This message #107: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Plot Developments was posted by A few neccessary intermediate scenes before doing further unpleasant things to people from... the Hooded Hood. on Sunday, January 26, 2003 at 17:01.

“So what have we learned?” Nats asked the Lair Legion’s new scientific advisor.

“Never to believe Flapjack when he tells me that the video monitors in the female locker room need renewing,” Al B. ventured, nursing an ice pack to his left cheek.

The flying phenomenon pointed to the four-foot high blue glowing jewel floating above the analysis table. “Aaaand?”

“Oh, that. Yes, it’s pure Gah! energy, sound locked in a crystalline lattice bent from time/space.”

“That much is obvious,” Miss Framlicker, brought in by Nats on a consultancy basis snorted contemptuously. “Have you managed to get any trace signatures beyond the primary pattern yet.”
“Did you really have to call her in?” Al B. Harper winced under the bitter glare of his long-time-ago fiancée.
“Amber St Clare told me you’d requested her help,” Nats shrugged. “Was she really crowned Miss Nevada?”
“The Starseed?” Ziles prompted impatiently. “Is he still sentient in there? He allowed us to transport him back from the moon.”
Al B. Harper checked the monitor readings again. “Run these through the standard Day-Vincent analyses would you, EDWIN?” he asked the lair Legion’s resident AI.
“Oh yes,” the holographic butler answered. “That should stretch my not-inconsiderable computing abilities to their maximum, I should imagine. And perhaps I should try and chew gum at the same time and really stretch myself.” He glanced over at the VDU. “Done,” he almost spat. “Need me to try and solve a crossword for you or something now?”
Al B. sighed and looked at the results. “Hmm, now we’re getting somewhere. You said the robots had been monitoring the power-build up under the Turquoise Area for months?”
“Dancer and Sorceress are debriefing Mr Pyrite right now in the Lair Lounge,” Nats agreed. “He said they were tracking the anomaly for over a year, long before the monkeys got involved.”
“Is anyone else creeped out by the idea of a race of robots living amongst us disguised as humans?” Miss Framlicker shuddered. “Those ManManHunters were bad enough.”
“Well I know one guy who isn’t that creeped,” Ziles admitted. “Last time I saw Art and Mandy I was speculating whether we should set the sprinkler system off. Good job her dad was in Amy’s workshop getting repaired.”
Al B. was still frowning at his data. “Ziles, you were on the moon a few months back with your spacecraft, right? When you and Fin Fang Foom were investigating the Celestians’ capture of Dark Knight and Amazing Guy?”
“Sure,” Ziles agreed. “Back during the World Tour, when Fin and I…” Then the penny dropped. “But I didn’t pick up the anomaly on my sensors when I was there!”
“Well, you were in the middle of one of the Hooded Hood’s more major retcons at the time,” Nats considered. “I mean, he’d just phased out the Enemy of the World and Pierson’s Porter and their lunar meddling, so…”
“So the Starseed here has vestigial traces of retcon energy on it,” Al. B warned. “The reason Ziles didn’t spot it was that the retcon hadn’t happened back then. But history has been changed so it was there, and the robots and monkeys have been chasing that track.”
“A retcon?” frowned Nats. “Whose retcon? Can you tell?”
“The energy signature is pretty familiar,” Al B. warned.
“But he’s dead,” Ziles protested.
Nats swallowed hard. “Like that stopped him last time.”
But in blaming the Hooded Hood for Starseed’s mysterious reappearance, the Lair Legion were in this case entirely wrong.



