Serge
Serge is a legendary designer in the City of Heroes MMO. He is a founding partner of The Icon, Incorporated, the premiere tailor franchise in Paragon City and the world. He operates out of the Icon store in Steel Canyon.
Character History
When Serge was a little boy in Italy, he knew he wanted to be a tailor. He loved designing outfits for other people, but what he really wanted to do was to design outfits for superheroes. For a time he believed that he could be a hero, so he started designing outfits for himself. But eventually he realized that it was his destiny to design outfits for actual heroes.
At the time, though, there were no dedicated tailors for heroes. Serge learned all he could from design school, but there was nothing about designing for heroes. The "premiere" designers were fixated on movie stars and magazine models, not on heroes.
Serge realized that if he wanted to be a tailor for heroes, he had to invent the genre. So that's what he did.
Operating from his studio in Los Angeles, Serge opened a shop exclusively for registered superheroes. At the time, heroes were plentiful in all the major cities, so it was easy for Serge to drum up business for the hero community by giving some of his designs for free to the premiere hero groups of the area. Soon other heroes flocked to see Serge to help with their hero attire.
During a design conference in New York, he met up with other designers who followed his lead and began designing outfits exclusively for heroes. That chance meeting led to the creation of The Icon, Incorporated, the first-ever designer fashion franchise for superheroes, with Serge as one of the founding partners.
Although Serge was initially content with continuing to operate out of his studio in Los Angeles, he said he felt a "call to destiny" after the Rikti Invasion of 2002 and moved his operations to Paragon City. As a founding partner, he had his choice of Icon stores to operate from. He chose Steel Canyon because it would be the first place that new heroes would to go to upgrade their outfits. (This was, of course, prior to the opening of the store in Atlas Park in 2011.)
Powers and Abilities
As a normal human being, Serge has no powers other than his creative mind and keen sense of design.
Personality
Serge is arrogant. He knows that he is the best at what he does. He is a perfectionist and he encourages those that work under him to be just as much a perfectionist as him. This has led to some complaints by his apprentices, but it has also led to some brilliant designers to come forth.
Serge sees himself as "the" true designer for Paragon City. He sees Lauren's imperfections and her vanity as being the sole reasons why she will never be his equal. He sees Carson as a pretender. Everyone else he sees as his students, willing to learn from the master, but never able to be his replacement.
Related Information
(See his Paragon Wiki entry for more information.)
Serge was one of the first mentors to Kara Hamilton, as seen in "Guardians of the Dawn Spotlight" #1. He was quick to pass her off, though, to Lauren.