DocTachyon

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

SPIDER-MAN: THE DISTANCE

Issue 9.2

---

New York City, NY --- Manhattan

---

Peter had heard of the Blue Beetle before, but he had always seemed like more of a hobbyist than anything -- a few stories here and there, nothing major. Not that it was much more than a hobby for Peter, anyway, but that the man decided to stick around for Supervillain Happy Hour said something about his character. Whether it said he was suicidal or heroic Peter wasn’t entirely sure, but it was better riding high in space-age tech than it was swinging through grungy streets and fighting the worst kind of flash mob this side of Star City.

The Bug’s interior was like the Jetsons had met the modern age -- futuristic technology called down to Earth by curved plates of blue metal and screens embedded in every surface. It was mad science and careful precision all in one; tremendous shining scanners and stealth shielding controllers paired with exposed sores overflowing with wires of every color, giving insight into the guts of the machine. Lightning in a bottle.

It was everything every tech company on the planet wanted: next gen stealth tech, unbelievable speed, and Peter had a feeling that the onboard systems would give anything Luthor or Wayne/Sionis was putting out a run for their money. He knew that Norman would burn down the city for it if he had the chance, Lord knows OsCorp couldn’t put it together themselves. That left Kord, but Ted probably had better things to do than cramming his dad-bod into a Blue Beetle suit.

Pfft, Ted, first name basis. I’ll just invite him down for some Smash Bros and pizza. On the other hand, he was more familiar with Kord than the clown in the blue jumpsuit. He was a whirlwind through the cockpit, pressing at buttons and pulling levers as the giant bug whirred over Manhattan, bound for Herald Square. His gun jingled at his hip, rustling against the fabric of his jumpsuit. It was all smooth, a hard metal chassis over some mechanism Peter could not describe. Something about it made his skin crawl, he felt the suit bunching up at the back of his neck.

He rubbed at it and went to the port window and gazed out over the city through the yellowed glass. More fires and pillars of smoke reached out from the city like black tentacles dragging at the sky. He put a hand against the glass. He felt the steady hum of the engine as The Bug swooped low. Quiet screams reverberated through the metal, from somewhere in the lost city below. Peter looked back to the Blue Beetle, tapping away at his machines.

Some average joe in a beetle costume, here against all odds to fly the Bug-mobile into battle with gods and monsters whirling around like a metahuman themed edition of celebrity jeopardy. Maybe he was after fame, glory. Perhaps it was the adrenaline. Maybe this whole thing was to make one hell of a sales pitch for his wonder car. Could be personal tragedy, too, that always motivated the heroic types. The question nagged at Peter, a gnat swirling over his vision and blazing past his ears. They burned underneath his mask.

He thought about May and Ben and everyone back in Queens. They would be rejoicing in a bug free section of the city while Peter was playing mop up with the insect squad. He wondered if May had wound her way up to his room yet and discovered he wasn’t there, window ajar during the worst crisis the city had seen in decades.

He imagined her nagging and screaming over the phone, dropping Anna Watson’s name twelve times as she was given to do when she got stressed -- but the sound would be lost to the hordes roaming the streets like packs of hyenas, and the fleshy thud of fists into stomachs and bones cracking like firecrackers.

Like tenderizing meat. The thought welled up in Peter and laid back down on him like a weight on his chest. He stepped out of the Blue Beetle’s view and rolled his mask up over his nose; it was hard to breathe. Maybe some smoke was getting through the Bug’s filters.

Ben would be sitting at home now, watching that same smoke rise into the air through the same tube TV he’d had for years and had refused to get rid of. He’d be scratching at the little round scar and lines of stitches on his abdomen as Peter had seen him do when he did his crossword puzzles. The same scar from the tiny little brass bullet, now in a plastic evidence bag webbed inside the fireplace for safekeeping. The same bullet from one of Tombstone’s people.

Whoever he was, he probably didn’t have anything to do with this. At the moment he was likely ducking under alleyways and sewers and all the places people like him tried to hide from hell like this. He was almost certainly at his most vulnerable now, stretched thin trying to protect criminal assets when half his goons suddenly decided they liked murder more than dope.

Who am I kidding? I couldn’t find him even if I wanted to. He could be anyone. Peter’s mask began to leak down his face, sealing and binding itself back together into black silk as it passed his exposed lips. Until he hit the Thompson Memorial and looked for answers, all he could do was sit on his hands and wait. There was always the chance he wouldn’t find anything there, anyway -- it was already public that he’d hit the Police Station, and Tomby would’ve deduced what files he’d stolen and gotten his man out. Just like that, to the wind.

Spider-Man.. He was more like an insect, skittering around in a glass jar he couldn’t see. He turned on his heel and stalked back towards the window. He pressed his fingers against the glass. It vibrated in time with the engine, silent, but thrumming with power.

