The Screen Bandits Guild is a team of supercriminals organized by FX that operates primarily around Southern California, especially Los Angeles. The members all have connections to show business, most having worked in the television or movie industry prior to starting their criminal careers.
Travis Mayhew was an electronics engineer working for a special effects company, Outlaw SFX, in California when he began stealing effects technology from a rival company, Synergy Systems, and passing it off as his own work. Mayhew had been committing the thefts at Synergy using the gear belonging to Outlaw's owner, James Jesse, formerly the Flash villain called The Trickster so authorities originally suspected Jesse. Once they discovered Mayhew was responsible, authorities attempted to apprehend him but he escaped along with Jesse's Trickster gear and much of the stolen technology.
Mayhew later appeared in Los Angeles committing crimes using the stolen equipment and technology and calling himself FX. He was never apprehended and was next seen working with a new incarnation of the Secret Society of Super Villains in Empire City, where he was captured by the Guardians. FX escaped from prison with the aid of Death Spider, who had recruited him into his first Enforcers of Injustice group.
During the Imperiex crisis FX was recruited into a Suicide Squad, led by the Americommando, on a mission to Apokalips alongside the second Enforcers of Justice.
FX survived the mission and as a result was released from prison after serving out his greatly reduced sentence. He made his way back to Los Angeles where he formed the Screen Bandits Guild. Embarking on a series of crimes FX and the Guild have frequently crossed paths with the hero Prism and her allies The Angels. Unknown to FX, in her secret identify the hero Prism is the owner of Synergy Systems, the company FX originally stole much of his technology from.
Travis Mayhew is an expert special effects artist and skilled electrical engineer capable of working with advanced technologies. As FX, Travis typically wears a suit of his own design that includes some of the technology he stole from Trickster and from Synergy Systems. From the Trickster's gear the suit contained "air walking" capability and smokescreen emitters, while also being equipped with the advanced laser and holographic technology from Synergy. The holographic capability could create realistic illusions, from allowing FX to disguise his appearance to rendering him invisible; and projecting three-dimensional images of just about anything else that Travis could conceive of. The illusion casting is augmented by sound projecting equipment that can provide additional realism (or simply allow FX to project his own voice). More direct application of the laser light projection was the ability to deliver blinding flashes of light or intense laser beams capable of cutting through metal. Energy absorbing panels let the suit absorb incoming attacks, acting as a sort of force field for FX, and when fine-tuned can also absorb ambient light in its vicinity to provide covering darkness for the villain.
An ambitious actress and rising star in Hollywood on the heels of a string of commercial and critical hit films, Helena Sheridan's career was cut short by an attack from a deranged fan. At a red carpet premiere, a fan who had been stalking Helena threw acid on her face. The disfiguring injuries effectively ended Helena's career as the beauty-obsessed movie industry had no use for her any longer. Helena burned through the money she'd earned from her movies in increasingly desperate consultations with plastic surgeons and anyone else she thought might be able to help her.
Out of legal options, when Helena was approached by a shady individual promising to fix her face she felt she had nothing left to lose and agreed. The individual claimed to be a scientist seeking to prove his theories, saying the establishment was supressing his research out of fear of its revolutionary nature. In a back alley laboratory on the outskirts of Los Angeles, Helena was subjected to a series of painful treatments involving being injected with mysterious chemicals and zapped by exotic energies.
It was only when the treatments were completed that the scientist explained to Helena what he had done to her. He revealed that he had derived the experimental procedure based on his research into the DNA of the alien shapechangers known as the Durlans. Using the process the scientist had genetically modified Helena in an effort to bestow her the same sort of shapeshifting powers the Durlans possessed. Helena was horrified to learn what had been done to her, but her horror was somewhat abated when she discovered she could make herself look exactly as she had before the accident, better than that even as she could change her looks to remove signs of aging and other perceived imperfections to make herself even more beautiful than she had been.
Helena's elation was short-lived, however, as she soon discovered that the changes were temporary. It soon became apparent that a certain level of concentration was required for her face and body to maintain their new appearance. When her concentration lapsed, including when she went to sleep, Helena's body would revert to its disfigured state. To make matters worse, the scientist revealed that he had received funding for his experiments from a criminal organization, later revealed to be the Crime Cartel, and that he required Helena to provide him the money to pay them back. When Helena protested that even with the new opportunities in Hollywood her abilities opened up to her, it would take years to accumulate the money the scientist was demanding. When the scientist and his backers suggested criminal activities as a means to pay them back, Helena reluctantly agreed.