The old neighbourhood between Off-Central Park and the upper Parody River was full of early twentieth century brownstones, thrown up optimistically during the great boom before the first world war when the city was swelling and prospering. When the great depression began all those optimistic souls found themselves trapped in that interconnected maze of crumbling, ever-shabbier buildings. Crime blossomed. Beer running became protection rackets, and graduated on to drugs and murder. Nobody called the old neighbourhood by its original name any more. Now it was Seedytown, or Hell’s Bathroom, the place the Devil shitted on.
Many secrets were contained within its grim labyrinths, most of them shameful and sordid. But there was one mystery too deep to be easily judged, and it dwelled within a small plumbers and watchmakers shop down a grim dirty alley that you wouldn’t find unless you really needed it. The proprietor’s name was over the door in peeling letters. These days he was called Xander the Improbable.
Messenger was a mystery himself. Last of the angelic heralds, fallen to mortality, battered by the world, fugitive, vigilante, killer, soldier for good, he dragged himself to the door of the Parodyverse’s sorcerer supreme; and he dragged another with him.
He had no time to knock. He kicked out one foot to take the door off its hinges. When it opened suddenly he and the man he carried in his arms toppled into the shop. The bell over the door fell off and bounced on his head, thereby giving a small smug ting of warning.
“Hello!” the person who had opened the shop for him called out, looking down on the postman and his pale, dying package. “Xander was to be saying you were to be coming.”
Messenger looked up: black silk costume, black short cape, fencing epée, black brimmed hat, black domino mask, happily beaming grin. It seemed a lifetime ago since the pure thought being Yo had been Messenger’s Lair Legion teammate. In may ways it was a lifetime ago.
“I need Xander,” the Messenger growled as Yo gently and easily picked up the Dark Knight the postman had delivered. “Something’s wrong with DK. He said that the Chronicler had been murdered.”
Yo looked at the fallen urban legend. Dark Knight was parchment pale, gaunt and unmoving, barely breathing. Blood trickled from his lips. “Is not to be good,” Yo admitted. “Yo is remembering that cute Chronicler of Stories, big cosmic arranger who is to be looking after tales of Parodyverse, is to be sharing existence with his cute other-self Dark Knight. If something is to be happening to the Chronicler is not being good for DK, or for multiverse.”
“Er, right,” Messenger agreed, getting up and looking round the cluttered, darkened shop. “Why are you here? Where’s Xander?”
“Yo is on a little errand from the determined Ms Waltz,” the master of the mystic crafts explained, crawling backwards out of a dusty cupboard full of precariously-balanced books. “She wants to know where the Hooded Hood is, alive or dead. And I…” Just then the books fell over, showering the mage with parchment and printing and skittering across the shop floor. “I am just rearranging my library,” he answered with dignity.
“The Dark Knight needs help.” Messenger urged. “He just keeled over and went like this. You have to…”
“I don’t have to do anything,” snapped Xander the Improbable. “It’s not like the Chronicler of Stories has ever done much for me.” He looked upwards and caught the postman’s glare as Messenger was about to speak again. “I don’t think it would be a good idea to threaten me,” he added.
“You must be helping cute Dark Knight,” Yo pleaded. “He is not to be very much liking bunnies, but he can change.”
“That would be worth seeing,” Xander admitted. “Anyway, this is what you want. Both of you.” And he held up a book of fairytales from the bottom of his pile.
“‘Mother Grim’s Book of Wee Horrifying Stories for the Little Ones?’” Messenger read.
“Hmm, yes. That should get you into the realm of the Chronicler of Stories. That way Messenger can find out what happened to do this to the Dark Knight and attempt to reverse it, and Yo can use the mirrors of seeing there to discover what the Hooded Hood is up to. And with any luck you can bury Pallas and those other annoying ravens, assuming they’ve been massacred too. We can only hope.”
“Cute plumbing and watch-repairing Xander is not to be with us coming?” Yo asked plaintively.
“I prefer not to wander unprepared into highly dangerous situations where I am likely to get massacred,” the sorcerer supreme explained. “So I’m sending you two instead. Besides, I have to go and ruin the day of a man with a Satanic guitar. Happy reading.”
And the book of fairy tales rustled its leaves in a wind that wasn’t there and waited for an audience.



Fin Fang Foom limped into the Lair Mansion in a livid fury, trailing Hatman, Lisette, and Amber St Clare behind him. “Fin, calm down,” Jay Boaz urged him.
“Calm?” the dragon roared, his agitated tail demolishing a coffee table and a standard lamp. “Calm? We have a Legionnaire missing. We have a whole flaming country missing. And the official word is that we sit on our hands and do nothing while our comrade’s in danger and maybe the planet as well.”
“I don’t think Drury liked it any more than you did,” Hatman reasoned, “but the government has decided to try a diplomatic solution first. Let’s face it, the last thing we need is another war with a nuclear-capable enemy on adjacent territory.”
“The Superhero Ordinances won’t cover our backs on this one,” Lisette warned. “Just so you know when you go in anyway.”
Amber St Clare looked up. “What?” she demanded. “You’re not going to Candia.”
“Of course not,” Hatman assured her. “Much as I want to find out what’s happened to my native country and check on G-Eyed and Falc, orders are orders. We have to play by the rules.”
“Crap,” snapped Lisette. “We don’t leave our people in there. And especially not Bry. Anyway, you’re not deputy leader any more. Finny, call out the troops.”
“Don’t,” warned Amber. “This isn’t a line you should cross. And if you do cross it, I walk. And I’ll actually be walking straight to the White House to get your charter and clearances revoked and to swear out warrants for your arrests.”
“I don’t like threats,” growled the dragon. He turned on Lisette next, “Or coercion. And I don’t like this situation.”
Hatman nodded. “So what are we going to do?”



