Terra Obscura #3



Okay, starting with the left panel: American Crusader; center panel, top to bottom-Pyroman, The Woman in Red, The Liberator; right panel-Akh-Tu-Men, cat of The Scarab, or rather, as any cat-human will tell you, cat that abides The Scarab, so long as he comes across with the treats!

Creative Team: Alan Moore-co-plot, Peter Hogan-co-plot & script, Yannick Paquette & Karl Story-art, Todd Klein-letters, Jeromy Cox-colors, Ben Abernathy-editor

Synopsis: We have seen the Grim Reaper launch an attack on The Terror 2000 HQ and die in the process, a strange phenomena in the Grand Canyon, which nullifies anything electronic or scientific and the effect is spreading to Las Vegas. The Magnet (Grant Halford) is investigating the death of partner Lance Lewis, Space Detective, and he meets George Chance, aka the Ghost (or Green Ghost), a deceased paranormal investigator who directs him to Betty, his widow and a psychic. They get out ahead of supernatural attacks and the Null Field.

Now, in Washington, DC, at a meeting of SMASH (Society of Major American Science Heroes), the government briefs American Crusader, Pyroman, The liberator, The Woman in Red and The Scarab about the Null Field. It has now expanded to the california state line and will envelop the state within the day and the rest of the country within two days. Recon teams have not come out of the area and refugees speak of monsters and demons. The government throws it open to the team, for suggestions. Tim thinks it is a further attack on The Terror 2000....



The Liberator offers other possibilities. Scarab brings up the point that Dr X, another science hero, had a lab near the Grand Canyon. He hasn't been heard from in some time. Might it be related to some experiment of his? It's a good suggestion and they decide to travel there and investigate. The Liberator takes his Lamesis potion, to beef up his powers and they head out. Tim returns to Invertica City to monitor and provide advice and intel. American Crusader seems unimpressed with Tim's suggestion of his role. Pyroman comments on Woman in Red's new outfit and says it isn't very flattering, which she ignores. AC continues to be a dick to her, as well as everyone else and she tells him off. Liberator puts the kibosh on the bickering and tells everyone to saddle up.

In Invertica City, Grant Halford and Betty watch the news and wait for Carol carter, daughter of The Fighting Yank, and Ms Masque, Diana Adams. Betty asks about the metal objects stuck to Grant and he explains how he invented the Geo-locator, which blew up in his face and gave him magnetic powers. he can locate anyone or anything, but can't control the magnetic force that attracts small metal objects. He thinks it makes him look like a tool; Betty seems to think he looks just fine.

Well, someone's in with a chance!

The ladies show up and intros are made. They compare notes and confirm that The grim Reaper's weapon is with the New Lancaster Police and Grant wants to check it out. He is mainly concerned with the link to Lance Lewis' death, but Betty reminds him that something much bigger, more supernatural is at work here. She says they need to find someone with expertise on those matters. As she speaks, Carol sees the image of her father, in a window and tries to shake it off...



Betty says she needs to make contact with George, The Ghost, but needs a natural setting and asks if there is a park or wooded area nearby. Unbeknownst to the group, Tim is spying on them, via a Terror 2000 orb, which is in a trophy case, in the bar.

The ladies decide to tag along, rather than head off to New Lancaster. Tim asks why they were going there. The Terror ponders the idea of the Null Field being supernatural jamming and whether a counter-signal might negate it, ignoring Tim's emotional paranoia.

The group goes to a park and makes contact with George Chance, The Ghost, but there is some kind of interference....




George directs them to seek out Tom Strange and says Grant can find him and also says it is important that Carol make the trip, too. He then disappears. Betty says something was blocking him and Diana suggests it is the Terror. Grant says he needs a personal possession to locate people and Tom Strange has disappeared and been gone for some time. Carol suggests checking his hideout, in New Lancaster. Everyone tares at her stunned, and she is surprised that everyone didn't know about his HQ there.

The group travels to New Lancaster and find the lair, but run into robot sentries, who are unaffected by Grant's abilities. Carol is able to get them to stand down with a voice password, from past visits, with her father. The place is deserted and appears to have been so for some time, with dust over things. They find a Hyper-Saucer, like Tom Strong's. Doc Strange must have made a copy. Grant finds a vial of Alosun, the potion that gave Tom Strange his powers. It is resonating and can lead them to him. They decide to borrow the Hyper-Saucer. Grant points them south.

