The New Wanderers Issue #2 - Relentropy
Even as he watched Her, watch the Villain, watch them, the Badguy longed for Her to be near him once more. It had been so long since they had been together, first as friends, then, much later, as more. Still, the Badguy could not bring himself to act; not yet, anyways. He had to wait for all the players to fall into place, which would happen soon enough. In this place of timelessness, he had all the patience in the world.
Besides, patience was what a bad guy was supposed to have and he was, in fact, the Badguy. He knew this was true primarily because of the manipulation. Warworld, Stormwatch, the Rock of Eternity, the Prime Wanderers, the Villain, Her, all of these were his pieces; his pawns to be manipulated across a chess board with every square the same color. He was determined to see things through and would stop at nothing to ensure that his final goal was attained.
He looked for a mirror. There was none. He wanted to look good for Her.
As the Badguy watched, the Villain began to make his move. Of all of them, this was the true monster. It was with the barest hint of irony that the Badguy noted who the Villain really was. He would descend upon the Players like a storm cloud of malignant emptiness and there would be pain; there would be death. But that was what Heroes lived through. They had to endure or they would become bad guys, like the Badguy, or, even worse, villains, like the Villain.
The factor that stood out among all this, however, was Her. Where would she stand? Where did Her destiny lie? Her soul was taken from her and her pain never ceased from that moment. When the forces began to force allegiances, with whom would she walk?
Something skittered across the metal floor of the Badguy's control room. He would have to remember to deal with that later.
"I'm telling you," Sunburst said with more than a hint of agitation, "I have never heard of Superman or Wonder Woman or this Justice League or anything that you're talking about in my life."
"So you've never heard of any of these superheroes?" Asked Cosmic Boy, "Maybe in comic books or movies."
"Well, I never really read comics," Sunburst replied, "I was more of a football guy when I was a kid."
"Leon had some comic books." Added the Stormwatch member called Sublime of her teammate Frostbite, who was currently in the makeshift medical bay as Invisible Kid and one of their own, Dr. Grunier, were doing their best to save his life, "I don't remember seeing any of those characters. He mostly had ones based on real people, like Majestic."
"But they are 'real people'!" Triad pleaded, "They were the inspiration for the Legion!"
"Hmm." Brainiac 5.1 said, eliciting a look from the rest of his teammates. They waited for a further explanation, but none seemed forthcoming.
"Brainy," Kid Quantum said in an admonishing tone, "What do you mean, 'hmm'?"
"It is clear that these individuals come from a Universe that is vastly different from the ones we have experienced." The Coluan said, calmly, "It is entirely possible that they have never encountered anyone from the heroic era that we are familiar with, even though they appear to be from the Early 21st Century."
"Early 21st..." The one called Jester repeated, "You're time travelers, aren't you?!"
The members of the Wanderers stared at him for a moment, unable to determine the best way to explain Stormwatch's current situation. Finally, the silence was broken.
"Captain Atom!" Sunburst suddenly erupted.
"What?" Brainiac 5.1 asked her in surprise.
"The message from the Authority said that they were dealing with an SPB from an Alternative Earth called Captain Atom." Explained Sunburst, "The next thing we knew, the Daemonites and Kherubim were high-tailing it off-planet."
"With the crisis," Nautika continued, "Stormwatch members were pulled in from all over. Team Achilles was to coordinate the and my husband, er, Sunburst, and I were brought out of retirement."
"When the aliens started getting the hell out of Dodge, we managed to pull four of the old Stormwatch shuttles out of mothballs and see if we could intercept." Sunburst added, "If they knew what was happening, we wanted to know, as well. We set about putting together teams as best we could with the SPBs that were available."
"As we left orbit, we saw a wave of white energy enveloping the Earth and bolts of the energy shooting out. We watched as some of the alien ships and the other three shuttles were wiped out. We were following a Kherubim vessel into a warp gate when everything went white for us, well."
"The ship took one hell of a hit and the cockpit was shattered. We were slammed around pretty badly, but Frostbite managed to use his cold generation abilities to seal the vessel, despite injuries he sustained from the blast."