“In deciding to wait, Fin Fang Foom has again showed his weakness as a leader,” Pegasus exclaimed as she practised a series of complicated aerial manoeuvres in the Lair Legion gymnasium. As superior beings we should not be bound by the petty restrictions of feeble and temporary governments.”
“Boy, I’d hate to be the traffic cop who gave you a parking ticket,” dull thud considered. He was training by reading the New Music Express and drawing moustaches on the faces of all the singers he didn’t like.
CrazySugarFreakBoy! looked worried and put down his Justice League collected edition. “You don’t think much of this LL do you, Peggy?” he asked sadly.
“That’s Pegasus to you,” snapped the centaur-woman.
“Peggy,” mocked CSFB! “If you want me to call you anything different, you’d better meet me in the practise ring.”
~~I’m not sure that Pegasus understands the concept of mock combat~~ Cressida, the psionic tapeworm inside thuddy warned.
“You are challenging me?” the former field leader of the Scourge scowled down at the green-and-orange-clad action hero.
“I’ll go easy on you,” he promised. Then he somersaulted over the side of the combat square and landed lithely on one hand. “When you’re ready, Peggy. In your own time.”
Faster than thuddy could see, Pegasus swerved round and unleashed a barrage of cosmic bolts.
CrazySugarFreakBoy! rolled under them, bounced off one wall, and caught hold of Hatman’s basketball hoop on the other. “Do you need to borrow a weapon of some kind?” he wondered helpfully.
~~Now stay calm, Pegasus ~~ Cressida advised. ~~You know Dreamcatcher can be a little annoying, but…~~
“Nah, kick his butt,” dull thud suggested, popping open a can of beer. “If you can.”
The Pegasus shifted to winged human form, twisted in midair, and lashed out to hammer CSFB! through the wall. He dropped beneath her grip, leaving only a profusion of explosive combat candy to send her reeling away. “See the thing about the LL,” he explained as she ripped the metal sheeting from the wall and tried to swat him, “is that we’re full of surprises.”
~~And a goodly death wish~~ added Cressida.
Pegasus changed tactics, shifting to full winged horse form for better airspeed then back to female warrior in time to catch one of Dream’s ankles in an iron grip.
CSFB! grinned and looped the wire of his go-go yo-yo around her wrists before twisting his foot free from her grasp. “You’re a great gal and a pretty good fighter, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t have a trick or two,” he went on.
Pegasus grew wings and launched up to the ceiling, veering horizontal at the last moment to lash her opponent into the roof. Dream allowed his impossibilityium-clad self to bounce and used the momentum to tangle the flying woman’s wings in his unbreakable yo-yo yearn while spraying silly string ahead of her to tangle her flight path. A deft wingover manoeuvre avoided the snare but allowed Dream to leap on her back as she toppled to the ground.
“Why do I never get dates like this?” dull thud wondered as the combatants vanished into a tangle of foam and coloured string.
~~Personal hygiene~~ Cressida suggested.
Dreamcatcher Kokopelli Foxglove slithered himself out from the confused tangle that enclosed the Pegasus just in time before a cosmic bolt shredded the materials surrounding her; except the yo-yo, which held her tightly pinned. A few more loops left her hogtied with CSFB! looking down at her. “All I’m saying is, don’t judge us too quickly,” he said seriously. “And don’t underestimate us.”
“Never again,” promised the Pegasus as he released her. “Never again.”



