“I’m afraid, Ray, that you’re going to need a hip replacement.” The doctor pointed to the scan on the screen in the well-appointed office whose shiny white walls made it look like it belonged in a Star Trek episode, except for the natural light that poured in from the skylight. He sat in a high-backed Herman Miller chair. He gestured with a laser pointer mounted in the left index finger of his metal hand. “You have worn down the joint here, here, and here. Looks like osteoarthritis. Ordinarily we’d see this in someone who was carrying too much weight in their belly for too long, but well, you’ve been carrying another kind, haven’t you?”
Raymond Light looked at the screen and shook his head. “What kind of recovery time are we looking at, Doc?”
“With Argonian technology and ultraviolet healing rays, still at least six weeks.”
“Blast! I can’t afford to be out of action that long. Aren’t there any shortcuts we can take?”
“Oh, sure, there’s Zurn genetic therapy and cloning, but with the wild card effect, there’s a ten percent chance you could sprout a lizard tail.”
Ray stood up, painfully, and walked across to the doctor, trying to conceal his limp just out of habit. “All right, Doc, schedule it for as soon as possible. I need to get this done with as quickly as I can.”
“In the meantime,” the doctor warned, “try to take it easy, eh?”
“You know me, Doc.”
“Yes, that’s why I said it. Oh, and Ray? Happy birthday.”
Ray shook hands with Dr. Improbable and nodded toward the skylight above. The doctor pressed a stud on his Improbability Gauntlet, and the skylight slid open with a near-silent whir.
“I’ll see you soon.” Ray adjusted his leather jacket, fastening it over his white jumpsuit, lowered the aquamarine translucent goggles over his eyes, and launched himself into the sky in a blaze of swirling blue, green, and violet light, which all but vanished against the bright blue sky.
“If not sooner,” the doctor said to himself.
Raymond Light, better known as Borealis, hovered for a moment above the Chicago office, took in the beauty of the skyline, then started climbing while he plotted a course home, following the Lake Michigan shoreline. He transferred the navigation into his heads-up display and did a weather check. It was a nice, clear day all the way home to Traverse City Michigan. It was a bit chilly at seven thousand feet, an altitude that avoided most migrating birds, so he redirected some of his internal energies into life support, crafted a minor multicolored bullet-shaped force field to project in front of him, and put the rest of his considerable power into flight. He accelerated slowly as he hugged the shoreline, passing over Hammond Indiana, then Gary, then Michigan City, but once he crossed the Michigan border and passed Benton Harbor, he poured it on. His force field and ear caps protected him from the sonic boom as he accelerated north, past Mach 1. At this speed, he’d be home in about half an hour. There was no rush.
I shouldn’t need a hip replacement. I’m still young. I’m only—59? That can’t be right, Borealis thought, as he made a minor course adjustment over Holland. That would mean that I’ve been doing this for—41 years? How is that possible?
Ray’s thoughts turned back to the day when he, as a high school senior, first became imbued with power from mysterious charged particles during a particularly strong solar storm.
December 28, 1982
Young Ray Light was on his way back home from the State Theater in Traverse City on a date with his girlfriend, Karen. They had gone to see Tootsie. They were on Christmas break from school, and Ray was thinking about finding a place for them to park. The night sky was filled with the shimmering curtains of the Northern Lights. They held hands as they watched the rare spectacle. They’d been dating off and on for two years and were finally in a place where both felt comfortable. When an oncoming car drifted into their lane, Ray turned the wheel as slowly as he could to avoid it while maintaining control of the car.
The car just missed them, and Ray tried to navigate his way back to his lane, when he hit a patch of ice. The 1974 Chevy Nova with its 350cc engine, started sliding wildly. He overcorrected and caused it to fishtail once, twice, three times. On the third time, the car skidded sideways down into a ditch, sending a wall of snow flying over the windows, then coming to a sudden halt. Ray checked on his girlfriend to make sure she was all right. Karen was shaken up but nodded that she was okay. Ray opened the driver’s side door to get out. His shoe immediately filled with snow, as they were in pretty deep, about 100 feet from the road. He cleared the driver’s side of snow with the shovel he kept in the trunk and found that one tire had been taken off the rim, and the other one was completely flat. He had Karen get behind the wheel, while he pushed the car, and couldn’t get it to budge. They tried rocking it back and forth, but it was to no avail. He had no choice but to change the tire that was off the rim.
