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Character - Johnny Wallbank
Johnny Wallbank is the protagonist of the popular JohnnySpace novels written by Davis Pickett. His unflappable demeanor and lateral thinking skills make him useful for demonic purposes.
Fictional History
The first book in the series, Johnny in the Galaxy, tells how Johnny Wallbank was born on an imaginative version of Earth in the fictional country of England. He led a quiet life with his partner working as a video game developer until one day he was kidnapped by a group of aliens. The aliens explain to Johnny that Humanity has reached a point in development called the Great Filter and now he must represent his kind to demonstrate to the local 36-Upspin East Council that Humanity should be included in the Galactic Community rather than exterminated.
Johnny finds this task intimidating, but this is common for representatives and his kidnappers turn out to be a team of former representatives who help new cultures find their place in the galaxy. He visits their various worlds and has adventures while learning how each of his companions appealed to the local council.
At the end of his journey he has a long list of excellent arguments for what Humanity can bring to the larger galaxy. They feel wrong to him, though, and instead he launches on a heartfelt monologue about all the small and pleasant things he misses about his life on Earth, many of which were sources of stress at the beginning of the book.
The council is not swayed by this argument and orders Humanity be expunged so that a new dominant species might evolve on Earth. This is not the outcome Johnny expected and he remains in shock as the book ends and Johnny is deposited back on a now vacant Earth. The version of the book published in the New Empyreum? includes an epilogue of Johnny enjoying a lonely version of the peaceful life he missed, but this was written by Pickett at the insistence of his Empyreal editors at the time and is directly contradicted by the later books of the series.
As a Demon
Johnny Wallbank is one of the most popular Demons? to summon and one of the few allowed with a general permit in Estavelle?. His popularity stems from his high tolerance to unfamiliar situations and willingness to be helpful. The same qualities in the book that allow him to blandly accept the wild alien landscapes he is exposed to is conducive to carrying out a wide variety of tasks for moderately skilled summoners. He rarely even requires a binding writ to be applied to him, though one is still required for all Demons.
Johnny is a perfectly ordinary human man, with no special abilities to speak of. He will sometimes claim to have "Cryprotenictic Powers" but this is a bluff which is a recurring joke in the book series.