Jace Jones- Marathon

Real Name: Jace Jones
Hero Name: Marathon
Title: The Moment Man
Alignment: Neutral Good
Age: 23
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Hair: Red
Eyes: Green
Height: 5’7 (standing up)
Weight: 150 lbs
Blood type: O



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To others Jace comes off as impatient, hyper-verbal, and even a bit snarky (he has three times as long to come up with a comeback)- it’s a different story on the inside. He experiences time at a slower rate and just crave human interaction and entertainment. Inside he’s an optimistic existentialist (closer to absurdism, farther from nihilism) with a deep and abiding sense of wonder and insatiable curiosity. He’s a bit of a thrill-seeker, living like these are his last days. He expects to be caught in a “moment” eventually (more on that later) so he kind of acts like someone with nothing to lose on occasion.



In 2002, when Jace was just 8, a time traveler popped in to check on an old family estate. The ship, having an error in it’s calculations, arrived off course and collided with Jace who was riding his bike home at night from a friend’s house. The time ship slammed into Jace and he was brought to a nearby hospital by the mysterious time traveler who reported it as a hit and run.

The crash crushed Jace’s 1st lumbar vertebra and he lost all control of his legs as well as only having partial control of his hips. The crash with the time ship’s chronoton field inflicted him with an odd phenomenon. He began experiencing time at a slower rate than the rest of the universe. He could think, move, and react at a faster rate.

The physical therapy was grueling, not only in the physical sense but because he had to teach himself how to deal with a world that was moving at a slower speed than him. Listening to a long speech would, to him, take twice as long and the words came out very slowly. He had to modulate his own speech so he didn’t sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks. Jace, when interacting with “normal people” needs to slow down his motions or he looks rather ridiculous. Sleep is another issue for him. He tends to sleep for what his body thinks is about 8 hours but tends to be more around 1-3. He had to learn to take sleeping pills to knock himself out for an extended period of time. Eating’s another problem. He needs to eat much more frequently because of his constant movement.

What is most painful to him is that, despite having superspeed, he couldn’t walk. After a year of physical therapy he was finally able to get into a wheelchair and gain some agency. He now lives in Phoenix, alone, and attends college. His house is filled with wall to wall entertainment, often playing in fast foward with the subtitles on.


1. Reaction
2. Agility
3. Strength
4. Endurance



Marathon experiences time at a slower rate than the rest of the world. It’s getting slower and slower all the time, which is good in one way but really bad in another. He has super speed and reactions though this. This it due to an odd corruption of his timeline- he’s like a VHS tape with bad tracking. His perceived “speed” is inversely proportional to how slow he is experiencing time (if he experienced it twice as slow, he’d appear to be moving twice as fast as a normal person).
He currently experiences time at about 1/3rd the rate of normal people (meaning he is able to move about x3 normally people).

Jace isn’t particularly smart. However, he has about three times as long to examine things. He offers some unique insights on things as a result.

Jace is sensitive to time too. While not often useful, he knows the exact passage of time almost instinctively. While most people could tell you, “It’s been about an hour since lunch” Jace could tell you “It’s been 56 minutes and 12 seconds since lunch” off the top of his head.


Marathon’s powers are his weakness. While it seems like a blessing at first, Jace is fighting a losing battle against the eventually slowing to his personal time to the point where he will be trapped in a single second for all eternity. Alert, and mentally cognisant, but unable to interact with the world around him- trapped in his own mind. His perception is slowing down at a rate of about 10% a year.

Marathon is also a paraplegic, having had his L1 and L2 vertebra crushed in the accident that gave him his power.

Because he’s “sped up” rather than actually moving faster- he doesn’t actually generate more force (which violates several laws of physics...). So a punch from him lands just as hard as a person moving at normal speed.

Lastly, though he experiences time at a much faster rate and he does have super speed- he’s still largely just a human. He’s in good shape but he’s flesh and blood.


Marathon has a series of purpose built wheelchairs. He uses a more conventional one around the house but often relies on sports model. It looks like a basketball wheelchair with armored wheels and a shield that covers over the front of his legs up to his hips. The wheels are a bit thicker, more in line with off-roading wheels.


None


Jace tends to have a lot of internal dialogue due to him being largely trapped in his own head. A lot of back and forth.


“Ok. Try again.”
“Randy, it’s the third time.”
“So what?! It’s COOL! Lemme’ see.”
“Fine, fine.” Jace said, pretending that he didn’t love doing it.
“Ok ok ok- ready... go!” Randy, his friend’s boyfriend said in the excited way that a semi-drunk guy does when he found something that “just so cool” at the bar.
“Hats!” Randy yelled and clicked the button on his phone that started the stopwatch.
“Fourteen.” Jace replied with a shrug. To be fair, Randy had asked him to count all the hats in the room two questions earlier so Jace didn’t really have to count them. Guess that upgrades “semi-drunk” to “drunk”.
“OH. MY. GOD!” Randy roared as he laughed and bounced up and down in his seat. “That’s SOOO cool!”
Jace smiled sheepishly. What the hell did Marisa see in this drunk puppy of a man? She’d made it pretty clear back in highschool that they’d never work out but... Randy Mothberg? Ragin’ Randy? God... no accounting for taste.

Jace watched as Randy bounced up and down in his seat across the booth from him at Applebee's in slow motion. Marisa looked bored. She was doing her best to hide it but Jace saw right though that. Every now and then she'd look away and she even gave half a eye roll. They’d been doing the “count the whatevers” game for a good ten minutes and they’d paid the bill 15 minutes ago. Jace though to himself, like he always did,
“Maybe we should get some beers? Nah... the bar’s closing and everyone wants to go home. At least that’s what I think. Does Randy know he’s drunk? He probably does. He ate all those wings. Probably won’t have a nice night. Stomach will kill him. Wonder if I’ll have a bad time too- I ate the wings too. Shit. Probably shouldn’t have done that. Well- always next time. I’ll swing by and grab some-”
Jace’s rambling internal monologue was cut off by Randy finally finishing his guffawing. Took him long enough. 23 seconds was an ETERNITY to Jace and he didn’t have that kind of time to waste... well he did but he didn’t want to.

Come to think of it- what did he care? He had all the time in the world... literally.