The Challenge of the Freedom Kids!

[fjur]

Greetings, Sentinels!

Christopher Badell and Adam Rebottaro don’t like kid sidekicks, or “families” of characters based around a central hero, so neither of those concepts are super prominent in Sentinel Comics. Well, I do, so I wrote this story.

The idea is that this story, “The Challenge of the Freedom Kids!”, is from an old comic issue originally published during the Silver Age of Comic Books in the 1960s.

I’d had the nugget of this story for a long while, and I had the option to either write out the story in full, or to basically write an overview of it, sort of like a review of the issue, or the way that C&A themselves tell stories on The Letters Page. Ultimately, I decided on the latter, because I felt like I’d rather get this story out there rather than just sit on it forever and never get it finished. “The perfect is the enemy of the done,” and all that.

I also decided that I wanted to serialise it over a few days. Comics back in the Silver Age would frequently have several chapters to them. This one has five chapters; I intend to post them over the next several days till it’s concluded.

I am, of course, not a professional comic writer. Nonetheless, any feedback, comments, questions, or any other discussion is much appreciated.

Enjoy!

[fjur]

Cover

A group of four costumed youths stand, pointing and laughing at a distraught Pauline Parsons.

One of them exclaims:

Hahaha! Silly girl! Your Legacy powers aren’t impressive enough to earn you a spot in our club… So get lost!

And a blurb in the corner declares:

Can even America’s Youngest Legacy overcome…
“The Challenge of the Freedom Kids!”

Title Page

Young Pauline Parsons is the latest in the long and proud Parsons family line! But unlike all her forefathers, she is the first powered Parsons child to be… a girl! Nonetheless, she’s exhibited all the mighty powers of the Legacy tradition, though she is yet to have manifested her own, new, unique power.

As the world over knows, Pauline’s father, Legacy, is the leader of America’s finest fighting force, the Freedom Five! But Pauline herself, although possessed of many ordinary friends, has no superpowered allies of her own age to call comrades. Indeed, as far as she knows, she is the only youth in the nation to know what it’s like to wield such great powers! But all these assumptions are turned on their head when young Pauline meets four stunning new characters and must truly put her wits and powers to the test when she faces…
The Challenge of the Freedom Kids!

Starring the Heroic Exploits of…
Pauline Parsons I—Legacy-to-Be!

Featuring the Wicked Misdeeds of…
Glamour—Mistress of Illusions!
Dr. Rubber—The Bouncy Blackguard!
Thermos—Master of Heat!
And The Jellyfish—The Fishy Fink!

And Introducing to the Sensational World of Sentinel Comics…
Shady—Boy Shadow!
Fort—The Girl in the Power Armor!
Swifty—The Quickest Kid on Earth!
And Snowgirl—The Subzero Lass!

Chapter 1

The issue opens with a quartet of villains holding up Megalopolis National Bank: Glamour, Thermos, Dr. Rubber, and the Jellyfish. Their fantastic powers let them easily overcome the security, break into the vault, and help themselves to its riches.

Meanwhile, Pauline Parsons is walking through the city of Megalopolis when her danger sense draws her attention to the bank. She flies in and tries to apprehend the villains, but her fists bounce off Dr. Rubber’s rubbery body, Glamour uses her illusions to disorient her, the Jellyfish shocks her, and Thermos freezes her.

It looks like the villains are about to get away with their loot, when four teenage newcomers arrive on the scene and apprehend the villains. Afterwards, they introduce themselves to Pauline. They consist of…

• Shady, an acrobatic boy in a purple and red caped costume, equipped with an arsenal of gadgets.
• Fort, a girl in a compact tan and green armored power suit with durable plating and great strength.
• Swifty, a fleet-footed boy in a white and red costume, who can zip about the bank in the blink of an eye.
• And Snowgirl, a slight girl in a blue and white costume wielding a cold ray that can fire a beam of absolute zero energy.

They call themselves the Freedom Kids; Pauline thinks they’re terrific, thanks them for their help, and asks to join their team. The Freedom kids waffle; they say that in order to join, she must demonstrate that she can perform super-feats as well as they can—her defeat by the villains certainly didn’t make her look good.

But as the five youthful heroes are talking, Thermos burns himself and his compatriots out of their bindings, and the villains make to escape. Before the heroes can act, Glamour cloaks the bank in darkness, and Dr. Rubber turns them all rubber so they can bounce away.

The heroes lament the villains’ escape, but Pauline has an idea—she and they will both try to capture the four scoundrels, and in so doing she’ll prove that her powers can compare to theirs. The Freedom Kids accept, and they all set out.

[Chief_Lackey_Rich]

Thoughts:

@fjur

Swifty, a fleet-footed boy in a white and red costume, who can zip about the bank in the blink of an eye.

Bonus points if his real first name is Tom. Double bonus points if the narration boxes tend to use actual Tom Swifties involving him on a regular basis. Triple bonus points if you introduce a batrachian-themed nemesis for him who gets the same treatment but with croakers.

