Rey Quirino - Hero of the Philippines!

[Shroom Man 777]

Super Kidlat Rey Quirino


Rey Quirino was an average teenage Filipino boy. He liked girls and wanted to be popular, just like his elder brother who was a male model and an actor for a crappy soap opera that everyone (including Rey) loved. He became a DJ of a radio station and that really made him big with his friends and made girls go crazy over him, but he wanted more – more fame, more money, more of his face plastered on posters in the malls.

He got his wish one day, when on a school tour had him visit the grand opening of the Philippine branch of Hero Labs in Manila. Being the stupid airhead that he was, Rey Quirino ended up stumbling into some contraption or another in the backdoors and spilled some vials over his very expensive imported American pants that accentuated his firm and supple buttocks. The chemicals vaporized and Rey ended up inhaling them, but they smelled like perfume and Rey thought that was cool, so he shrugged and removed the stains from his pants and finished the tour. He went home and had dinner, went to sleep, woke up the next day and had breakfast. Everything was normal, except all the pimples he had were now gone (so he didn’t need to put any makeup on them anymore).

Over the months since the accident, which Rey forgot completely, strange and mysterious developments began happening within Rey’s young body. Despite stopping his routine exercises, he noticed that his strength had tripled. He could jump really high and he could run really fast, making him the star basketball player of the varsity team. The girls went wild. His healing factor was boosted exponentially, after nearly cutting off his finger with a butcher’s knife by accident in Home Economics class (which freaked everyone out), the wound healed within two days!

Rey Quirino began questioning these strange developments, he suspected that he was developing metahuman abilities. After checking the internet and taking an online “are you a metahuman” test on the Hero Labs website, his suspicions were confirmed. He was a metahuman now, and he knew what to do next.

He got a hold of his good friend, a populist brown-noser type of jock douche, and made him his manager as he entered the professional boxing circuit. The former DJ and varsity MVP began punching the snot out of local boxers during the day, and during the night walked the ramp as a male model for the Mugatu fashion company. The girls went wilder with this, as did a lot of members of the male population. Soon, as his boxing career reached its peak, he clobbered a Mexican boxer on national TV and from then on, nothing could stop Rey ‘Thunder’ Quirino.

Except for when, on the rematch (the Return of the Revenge), Rey ended up punching his Mexican nemesis into the ceiling. Everyone thought the great Rey Quirino had overdosed on steroids, and so he was banned from punching people professionally forever.

Rey, no longer a boxer and no longer allowed into the other sports as well, wondered what had happened. It turns out, he wasn’t just a low-level metahuman. As he explored his powers in the provinces (telling his friends and admirers that he was going on a road trip with his manager-friend, thus disappointing all the women), he found out that his powers were anything but low-level. His powers were incredible! He could rip thick trees off their roots, outrun his own turbocharged Honda Civic drag racer, and he could somehow manipulate his own mass so that when he jumped, he could leap into the sky and touch the clouds (like in that song). It was wonderful, and what was more wonderful was when he saved a village from a roving band of Communist rebels and had all the one hundred thankful village girls throw themselves at him. It was a spirit journey.

He decided to become a superhero.

Using his boxing nickname, he developed the persona Super Kidlat, ‘kidlat’ being ‘lightning’ in Filipino.

He would wear sunglass-goggles, a red cap, and a red outfit (a combination of a Formula 1 uniform thing and those things worn by parachutist) designed by a good gay friend working for Mugatu.

His first appearance was in beating the crap out of bank robbers, which earned him a funny blurb in the editorials and back pages of newspapers. He would then rescue kittens from trees and save children from getting swept away in the canal sewer floodings. It was crappy, but he knew that in time, thousands of city girls would be throwing themselves at him. People started talking about this guy who thought he was a superhero, a poser who wanted to be like those guys in America. And then, on the day when political unrest and protests nearly overthrew the government, a band of soldiers defected and held the SM Mall of Asia (largest mall in the Philippines, sixth largest in the world) and the thousands of mallrats hostage, surrounding the mall with their commandeered armored vehicles and landmines.

