrollably releases deadly energy, posing an immediate threat to any living being in his vicinity. However, when properly contained, he can weaponize this volatility, projecting his internal radiation as high-temperature plasma blasts.

To survive and operate in the field, he wears the Socialist Red Guardsman Armor, a suit based on technology reverse-engineered from a Durlan spaceship found in Qinghai Province. Developed at the Great Wall Complex, the armor provides essential shielding that allows Gu Lao to interact with others without killing them. It also serves as a focus for his offensive capabilities, channeling his raw energy through a projector located in the chestplate.

The suit is a self-contained environment featuring a built-in air supply that allows Gu Lao to survive during lengthy missions. It also functions as a high-grade powered exoskeleton, granting him superhuman durability and significantly enhancing his physical attributes. While wearing the armor, he possesses superhuman strength, agility, and reflexes, making him a formidable physical combatant in addition to being a living nuclear weapon.

Durlans are an extraterrestrial race of shape-shifters.

The Great Ten is a team of Chinese superheroes, who are sponsored by the government of the People's Republic of China. For every action the Great Ten takes during combat it must be approved by the bureaucracy. Their base is inside the Great Wall of China.