Also remember that Taylor Swift fans are Swifties, no “y” involved.

@fjur

And The Jellyfish—The Fishy Fink!

I am reminded of the fact that one of the homebrew villains in one of our old V&V games went by the name Smellyfish, and had powers that revolved around smelling so bad opponents were incapacitated by his mere proximity, although he did tend to attract stray cats and seagulls. His epithet was “the Skunk of the Seven Seas!”

We were all much younger then.

[fjur]

@Chief_Lackey_Rich

@fjur

Swifty, a fleet-footed boy in a white and red costume, who can zip about the bank in the blink of an eye.

Bonus points if his real first name is Tom.

Hmm, well, I had had another civilian name in mind for him, but honestly I wasn’t super married to it, and I like the pun inherent in your suggestion. Plus, it’s certainly possible for a comic writer in the '60s to have made the same pun, and (minor spoilers) it fits with his sciency nature.

@Chief_Lackey_Rich

Double bonus points if the narration boxes tend to use actual Tom Swifties involving him on a regular basis.

Well, I’ve not written any actual narration for this story, so anyone is free to imagine that to be the case. : )

[fjur]

And now, we have chapter 2, wherein Pauline, Shady, and Fort take after The Jellyfish and Dr. Rubber!

---

Chapter 2

The Jellyfish is at Megalopolis Harbor. He elongates his arms and sneakily climbs aboard a boat as it’s coming into the harbor—no one will expect a robbery before the boat’s even docked, he thinks. He uses his bizarre marine physiology to paralyse the guards watching a shipment of gold on the boat, and grabs as much of it as he can carry.

But before he gets away with it, Shady the Boy Vigilante arrives on the scene. He’d trailed the villain there without his knowing. He tries to hit the Jellyfish with a stun bolt, but the slippery villain’s altered physiology makes him immune to its shocking effects. The Jellyfish then tries to throw his elongated arms at the boy hero, but Shady acrobatically dodges out of the way and disappears into the shadows of the ship’s hull. But then the Jellyfish lights up with bioluminescence, and shocks the suddenly exposed Shady, paralysing him.

The Jellyfish grabs his loot with one arm, and stretches out the other and pulls himself to the docks. But as he does so, Pauline Parsons flies onto the scene. He tries to shock her, but her dauntless durability negates this single attack, and she grabs his extended arms, twirls him around with them, and ties him up with them.

Shady, having recovered, joins her on the docks, and congratulates her on capturing the Jellyfish. Pauline then remarks that he reminds her of the Wraith, and asks him how he came to become the boy hero he now is, which he willingly explains.

Marty Morris was a star gymnast in Rook City. His father worked as a night watchman at the Overbrook Museum of History, until one night when the villainous thief Ermine broke in. His father spotted her and chased after her, so she led him into a room, lit a fire within, and locked him inside. Although the shadowy vigilante the Wraith soon arrived and apprehended Ermine, Marty’s father perished. The Wraith, taking pity on the young boy, took him in and trained him in her ways of crime-fighting and investigation, so that he could fight back against the kind of criminals who took his father.

---

Dr. Rubber bounces up to the top floor of Eaken-Rubendall Laboratories. There, he finds a sample of a new miracle plastic that’s just been invented. He’s sure he can find a buyer that will pay handsomely for this cutting-edge invention.

But he accidentally sets off the lab’s alarm, which alerts the police as well as Fort, whose suit is patched into the police radio frequency. Luckily, she’s nearby, and she rocket-jumps through an open window into the lab. She tries to spray him with adhesive foam, but it doesn’t stick to his rubbery form. So then she simply tries to wallop him, but he bounces harmlessly off her mechanized fist, rebounds off a wall, and careens back into her, knocking her through a bay of scientific equipment.

Dr. Rubber then grabs the plastic sample and bounces out of the lab, only to find Pauline just outside. He tries to bounce away, but she flies after him and catches him, flies him over to a construction site, and hurls him into wet cement, trapping him there, unable to bounce away.

Fort then joins her there, and Pauline asks her how she came to have a power suit that so resembles the hero Bunker’s, which Fort gladly tells.

Jo Maxwell was a young mechanical prodigy living in Megalopolis, who’d always been able to build anything she could imagine. One day, when she and her family were riding on the city’s famous monorail, an earthquake struck, and the rail in front of their car gave way. The monorail was about to crash, when the heroic Bunker appeared and stopped it, saving Jo and her family. The young girl was inspired by his heroic deeds, so she built herself her own mechanical suit in homage to his, and used it to follow his example of heroism.

[Chief_Lackey_Rich]

Funny how the technology super-geniuses tend to go for becoming superheroes instead of, say, working to improve monorail safety technology.

[fjur]

Eh, it’s Megalopolis. I’m sure the monorail is getting derailed every other week.

At any rate, here’s Chapter 3!