He retrieved the jack from the trunk and found the most stable spot he could. He got the car just high enough off the ground to get the back wheel off. As he replaced it with the spare tire, he tried to torque the lug nuts back on with the lug wrench. His hands were freezing. Just as he was pulling the last one on, the jack began to sink into the ground and the tire came down on his foot. He could feel his foot sinking into the hard-packed snow, but then it stopped, pinned against something hard: the frozen ground. The weight of the car continued to bear down on him. Only the air in the tire was preventing his foot from breaking. He realized that he was only moments from having his foot crushed, and in a colossal effort to free himself, he grabbed the car under the wheel well and lifted for all he was worth. It was no good.
Just then, Ray was bathed in shower of green, blue and violet light from the sky, and inexplicably, he hefted the entire rear end of the car into the air to the level of his chest. He could hear the metal of the frame straining. Karen screamed from the driver’s side door. Ray moved his foot to one side and slowly set the car down again. As he stepped back, he saw his reflection in the Nova’s rear window. He was glowing with the colors of the Aurora Borealis.
Karen was terrified. “Ray! Ray, what’s happened to you?” she screamed.
Ray looked confused. “I have no idea, Babe.” He examined his hands, which weren’t cold anymore. He could see light shimmering under the surface of his skin, like a veiled kaleidoscope. “But it doesn’t hurt!” Then an idea came to mind. “Put it in neutral. I want to see something.”
Karen shifted the car into neutral, as much out of fear as curiosity. Ray walked around to the back of the battered old Nova, curled his arms under the rear bumper and lifted. The back end of the car rose right out of the hole that the rear wheel had spun into the snow and dirt, and Ray moved it almost effortlessly, like a wheelbarrow. “Steer toward the side of the road!”
She guided the car toward where they had skidded off, and step by step, Ray’s entire body began to glow, and he nearly carried the car out of the field. And in just a few seconds, it came to rest on the shoulder. Ray tapped on the car’s roof twice. “I’ll be right back!”
Ray walked back to retrieve the tire he had replaced, and behind him, he heard the revving of the 350 engine and gravel crunching as Karen left him behind, running the Nova on a flat tire as fast as it would go. Ray ran back across the short distance to where the car had been and stood on the side of the road in disbelief. She’d left him there in sub-freezing temperatures without so much as a coat.
“AAAAHHhhh!” Ray roared in frustration, hurling the ruined tire like a giant discus. His arm glowed brightly again as he heard the rush of air passing over the surface of the speeding tire as it left his hand, far faster than any baseball he’d ever pitched. The tire sailed off into the darkness over a patch of 20-meter fir trees at the edge of the field. “Why? Why would you leave me here?” He couldn’t believe she had just abandoned him.
Extra-normal people had existed in the world since at least 1938, but Northern Michigan had not exactly been an epicenter for that population. In places like New York, Charm City, Crescent City, they had a presence. But Traverse City? Never. There would be an occasional incident and it would be front page news, but none of the heroes ever stuck around.
Ray started walking toward his hometown, which was about sixteen kilometers away. Though he didn’t have his coat, he wasn’t cold. The strange, colorful energy was still surging through him, coursing through his limbs and torso, but he didn’t feel any ill effects. Just the opposite, really. He felt strong, powerful. And most importantly right now, warm. He imagined that Karen was on her way to her house. If he made it there, he would take his car back. He’d have to figure out how to get another tire on it. The sidewall of the flat tire would be destroyed in just a few miles, the way she was driving.
As he walked, Ray thought, Well, clearly I have some kind of weird powers.I’m really strong and I can stay warm. Wonder what else I can do? I have nothing to lose by testing it out while I walk. It’s about a two-hour walk from here. Unless—what superpower does everyone fantasize about? Ray paused on the side of the road for a moment, held his arms out to his sides, and rose into the air. His entire body gave off a radiant glow as he rose higher and higher. He had felt this once before, as a child playing around with magnets. This was definitely like holding two magnets with the same pole next to one another. They repelled each other just as he was repelling against the magnetic field of the Earth itself.