"We floated for a while, but we really had no idea how long. There was no way to tell time. All we know is that we were pretty much out of supplies and running low on atmosphere. It couldn't have been more than a week, really."
"You're lucky we found you, then." Triad said.
"Perhaps..." Brainiac 5.1 added.
"What do you mean, 'perhaps', Brainy?" Triad retorted, "If we hadn't found them, they'd be dead."
"No. No, I don't think they would be." The Coluan explained, "They weren't in any danger because they were in a form of temporal stasis."
"How do you know?" Kid Quantum inquired.
"When you brought their shuttle in, I scanned for any temporal anomalies, as I normally would." Brainiac 5.1 expounded, "I noticed that your stasis field, Kid Quantum, interacted with the remnants of another stasis effect. Although the effect had ceased by the time you arrived, a residue of the prior stasis effect remained."
"But I didn't feel anything." Quantum added, "Wouldn't I have felt some sort of pushing back if my stasis field had interacted with another one?"
"It didn't," the scientist said, "The prior effect had stopped affecting the shuttle, so there was no active field to deal with. I imagine if it had been in effect, there would have been quite a feedback to deal with on your end, Jazmin."
"So what does this mean to us?" Sunburst asked the pair, "What happened to our Earth?"
Brainiac looked at them, trying to find the words to explain to them what had happened. He couldn't find them. Since his self-upgrade, Brainiac 5.1 was able to better empathize with others. This had come in quite handy a number of times, but was most notable when he interacted with his two alternate selves. The older Brainiac 5 from New Earth lacked the capacity to understand the needs of others, although he had developed the insight to perceive emotion. The younger Brainiac 5, the one Universe-Prime, lacked any emotional understanding and, furthermore, any trust. Observing them led Brainiac 5.1 to realize that his upgrade was not only the right thing to do, but the best thing he could have done to help in his own evolution. It ensured that he would never become like his infamous ancestor, the original Brainiac, who sought to evolve through becoming more machine-like and eliminating emotional attachments altogether.
Of course, the drawback to having empathy for others was that sometimes it became impossible to find the right words for the duty at hand. Kid Quantum, however, was able to both understand his delay and find the right way to tell them.
"I'm sorry," she said, immediately eliciting the understanding that they may not have a world to which to return, "That white energy, it was pure entropy. Just as it with our universe, it consumed yours."
"Consumed..." Sublime said, "What do you mean by 'consumed'?"
"It has been destroyed, Sublime." Karate Kid said solemnly as he entered the room, "And, I am sorry, but your comrade did not make it."
"Fr... Frosbite?" The young girl said, clearly trying to take it all in, "He... he's..."
"We did everything we could," the Kid added, "But I am afraid that our makeshift medical lab does not have the facilities necessary to offer proper modern medical care."
"By modern, Rachel," offered Dr. Grunier, using Sublime's birth name, "He means from the Wanderers' 31st Century. We were still working with equipment far in advance to what we have available in our century, but the internal damage was far too severe."
Sublime lowered her head. Jazmin moved close to her and put a hand on her shoulder. In response, Sublime firmly embraced Kid Quantum and put her head on the Wanderer's shoulder. She wasn't sobbing and she didn't appear to be crying at all. Brainiac 5.1 knew that she was probably in shock, a perfectly reasonable response given the circumstances. He looked around the room and observed the other new arrivals.
Sunburst and Nautika drew closer to each other. They had mentioned that they were husband and wife and were also, clearly, the most experienced on the team. Sunburst was a tall, good-looking man with blonde hair, tan skin, and blue eyes. He wore a red bodysuit with a yellow sunburst design on the upper-left of his chest. Gold-colored bracers and a belt of pouches on his right thigh completed Sunburst's outfit. He was every bit the superhero archetype of the late 20th Century.
His wife, on the other hand, was a bit more distinct. Nautika had the body of a normal human, despite the unnatural tint which seemed to change based on her environment. Currently it had a gray tinge to it, like that of the Nomad's interior. Her face was what gave her away as being something other than human. She lacked any nose, whatsoever, and her ears were pointed. This was possibly due to some form of amphibious heritage as she seemed to have some sea-going capabilities. She wore her deep black hair in a shoulder-length bob and a shiny black and green bodysuit.