---

Chapter 3

Glamour, disguised by an illusion as an unassuming civilian, enters the crowded Megalopolis Museum of Art. She comes to a new exhibit: a priceless, reflective silver statuette. She creates an illusion of some hoodlums causing trouble at the other end of the hall, prompting the guards to rush over there and put a stop to it, while she discretely grabs the statuette.

Swifty, the Quickest Boy on Earth, runs onto the scene. He’d been running through the city looking for the villains, and saw Glamour disguise herself outside the museum. He dashes towards Glamour, but she throws up a burst of light and switches up her disguise to throw him off her trail. Then, Pauline flies into the museum, also after her, but before the two young heroes spot one another, Glamour casts an illusion on both of them, making each of them look like her. The two heroes spot each and, falling for the nefarious illusionist’s trick, attack one another. Pauline can easily withstand Swifty’s blows, and he can dodge most of hers, but eventually she lands one on him, knocking him out and dispelling the illusion on him.

Realising what had just happened, Pauline flies outside, looking for a fleeing Glamour. She flies by every civilian she can see, until her danger sense alerts her to one of them. She grabs Glamour, quickly finds her illusion-casting devices on her, and crushes them.

Swifty, having recovered, then joins Pauline and congratulates her on apprehending the thief. Pauline asks him how he came to have such stupendous speed just like the hero Tachyon, and he gladly explains.

Tommy Tyler was a brainy whiz kid whose scientific expertise won him a summer internship at the renowned Eaken-Rubendall Labs. But one day, an accident at the local power plant sent an electrical surge through the power grid that caused the same Particle Yield Enhancing Wavelength that had given the hero Tachyon her powers to malfunction, bathing young Tommy in tachyonic radiation. He soon discovered that against all odds he too had developed identical powers as Tachyon, and the older hero agreed to train him in the use of them.

---

Thermos arrives at a jewellery store. He freezes the guards on duty there and burns his way through the protective cases that contain a vast collection of valuable rubies and sapphires.

Snowgirl then arrives on the scene, and explains that she suspected he’d try to pilfer these jewels, given that it’s the store’s “Fire & Ice” collection. Snowgirl tries to use her cold ray to freeze him, but he blocks it with his fire, and then proceeds to encase her cold ray in a block of ice, rendering it inoperable.

Thermos grabs the jewels and makes a break for it, but Pauline shows up to stop him. He blasts her with fire, but her bulletproof skin leaves her unscathed. Then he freezes her in ice, but her superhuman strength allows her to burst free from his frigid restraints. Pauline then charges at him and floors Thermos with a single mighty blow.

Snowgirl then joins Pauline, who shatters the ice encasing her cold ray and asks the frosty heroine how she came to acquire the astounding device. Snowgirl gladly tells her.

June Frost was the niece of Ryan Frost, the hero known as Absolute Zero. One day, when he was giving her a tour of the Freedom Five HQ, it was attacked by the villainous duo Citizens Hammer and Anvil. The rest of the FF were out, so it was up to Absolute Zero to deal with them. Citizen Hammer hosed him with flames; the chilly hero tried to fight back with his icy blasts, but Citizen Anvil’s shield protected the two zealots. It was looking dire for Ryan Frost, so June grabbed Henry Goodman’s old cold ray that was on exhibit in the FF HQ Museum and froze the two citizens from behind, saving her uncle. Ryan was impressed with her quick-thinking bravery, so when she pleaded with him to let her keep the ray and fight crime alongside him, he agreed.

[Chief_Lackey_Rich]

@fjur

Eh, it’s Megalopolis. I’m sure the monorail is getting derailed every other week.

When playing the card game using Megalopolis, we used to make it a personal challenge to defeat the villain without letting the monorail card enter play. Managed it about half the time IIRC.

I’m sure Springfield feels better about not having one of teh fool things after watch Megalopolis news for years.

I’m also struck by the fact that Thermos reminds me of the little-known Marvel villain Equinox, the Thermodynamic Man, at least in terms of power set. Guy has a visual design so absurd it loops back around to awesome.

[fjur]

@Chief_Lackey_Rich

I’m also struck by the fact that Thermos reminds me of the little-known Marvel villain Equinox, the Thermodynamic Man, at least in terms of power set. Guy has a visual design so absurd it loops back around to awesome.

Huh, I’d been hitherto ignorant of this character, though, looking him up, I feel inclined to agree with your assessment.

Curiously, I believe the one art we have of Thermos doesn’t quite do as cool* of a fire-and-ice bisection design; indeed, it looks like he’s in pure fire mode:

Well, actually I think he is in the “Off the Rails” SCRPG adventure too, but lacking that I don’t know what his art in it is like.

*In the Progeny flying head sense.

[fjur]

And here we’ve got our penultimate chapter! All the villains have been caught, so surely nothing much more will happen…

---

Chapter 4

With all four of the dastardly villains apprehended and turned over to the law, the five youthful heroes regroup outside the Megalopolis police station. The Freedom Kids are all very impressed with Pauline’s super-feats, and say that now they can officially induct her into their team. She’s elated, and they say that now they can show her their headquarters.