For several months Helena used her abilities to commit crimes for her erstwhile benefactors. Corporate espionage was a frequent assignment, but Helena also used her shapeshifting powers to help craft alibis for other criminals on trial, or to discredit or blackmail targets selected by her handlers. Helena's espionage activities eventually brought her into conflict with the super-spy Silver Vixen and the former actress' secret was revealed to the world and she was eventually arrested and sentenced to jail. The villain FX broke her out of prison and offered Helena a position on the new team he was forming. With no hope of ever returning to her acting career, Helena accepted FX's offer and became the Leading Lady of the new criminal team.
The experimental procedure granted Helena a facsimile of the shapeshifting abilities of the alien Durlans. Through concentration Helena can alter her body's shape, an ability she frequently uses to make her body an exact copy of a specific individual to impersonate them. Her powers include a limited ability to change her overall size, allowing her to impersonate people of widely different heights and body shapes from her own.
Over time Helena's control over her powers has let her assume shapes beyond that of other people. She can now use her ability to stretch and distort her limbs and body, and she has started learning how to assume non-human shapes to impersonate different kinds of animals and even inanimate objects like furniture as a means of disguise.
Helena is also a talented actress and mimic. This allows her to augment her powers as in addition to assuming the shape and appearance of an individual she can also emulate their body language, mannerisms and even voice. Helena also possesses a photographic memory, a skill she once used to quickly learn her lines for a movie but now serves to help augment her criminal activities.
Esteban Garcia's parents were illegal migrant workers from Mexico hired to work in the farms of Southern California. Knowing of no other life, Esteban started working the fields with his parents starting at a young age. When he was fifteen, the farm he and his family were working on was raided by Federal immigration officers looking for illegals. The migrant workers scattered, trying to escape from the Feds. When officers grabbed Esteban's parents they shouted at him to run, and he did. Esteban ran blindly for several minutes before he stopped to get his bearings. The young man was shocked to discover his was just outside Sacremento, meaning he had crossed several hundred miles in just a few minutes.
Fearful of what had happened, Esteban hitchhiked his way back to Southern California. Careful inquiries revealed that his parents had been arrested, but no one knew where they were being held and they would likely eventually be deported back to Mexico. Esteban made his way to Los Angeles, where he was initially homeless. Eventually his curiosity over what had happened to him led Esteban to start experimenting and he discovered that he somehow had gained the power to move at superhuman speed, and that this was what had allowed him to escape the Federal agents.
Esteban began using his powers to earn money by committing petty theft, stealing money from stores or individuals by moving too fast to be seen. His favorite tactic was to hang around ATMs and wait for a person to withdraw some cash before stealing it at superspeed as it was dispensed from the cash machine. The teenager earned enough money to get off the streets and Esteban started looking for other ways to earn a living, though as an illegal immigrant his options were still limited. Esteban eventually started working late shifts at small restaurants, where he could afford to disappear for a few minutes at superspeed to commit more small crimes and be back at work before anyone noticed he was gone.
Another opportunity came Esteban's way when a talent agent spotted him at one of his restaurant gigs. The agent told Esteban that he could get the relatively handsome young man work in show business. When Esteban hinted at his immigration status the agent brushed off the concerns. Soon the man was getting Esteban gigs as an extra in music videos and television shows being filmed around Los Angeles. Thanks to his superspeed, Esteban discovered that he could work multiple gigs at the same time, racing between filming locations in seconds. Eventually his agent discovered this and, taking advantage of the fact that Esteban could move faster than could be seen, or filmed for that matter, began hiring Esteban out to fill multiple extra roles on the same shoot. With his superspeed Esteban could do superspeed costuming changes and appear as multiple background people in a film, often in the same shot.
Esteban knew his less than scrupulous was taking a bigger cut from these gigs, effectively charging the productions for multiple appearances by Esteban while only paying the young man for a single role, but he felt there was little he could do. The criminal FX eventually got wind of Esteban and his abilities and made him a different offer. Having surmised how Esteban had been using his speed powers to commit crimes for a few years already, FX offered the young man a chance to join the big leagues. Tiring of being taken advantage of by his agent Esteban took the offer and joined FX's new criminal gang. As Cameo, the resident speedster of the Screen Bandits Guild, Esteban has started applying his superspeed skills to the higher profile, and higher paying, jobs that the super criminals commit.