At about seven meters, he decided he’d better experiment a bit first. He maneuvered over the piled snow on the side of the road in case the power failed. He leaned forward and began moving along the snowbank. The shimmering energy trailed behind him, cascading in undulating curtains of purple, green, blue, and pink. He felt no signs of weakening, so he tried changing directions, over the open field. It was child’s play! The only problem he was having was seeing through the colorful effect. He was flying along an unlit roadway, the Aurora providing most of the light in the night sky. The wind was doing a number on his vision as well, making his eyes water. How did the famous flying heroes deal with this? He had some snowmobile goggles at home. If he could make it back, he would try those out.
If I stick to the main road, he thought, I should be all right. There will be occasional lights I can use to navigate. And the reflective road signs should react to this glow. I wonder if I can make it even brighter.
Ray concentrated for a moment on making the aura brighter, brighter, and brighter still, and for just a moment, he glowed like a multicolored star. Then he dropped like a stone out of the sky, hitting the ground with a cloud of white powder. The snowbank broke his fall, but the impact still knocked the wind out of him. He’d felt like this before on the football field, so he knew not to panic, and to let the breath come back to him in its good time. Good thing I stayed over the snowbanks, he thought, as he remained aglow. He began to shiver in the snowbank. It was suddenly freezing. Ray concentrated on bringing the glow down, and as he did so, he began to rise into the air again, and he felt warm once more. So, I’m strong, I can levitate, produce light, and stay warm. That’s a good start! But it appears I can only do so much at once. Ray focused on two things, keeping warm and levitating, and took a couple of slow laps around the field. Success! He took off in the direction of Karen’s house. Crossing the Manistee River was just a little terrifying. Ray didn’t want to think about what would happen if he fell into the near-freezing waters, heat field or not. He approached the shore slowly and tried hovering over the water to see if it reacted differently to his electromagnetic push. It did not. He then surmised that he was pushing against the electromagnetic field of the planet itself, not just the ground. Ray wasn’t a physicist by any stretch of the imagination, but he understood basic science pretty well. He made his way over the river in safety, and accelerated. He could fly!
As a relatively new player and a wannabe gamemaster for the roleplaying game Star Trek Adventures, published by Modiphius, I read the rules, watched a few videos, but nothing ever teaches me a game quite like being a player. I pay attention to how a game works from more experienced players, and I really pay attention to a gamemaster who is patient and takes the time to explain everything that we players are doing and can do. ‘Nathan Burgoine is the guy who runs the game I play in, and he’s exceptional. He always offers alternatives and is aware of the talents that our characters have and points out our individual options.
Star Trek Adventures Core Rulebook, by Modiphius
The economy aspect of Star Trek Adventures is something I really didn’t get a feel for while reading the rules. There’s an ebb and flow of momentum and threat. If you’re not familiar with these game terms, momentum are units that you earn that you can spend to increase your likelihood of success in rolling dice, or use to gain more information when you have rolled very successfully. Threat is a unit that you can provide the gamemaster so that he or she or they can do the same thing for the opposition. There is a constant flow of both momentum and threat going on throughout a game session. For this post, I am going to focus on momentum.
One of the key uses of momentum is to increase the likelihood of success when a player rolls the dice to resolve a task. In the Modiphius 2D20 system, a player rolls a base of 2D20 to determine success. They have a target number to meet or roll below, based on two of their combined stats to determine success or failure, and the GM must tell them how many successes on the dice they will need to be successful at the task.