Thus they bring Pauline to the Freedom Kids Clubhouse, a modest structure just outside the city. They all enter and the FK begin to show her around, but as Pauline marvels at the interior, suddenly Shady throws a smoke bomb right at her feet! Pauline’s shocked and confused, but before she can react, Fort charges forwards and lands a mighty wallop on her, knocking her backwards. Then Swifty runs around her, creating a vortex of air that whirls her about, dizzying and disorienting her. Finally, Snowgirl encases her in a mound of ice.

Shocked, Pauline asks them why they’d do this. Her answer comes when a figure walks into the room—it’s none other than the bane of the Legacy line, Baron Blade himself! The Baron gloatingly explains that the Freedom Kids were working for him all along! The kids corroborate this, saying that they were sick of being only the junior partners of the Freedom Five, and that Baron Blade had promised them that, if they helped him capture Pauline, he’d help them get rid of the older heroes, letting them finally step out of their shadows and become proper heroes. And Blade says that now that he has her, he’ll use her as bait for her father and set up so devious a trap that he’ll have his sweet revenge at last.

Pauline can scarcely believe this betrayal, but she says that she’ll nonetheless put a stop to this plot. She begins to crack the ice restraining her, but before she can free herself Blade whips out a vial of regression serum, and she feels herself powers being weakened, leaving her helpless!

[Chief_Lackey_Rich]

@fjur

Huh, I’d been hitherto ignorant of this character, though, looking him up, I feel inclined to agree with your assessment.

He is, admittedly, quite obscure, although he’s had a lot more exposure post-2000 than before despite his long career (and excellent pedigree as a Len Wein and Gil Kane creation). The only comic I’ve ever owned with him in it was a two-part story in Marvel Team-Up back in 1977, which IIRC was drawn by Byrne and featured Yellowjacket and Wasp alongside Spider-Man. Eleven year old me had had minimal experience with Equinox, Yellowjacket, and Wasp at that point. I spent a fair few years convinced that he was a much more important villain that he actually was. Also baffled as to why people thought Hank Pym was Ant-Man and not the much cooler Yellowjacket and why a couple that loved each other so much seemed to constantly be on the marital rocks. I kind of miss the days when I could build my own headcanon in peace without the internet messing it up.

One thing I really liked about Equinox was that (at least in the 1977 MTU story) every single panel that he appeared in had him undergo a “thermal inversion” so hot and cold haves flipped - and the artist (again, probably Byrne) and colorist didn’t screw up once. Must have been a pain to make sure he’d have the right blast effect (always the opposite of what his hands were) available in the right moment of the story. Not at all confident other creators (before or after) were as good about that.

If anyone’s curious, when his powers get forcibly turned off (by Science!) he’s just kind of a weird pink color, and naked, and unconscious, and that weird-shaped “mask” of his is apparently part of his body. That’s despite him being canonically African-American, mind you.

Nekkid Equinox being led away in cuffs. That’s his mom next to him.

@fjur

She begins to crack the ice restraining her, but before she can free herself Blade whips out a vial of regression serum, and she feels herself powers being weakened, leaving her helpless!

Are we 100% sure that stuff even works on her? I don’t recall (or care enough to look) to see if it’s established canon, but it would be really funny if it turned out to be keyed to something on a Y chromosome in the Legacy line and Pauline just doesn’t even bat an eye.

“Getting this stain out of a white costume is going to be a nuisance, but I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. Also some laser vision.”

Cue Baron Blade running back and forth screaming and on fire like the Scarecrow in that old Powerpuff Girls versus the Legion of Doom short.

[fjur]

@Chief_Lackey_Rich

Are we 100% sure that stuff even works on her?

The only place I could think of where he might have used it on her is the Iron Legacy thing, but even that seems inconclusive. The EE card Final Evolution does show Paul 8 crushing a vial of the serum while Blade’s stabbing Pauline; however, the EE Newest Legacy variant’s anniversary foil incapacitated side just shows her getting impaled with no regression serum in sight. Further, the DE Final Evolution card* shows essentially the same scene as the EE version, but this time with no regression serum. So, .

Image Proof:

*IMO it’s weird that this card even exists. Like, DE Legacy’s deck doesn’t even have Next Evolution any more, so it’s no longer a reference to anything.

[fjur]

And now, the final chapter! Will Pauline overcome the treachery of Baron Blade?!
(Oh, and after this, I might do a sort of retrospective wrap-up. We’ll see.)

---

Chapter 5

Suddenly, to the Baron’s surprise, Shady hurls a small projectile at the flask of regression serum. Blade is bewildered at this turn of events, but grins smugly as his personal force field shimmers into view and deflects the thrown object. Swifty explains that the force field is made of excited electrons, so Snowgirl freezes it, slowing them down, and then Fort punches the now-brittle barrier, shattering it. Swifty then tries to dash forward and grab the serum, but Baron Blade is ready for him, and zaps him with an electrical charge. But with the Baron distracted by that offensive, Shady is able to swing in from behind and grab the serum, then quickly mix it with a chemical that neutralizes its properties.

