The Mystery League
After the League of Extraordinary Investigators was disbanded in 1979 after five years of investigating paranormal mysteries across the United States and abroad, there was left a noticeable lack of any paranormal investigation team capable of adequately replacing the group.
In 1981, when former LXI member, Velma Dinkley, attempted to explain to incumbent President Ronald Reagan the need for the commission of a new League of Extraordinary Investigators to combat the possible supernatural dangers that could come in the new decade, she was rebuffed on the grounds that such a proposed League would be too focused on domestic matters and be useless in assisting in Cold War espionage.
With no one else to turn to Dinkley opted to create her own League, finding those from across the United States who had already faced off against the rash of new monsters, specters, and serial killers.
By 1985 Dinkley had recruited a team of individuals, most of them youths, to help her in once again in investigating the strange cases of the times, and they were as follows;
Nancy Thompson: A dream analyst at Westin Hills Asylum who confronted a monstrous dream demon in her youth. Nancy's education as a psychologist gave her a knowledge of child psychology, which along with her great empathy for the young victims that the League would regularly encounter on their cases, made her one of the most liked and trusted members of the League, becoming a quick friend and confidant to Howard, Deetz, and Shepard. Thompson would regularly act as a temporary, but effective, leader of the League whenever Dinkley was otherwise preoccupied with maintaining the logistical and legal concerns that the team would sometimes run into, managing to even get Frog to follow orders when needed.
Edgar Frog: A little-known vampire hunter from Santa Carla, California, this young man joined Dinkley's League ostensibly for the chance to expand his trade from vampire slaying to overall monster bashing. Throughout his membership with the League though, Frog would frequently use Dinkley's information resources to track down leads to his vampire turned brother's whereabouts, sometimes even temporarily abandoning the League to do so. Frog would turn out to be an abrasive member of the group, his relative youth to the older League members and his hot-blooded, impulsive nature constantly lead to arguments with both Dinkley and Thompson, while his hatred of vampires and similar creatures caused him to quickly distrust Howard.
Scott Howard: A former high school basketball star whose rare genetic condition allowed him to enter into a controlled wolf-like form that gave him enhanced strength and speed. While Howard abilities were accepted by his local community, he was eventually forced to leave when the wider existence of werewolves were exposed to the public when one was shot and killed while transforming on live television, leading to a nation-wide witch hunt for the creatures. Fortunately, he was found by Dinkley who promised that in exchange for Howard joining the League she would try to find a cure for his lycanthropy. While Howard was out-going, personable, and lighthearted towards his teammates, especially in regard to Shepard, his relationship with Frog was highly hostile and the two found being around each together an extreme challenge when not actively fighting some monstrous creature.
Lydia Deetz: A strange fetishist for the paranormal even before having a personal encounter with three specters haunting her New England home, Deetz's main asset to the League was her almost encyclopedic knowledge of the occult, especially in regards to spirits, phantoms, wraiths and the many eldritch dimensions and afterlifes from which they come from. While Deetz's gothic attire was quite reflective of her quiet and sometimes sullen nature, she made up for those qualities with the remarkable ability to be unfazed and calm even in the amidst of the undeniably horrifying elements of the League's many cases, managing to hold her composure better than the likes of Frog, Thompson, or sometimes, even Dinkley.
Tina Shepard: A powerful young women with psychic abilities that were highly reminiscent to the one's held by 1970's League of Extraordinary Investigators member Carrie White. Shepard spent most of her life hiding these powers after their misuse in childhood accidentally led to the death of her father. She was forced to use them though after an unfortunate trip to supernatural hotspot, Crystal Lake. With her abilities exposed Shepard was blamed for her friends deaths and was forced into the notorious Somafree Institute were she was made to participate in several unethical experiments to study her powers, until Dinkley managed to prove her innocence. As a member of the League Shepard mostly kept to herself when not on a case, finding Deetz's constant questions about her powers annoying and Frog's hostility towards them unwarranted. It was only around Thompson, who she regularly confided in, and Howard, whom she had a romantic relationship with, that she ever allowed her emotions to run free without risk of her powers being unleashed.