He imagined Flash Thompson, running scared through the streets and holding his red letterman tight to his body, with a hand clamped over his neck. Like it’d protect him from the bugs. He thought about all the times Flash had tripped him, taken his lunch money, thrown him down the halls and pumped his muscles like he was a goddamn god. Peter saw a slobbering group of muscle heads, bounding through the streets towards something he couldn’t see. He felt the liquid and sinew reinforcing his muscles, laced between the myofibril, his biceps were taut, bulging with impossible strength.

The Bug surged forward and Spider-Man spotted him, someone blue-and-yellow bounding over pavement and flinging himself over cars, with what looked like a little girl wrapped in his arms and the squadron of civilians snapping at his heels. A spiked tail trailed behind him, snapping in the wind. There was Peter’s X-Man.

And there’s something I can do about it.

“Pop the hatch B.B., I’m seeing bold and brash, twelve o’ clock!”

"Back moondoor," the Blue Beetle gestured to a closed trapdoor at the rear of the vehicle, "Opening in 3, 2, 1..." He hit a button on the console which briefly opened the door, and then quickly closed it again behind Spider-Man.

Spider-Man launched out of the hatch and twisted in the air. His first webline tagged The Bug’s bottom and his momentum carried him up The Bug’s bow and over again to the aft. The webline bounced against the stealth plating and it fizzled, adjusting to the change in scenery. He tapped his opposite wrist and a glob of webbing crumpled a car’s canopy a dozen yards in front of the X-Man with a resounding “THWANG”.

“Yo! Blue Man Group! Now or never!” He shot a long, trailing line down to the other hero and pulled himself up, wrapping the other line tightly around his fist.

If I dislocate another shoulder, I’m gonna kill somebody.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

Following the example of my peers, I figured I'd let y'all in on what I've been cooking up for a second character. I decided to ditch The Variety Hour for now, since the set-up for this one is too perfect. Sample is forthcoming.

7

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L

S O L D I E R S O F V I C T O R Y

---

^{_{G R E G S A U N D E R S ♦ C L A R K S A U N D E R S}}

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:

---

^{"What ever happened to the Seven Soldiers of Victory...?"}

The Seven Soldiers of Victory!

The Law's Legionnaires!

The leanest, meanest crime-fighting troupe ever put together!

Unstoppable! Unbreakable! Invincible!

So where did it all go wrong?

Greg Saunders isn't sure how he came to the life. This life, that is, the one full of characters in kooky costumes and mortal men that can bend lightning with their hands. Those memories are lost to him, hidden behind thick panes of glass frosted over from the passage of too many years to count. What he does remember is the Soldiers, and the burning steel of his revolvers against his flesh as he tried to jam in more rounds.

The team was formed more by accident than anything else. Well, call it accident if you like. Fate. Divine providence. The words of it don't mean much. The black mark of The Hand couldn't be ignored. Five fingers of the hand, each more terrible than the last, tore through the nation's underworld. The Dummy. The Needle. Big Caesar. Professor Merlin. The Red Dragon. Their names are gone from the public consciousness, banished to the dregs of decaying books and filled-in bullet holes. To the Soldiers, they were scum and villainy, the worst that humanity had to offer. Defeated, all the same. It wasn't long then before they began contacting each other. The 'capes' were few in those days, an oddity, a sideshow attraction. There was no flash and spectacle, no throwing cars and no slinging webs. There was the work, the soul of it, something that called out to each of the seven. To make their mark. And there was the Iron Hand. Roman Solomano's dark hand had wrapped itself around the beating heart of New York City. It was a sheer glass tower that dared to stab through to the heavens, a monolith with the sole purpose of dragging God to earth. It didn't matter much to the Soldiers, another enemy, a villain determined to stifle the soul of this country. They fought like hell, cutting through every manner of goon and baddie until the showdown with the man himself. He fell, The Soldiers rejoiced -- they had won.

In the mop-up, they found themselves sobered by the magnitude of the threat they had dealt with. A massive crime boss, eliminated only through the effort of the seven, not one could have done it alone? What if something like it should happen again? Should the world need heroes? The Soldiers would find themselves called together again and again as the situations presented themselves. Hostage takers and terrorists, metahumans, even honest to goodness aliens once or twice.

The death that claimed them, in the end, wasn't a bang, but a drawn-out whimper. The kind that happens to any group of friends or allies, Greg supposed. That gradual distancing, the feeling of looking in someone's eyes and realizing you don't quite remember their color. The kind of quiet remembrance and holding the phone off the hook, unsure whether to dial. The kind where you only see each other for weddings and funerals. Not that there were many of either among The Soldiers. Well, except for one.