The rest of the group was dealing with the news in their own way as well. Taboo had been quiet since they had arrived. She had chalk white skin, bright red lips, long , curly crimson hair, and green eyes. Her incredibly revealing outfit appeared to be made out of some form of living red metal to which a tail was attached that she could manipulate. She had seemed all but catatonic; not speaking and simply remaining on the perhipheral. Brainiac noted that the only response she had to the news of her universe was one of a light nod. It seemed possible that she had somehow already suspected that her world had been destroyed.
The three soldiers also seemed to take it in stride. Dr. Grunier with her dark hair and blue eyes, had clearly seen a great deal in her career as a combat medic. The one they called "Jester" let out an ironic chuckle and swore when he heard the news. He was dressed in combat uniform, but he was clearly different than the other soldiers. His skin was golden and his eyes were bright red. The most curious reaction was from the masked soldier named Weiss. He had been on alert since they had arrived and, despite reassurances that they were safe, had remained combat-ready. Upon hearing the fate of his universe of origin, he let out a sigh that Brainiac 5.1 could have interpreted as relief.
Then there was Sublime. Tall, blonde, and well-muscled, her outfit consisted of 20th-Century blue jeans, a tank top, and leather straps wrapped around her limbs. She had a tattoo of a massive "29" on the shoulder of one arm and three horizontal lines on the other. In some ways, she reminded Brainiac of Laurel. It seemed as though she had been closest to Frostbite and yet, the tears did not come to her. She simply held onto Jazmin with her head on the Wanderer's shoulder and her hazel eyes wide.
Brainiac 5.1 suddenly became aware of what he had lost, as well. He had never really fit in anywhere in the universe from which he hailed, until he met the Legion. But he thought about those who had treated him poorly as a youth, especially Kwyrr Xuj and Jeft Gex, whose taunts had actually forced a reaction out of him in the form of young Querl's placing jamming Grix in each of their education chambers and temporarily reducing them to the mental capacity of infants. He thought of Rond Vidar, his friend and confidant and how the two of them, plus Lyle Norg, the Invisible Kid, would often go out on the town in Metropolis with the intention of getting sprocked, only to end up spending the evening discussing theories and new inventions and eventually retiring to the labs until morning.
He thought about his mother.
She was a monster. She had abandoned him as a baby because she felt no emotional attachment to him. She had formulated a plan to overthrow the United Planets and take over the Galaxy as leader of the Dark Circle. She was his mother. Brainiac had always imagined that he would, one day, manage to reconcile with her once her insanity had been cured.
Now, that would never happen.
For the first time in his life, Brainiac experienced a rush of despair. He had always pushed away his emotions, even after he had experienced his "upgrade", he had still kept his emotional state in check. Now, however, all that repression was coming back to hit him. His chest convulsed and he could feel tears welling up behind his eyes. He turned away from the assembled and steeled himself. Of everyone there, he could not be seen to be weak in any way. It was the reason he had returned to using the "point one" following his codename after encountering the other two Brainiac 5's. He had to seem stronger than everyone else; a hard lesson he had learned when he and several other Legionnaires were trapped on the far side of their universe for a time: people relied on Brainiac 5.1.
He turned back to the others, having maintained his control, for now. He watched as Kid Quantum separated herself from Sublime. He thought about what she could do. She could stop time in a localized area, an ability she had mastered for a wide variety of uses. She could also detect similar effects, to some degree, but she had not detected the effect that was in place on Stormwatch's shuttle. There seemed to be no reason...
"Wait!" Brainiac 5.1 suddenly bellowed, "It's us!"
Everyone looked at him in confusion. "Brainy," Cosmic Boy said, "What are you talking about?"
"The stasis effect!" He explained, "It's not an effect that was on the shuttle, it's an effect that is not on us!"
"What do you mean?" Kid Quantum asked.
"Stormwatch was in stasis, right?"
