This is a timeline of events from a local hero's story, taking place a few years before the events of Jake's story.
1 year ago...
Two aliens crash-landed on Earth in a forest in Stickville. A team of heroes called the Vindicators are called to deal with them, but the alien leader kills them. The aliens explore the forest and discover a crashed van nearby. They shapeshift into the dead humans from the van and live out their lives for the next year.
Early 2150
The hero Symbol makes his debut by stopping the ColourKing from detonating a live bomb in Sentry City. He then goes on to protect the city from various threats, such as the Trapper, Dr. Rex, and Triceratop. He occasionally runs into a super but refuses to join the Super Society.
Mid 2150...
Sam Manson, who is secretly Symbol, stops the Rock Ringleader from attacking Downtown Sentry City. He returns to his lair—which is his home as Sam Manson, a local high school boy. Sam reveals he was the alien who crash-landed a year ago and was living as the boy in the family that crashed. He saw his father kill innocent heroes without his permission and decided to become a hero himself as a form of redemption.
At school, Sam saves a classmate, Kelly Thompson, from bullying. She thanks him, and the two become friends.
Kelly returns home only to be attacked by one of Dr. Rex's machine monsters, Extincto, who kills everyone in her apartment except for her. Extincto is about to kill Kelly, but Symbol stops him just in time. Symbol defeats the robot, but in a final act of revenge, Extincto kills Kelly. Symbol, in a flurry of rage, kills Extincto.
He immediately regrets it, screaming in pain.
Desperate, he brings Kelly to his home and begs his parents to heal her using their alien technology. His father, Toby, who he hates, disagrees, but his mother, Eliza, does so out of pity. She transfers the girl's brain to the body of an old robot she found in her travels across space.
Kelly awakens, but seeing herself as a robot, she freaks out and attacks Sam and his family before escaping. Sam becomes Symbol to chase her down but is gravely injured in the process.
Toby saves Sam by putting him in their alien healing chamber. He then goes after the girl since she's too dangerous to have on the loose.
Dr. Rex watches Kelly flying to a far-off cave and sends his dinosaur robots to bring her in, thirsty for the power of her weapons.
The Commonwealth government notices Kelly's movements and sends a group of young heroes, Gama Squad, consisting of Hummingbird, the Battle Twins, and Blink, to bring her in. They keep Amazo on standby just in case.
The dinobots arrive, but Kelly destroys all of them with newfound power. She tries to fight Toby and nearly defeats him, but he manages to convince her to stop.
Gama Squad arrives and tries to take Kelly and Toby in. The duo takes them down, and Kelly stops Toby from killing them. That's when Amazo arrives.
Sam finishes his healing, becomes the Symbol, and heads to join the fray.
Amazo demolishes the two and is about to take them in until Symbol arrives. The two have a brief scuffle, and Symbol realizes Amazo is way out of his league. He tries to convince Amazo to let them go but fails, leading to Amazo wanting to take him in as well. Toby and Kelly sacrifice themselves to save Symbol's life, causing him to go berserk again and nearly kill Amazo.
Just as Symbol is about to take Kelly and Toby away, Kelly's body transforms into something else: the previous owner of her body, Diablo, has returned. He battles Symbol, and seeing that they are on par, he leaves to plan for later.
Symbol takes Toby home for healing, realizing once again that he failed to save Kelly.
One week later...
Sam is attacked by bullies at school since they can't find Kelly to bully her. Sam takes the bullying as punishment for his failure. At home, he has a dream that leads him to a warehouse. He heads there as Symbol to investigate. In the warehouse, he meets Diablo, who knocks him out with a death ray.
Sam wakes up to see Dr. Rex and Diablo working together. They strap him to a chair and attach a remote control device in an attempt to control his mind. Dr. Rex betrays Diablo, though, and tries to use Symbol for himself. Diablo destroys the remote and frees Symbol.
Rex unveils his Extincto 2.0, who fights Symbol to a standstill. Just as Rex is about to kill Diablo, Symbol looks at him and sees a bit of Kelly is still alive in there and goes berserk on Extincto, taking him down. He then attacks Dr. Rex and takes him down as well. Dr. Rex attempts to detonate Extincto as a last resort, but Symbol throws him into space.
Diablo gets his bearings and kills Rex. Symbol tries to capture him, but he escapes, swearing revenge.
The next week...