In Los Angeles, the Terror appears to stop a gang battle, but something starts affecting him...



Similar things start happening to the SMASH heroes, as they encounter the field, especially the science-based ones....



Scarab and Liberator are unaffected. Scarab's power comes from a magic ring and Liberator's from Egyptian alchemy. He theorizes that the field has expanded and affected those with science-based powers, as well as technology that operates on scientific principles. Pyroman is caught by Liberator, but has a concussion. American Crusader is not so lucky. He has a broken leg and collarbone, broken ribs and internal bleeding. They need to get him to a hospital.

Woman in Red's costume is damaged and the skin underneath is red and she reveals that her whole body has been turned into a red pigment, thanks to the crystal that gives her the powers. her singing career was destroyed by the effect and sho hopes to find a cure and it is the reason for the body-concealing costume.



She tears up, but then notices they have bigger problems, as a pack of wolves, with glowing eyes surround them.

In Invertica City, Tim finds The Terror collapsed on the floor and he says "he felt him die," meaning the LA construct and that a part of him is gone. He shows real fear and tells Tim to bring the files on EVERYONE!

Thoughts: The mystery continues to grow, which is part of why this turned into one of my favorite ABC series. There is real mystery here, as well as some interesting characters. Moore and Hogan took a bunch of generic Golden Age mystery-men and turned them into more complex figures. They are saddled with some redundant powers and power sources, a nod to the often repetitive nature of comic book origins. Both Tom Strange and The liberator gained their powers from magical potions, and the Terror developed great strength and abilities from a scientific chemical compound. Scarab has a magical ring and Woman in Red gained hers from a crystal, while The Magnet from the explosion of the Geo-Locator, the device he used in his original stories. American Crusader has nuclear powers and Pyroman has thermal powers. Tim and Ms Masque were ordinary fighters, while Fighting Yank gained his from a ghostly ancestor, as did Carol, before her father's death severed the link with that ancestor.

Whatever is at the center of the null field seems to be supernatural in nature and only magical things seem impervious. Dr X was a scientist, which then begs the question did science and the supernatural collide?

We see the Terror spying on Carol and Diana and Tim immediately become paranoid about their relationship. As the first issue stated, he is barely 18 and lacks emotional maturity, probably because of his superhero sidekick status, especially partnering with someone as unstable as The Terror has been hinted. Diana is several years older and was an adult, when Tim was still a teen sidekick, making their romance questionable, on her part, regardless of whether Tim is now of legal age. The implication was that it started before he was of age, which is not a good situation. Her adult status gives her a certain power over the immature Tim and he is vulnerable to her control. If the situation were reversed, it would be treated as more disturbing, these days (though not so much if the younger person were older than 15, in days past); but, when it is an older woman and a teen male, it is treated like a sexual conquest, not "jailbait." We get the sense that Diana is uneasy in the relationship, as she previously remarked about wanting to keep Tim from moving in with her. There is more going on here than we have seen, completely.

Carol is now seeing images of her dead father and The Ghost's insistence that she accompany Grant and Betty to Doc Strange's HQ suggests he knows something about what is happening to her. Is she seeing the spirit of her father, or just suffering from grief and having hallucinations? Grief can be a strong influence on perception. When Barb's mother suddenly died (on Barb's birthday, after speaking to her on the phone, that morning), Barb suffered from nightmares related to her mother and had deep bouts of depression. I have had one disturbing dream of Barb, within the first year of her death, and one other, less disturbing, though nothing like what she went through. The subconscious mind plays with things that sit in the background and they can manifest in dreams. In the first dream, I encountered Barb, who seemed unable to speak, and I said to her, "You died." that was about all I recalled, as I woke up and the details were fuzzy. What many people experience as ghosts or other supernatural encounters can more rationally be explained as dreams or misinterpretations of other influences. I had a friend who said they awoke to find a ghostly figure above their bed. I suggested that they might have still been asleep and dreamed the encounter, and that when they awoke, the dream was strong enough that they believed it was a memory of a real encounter, not a memory of the dream. They preferred to believe the unsubstantiated supernatural possibility, rather than the more rational counter-explanation. Too often, claims of the supernatural require great leaps of logic and accepting things on faith, rather than scientific evidence or rational explanation. When someone claims to have ghosts, because of a "cold spot," my first thought it, "Maybe you have bad insulation in your home." Strange sounds could be expansion and contraction of structural materials, air moving through gaps, and just plain imagination magnifying something minor into something major. The Amityville Horror house was later debunked as a real estate scam and most alleged psychics do nothing more than "cold readings," fishing expeditions that use psychology, rather than psychic power, asking vague questions to get the mark to offer up information, to which they can more specifically tailor their responses, until the mark believes they are communicating with the dead, not just feeding back the information they have divulged to them or an accomplice.