The military blockaded the mall, but it was a standstill.

Rey Quirino knew this would be his day of glory.

The reporters and journalists from media companies all over the world were shocked and amazed, pointing to the sky as a fashionably dressed pretty boy leapt from the sky and landed in front of main entrance of the Mall of Asia. The mutinous soldiers tried to throw him out, but he threw them into the sky instead. An APC tried to shoot him down, but after quickly dodging the bullets, he defeated the armored vehicle by capsizing it with one hard kick. It was a media spectacle, and the news crews (fatally ignoring the landmines) followed him into the mall as he punched anyone who blocked his path into the ceiling.

The mutinous soldiers tried shooting at him, but he dodged them and their fire killed the media people behind him instead. The soldiers would turn to run, but they would find Rey standing right behind them and then, after an exchange of pleasantries, he would kick them out the windows and onto the fences. Which impaled them.

The journalists who were still alive followed Rey as he dispatched the soldiers one after another. After an hour, the Mall of Asia was liberated and Rey was cemented into the short-attention-spanned-celebrity-obsessed consciousness of the Filipino people. A BBC correspondent who was smart enough not to step on the landmines or get in the way of gunfire asked Rey who he was, and he replied “I am Super Kidlat” but then, he could not resist and revealed his true identity “Rey Quirino!”

And with that, not-so-humble popular boy Rey Quirino completed his quest and became the most popular boy in school and the entirety of the Philippines as well. He stopped going to school and encouraged his classmates to do the same. He would be idolized by thousands of men, women and children, becoming the penultimate star of the Philippines, having buildings and bridges named in his honor. In 2007, there was a petition to discard Jose Rizal and replace him with Rey Quirino as the National Hero. And in 2008, there was a marathon showing all of the commercials with Suder Kidlat Rey Quirino in it (from deodorant commercials to ice cream) – the commercials lasted for two days and DVDs of the marathon became best sellers. Rey Quirino also became a national hit with his album (titled: “Para Sa Akin” which meant “For Me!”) hitting number one at the charts and going platinum within the hour of its release. Rey Quirino and whoever he was dating for the minute became the subject of tabloids and hour-long segments of the news. Rey Quirino and the lady President of the Philippines presided over the ASEAN conference, which got postponed a month later when Rey had to do some superheroic task or another. Rey Quirino this, Rey Quirino that.

Now, Rey Quirino is regarded by the superhero community as the biggest, most self-absorbed asshole in the whole world – and that is saying something, because most other superheroes have had those bad mirror-universe experiences where everyone was a Bizzaro-version of himself. Because of this, any hero (and the country he lives in) who says anything bad about the Super Kidlat will earn the scorn and rage of the entire Filipino People for disrespecting the apex of their nationalism.

Currently, Rey Quirino’s costume now incorporates a jacket in the likeness of the Filipino flag (one side of the breast is red, the other blue, and the middle having a triangle with three stars and the sun in it). Also, his outfit, particularly his pants, are adorned with the logos of practically every corporation and company in the Philippines, from Jolibee and McDonalds to SM and Ayala to Julie’s Bakeshop.

As of now, Rey Quirino is going from one end of the Philippines to another, visiting every town and barrio and receiving the Key to the City from all the Mayors.

Tabloids say that Rey Quirino has plans to enter politics.

[Malchus]

[Ford Prefect]

Man, I love this guy. And yet, I hate him too.

[Peregrin]

It's.... CAPTAIN PHILIPPINES!

My favourite part of him is the "insert ads here" part on Malky's illustration.

[Heretic]

He is a nice guy, but a complete asshole. Even more of a Dick than CapCap, because no one knows what to make of him. This Rey Quirino is a good dick. So thus, we can say that he is the world's biggest asshole.