ROCK FIGHT!!!

Damn. I wish I worked on the docks.

This morning a huge section of one of the warehouses got swallowed up by a sink hole. But not just any sinkhole: one created by the Factor Four villain Granite. Didn't know he could do that particular trick did you? Neither did the gray-skinned hero who showed up to fight him, who the FreedomWiki (sorry, site's down now or I'd link to it) identifies as a hero named ... Gray, who fought Granite in Southside last year.

Gray. 'Cause, you know, his skin is, ummm, gray.

Anyway, Gray shows up to save the day and rescue a worker who was about to get swallowed by it when all of a sudden Granite pops up and starts hammering him into the ground. Ok, Gray got in a good shot or two -- or so says the video that was up on YouTube this morning already down -- damn you NBC for buying up the rights). But then Granite's totally got him reeling, and then it gets even better because Sylph shows up and tries to vaporize the dominated Gray.

But Gray, he's apparently got friends in weird places because suddenly there's this speedster there, dressed all in black, pounding on Granite, and then this ghost of a Goth chick -- I kid you not, it was all on the video -- shows up and scares the crap out of Slyph. Granite takes her with a shockwave (that trick never gets old), then two more freaking heroes show up -- Paladin (the guy who saved the plane yesterday) and some other guy with these high-powered bracers. And the guy with the bracers nails Granite with an energy blast that drops him instantly.

So Granite is down, the heroes win the day, and we still don't know who half of them are. But we'll work on that -- post your leads to this entry or email me at infinitylord01@gmail.com.

Look, Up in the Air ... It's a Green/Yellow ... Something

Big happenings in the skies over Freedom City this morning as Noreaster Flight 7112, a 747 out of Newark (or is that "Eternal Spirit of Freedom International Airport" now) had an engine explode on its way into Jordan Airport. With all of the city's heroes otherwise occupied on a fool's errand to the Oort Cloud, someone else had to step up to save the plane.

And someone did. His name's Paladin (or at least, that's the callsign he was using on the police band) and he showed up just in the nick of time to help the plane lumber its way into the airport (nearly clipping a couple of buildings on the way in). He apparently used a combination of super-strength and force shields to land the plane at Jordan, single-handily saving the day. I admit, I'm a little confused as to how he unloaded the plane so quickly (as are the authorities) but a portable teleportion device seems likely.

It's nice to see not all the supers have headed for starrier pastures, but one question for Paladin: green and yellow power armor? Really?

White, black, silver -- all classic looks, and good for someone trying to capture that whole Renaissance armor thing. But green and yellow -- it just doesn't say "knight" to me.

But hey, questionable color schemes aside, this Paladin was there to save the day, which is more than I can say for the Loser League.

Daily Word: Strange Orbs Seen in Green Bank, The Fens

The Daily Word managed to get out an afternoon edition today and reported seeing flying around during the blackout (sorry "controlled roaming brownouts"). Ok, we've seen the weird flying mechanical things from time to time, a few times in the vicinity of that techno-knight power-suited guy, Paladin but not these orb things. And for them to show up now, after the Loser League left, during the blackout? Well ... I hate to keep saying hidden Grue conspiracy but ... hidden Grue conspiracy?

Powerless Among the People

The power was out last night at my apartment, thus the lack of posts. Hell, it was out for most of the city, which should unnerve anyone who's suffered through Freedom City heatwaves in the past. This wasn't even a real heatwave -- it barely topped 94 three days running -- but the storms were bad enough.

Or did they have some help? With the Loser League out at the "Far Star", is this a sign that Dr. Stratos is back in town and looking to bring some pain down on the city of his arch-nemesis? Oh, wait, that's right ... former city of his arch-nemesis?

Or is this a sign that the Grue's diabolical global warming initiative is finally coming to fruition, and the amphibian invasion fleet is about to materialize above the planet?

Or has Green Planet returned and this is his latest attempt to super-saturate the city's plant life with sentience-granting super organics?

There are a lot of possible explanations ... and most of them aren't good.

The Freedom League (as of 6/26/07)

Ever since the Freedom League left Freedom City to become space monkeys, there's been some confusion about whose actually in the League. Having your heroes abandoned you will have that effect. For the record here's the current line up of the Loser League, so you know who to blame when the Grue show up and turn us all into their mind slaves.

Captain Thunder: A Nolan Aircraft test pilot and Air Force man who gained super-strength, command of the elements, near-invulnerability, and supersenses while crashing the X-14 supersonic jet. Yes, that's right, spectacular failure gives rise to super-human powers -- if only we all had it so easy. Thunder's arch nemeses is Dr. Stratos, the weather mastermind, who revealed Thunder's true identity as Raymond Gardner a few years back.

