The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
- -- Toyo Harada[src]
Toyo Harada is one of the most powerful psiots in the world if not the most powerful, and the former leader of the Harbinger Foundation and the world's most successful international corporation, Harada Global Conglomerates. After he was forced to let go of the two companies he annexed the Foundation Zone, a poor region in Africa, to rebuild his empire.
During World War II, young Toyo was present for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which activated his psionic abilities. Having seen the destruction mankind is capable of, he believes humanity can only survive with a guiding hand; his hand. He will stop at nothing to gain power and influence.
Harada's rivals are Project Rising Spirit, Peter Stanchek and his Renegades, and Amanda McKee (aka Livewire).
History[]
Toyo Harada — CEO of Harada Global Conglomerates and one of the most powerful psiots in the world — has a vision for a perfect future. Guided for decades by the visions of the mysterious Bleeding Monk, Harada has used his seemingly limitless powers to build his public-facing company into a force that is seen to provide philanthropic relief to the world's poor. Behind the scenes, however, he's assembled a private army in the form of the Harbinger Foundation, a secret academy built to activate and train young potential-psiots that, like himself, have the potential to exhibit an array of abilities of the mind of extraordinary potential.
For decades, Harada's Harbinger Foundation and paramilitary contractor Project Rising Spirit have waged a secret war over these psiots, and, over the years, each collected a small army of empowered children as they sought to inflict their agendas on the world.
The consequences of their actions were put on full display when a group of these children escaped from P.R.S. and took refuge in Las Vegas. With a new band of psiots now in play, a war quickly erupted between Harada's team, P.R.S., Bloodshot, and Harada's former pupil Peter Stanchek, as they battled to claim the children for themselves. In the end, Harada emerged triumphant, capturing the children, as well as Bloodshot and the entirety of Peter's team. However, the victory only added to the mounting responsibilities on Harada's shoulders.
In Harada's eyes, the world will only survive if he is able to enact his vision of the future. That vision was threatened, however, when Aric of Dacia invaded Romania and pushed Europe to the brink of war using advanced alien technology. Harada responded by assembling a team of the world's most deadly individuals to kill the self-proclaimed king and avert nuclear war, while also attempting to claim the alien technology for himself.
However, Harada was betrayed by his own team and brutally defeated when former compatriot Livewire donned the alien tech, called the X-O Manowar armor. In the aftermath, the combined stress of managing the Harbinger Foundation, psychically suppressing Peter Stanchek, and tending to his many responsibilities around the world became too much for Harada. He suffered a terrifying "mind squall'-a massive psychic eruption that severely devastated every mind in the immediate area as well as psychokinetically leveling the surroundings. In the wake of the event, the Renegades escaped, and Harada's Harbinger Foundation was staggered by substantial losses.
As Harada's grip further weakened, he encountered a new threat in the form of @X-a psiot and young hacker who leaked classified Project Rising Spirit files to the world, revealing the true nature of Harada's powers and the existence of the Harbinger Foundation in the process. With his mask of respectability ripped away, he publicly declared that he would now use his powers to bend the world to his will, forcing Peter Stanchek and the Renegades into an all-out, public war against the now exposed and newly unhinged Harada.[1]
Unable to continuing operating in secret, Harada leads a large force of his followers in capturing a US aircraft carrier, then uses it as a base to invade Eastern Somalia, planning to set up an example paradise there to show the world how it can become better [2]
Personality[]
A well-intentioned extremist, Toyo is a man seeking to save humanity from itself, to end scarcity, hunger and war. However, perhaps because he was born into war and lost both of his parents early in life to war, he uses violence, strong-arming, assassinations, blackmail and coercion to achieve his means.
Harada trained his mind to be super-focused and he only needs to sleep for twenty-four hours every 30 days, however he needs to use the Sleep Vault in order to do so or his powers will go out of control and result in massive mind-squall, greatly endangering all around him.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Telepathy: Toyo Harada also possesses the power of telepathy. His telepathy is extremely powerful yet dangerous, as his telepathy is of such a magnitude and raw power that without entering the Sleep Vault, he has the potential of instantly killing everyone within his immediate vicinity with a immense psychic assault. Nevertheless, Toyo has demonstrated immense telepathic and empathic capabilities, enabling him to read, control, and manipulate the thought patterns of other sentient beings, as well as broadcast his thoughts across the planet with relative ease.
- Mind Control
- Precognition
- Psionic Bolts
- Telepathic Cloaking
- Telekinesis: Toyo Harada possesses near-limitless telekinetic capabilities, as he is able to levitate, propel, and manipulate enormous objects and matter with his thoughts alone, generate destructive yet powerful concussive blasts of psychokinetic energy, create barriers and force-fields of telekinetic force, enhance his physical attributes to superhuman levels, psychokinetically fly and levitate at supersonic speeds, as well as instantly crush heavily armored vehicles into tiny balls or rip them to shreds. His raw telekinetic power, has said to be nearly boundless and rivaled only by fellow psiot Peter Stanchek.
- Force-Fields
- Flight
- Illusionist / Projectionist: Thanks to his vast psionic abilities, Toyo Harada has learned to project his thoughts and ideas into reality in the form of tangible constructs or reality-breaking illusions capable of tricking even the most powerful psiots alive.
- Genius level intellect: Harada performed the first known awake craniotomy[3]
- Eidetic Memory: He possesses an eidetic/photographic memory and perfect recall.
Equipment[]
- Eggbreakers
- Harada's Sleep Vault
- Harada Medbots
- Space Elevator
- Toyo – an internet search engine created and owned by H.G.C.
