Welcome to Araujo Arts, home for the superhero known as The Shamrock!

I have always wanted to make a superhero character, because superhero stories present a challenge different from regular writing or art. Like cartooning, superhero stories are a synthesis of art and writing, plus the stories are strongly character driven. All this presents the challenge of making a story that is a combination of action, drama, and visual effects along with the expected superhero elements thrown in.

Superhero stories also add a more stark presentation of good and evil, because the super-powered humans have a considerable advantage over regular humans, and that advantage can be used to help others, or to hurt, harm, or otherwise control them. What would most of us do with a super power? I suppose it depends upon the power. The Shamrock herself does not have any actual powers, but she is a former child prodigy with a very high IQ, which, in a sense, is a “super power” of intelligence.

The Shamrock will be dealing with others that do have actual powers. In the process of working, dealing, and sometimes fighting a super-powered individual, The Shamrock will be confronted with a taste of how it feels to deal with someone who has a decisive edge over her. She’s been on the giving end for most of her life due to her intelligence, but now she will be on the receiving end because of the super powers of those she confronts. How will this affect her?

The Shamrock’s secret identity is Dr. Maya M. Maldonado. Maya has a Hispanic father and an Irish heritage mother who died while shielding Maya from a car explosion when Maya was four. When Maya adopted a superhero identity, she chose the name The Shamrock as a secret way of honoring her mother and her heroic sacrifice all those years ago.

Maya’s field of expertise is actually biochemistry, but she always had a love for psychology, which was almost her major before she decided upon biochemistry. However, the recent influx of people in superhero costumes (some seemingly with super powers, but many without) in her city has intrigued Maya as to what causes a person to adopt a superhero identity and run around saving people.

Maya reasoned that the best way to understand their thinking is to become one. Creating a costume made from a mystery substance that she accidentally created in her lab at home, Maya reasoned that not only would she be researching why people become superheroes, but she would also be testing the properties of this mystery substance at the same time. This double benefit from taking up a superhero identity was too much for her to resist, so with the aid of her electronics engineer cousin Megan, Maya took to the streets as The Shamrock.

Maya quickly discovered that she enjoyed being a superhero. A lot. She found that it tested her thinking and physical abilities in ways she never imagined, because it forced her to think on her feet –all while maintaining a persona to go with the identity, and to stay consistent with it so that she developed a reputation among the inhabitants of the criminal underworld. While Maya’s cousin Megan questioned the ethicalness and legality of being a superhero vigilante, she has found herself also caught up in the spirit through the making of the necessary gear that Maya needs as The Shamrock.

All was well for Maya until a complication had seemingly arisen when her police detective younger sister Lee was picked to investigate the rash of “superheroes” in the city. This was a complication because Maya had not yet told Lee of her secret life as The Shamrock. But when Lee asked Maya to help out by using her psychological skills to determine patterns and tendencies on how “superheroes” tend to operate, she had inadvertently given Maya an excuse to continue her secret life as The Shamrock. So now Maya continues as The Shamrock while investigating why people take up the superhero life. How long Maya can keep her secret from Lee and what will happen when Lee does find out, only time will tell.