It hit Pat Dugan the hardest, Greg supposed. He'd known The Star-Spangled Kid longer than any of them. Greg isn't much given to remembering the little details, but he does remember Pat standing stiff as a board beside the casket, holding Sylvester's hand in his. It was small and white and fragile. Greg had never seen Pat cry. It was quicker, after that. Ollie, then Roy. None of them had heard much from Pat since the funeral. Sir Justin went next, looking for his destiny in some place neither Greg nor Lee could pronounce. Then it was Lee, set to settle down somewhere by the suburbs of Chicago, try to live a little. Greg thought he could try some of that.

Greg had been from Texas, a little town called Warpath, but he'd grown too much for it since those days, and the town along with him. It was a different place, given to teenagers and shopping malls. They'd closed down old Derdrie Yarmuth's movie theater where she showed Clint Eastwood movies every weekend and put in a Regal. He tried most of the country that he cared to visit. Montana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Louisiana, even a little stint in Alabama. But it was in Kansas he learned he could never put the life behind him, not really. It was a little town called Smallville. They'd taken kinder to him than most, but few places are really ready to accept an outsider, an alien. He caught their furtive glances, whispered rumors. He tilled his fields and payed them no mind, spending his nights dreaming of where he'd go next. Maybe change it up and call Lee -- see what Chicago's like. Then, the crash.

Somehow fighting a dark magician at the throat of the world didn't seem to odd anymore. An alien baby boy. It looked like any human kid, but Greg didn't think that anything human was given to crash landing in an alien pod. Vig knew, at some level, that they wouldn't take him in here, either. Another alien, a transplant. Maybe he could make something of the kid... Or at least take him to someone who could. He was called Clark, after Clark Gable, and Vigilante packed up his truck the next day. They were city-bound.

The following years were slow and fast all at once. He took to being a father easier than he thought he might. Raising the boy on manners, hard work, honesty. He'd have taught the boy to shoot if he weren't liable to crushing the grips with that strength of his. It was a struggle to figure out the alien parts in the early years, but soon enough he and Clark were back on the road. Odd jobs for Greg and training for the boy. It seemed like he had a new little trick every day. Strength, speed, heat vision. And he was liable to start floating away every now and again.

As of now, Greg and Clark find themselves in The Savage Land. Nominally, an island vacation. Really, an excuse for Clark to practice on something that could give him a challenge for once. But now, Greg finds he can't sleep most nights. He hears whispers deep within the woods, rustles that ain't made by anything natural. Something is out there. Watching and waiting. He's heard the tune before, darkness, impending evil.

But he hasn't felt it. A dread deep within his heart. Eyes burning on the back of his neck from the depths of the jungle, and the pits of fear as Clark launches up, silhouetted against the sky. Something is coming.

Maybe he could use a few soldiers.

C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:

---

Originally I was thinking about rolling The Variety Hour as my second character, but the stars have aligned too perfectly for me to not run this idea. I suspect we won't see Kid Clark being exactly available for some time, so I found myself driven to start getting the gears turning on this idea. I kind of love Vigilante for reasons I can't quite place, and he's always the most fun when dropped into situations he isn't super equipped to handle, and that's kind of how I first learned of the character: fighting aliens, a giant Hulk-esque monster, and more. I figured having to raise an alien child would fit nicely into that niche. I think its a way to explore Vig's character in a way that hasn't really been done before, and a way for me to feel out the in and outs of Superman and what makes him so... Well, super.

This story is set against the backdrop of the Seven Soldiers falling apart for a couple of reasons. For one thing, that's kind of what's going on in comics right now, the original band hasn't been together in a very long time, and I feel like there's some genuine opportunity there that no one is taking advantage of. Secondly, I feel like that's also what happened to my previous version of the Soldiers. They were all just kind of cardboard cut-outs that got slotted in for the last days of Vig's short-lived adventures, and they deserve better than that. With this, I intend to take a much more character focused approach, showing exactly what each of the soldiers brings to the team, and what it means for them to be together.

Overall, I think The Seven Soldiers are a team with a tremendous amount of potential that precious few writers have really been willing to let them use. The original line-up hasn't had an outing in a damned long time, and I want this run to be a testament to these characters. They can be more than they were in the original stories, and I think they can be damn fine heroes.

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

---

The Cast

Vigilante // Greg Saunders: Former cowboy turned globe-trotting Vigilante and father figure to an alien, Greg Saunders finds himself in fear of a threat he cannot rightly understand. He fears for himself and his boy -- and he intends to do something about it.

Superboy // Clark Saunders: Clark hasn't known one home for most of his life -- he's been skipping around the country with his father, training in his abilities and trying to help out the common folk where he can. Recently he's taken to the name 'Superboy', after the Supergirl he's seen so much of on the television and in the papers.

Shining Knight // Sir Justin Arthur: A 6th Century Knight and the toast of Camelot, Sir Justin battled the forces of evil alongside the Round Table for decades, thanks to an enchantment from the wizard Merlin. Through the battles and trials and tribulations, Sir Justin never lost a battle -- until a fateful encounter with an Ogre froze him for over 1300 years before he was awoken by a scientist in the late 1900s. After his stint with the Soldiers, Shining Knight has taken off to parts unknown, searching for his purpose.