Credit where credit is due, Thunder played a major role in turning back the Terminus Invasion in '93, and subsequently re-formed the Freedom League that Centurion had disbanded in the 80s. He was the one who got them to rebuild the League headquarters in Freedom City, but old age must be catching up with him as his fellow Leaguers were able to convince him to move to Earth orbit after the mid-00's Grue Invasion.

For some strange reason, Hellqueen is obsessed with Thunder; honestly, I just don't get what she sees in him.

Daedalus: The battlesuit wearing master inventor who probably inspired every knock-off powerarmor hero and villain you've ever read about. The suit's impervious to most attacks, grants him super strength, and lets him fly in space. Even without the suit though, he's supposed to be as brilliant (or even more so) than his father, the first Daedalus who served in the original Freedom League. Of course, he can't be that brilliant, since he's the one who designed the freaking Lighthouse.

Dr. Metropolis: The spirit of the city; he's the only Leaguer who didn't leave for that idiotic space station, but you'd expect that from a guy (well, I assume he's a guy) who draws his power from the raw ingenuity and power of the city. He's done more than anyone to repair the Freedom City after the Terminus Invasion, and he's the only true super hero we've got left.

Johnny Rocket: Johnny Rocket's grandfather was the first Rocket, back in the 1940s. Superspeed apparently skips a generation though, because although Johnny's dad didn't have superpowers, he does. The guy's so fast he can actually break through dimensions (which gave rise to that whole evil-universe invasion from a few years back; more on that another day). Two years ago an ex-boyfriend outed him as gay, and Rocket owned up to it. He gets a lot of crap for it, but again, credit where credit is due -- the Leaguers have stood buy him.

Lady Liberty: More cute than hot, but either way she'll kick your ass as the living embodiment of freedom. Personally I think it's a bit over the top the way she carries a flag around with her all the time -- I mean, geez, who does she think she is, the president? -- but she gets the job done.

Pseudo: A sure sign that the League is getting soft: they've got a freaking Grue working for them. That's right, Pseudo's one of those alien bastards who attacked Earth, and they let him hang out with them on their frakking space station. Oh sure, he's the one who told the League the invasion was coming in the first place, but if he turned traitor once, what's to stop him from turning traitor again? Not a damned thing, that's what.

Siren: Some say the green-haired beauty has the spirit of a Voodoo goddess trapped inside her, granting her command over sea animals, water and the weather. Whatever -- I want to know when she's going to be in Sport's Illustrated's Swimsuit Edition.

Star Knight: Earth's appointed interstellar defender. She proved her worth during the Grue Invasion, but she's half the freaking reason the League moved into orbit. Who do you think provided Daedalus with most of the toys to make his space station work?

The Grue Debacle

On July 4, 2004, the shapeshifting aliens known as the Grue Unity attacked our solar system. Even three years later its still freaking hard to believe, but it's true -- an alien armada really did show up in our solar system hellbent on conquering Earth. The Loser League immediately launched a counterattack against them, but just because their headquarters is in space doesn't mean they actually know how to fight in space.

No, it was the Atom family that finally shut them down. Details are fuzzy -- the League spin doctors don't want us knowing what really happened, and the Atom family is too proud to brag -- but apparently one of the Atoms got his hands on the Moonstone at Lunar City and used it boost his mental powers, allowing him to go mind-to-mind with the Grue Over-Mind ... and the Grue lost.

Unfortunately, my detailed blog posts from that time -- including a minute-by-minute log of the destruction of the Grue fleet as observed through my backyard telescope -- were lost when a certain l33t-freak took down the site. I've got some backups on my old Linux box in the basement, and I'll dig them out when I have a chance.

Especially since I think those notes will come in handy in a few days...

Star? What Star?

So some nerd at an observatory sees a new piece of space junk out at the ass end of the solar system, and the next think you know the Freedom League's assembling and flying out there in their Freedom Shuttle. So now not only is Freedom City defenseless, but so is the entire freaking planet!

Grue invasion anyone?

I don't care how "extremely unusual" the results of the celestial dirtball's "Reflectance Spectroscopy" results were -- you don't go and leave the whole freaking planet defenseless! Oh sure, the second stringers are still around, but man, man, why do you think they call them second stringers?

No, mark my words -- this is a distraction designed to draw "Earth's Greatest Defenders" away from the planet so the freaking Grue can get their revenge. And with the Atom family off who knows where, who will save us this time?

Crime League Update for 6/24/07

You've been asking for it; here it is: the complete and up-to-date roster of the Crime League!

Dr. Stratos: brilliant meteorologist and atmosphere engineer turned supervillain who can command the weather itself. He is the leader of the Crime League, though word has it a certain big ape thinks he's running the show.

Dr. Simian: The aforementioned hyper-intelligent ape driven mad by science and hell-bent on the conquering Earth.