“Magenta St Evil!” hissed Goldeneyed as he and Falcon got their first look at the unquestioned Empress of Candia, the gloomy nation-state that had unaccountably replaced Canada on the world map. “You’re under arrest for the theft of a large North American country.”
The queen of all she surveyed leaned back on her golden throne and laughed. “Oh, I do love superheroes with tight body-hugging black costumes,” she admired. “So forthright, they are. And jutting.”
Falcon oriented his weapons package on Magenta St Evil (in a different sense to the G-Eyed dialogue). “The man said you were busted, lady. Now hand back the nation you stole and come quietly.”
The Queen stopped laughing. “Minion,” she called to her Prime Minister, “you remember that conversation we had about executing a dozen orphans each minute until the superheroes surrendered?”
“Yes, your Gloriousness,” grovelled the Minion.
“Get ready to put it into action.”
“By the time he does you’ll be toast,” Falcon warned. G-Eyed backed him up, his hands casually lowered to below his waist.
Magenta St Evil supped from a golden cup and threw it at a waiting peasant. “I don’t think so, little chicken,” she answered. “You see, you boys haven’t the faintest idea what’s going on here, have you?”
“As ruler of a significant and nuclear-capable nation, the Empress is of course diplomatically immune from arrest by superheroes,” the Minion explained smugly. “Furthermore, you have invaded sovereign territory and broken local laws regarding unlicensed possession of superpowers, for which the usual penalty is death.”
“I might be willing to commute it to hard, rough labour in Goldeneyed’s case,” leered Magenta, raising one painted eyebrow. The thick white slab on her cheeks cracked as she grinned evilly.
“Tell us what’s going on then,” Falcon challenged. “What did you do to Canada?”
“Me?” The Queen feigned shock. “I did nothing to that miserable, forgettable, do-gooding little country. My ally, on the other hand, retconned it out of existence, replacing it with a realm far more useful, designed to my specifications and ready for my supreme rulership.”
“All hail her Spendidness!” toadied the minion. “May she reign a thousand years. Er, and still be twenty-one years old, of course,” he added hastily.
“Nearly fumbled that one,” G-Eyed mocked him. “So who did the retcon, Magenta? That Cowled Criminal freak from the future who thinks he’s HH?”
The villainess smiled as if she was ordering her men to throw another peasant on the fire. “I may explain the genius of my evil master-plan to you over a little light supper,” she simpered. “I get positively girlish after a few drinkies.” Her smile vanished. “Oh, and if you try and teleport out of here I wasn’t kidding about the orphans. Take the feathery one to the dungeons. Leave the yummy one here for further questioning.”
“Do we fight?” Falcon asked as the guards came to surround him.
“Not till we can save those orphans, I suppose,” worried G-Eyed.
Magenta St Evil uncorked the champagne.
Goldeneyed had never expected all that paperwork waiting for him at the Lair Mansion to look so good.