Pauline’s strength returns to her. She triumphantly bursts from the ice. Blade tries to zap her with electricity, but her superhuman durability negates that single attack, and she flies over, tears a sheet of metal from the wall, and wraps him up in it.

Baron Blade is confounded; he demands to know why the Freedom Kids turned on him. They explain that they never actually bought into his plan; they only agreed to work with him to lure him here where they could trap him. And Pauline adds that they let her in on the plan while they were all traveling to the clubhouse; that’s why she didn’t use her danger sense to anticipate their supposed betrayal.

Fort says that there’s just one thing she doesn’t understand—why did Baron Blade so easily believe that they resented their mentor heroes so vehemently, while still desiring to be heroes? Surely he knows that heroes aren’t that hateful. Pauline says that Blade is so consumed and blinded by his own hatred, that he doesn’t hesitate to believe that such hatred burns just as hot in the hearts of others. She then adds that she’s glad that it turned out that the Freedom Kids were on the up-and-up, so that now, together, they can be the greatest teenage heroes the world has ever seen!

Then, Pauline Parsons wakes up. She sits up in her bed. What an odd dream that just was, she thinks. It’s too bad that, in reality, there’s no such thing as the Freedom Kids. Being part of their team would have been great fun.

The End!

Next Issue:
The stealthy vigilante finds herself hounded by a titan of industry in…
“The Wraith VS… Maia Montgomery?!”

[Chief_Lackey_Rich]

An “It was all a dream” ending? Are you trying to spawn years of “Imaginary Stories” based around the Freedom Kids? Because that’s how that sort of thing begins, and it leads to horrors like the original Super-Sons stories.

[fjur]

Heh. Yep, eat your heart out, Bob Haney! I suppose this does mean that this story crosses off two spaces on the Silver Age bingo: it was a hoax and a dream. (I did actually consider making it an imaginary story—i.e. an alternate universe tale—but figured that that might be getting just a tetch too convoluted.)

Also, my personal comic collection is comparatively small, but nonetheless I am the proud owner of a copy of World’s Finest #216, due in no small part to its gloriously Silver Age cover:

---

At any rate, as mentioned, I thought I’d write a bit of a wrap-up going through my thoughts on this story.

“The Challenge of the Freedom Kids!” Retrospective

(I swear, every time I typed that, I hade to stop myself from writing “Super Friends” instead of “Freedom Kids.”)

The general idea for this story came, of course, from my desire for Sentinel to have more legacy-type sidekicks, but the specific plot of the issue was somewhat inspired by Adventure Comics #247, the first appearance of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and the cover was specifically inspired by that issue’s cover. And the general structure of the issue, of all the heroes starting together, then splitting up and tackling different villains committing different crimes in different places, and then regrouping at the end for a finale, is very much inspired by the many Silver and Golden Age team book stories I’ve read that follow that formula.

Astute readers will notice that my portrayal of Pauline Parsons here does not quite match how she’s generally portrayed in Sentinel Comics. She never uses her atomic glare, she’s only ever referred to as Pauline Parsons, not Felicia or any form of the Legacy title (Newest Legacy, Young Legacy, etc.), and in fact it’s ambiguous from the text alone whether she’s even wearing any kind of Legacy costume for this story, or if she’s merely in civvies. The reason for all this is that I did my best to keep her as accurate to how she was in the 1960s of Sentinel Comics. Her atomic glare and middle name, and her adoption of the costume and codename, were all first introduced over the 1980s.

That being said, there are a couple of fairly big inaccuracies in this story, that I just had to introduce to make it work at all. Firstly, I don’t think her age is quite canonical. She’s born in 1955, and I believe that she’s fairly consistently portrayed as “child” rather than “teen” until the '80s. Furthermore, and more dramatically, she doesn’t actually manifest the Legacy powers until 1984! So in the canon Metaverse, it’s virtually impossible to have any Silver Age stories with a powered Pauline. I recognise that C&A have made this decision, but given that it’s a stupid decision, I’ve elected to ignore it.

I ultimately decided to have the “it was all a dream” twist ending both because it is just classic Silver Age, and, despite all the story’s differences with canon, it does sort of make it fit better into canon, as it does not actually create any new characters. And, like Rich says, if I ever want to do anything else with these guys, alternate universe.

The villains of this issue are an eclectic bunch. Besides Blade, they are essentially two Wraith foes and two Tachyon foes, though Glamour’s sorta a Freedom Five foe generally, and honestly I’ve no idea who Thermos usually fights outside of the Lightspeed story arc. Anyways, I think it’s always fun when a random group of villains team up like this, and I tried to use some of the lesser-used ones. Granted, Glamour’s a fairly big name, but Thermos, I believe, hasn’t been in anything but Lightspeed and “Off the Rails,” and I don’t think Dr. Rubber and the Jellyfish has been used in anything. The Wraith has a lot of villains, y’all. I also considered Saw-Man and the Adhesivist, but figured to not use the latter since C&A have already used him in several stories. And I had fun trying to write ways for the two goofy jobbers Dr. Rubber and the Jellyfish to actually use their powers to commit crimes and hold their own against the heroes.