Blackstar: fallen member of the interstellar protectors known as Star Knights who took refuge on planet Earth after his attempts at galactic domination elsewhere failed. Way to go Star Knights! Dump your garbage here, then never bother to come and clean it up (oh yeah, sure, you send ONE Star Knight to do the job ... guess he wasn't quite up to it 'cause last I checked, Blackstar is still running around.

Devil Ray: If you need something stolen from underwater, Devil Ray is your man. Hey, it could happen. He's an aquatic power-suited villain and 'master thief' whose MANTA armor gives him super human strength, the ability to maneuver and breathe underwater, allows him to generate stunning bursts of electricity and guarantees him to be the lamest villain this side of the Zero Zone.

Hiroshima Shadow: Born in the atomic blast at Hiroshima, the Hiroshima Shadow is a sentient radioactive inferno determined to get revenge against the America for winning the war. He also apparently hates Japanese people because, umm, they're not hell-bent on world domination any more.

The Maestro: Brilliant conductor, sucky composer. But don't tell him that, or he'll use his mathematical command of music to make you like his stuff. His musical instruments can blast buildings with sonic energy, control the minds of the week, and even generate powerful walls of sound.

Medea: In a word, hot. In a few other words, really, REALLY hot. Also, beautiful, cunning, and a mistress of arcane energy. Also, she hates all men, the inventor-hero Daedelus in particular, but I'm telling you it's just because she hasn't met the right man. Infinity Lord, he could rock her world.

Orion the Hunter: Why the world's greatest hunter has joined the Crime League, no one knows. Normally a freelancer obsessed only with finding the most challenging hunts, he has recently taken to working with the League on high profile jobs. Orion is obsessed with killing Lady Liberty, who pissed him off by not dying when he tried to kill her.

Wildcard: A probability-altering criminal with a wicked and warped sense of humor. Or so they say; I hear the Mob really got his sense of humor, at least up until that joke where he got arrested by the Feds and did time. Not sure if he's still friendly with them or if he's on a different kind of list.

Freebooter: Just kidding. The "techno-pirate" is way too pathetic to be in this league. I'm telling you, pirates suck. Now ninjas, that's where the real power is.

WizKids: Where's our FreedomClix?

WizKids is releasing their big HeroClix: Avengers set this month. They're making a big deal of it, since this is the 5th anniversary of the game's release, but frankly, I'm still disappointed. How many more years are we going to have to put up these fictional knockoffs before WizKids finally ponies up the licensing fees to get some real heroes in their game?

I mean hell, we've seen that second-rate Centurion that D.C. Comics calls "Superman" (could you get a more unimaginative name?) and a whole cast of mutant weirdness from Marvel Comics' X-Men (oh real imaginative -- a private high school with its own superhero team, I wonder where they got that one from *cough* Claremont Academy *cough*) but not a single real world hero has ever been released as a sculpt.

Lame.

I know Castle Comics can be notoriously difficult to work with, just like all those freaking blood-sucking agents that killed off the Freedom Friends back in 1960 (DVD will be out next month though .. w00t!) but come on, if we can have Indy Clix, we can certainly have frakking FreedomClix! Figure out a way to make this work -- talk with Castle, get the rights to the Freedom heroes, and get us our Clix!

YOU CAN'T STOP THE SENTINEL!

Frakking hackers. Run a site for frakking 10 years, frakking get the respect of Earth's greatest heroes and what happens? Some frakking hacker thinking he's a frakking supervillain takes down the frakking site!

Freebooter. Frakking-A. Man -- I mean, come on, a frakking cyborg pirate alternate ego? How lame is that? -- and next thing you know, your Frakking site is down.

Well, you can't stop the Signal, and you can't stop the Sentinel! We're back, and I'm porting all the old posts over to the new Blogger blog. Let's see if Freebooter can take down frakking Google!!!

15 Years Later: Still No Moore!

People are idiots. 15 years ago FORCE OPS showed Franklin Moore for the crooked politician (are there any other kind?) he was. He gets drummed out of town after Michael "Golden Boy" O'Conner sweeps him in the '92 election.

And now he's frakking back. Seems like there's a bunch of politicos and business creeps (and others who I can't name, 'cause, you know, I like breathing) who say Moore's rehabilitated, and that it's time to bring back his "zero tolerance" platform on "costumed terrorists". And of course he's running as a frakking Republican. Idiots -- he hasn't changed his stripes; hell he should be wearing frakking prison stripes. And he would if all those records FORCE OPS turned up hadn't been ruled inadmissible.

Don't get me wrong -- there's no way that O'Conner should get a fourth term even if he is an "independent" but this is not the way to stop him.. We need fresh blood, not frakking recycled green blood.