She nodded.
"Well the reason they were in stasis is because they were in this place." The Coluan said, "We're the ones that are motive, no one else."
"So why would that be the case?" Cosmic Boy asked him.
"Someone wants us mobile." Karate Kid answered, looking to Brainiac 5.1 for confirmation.
"Kid Quantum, Karate Kid?" He said, "I need you to meet Invisible Kid and myself in the lab."
The three of them rushed off, leaving the rest behind without explanation.
Thunder was pleased. After months traveling through the limbo between universes, she had managed to finally locate and rescue someone. Furthermore, it was someone with a connection to those whom she was searching for. The Wanderers, it turned out, had fought alongside the Legion during a war to protect Earth from Dominators. She had managed to rescue a team of heroes who were allied with the team of heroes to which she had once been an active member. It seemed that fate had turned in her favor.
It seemed so long ago that she had returned to the simple life of 90th Century teenager CeCe Beck; living with her parents in New Fawcett City on the planet Binderaan, recieving daily lessons from the edunet, engaging in MYSI (Mandatory Youth Social Interaction); all the while dreaming of her battles alongside the greatest heroes of the 31st Century. She tried to be a normal teenager, but whenever even the smallest possible danger appeared, she would say the name of the wizard who had granted her her powers, "Captain Marvel", and become the superhero Thunder to save the day. To the people of New Fawcett, she had become a symbol of hope.
That was until the white energy appeared in the sky.
The Captain, seemed to have an understanding as to what it was. He called CeCe to him and explained that the white energy would devour her world. He told her that the only way to stop it would be to find heroes and bring them to Binderaan so they could defeat whatever was causing the destruction. She was to speak the word she had used to move backwards and forwards in time, "Shazam" and actually move the entire Rock of Eternity with her, this time. Knowing who she needed to help her, CeCe pictured her friends in the far past of the 31st Century and said the word.
Unfortunately, where she found herself, the Rock, and the Wizard was an infinite void of whiteness. Captain Marvel became very confused, but CeCe knew that the Legion was somewhere in the void. She would find them, help them save their home and then lead them to save her own.
Encountering the Wanderers made her feel she was definitely heading in the right direction. She moved into the are where she had parked their vessel. The team had already begun making repairs and Thunder had granted them whatever supplies they could find in the Rock of Eternity. Being a place of magic and timelessness, the Rock had acquired a great deal of technological flotsam throughout the millennia. This was mostly kept in an area referred to as "The Scrapcave" by the Captain and with what could be found there, there could be little doubt that the Wanderers' vessel could be rebuilt.
"Thunder?" Said Mekt Ranzz as he approached the young hero, "May I have a word?"
"Of course, Mekt." She said, "What is it?"
The leader of the Wanderers had been weakened by some force. He was a wielder of electrical power, but his abilities had gone out of control as he neared the Rock of Eternity. Thunder (or, perhaps, the wisdom of Solomon) couldn't help but think that was more than a coincidence.
"You have been an amazing host and have done more for us than we could have asked for..."
"Why do I feel a 'but' is coming in there?" She interrupted.
"But," Mekt iterated, "There are some discrepancies in your story that I don't understand."
"Such as?"
"Well, you stated that you were a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes, but I don't recall any member with your name or description. Even if you were a member before we fought the Dominators, it seems as though I would know who you were. My brother is a founding member, my sister an early recruit, and the team hasn't been around that long."
"They haven't?"
"Less than a year." He said, "Since Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad saved..."
"Wait, wait wait..." Thunder interrupted again, "'Lightning Lad'? Don't you mean 'Livewire'?"
"My brother's codename is Lightning Lad."
"No, it's Livewire. I had a bit of a thing for him, but he only had eyes for Saturn Girl."
"I think I know my brother's codename." Mekt said with a tiny amount of bitterness.
Thunder stared at Mekt, skeptically. She suddenly came to a realization that seemed more obvious than the unlikely circumstances in which she had thought she found hersef: "You're not from the universe where I met the Legion." She said.
"That's preposterous!" Mekt replied, "What other universe is there?"
