The Fourth and Fifth Cities of Heaven

The path up the Holy Mountain out of the Green City is less frequently trod and thus harder going. None but the most dedicated servants of the Mountain would come the way of the Pilgrim; other visitors typically arrive by magical gates or portals and receive a less welcoming reception from the devas.

The Fourth City of Heaven is Golden and effulgent. Here resides the spirits of many sages and philosophers who inhabit libraries full of everything that is known, though the finding of information within their vast repositories is a task that staggers most mortal endeavors. The city's rulers are a triumvirate of 3 masked judges, though some say they are but one ruler with three forms called Forethought, Awareness, and Reflection. They question each pilgrim regarding their reasons for making the journey, and point out ways they might serve the cause of Noble Law in the Material World. Some Pilgrims are sent back to the Material Plane with specific tasks, others they will bid stay in the city under the tutelage of the learned souls residing there. A few they will direct to the secret exit and the trail leading upwards.

The Fifth City has walls of iron and spires sharp as swords. It is a city under siege. It sits upon a crag overlooking a wide valley where demonic forces are encamped. These forces frequent assail the city's walls, but are forever driven back by the warrior deva. Pilgrims must pass through the demon's lines to gain entrance to the city. Once within, their bravery will be commended. The general archons will advise them of places in the world where their fortitude might be used in the cause of Noble Law. They also offer them a chance to join the city's defenders, for it is their grim judgement that should the Iron City fall so goes the Mountain, and no Pilgrim will see the summit again. Many warriors have stayed and fought; others have returned to the Material Plane armed in heavenly panoply and done great deeds. These do not reach the summit of the Mountain in this incarnation. 

Both of these cities become the stopping places of good and lawful souls. It is said that only a steadfast and resolute few continue upward. Beyong the fifth city, they must climb.

DC, April 1981 (wk 1 pt 1)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! I'm a couple of days later than my usual Wednesday post, but I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of  January 8, 1981. 

Batman #334: All our heroes finally meet the villainous mastermind and it's Ra's Al Ghul, surprising no one. Batman glimpses the Greek-robed followers of Al Ghul living in some sort of garden, while people who displease him toil in some hellish mine. Robin, Catwoman, and King Faraday, are placed there, but manage to make a break for it. Talia does a heel turn to keep herself young and our heroes are recaptured. Al Ghul gives Batman an ultimatum: join up and get immortality, or don't and all the heroes die.

There are two backups here. There's a Commissioner Gordon one-pager by Rozakis and Staton where Gordon gets so show off his deductive reasoning chops. Then, there's "Tales of Gotham" by Barr and Spiegle starring Jason Bard. Bard's hired by a woman to find out who burned down her house. It winds up being her ex-husband, looking to collect insurance money.

DC Comics Presents #32: "The Super-Prisoners of Love." Mischievous Cupid makes Wonder Woman and Superman fall for each other. Their response is to try to keep their distance--Superman knocks a hole through the JLA satellite after accidentally touching Diana's hand! But when Wonder Woman sees Superman kissing Lois she flips out and starts a fight. Finally, they go to confront Cupid, but they have to go on a quest and fight a Minotaur before they can acquire the blue lotus that will counteract the charm. Conway and Schaffenberger are responsible for this silliness.

The "Whatever Happened to Back-Up" is sort of interesting because it's about Mark Merlin and Prince Ra-Man, a character I saw die in Crisis, but otherwise knew nothing about. This story has Elsa, Merlin's love interest and secretary, discovering that Ra-Man is actually Merlin's spirit reincarnated in the body of an ancient wizard (it's complicated). This has the marks of a retcon to link the two characters from House of Mystery, but turns out this is pretty much the story presented in the 60s.

Flash #296: Infantino replaces Heck, and I can't say his art in this period is my favorite, but he does have history with the Flash. This is a team-up between the Flash and Elongated Man (who Infantino draws so twisted and curled at times, you'd think he was made of vapor instead of just being stretchy). Sue Dibney enlists the Flash's help in finding her husband who disappeared on a case. He soon runs afowl of sideshow performers turned thieves who manage to hynotize him and get away. The Flash then checks out a traveling circus and discovers Elongated Man in the side show, also hypnotized. With the thieves caught, it turns out that the circus performers were stealing to do good: they were getting interferon to treat a fellow performer suffering from neurofibromatosis (no doubt inspired Lynch's film The Elephant Man, which had just hit theaters the October before this issue's release). It turns out the young man has the right genes for gingold extract (the stuff that gives Elongated Man his power) to be part of a serum to cure him.

