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Ken Kosek never expected to become a superhero when his
family moved to Minneapolis. Even though he is only 5’7" and 147 pounds, he is a
star prep athlete. He hasn’t even read a comic book since he was seven. And Dr. Chan
Creighton certainly never pictured himself as a superhero’s mentor. He is a
geneticist. Molecular biology is his life.
But here they are, due mainly to the helmet Ken accepts in lieu of a half-week’s pay at this part-time job at Kinney’s first & ten sports & Comics Collectibles.
"Next time, kid, just take an IOU instead, will ya’," the Doc suggests.
Ken brings the helmet to Bio-Prime Genetics, his father’s place of business, to ask Dr. Stanley Kosek’s advice after Ken experiences a couple of totally bizarre episodes while wearing the helmet, the weirdest of which is a virtual reality (VR) glance of an extraterrestrial cityscape. Dr. Kosek is too busy to listen to his son’s "ramblings" – he doesn’t even remember Ken’s visit later – but Creighton is intrigued and offers to help Ken. (So Creighton really has no one to blame but himself for getting involved.)
Creighton and Ken discover that the helmet is: 1.) an artifact from a highly-advanced alien race of observers that, prior to their inexplicable extermination, perfected the technology to JAUNT, i.e., travel almost instantaneously anywhere in the multi-verse; 2.) part of a Jaunter’s "g-suit, " a quantum leap form contemporary Nomex flight suits, providing protection, atmosphere, and data to the wearer; and 3.) still uplinked to an abandoned Jaunter’s outpost underneath crater Copernicus in the Carpathians mountain range of our moon.
When Ken put on the helmet his neurological impulses rebooted the lunar outposts’ analog computer. The computer – who Creighton eventually dubs "Irene" (after Irene Adler) – presumed a human descendent of a Jaunter observers on earth was trying to contact it and engaged the helmet’s systems, inaugurating the totally bizarre episodes Ken experienced. As soon as Irene realized its mistake, however, it engaged governors in the helmet to prevent Ken from using any features that do no have contemporary technological counterparts on earth."It is courting disaster to offer any society technology it has not developed on its own," Irene explains. "The development of technology proceeds safely only when it grows parallel with the maturation of a society. No exceptions."
Even with Irene’s governors the helmet and suit still possess an awesome array of nifty gimmicks. For instance the helmet, among other features, has heads-up display with DTS (Digital Topography Survey that can see through night and fog but is "not passive" [uses energy]), LANTIRN (Low Altitude Navigation Targeting Infrared for Night), and 40,000X Night-Vision, as well an uplink to facilitate Global Positioning Satellite tracking by Irene and audio and holographic playback. Some of the suit’s capabilities include increasing the wearer’s strength 12X (which, besides the obvious, lets the wearer jump high and fast enough that he appears to be bouncing), allows the wearer to cling vertically and upside-down, generates a force field that gives the wearer "invulnerability," performs like a jet-flyer’s Nomex/g-suit (protected against blood loss to arms and legs of body during stress levels of g-force to prevent blackouts), and is stealthy.
One thing that does not excite Ken as much as the helmet and suit is the name the media hang on him after he uses them a few times to stop bad guys: "Cricket." The name is inspired by his helmet’s "buggy" design, the suit’s ability to let him "bounce," and his physical size. Irene, however, likes the name. "It’s friendly." When Ken suggests that superheroes shouldn’t be friendly but frightening, Irene just tells him, "I still like it…Cricket."