Origin
Louie’s origin follows closely those of the irradiated giant monsters of 1950s creature features. However, instead of menacing a pretty scientist, he fell in love with them. They married and started a family before he joined The Alternates and disappeared for three years.
Creation
Crab Louie debuted in The Alternates #1 by Patton Oswalt, Jordan Blum, and Tess Fowler.
Major Story Arcs
In The Ledge
Louis was one of six expendable heroes chosen by The Continuum to investigate The Ledge, a rip in space and time. Unfortunately, they ended up trapped for three years in a mirror world, created by Ledgerstone, a reality warping god.
There, Crab Louie became Kin Crustacea, a spiritual avatar to an entire biological kingdom. He was elementally connected to all arthropods by an etheric neural web.
Return from The Ledge
Having returned from The Ledge, Louie no longer had a connection to the entire arthropod kingdom. It caused him to have a lonely existence that not even reconnecting with his wife and daughter could fix. When Tripper started group therapy sessions, Louie was in attendance.
Soon, they would be pulled back into superhero duties when one of their members, The Divider, turned up dead at the same time The Continuum started tracking new Ledge energy signatures in the form of a designer drug called Prestige. Tripper would use his abilities to locate the drug-dealer, which led them to his supplier, an airship made of pure imagination. On board was Ledgerstone, who had been taken hostage by a version of The Alternates who claimed to be the originals.
The Alternates who returned to Twilight City were simply splinters of the Ledge with the original heroes’ memories. This is why they struggled so much to return to their normal lives. The original Alternates master plan was to flood the real world with Presitge, spiritually transforming everyone, and killing these false version of themselves. The Alternates couldn’t allow that to happen, but they were severely outmatched by their original versions. Instead, they decided to switch enemies so that they weren’t fighting themselves. They helped each other fight their darkest elements like a true support group.
With the original Alternates and Ledgerstone now dead, Kid Curious was able to access Ledgerstone’s power to become a god. Once his power was amplified, he was able to stop the Prestige from spreading, and then left this plane of existence. The Alternates returned to their lives with more closure and continued their support group, now joined by The Searcher, who had her own problems to work through.
Powers & Abilities
Crustacean: Louie has transformed into a man-crustacean hybrid with a red carapace, berserker strength, and a large claw.
- Submariner: Louie is capable of surviving underwater
Elemental: In The Ledge, Louie was spiritually connected to all arthropods.