The Firestorm backup has Starlin and Wiacek on art, but that doesn't help the feeling that this conflict in the ship is being dragged out, as the Human Typhoon attacks Sydney. Firestorm ultimately defeats him with a giant fan.

Ghosts #99: Our first story by Post and McWilliams is about a wealthy young couple on a private island off New York in 1800 who are beset by not one, but two, anachronistic pirate ships, with each captain killing a member of the couple. This being Ghosts, I don't have to tell you that their spirits avenge themselves on the pirate vessels. The second story by Kashdan and Carrillo has a clever twist. When a gladiator in ancient Pompeii is poisoned by a rival during a fight, he summons a wizard to his death bed and has his spirit set free to wreck vengeance. Unfortunately, Vesuvius erupts before he can get back to his body, threatening to doom him to haunting the ruins of Pompeii forever. This story is continued to next issue. 

The final story, by Kupperberg and Adams/DeZuniga seems to be the last episode in the Dr. Thirteen/Spectre crossover. Thirteen has figured out there's a connection between Corrigan and the Spectre, so he puts him under surveillance, hoping to reveal the Spectre as a murderous hoax. Instead, the Spectre shows him trippy other realms and basically says "don't blame me for the killing, my boss makes he do it." He also conjures up Thirteen's father who says "All that not believing in the supernatural? Boy, was I wrong!" Thirteen is shaken, but by the time he wakes up, he rededicates himself to exposing supernatural fraudsters, seemingly in denial.

G.I. Combat #228: Only two Haunted Tank tales this month. Maybe Kanigher needed a break? The first story with Glanzman and Ayers has a bit of an unusual structure. It starts with the tank crew apparently dead and an injured Jeb being captured by the Germans. It turns out they're just concussed, and Jeb escapes from Rommel and the Germans by stealing a jeep. After his crew nearly kills him by mistake, he leads them back through a tunnel into the German fortress and they take the enemy by surprise. Jeb declines to chase the escaping Rommel, reciprocating the mercy the German general had shown him. The second story has the tank taking on a crewman with ESP. And they specifically say his army file says he has "ESP powers!" Anyway, the story ends with the psychic making a wrong prediction, which is an unusual resolution for this sort of story which would typically end with a "he was right but he thinks he was wrong because he was right in a unusual/nonliteral way."

The O.S.S. story by Kanigher and Cruz starts with an allied agent in a German uniform killing Control, but of course, it's revealed that Control was captured by the Germans and they sent back a ringer.  The next story is a "Women At War" story by Laurie and Henson about a female parachute packer who gets to take a flight and winds up in a warzone where she also gets to machine gun Germans. I feel like this is the second story about parachute packers getting into a combat, but I'm not going to look back to see. The last story is by Drake and MacKenzie and relates events around the capture of Ravensburg (which doesn't jibe with what Wikipedia says about it, but hey, it's a comic not a history book) and a birthday during wartime.

Jonah Hex #47: Hex and Mei Ling just can't seem to get to settle into domestic bliss. Some men start shooting at their homestead, but Hex deals with them with a few sticks of dynamite. Mei Ling, as usual, isn't happy about the killing. A wealthy man (presumably Quentin Turnbull, though the issue never says and his face is always in shadow) takes the news of his latest assassins' deaths in stride, and in steady plans to kidnap Mei Ling to get at Hex. His next group of thugs do just that and commandeer a train to escape. Hex uses some tricks Fleisher borrowed from Once Upon A Time in the West to take down the men on the train and rescue Mei Ling.

In the Conway, Ayers/Villamonte Scalphunter backup, Ke-Woh-No-Tay must choose between loyalty to the Mandans that have taken him in or to the white trader who was kind to him and a friend of his father's. Rather than let the Mandan warriors torture the man, Ke-Woh-No-Tay kills him with a thrown knife. He flees the village pursued by the warrior he had saved from the stampede at the start of this story. They end up fighting to the death at the same cliff edge. Brian Savage is victorious, but again he's a man alone.

