Pollution Revolution: Petroleah

Another quick character concept for a fun little pollution centric story idea put forth by called "pollution revolution" that is basically like a parody/inversion of all those pro-environment cartoons in the 70s/80s like captain planet. The main characters wouldn't be tree hugging hippies but would be a band of pro pollution people, who for various reasons want to pollute the environment and destroy nature. This was one of the first ideas that came to mind when I heard about the concept.

Meet Petroleah, the tainted mermaid. Petroleah was once a normal human known as Leah. She was a lighthouse keeper on a small coastal island in the northern Atlantic ocean. However one day she traveled to the mainland for a carnival, partied a bit too hard, and the lighthouse went out that night without her attendance. She was awakened in the early hours of the night by a massive crashing and shaking of the lighthouse island, an enormous supertanker full of oil and biological/nuclear waste had crashed into the island without the lighthouse's guiding light. She did all she could for the sailors and wildlife, she spent all morning and day rushing the injured to medical tents as the national guard set up first aid stations on shore. However the lighthouse had been critically damaged by the crash, and as she was attempting to save an injured pelican that had perched atop the lighthouse, the foundation gave out and the lighthouse crashed down onto the already damaged tanker.

her whole body burned in agony slowly sinking into the morass of blood, oil, seawater and hazardous waste, as she was dragged down by the sinking lighthouse. Her mind roiled as she realized her end was near, she was dying because of a bird so stupid it couldn't fly to safety, and she despised her fate. Eventually she passed out of consciousness, cursing her death, but to her confusion and surprise she awakened sometime later. She was looking up from beneath the collapsed railing of the lighthouse, she could only feel one of her legs, at first she thought it was storming out as the sun cast only a few scant rays downward but she soon realized it was not clouds but oil. She was somehow alive and breathing beneath the water, the ruins of the lighthouse and tanker sprawling out around her on the ocean floor. As she took in her situation she realized the full gravity of what had happened. She thought she could only feel one of her legs, but she now saw that her legs had fused into some sort of fish tail like a mermaid, and her body had somehow changed and adapted to breathe underwater, no doubt the result of the mutagenic cocktail of waste she had been bathing in for... however long she was unconscious.

She swam to the surface and saw that the shore had been cleared of medical tents, the efforts were now solely focused on cleaning up the oil, so it must have been a few days time. That was when Leah ceased to be and Petroleah was born. She hated herself for failing in her duties as a lighthouse keeper, but she hated the stupid animals even more, animals so dumb they didn't know to flee from a toxic waste spill and had nearly cost her her life. That day she decided that it was survival of the fittest, and that no human or animal deserved pity or help. Just as she had evolved and survived the spill and drowning that should have killed her, so too would everyone else have to adapt to survive or be culled to make way for a stronger generation.

Now Petroleah has joined the Pollution Revolution, to support her merciless outlook on life. She sees anyone or anything that cannot adapt to the progress of science, technology, and industry, as a worthless creature that deserves to fade into extinction for its weakness. She is a very water centered character of the Pollution Revolution, and her home is a customized supertanker that she uses as a mobile base of operations to seed the oceans with oil and hazardous waste as a way to catalyze the natural evolution of the ecosystem. Her powers include her fish anatomy that allows her to breathe underwater, survive at any depth, and swim with incredible speed as well as her special "oil" that her body produces that allows her to mind control any creature that becomes drenched in it. She has a habit of coughing up oil sporadically, and when she is angry or emotionally charged oil leaks out from her eye patch/socket as well.

She has an antagonistic relationship with Clearcutter, a mechanical member of the Pollution Revolution. Clearcutter hates water (and via association Petroleah) because it douses his internal furnace, and Petroleah hates Clearcutter because he loves to drink her oil without permission, because it is a potent fuel source for him.