Poll: The Far Star Debacle

So a while back I started a poll asking "Is the Freedom League inviting doom upon us all by investigating the Far Star?" and it looks like a overwhelming majority of my readership agrees that the disaster is nigh, with 5 voting yes, and 1 voting know (and you just know that 1 was the Prince of Cutlery).

Good to know I'm the the only one who things that the Freedom League's egos hit orbit about the same time their space station did.

Downshafted?

Looks like there have been a bunch of locked door mysteries in Downtown over the past week. The Freedom Ledger's reporting four burglaries at Freedom City shops -- one electronics place, two jewelry shops (including the venerable Haas Brothers Jewelers, you know, the one with the two guys with diamond studs in their eye brows?), and a pawn shop -- in which all the merchandise was stolen but the doors of the shops were never unlocked and the alarms were never tripped.

Police say they don't have any suspects, but that's because their frakking idiots. Of course there's a suspect. His name is Downtime, and this fits his MO perfectly: freeze time, spend a few hours perfectly picking the lock, freeze time again to avoid the alarms, steal everything in sight, then leave. Mark my words, we'll see a bunch of more of these in the coming days. And why will we see this? Because the only hero who could stop him -- Mr. Johnny Rocket -- is off with the Loser League fighting dangerous space rocks at the edge of the solar system, once again leaving us wide open for all manner of criminals.

But wait ... maybe we'll get really lucky and their hyperintelligent space station will come down and save us.

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?

An Open Letter to Dr. Metropolis

Dr. Metropolis:

They say you are the living embodiment of the city, that you instinctively understand Freedom City on a level that the rest of us can't even comprehend. And after seeing the wonders you wrought rebuilding the city after the Terminus invasion during the 1990s, it's obvious that they are right. You know this city, you know what's right for it, even if you won't take a political stand against the stagnating malignancy that is the Michael O'Conner administration.

We know you have the city's best interests at heart which is why I urge you to break your affiliation with the Freedom League. Our city has borne the brunt of countless extraplaner, extraterrestrial, and even subterranean invasions and yet the Freedom League has abandoned us to our fate, abandoned this city to its fate so that they can secret themselves away in their Lighthouse.

In leaving, they betrayed us. You though, you are still here. You understand why this is the greatest city on Earth, and that's why you must sever your ties to the Freedom League. Your place is here, not on some space station, not in the depths of space. It's here.

We need you. Your city needs you. Your city understands you. The League does not.

Sincerely,

Infinity Lord
Editor
The Constant Sentinel

Centurion: Earth's Deadest Hero

Centurion … Earth's Greatest Hero? Right, more like Earth's deadest hero!

The planet's greatest champion died fighting Omega and his legions on April 21, 1993. Omega had opened a portal from Terminus to Freedom City and sent hundreds -- no thousands -- of shock troopers through trying to establish a beachhead he could us to conquer Earth.

Centurion led the Freedom League in their counterstrike against Omega, and he landed the blow that shattered Terminus' dictator's containment suit. The energy backlash killed Centurion instantly, but allowed the rest of the Freedom League to drive the villain back through the gate.

That was 14 long years ago, Fourteen years without that famous fry of "Defeat to Tyrants!" Fourteen years Fourteen years without the sight of the sun glinting off his golden armor as he flies over the city. Fourteen years of lesser heroes dying and coming back from the dead. Fourteen years rotting in a tomb.

Pathetic.

Don't get me wrong -- Centurion was great in his day, one of the best if not the best. But real heroes don't stay dead. Real heroes do the Lazarus thing three or four times in their careers … and clones or androids or whatever other knock off has crawled out of the ooze this week doesn't count.

Real heroes don't let their fans down. And it's as simple as that.

Freedom Hall: Butt Ugly After All These Years

So they destroyed Freedom Hall back in 2001, which on top of 9/11, well, that was just too frakking horrible. Sure, Daedalus was able to stop them from rampaging through the rest of the city (or so says the official history ... I agree with DRUDGE that there was more going on there), but the Hall was utterly destroyed.

The League rebuilt it almost immediately, bigger and "better", and beating the "Freedom Tower" by a half-dozen years.

They should have taken their time. 'Cause lets face it, it's a gilded pig. They threw up a trapezoid, plated it in frakking gold -- gold! -- and called it done. Let's face it, they didn't care because they knew they wouldn't be living there. They just let some trained monkeys throw crap at a paper, ok'd the design, and let that monstrocity be built knowing that their freaking space station would be done by 2005.

Now they're up there in the Lighthouse, and as far as their concerned, Freedom City is a second-class protectorate. They're too busy saving the world to give a rat's ass about us, and the craptacular Freedom Hall.

I say we take of and frakking nuke the thing from orbit, kick out the League, recruit some new heroes who care about our city and build a superhero headquarters worthy of Freedom City!

Mr. Metropolis ... tear down these walls!