The Second and Third Cities of Heaven

Pilgrims following the path up and out of the Silver City will in time come to the Yellow City, which is the second of the Heavenly Cities. Canals of quicksilver, like liquid mirrors, run between its citrine-colored monuments. The canals are lined with statues of honored visitors or residents of the city: mighty heroes, learned sages, and wise rulers. Indeed, everyone arriving in the city is honored by a procession and a recitation of their deeds with fanfare. They may well be approached and asked to become part of the municipal government in some way commensurate with their skills. There are no shortage of folk in the city looking to recruit heroes for quests, warriors for noble crusaders, or mighty wizards for some task requiring their skills. The city plays upon vanity and ambition. Those who fail its trial may well become famous or powerful on the Material Plane, and will certainly be lauded in the City, but they will get no closer to the summit of the Mountain.

Those who successfully pass this trial and continued their way up the mountain will come to a city of green stone, malachite and turquoise, with domes of burnished copper. This Green City, the third of the Heavenly cities, is known for its beautiful gardens and its baths whose spring waters have rejuvenating properties. Some visitors have likened this city to Arborea, but the real allure of the third city is not sensual pleasures but the chance to reacquaint oneself with lost, forgotten, or neglected loves. Spirits of departed love ones will join visitors in the city, and those pining for lost love may find it anew. Estranged family members or comrades can be reconciled. Lost personal treasures are found. Even old or neglected hobbies can be indulged in the social clubs and shops of the city. Finding fulfillment in these worldly attachments, a great many will never again embark on the pilgrim's path up the Mountain.

The first three cities and their trials are most often more than enough to distract or dissuade the undedicated or cynical visitor, but more trials follow for the truly fervent and disciplined.

The Holy Mountain and the Silver City

The Heavenly Mountain, rises majestically and alone from a tranquil sea, which itself is separated from the astral only by a thick, silvery mist. The deva of the Mountain, and possibly the Mountain itself, like others of the Wheel, are dedicated to the great work restoring oneness to the divided multiverse. The Mountain is the Path by which Unity may achieved by the abnegation of ego, one soul at a time.

The path isn't easy. Few are those that start upon it, and fewer still those that reach it. Only rumors return regarding the final trial: the pilgrim must gain admittance from the four Heavenly Archons, and then cross a bridge as narrow as the edge of a blade, beneath which yawns a chasm that extends to The Abyss. What lies beyond is even more uncertain and variegated in the telling.

The beginnings of the path in the first of the Seven Cities of Heaven is more certain. Many visits have crossed the Astral into the pearl-bright sea that laps against the white sand beach and the marble quays. Beyond, the Silver City climbs onto the foot of the mountain beneath a night that seems more like a velvet drapery decorated with bright jewels than the cold void.

The Silver City is a very hospitable place. Its pedestrian thoroughfares and atria are garlanded with paper lanterns and strings of glowing orbs with firefly light, are full of soirées. It's central garden is decorated with alabaster sculptures of heavenly bodies and magical symbols, inlaid with moonstone. It is here the ruler of the city, a silver sphinx, holds court. The wine shops and cafes are open all night, indeed there is never anything but night in the Silver City. Many a visitor intends to leave in the morning, to continue their ascent at first light of dawn. Few ever do. This is the Trial of the Silver City: it tests Resolve.

Only the stalwart few take the path out of the Silver City and continue their trek up the Mountain.

Wednesday Comics: DC, March 1981 (wk 2 pt 2)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around December 23, 1980. 

Legion of Super-Heroes #273: Conway improves on his performance from last issue with a callback to a plotline started by Levtiz and Starlin in issue 239 where it appears Brainiac 5 murdered Ultra Boy's ex-girlfriend and framed Ultra Boy for it. It was all put down to "temporary insanity," and he got better, but the Federation's new President (Colossal Boy's mom) is having none of that. Brainy is out, or the Legion is done! The Legionnaires do a thorough investigation and discover it was Pulsar Stargrave that did the deed and drove Brainy insane. The issue ends with a showdown between Brainiac 5 and Stargrave that is pretty well done.