Example: Captain Chamberlain takes over at the helm to make the starship Challenger engage in a fairly tricky approach to the damaged starship Pageant, which is leaking deuterium. The gamemaster declares that the task of flying Challenger in without contacting the deuterium is difficulty two. Chamberlain’s Control score is 11 and his Conn score is 4, so by adding those together, it is determined that he must roll 15 or less on each D20 to earn a success. Since the difficulty is two, he must roll successes on both dice to succeed at the task. Since his chance of success on each die is 3/4, his chance to succeed on both die rolls is 3/4 x 3/4, or 9/16. Yikes, that’s just over 56%. It’s a good thing there’s momentum. In Star Trek Adventures, a player can spend one point of momentum to gain an extra die to add to the chance to succeed. The player can spend an additional two points to gain a second die. A third extra die can be obtained by spending three more momentum, for a total of six momentum, which is the most a player group can bank at any one time. So, basically, you can spend:
1 momentum = +1D20
3 momentum = +2D20
6 momentum = +3D20
For our purpose today, I’m only going to talk about the first momentum spend. Additional spends have diminishing returns that make them debatable. So, in the example above, if Captain Chamberlain spends one momentum to gain an extra D20, his chances of success increase from 56% to a whopping 84% (I’m rounding to the nearest whole percent here, I’m not Spock or Data). Furthermore, he has a 42% chance of getting three successes and gaining that momentum spend right back again. The bottom line is that either he’ll get the momentum back again or he needed it to be successful in the first place, because there was a 44% chance that at least one of his first two dice were going to fail. That means that the chance of Captain Chamberlain failing his roll was nearly the same with 2D20 than the chance that he would get his momentum spend right back again with 3D20, and that makes it a good bet. Now, does this always hold up? Pretty much.
Let’s say your combined scores give you a success number of 12. You have a 40% chance to fail, and a 36% chance to get your momentum back with three successes. Still definitely worth it to me, so my philosophy is always spend one momentum on a task if you have one.
“Welcome aboard the USS Challenger. I’m Captain Jeff Chamberlain. If you’ll step down off the transporter pads, we’ll begin our tour.
Captain Jeff Chamberlain, deck 3 corridor, USS Challenger
“Before we begin, I’d like to give you a little context about Challenger‘s mission. In just a short time, the USS Enterprise should conclude its five-year mission, the only Constitution-class starship out of the original 12 to do so. The other 11 starships succumbed to the dangers of space exploration. The USS Intrepid lost all hands to a giant space amoeba near Gamma 7A. The USS Constellation was destroyed while battling the so-called Doomsday Machine near L-374. The crew of the USS Exeter were killed while investigating Omega IV.
“The Hood, Potemkin, Excalibur, and Lexington were severely damaged due to the runaway M-5 computer. The Excalibur lost all hands and was set adrift, while the Lexington sustained severe damage to the engineering section but was able to continue in its mission. I served aboard the Lexington, and lost my best friend, Chief Engineer Harold Bichel. I continued serving under Commodore Wesley as the new chief engineer until the Lexington, too, met its demise to an aggressive D-7 Klingon cruiser near Beta-Delta XII. I was part of the surviving crew who had to stay alive on the class-L planet for 40 days until help arrived. My back was broken, and I can tell you that it was a long 40 days. That’s where Challenger comes in.”
“During my recovery at Starbase 1, I petitioned Starfleet to create a new kind of ship and mission. I had plenty of time flat on my back in the medical bay to work on my proposal. Using all the data from every ship in Starfleet to that point, I outlined and addressed the weaknesses that led to the destruction of the ships and the loss of their crews. At the same time, I examined the non-sentient parts of the Enterprise that have contributed to its singular survival. All of these traits have been incorporated by Admiral Krause at Tycho Starship Yards into one prototype: Challenger. Now, I understand that the Enterprise will be getting overhauled. I’ve seen some of the fancy new engine designs that they’re planning. I wanted none of that. I wanted the most reliable, dependable, tried and true technology that Starfleet had to offer. Challenger may be the first, last, and only ship of its kind. She’s a forward-looking throwback. She’s the size of a Constitution-class starship, but she only crews 204. I’m hoping you’ll be part of that crew. Each of you were recommended to me by your individual captains.