Anyway....

There are several mysteries at play: what is happening within the null field? What is the source of it? Why is Tim so paranoid about Diana? Why is the Terror so worried? Why is the Terror spying on Diana? Is the Terror's Terror 2000 service something more sinister and controlling? Is the mob behind the attack on The Terror or something more? Who killed Lance Lewis? Why? Why is Carol seeing visions of her dead father? Who were the two figures we saw walking through huge machinery, last issue? It all seems connected, but how?

We have 3 more issues to start offering up some answers.

Meanwhile, the art continues to be great. At first, I was a little on the fence about Yannick Paquette's art, as it seemed a little stylistic and muddled, but it quickly grew on me, in the first issue. He has a flair for the dynamic and the superheroic, yet he also stages casual scenes well and he has a good grasp of body language in his figures. He also has a good eye for the comedic and those touches are appreciated. He draws different body and facial types well. He handles the beautiful and the ugly and the ordinary and extraordinary. And, he is a damned good storyteller. Karl Story has allways been a good, stylistic inker and he enhances the scenes and figures. They make a great team, especially with all of the characters. there are some confusing things in this series and the sequel, but more because of how derivative some of the characters were, which made it harder to visually identify all of them. Liberator looks like a generic patriotic hero, one of dozens from the 40s. American Crusader is more unique, using the old pre-war US Army Air Corps roundel insignia as his emblem, rather than the wartime and post-war symbols. The Woman in Red was a generic femme fatale type heroine, in the 40s, but they have updated her with a more modern costume, which hides the fact that she has become a real Woman of Red.

Looking forward to the next issue.

League of Extraordinary Gentleman Vol 2, #6



About bloooody time!

Creative team: Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill, Bill Oakley, Benedict Dimagmaliw

Synopsis: Mr Hyde shaves and senses a presence, which he addresses as Death, saying he has been looking forward to meeting him. Moore doesn't mention if he gives Binky a treat or not, or if the Death of Rats is there, too.

(Slight pause, while a cat decides she wants to snuggle up on my chest.....whoops, she sees a bird and is off....)

Elsewhere, Allan, Mina and Dr Moreau await a special train, from London. Moreau and his creatures have a special box ready, for military intelligence (*snort*). Alan asks if it is another creature and Moreau says, after a fashion and they discuss his hybrids, such as Rupert the Bear, who he says is sexually frustrated, without a mate, but, for a sum, there is a woman in a nearby village who will relieve his tension, and not with herbs or balms, as Allan asks.

Ewwwwww..........

A train, with a Masonic compass & ruler emblem arrives, with soldiers in green uniforms and Masonic symbols, thereby cementing the fact that they work for the powers behind the government and I don't mean the Crown. The soldiers load the crate and Mina and Allan bid Dr Moreau farewell. When safely inside the train, they openly remark in horror about Moreau and his creatures.

They return to find London evacuated and Campion Bond to meet them. he asks about the crate and any damage and when he is assured it is safe, he tells the guards to stand down, that there is no need to shoot the agents. He takes Mina & Allan to join the others, on London Bridge, where the Tripods are massing.



They are reunited with Captain Nemo and Mr Hyde and learn of Griffin's death, though Hyde claims it was comfortable and ignores Nemo's curses, which Bond dampens down. They see the Thames filled with the red weed and Nemo explains that the Nautilus is incapacitated by it, probably at Griffin's suggestion. Bond says they have nor artillery, because it was "burned" by the Tripods. Hyde says he might inflict some damage, to which Nemo scoffs. Hyde points out their weakness...