“I said stop,” Sorceress declared forcefully. She gestured and Art and Mr Pyrite hurled across the Lair Legion living room in opposite directions. “This isn’t getting us anywhere, and shortly I shall become peevish.”
“Don’t make her angry,” Dancer advised Art, Randy, Mr Pyrite, and Mindy. “You wouldn’t like her when she’s angry.”
“I’m sitting here real quiet,” Randy assured them.
Mr Pyrite picked himself out of the wall and pointed a finger at Art as he sat by Mindy. “I have every right to rip the head off this daughter-seducing little…”
“Do I look like Oprah?” Whitney Darkness warned with deceptive gentleness.
“Nope,” admitted Mindy. “I can still see the horizon past you.”
“Look, I think you all need to calm down,” Dancer suggested, “while you still have your own shapes,” she added, glancing at the Sorceress. “Let’s look at the facts. Randy, Art, you went to work for an evil simian genius.”
“It never said evil in the want ad,” Art assured her. “And then we were sort of trying not to get disintegrated.”
“Plus we got free donuts,” Randy remembered wistfully.
“Your Evil Monkey is in custody pending determination of whether he can be charged with, well, anything,” Dancer pointed out, “And for a rabies test.”
“I think he was pretty upset that he didn’t get the Starseed,” Randy admitted.
“That was our Starseed,” Mr Pyrite argued. “We’d been tracking it since it manifested there. It is the future of robotkind.”
“Actually, it’s our Starseed,” Sorceress answered. “Manuel was a member of the Lair Legion before he ascended to a higher level of Gah!ness.”
“Of course, he was more of a human and less of a big shiny energy crystal last time we saw him,” Dancer conceded. “But right now I think we have to decide what to do with Art and Mindy.”
“He told me he was an evil monkey,” Mindy pointed out, glancing across to the young man beside her on the sofa.
“Like we haven’t all heard that line a million times,” Dancer snorted. “Point is, do you still want to see him now you know he’s just a teenage human?”
Mr Pyrite was about to speak when Whitney turned to look at him.
“Maybe,” conceded Mindy. “I need to think about it.”
“What about you?” Dancer demanded of Art. “Was she just a bit of robot fun, or do you have deeper feelings for her?”
“I ran away with her,” Art pointed out. “Sure, originally it was about the mission. And maybe a little bit about the wild abandoned sex.” He glanced across at the seething Jack Pyrite, “Er, but not with her, of course,” he added hastily. “And then it was… more.”
“That’s the way it works,” admitted Sorceress. “You know, I never thought I’d end up as an android social worker.”
“Okay,” decided Dancer. “Here’s what happens. Mindy goes home with Mr Pyrite, who promises not to do any more world-domination stuff. Next week Art buys a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates and goes to dinner at Mindy’s house, meets her mom, that kind of thing. Art and Randy sign up for a volunteer youth reform programme and do something useful like help out at the Seaman’s Mission. I can put in a good word for them. We take it from there.” And seeing everybody about to object she added, “And nobody gets dismantled and everybody gets to keep their current shape and species, right?”
Everybody reluctantly agreed.
“One thing puzzles me, though,” Sorceress admitted. “I mean, apart from where your robots sprang up from in the first place. What makes you think that Starseed’s next evolution is the key to robot destiny?”
“Whoever holds the Starseed will have a huge advantage when the upcoming Resolution War begins,” Mr Pyrite answered as if it was self-evident. “After all, they will know when it is to start, and thus have a better opportunity to triumph.”
“How will they know?” Dancer wondered.
“Why, because the Starseed awakening again is what will trigger the Resolution War, of course,” answered Mr Pyrite.



“I think you’ve made a mistake,” Visionary explained worriedly to the men in the grey combat suits who were pointing lethal looking silenced assault weapons at him.
“At least we hope you have,” Fleabot added more honestly. He was calculating the odds of being able to leap out of the blind alley he and the possibly-fake man were caught in when the firing started.
“You see, I’m Visionary. I’m not important enough to kill.”
“Target identity confirmed,” noted the assault squad leader. “Commence interdiction.”
“Wait! I’ll tell you everything I know!” called Vizh.
“It’ll take less than two minutes,” added Fleabot helpfully.
The weapons remained at the ready. “Talk,” the assault squad leader commanded. “What was your mission?”
“Ah,” worried Visionary. “That. Well, I had a note pinned to my sleeve but I kind of lost it when we were chased by those wild dogs, and then there was that problem with the runaway steam hammer, and we…”
“He means he’s forgotten,” Fleabot translated. “Don’t think this is a clever bluff, by the way.”
“But I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to pick up some peanut butter on the way home,” Vizh offered helpfully. “Or maybe some shower gel.”
The assault squad commander couldn’t believe how accurate Visionary’s dossier was. “Eliminate him.”
There was a high pitched squeal followed by a deep bass riff that literally shredded the assault squad’s high tech weaponry. Then the sounds coalesced into a rapid-fire rendition of Black Betty that sent the soldiers flying off into walls. When the last chord sounded only the squad commander was left standing.
Chronic dropped down from the wall and smacked him in the face with his guitar.
“Hello,” said Visionary.
Chronic called him some bad names. “I was sitting in Off-Central Park bumming change when Xander reminded me that I owed him. Just a little rescue he said. He never mentioned the heavy assault weaponry stalking you.”
“I wouldn’t call that stuff heavy ordinance,” sniffed Fleabot. “High-tech, maybe, but not…”
Then the next generation Sentinoids decloaked around them.
“Oh, that heavy assault weaponry. Right.”