Comparison of Constitution-class and Challenger-class
Challenger‘s mission is not one of exploration. Challenger‘s mission is crisis and emergency response. You won’t find state-of-the-art astrophysics labs or stellar cartography decks onboard. You will find an entire deck of emergency crew quarters to house survivors and refugees. You will find large cargo holds to transport medicines and grains. And you will find an expansive shuttlecraft bay with no fewer than 16 N-type Javelin shuttlecraft for emergency evacuation and rescue.
“But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the top. If you’ll follow me…”
Turbolift, USS Challenger
Shhkkkt.
“Computer; bridge.”
Shhkkkt.
Vrrrrrrr
“Such a satisfying sound, isn’t it? I understand that newer ships will have silent doors. I think that’s a shame. As you can see on the deck plans here, there are two turbolifts that go to the bridge. We typically use the main turbolift on the port side of the communications station. We reserve the secondary turbolift for emergencies. During my convalescence, I read too many incident reports of crew being trapped on the bridge after an incident with the sole turbolift being taken out of commission.
Shhkkkt.
Bridge, USS Challenger
“Captain on the bridge!”
“Shin, you’re the only one here.”
“Yes, Captain, except for the recruits you’re bringing on.”
“You have me there. Everyone, this is Lieutenant Shin Ch’tolnan, one of our tactical officers. It’s something new we’re trying out, separating the weapons systems from the conn. It’s enough to have to fly the ship under duress. It is thought that a dedicated weapons alcove would be more efficient. It’s one of the changes I didn’t come up with, but seems like a good idea.
“As you can see, there are two security stations, one for internal security and one for weapons systems. If necessary, they can be manned by two crewpersons. Shin knew we were coming because of an alert from his station. So, the port side of the bridge is typically manned by engineering or security officers. Communications is right behind the captain’s chair.”
Bridge, port stations, USS ChallengerLt. (j.g) Shin Ch’tolnan, junior tactical officer, USS ChallengerBridge station layout, USS ChallengerBridge, starboard stations, USS Challenger
“Over on the starboard side, we have Landing Party Monitoring, the medical station, and your typical science station. The interesting one is Landing Party Monitoring. You’ve probably noticed the device on my uniform that looks like a belt buckle. It’s called a Perscan, and it automatically feeds biometric data back to the ship via subspace link. It also helps maintain a transporter lock without relying on a communicator, which can be lost or taken away.
Perscan deviceMain bridge seen from viewscreen, USS Challenger
“And obviously, we have navigation, the helm, and the captain’s chair. Nobody really ever gets this view, since you have to stand in front of the viewscreen to get it. All right, take a good last look around and head to the main turbolift. You remember which one is the main lift, right?
“It’s the one on the port side. If you ever forget, it’s the one with the dedication plaque next to it.
Dedication plaque, USS Challenger
“Get back on that simulator, Shin. You need to get up to speed.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Isometric view of bridge, USS Challenger
Shhkkkt.
“Computer, deck three, aft.”
Vrrrrrrrr
Shhkkkt.
“Here we are, back on deck three. Deck two is taken up by a docking port. I was against that idea, because it provides easy access to the bridge for intruders, but I was overruled. Once we get underway, I’ll probably have the chief engineer weld it shut. Once we have a chief engineer, anyway.
Conference room, deck three aft, USS Challenger
“This is the conference room. On Constitution-class ships, the conference room was too far away from the bridge to be of practical use most times. In situations where solutions are not obvious, I always invite suggestions from my staff, and even debate, right up until I make my final decision.
“I like this room because it provides a good view of the nacelles. I may be a captain, but I’m still an engineer at heart.
Isometric view of conference room, USS Challenger
Shhkkkt.
“Also on deck three, we have transporter room one, where you beamed in. The Constitution-class ships had four transporter rooms. We have eight, and each one has eight pads and a cargo pad instead of the previous six-pad platforms. When we dedicate enough power to it, we can transport 80 people at the same time. That means we can move our entire crew in about two minutes if they’re standing by.”
Lt. Hal Bichel, security/communications officer, USS Challenger
“Ah, and Hal got here while we were gone to stock the armory. Everyone, this is Lieutentant Hal Bichel. Hal is a rare breed. She is both a communications and security officer. She had a double focus at the Academy.”