"Oh, more than you would think." Thunder said with a smile, "I'm from one, although one with close ties to the Legion's. Technically, I guess when I'm from would be considered an alternate future."
Mekt stared at her with disbelief. "You're insane." He finally said, throwing his hands up in exasperation, "A billion parsecs from all time and space and the only person we run into is a Marvel who has gone crazy."
Thunder was suddenly furious. She had a hard time believing that someone who had worked alongside the Legion of Super-Heroes could be so close-minded. She glared as him, trying to find the words to tell him he was wrong in a way that would make him believe her, but for whatever reason, when she stared at him all she could think was how much she wanted to slam her fist down his smug throat. It was this that startled her. She was never that angry and, in fact, had no such feelings for any of the other Wanderers she had rescued. However, Mekt Ranzz seemed to push all her buttons. She felt every emotion vastly intensified since she was near him. Only when she had noticed the rage had she realized this was the case. She pondered this as the Wanderer called Acumen approached the group.
"If I may interject, Mekt," he said, calmly, "The young lady is possibly quite correct."
Mekt Ranzz and the rest of the Wanderers suddenly glared at the green-skinned Coluan, suspiciously. Several of them dropped their heads or otherwise reacted negatively, but Thunder noticed that both Nemesis Kid and Tyr seemed to glance at each other as though they had the same idea.
"The theory of multiple realities has been proven and disproven time and again throughout history." Acumen went on to explain, "For example: we only have proof that there were a handful of heroes in the 20th Century on Earth; Superboy, Atlezz, and yet, we seem to have records for dozens of them. Including the Marvel family to which Thunder belongs."
Mekt stared at Acumen for a long moment, sizing up their situation. Finally, he came to the realization of exactly how dire their situation was. "Then, tell me, Vrax," he said with a coldness to his voice, "Given that information, how likely is it that we will be able to return home."
"I'm afraid that it is all but impossible." The Coluan said.
There was a long silence. Acumen, noticing that the conversation seemed to have ended, went back to his calculations on his datapad. The other Wanderers whispered among themselves; Nemesis Kid to Tyr, Tarik, and Telekinesis, Kid Quake to Micro Lass, Physo, Plant Lad, and Polar Boy. The others; Inferno, Titangirl, Thoom, and White Witch, seemed lost in thought. Mekt stared at the wall, as though he was searching for an answer in the cold, mystical stone that he knew wasn't there. Thunder felt intense sympathy for these people. They had just realized that they might never return home.
Thunder thought differently. She knew that the Legion could save her home and she knew that they could help the Wanderers return to theirs. She wanted to say so, but the words failed her. She reached forward and touched her hand to Mekt's shoulder.
She was violently assaulted by his electrical aura. The energy coursed through her like nothing she had felt since she had become Thunder. She could feel every cell in her body screaming at once. Her eyes felt as though they would burst from the pressure. She screamed a primal scream and fell away from the Wanderer, her body still coursing with the electrical energy. She was confused and afraid. She was supposed to be immune to electricity.
"Pity!?" Mekt screamed at her, arcs of electrical energy coursing through his form and from his eyes, "You feel pity for us!? How dare you!? You think that your 'Legion' can help us, then they will! We'll find this false Legion of Super-Heroes and make them take us home!"
"Mekt!" Titangirl yelled at him as she approached, "Stop that! This girl has been nothing but kind to us!" She neared the leader of their team, but she dared not touch him.
As suddenly as the energy had appeared on Mekt, it was gone, along with Thunder's pain. She struggled to stand as the leader of the Wanderers stammered for words, clearly aware that he had over-reacted and terrified of what had happened.
Thunder stood and glared at him. Whatever he was feeling wasn't his fault. There was some reaction happening to him thanks to his proximity to the Rock of Eternity. It was possible that the lightning which powered the Marvels was having some sort of reaction with his own electrical generation abilities. Thunder knew that he was not responsibly for his emotional overload.
But right now she didn't care.
"Listen, fraghole!" She said, closing in on him, menacingly, but being careful not to touch him, "You are in my home enjoying my hospitality. I will help you as best as I can, but another reaction like that and you'll be back floating through nothingness as time lost junk!"