Crimson Avenger // Lee Travis: A former newspaper editor turned superhero, Lee Travis used his gas gun to bring justice to the streets of Chicago, and later, fought alongside the Seven Soldiers. Lee would put intense focus into his superhero work to the detriment of everything else, until The Star-Spangled Kid's death, when he realized he may have lost his way -- last Greg heard of him, Lee was reduced to an entry-level position at the paper he used to helm, working his way back up as best as he can.

Stripsey // Pat Dugan: Brilliant mechanic and engineer, Pat Dugan was Sylvester Pemberton's partner, and nominal sidekick. The two All-American heroes made a name for themselves fighting for truth, justice, and the American way with nothing but their fisticuffs. The papers considered the two of them to be the next Captain America. Greg hasn't heard from Pat in the years since the funeral when he dropped off the map. Supposedly he now makes his home somewhere near Metropolis.

NOTE: The cast is abbreviated so I can keep some of my cards up my sleeve. If need be, I can share a full version with the GM team.

S A M P L E P O S T:

---

Issue #1

No Country For Old Men -- Issue #1

“The crime you see now, it’s hard to even take its measure. It’s not that I’m afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job – not to be glorious. But I don’t want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don’t understand.”

---

Antartica --- The Savage Land

---

POST TEXT

P O S T C A T A L O G:

---

A list linking to your IC posts as they're created. This can be used for a reference guide to your character or to summarize completed arcs and stories.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

<Snipped quote by Nightrunner>

Character motivations, man. I don't need to know yours.

@Lord Wraith

I was confused about that, actually, because many of the motivation sections on accepted CSes (including mine and yours) were mainly about our motivations and goals for the story, as well as our influences. Which is it?

Doc's Chop Shop

Shhhh

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L

S O L D I E R S O F V I C T O R Y

---

^{_{G R E G S A U N D E R S ♦ C L A R K S A U N D E R S}}

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:

---

^{"What ever happened to the Seven Soldiers of Victory...?"}

The Seven Soldiers of Victory!

The Law's Legionnaries!

The leanest, meanest crime-fighting troupe ever put together!

Unstoppable! Unbreakable! Invincible!

So where did it all go wrong?

Greg Saunders isn't sure how he came to the life. This life, that is, the one full of characters in kooky costumes and mortal men that can bend lightning with their hands. Those memories are lost to him, hidden behind thick panes of glass frosted over from the passage of too many years to count. What he does remember is the Soldiers, and the burning steel of his revolvers against his flesh as he tried to jam in more rounds.

The team was formed more by accident than anything else. Well, call it accident if you like. Fate. Divine providence. The words of it don't mean much. The black mark of The Hand couldn't be ignored. Five fingers of the hand, each more terrible than the last, tore through the nation's underworld. The Dummy. The Needle. Big Caesar. Professor Merlin. The Red Dragon. Their names are gone from the public consciousness, banished to the dregs of decaying books and filled-in bullet holes. To the Soldiers, they were scum and villainy, the worst that humanity had to offer. Defeated, all the same. It wasn't long then before they began contacting each other. The 'capes' were few in those days, an oddity, a sideshow attraction. There was no flash and spectacle, no throwing cars and no slinging webs. There was the work, the soul of it, something that called out to each of the seven. To make their mark. And there was the Iron Hand. Roman Solomano's dark hand had wrapped itself around the beating heart of New York City. It was a sheer glass tower that dared to stab through to the heavens, a monolith with the sole purpose of dragging God to earth. It didn't matter much to the Soldiers, another enemy, a villain determined to stifle the soul of this country. They fought like hell, cutting through every manner of goon and baddie until the showdown with the man himself. He fell, The Soldiers rejoiced -- they had won.

In the mop-up, they found themselves sobered by the magnitude of the threat they had dealt with. A massive crime boss, eliminated only through the effort of the seven, not one could have done it alone? What if something like it should happen again? Should the world need heroes? The Soldiers would find themselves called together again and again as the situations presented themselves. Hostage takers and terrorists, metahumans, even honest to goodness aliens once or twice.

The death that claimed them, in the end, wasn't a bang, but a drawn-out whimper. The kind that happens to any group of friends or allies, Greg supposed. That gradual distancing, the feeling of looking in someone's eyes and realizing you don't quite remember their color. The kind of quiet remembrance and holding the phone off the hook, unsure whether to dial. The kind where you only see each other for weddings and funerals. Not that there were many of either among The Soldiers. Well, except for one.