The Mystery League, or the Gang as it was more causally called by its members, was for the most part a stable team throughout its existence in the 80's. With the noticeable exception of Frog, the team's members managed to foster positive relationships with one another and could be expected to follow Dinkley's or Thompson's lead even in the most perilous situations that the League would encounter. Even Frog, towards the end of the League's run, began to suspend his reservations towards Shepard and Howard.
Their cases were as varied as their talents and led them towards many strange, bizarre, and frequently nightmarish adventures, this list just presents a few that they undertook over their years together in the Era of Slashers;
- Combating the countless serial killers that were rampaging across the country at the time, menaces like the slasher of Crystal Lake, the cannibalistic Sawyer clan, the hitchhiking serial murderer John Ryder, the Lakeshore strangler and "the Shape" of Haddonfield, Illinois, were just a few of the numerous monsters (figurative or literal) that the League encountered during its existence.
- Stranger mysteries led the League into more ethereal adventures, taking them to surreal dimensions such as the Labyrinth, Fantasia, the 8th Dimension and more nightmarish one's like the Cenobite Hellscape, Monster World and several differing netherworlds.
- Participating in a conflict between the rival monster communities of the Colony and Jerusalem's Lot the League actively sabotaged both groups attempts at quickly exterminating the other. Eventually, with the surprising teamwork of Frog and Howard, both severely drained factions were successfully destroyed when the duo lead agents of the B.P.R.D to the town of Lupusville where the two societies had been trying to negotiate an armistice.
- A powerful psychic transmission received by Shepard directs the team into investigating the Overlook Hotel while its shutdown in the winter months. The team is quickly assailed by strange hallucinations and temptations that almost drive them all into insanity. When Shepard almost becomes consumed by the Overlook's influence (in a manner highly similar to Carrie White's own possession during the 70's LXI last case) the team promptly decides to leave and turnover the case to a New York based group of eccentric scientists who manage to successfully contain the place's many specters with their strange yet effective technology.
- In 1985 the League inquired as into why the military launched a small nuclear strike on American soil. This led to the discovery that the government had secretly kept living (or unliving as the case may be) samples of the infamous 1968 reanimation virus and had been forced destroy a medical supply warehouse in Louisville, Kentucky to cover up its accidentally release. Dinkley's decision to expose this secret to the public would later have major consequences for the group.
- Routine infiltration of summer camps throughout Canada and United States allowed the League to investigate these frequent supernatural hotspots for the deranged psychopaths that tended to stalk them. During these cases Thompson made it a point to counsel the campers that survived such monsters before departing. Tales of the League's exploits, along with Thompson's encouragement, caused many children and teens to become inspired enough to combat the supernatural forces in their own neighborhoods.
- A horrific night in Hull House sees the League prevent several satantic cults from opening the gates to Hell and unleashing an apocalyptic demonic invasion on the Earth. The assistance of local S-Mart cashier Ashley Williams was immensely helping in not only allowing Deetz to dispel the gate ritual with the infamous Necronomicon, but also in cutting a bloody swath through the cult's armies of deadities and cenobites. By daybreak the world was saved and the League plus Williams were covered head to toe in blood and gore.
- Team ups with other prominent paranormal investigators, scientists, and hunters of the era were frequent occurrences for the League. Legends such as Carl Kolchak, Jessica Fletcher, Samuel Loomis and Hellboy, along with relative newcomers like Ashley Williams, Buckeroo Banzai, John Winchester, the Monster Club, Melvin Ferd the III, and the Ghostbusters, were all sometime allies of the League on their grisly adventures.
- The League made quick enemies of the annoyingly vague and mysterious organization aptly called the Organization. This international conspiracy was consistently found by the Mystery League to be somehow connected to numerous cases where a set total of five (sometimes only four) youths are slaughtered by some kind of supernatural entity out in an isolated location. Usually a cabin in the woods or an abandoned mansion. Despite years of investigation the League was never able to bring the Organization to justice or discover the reasons by behind their ritualized murders.