By some unknown means Esteban has developed the ability to move at superhuman speeds. Based on the distances he has covered in short periods of time, Esteban appears to be able to run at several times the speed of sound, though by some unidentified means he does not seem to produce the typical sonic boom that would accompany accelerating to supersonic speeds. All of Esteban's reactions have been sped up, to the point that to him time appears to slow almost to a stop. Esteban can move at such high speeds over short distances that to an outside observer he appears to disappear and reappear elsewhere almost instantaneously. He has often used this ability to appear in multiple places at the same time, a useful way to provide an alibi for himself. Normally at such high speeds moving through the air would produce such powerful resistance that it would injure Esteban, but he appears to be unaffected. This may be due to his powers forming a protective aura around Esteban as he moves at superhuman speed, which is how many other speedsters appear to be able to survive superspeed movement, but this has not been confirmed for him.
A potential professional football career lay ahead of college football player Jesse Coleman when he was involved in a car crash. While two of his teammates were killed when the car they were in lost control on a tight turn in the Hollywood Hills, Jesse wound up walking away unscathed. Initially his survival was considered a miracle, but it soon became apparent that Jesse was a metahuman. The revelation ended any hope of an athletic career, and resulted in Jesse losing the football scholarship that had sent him to college. Unemployed and with no prospects, Jesse came home to Los Angeles.
Jesse tried to get work anywhere he could, but even in manual labor positions his enhanced physical abilities caused friction with co-workers. Due to his high resistance to injuries, Jesse started getting work in film and television as a stuntman. These were typically in an under-the-table capacity, on low budget productions where they could not afford the usual safety precautions needed on a set when stunts are performed. Eventually the union learned of Jesse's work on these productions and would use his presence on a set as an indication that the producers were violating California filming regulations. Eventually it became too big a risk for all but the most desperate filmmakers to use Jesse as a stuntman on their production and he was again out of work.
With no options, Jesse began working as hired muscle for organized crime figures. This brought him to the attention of FX who recruited Jesse to his new criminal gang as Stuntman, serving as the team's "brick".
The car crash he was involved in triggered Jesse's metagene and he developed superhuman strength, endurance and resistance to injury. Jesse can easily lift several tons of weight, and can withstand high power explosions without a scratch. His superhuman strength also augments Jesse's already exceptional athletic abilities. Thanks to his strength and endurance, Jesse can run at over 30 miles an hour and can maintain that speed for an extended period of time. His strength also lets him cover several dozen yards in a single jump from a standing position and even further with a running start. As a football player, Jesse's throwing aim was always exceptional, but now he can throw objects weighing hundreds of pounds across the length of a football field.
A natural mechanical and electrical genius, Daniel Owens honed his skills in the movie industry. He soon became in-demand on many sets due to his ability to innovate new lighting and practical effects. His abilities were augmented by his uncanny ability at planning and organization, which let him accomplish the same amount of work with a much smaller staff and budget than other productions typically required. Eventually Daniel came to believe that producers were taking advantage of him, paying him far below what he was worth in order to further squeeze out savings in the production budgets, helping ensure the studios earned even higher profits from a film's box office and earning themselves a bonus.
Daniel turned his planning skill to embezzling funds from the productions he was on, and if anyone became suspicious he would turn to his engineering abilities to arrange “accidents” to befall those people before they got too close to uncovering his schemes. Eventually a particularly dogged investigator was able to piece together enough evidence to reveal what Daniel had been doing and the authorities were alerted.
Arrested and convicted, Daniel was sent to prison, but he did not remain incarcerated for long. Within a few months Daniel had used his skills to plan a successful escape. Now on the run Daniel was soon approached by FX, who recruited Daniel to his new criminal gang. As the Best Boy, Daniel serves as the team's head planner and gadgeteer.
Though he has no formal education in science or engineering, Daniel is an accomplished inventor. He has a genius level intellect and has not only mastered mechanical and electrical skills but is capable of innovating technology at a more advanced level than is considered contemporary. Daniel is also gifted at planning and organization, skills he now uses to plan out the gang's criminal capers.
As Best Boy, Daniel makes frequent use of gadgets he has built for himself. These gadgets often reflect Daniel's background in working on film sets and include a rig that allows him to climb vertical surfaces with ease; portable lighting gear that can illuminate an area, blind an opponent, or fire a focused laser beam; sound gear that can deafen a target or fire sonic force beams; and a special adhesive of his own design that takes superhuman effort to break free from. Daniel has also built and controls the Oscar robot.
Oscar is the name given to a giant robot built and controlled by Best Boy. Oscar is a ten-foot tall humanoid robot with a gold-colored metallic coating that is armed with a large sword, its name coming from the robot's resemblance to an Academy Awards statuette. Oscar serves as backup muscle for the team, supplementing Stuntman. Initially possessing just superhuman strength and wielding the giant sword, Oscar's capabilities have been augmented over time as Best Boy keeps tinkering. The latest modifications have given Oscar the ability to fire laser beams from its eyes and a limited flight capability.