It hit Pat Dugan the hardest, Greg supposed. He'd known The Star-Spangled Kid longer than any of them. Greg isn't much given to remembering the little details, but he does remember Pat standing stiff as a board beside the casket, holding Sylvester's hand in his. It was small and white and fragile. Greg had never seen Pat cry. It was quicker, after that. Ollie, then Roy. None of them had heard much from Pat since the funeral. Sir Justin went next, looking for his destiny in some place neither Greg nor Lee could pronounce. Then it was Lee, set to settle down somewhere by the suburbs of Chicago, try to live a little. Greg thought he could try some of that.

Greg had been from Texas, a little town called Warpath, but he'd grown too much for it since those days, and the town along with him. It was a different place, given to teenagers and shopping malls. They'd closed down old Derdrie Yarmuth's movie theater where she showed Clint Eastwood movies every weekend and put in a Regal. He tried most of the country that he cared to visit. Montana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Louisiana, even a little stint in Alabama. But it was in Kansas he learned he could never put the life behind him, not really. It was a little town called Smallville. They'd taken kinder to him than most, but few places are really ready to accept an outsider, an alien. He caught their furtive glances, whispered rumors. He tilled his fields and payed them no mind, spending his nights dreaming of where he'd go next. Maybe change it up and call Lee -- see what Chicago's like. Then, the crash.

Somehow fighting a dark magician at the throat of the world didn't seem to odd anymore. An alien baby boy. It looked like any human kid, but Greg didn't think that anything human was given to crash landing in an alien pod. Vig knew, at some level, that they wouldn't take him in here, either. Another alien, a transplant. Maybe he could make something of the kid... Or at least take him to someone who could. He was called Clark, after Clark Gable, and Vigilante packed up his truck the next day. They were city-bound.

The following years were slow and fast all at once. He took to being a father easier than he thought he might. Raising the boy on manners, hard work, honesty. He'd have taught the boy to shoot if he weren't liable to crushing the grips with that strength of his. It was a struggle to figure out the alien parts in the early years, but soon enough he and Clark were back on the road. Odd jobs for Greg and training for the boy. It seemed like he had a new little trick every day. Strength, speed, heat vision. And he was liable to start floating away every now and again.

As of now, Greg and Clark find themselves in The Savage Land. Nominally, an island vacation. Really, an excuse for Clark to practice on something that could give him a challenge for once. But now, Greg finds he can't sleep most nights. He hears whispers deep within the woods, rustles that ain't made by anything natural. Something is out there. Watching and waiting. He's heard the tune before, darkness, impending evil.

But he hasn't felt it. A dread deep within his heart. Eyes burning on the back of his neck from the depths of the jungle, and the pits of fear as Clark launches up, silhouetted against the sky. Something is coming.

Maybe he could use a few soldiers.

C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:

---

Originally I was thinking about rolling The Variety Hour as my second character, but the stars have aligned too perfectly for me to not run this idea. I suspect we won't see Kid Clark being exactly available for some time, so I found myself driven to start getting the gears turning on this idea. I kind of love Vigilante for reasons I can't quite place, and he's always the most fun when dropped into situations he isn't super equipped to handle, and that's kind of how I first learned of the character: fighting aliens, a giant Hulk-esque monster, and more. I figured having to raise an alien child would fit nicely into that niche. I think its a way to explore Vig's character in a way that hasn't really been done before, and a way for me to feel out the in and outs of Superman and what makes him so... Well, super.

This story is set against the backdrop of the Seven Soldiers falling apart for a couple of reasons. For one thing, that's kind of what's going on in comics right now, the original band hasn't been together in a very long time, and I feel like there's some genuine opportunity there that no one is taking advantage of. Secondly, I feel like that's also what happened to my previous version of the Soldiers. They were all just kind of cardboard cut-outs that got slotted in for the last days of Vig's short-lived adventures, and they deserve better than that. With this, I intend to take a much more character focused approach, showing exactly what each of the soldiers brings to the team, and what it means for them to be together.

Overall, I think The Seven Soldiers are a team with a tremendous amount of potential that precious few writers have really been willing to let them use. The original line-up hasn't had an outing in a damned long time, and I want this run to be a testament to these characters. They can be more than they were in the original stories, and I think they can be damn fine heroes.

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

---

The Cast

Vigilante // Greg Saunders: Former cowboy turned globe-trotting Vigilante and father figure to an alien, Greg Saunders finds himself in fear of a threat he cannot rightly understand. He fears for himself and his boy -- and he intends to do something about it.

Superboy // Clark Saunders: Clark hasn't known one home for most of his life -- he's been skipping around the country with his father, training in his abilities and trying to help out the common folk where he can. Recently he's taken to the name 'Superboy', after the Supergirl he's seen so much of on the television and in the papers.

Shining Knight // Sir Justin Arthur: A 6th Century Knight and the toast of Camelot, Sir Justin battled the forces of evil alongside the Round Table for decades, thanks to an enchantment from the wizard Merlin. Through the battles and trials and tribulations, Sir Justin never lost a battle -- until a fateful encounter with an Ogre froze him for over 1300 years before he was awoken by a scientist in the late 1900s. After his stint with the Soldiers, Shining Knight has taken off to parts unknown, searching for his purpose.