Mystery in Space #117: This is better than last issue. DeMatteis and Infantino open it with a sort of trippy space opera yarn of a space general willing to stop at nothing to resurrect the gentle, poet lover of her youth, only to find he doesn't recognize the woman she has become. Watson and Netwon paint a quick portrait of a dedicated DJ, still broadcasting in the post-apocalypse for an audience of one--himself. This one is interesting mainly for the real world songs it references, showing perhaps what the writer was listening to at the time. Bruce Jones with Veitch and Yeates have a ne'er-do-well murder an alien and steal his ship, but he discovers that sometimes dreams are the stuff spaceships are made of. 

The final story gets the cover. Barr and Tuska tell the somewhat obvious if kind of gruesome tale of a cold, misanthropic, robot pilot learning humanity after he's partially grafted to part of a gravely injured family man to keep both of them alive.

New Adventures of Superboy #15: The name story by Bates and Schaffenberger involves a wealthy, childless couple coming to Smallville to try to convince Superboy to be their son. It's the sort of forgettable Silver Age pastiches this title sometimes lapses into. The backup is mildly interesting in that it posits a meeting between a time traveling Superboy and a young Clark Kent of the 1930s. This story both re-establishing that this title takes place in the 1960s. It's unclear if this is a visit to Earth-2 or some other timeline yet, but there is suppose to be a part two.

Sgt. Rock #350: The main Sgt. Rock story by Kanigher and Redondo is a Christmas-themed tale of a new recruit in Easy so eager to get home by Christmas that he deserts. Rock, not wanting the kid to face a firing squad, tracks him down to a farm house where he's sharing Christmas with an Italian family. Rock brings him back and the kid learns they have to fight the war until they're done. The next story with art by DeMulder romanticizes the Confederacy, so moving on we find a story with no artist credited that relates the life and death of the Cheyenne chief, Roman Nose. Last up is another "Men of Easy" feature with art by Duursema that gives Bulldozer's perspective on Rock.

Super Friends #42: Bridwell and Tanghal present the story of a villain with a dangerous green thumb terrorizing Gotham. The Super-Friends get some help from Green Fury, the Brazilian superheroine who can shoot green flame out her nose and will eventually join the JLA as Fire. The Wonder Twins backup by the same creative team is Christmas themed. It has Jayna taking the form of a Krytonian deer, which of course can fly under a yellow sun to help Santa.

Unexpected #208: The stories in this issue are all weird, and not in the "Weird Tales" sort of way. The Barr/Sparling Jonny Peril story has him still tracking those mysterious star amulets. He's in the midwest at an almost deserted factory town, where he's set up by zombies or something and saved by a local woman. She explains that few of the townsfolk are left and no one knows what the factory does, but doesn't comment on the zombie guys. She takes Peril to the factory and is promptly captured by the zombies who serve the mysterious guy in the cloak (who somehow is able to watch Jonny on camera all the time and always has his hand in front of his face so we don't see his identity). Jonny chooses to make a move to save himself from being capture rather than to save the girl. He manages to set off some explosions and escape. He passes the woman who appears to be melting but either is revealed as one of the zombies or turning into one. She was part of the Master's plan to capture Jonny and she says he saw through her ruse, but there is no real indication that he did. It reads like he was just unconcerned for her safety. Anyway, now Peril is on the run in the woods.

The next story by Elliott Maggin and Murphy Anderson has a city in grip of weird, motiveless crimes by previously respectable citizens and the stressed police commissioner who goes into the place of business of an occultist that looks more like Aunt Bea than anything else, and getting so freaked out he leaves without his soul. Which is apparently what happened to the other former upstanding citizens. The story really doesn't make it clear whether this is by the woman's design or all just bumbling accident. The last story by Wessler and Sesarego opens with a guy carrying a woman away from rampaging giant beetles--a rampage each blames on the other. In the flashback, we see a UFO land, then the guy talking to beetles. When they complain about people stepping on them, he makes them giant so they can defend themselves. The woman, meanwhile, has the guy thrown off her land. She even has the area sprayed with special gas. The guy leads the beetles in attack, but saves the woman when they demolish her house. It's revealed in the end that their an alien couple who's just been having a spat.

Unknown Soldier #249: The story picks up from last issue with the Nazi agent Helga gloating about killing the Unknown Soldier and about to kill the man she believes to be his father. The old guy fights back, and defeats her. As she lays dying, he reveals he's the Unknown Soldier in disguise and gives his true origin--which really, isn't that different from the planted story she found out, other than it starts before the U.S. official entered the war and involves possible supernatural intervention. It's not clear why Haney thought that was better than what he gave last issue or why he didn't make it more different. 