Falcon let them take away his flight gear and weapons harness, but he’d already concealed his remote-control summoning device to call them to him later. He’d be ready to make his escape anytime after the next eight to twelve hours, depending on his metabolism and whether the cell they locked him in had soft toilet paper.
They led him under the Empresses’ palace into the inevitable dungeons. Falcon judged these to be decorated in medieval grand guinol rather than sinister modern hospital. Here sweaty shirtless torturers worked on cringing bloody peasants, to the ever-present soundtrack of lashes and screams. His jailers led him downwards.
Beneath the dungeons, far beneath the ground, were the special holding cells. It was clear that Magenta St Evil had lots of experience holding superheroes, and had prepared accommodation accordingly. “Inside,” ordered the Minion. “We’ll arrange a wake-up torture call for you at 5am.”
But Falcon was more interested in the view he had through a narrow slit window down into a much larger cavern below. “What the hell’s going on down there?” he puzzled. “What’s that green mist?”
On the floor of the summoning chamber the sorcerers had already eviscerated over two hundred sheep-like peasants and channelled their life forces to summon the kaos energies that had been spread and lost throughout the planet. Now the last moments of the ritual were at hand.
“The mistress is recruiting,” the Minion boasted. “She has many fell servants, but she needs a commander who can hold them to her will. A champion of darkness.”
“Someone else who needs their ass kicking then,” Falcon noted. “So little time, so many asses.”
But his flippancy was silenced by the aura of dread that suddenly fell upon them all. The green mists coalesced into a man-shape, then solidified to become a handsome bearded man of lordly bearing in his middle years. Even naked he commanded the room. With a single glance he stole the life forces of the Candian sorcerers and took their strength for his own.
Count Armageddon was back.



Trickshot used an EMP arrow to cripple the lethal stunulators and grapple arms on the door to the Lair Mansion, fished out his battered communicard to get the door open (quicker to use it to slip the latch than to activate the swipe-lock), and pushed open the double doors. “Hey guys! You kin start cheering. Everybody’s favourite adventuring archer is back from the wars and ready to rock!” And just in case people might misunderstand he added, “Er, that’s me, Tricky.”
Then he spotted the bodies of the Lair Legion strewn around the wrecked mansion. The banshee was keening in the distance. The foreground was filled with the mangled corpses of his teammates.
Dancer’s severed head hit him in the chest as the villain turned to look at him. “Welcome home, ‘Tricky’,” said Onslaughter. “You got here just in time.”

Next issue: Trickshot vs Onslaughter in a one-on-one fight to the rather squelchy finish. The LL go to Candia, despite being dead. Count Armageddon, who used to be dead but isn’t any more, gets to meet them. More people try to kill Visionary. Yo and Messy visit a place of ravens and destiny (but mostly ravens). Exemplary vs Chronic. But mainly, the heart-rending tale of a nation born in triumph and tragedy (and quite a lot of mud). Be here for Candia, my Candia, coming soon.