Crimson Avenger // Lee Travis: A former newspaper editor turned superhero, Lee Travis used his gas gun to bring justice to the streets of Chicago, and later, fought alongside the Seven Soldiers. Lee would put intense focus into his superhero work to the detriment of everything else, until The Star-Spangled Kid's death, when he realized he may have lost his way -- last Greg heard of him, Lee was reduced to an entry-level position at the paper he used to helm, working his way back up as best as he can.

Stripsey // Pat Dugan: Brilliant mechanic and engineer, Pat Dugan was Sylvester Pemberton's partner, and nominal sidekick. The two All-American heroes made a name for themselves fighting for truth, justice, and the American way with nothing but their fisticuffs. The papers considered the two of them to be the next Captain America. Greg hasn't heard from Pat in the years since the funeral when he dropped off the map. Supposedly he now makes his home somewhere near Metropolis.

NOTE: The cast is abbreviated so I can keep some of my cards up my sleeve. If need be, I can share a full version with the GM team.

S A M P L E P O S T:

---

Issue #1

No Country For Old Men -- Issue #1

“The crime you see now, it’s hard to even take its measure. It’s not that I’m afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job – not to be glorious. But I don’t want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don’t understand.”

---

Antartica --- The Savage Land

---

POST TEXT

P O S T C A T A L O G:

---

A list linking to your IC posts as they're created. This can be used for a reference guide to your character or to summarize completed arcs and stories.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

I'm the Spider-player, meaning I hold one of the biggest rogue's galleries and supporting casts, so I feel like I should speak to Hex's concerns, too. Claim culture is a very tricky area to deal with because I think we all pick our characters because we have some amount of passion for them, unless your name is Simple Unicycle. We tend to know these guys back to front, and we have a perfect little story built for them in our heads -- at least I do, for me. It's hard because we're trying to simultaneously strike a balance between telling a cohesive story that touches on all aspects of our character, but also leaving things open for newcomers. I've tried my best, but some things can't be avoided. My Peter is year one, so there can't really be a Kaine as one person wanted, and I had to shoot down Silk for another.

I guess I big question is, to what extent do we need to be open to this kind of thing? I think there is absolutely a problem with claim culture as Hex has said, but I think we need to be very precise in our handling of it. Maybe each of us can organize our supporting cast into 'tiers' based on importance to our story? And those tiers would essentially indicate how much someone would need to work with us to get an app for a given character accepted? But then, that might be asking much of the current player base. We could also maybe do a thing where we ask each player to throw together a list of some popular NPCs within their wheelhouse that they'd consider apps for? I know I have more than a couple I don't have any plans with that I'd be willing to give away.

Speaking to the larger issue of player retention, its probably really valuable to ask ourselves what things draw new players here, and what sort of things drive them away. I think that we should have a serious conversation with our newcomers that have stuck around, like Dblade and Ceta, and maybe Uni and I who only came around last game, as to what kinds of things were motivating them to stay and maybe what sort of pressures they felt that were maybe pushing them to leave? I think right now we're having a lot of old voices trying to deduce the problems that new players are experiencing, but maybe we should ask new players themselves. Hell, maybe stick a few feelers out into the wild and see what people think.

Personally, I was attracted to this group for the quality of writing and the subject matter of the game. I was almost never on the Guild at that time, so I wasn't really aware of any 'reputations' or anything. I was just a lone agent looking for a fun game. The GM team seemed strong and the OOC looked like a good time, so I threw my hat in the ring. Myself, one of the things I really didn't like is that it was hard to feel connected to the group. We do very much have a club of old hands here, and back in UOU, I felt like my stuff was mostly being ignored and that my contributions to the OOC were more or less glossed over. I ended up being fine with it, as I was having a lot of fun writing Vig and I enjoyed shitposting with Nightrunner and Uni, but I think really getting to know the group and feel like your stuff is supported is a huge part of what makes people stick with these games.

On that note, I don't think we necessarily play well with others as a unit. I still don't know very much about many of the people in this game, new and old alike, and I think that's maybe a problem a lot of us have. Hex is right -- strong games are made on the backs of strong groups of players. But so is Bounce, we need new blood. This game we're more or less missing Morden, MB, Sep, Ersatz, Eddie Brock, and more. They're missed I'm sure, bvut those losses haven't necessarily hit as hard because I think we're building another core of people who have stuck around. I think we need to make a bigger push to find people like that who will stay with us, and a huge part of that is being friendly and open and just trying to honestly get to know one another.

So this post has been rather long and rambly, but I just woke up (after royally fucking my sleep schedule), so hopefully it makes sense. Dog bless, love you hot boys.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

My instinct tells me #2 as well, but I'm cautious as I think that was a factor in what killed UOU last time around. That said, thanks to the Discord, I'd say we have a more tightly knit group and that could enable us to withstand that threat, but I dunno.

