Descent in the Outer Dark

When Janus stopped being just an orbital mechanics curiosity and became a genuine anomaly by broadcasting a signal, a flurry of probes was quickly launched, and Earth waited for the report. Janus was revealed not to be a moon at all. It was an alien artifact. 

It took some time to find out what sort of artifact. Even now, none of the experts are completely sure. Its creators and purpose remain obscure. What humanity learned was there was reward inside: the strange but sometimes useful artifacts of an unimaginably advanced civilization. And then there was something else. Death. It comes in hundreds of ways, at the hands of bizarre traps or random environmental shifts, but also at the hands of murderous alien beings or animals that reside inside the structure.

The Company runs the station serving Janus. Security is provided by a multinational group, but it was expedient to let a corporation run the actual operations. Plausible deniability. Contractors recruited from the desperate masses of a climate stressed and economically depressed Earth sign up to be minimally trained, fitted into battered, armored environmental suites and sent into the alien labyrinth inside, hoping to steal crumbs from the table of strange gods and get out of their realm alive. The statistics aren't good, but the stories of the few that survive to retire rich keep the volunteers coming.

Wednesday Comics: DC, June 1983 (week 3)

My mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around March 17, 1983.

Legion of Super-Heroes #300: It's an anniversary issue, so Giffen and Mahlstedt share art duties with a number of Legion artists from the past: Schaffenberger, Staton, Bender, Swan, Sherman, and Cockrum. The whole Legion of Super-Heroes assembles for an anniversary ceremony, but there are some other things going on as they do. Mon-El and Shadow Lass (with a new look) destroy a giant Khund spaceship in humanoid form. Much of the issue is taken up by Brainiac 5 and Rond Vidar working to cure the psychosis of Douglas Nolan, brother of the late Ferro Lad. He experiences a number of alternate timelines (providing the stories for the guest artists to illustrate). Ultimately, they allow the tortured Nolan to physically escape into an alternate timeline in which he replaces his dead brother in the Legion.

I suspect this is an issue that is more enjoyable the more you are steeped in Legion history.

Night Force #11: Wolfman and Colan start a new storyline. In a mansion in Maine in the 1930s, a cabal of occultists uses their power to help bring Hitler to power, only to be betrayed and murdered by him (also sealing his own fate). Decades later, a wealthy couple buys the house and finds it haunted. They are assaulted by the spirits who brand "666" on the husband's head. The couple turns to Baron Winter for help and for a large sum, he agrees. He and Vanessa prepare in open a door in his home and step out into the 1930s. After a stop in a soda shop to have an egg cream (priorities I guess) the Baron contrives to set up a meeting with the cabal.

This seems a bit more standard fare than the last two arcs, but it's just the first installment so there may be twists to come.

Brave and the Bold #199: Barr and Andru/Hoberg team up Batman and the (Earth-One) Spectre in the penultimate issue of this title. It's got a nice setup: Jim Corrigan (the Spectre's host) disappears while a moving train while the Spectre is out of his body, so the ghost goes to the Dark Knight Detective to solve the crime. It turns out the sorceress Kalindra is trying to get a bad for spirit of her lover, banished to the Astral Plane by a cruel and vengeful wizard centuries ago.  Batman tries to deal with the powerful Kalindra, while Spectre and the lover's spirit fight to the Astral Plane. Spectre wins quickly and then helps Batman by releasing Kalindra of her spell, ending her life. In the aftermath, Batman is angry at the unnecessary death, but the Spectre explains that the lovers' souls were due in the afterlife long ago, and now they are reunited there.

Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #8: Kupperberg brings in his creation from 1977 (though they were last seen in '82), the new Doom Patrol. Reactron, an atomic-powered foe of the Doom Patrol, is lured into the open by the Patrol's gambit of offering Negative Woman as bait--and Linda Danvers happens to be a bystander! She's shooed away from the scene by Tempest, who doesn't know she's Supergirl. Cheryl and Daryll, who have accompanied her to the park, take her back home, and Linda has to watch the battle with her super-vision. Reactron escapes and later appears on the university campus, drawn by the emanations of a secret, experimental nuclear reactor, and Supergirl gets her chance to confront him.

Green Lantern #165: Barr and Pollard/Adkins bring back John Stewart to team-up with Green Arrow. The Guardians contact Stewart to deal with the threat of the alien warrior, Krystayl. The creature was a weapon created on the planet destroyed millennia ago by the combined willpower of the Green Lantern Corps, shattering the monster to shards. This also killed all the people he had absorbed, something the Guardians deemed as acceptable losses. The fragments drifted through space, until one of those shards arrived on Earth and awakened, continuing his lethal orders.