This poster posed from 195.92.168.169 when they posted

• #107: Untold Chronicles of the Lair Legion: Plot Developments - A few neccessary intermediate scenes before doing further unpleasant things to people from... the Hooded Hood. - 17:01 on January 26, 2003
• This keeps getting more epic. Which is making me a bit afraid for several lives. Well, mainly one. - (nt) Nats says this had a lot of good lines, and the neat scene divider thingies... - 17:53 on January 26, 2003
• Don't worry. CSFB! usually gets out of these things okay. - (nt) HH - 05:07 on January 27, 2003
• More nudity than usual in this one. And for once it's a nudity I'm happy to not have been a part of. - (nt) spiffy - 17:57 on January 26, 2003
• One medium-sized villain flashes his goodies, that's all! For major nudity go back in the archives to that battle between Troia, Sorceress, Dancer, and Hatman against Degenerus, on a nudist beach in Greece. Really. - (nt) HH - 05:08 on January 27, 2003
• Gahh. Too many bits flying around. But good job :) - (nt) whit, feeling very alive - 18:07 on January 26, 2003
• I'm not sure Pegasus has too many bits. Just the right amount, many would say, and they'd be happy to see them flying around. - (nt) HH - 05:09 on January 27, 2003
• Things are heating up! Hmm. Wonder how the LL can be SPOILER if they are SPOILER? - (nt) ag wants to know WHY there is'nt a Science Hero around to help them? - 18:48 on January 26, 2003
• All will be revealed in forthcoming apisodes, although not in a spiffy kind of way. - (nt) HH also refers you to Premiere #48 - 05:10 on January 27, 2003
• Ah. Where are we now in Premiere? Guess I could just look down to see. :) - (nt) ag - 07:31 on January 27, 2003
• Where are you right now? In deep, deep trouble. - (nt) Gloating HH - 15:48 on January 27, 2003
• Very good. Turning this fairy tale in to a horror story should be fun.... - (nt) Messenger - 21:22 on January 26, 2003
• Mother Grim would be proud of you. - (nt) HH also refers you to UT#109, wherein the Chronicler sub-plot ceases to be sub. - 05:11 on January 27, 2003
• "The subtext is rapidly becoming...well, text." - (nt) Nats - 18:34 on January 27, 2003
• Not rapidly, unfortunately. Slow and laboriously, yes. - (nt) HH - 05:42 on January 28, 2003
• I love how everything is linked back to past stories. Continuity...who would have thought it could be so good? - (nt) Al B. - 06:09 on January 27, 2003
• Shhh. There are people out there who would shoot you for saying that. - (nt) HH notes that it does help to have so many backstories to draw on. he's spent a lot of time layong traps, er, subplots. - 15:51 on January 27, 2003
• Was lovign ti right to the last little bit. Slightly concerned by that :-/ - (nt) Dancer's head - 12:29 on January 27, 2003
• It just goes to show that you should never lose your head in a crisis. - (nt) Bad-puns-r-HH - 15:49 on January 27, 2003
• Oooh... illustraited. I like that. And the story as well. - (nt) Visionary, who thinks the note might have read "please look after this bear". - 13:03 on January 27, 2003
• I don't think Bear would be the word Lisa would write upon the note. - (nt) HH - 15:52 on January 27, 2003
• I enjoyed that response. - (nt) Visionary, chuckling. - 17:07 on January 27, 2003
• Only because you didn't read what Lisa actually wrote - (nt) HH - 17:09 on January 27, 2003
• Epic storylines and Oprah Winfrey mockery, excellent. - (nt) ManMan - Who doesn't want to know where Falcon conceals his remote control... : ) - 14:37 on January 27, 2003
• Hey, at least he's got a remote control to conceal. - (nt) HH - 15:53 on January 27, 2003
• So many asses, so little time? - (nt) Falcon has yet to join a sorority - 16:58 on January 27, 2003
• Next issue Falc might even get to kick some. - (nt) HH wants to wrap up the Candia plot next ish if possible - 17:08 on January 27, 2003
• At least he's not kissing them! - (nt) ag - 07:37 on January 28, 2003
• Now that's just an ugly rumour put abour by people who know what kind of trouble G-Eyed's in. And next episode he does indeed get some lip action. - (nt) Wicked HH - 12:40 on January 28, 2003
• You say that like the LL can't do diplomacy...or like we can't have any President impeached within forty-eight hours... - (nt) Finny: Has His Blackmail Files Right Here - 22:34 on January 27, 2003
• You say that like its the President who's in charge. - (nt) HH - 05:41 on January 28, 2003
• Methinks Trickshot might need a Donar-arrow for this battle... - (nt) Hat - 15:34 on January 28, 2003
• He's certainly going to need a miracle of some sort. - (nt) HH - 03:12 on January 29, 2003
• Ohhh...pretty pictures...and great story, as always! - (nt) Chronic - 21:38 on January 28, 2003
• But for some reason the image of CSFB! doesn't appeafr on my version, and I don't know why. - (nt) Puzzled HH - 03:12 on January 29, 2003
• Heh. You brought him back, just like we talked about. Now, you just need to give him an old-world base of operations, to complete his nature as a modern-day Machiavelli. And I got a good scene. I may have said it before, but it's still interesting to see CSFB! being presented as someone with seniority to the team's rookies, if for no other reason than how much it casts him against type. - (nt) CSFB! - 01:59 on January 29, 2003
• I was really thinking about that old Spidey vs Firelord battle, where webhead credibly won against a much more powerful opponent through playing to his unique combat strengths - (nt) HH - 03:11 on January 29, 2003
• sigh - (nt) ag misses old Marvel - 07:43 on January 29, 2003
• It's alive and well over at DC, in Power Company - (nt) HH - 10:40 on January 29, 2003