“What’s that, Commander? She has the same last name as my best friend? That’s not a coincidence. He was her father. Hal was with us on the Lexington when she was just a cadet. She’s also my goddaughter. Let’s–go ahead and continue our tour. I’ll see you later, Hal.”
Isometric view of Transporter Room 1, USS Challenger
Shhkkkt.
“Computer, deck five aft.”
Vrrrrrrrr
Shhkkkt.
Isometric view of Sick Bay, USS Challenger
“Pretty impressive, right? Here we are in the aft section of the middle of deck five, in the most heavily protected part of the ship. This is unchanged from the Constitution-class. None of the Sick Bays ever took direct hits in combat. This, however, is one of the most advanced medical facilities in Starfleet, only second to Starbase 1, though capacity is smaller, for obvious reasons. Sick Bay even has its own dedicated transporter room.
“Oh, and look who’s lurking about. This is Dr. Jenn Carmichael, my personal pain in the–”
Dr. Jenn Carmichael, nerve specialist, USS Challenger
“Don’t you say it, Captain. And speaking of backsides, have you done your physical therapy yet?”
“I’m getting to it. I’m a little busy, as you can see.”
“Captain, if you want to keep your command, you will do your physical therapy twice a day. I may not be the Chief Medical Officer, but I’m responsible for YOU.”
“Yes, Ma’am. Hey, everybody, remember how I told you that I broke my back? Well, turns out there was a little permanent nerve damage that went with it, which also happens to be my nickname for Lieutenant Carmichael. My sciatic nerve acts up from time to time. Good thing Starfleet made a new rule about landing parties. Captains pretty much stay in their chairs unless it’s absolutely necessary. And I have a really good chair.”
Office of the Chief Medical Officer, USS ChallengerMain bio bed room, USS ChallengerPhysical examination room, USS ChallengerLt Commander Brag bav Blav, trauma counselor, USS Challenger
“Oh, and look who it is! Dr. Brag bav Blav, everyone. Our trauma specialist. How’s it going, Doc?”
“How do you think it’s going, Captain? I just restocked my Saurian brandy. Again. I’m having Bichel put up a security force field on my display. These the new recruits?”
“Hopefully.”
“Well, I can’t wait ta get inside yer heads, kids.”
“Uh, okay, then, let’s continue, everyone.”
Shhkkkt.
“Computer, deck 16. aft.”
Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Shhkkkt.
“And here we are in my favorite place, Engineering. I saved the best for last.
“Over to the side is Auxiliary Control, where we can actually operate the ship if the bridge is compromised. And over here you see the warp core. What’s wrong, you’ve never seen anything like it? Well, my friend Woody, there, can tell you why. He’s the Assistant Chief Engineer. Lieutenant Wooderson?”
Lieutenant Chadwick “Woody” Wooderson, assistant chief engineer, USS Challenger
“All right, all right, all right! You must be the new recruits Cap’n has been trying to woo. This here is the fastest warp engine ever devised. Challenger has been rated for sustained speeds of warp factor eight, but we can push her up to warp nine if we have to. Of course, we can’t shoot when we go that fast, but you can’t have everything. She’s got some giddyup, and she purrs like a kitten at warp six. The only thing she don’t like is sittin’ still.”
Upper deck of engineering, USS ChallengerJeffries tube, USS Challenger
“Thanks, Woody. As you can see the warp core is installed vertically, requiring a second floor, which is new. And yes, we have a Jeffries tube for control access. No one likes to go in there, and hopefully no one will have to.
Isometric view of engineering, lower deck, USS ChallengerIsometric view of engineering, upper deck, USS Challenger
“Well, that pretty much concludes our little tour, unless you’re excited by cargo bays and crew quarters.
“If you’re still interested in serving aboard Challenger, I’m reviewing applications for the next several days. I look forward to reading yours.”