The first encounter between the heroes and the monster doesn't go so well. Some civilians are absorbed, and Ollie's arm gets encased in crystal. Freeing Ollie's arm gives them the idea of finding the crystal's weak point, and they use that trick to shatter Krystayl, freeing the people he absorbed. Green Arrow invites John to get some chili.

In the epilogue, Green Lantern Galius Zed confronts the supposed traitor Eddore and takes his Globe of Power. However, when looks into the globe, he instead joins with Eddore and declares they must tell their fellow Green Lanterns about the Guardians' betrayal.

The Tales of the Green Lantern Corps backup by Klein and Gibbons continues the story from issue 163. After showing Hollika Rahn a vision of what might happen if she shirks her responsibilities as a Green Lantern, a Guardian reveals that her friend Mikkin has strayed into Scientist and gets captured by some taken to the Ministry of Science. The Guardian shows Hollika Mikki's location, and she heads to the rescue.

House of Mystery #317: In "I...Vampire," Mishkin and Cullins/Sutton have Bennett, Deborah, and the fictional Mishkin (Dmitri) battling the forces of the Blood Red Moon led by Mishkin's mother, Dunya. They are trapped in the former Mishkin family home as the sun comes up. While the vampires sleep, Deborah tries to find the hiding places of the Blood Red Moon forces laying siege and kill them to even the odds. When night falls, Dunya's vampires attack. Deborah is about to shoot Dunya with a solar gun, but Dmitri leaps in front of the blast to save his mother. He begs her to finally love him, but she scorns him once again. As Dunya is about to bite Deborah, Dmitri stakes his mother from behind, killing her. He dies of his injuries in Bennett's arms, realizing at last that his mother was long dead.

The other story by Mayer and Zamora is sort of clever. In a magic-based analog to the 20th Century, a couple is aghast to learn their son has been practicing science in the basement. They are visited by the magical authorities, but the son uses his renegade science to save his family, then casts a powerful spell that transforms the world in our technological one, with only him remembering how things were and retaining magical power.

Sgt. Rock #377: The main story, "The Worry-Wart," is one of those introduce a new Easy Company member with a distinct (usually eccentric) trait yarns that forms a significant part of Kanigher's repertoire. This is the variant where the newbie learns something that makes them a better soldier and doesn't die. 

The two backup stories are weird and feel like maybe they were rush jobs or inventory pieces. Both are about the ironies of war, even in the future. The first is a space opera-ish text piece illustrated by Sid Wright. The second is a post-apocalyptic tale with amateurish or underground-looking art (or both) by Brian Bilby, who's only credit are short's (2 of them humor) in 3 issues of Sgt. Rock.

Warlord #70:  In the Barren Earth backup by Cohn and Randall, The Harashashan and humans are cooperating on setting up a serious of aqueducts, but the prejudices run deep and it isn't easy. It gets even harder when the fungoid Mulge attack. They are repelled, but not before they kidnap Skinner. I reviewed the main story in this issue here.

Monorail Station Mosh

Our Action Tales system sci-fi game continued last night with two additional characters meeting up with the crew: Ariana (Mercurian technician) and Rusty Tam (an Earther Smuggler). 

The party had to get back to their contacts room on the spaceliner Solar Queen to achieve the encrypted datachip to pay the pirates who had "salvaged" the Ares Corp yacht. The problem was, Ares thugs had the monorail station staked out, waiting for them.

The crew didn't have many distance weapons, so when the Ares guys pulled electrolaser stunners, all they could do was dodge through the transit station kiosks, making a break for the train. It doesn't go smoothly. There's a lot of tripping and running into each other.

Eventually, though they get on the train and throw out the one thug that managed to get on with them. It's a short trip to the space port where the Solar Queen is in Bay 04. They cross the ramp to the ship, but there's a guard waiting there who demands ID.

Rhyn and Rusty stun him, and the group proceeds inside.

----

From the game running perspective, this adventure shows the Action Tales System tends to end up with a lot of "yes, but..." That's not a bad thing, but care has to taken in choosing what the complications are lest things start to seem comedic, even slapstick. The same sort of thing tends to occur with the Grok?! system too. It's not really a problem for either of my groups, but I could see it bugging some people or perhaps working against certain settings.