Doc's Chop Shop

Jolyne Ambition

J O J O

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Name: Jolyne Cujoh
Age: 20
Powers:
Equipment:
Appearance:

Known Affiliations: (Teams, associations, agencies, etc.)

List of Allies

Emporio Alnino:

Giorno Giovanna:

Narciso Anasui:

Domenico "Weather Report" Pucci:

Jotaro Kujo:

List of Enemies

Enrico Pucci:

DIO:

Character Basis: Who is this character? Wiki link works just fine.
List of Reimagined traits: Jolyne remains more or less the same as she does in usual JoJo canon, but it picks up her story where it left off after the events of Stone Ocean. Enrico Pucci has won, and she needs to find her way in this new and very, very strange world.
Story Overview: A quick summary of who your character is, what they do and where their story is going. You don't have to go into great detail in public, but if you are going to be vague to keep everything a secret, at least PM me a more in depth version of this.
Sample Post: Think of this as your pilot. I'm not looking at what you write, but how you write it. Gives me a good idea of what kind of poster you are.
Post Links: (Please regularly update your CS to include links to the posts you make in the IC, makes it easier for people to read your story in consecutive order)

Ambition: An Amalgamated Superhero Universe

@mattmanganon How would you feel about a JoJo CS getting dropped?

If you don't know JoJo, for the uninitiated; basically, throughout the world, a select handful of people have special punching ghosts that give them superpowers that are usually really funky and esoteric. They're not conventional "superheroes", but a superheroic narrative tends to be a big part of it, especially for what I have in mind. And they don't wear 'costumes', but sometimes their outfits can be...

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

SPIDER-MAN: THE DISTANCE

Issue 9.1 -- From Peter’s Playlist; Somebody To Love

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New York City, NY --- Manhattan

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“When the truth is found / To be lies / And all the joy / Within you dies…”

Peter’s Spider-Sense didn’t feel the same as he launched himself from the Queens-Midtown tunnel. There was no stabbing behind his eyes, no irresistible pull on all of his senses. It was a film over his perception, a creeping sense and a chill over his body. It felt like seeing Ben in the hospital, no pain, just dread in every fiber of him.

“Don’t you want somebody to love? Don’t you need somebody to love?”

His headphones bumped in his ears as he swang, yanking himself through the air and banking turns around the sheer faces of buildings. By now the bugs had breached Midtown and swelled into Grand Central like a typhoon, sweeping tourists into the sickness. Already the violence had leaped into the streets of Murray Hill, cracks and snaps and snarling screams erupted from the streets below. Lines of smoke were smeared into the sky, like a decidedly macabre Bob Ross painting.

“Wouldn’t you love somebody to love? You better find somebody to love, love…”

Peter fell lower from his swing and slammed into the side of a building, running down the surface of it and making shrill squeaks across the glass. He shoved off from it and hit the pavement at a sprint. This street was clear, but the buildings around him framed the picture of 5th Avenue’s chaos.

A horde of tourists and locals clashed in the road in a flurry of fists and feet and teeth. It sounded like a butcher shop, knuckles crashing into the soft tissue, and the stench of blood hung in the air like a thick fog bleeding off into the side alleys. One man dragged another behind him by what was left of his hairline, holding a cracked baseball bat in the other hand. The man in his grip gnashed his teeth and thrashed, broken legs splayed underneath him spasticity. Peter thought he saw ragged bone moving underneath the folds of his flesh, making tears and scarring the muscle inside. The first man dropped the second and brought his bat over his head, readying for a final grand slam.

A globule of webbing tagged the bat and it shot from the guy’s hand and bounced across the concrete. The sound echoed through the alley and his head snapped forward, looking for the unseen assailant.

“There's your problem, you gotta choke up more on the bat!” Spider-Man bounded forward and launched a packet of webbing into the man’s chest. He took it with a grunt and charged forward like a deranged animal, forgetting about his former target. His whole body twisted and spun as he ran, slobbering for a shot at Peter.

Peter aimed low and tapped his palms without missing a beat. Webbing stuck fast around the civilian's right leg and he dropped forward like a sack of bricks, his nose made a sickening crunch against the pavement. Peter sidestepped the man and glued his torso to the ground with a blob of webs in the same motion.

The man with broken legs was still coming, dragging his weight across the pavement with his bare hands. His fingertips were bloody and raw from the effort but he kept coming anyway, making swipes at the black leg of Peter’s costume as he drew close.

“Take five, man... and buy some leg braces.” Peter fired a web across his back to fasten the man to the ground and then threw himself out into the main body of the brawl, which had already begun to twist into the alley.