The Mystery League came to an end in 1989. Furious that the Dinkley's League would expose government secrets by revealing the truth behind the incident at Louisville to the public, President Reagan ordered the "disposal" of the team. As luck would have it though, the American League of 1988, led by the eccentric time traveler Doc Brown, was unable to compel to this order on account of already being preoccupied exploring the newly discovered cyber realm of Tron. With no other options, Reagan agreed to a proposal laid out by young presidential advisor, Damien Thorn. The creation of a secondary government sanctioned League that would be best capable of handling these paranormal whistleblowers. Given complete freedom in picking the members of this League of Monsters, Thorn quickly gathered a group of monstrous individuals that would suit the purposes for this current mission and Thorn's own diabolical future ambitions.
Filling out this morose ensemble was a mad doctor from Miskatonic University who had discovered a reagent that could reanimate the dead, an insane child preacher that worshiped an ancient fertility demon, a desperate backpacker who had contracted lycanthropy while traveling in the UK, and a teenage vampire who went by the name Evil Ed. With his band of monsters gathered Thorn made his move.
Luring the Mystery League to the town of Crescent Cove, California with rumors that the hostile alien race of clowns that had invaded the town just the previous year had been sighted once again in the area, Damien's League of Monsters unleashed a horde of now zombified townsfolk upon the unsuspecting group. A brawl erupted with the Mystery League using all their skills to brave the swarm of ghouls that were attempting to overtake them. Lupine claws were unsheathed, wooden stakes were used, psychic abilities were unleashed, and friendly ghosts were summoned. Eventually, the melee came to a close when last zombie's head was crushed. With his initial plan thwarted Damien unleashed his League most capable combatants on Dinkley's while he and the reanimator watched the battle unfold at a safe distance. Unfortunately for Thorn his League severely lacked what Dinkley's had in spades. Coordination and teamwork experience. While Damien's werewolf lost himself to the savagery of his curse fighting Howard, and Evil Ed dueled Frog to the death, the deranged boy preacher unleashed terrible magics upon Shepard. All the while the battle was raging around them Dinkely, Deetz, and Thompson were preparing a spell from the handbook of the dead to summon the ghosts of all the victims slayed at the hands of Damien's League. By the time it looked like Howard, Frog, and Shepard where about to overwhelmed by their opponents the spell was cast and the three monsters were themselves quickly overwhelmed and defeated entirely. With his defeat obvious Damien Thorn left the field furious, already planning on recruiting another League of Monsters to take his revenge, this time willing to use more of his resources to recruit famous fiends like the cenobite Pinhead, the slasher of Crystal Lake or the dreamstalker Freddy Kruger. Fortunately, this would never come to pass since Dinkley almost immediately after escaping Crescent Cove regretfully decided to disband the group, correctly guessing that with the government against them attacks like these would continue. And thus, the Mystery League of 1985 came to an end in 1989.
Thompson would return to her career in child psychology at Western Hill Asylum and became renowned for successfully treating young victims of paranormal activity. Unfortunately, her career would end far too soon when her archenemy Freddy Krueger would return to haunt her and this time force her to sacrifice herself to protect her wards, the Dream Warriors.
Frog continued his vampire-hunting across the United States, but would use his League experience to fight other threats when needed. Eventually leaving the road and returning to his hometown of Santa Carla, California, he would look out for the return of his brother for several years until finally getting to confront him in 2008.
Deetz had the strangest history after leaving the Mystery League. Having forgiven the insane specter that had attempted to marry her as part of some convoluted scheme, Deetz traveled with him across the vast weirdness that is the netherworld for years only returning to the mortal plane to give out new handbooks for necronautical interdimensional travel.
Howard and Shepard departed the League together. Having accepted both their unique abilities and natures while adventuring with League, the two went on to find other teenagers with supernatural powers and encourage them to accept their positive aspects, even ending up creating a school for their wards modeled after Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.
Lastly, Dinkley would disappear almost entirely from public view with only the League and her closet friends having any idea about her whereabouts and her investigation of the infernal forces manipulating the government.
The Mystery League of 1985 was an success by almost every metric that can judge a League. Even with relationships being sometimes hostile, the group stayed strong and focused on the myriad of cases they encountered with surprising efficiency from a group of mostly teenagers. While the League may have ended before the 90's own unique decade of horror could begin their success and the lives they saved would have an impact that would color the Leagues that would go after them and bring inspiration for young horror survivors across the United States.