Just as the Freedom Five and many other Sentinel Comics characters are, The Freedom Kids are, of course, partially homaging real world characters. Shady’s backstory involving the loss of a parent is reminiscent of Dick Grayson / Robin’s backstory, Swifty just randomly happening to get caught in a duplication of the accident that granted Tachyon her powers is basically what happened with Wally West / Kid Flash and Barry Allen / The Flash, and Snowgirl is AZ’s niece just as Wally is Barry’s nephew.

Well, there’s my attempt at writing a goofy Silver Agey yarn! I hope it was a fun read!

Keep on saving the multiverse!

[Chief_Lackey_Rich]

I read that issue as a hand-me-down when I was a young 'un, but I’m afraid it’s long gone now. Reading the synopsis I recall Kid Me wondering if the aliens were supposed to be vampires (hence the no shadow thing - I’d read Dracula by then) and if they were, why do we see them in daylight during some flashback scenes. Also remember being furious that they just let Sweeper get away without even trying to find him.

@fjur

Well, there’s my attempt at writing a goofy Silver Agey yarn! I hope it was a fun read!

I enjoyed it, and the vibe was certainly there. I’m enough of a Silver Age fan that the inspirations were clear without being simply derivative.

Was Fort also drawn from some particular character? I thought there might be a clue in the armor colors, but I can’t recall any kid genius power suit or gadgeteer types in period offhand. These days there’s Iron Heart or (for a Gadgeteer version) the much more enjoyable Moon Girl, but they both feel much too modern.

@fjur

(I swear, every time I typed that, I hade to stop myself from writing “Super Friends” instead of “Freedom Kids.”)

Well of course you do. Everyone who watched those cartoons as a kid probably has the same urge.

@fjur

Furthermore, and more dramatically, she doesn’t actually manifest the Legacy powers until 1984!

Assuming, of course, that all her powers turn on at once. If they work more like adult teeth coming in gradually, she may well have spent years being bulletproof or able to tank single hits that would sink a battleship without blinking and no one would have noticed simply because they never got used.

@fjur

I recognise that C&A have made this decision, but given that it’s a stupid decision, I’ve elected to ignore it.

As someone who’s on record as not giving a darn about “official canon” and would just as soon the game didn’t even have an official setting, you won’t hear me objecting.

@fjur

…honestly I’ve no idea who Thermos usually fights outside of the Lightspeed story arc…

Silver Age logic would suggest he’s crossed paths with Absolute Zero at least a few times, although if you wanted to give a nod to Marvel you could invent some heroes with insect-themed powers for him to fight as well. Equinox also originally tangled with Spider-Man and the Human Torch when they were the sharing Marvel Team-Up as a duo book, as opposed to the later stretch where it became Peter and a guest hero or two.

@fjur

And I had fun trying to write ways for the two goofy jobbers Dr. Rubber and the Jellyfish to actually use their powers to commit crimes and hold their own against the heroes.

At least Dr. Rubber’s already got a ready source of inspiration over in anime land, what with One Piece having Luffy running on the Gum-Gum Fruit power and Hunter x Hunter’s Hisoka’s absurdly versatile Bungee Gum (“all the properties of both rubber and gum!”). Of course they didn’t exist in the Silver Age, although sometimes it sure feels like they’ve been around even longer than that. Getting into One Piece from scratch is almost as daunting as deciding to learn German so you can catch up on all 3000+ volumes of Perry Rhodan.

Headcanon insists that Jellyfish got a 90s remake where he learned to speak Portuguese, adopted the supranym Man o’War, and adopted a darker and more edgy style overall. Probably started wearing a lot of spikes and pouches, too.

[fjur]

@Chief_Lackey_Rich

Was Fort also drawn from some particular character? I thought there might be a clue in the armor colors, but I can’t recall any kid genius power suit or gadgeteer types in period offhand.

No, she wasn’t. In the early conceptualising stage, I did consider making her Bunker’s niece rather than June being AZ’s, but I decided on the latter since it made Snowgirl’s backstory more plausible. Her armour’s tan because that’s the typical Bunker colour, and I added green because I thought a kid should be a bit more colourful, and green has military associations. (Even though she doesn’t really have anything to do with the army, but eh.)

@Chief_Lackey_Rich

Assuming, of course, that all her powers turn on at once.

Come to think of it, I don’t know whether that’s been explicitly confirmed or denied. C&A have said that there’s typically a dramatic traumatic event that triggers a Legacy’s powers. (I think it was being kidnapped for Paul 8 and a gas leak at school for Felicia.)