The Uninvited Worm

Our Gnydrion game in Grok?! continued last Sunday. The group:

• Antor Hogus (Paul) - Vagabond with a stun wand--and reckless is his middle name!
• Jerfus Grek (Jason) - A vagabond, as well. A man who enjoys a good meal.
• Nortin Tauss (Aaron) - Dabbler in the arcane. When a spell is cast, he does it.
• Yzma Vekna (Andrea) - Teamster with a blunderbuss.

The group sends a message by courier to the Shreev Molok and the Eminent Compulsor. They don't expect back up to arrive for hours, so they must prepare for the rendezvous with the mysterious Wol Zunderbast themselves.

As anyone faced with nothing to do but wait and the ability to expense luxuries, they order room service: grilled velocipede haunch with a side of turnips. Antor requests his well done to the scandalized reaction of the staff. When Nortin opens the dome on his dish he finds a large, fat worm-caterpillar thing with glowing, strobing eyes. 

The creature was attacking them psychically! They had to struggle to avoid its soporific effect. They attacked the creature, and Jerfus finally knocked it to the ground, smothering with his bulk. 

At that point, the man calling himself Wol Zunderbast revealed himself. He was then wearing the traditional garb of a professional assassin. He had an organic-looking ieldri style needle gun pointed at them.

The group firmly declined his offer to politely allow him to kill them. A combat ensued, a mix of successful moves and almost slapstick failures. Despite Zunderbast's superior skills, he was out-numbered, and Antor and Yzma had distance weapons.

Wednesday Comics: DC, June 1983 (week 2)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! Today, I've got the comics at newsstands the week of March 10, 1983. 

Omega Men #3: Slifer, Giffen, and DeCarlo introduce Lobo, though as with many of comics character introduction, he really isn't much like hit character he'll become in the 90s. The Citadel is trying to conquer Euphorix (the last world standing against them), but they thwarted by its shield. Enter Harry Hokum, a human who claims he can help them. Presumably, at Hokum's urging, the Citadel sends out a false message that Euphorix's shield has fallen and it is under attack. Kalista takes the mothership rushs there, not waiting for Primus and the others to return. It's a trap, of course, and Lobo and Bedlam defeat the crew and take Kalista captive. 

Hokum, Lobo's employer, interrogates Kalista, demanding the secrets of Euphorix's defenses. He exposes Kalista to a telepathic creatue, the greeshagurt. The greeshagurt begins to physically merge with her, absorbing her bodily and mentally.

 

Saga of the Swamp Thing #14: Yeates is still on the cover, but there's a new team on the interior: Mishkin and Bo Hampton/Scott Hampton. This was the first issue of Swamp Thing I ever read, and my brother and I read (and re-read) this issue and the next many times in our preteens. It's structured, really, more like a Phantom Stranger story more than a Swamp Thing story. Nathaniel Broder, a genius working with a new electronics technology, transforms his body into a mass of living silicon crystal. Despite the parallels with Swamp Thing, they aren't the same. Broder seems corrupted by his power and turns both Swamp Thing and the Phantom Stranger into crystal.

Batman #360:  Moench takes over as writer. His run on Moon Knight will be coming to an end in a few months, but his long run on the Bat-titles is beginning. This issue really feels like it could have been a Moon Knight story: a knifing-wielding killer with a horribly scarred face, the Savage Skull, is killing cops--and Batman figures out Gordon is next on his list. It turns out the killer is a disgruntled former cop out for revenge. It's perhaps not a great issue, but it has several good attributes: it's got a nice gritty vibe, making Batman distinctly "street-level" and has him actually being a detective.

Flash #322: Continuing from last issue, the Reverse Flash is back and out for revenge, and Barry and Fiona seemed to moving (remarkably quickly) toward marriage. All of this feels like Bates building toward Zoom killing another spouse or at least almost spouse which seems really lazy storytelling. In fact, having Reverse Flash back from the dead seems sort of lazy to begin with. It hasn't been that long. Does the Flash have other worthy rogues? Granted, we haven't seen reverse Flash since 1980, so it's been a few years, and Bates may be going to swerve. We'll see. Anyway, Flash is caught between the Sabre-Tooth (or the Sabre-Tooth's apprentice, the issue suggests both) and the Reverse Flash, but isn't yet aware Zoom has returned.

The Creeper backup has Patton on art, and it looks amateurish. Cuti is now the writer. Everybody's passing this storyline around like a hot potato! Anyway. the Creeper invades the Kraken Clinic (the name's a bit on the nose, even for comics) to try and stop the spread of the monster drug and runs into more patients who become monsters.