Thunder swept past him and flew down the hall. She passed by several of the other Wanderers as she did so and was able to hear a single word from the one called Tyr.
"Interesting."
"Brainy, what are we doing?" Kid Quantum inquired as they ran down into the lab.
"Why do I ever run, Jazmin?" Brainiac said, as he stepped up to the computers he had completed modifying only the day before, "I have a theory and it is important enough for me to run."
"That," Lyle Norg, the Invisible Kid, said with a grin as he appeared near the other three, "Or monsters. You sometimes run from monsters."
"You are mistaken, Lyle," Brainiac 5.1 said, "I do not run from monsters. I run towards what is going to get rid of the monsters." He turned to Karate Kid, "Val, I need you to watch that sensor bay over there. I'm going to modify it to seek out an anti stasis effect and I need you to use your skills at finding weak points to point any out."
"Okay." Karate Kid said, agreeing to the command even if he didn't fully understand why.
"Kid Quantum, do you think you could use your abilities to generate an anti-stasis field?" The Coluan asked her.
"I don't see why not." Jazmin Cullen responded, "I've never tried before because things are usually moving anyways, but..."
"I only ask that you try, Jazmin." Brainiac 5.1 interjected, "Start by creating a stasis field around those receptors and then try to switch to the opposite of that. If you are able, alternate between those two effects every five seconds."
"I'll do what I can, Brainy." She agreed.
"Lyle, I need you..." Brainiac started, but apparently noticed that Invisible Kid was already near the stasis field monitoring system that he had developed.
Lyle, for his part, had already determined exactly what it was Brainiac was thinking. Since they had arrived in this place, the assumption had been that they would be able to find other objects by seeking out stasis fields. To this end, upon taking over and refitting Warworld, Lyle had built a stasis field locator using Kid Quantum's field as a model. Despite the fact that she had seemed to be greatly weakened by some factor they couldn't determine on Warworld, Lyle had managed to configure the system and was able to test it on Jazmin's feilds outside the vessel. Unfortunately, when locating any sort of stasis other than Kid Quantum's, the system failed. The greatest regret of this was that it would have had a nearly unlimited range, allowing for mush swifter locating of those lost in the Multiverse.
However, it now seemed to not have been a wasted effort. If Querl was right, the monitoring system could help them find some answers. It could also, theoretically, be reversed to locate anti-stasis effects, effectively doing exactly what it had been built to do: locate those who needed help.
The entire process began. Jazmin shunted a feild of static time around Brainiac's energy receptors and then, after a count of five, reversed the effect, despite a minor change in the local gravity as everyone felt a slight pull towards the receptors, there was no noticeable difference between the anti-stasis effect and no effect at all. Brainiac 5.1, however, was clearly pleased with the result. He fed the altered readings to Lyle who then entered them into the stasis field monitor. After a minute, he spoke up.
"Thank you, Jazmin, you can stop." He said with graciousness that he might not have had early in his career, "Lyle, I need you to now try to detect any effects that might be on War... er... Nomad One in regards to anti-stasis."
Lyle did so, re-configuring the system to turn the sensors inward. Sure enough, the entire vessel was surrounded by such an effect.
"Brainy," Invisible Kid said with excitement, "You're right, we are surrounded by an anti-stasis effect."
"And there is a weakness in it." Karate Kid added, "Sector 236 by 17 on the upper hemisphere of the hull. It is slighter there than anywhere else."
"Lyle," Brainiac said as he stood and walked over to Invisible Kid, "Focus on that area and see if you can trace the source of the..."
"Got it!" Invisible Kid blurted out in excitement.
Everyone just stared at him.
"The source of the anti-stasis energy that's affecting us is about 300 parsecs that way." Lyle added, pointing for effect. He looked at the rest of the team who were in the room with a wry smile. Cosmic Boy, Ultra Boy, and Saturn Girl entered and seemed surprised by the silence in the room.
"What's happening?" Rokk asked.