Notes[]
This article has no additional notes or trivia.
Appearances[]
Gallery[]
Cover Appearances[]
by Clayton Crain
by Lewis LaRosa
by Clayton Henry
by Juan Doe
by Doug Braithwaite
by Juan Jose Ryp
Panels[]
Quotes[]
- You're at the end of your rope, Peter. On the run too long. Making too many bad decisions. You've lost sight of yourself. The world is like you right now. At the end of its history. We can all feel it. But this ending wasn't predestined. It's our own fault. We had all the resources to craft a civilization worth inheriting. And instead my generation were pigs at the trough. Now look. This is what we've left you. Our solipsism and greed have left your generation with nothing. But we can still course correct. If we all set aside our self-destructive natures. All rise to our fullest potential. But I'm the only person on this Earth who can train you to reach that potential.
- -- Toyo Harada[src]
- What do you see when you look down there? You see a constant struggle for power, information and control. You see humanity. See it growing like a weed. Hungry for everything. Desperate to survive. And so the question becomes, how does one turn a weed into a rose?
- -- Toyo Harada[src]
- We are the largest multinational corporate group in the history of the world... we shelter, fund and operate hundreds of tech, pharm and energy corps, NGO's and endowment groups. We strengthen economies and provide jobs on an intenrnational level never seen before. And we centralize power and information across the planet. Holding our actions to the strictest ethical scrutiny. We are the spearhead in the struggle for species cohesion. We're a culture, Peter. Not a corporation.
- -- Toyo Harada[src]
- Look at the world, Peter. At the wars we wage and the bombs we drop... without activated Psiots and strong leadership humanity won't survive itself, much less the exterior threat that's coming.
- -- Toyo Harada[src]
- People have no perspective. They cannot govern beyond their own individual needs and desires. The lessons of the past and the meanings of the future elude them. In the end, they are never really more than children themselves. That is why, in the absence of true leadership... great men must rise. Must take power from the petty. They must have the courage to remake the world.
- -- Toyo Harada[src]
- I'll tell you a secret, Peter. Just between you and I... I'm exhausted. And I'll tell you another secret... I don't want to kill you. I really don't. I hate wasting potential resources. But you push against me. You harm my organization. You hurt my people. You delay my plans... and for what? You and I want the same things. Together we could change the course of humanity... if you would just do what I tell you to do... but then I guess that's just not in your nature, is it?
- -- Toyo Harada[src]
- Now. Humanity. Listen closely to me. I understand your fear. You wonder how it is that your isms, your institutions and your systems, can continue to function in light of me, of what I am. You wonder how any of you can possibly compete. The simple truth is... you can't. Not one of you, individually. Not the whole of you collectively... but instead of fearing me, I ask that you look at what I've done for you. At how I've changed the world. I know that you would accept me if I were humble. You would look on me as a hero if I saved kittens from trees or put out fires. But you're past heroes now. You've driven the planet and yourselves towards an undeniable near-term extinction. What you need now is someone who will lead. Who will make the horrendous choices necessary if any of us are to survive... what you need is me. This is not my choice. This is not my timeline. But this is what is. You've pushed me to this. So I will continue to exist independently from your morality and your laws. And from this moment forward... no government on Earth will oppose my will. The time is thrust upon us all. The world is mine.
- -- Toyo Harada[src]
- I've tried to be kind. I've done all that I can. And it saddens me now to resort to violence. We are as far from civilians as I could place the conflict, and yet, that we have come to this weights heavy on my mind. But pacifism would leave us defenseless in the face of these mentally ill, drug-addled, and morally unsound children. And so here we are -- if you believe in me, in my vision, in my love for you to whom I have given great power... then let us now turn to the dark angels in our nature for one final conflict. And stamp out the virus that plagues us so that we may get on with the business of building something true and lasting.
- -- Toyo Harada[src]
- I was crafted in atomic fire, you petulant little bastard! You think you can break me?! You think your rage means anything to me?! Outside of your hatred for me you are nothing! Visionless! When I was your age I was building empires!
- -- Toyo Harada[src]
- I've been building civilization in windowless rooms like this since before you were born. Can you really imagine me in service to your near-sighted thievery? Did you come here truly believing that would happen? Here's my counter... you alone, Madame Director, will survive this meeting. If you're still sane when I'm done you will deliver a message... you will take it to all the warlords and gangsters who call themselves the keepers of Western "Democracy." There will be no more secret meetings. When next your crime boss leaders wish to speak with me... the world press will be present... or there will be even more death... and even less talking.
- -- Toyo Harada[src]
- The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
- -- Toyo Harada[src]
- So many people lack imagination. They believe all industrialists are the same. That we are power hungry, egocentric. I promise you, sir, I do not pretend to know what is best for the world. I simply want to help the world be its best.
- -- Toyo Harada[src]
- You couldn't imagine it. I lived it, and I can barely imagine it. My father had died in the war. And my mother died in the bombing. After that, I was alone, with no one but my broken people. And they needed me. That may sound conceited, but it simply was the way everything fell together in the aftermath. We needed someone to lead, and somehow I was the one selected to do so. I am certain, without a doubt, that I would not be where I am today without that experience.
- -- Toyo Harada[src]
- I have seen the very worst of humanity. My eyes were opened that day to a truth few others have ever encountered. For that reason, well, that's what I've spent my life in service of – not allowing such a tragedy to happen ever again. This company, my dream for the world, and all the influence I've attained in my life, it is all because of what I witnessed with the eyes of a child. Never again. I promise you that.
- -- Toyo Harada[src]
References[]
This section is for footnotes and citations.