For one thing, I wanted that Stan Lee type alliteration. (Peter Parker! Bruce Banner! J. Jonah Jameson! Matt Murdoch! Otto Octavius! Pepper Potts! Reed Richards! Sue Storm! And DOCTOR DOOM!!!)
And I wanted Cal's name to reflect that I am putting some of the late Roger Ebert into him. I fumbled with Cal's profession a long, long time. As in YEARS. His origin is in that symboligist guy from The DaVinci Code. Really, is symboligist for real? I tried other stupid sounding professions. Morologist? Superpowerologist? Comicbookologist? They all sank like a stone. Deservedly!
Anyhow, I have moved nearly all the action to the big comic convention. How to introduce Cal there? And then... Roger Ebert passed away, and a little light went out in the world. In a small way, I light a small fire in tribute, and make Cal a movie critic, he'll know and love movies as Roger did. He'll do a panel on superhero movies: Holly's "The Last Super" movie is coming (a connection! Yay!) which Cal discusses as well as a HORRIBLE movie based on Catwoman (Tiger Lady, ooo, Cal's review will be a gas to write!). I will have fun writing that chapter, which I will start within a week.
Hence, I change his last name from a generic Smith to Critbert: a combination of critic and Ebert. I have to admit, Critbert has a faint intellectual ring to it. Cal will get super-intelligence, and a bit of the Batman persona, into his movie critic mind. I have written a lot of Cal so far, but I will sew in a movie critic background, he needed some backstory. Hmm, what other superpowers? Flashback memory? Ability to spot an idiot plot from ten miles off? Calculate to 87.4 percent accuracy the plans of the villain from movie tropes?
And now Holly Hansson alliterates. I will name Holly's father Hans. Hans is a funny name. Say it. "Oh, Hans!" "I'm here, Hans!" "Hold my hand, Hans!"