After a usual morning patrol, Sam heads to school to start his day. He then receives an impromptu message from his mom to return home. Once he arrives, he sees a being that gives him a short stroke of shock. Blaze, an intergalactic pirate who was hunting the family down, has returned. Sam turns into Symbol, and the two battle throughout the city. Blaze tries to attack civilians, but Symbol goes berserk and fights back. The two soon reach a stalemate, but Blaze wins by targeting a civilian, resulting in Symbol getting in the way and nearly getting himself killed.
Just when he's about to kill Symbol, Diablo arrives, saying his plan is to control Symbol and asks Blaze to let him go. It turns out Toby killed Blaze's son many years ago, and Blaze wants to kill Symbol as revenge. Diablo and Blaze fight, but Blaze ultimately wins.
Diablo then gives Symbol some of his energy, which he uses to charge up, waking up much more powerful. Using this power, Symbol finally defeats Blaze. The government team, Gama Squad, arrives and takes Blaze away.
Symbol tries to capture Diablo, but he escapes yet again, killing the unconscious Blaze and teleporting away with his body.
Symbol receives an invitation from the Gama Squad to join them, but he declines. They give him a signal to know when there is danger, though.
1 week later...
Diablo reveals his mad scheme to transfer his mind into Blaze's body. His plan fails, as Kelly's mind is transferred into Blaze's body instead.
Kelly escapes his captivity and tries to find Symbol. Diablo activates a virus he had installed in Blaze's body, which allows him to control Blaze from afar. He then goes on to attack Sentry City in a desperate attempt to call in Symbol. The Gama Squad arrives but is defeated yet again.
Sam stays home for once, and Eliza uses it as a bonding experience. As the two bond, Sam receives a distress call from Hummingbird telling him of Blaze's rampage. He leaves as Symbol to fight.
Symbol arrives and faces Diablo using Blaze's body, but this time, he has studied all of their previous battles and uses this new info along with multiple powerful modifications to Blaze's body to defeat Symbol. Just as he is about to kill Symbol, Kelly takes control, giving Symbol a last-minute chance to win by sending a tiny part of himself into Blaze's brain.
In her mind, he battles Diablo's virus and teams up with Kelly to defeat him, eradicating Diablo's influence on Blaze's body once and for all.
Kelly joins Symbol, and the two go home. Gama Squad tries to recruit Symbol, but he declines. Kelly, on the other hand, seems interested.
1 week later...
Eliza has adopted Kelly into their family, and they are assimilating back into their old lives. Sam is called to the principal's office because there's a problem.
Kelly has been repeatedly skipping school. She isn't even there that day. Eliza takes Sam home and urges him to find Kelly.
As Sam is looking for her as the Symbol, he receives a distress signal from Gama Squad. Just as he's about to ignore it, he hears Kelly's voice. He rushes to the scene to see a massive sinkhole in the middle of Sentry City.
He heads inside to see Kelly and Gama Squad captured by the Rockleader, who now goes by the name Lava Lord. Lava Lord has become way more powerful than before, going so far as to defeat Symbol. In a last-ditch effort, Symbol destroys the cages holding Gama Squad and frees them along with Kelly.
The team works together and battles Lava Lord, and although they lose, they soften him up enough for Symbol to finish him off.
In the aftermath, Gama Squad takes Lava Lord for interrogation and extends an invitation to Kelly. Symbol tries to stop her, but she agrees and goes with them, saying she hated her human life and wants to use her abilities for good.
Symbol reluctantly allows her to go. Eliza scolds him for his decision but ultimately understands it.
3 days later...
Gama Squad, now consisting of Hummingbird, Battleboy, Battlegirl, Blink, and Kelly—now going by Wildstar—interrogates Lava Lord and discovers he got his new abilities from a being known as the Broker. He then tells them his location.
3 days later...
Gama Squad attacks Broker's location, but he had a psychic who could tell the future and prepared for them, assembling his favorite customers to defend him. They are Mighty Mole, Forstbite, Reflektor, and Brute. The team battles the Broker's Legion but is ultimately losing.
Despite Kelly's protests, Hummingbird calls Symbol, who arrives shortly after. He faces Broker, and the two seem on par. Broker, scared for his life for the first time, calls in his secret weapon, the intergalactic bounty hunter and friend of Blaze, Big Bad Wolf (BBW).
BBW nearly kills Symbol in one hit. Hummingbird realizes Symbol was the closest top-tier super in their arsenal and the rest are essentially screwed. The team, much to Wildstar's dismay, makes a tactical retreat.
Symbol heals at home, and Eliza warns Kelly not to get her son involved in her affairs again.
Kelly, furious with her performance, decides to hunt down Broker herself. She then tracks down her best bet at doing that...
Diablo.