"This place," Brainiac 5.1 began, "Has an effect that causes objects and individuals to fall into stasis while within. I theorized that the effect might only be on inanimate objects, but after our encounter with Stormwatch, I began to think otherwise."
"If this is the natural effect," Lyle added with no small amount of pride, "Then something or someone doesn't want it affecting us. We're being affected by an anti-stasis field which we've just managed to detect."
"We have located the source, as well." Brainiac added, "We can determine why someone would do such a thing or what would cause it, in the unlikely event it is some naturally-occurring phenomenon."
Cosmic Boy smiled. "Well, then," He said, "We should get this thing moving in that direction."
"I almost hope someone is causing it." Ultra Boy added, "And I sorta hope they're not friendly about it. We could use some action."
As if on cue, the proximity alarms went off. Brainiac 5.1 moved back to the sensors.
"Well, Jo, you may get your wish." He said, "I am detecting multiple incoming contacts."
"Do we have a visual?" Rokk asked as he moved to Brainiac's side.
"Brining it up now." Lyle said as he touched the necessary buttons on the relay.
The large screen in the lab lit up with the whiteness of the void. However, instead of the usual, unmarred emptiness, it was dotted with moving forms. Lyle focused the camera and zoomed in on one of the forms. It was a humanoid, with caucasion skin, but only the mouth could be seen beneath its armor. The armor itself was black and gold with massive metallic wings that matched the color scheme. The half-helmet was gold in color and had slits for the eyes. The shimmer of a force field could be seen around each and every one of the creatures. They were all armed with brutal-looking energy rifles and high-tech maces that hung from their belts. On their chest was a symbol that was familiar to everyone in the room.
It was a black "o" with a gold center.
"That's impossible." Kid Quantum said, "They were beaten."
"And erased." Ultra Boy added.
"They are coming from the direction of the anti-stasis effect." Karate Kid noted.
"Brainy," Lyle said, in as reassuring a manner as he could, "It can't be her. Even if it is the Dark Circle, it can't possibly be her."
But Lyle was certain that his assuranes fell on deaf ears as Brainiac 5.1 stared at the screen in shock. One word left his lips as he did so.
"Mother."
End Issue #2
Note from the Author:
(Okay, I just became aware that links don't translate directly. Hold out and I will write in the code when I have a chance. Sorry about that.)
So, there is a lot to this and it pulls from a ton of sources. I became aware of the fact that this could all be quite confusing to anyone who has anything less than my encyclopedic knowledge of all things in the many DC Universes (which means that Mark Waid and Geoff Johns won't need these notes I'll be putting in here and everyone else has a life). That said, I am going to recommend some sources for further reading, if you're interested. I'm going to do this for each issue and then follow it up with a "Next Issue" blurb. Almost like I'm a real comic writer *sigh*.
The main group of Wanderers is made up of the reboot Legion (also known as the "Archie" Legion by people who think they're smarter than you or I but are, invariably, wrong). You can read some great information on them at Wikipedia or, even better, Michael Kooiman's excellent Cosmic Teams site.
Further information on the "Stormwatch" characters can, pretty much, only be found at the Wildstorm Resource Wiki. It's a little confusing, at first, but has some of the best information on these characters. Also, I should note than not all the characters are actually Stormwatch, Sublime and the late Frostbite are from DV8, Taboo is from Backlash, and Jester from Wetworks. At the end of the Wildstorm Universe (in Captain Atom: Armageddon, sorry to ruin the ending), there area lot of characters who would be doing something, but aren't shown on panel. This is my explanation for that.
The Wanderers encountered by Thunder are from the "threeboot" Legion. It was revealed in Legion of 3 Worlds that this team was from Superboy-Prime's Earth, which is why I put in the half-assed no-prize explanation. There isn't much on them, but here's the wiki and the Cosmic Teams entries.
Lastly, you can read all about Thunder at Major Spoilers thanks to Matthew Peterson.
Next Issue: While Thunder tries to find a way to get Mekt Ranzz's Wanderer's home, the main team faces off against an army of Hawkman clones. But the master of the clone forces will shock everyone.