Super-Substitute Commo Check #2!

I think whatever went wrong with Blogspot is okay now; if I am right, you should be getting this message, and should also have got a message inviting you to receive messages from this address.

Can everyone at his convenience reply, if you got this? John and Jagi, feel free to reply for the boys, whose computer access is limited.

NEW this month! It's the second volume!

PREVIOUSLY IN SUBSTITUTE JUSTICE:

A Green Lantern ring came to Earth to choose substitutes for the Justice League. The League is engaged in protracted battle far from Earth, and wishes the Earth to be defended while they are away.

The ring had icons of each of the Leaguers and bade the random persons it chose to select one.

Vina (Virginia) took the Hawkman icon, becoming Lady Hawk.

Greg (Mike Hichborn) took the Flash icon.

Roy (NPC) chose Green Lantern.

Chin-Su (Joe Hichborn) chose Plastic Man.

The new heroes fought Sinestro and Libra, a man who planned to split their new powers in half and keep half for himself. He got the leftover icons, but Vina escaped her captivity and seized the Superman icon, which partially imprinted her with Superman’s powers before fading away.

Elsewhere in the world, other people were approached by the ring:

Quinn (Andy O’Neill) picked Wonder Woman, and was partially imprinted, because he’s a man. Thus, his powers are similar to Wonder Woman’s but not quite as strong.

Zipperneck (NPC) chose Superman, and was partially imprinted, because he’s evil. Ditto to the above.

The Phantom Stranger rounded up the final substitutes:

Cap’n Bill (John) picked Aquaman.

Sam Skeptic (Orville) chose Zatanna.

Jimmy Olsen (Juss) picked Superman, and was partly imprinted, because he’s a kid. So partial Superman powers, which is still pretty darn super.

Kasumi (Jagi) chose Wonder Woman, and being a woman from a traditional culture, got most, if not all, of Wonder Woman’s powers.

Therefore, most of the icons have finished their work and have disappeared. The Batman and Cyborg icons have not been used; we don’t know exactly where they are. They can’t be still in the ring, because Sinestro destroyed the ring, hoping to get the leftover powers, but didn’t.

All the new Substitutes have Justice League signal devices, allowing them to communicate, and also to locate the teleportation booths in every major city which allow access to the League’s Watchtower on the Moon.

The new Leaguers went into action against various villains, ultimately ending up in a running fight with a villain group called the Hexagon who have military-themed costumes and powers remarkably similar to the Avengers. They also have a teleporter, which makes a purple gateway and makes it very hard to catch them.

The Hexagon was trying to capture Superboy and had already captured Zipperneck. They had exposed Zipperneck to Kryptonite and were stealing his blood, so he wasn’t all that hard to defeat, really. They stole Superboy from Gorilla Grodd in Hawaii, but Cap’n Bill and company thwarted them.

So at present:

1.       We do not know where the Hexagon headquarters is, or how their teleporter works. We do know the Brigadiers can summon the teleport portal, but it takes about thirty seconds.

2.       We do not know the Hexagon’s plans. But we know they wanted Superboy and Zipperneck, and harvested Zipperneck’s blood.

3.       Zipperneck was held at Cadmus, a secret government cloning facility, whose cruel surgeon Dr.Morrow was working, so he (and recovered papers) says, directly for U.S. President Lex Luthor.

4.       We do not know the Hexagon’s entire membership, but they consist at a minimum of:

THE COMMANDER, a red-white-and-blue hero in green-brown-and-black camouflage. He is a master hand to hand combatant, has a variety of guns and knives, and a bulletproof shield. The evident field leader of the Hexagon.

STORMCLOUD, a red-bearded Viking with an axe that commands storms and produces lighting. His storm-command powers are equal to those of Cap’n Bill.

TANK MAN, in a green suit of flying armor with missiles and cannons.

BEE GIRL, who can fly, shrink, and inject poison with “stinger missiles”

THE HURT, a huge mottled-camouflage muscleman with poor diction. The madder Hurt gets, the madder Hurt gets. He told us so.

RAZORHEAD, who is stealthy and fires razor-sharp arrows.