Credits:
Ship and shuttlecraft design by Bill Krause, @buckadmiral on Twitter, @admiralbuck on Instagram
Interiors by Craig Shoosmith, @tekknonerd on both Twitter and Tumblr
The first comic book convention I attended was the Return of King Kon back in 1984. It was held on the campus of Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. My roommate, my girlfriend, and I drove to the show, where we spent the day looking at comic books, and meeting the people who made them. That’s where I first saw a copy of Fleischer Studio’s Superman cartoons, which I had read about when I was a kid. I entered a trivia contest and won second place. As an entry gift, I received a copy of Badger #9, and liked it enough that I added it to my monthly list of comics and sought out the previous issues.
I was hooked.
I didn’t have the financial stability to attend conventions regularly until around 1990, after I had graduated from college and was working full-time as a teacher. I taught summer school just to have enough money to do what my friends were doing, which was getting professional artists to draw my Champions characters. Some of my friends had some pretty impressive sketches already. My friend Scott Burnham had taken one of my drawings to a convention in 1988 and had Mike Gustovich ink over my pencils, which was kind of a thrill. I was terrible at inking, and he made my drawing look a hundred times better.
Quantum, pencils by me and inks by Mike Gustovich
Another friend took Scott’s idea and ran with it, getting Neil Vokes to ink my drawing of his character, Firefrost, in 1989:
Firefrost, pencils by me, inks by Neil Vokes
When I attended Chicago Comicon in the summer of 1990, I sought out artists to draw my newest character, Domino. Domino started out as a detective character who wore ordinary street clothes. He was very much inspired by The Question and The Spirit. But he also carried guns, not to kill people, but to defend himself against the higher-powered characters in the word he lived in. I immediate got Bill Reinhold, the artist from The Badger, to ink one of my drawings.
I was also lucky enough to find Steve Mitchell, who was inking a Batman title at the time, but more importantly, had once inked over Frank Miller in 1980!
Domino, pencils by me, inks by Steve Mitchell
I was really starting to see the difference in how an inker can affect the overall quality of the image. But that was really driven home by being inked by Denys Cowan.
Domino, pencils by me, inks by Denys Cowan
I honestly never cared for this piece after that. My pencils were of uniform quality, but the inking was hit or miss, it seemed. I loved Denys’s work on The Question, but this, to me, was not much more than scribble.
But the find of the show had to have been Brian Stelfreeze. Brian was drawing Cycops, a black and white indy book from Comics Interview, and I loved how different his style was compared to most artists. I caught him early in the show, but his dance card filled quickly. He stayed even after the show ended to finish this one up. He turned the paper upside down, and said, “I’m gonna have fun with this.” And he drew it just how you see it here:
Domino, by Brian Stelfreeze
This remains one of my all-time favorite pieces, and it was drawn upside-down! I paid 30 whole dollars for this one. Over the years, I attended this convention and Motor City Comic Con in Detroit several times, and loved the fan experience. I never thought I would qualify to be on the other side of the table. But a boy can dream…
I liked to help out my grandparents whenever I could. My grandpa had just turned 68 at the end of January and my grandma turned 64 on Christmas Eve of 1977. That was one of the funny things about my Grandma McClain. She had a December birthday, like me, and knew what it was like to get those combination gifts. Some of you know, I’m sure: “This is for your birthday and Christmas both.” She always made sure that I received separate gifts and cards for my birthday, and she always made me a cake after I went to live with my dad. You know, looking back on it now, it only happened six times before I was off to college, but I appreciated that chocolate cake with chocolate frosting every time.
My grandpa installed a woodstove in the dining room of their small house in Mesick. It was the 70s, you know, and that meant the energy crisis. The cost of oil was skyrocketing, and that included heating oil. My grandparents had a heating oil tank outside the kitchen window that powered the furnace in the winter and it was getting expensive. My grandpa bought wood by the cord and it was stacked up outside the back door, which led to the mud room. Whenever the woodbox in the mudroom got low, they had me come over and split wood. Yes, with an axe, just like a lumberjack. I would spend an hour or so out on the back patio, gradually de-layering from my winter coat to a down vest, down to a flannel shirt as I chopped. I could work up a pretty good sweat, even in the winter. I’d switch from chopping right-handed to left-handed to work out different muscles and avoid getting too sore. I’d been chopping wood since I was 12, and I knew a few tricks. When I was done, my grandpa would slip me a dollar without my dad knowing. My dad would have really been upset if he’d known Grandpa was paying me anything. They were already helping us out while my dad was out of work. I would take the money, though, and buy comic books or trading cards and the occasional candy bar.