Mina says it is certain death but Hyde brushes away her concer and asks if she would honor him with a kiss. To everyone's surprise, she readily agrees. He then asks if he can cop a feel and she agrees again and Hyde is surprised by how fast her heart is beating. He then says he was right about this world, that Heaven must be the cruelest of places and leaves, singing "You should See Me Dance the Polka"...



Hyde taunts the Tripods with the song and a bit of dance and flourish and draws their attention....and the heat ray....



Mina cries in horror and despair and we see Bond's soldiers pull a small object out of the create and move it, suspended from poles, careful not to touch it. Then, we see the charred corpse of Hyde rise. he is still alive and cursing. he charges the nearest Tripod and grabs around a leg and proceeds to squeeze and twist and succeeds in ripping apart a leg and toppling the machine. He sees the "blancmange" creature inside and rips open the hull to get at it. He rips the head off the mollusk creature and eats it, like an oyster. The Tripods converge and combine their rays on him. He is completely incinerated. Bond's men prepare a special artillery shell, as Bond notes that the fallen Tripod has the other trapped.



The shell is loaded into a cannon and fired at the Tripods. Bond remarks that it is a hybrid of anthrax and streptococcus viruses. Mina remarks that there are still people in that area and Bond replies that the Martians died of the common cold and any people died of the Martians. Nemo is outraged and resigns from the League and departs. The Tripods collapse and Nemo and his crew haul in all lines and set sail, headed back to Lincoln Island.

Some time later, Mina and Allan walk through Serpantine Park and remark that the last vestige of the red weed is gone. they speak of the others and Mina talks of leaving to join a women's commune, in Scotland, called Coradine. Allan remarks that he hears the park is being renamed in honor of Edward Hyde. Mina tells Allan that there time together meant a lot to her, but she must go and she leaves Allan alone, in the soon-t-be-renamed Hyde Park.

The final chapter of the Traveler's Almanac sees them exploring the polar regions. We learn that Nemo is blessed with a daughter, instead of a son and he cannot hide his disappointment and abandons mother and daughter and heads for the Antarctic. There are references to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, of Nantucket", HP Lovecraft, The Voyage to the Center of the Earth, Rabelais, RE Howard's "The Mirrors of Tuzan Thune," Frankenstein, Toyland, and Pellucidar.

Thoughts: Mr Hyde gets to go out a hero, after beginning as a monster. he is the League's Hulk, in every facet, just as the Hulk was inspired, in great part, by The Strange Case of Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde (and a bit of Frankenstein). He is infatuated with Mina and killed Griffin more for his attack on Mina than his betrayal of the League and mankind. In this final chapter, he seems to know his death is imminent and he prepares for it, washing and shaving, then asking bold favors of Mina, which she grants. For mina, it is returning the courtesy as well as, perhaps, demonstrating that she sees Edward Hyde as a man, not a monster.

Dr Moreau's hybrid is, of course, the virus that kills the Martians...the "common cold." However, Moore suggests it is something far deadlier and more aggressive and suggests that humans died in the process, but their deaths were attributed to the Martians. Campion Bond commits biological warfare and Nemo is horrified and resigns, breaking up what is left of the League. Here we see Nemo's demonstration of his own code of morality, though Moore has shown that it is somewhat specific to certain peoples, as he decried Mohammedans in the previous series. He mentions returning to his base, on Lincoln Island, and his wife and child. the Traveler's Almanac says he returned to his wife giving birth to a daughter, named Jani and his disappointment of not having a son, a fact that drives him away from his family. Here, again, we see the flaws in Nemo, as he rejects his daughter and wife and abandons them to explore the poles. The Nautilus logs are credited to a Miss Diver and we can surmise the Jani is Miss Diver, as a submarine diver. That would make her Jani Diver or "Jenny Diver," to Anglicize her name, making her the jenny Diver of Berthold Brecht's Threepenny Opera and John Gray's The Beggar's Opera. We will see more of her (and Brecht) in future League volumes.