The backup is a story of Mlle. Marie, mini-skirted, bereted, brunette Red Sonja of the Maquis (spelled Maqui throughout this story) by Kanigher and Ayers. Marie is caught in an explosion and has a face bandaged exactly like the Unknown Soldier during most of this issue, only in a sexist turn, she doesn't take potentially being disfigured near as well nor do the people around her (to be fair, she does take it better than most people would in real life). In the end, though her face heals completely with not even any scar. Whew!

Warlord #43:  Read more about it here.  The backup is more OMAC. He defeats the Vanguisher and confronts the Verner Brothers who look like clones of balding fat guys in early 19th Century coats and cravats. 

Star Trek Endeavour: Uzaveh the Infinite

Back from a hiatus for a couple more episodes, a campaign in Star Trek Adventures... 

Episode 6: "Uzaveh the Infinite"

Player Characters: 
The Crew of the USS Endeavour, NCC-1895, Constitution Class Starship (refit):
Andrea as Lt. Ona Greer, Engineer 
Bob as Capt. Robert Locke
Gina as Cmdr. Isabella Hale, Helm Chief
Jim as Lt. Ross Gordon, Science Officer

Tug as Dr. Azala Vex, Trill Chief Medical Officer

Supporting Cast:

Julie Cobb as Lt. Perez, Security Officer

Michael Zaslow as Lt. Nesmith, Geologist

Synopsis: Endeavour is surveying the 13th moon o Parjali II as a potential cite for an outpost when they discover a humanoid life sign that shouldn't be there. Investigating, they find a robed figure who appears to be a Rhaandarite and a small hut. The being declares himsef Uzaveh, once worshipped as a god by the primitive Rhaandarites, whose evolution he takes credit for. He offers to further "improve" the Endeavour's crew. Locke and his senior officers are suspicious. Locke particularly recalls what led to the Eugenics Wars, but Perez and Nesmith take Uzaveh up on his offer, and Perez is given superhuman strength, while Nesmith is freed from the need to take medication for a genetic condition.

But the crew is unable to contact their ship and they believe Uzaveh is responsible. Eventually, they confront him, and he reveals his true purpose: he needs to evolve them to transfer his consciousness to a suitable body, and he is wearing out the Rhaandarite he is in. A battle ensues with the enhanced crew under Uzaveh's control. A phaser blast eventually disrupts his energies, causing his body to rapidly decay. The crew who were controlled were freed, and their biologies gradually return to normal.

Commentary: This was a mission brief from Mission Briefs 1: Growing Pains, by Michael Dismuke. It was set during the Enterprise era, but easy enough to adapt to a later one. In the original, Uzaveh had an Andorian body.

Jim joined this game for the first time playing Lt. Gordon:

Where the Chaos Thing Fell

When the hordes of the Abyss surged toward the very borders of Hell, one of the mightest of that host was only brought down on the plains of Gehenna. Where the great worm fell, it created a gigantic crater, contributing to the broken nature of the plane to this day. It's in this crater that the corpse of the creature remains.

The shadow of its bulk is tangible, like a black, velvet fungus, it moves over time as if chased by a sun that Gehenna does not have. It is not good to touch the shadow, as it will grow on anything until it consumes it. The Ultroloths sacrificed any number of souls and simulacra in their experiments trying to find a way to bend it to their purposes but to no avail.

They found no use for the shadow, but the same can not be said for the carcass. The Yugoloth consider it a goldmine. The crater is held in the highest security; not even their diabolic allies and clients are allowed to visit their mining and rendering facilities. The dissolution of an abyssal monstrosity is not like the decay of some corpse on the Prime Material Plane. Freed of the monster's alien, but dominating sense of self, its flesh slowly sloughs free and becomes all sorts of smaller grotesqueries. The Ultroloth sorcerer-scientists have been ingenious in the applications they have found for these creatures, including using them as a substrate for the generation of new, lesser Yugoloth. The things also found their way into weapons and material for armor. 

The plague caused in Hell by an attempt to use the creatures' ichor as an enhancement for soldiers was, at best, a minor setback.