@Chief_Lackey_Rich

As someone who’s on record as not giving a darn about “official canon” and would just as soon the game didn’t even have an official setting, you won’t hear me objecting.

Fair enough. As for myself, well, I love the canon. I wouldn’t be here writing this story if I didn’t, and I do genuinely think the card game would be the poorer for not having the stories attached. You don’t get something like the DE Setback deck by just making copycats of other publishers. As for the RPG, IMHO the default setting is at the very worst net neutral. That said, I do encourage folks, especially when writing their own stories or running an RPG, to treat the canon with a flexible approach, much like how i consider real life comic canons. The official canon should serve as inspiration, but not as restriction. Do stuff with the bits you like, but feel free to ignore or alter what you don’t.

@Chief_Lackey_Rich

Silver Age logic would suggest he’s crossed paths with Absolute Zero at least a few times,

Oh, definitely.

@Chief_Lackey_Rich

if you wanted to give a nod to Marvel you could invent some heroes with insect-themed powers for him to fight as well. Equinox also originally tangled with Spider-Man and the Human Torch when they were the sharing Marvel Team-Up as a duo book, as opposed to the later stretch where it became Peter and a guest hero or two.

You could do a Thermos vs. Setback and Sky-Scraper story, though of course that would have to be '90s or later, not Silver Age. Or Setback and Ra during the Backdraft era.

…wait. Is Setback and Ra having a period when they’re something of a duo an intentional reference to Spidey and the Torch’s friendship?

@Chief_Lackey_Rich

At least Dr. Rubber’s already got a ready source of inspiration over in anime land, what with One Piece having Luffy running on the Gum-Gum Fruit power

Perhaps, but an astute reader will note that I did never describe Rubber having any elasticity or elongation powers; only bounciness. Reason being, the Jellyfish is explicitly confirmed to elongate his arms, and I didn’t want the two to be too redundant. (In hindsight, maybe I should’ve chosen two more different villains, but eh.)

@Chief_Lackey_Rich

Headcanon insists that Jellyfish got a 90s remake where he learned to speak Portuguese, adopted the supranym Man o’War, and adopted a darker and more edgy style overall. Probably started wearing a lot of spikes and pouches, too.

This is glorious. I love it.

[Chief_Lackey_Rich]

@fjur

Come to think of it, I don’t know whether that’s been explicitly confirmed or denied. C&A have said that there’s typically a dramatic traumatic event that triggers a Legacy’s powers. (I think it was being kidnapped for Paul 8 and a gas leak at school for Felicia.)

That sounds familiar. I suppose Singular Entities work in mysterious ways - if the process isn’t wholly automated anyway and there’s no directing will behind it at this point. If it is automatic, would that make Legacies immune to having their powers disrupted if some bad happened to their patron (like getting eaten by Oblivaeon or somesuch)?

I wonder, if enough Legacies run into regression serums issues (actually fatal ones or just frequently recurring annoyances), would a new one eventually evolve who’s immune to the stuff, or worse, further empowered by it? Baron Blade’s good, but he sure doesn’t trump a Singular Entity’s powers, at least not if they deign to take notice of him. Wagermaster deciding to make Legacies temporarily immune to the serum because Baron Blade was a bad sport about a bet seems entirely possible.

On the meta level, that would be a fine way to reflect editorial putting a moratorium on overuse of “Kryptonite” by the writers, something that’s occasionally happened in published comics (along with limiting gorillas on covers, the number of Joker stories per year, and in theory Wolverine making cameos in every book ever).

@fjur

…wait. Is Setback and Ra having a period when they’re something of a duo an intentional reference to Spidey and the Torch’s friendship?

Maybe, but there’s kind of a big age gap between the two for that. Marvel originally paired those two because they were their star teen (at least at first) heroes, so they should draw a teen reader audience more effectively, the same reasoning that led to trying Torch as a solo lead for a while (albeit with regular cameos by the other FF members). Given how quickly those experiments ended I don’t think either worked out as well as hoped, but it did lead to Ben (who was probably the most common guest in Torch’s title) getting a shot at leading the same kind of “rotating duo” book Spidey eventually wound up in. I really miss those titles (and the somewhat similar DC Presents), even if their quality was wildly variable from issue to issue. Then again, I also pine for Power Man & Iron Fist, which was a lot more stable, especially when it came to a meaningful supporting cast.

[fjur]

@Chief_Lackey_Rich

If it is automatic, would that make Legacies immune to having their powers disrupted if some bad happened to their patron (like getting eaten by Oblivaeon or somesuch)?

Good question—I’m not sure. Captain Cosmic, Void Guard, and Proletariat still have all their Oblivion shard-derived powers even after OblivAeon’s been destroyed, so if you consider the Legacies to be an analogous situation, then yeah, they’d likely be unaffected if anything happened to Wellspring. Then again, it sort of seems like Singular Entity energy obeys the law of conservation of energy—it’s never created or destroyed. OblivAeon’s got stolen by Voss, who used some of it to create the sandwich bag and the rest got put into Akash’Flora. So, it stands to reason that if something did happen to Wellspring, its energy might still exist in some form? I dunno.