We end with Mina departing for a Utopian commune, Coradine, from WH Hudson's A Crystal Age. Hyde and Griffin are dead and Nemo resigned to return home, then abandon his family for the Polar regions. Quatermain is left alone in what will be Hyde Park, now named in honor of the sacrifice of Edward Hyde, rather than the Manor of Hyde. Moore calls it Serpentine Park, in reference to the Serpentine, the man-made lake created there in 1730. It is then renamed for Hyde.

So, it would seem that the League is now dead; but, we know they aren't the first League. They were preceded by Lemuel Gullvier's League, as well as Prospero's Men. The members have included the gender-swapping Orlando, Lemuel Gulliver, Sir Percy and Lady Margueritte Blakeney (aka the Scarlet Pimpernel), Natty Bumpo (aka Hawkeye, of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales), Fanny Hill and the Rev. Christopher Syn (Alias The Scarecrow, aka Captain Clegg), Duke Prospero of Milan, Ariel, Caliban, Robert Owemuch, Don Quixote, Amber St Clair and Christian. We have also seen rival League's, in foreign nations, including France's Les Hommes Mysterieux (The Mystery Men) and Germany's Die Zweilichthelden (The Twilight Heroes). The French group includes Fantomas, Arsene Lupin, the Nyctalope and Monsieur Zenith, from French pulp literature and Anthony Skene's Sexton Blake stories (and an inspiration for Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone). The German group consists of figures mostly from German expressionist cinema, including Rotwang and Maria (Metropolis), Dr Caligari and Cesare (The Cabinet of Dr Caligari), Dr Mabuse (from Mabuse Der Spieler, Das Testament des Dr Mabuse and Die 1000 Augen des Dr Mabuse) and Herr Luftkapitan Mors, aka Airship Pirate Captain Mors (from The Air Pirate and his Steerable Airship, a series of German pulp novels). So, we are surely not at the end.

As endings go, this is pretty well done, if a bit melancholy. We see the horrors of bio-warfare, as well as alien invasion and wonder which is worse. We also see secret governments within governments, using Masonic conspiracy theories, as well as real secret intelligence units setting their own policy, such as Oliver North and John Poindexter, in Iran-Contra, as well as the Watergate conspirators). Given how often Far-Right dictators and their factions attack "freemasonry," you can sort of see why the idea of a society, devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and enlightenment, with an exclusive membership, might make for a convenient target upon which to blame all their ills. You then see how they attach other groups, especially racial, to such organizations and "conspiracies" to demonize them and make them seem malevolent, rather than admit their own failure of character or hard work, or privilege. It's funny how often "intellectuals" are named as enemies of the common man by such groups, as if free thinking, in itself, is the greatest danger. To them, it is, because then people start to question their motives for demonizing others and heaping such hatred upon them. Moore kind of plays it both ways, as we see such bigoted insular attitudes, while also fostering the idea of the Masons as a secret power within the British government.

In many ways, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen set the path that comics would follow, in the New Millennium, just as his previous work proved influential in both horror and deconstructionist superhero stories. The League is filled with easter eggs, following the traditions of Phillip Jose Farmer and Michael Moorcock, as well as conspiracies and secret societies and we see conspiracy groups emerging more and more as antagonists, or even protagonists, in future stories, such as Marvel's Illuminati and things like Secret War and Civil War, as well as the revised history of SHIELD and HYDRA, linking them to ancient conspiracies and Leonardo Da Vinci, rather than James Bond and The Man From UNCLE. "Literature" (and I use the term ironically), like The Da Vinci Code, revel is such things, which were previously the playground of thriller writers, like Robert Ludlum or fringe writers, like Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. Moore will play into this even more, with his final, contractual League story, for DC/Wildstorm, before taking his toys and going home, to produce more League stories elsewhere.

We will return to the League, when it is time for The Black Dossier (which took 4 years to come out, after the conclusion of this series, which already took a year, to produce 6 issues).

Terra Obscura #4



Okay; left to right: The Ape, aka Adam, upper center is Doc Strange aka Tom Strange, bottom center is the grave of The Fighting Yank (whose nemesis must be the Artful LA Dodger), and the right is Dr. X

You can tell he is a doctor because of his handwriting.