                As I myself have not been able to recover all the emails, this is the situation at the opening of Volume Two:

1.       All the current fights have been resolved. Gorilla Grodd and Zipperneck are your prisoners. All of the Hexagon members have escaped via their teleport window.

2.       All the Leaguers have made radio contact with each other, and therefore 3.

3.       Have been able to come together in the Watchtower. In the great meeting hall, chairs with each hero’s logo are waiting. The only problem is who gets the Wonder Woman chair: Peltast, aka Quinn, or Kasumi, aka Kasumi?

Ah, but whatever force it was which preserved the Leaguer’s powers, or perhaps copies of their powers, has inscribed a crossed spear-and-shield logo on one of the chairs, clearly marking it for Peltast.

4.       The scene opens with the Leaguers debating their next move.

Commo Check

Hey, is anyone getting these? I didn't get the last three posts.

Reply to msolarman@hotmail.com if you see this, okay?

Nevada: So Of Course, There Are More

If the tiara can be picked up out of the melted rock, she will do so...otherwise, she will just have to figure that out later.

Kasumi will take a very quick moment to kneel and pat the cheek of Green Lantern while calling to him gently, because--as this is her very first day superheroing--she feels a bit out of her league and might need the help/guidance.

Then she speeds off toward the miscreant without looking back to see if Green Lantern is awake.

Green Lantern waggles his head and looks around. His ring crackles and produces solid green squiggles with little asterisks and exclamation points.

Zipperneck tries to stand, spins around his axis and falls down on his face.

Kasumi is close enough to see wounds on Zipperneck's neck, arms and legs, which glow faintly green and seep a green-brown-stained gore.

A flickering purple light strobes, brightens, and fades, leaving three people behind like the afterimage of a bright light:

A huge greenish-gray muscleman, with brown patterns layered across his skin like a leopard ... a camouflage leopard. And arms thicker than Kasumi's entire torso.

A superhero with an athletic body, five stars on his green shirt, a big gun and a big knife. He, unlike his musclebound comrade, wears a mask with a star on it.

And a guy in an Army helmet, green and black camouflage, a bow, and arrows with oversized gleaming razor-sharp heads.

The guy with the gun and knife says,

"Never mind the gorilla -- he's not a witness! Every other pair of eyes on this GPS dies! Hurt -- get control of Zipperneck. Razorhead -- the Green Lantern. And I'll get the Jap chick."

"Ayup," says Razorhead, preparing to launch a deadly arrow at the still-confused Green Lantern.

"Right, Commander!" says the Hurt. "I'll get control of him ... spine first!"

Hawaii: Superboy Returns! And Some Other Guys Arrive For the First Time

(any apparent delay in this post's arrival may be due to volcanic activity)

So it is Jimmy, and only Jimmy, who sees three individuals materialize from a purple cloud of energy, hovering in mid-air!

One is a red-headed muscleman with a long red ponytail bound in leather cords, wearing a helmet decorated with lightning bolts and swinging a huge hammer which also has an axe blade on the other end! His costume is green with pentagonal silver shields on it.

One is a thick-bodied green-gray metallic robot with little eye slits in its helmet and a long radio antenna sticking up from its left shoulder. In the palms of its clumsy-looking armor are big guns.

And finally, the third individual is a woman in a green leotard with buzzing bee wings on her back. They appear mechanical, attached to an elliptical metal backpack. She flicks out two long knives from her sleeves, extending well past her hands, and shrinks to an inch in size.

These three flying beings look around, locate Grodd, then head for Cap'n Bill. Well, the Axe Guy and the Armor Guy do. The Bee Girl buzzes around from here to there, flitting across the battle area as if searching for something.

MEANWHILE, Vina says to Superboy:

"Grodd's this way. He does mind tricks. Oh, and the other ones with me are Jimmy Olson--you know him? He's got some of the Super powers. Like I do. Just. Not as much. And we've got a .... venerable king of the sea. I think he really is a sea captain."

She blows her bangs out of her eyes with a puff of air.

"Can you fly? Now, I mean?"

"Oh! and is Tana someone Grodd would target, too, for powers?"

"Naw," says Superboy. "Tana Moon is a reporter for the Honolulu TV station. We were just chillaxin' on the beach, you know, waiting for the city to be in danger. She doesn't have any powers, and gorillas don't go for beach-betties."