 

G.I. Combat #254: The conceit of this issue is that it covers all the wars from World War I to Vietnam. The two Haunted Tank stories deal with Craig's service in the first World War and its relationship with the second, and they're okay. In the other two stories. dealing with Korea and Vietnam, Kanigher strikes a sour note. First off, there are a lot of racial slurs against Asians. Maybe this could be defended as authentic--maybe. But the stories fail to humanize the North Korean and Viet Cong forces. In fact, the point of the Vietnam story seems to be best to treat civilians as enemies because you can't trust anybody. This from the writer who has given us numerous "honorable Nazi" antagonists in other stories.  I don't recall previous stories by Kanigher dealing with Asian wars to know if these are anomalies, but they aren't great.

New Teen Titans #32: Two costumed youths calling themselves Thunder and Lightning wreak unexplained havoc in the streets of St. Louis on an urgent, but mysterious mission to find someone. The Titans respond and try to diffuse the situation, but wind up having to fight. Eventually, it's discovered that the brothers are from Vietnam and are looking for their father, because they believe he is the key to controlling their elemental powers. Wonder Girl tells them their father is dead (which isn't true, but he is missing) and promises to get them help at STAR Labs, ending the crisis.

Thunder and Lightning seem weird to me. I mean, I can explain their actions within the story, but why their costumes, why did this particular background and story seem the way to go? I suspect the answer is "Vietnam" seemed a much more dramatically laden concept in 1983 than it does today. 

A lot of this issue is team drama in the usual X-Men-ish fashion. Wolfman isn't adequately articulating whatever angst Robin is suffering, so it makes him come off looking bad, and I can't help but view it as just a means to an end to debut Nightwing. The Titans TV show had a similar problem making Grayson's angst sympathetic instead of annoying, but at least it made it understandable. 

Superman #384: Bates and Swan/Hunt continue their reshaping of Superman, and in this issue that means writing out Steve Lombard. Some sympathy is cultivated for the generally Flash Thiompson-esque jerky jock, Steve, as he is fired by Morgan Edge after being pummeled by his old college roomie has built a belt to get super-powers. The old roomie comes back to kill Steve, but Superman intervenes. Steve finally lets Clark know that he values his friendship before walking out of the book.

Xeno-File: O'omkaro

Art by David Monge Bustista

 O'omkaru are newcomers to interstellar civilization. They are often found accompanying other species from the Compact sphere. 

The word o'omkaro, though used as such by others, seems not to strictly be the species name, but rather denotes the spirit or mentality of the species or the species as an ideal. As best as can be determined, their modern government seems to be via some form of adhocracy, and in their interactions with each other and with other species they seem to place a great value on the debating of options and consensus. This is not to say they are particularly conformist by the standards of other species. To the contrary, they seem to have a great tolerance for eccentricity, displays of emotion and individuality. 

So far as is known they have two sexes. Bidirectional hermaphroditism occurs, so that an individual may switch sex several times in a lifetime. The triggers for these changes are unknown, and it seems to be a topic they are reluctant to discuss with other species. Personality changes occur along with their sex, and o'omkaro society accommodates this shift in its members, altering responsibilities and roles as needed.

Many o'omkaru are followers of cultural fads (especially those from other species) and many are collectors of some sort. Almost any new religion, political philosophy or art form they sweeps known space is guaranteed to count o'omkaro among its enthusiasts. O'omkaro history has been painted but historians of other species as a churn of secret societies, revolutionary ideas, and religious awakenings.

Got to Catch Them All

Inspired by Vance mostly, people have considered spells as living entities. It was discussed in the Gplus days, and it shows up in Eric Diaz's Dark Fantasy Magic. Back in 2011, before I had really read a whole lot of Vance, the Vancian magic of D&D and the film Pontypool got me imagining spells as a neurolinguistic virus or memetic entity.

Anyway, all that as preamble to a related idea which I'm sure someone has had before but came to me seeing my daughter play Pokemon Go. If spells are living things in some fashion and wizards are forced to adventure to find them and master them, aren't they kind of like Pokemon? Eldritch viruses or self-assembling arcane subroutines. Free-living (at least currently) cheat codes to the universe. Things to be captured and tamed and bent to will of the mage.

I think this sort of framing could make the finding and learning of spells on scrolls more interesting (or at least more challenging), and I think it would definitely suggest interesting things that could be used to develop the background the campaign world.