Creative Team: Alan Moore-plot, Peter Hogan-plot & script, Yanick Paquette & Karl Story-art, Todd Klein-letters, Jeromy Cox-colors, Ben Abernathy-editor

Synopsis: The Terror and Tim are running through the files to determine who might be behind the attack on the Terror 2000 and the phenomena in Nevada.



The Terror dismisses Green Ghost as dead and a Buddhist, and not likely to be malevolent; Black Satan is a joke, the Oracle is asleep beneath the Pentagon. Mystico is a distinct possibility; powerful and amoral. Scarab is powerful, but a thorough goody-goody. Dr Voodoo is powerful and completely nuts, so a possibility. The Liberator and Tom Strange are outliers and Terror dismisses Liberator, as a "witless clod;" but, says Strange is a possible.

Out in Nevada, Scarab whips up a mystical ring of fire to hold the coyote creatures at bay (just paint a hole in front of them and they will fall into it) and the Liberator has heaped dead carcasses to put them off, from the scent. Woman in Red will stay behind to attend to Pyro-Man, who is beat up and sore; but okay; and, American Crusader, who has a dislocated shoulder and has suffered serious trauma. he is asleep, but will be in severe pain, when he awakes. Liberator gives her some of his Lamasin to let Archie (AC) sip, when he awakens, to help his healing. Then, Liberator and Scarab head for Dr X's lab.

In Antarctica, the Hyper-Saucer arrives, and Carol remembers the painful death of her father. Betty recalls her loss of George Chance, the Green Ghost, and Ms Masque recalls the death of the human Terror, Bob Benton. Grant Halford says their destination is below, but he has no idea if Tom Strange is alive or dead. The ship is stocked with polar suits and provisions.

They land next to the giant, alien construct.....



It has a distributor! Maybe the alien was just an intergalactic gearhead!

They go inside and find lights have been strung up and they gaze in awe, until Grant's magnetic troubles manifest....



...and then they encounter someone in a pressure suit, holding what they believe to be an alien weapon.

Looks like a pasta scoop, to me. Maybe they are having spaghetti, for dinner.

Liberator and Scarab continue on their journey, discussing Dr X. He doesn't seem to be a nice guy, as Scarab describes him as weird and scary. Liberator aks if he is scarier than Mystico. It seems the mummy gives everyone the heebie-jeebies, except Scarab, who is an archeologist and reincarnated Priest of Ra. Mummies don't scare him; though, he might make allowances for Mystico. He remarks that Mystico's tomb had no inscriptions, except a warning not to open it and a curse on anyone who does. Liberator guffaws at curses, but Scarab believes it.


They arrive and find an art deco building.....



Scarab's ring reveals that the front door is fake and locates the real, hidden door. Liberator goes through and plummets.....



Scarab grabs him and his ring reveals a safe door and they go through and find themselves in Dr X's dungeon.

In Antarctica, the group learns that the dude in the pressure suit is Adam, aka The Ape and he takes them to Tom Strange. They were the mysterious figures we saw earlier, exploring the alien construct. Adam communicates through an electronic voice synthesizer, which Tom Strange has altered to allow him to be more articulate. They pass around sodas and then fill Tom in on what is happening in the US and the death of Lance Bryant, aka aCaptain Future (Grant's partner).

In the dungeon, Dr X interrogates the Liberator and Scarab. He believes Scarab is behind the attacks on him, though the duo tell him otherwise and that the effect has spread. He doesn't believe them and asks if this is about him killing Andrew bryant, aka Captain Future, which captures Liberator off guard. Dr X also says he killed the others, who followed and then shows Liberator the corpses of The American Eagle and Eaglet, his sidekick.



Carol goes to her father's grave and Diana tells Grant to give her the time she needs, before they depart, despite the emergency. Doc Strange tells Adam he must stay, or he might get hurt. Adam is sad to be left alone; but, Betty tells him she will stay too, as George thinks it is too dangerous for her. The Green Ghost speaks to Doc and Grant and tells Grant his part is done and to stay and watch over Bettie and Adam. He argues, but agrees. the Ghost then departs to speak to Carol, while Grant helps Doc Strange and the others unload provisions.

