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Captain Trips, also known as Dr. Mark Meadows, is a character from the Wild Cards series of books. Meadows is a renowned biochemist and a burned-out hippie, with the ability to use various drugs (usually derivations of psychoactive drugs such as LSD) to transform into several other forms, each with their own powers and individual personalities. Trips himself and several of his alternate forms would be considered Aces in the lexicon of the Wild Cards universe, though a few of his "friends" (as he terms them) could be classified as Jokers. It is theorized that since all Meadow's "friends" and their powers are ultimately derived from Meadows himself, that he is essentially the ultimate manifestation of the Wild Card virus. ==Character overview== Marcus Aurelius "Mark" Meadows was born into a thoroughly bourgeois military family. Meadows, a naturally gifted scientist, pursued an advanced degree in biochemistry at college. For his PhD thesis, Meadows chose the topic of illicit psychoactive drugs. However, his generally straight-laced and "square" demeanor gave him problems in the sociological portion of his research as he found it difficult to insinuate himself within the radical youth culture of the late 1960s. While at a club in Berkeley California, Meadows renewed his acquaintance with Kimberly Anne Cordayne, a childhood crush of his who had joined the counterculture and now referred to herself as Sunflower. At her urging, and in order to impress her, Mark experimented with LSD for the first time in 1969. The drug triggered his latent Wild Card infection and Mark transformed into the super powered hero The Radical. As the Radical, Meadows intervened to stop a National Guard assault on an anti-war protest after which a smitten Sunflower slept with the Radical. When Meadows reverted to his own form he became obsessed with discovering the correct chemical combination to resurrect the Radical. His other "friends" are the results of attempts to recreate that formula. His Wild Card is dependent on the chemical stimulation of psychoactive drugs to manifest itself and Meadows often keeps preparations of the specific combinations that create each "friend" ready in case they're needed. Each of these preparations is a different color, kept in glass vials in a leather pouch that Meadows carries with him. Typically, the manifestation of each "friend" only lasts about an hour. Prolonged and repeated use of the Moonchild formula during Trips' sojourn in modern day Vietnam produced insomnia, nervous strain, physical exhaustion, and a kind of psychic bleed over where his personality would become garbled with hers. It is stated in the Wild Cards book ''Aces High'' that Dr. Meadows was once "considered the most brilliant biochemist in the world, the Einstein of his field", but at some point vanished from the public eye amid rumors of divorce (from the aforementioned childhood crush), "personality deterioration" and drug use. From Meadow's addled behavior in later years as Captain Trips, it could be assumed that the drugs he uses to "call his friends" have effects on Meadows' normal form similar to those documented in long-term psychoactive drug users. In the more modern times depicted in the books, Meadows runs the Cosmic Pumpkin, an "organic remedy" shop, and cares for his daughter Sprout, who has an unspecified developmental disorder which keeps her intellect at the level of a preteen child. He has expressed to Dr. Tachyon a desire to use his "friends" to "fight evil" and otherwise help people. The name Captain Trips has been assumed to be taken in tribute to Jerry Garcia, who was sometimes referred to by that name. In the course of his career Trips has (with the help of his "friends") fought alongside the ace/rock star known as the Lizard King (Radical), participated in the raid on the Egyptian Freemasons of The Astronomer (Jumpin' Jack Flash), destroyed an asteroid headed for Earth (Starshine), defeated a genetically engineered Morakh soldier from Takis (Moonchild), impersonated President George Bush (Cosmic Traveler), traveled to the planet Takis and back, and even taken over the government of Vietnam. In Vietnam, Meadows finally discovered a way to summon the Radical, but at the cost of submerging his own personality permanently. Over the next ten years, The Radical, going more often by the name Tom Weathers, travelled through various Third World combat zones with his daughter as he attempted to advance his political agenda. Eventually he ended up in Central Africa where he joined forces with the newly formed, Marxist state, the People's Paradise of Africa. Weathers, who appears to possess the powers of all of Trips' "friends" serves as the PPA's resident ace, violently advancing their agenda. In the early 21st century, Weathers was shot and apparently killed by the British ace Noel Matthews. He wasn't however, Weathers being healed by another PPA ace who could take the injuries of others into herself, and as soon as he was fully restored, resumed his role as the PPA's premier ace power, prompting Matthews to go after Weathers' daughter Sprout, successfully kidnapping her. In the last chapters of the novel Busted Flush, he very nearly killed a collection of United Nations and United States aces during negotiations for his daughter's return; the Radical gravely injuring his own hostage for the trade (a kid ace tagged as Little Fat Boy with an uncontrollable ability to explode into a nuclear fireball) to trigger the kid's explosive power just before he makes his escape, his daughter Sprout in tow. Afterwards Meadows became increasingly paranoid about the safety of himself and his daughter. He sent Sprout to live with a caretaker under an assumed name, visiting her when his schedule allowed. Believing themselves still in danger from the Matthews, who Weathers believes to be an Arabic ace named Bahir, Meadows has taken to sleeping in different locations every night, sometimes going so far as to sleep on different continents. He has vowed to kill Bahir/Matthews if he ever discovers the man's whereabouts. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Captain Trips (Wild Cards)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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