@Chief_Lackey_Rich

I wonder, if enough Legacies run into regression serums issues (actually fatal ones or just frequently recurring annoyances), would a new one eventually evolve who’s immune to the stuff, or worse, further empowered by it? Baron Blade’s good, but he sure doesn’t trump a Singular Entity’s powers, at least not if they deign to take notice of him. Wagermaster deciding to make Legacies temporarily immune to the serum because Baron Blade was a bad sport about a bet seems entirely possible.

I think that seems fairly plausible, yeah. Remember that Paul 8 evolved bulletproof skin because his dad was flying around WWII with so many bullets whizzing about, and Grandpa Legs himself got flight because his dad was in WWI and it would have been real useful there, and Felicia got her atomic glare because the Legacy suite so far lacked a ranged attack. So it does seem that Legacy powers can manifest to fill the needs of the previous Legacy, and a defence to a particular kind of attack—like the regression serum—certainly seems on the table.

I do think if that happened, sure, the powers would make the old serum ineffective, but (if he’s somehow still around) I wouldn’t put it past Blade to figure out how to make a new formula that might circumvent the defence somehow.

@Chief_Lackey_Rich

On the meta level, that would be a fine way to reflect editorial putting a moratorium on overuse of “Kryptonite” by the writers

Mhmm. I do have to say, I do feel the temptation to use regression serum as just an easy “Legacy-stopper” in stories. Obviously I used it here, but I also did in a couple of other things I’d been working on not yet shared publicly.

@Chief_Lackey_Rich

it did lead to Ben (who was probably the most common guest in Torch’s title) getting a shot at leading the same kind of “rotating duo” book Spidey eventually wound up in. I really miss those titles (and the somewhat similar DC Presents), even if their quality was wildly variable from issue to issue.

Yeah, it’s certainly a neat concept. You know, despite Sentinel keeping anthology titles like Justice Comics and Arcane Tales around far longer than the real-life companies did, it is a bit of an absence that they don’t seem to have any sort of “every issue [a particular hero like Legacy or the Wraith or whoever] teams up with somebody else!” book. Or even a book with the premise that it’s always just two different characters teaming up. Well, at least Venture had Hidden Champions.

[Chief_Lackey_Rich]

@fjur

Mhmm. I do have to say, I do feel the temptation to use regression serum as just an easy “Legacy-stopper” in stories. Obviously I used it here, but I also did in a couple of other things I’d been working on not yet shared publicly.

Good evidence for why it’s commonly said that Superman is harder to write for than Batman. There are so few canon ways to threaten Clark (or any Kryptonian, really) that some writers just keep going back to a few things - Kryptonite, red sun radiation, magic, threatening the supporting cast - for lack of any other easy levers to work with. Legacy (so far) is nowhere near the same level of power as some Kryptonians have been portrayed at in the past (not even Mister “No Limits” Iron Legacy rivals Silver Age Superman at his silliest), but C&A still decided to introduce regression serum to have a simple Kryptonite analog. Which is funny, because I’m pretty sure DC sometimes wishes they’d never okayed that innovation of the old radio show, but now they’re stuck with it.

Ah well, at least it got us Pink Kryptonite - although I don’t think we’ve seen what (if anything) it does to Kara. If it specifically makes you female rather invoking Rule 63 then it seems unfair that Blue Kryptonite (which should presumably the stereotypical “boy” color) has already been hogged as an anti-Bizarro variant.

@fjur

Yeah, it’s certainly a neat concept. You know, despite Sentinel keeping anthology titles like Justice Comics and Arcane Tales around far longer than the real-life companies did, it is a bit of an absence that they don’t seem to have any sort of “every issue [a particular hero like Legacy or the Wraith or whoever] teams up with somebody else!” book. Or even a book with the premise that it’s always just two different characters teaming up. Well, at least Venture had Hidden Champions.

To be fair, the format (which had a few variants) has been pretty rare in published comics over the decades. The “rotating guest star” version had Marvel Team-Up, Two-In-One and Supervillain Team-Up at Marvel, while DC had DC Presents and and a long period where the Brave & the Bold featured Batman & guests other than Clark, but that’s about all I can remember offhand. “Steady duo” books included World’s Finest, Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Power Man & Iron Fist, and (in the 90s) Archer & Armstrong, and while there are many other duos I think that was it for ones that had their own title that lasted a while.

Probably forgetting a few somewhere, but they sure didn’t seem common during the days I was a voracious reader. Weirdly, I can’t recall a single married super-couple getting their own duo title as such, although obviously the Pyms showed up together a lot. I guess that Superstretch and Microwoman cartoon was breaking the mold there as well.

Hmm. If we consider cartoons, Manta & Moray qualify as a “steady duo” series, although only having about an hour’s worth of footage over seven episodes isn’t a very impressive track record.