Carol tells George of the visions of her father, of his downcast look, like he disapproves of her leaving the hero game. She says, without her powers, she was too scared. She says she isn't much of a hero. George tells her, "Well, if the cap fits..." then departs. Carol is puzzled and looks down at the glass case, containing her father's tricorne hat. She removes it and puts it on....



Thoughts: So, Andrew Bryant, Captain Future, was killed by Dr X, as was The American Eagle and Eaglet. However, he is not behind the technological void. He believes he is under attack, like The Terror. One name comes up between all parties: Mystico.

A bit of background on some of our new folks.

Doc Strange debuted in Thrilling Comics #1. He is a scientist who develops the serum, Alosun, which is a distillate of "sun atoms" and it grants him super powers. He was basically a Doc Savage rip-off, right down to his adventure clothes of red t-shirt, black/blue jodhpurs and black riding boots. He had a sidekick, Mike, who perished, when the alien came to terra Obscura.

Scarab is Peter ard, a reincarnated Egyptian priest, who gains his power from a magical scarab ring. In the 40s, he was a white guy in badly stylized pseod-Egyptian headdress and superhero clothes. Here, he is an actual Egyptian in more correct Eguptian garb.

The Apa, aka Adam, was actually a different character, at Nedor. he was scientist Dr Fawcett, who injected goriila endocrine into soldiers, to enhance their abilities. When Nazis attack his lab, he takes the formula and is trnasformed and goes on a wave of destruction, where he battles The Oracle.

The Oracle is Bob Paxton, a human given prophetic powers by a Nazi chemical weapon.

The American Eagle is scientist Tom Standish, who gains the power of flight an proportional strength, after being exposed to black rays. Eaglet, Bud Pierce, was his kid sidekick.

Black Satan was a super villain, who fought The Four Comrades. Gremlin was an adversary of The Fighting Yank. Dr Voodoo fought Wonderman.

Spectro was a stage magician, Robert Morgan, who was descended from an alleged sorcerer, who was burned at the stake. He can read minds and uses the ability to fight crime.

Thesson was a descendent of the hero Theseus, who slew the Minotaur. He uses the ring of Poseidon to fight crime, with enhanced strength.

Mystico was a mad scientist who tried to revive a mummy, but the machine explodes, killing the nut. Mystico was a sorcerer, though and is reborn and then uses his abilities to fight crime.

Betty is Betty Morris, who was an ally of the George Chance, The Ghost. The Green adjective was added by Alan Moore, to differentiate him. Betty, apparently, goes on to marry George.

As could be seen in the previous issues, Betty seems to be attracted to Grant Halford, The Magbnet. It seems that George is quite happy with this and may have even foreseen the attraction, as she first mentioned to Grant that George said he would send someone to protect her. It appears that The Green Ghost is doing some matchmaking, between his widow and the detective. It's one of the cuter aspects of the series and they would make for great stars of their own adventures, with a lighter tone. As it is, Grant has been the main comic relief (with Adam doing his bit, with Tom Strange).

We now know that Carol's loss of power is due to losing the physical link with his spirit. She regains it by donning their shared ancestor's tricorn hat. The original Fighting Yank (Bruce Carter III) gained his powers from his ancestor, the original Bruce Carter, and now, Carol derives hers from that physical link, which lets her bond with her father's spirit.

All of the characters were seen in Tom Strong #12, where he and Tom Strange liberate the members of SMASH from their orbital prisons and they defeat the alien entity. George Chance, and Fighting Yank were killed in the battle and the Terror was already dead, then the Terror 2000 program went on-line, when they discovered Bob Benton's lab. Lance Lewis and The Magnet were there, in heroic garb. During that issue, it is remarked that Captain Future was off-world, when the alien attacked, aiding Cynthi, niece of Dr X. At the time, Tim said they had no idea what happened to Dr X. It seems he remained in his lab, which has mystical properties. However, here, Dr X says he killed Captain Future. Was that after the alien was driven off or is that what happened, when everyone else though he was off-world? The American Eagle and Eaglet appear in Tom Strong, so they were still alive, after the alien. Maybe they wen't searching for him, after things settled down or, perhaps, Captain Future returned, then was killed and they followed.