Peter was a whirling dervish through the crowd. He pulled one man into another and webbed them together before using them to push over a behemoth of a man who had squeezed his bulging muscles into a ‘I LOVE NY’ tank top that was a size too small and stained with blood. Webs came out in sheets from his wrists, plastering people to each other and into the ground, tying up their limbs so they could do nothing but gnash their teeth.

“If you’d all form an orderly line, please!” Peter absorbed a shoulder check from a pasty office clerk and hurled the man over his shoulder, knocking over another row of combatants like bowling pins. He lashed out with his fist and felt something break against it, when he felt a buzz against his leg that probably wasn’t the ankle biting toddler trying to pull out his tibia.

“Incoming call from EYE-EMOTICON EYE-EMOTICON.” A robotic voice dinned in his ear. He picked the toddler up by the scruff of his neck and launched him across the street.

“Accept!” Peter yelled into the mic on his headphones. He webbed a net for the toddler on the other side of the road as the little boy came screaming down from the sky.

“This is TGI Spidey’s, may I take your order?” It was as much a response to Scott as it was a call to the legions of drooling tourists around him, screaming for his blood.

“We’re almost at Central Park, how you holding up?” Static crackled in the other teen hero’s response while Peter felt a collarbone give way under his kick. The crowd was thinning now, mostly tourists and big guys that survived the initial melee.

“I’m -- Hey! We’re not holding a kegger down here!” Peter danced backward as a muscled arm lanced from the crowd, slinging a forty of vodka like a club. A web pulled the drink from the man’s hand and the glass exploded across the ground. Instantly Peter was on top of him, slamming a knee into his solar plexus.

“Sorry, sorry. I’m near Murray Hill, seeing what’s to see from the Empire State. There’s a lot of party guests out here,” Peter fired a web from either hand, hitting on gaudy superhero logos emblazoned on two people’s shirts, “I don’t think I brought enough *hng* goodie bags for everyone.” Peter tugged on the lines and they collapsed onto the concrete.

“Alright, we’ll swing down that way to help you out! Just hold on, we’ll be there in fifteen, alright?”

Swinging’s my thing, Polyphemus. Peter shoved one of the last combatants to the ground and pinned her there with a web. The street was mostly deserted now, by Peter’s measure -- but there’d be more, soon. If there weren’t any left to stream out of Grand Central, Penn Station was just around the corner.

“Meet you by Herald Square. Til’ then I got a date with the tourist patrol.” The suit squeezed around Peter’s torso and pressed the ‘end call’ button on his headphones, and the song began its din in his ears once more.

“When the garden flowers / Baby, are dead, yes…”

Peter jumped into the sky and web poured from his hands and twisted itself into a line. He swung forward and shifted his grip on the line, releasing, and he landed against glass and concrete launching off and upwards into the sky. The Empire State Building. He started the crawl up the side of it and settled into a run, dashing across long panes of glass and steady stretches of rebar and concrete supporting the building’s height.

The city expanded before him as he climbed. The block gave way to the neighborhood and then to the borough at large, a concrete jungle of architecture and art spanning out to beyond the horizon. It was form and function and style married in a mish-mash of decades and styles nestled together on one isle, one city, one voice. One New York. And it was on fire.

Pillars of smoke stood out from the skyline like the black towers spreading mechanical bugs through every major roadway. From this height, the people were ants, dueling on the rooftops and having mass warfare in the streets. Blue and red police lights were drowned in flashes of gunfire and explosions blossoming from every corner. Peter slipped and stumbled ahead on the face of the glass. He looked down and righted himself, but when he looked back -- What? That wasn’t there before.

It was some kind of aircraft, ugly and bulbous and blue, with spindly legs hanging off of it from either side. It looked a little like the spider symbol on his back, but blown up to incredible proportions. Engines hummed steadily beneath its chassis. Giant yellow eyes stared into the city beyond, undoubtedly hiding whoever was inside the cockpit.

Peter attached a webline to the Empire State and flipped backwards, rocketing down twenty feet in the blink of an eye. The ship disappeared as fast as it had come into his vision, as if it was simply plucked out of reality.

What? That can’t be right… He stared at the spot for a moment, looking for some kind of shimmer in the light, a failure to maintain the illusion. Peter frowned and ran back upwards, as the bug once again came into view.

Ah, bottom facing stealth plating. That’s some kinda advanced… Peter coiled the muscles in his body and leaped off from the building, making a lump for the aircraft. He fell in the open air as the craft went invisible again and he fired upwards. The line connected with something that wasn’t there and he brought himself around with his momentum, landing on top of it. The metal gave a dull clang as he landed. Shit, that’s some kind of armor.

He rapped his knuckles on the top.

“I really hope you’re on my team, dude.” Peter searched for any divots in the plating, signs of an entry hatch. “If not, you’d better leave the keys in the ignition for me.”

Doc's Chop Shop

A F T E R M A T H

By JAMESON, J. JONAH; -- Editor, Local News

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