He hovers in the air, his leather jacket waving faintly like a cape. He's got the "S" shield on the back of the jacket, too.

"So, I don't have super-vision, but with my handy x-ray sunglasses, I can see ... who the heck are those guys!"

Superboy describes them.

"Tank Man, Stormguy and Bee Girl," he says. "Are they Teen Titans? Seems like anybody can join the Titans these days... they let Beast Boy in."

"Hey, are your Sea King and Semi-Super-Jimmy hip to the green scene? Or should we clue them in?"

The Stone Age: Prisoners of the 21st Century!

(any apparent delay in posting may be due to time manipulation)

"Uh . . ." Quinn says. "I've seen a lot of movies about time travel; does that help? Like, if we say we're going to help you, and really mean it, that means if we succeed then you can go back now because we already helped. And if we didn't succeed then we never will, so our help doesn't matter. There! I think I solved your problem."

He eyes Van-Darr. "As for their memories, yeah, some erasing would probably be a good idea. Maybe his too," he says, nodding at Anthro.

"Hold up," speaks Chin-Su. All this timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly mumbo-jumbo has gone a bit over his head, but something in the preceding conversation caught his ear.

"Who is the Time Trapper? Does this... Iron Curtain specifically exist in 2050, and if so, can we go to that time to bypass it?"

"The Time Trapper? He's the most heinous time-travelling villain of them all," says Ultra Boy loudly. "When the Legion first invented the Time Bubble, we found out about the end of the universe ... and we tried to prevent it, because that's what heroes do!"

"So the next time we went back to visit Superboy in the 20th century, the Time Trapper set up the Iron Curtain of Time at 2050, preventing anyone from going forward or back through that date. Karate Kid was stuck in the 20th for years!"

Karate Kid smiles.

"It wasn't all bad," he says. "I learned to wax cars."

"Anyway," says Ultra Boy, "our buddies in the 30th century went forward to clobber the Trapper and free us. Which they did. Then we tried to go forward and get the Trapper in his fortress at the end of Time, but he set up another barrier in the 75th century! And try as we might, we haven't been able to breach it yet."

"So yeah, we can take you guys home to the 21st. We just can't get home ourselves."

The Stone Age: Prisoners of 2018 AD!

1. 
   

   "For all I know he's my great great great great great great great great grandfather to the tenth power," Quinn replies, "or any of ours, for that matter. OK, maybe not yours. But if you're thinking of killing him, maybe don't do that. Thanks for the help though."

   
   

   "But no, honored Peltast!" burbles Tellus cheerfully. "The Legion has a code against killing .. it's very strict! No, I wondered if perhaps it was necessary to interfere with his memories of this fight, perhaps to suppress them entirely?"

   
   

   Chin-Su glares at Van-Darr threateningly, before remembering he's not some supervillian or criminal - just a tribal leader from an era that Chin-Su doesn't belong in. He looks around at the futures. "Everyone OK? Nothing broken or missing?"

   
   

   Everyone gives a thumbs up, even Anthro, who binds Van-Darr with his own vines.

   
   

   Except the thin, pale White Witch, who exclaims,

   
   

   "Ultra Boy! What's become of him?"

   
   

   ssssBOOOM! Ultra Boy appears at the speed of thunder.

   
   

   "Hey! I found out why the Time Bubble malfunctioned," he exclaims. "Seems if you try to go forward in time past about 2050 AD, the Time Trapper's Iron Curtain of Time pushes you backwards. And the further you're trying to go, the harder you get pushed into the past!"

   
   

   "Grife, we were only going 1000 years forward!" he continues. "Good thing we weren't trying to get to the 75th century, or we might have ended up clear back at the Dawn of Time!"

   
   

   "So, we can return to the mid-21st century, but no farther?" Karate Kid asks.

   
   

   "I guess!" says Ultra Boy. "But maybe someone in the Justice League can help us with our time-technology."

   
   

   The Legionnaires look at Quinn, who has several weapons invented in the Bronze Age, and Chin-Su, who doesn't. Heck, they might as well look at Anthro.