It's hard to comment about the art, as Yannick Paquette and Karl Story do a bang-up job, in each issue. They handle mood and action well, have great design sense, and convey body language and emotion. You actually feel the sadness as Adam has to say goodbye to Doc Strange. I especially like how they depict the alien machinery as an internal combustion engine, rather than some knockoff Kirby machine swipe. The distributor cap was a nice touch, as we see the wires come off it, to the spark plugs. At one point, the group has to cross over the drive shaft, to get to where Doc Strange is set up, which does a number on Grant's head, as he has a fear of heights. The first time I saw those images, I thought it was a bit goofy; but, it grew on me and I appreciated that they were making it different and having fun with it. Better to be unique than draw some epic machine that still pales compared to Kirby. Kirby was the first to tell aspiring artists to be themselves, not copy him.

The characters here are just great and we get a sense of what is going on, in this issue, as we start to move into the climax. We are given the possibility that Mystico is behind the attacks and that Dr X is a pretty nasty character, in his own right...hardly a hero. Grant and Betty seem headed into a romance, but with George still pop in, from time to time? That would be a bit awkward.

I hadn't expected it; but, Terra Obscura quickly became my favorite ABC title, after Top 10 (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is on a different plane than the other titles). It has a sense of fun to it (much like Tom Strong and Smax) and great characters (like Top 10), but also provides some old fashioned heroics.

Most of the characters Moore killed off, in Tom Strong, were the big names:  The Black Terror and The Fighting Yank.  here, they are mostly  also-rans.  The American Eagle and Eaglet were not headliners, nor was Lance Lewis , Space Detective or Captain Future (who isn't the Edmond Hamilton Captain Future).  Of course, he replaced the Terror with an AI program and Fighting Yank gets to be the ghost to his own daughter.  I like the use of The Magnet/Grant Halford, as it allows for a nice mix of comedy and detective adventure, ala The Rockford Files or similar.  That's why I say I would ahve loved a mini of Grant and Betty investigating more paranormal mysteries, maybe with George tangentially involved, but mostly focused on them.  They have a nice Ralph & Sue Dibny vibe, or Nick and Nora Charles, minus the married bit.

A long time back, I had an idea for a super team, of Greek hero-themed characters; but, kind of dropped it when I saw that Peter David did something like that, after a fashion, with The Pantheon, in The Hulk.  I had already grumbled when James Robinson came out with The Golden Age, with a plot very similar to one I had been trying to work out for a post-WW2 superhero thing, with Tex Thompson as a Right Wing Americommando (or a similar McCarthy-ite patriotic hero), that would feature atomic experiments creating the first true "superman.  Danged if he didn't use just about every idea I had.  What he didn't use, Warren Ellis used in Stormwatch, for the subsequent fall of the 60s generation of heroes, via a campus battle.  He did basically the same thing, though more of an Altamont/Rolling Stones event, rather than a campus protest, which was my idea (a clash between establishment heroes and a young generation, protecting student protesters from the National Guard, leading to deaths and the most powerful young hero disappearing from sight for the next 20 years or more).  His storyline with The High returning and trying to fix the world, whether it liked it or not, was similar to the latetr stage I had intended.

After that, I kind of lost interest in trying to write my own superhero saga, as my best ideas kept turning up in someone else's work.  I would still like to take a crack at writing a "Greatest Generation" saga of the DC war comics characters, though (minus the supernatural stuff), tweaking them here and there to coincide better with real history.  Sgt Rock could take you through Operation Torch and the Invasion of Sicily, then Normandy, much like the film The Big Red One (I always said Lee Marvin's character in that film was the closest to Sgt Rock).  The Haunted Tank could be North Africa and Italy, M'lle Marie lets you cover Occupied France, The Blackhawks could be ex-patriot pilots, flying with the RAF, the Losers could be Alamo Scouts or Marine Raiders, in the Pacific, the OSS and The Unknown Soldier could handle the Jedburg operations and other special operation missions.  I just needed something for the Russian side of things.

I have a different analysis: both of them visually resembled characters currently in use by Marvel (Punisher and Spirit of '76), so it was easier to get rid of them.

I think it is mostly down to meeting an alternate version of his mother, which is really the only poignant part of it, for me.