The Circus Family were truly the greatest dynasty of heroes whose legacy spanned time, space and several universes.
They originated from our reality in the Omega Omniverse and were a motley band of heroes, reformed monsters, Dinosaurs and aliens who journeyed through all of time and space in a magical tent battling evil. Whenever the Circus of Tzas arrived in an area, disaster was never far behind — or so it seemed. In truth, the Family only ever appeared because a calamity was already looming that they were to prevent or contain. Still because they were so often present at the scene of great tragedies, they were frequently blamed for the very disasters they had come to avert.
In all fairness it cannot be denied that hearing the Circus of Tzas were performing nearby was never a good omen regardless.
Their Tent was ironically the creation of a race of evil soul devouring demons known as the Vandals who in our universe ruled Europe from behind the scenes for many centuries. They hoped to create the Tent as a way to change history if their empire ever fell and possibly expand to other worlds, but it was stolen by a benevolent member of their kind named Ron Baker. The Tent was later refined by Baker and others he encountered through time and space such as Professor Fang into not only a more efficient craft, but one that was disguised as a Circus. (It was the best disguise as it could make use of the magics bright colours.)
Ron subsequently became the first Circus Master and would recruit other heroes, reformed demons, and creatures from throughout to join him on his journeys in time and space battling evil. They became the first incarnation of the Circus Family.
Tragically Ron was later killed in battle, but six Circus Masters followed him in our universe all of whom would be aided by their own incarnations of the Circus Family, though some members spanned multiple Circus Masters such as the heroic vampire Carlene. She was originally a singer from 1960s London who was turned into a vampire by a deranged fan named Alex.
He wanted to make Carlene his bride, but she fought back against him after her siring and slew her former stalker. She then not only controlled her thirst, but used her vampiric powers for good, battling evil all around the world and even across time before she joined the Circus Family. Whilst she never became a Circus Master, truly no one would be as associated with the lineage as much as Carlene.
Eventually after the 7th Circus Masters final battle, the Tent was believed to have been lost, but in truth it was sent forward in time until after our universe's natural end to the Alpha Omniverse.
It is known thanks to documents from the Circus Family and other time travellers that eons from now after our universe dies, fragments from it will drift into the void, the nothingness from which all realities emerge and exist within until it collides with the remains of other dead universes. The collision will create an explosion from which the Alpha Omniverse will form.
Whilst the Alpha Omniverse and the Omega Omniverse are separated by a vast distance in the void, travel between them is possible through time travel as their timestreams are linked.
The Tent meanwhile landed on the planet Thrab, which was inhabited by sentient stone creatures. This planet was said to exist in the early years of the first universe in the Alpha Omniverse, known simply as the Stars Universe (as it was the first to feature stars.) The Tent also brought with it a supply of magic from our universe which would gestate at the centre of this world and become a permanent power source for the Tent to replenish as whilst it could draw from the magics of this new reality, it still needed at least a small sample of them from its old universe.
It took centuries for the Tent to replenish itself during which time the natives who were primitive came to worship it as an omen from gods. Once it was fully charged, the Tent took off into the future when Carlene arrived on the Alpha Omniverse's version of earth during the 1980s.
(Due to being created at least partially from our universe's remains, many of the planets and species from our universe will be duplicated in various realities of the Alpha Omniverse.)
Carlene had been blasted through by the same force on an earlier mission (though ironically she was sent through at an earlier point in the Omega Omniverses history, but only arrived much later.)
The Tent had a magical connection to all its occupants, but Carlene's was naturally stronger and again she was also a fragment of its home universe to latch onto. The Tent only arrived 20 or so years after Carlene arrived in the early 00s where it suddenly materialized around the vampire.
Carlene at first hoped she could use it to return to her own universe, but it soon became clear the Tent would not grant her wish so as not to disrupt the timeline of our reality where she was believed lost.
Instead Carlene could see the Tent needed her for a far greater purpose and she subsequently used it to gather a new Family together to protect this reality and the greater omniverse that had formed around it.
There would be a further 7 Circus Masters in this universe just like its predecessor with many more corresponding Circus Families.
They were often referred to as The Circus Family Reborn by Carlene to distinguish them from those of her omniverse.
The original family of the Alpha Omniverse aside from Carlene consisted of fifteen other members. Unlike the Circus Families of our universe who always lived in the Tent as it journeyed through time, The Circus Family Reborn did not always travel together.
The Tent's main base other than when travelling back to Thrab to recharge was in the town of Windmere in the late 2020s. Carlene along with the first of the new Circus Masters and some other members of the family lived there. (They were also responsible for the famous Bownessie monster, which was in reality a Plesiosaurus that they rescued from the end of the Dinosaurs rule and kept in the lake as a pet.).
Other members of the team remained in their own time and in some cases universes, continuing on with their lives and only helping the Circus Family on some missions. Indeed it's believed that rarely did all sixteen travel together at the same time.
Aside from Carlene, other core members of the original 16 included the costumed vigilante known as The Crimson Dandy, a former bounty hunter Attica Gage who came from the The Three Fold Earth and her lover, the sensitive Aaron. (Both originated from a time in their world after civilisation had fallen.) The Scottish folk hero, known as The Shadow of The Glen who defended his country from the rule of evil king Robert. The Queen of the lost land of Dragons Marjean, the intergalactic vampire hunter and last of his kind Cavillean. They were also joined by several legendary beasts including the magical Tyrannosaurs called Rexor, the Celtic God known as Dagda, as well as the Golden Rex and the giant ape King Kong.
Others included adventurer Caroline Lindsey Carano, hero of the fractured earth Jarex, Crush, the hero of the future and finally Brandon, the last vampire of one of the Dinosaur earths.
Many of these heroes would also continue into later incarnations of the Family with there being over 100 members of the Family across all 7 Circus Masters of the Alpha Omniverse.
Whilst Carlene may have been the founder of the new Circus Family, she was not the first Circus Master of the new universe. That honour fell to The Crimson Dandy. The Tent always chose someone to serve that role. The Circus Master also wasn't simply the leader of each incarnation either.
He, or she had the main connection with the Tent that could allow them to see what the team had to do in each place that they arrived. The Circus Family's role was not to change time, rather it was simply to create the history they were already familiar with, by stopping disasters in the past or sometimes in the future.
Sadly this meant there were some tragic events that they could not erase without creating paradoxes, but the Tent itself, which had a connection with the vortex would always take the Family to the right time, and again it was only through the Circus Master that the visions that guided them could be viewed by the rest of the team. The Circus Master was, if you will, the anchor for all the magic of the Tent.
That said, Carlene's centuries of exposure to the Tent had helped to give her visions as well, though they were not as clear as those of the Tent and more random and unpredictable. Carlene's bond with the Tent was far beyond that of any Circus Master anyway and they would all to some extent defer to her in the The Circus Family Reborn.
Regardless of who was in control, the Circus Family of the new omniverse would prove to be just as important and legendary as that of our own.