Sounder Origin

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Sounder’s story is about identity, trauma, and the fear of being seen.

At its core, Sounder is not about a man becoming a machine.
It is about a man who survives being erased—and has to decide who he is afterward.

Jayshawn Ward was a leader long before armor, powers, or war. As a child, he learned loss early. As a soldier, he learned to carry it quietly. When he “died,” the world moved on without him—his name archived, his sacrifice simplified, his humanity reduced to a report.

What returned wasn’t a weapon by choice.
It was a survivor rebuilt without consent.

Sounder lives with constant noise—external and internal. The world is louder to him than to anyone else, and so are his memories. War, guilt, his brother Oliver, the men who called him “dead,” the people who call him “monster.” His body reacts before his heart can decide. His trauma is coded into him as much as the metal.

The villains in his life—Bleed and Slasher—are not opposites. They are mirrors of what he could become if he accepts the label the world gives him. They choose violence. They choose identity through cruelty. They call him a “dead soldier” because they want him to stop believing he ever mattered as a man.

Sounder’s conflict is not whether he can fight.
It is whether he deserves to exist as himself.

He saves people in secret because he is afraid of what they will see. When someone finally looks at him and says “That’s not human,” it nearly breaks him—not because it’s true, but because it’s what he already fears.

The turning point in his story is not power.
It is recognition.

When he meets someone who doesn’t fight him, doesn’t fear him, and doesn’t name him—but sees him—Sounder learns that humanity is not about flesh. It’s about choice, restraint, and care.

That realization leads him to build Bionic Man—not as a replacement for himself, but as a guardian of memory. A way to preserve Jayshawn Ward. A way to ensure that even if he forgets, even if the world erases him again, the man he was will survive somewhere.

Sounder’s story ends not with acceptance from the world, but with acceptance of himself.

He stops hiding. He starts building. He helps shape the future—on the ground and among the stars.

Because monsters destroy.

And monsters don’t build futures.