I bought one of my favorite comics ever with one of those dollars. It was Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #239.
Superboy #239, cover by Mike Grell and Josef Rubinstein
I loved the Legion books because they were teenagers, just like me. Well, they were probably a little older since I’d been a teenager for two whole months, but you get the point. It had a science fiction bent, being set in the 30th century, always 1000 years ahead of our time. So, this one would have been set in 2978 instead of 1978. I always thought it was funny that it wasn’t 1000 years ahead of Superboy’s time. It was 1000 years ahead of Superman‘s (our) time. In the best way, the Legion stories were kind of like Star Trek and superheroes combined.
This particular comic starred my favorite Legionnaire, Ultra Boy. As I wrote here, I like Ultra Boy because he could only use his ultrapowers one at a time. He could be strong or invulnerable or fast. He could fly or use his penetra-vision (like X-Ray vision but he could see through lead, too) or his flash vision (think heat vision), but only one at a time. He was limited, and had to be smart about it. There’s an entire power framework in the superhero RPG Champions built around this concept. The power slots are labeled “ultra” slots with good reason!
In the comic, Ultra Boy wakes up in a crashed space ship without his flight ring and no memory of how he got there. In fact, he’s not even sure on which planet or moon he is. As he slowly figures things out, he gets sold out by a former flame, who is then immediately murdered by a weapon that mimics Ultra Boy’s flash vision. Jo (Ultra Boy’s real name) quickly discovers that he’s being hunted on his home planet of Rimbor, and not by just anyone, but the Legion itself, his own teammates. He’s been framed for murder! Ultra Boy leads them on a merry chase, using his knowledge about his friends to keep things to his advantage. Ultra Boy uses his strength to defeat Star Boy, who had pinned Ultra Boy with his gravity powers, then takes his flight ring so he can fly and use one of his other powers at the same time. He even manages to outmaneuver Superboy and Mon-El so that they crash into each other at superspeed, stunning both. But eventually, Colossal Boy sucker punches Ultra Boy from around a corner, and Superboy and Mon-El combine to knock him out with a timed simultaneous punch. When Ultra Boy comes to, he’s about to be turned over to the authorities, when Chamelon Boy shows up to clear his name, using good old-fashioned detective work, which he was doing while the rest of the Legionnaires were busy fighting.
This is still one of my favorite issues of all time. It has great artwork by Jim Starlin, inked by Joe Rubinstein, with finished dialogue by Paul Levitz.
I love it so much that when I wrote an illustrated prose Solution Squad story for my graphic novel, I had a cover drawn by my friends Paul Schultz and Shelby Edmunds that is reminiscent of the cover of this book.
Cover of The Last Boy, by Paul Schultz and Shelby Edmunds
Looking back, much of my Solution Squad graphic novel was informed by these influential comics of my adolescence. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
My wife Magi and I have been watching Bosch together recently, and I’ve been thinking about the trend toward 10-episode seasons for TV shows on streaming services. Game of Thrones used that format (more or less), as did Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which I really enjoyed. I kind of like the idea for tabletop gaming purposes. I ran a weekly Champions game for almost a year before I needed a break, but it was too much for me to handle the pressure of preparation, even with a lot of free time to come up with interesting villains, maps, and virtual tabletop tokens..
Grinding in a 162-game baseball season is one thing, but when you’re doing something creative, it isn’t necessarily the best practice. I was thinking toward the end of that experience about the Aaron Sorkin-driven Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, with its never-ending clock that counted down until the next airtime of their fictional TV show. Even when the power went out, the digital clock just kept ticking by some almost metaphorical means. That’s what running an ongoing weekly game felt like.
I think that taking the time to put together 10 games with a fairly tight plot that includes a resolution in the end, that also plants seeds for future events, sounds really nice. And with my recent Star Trek Adventures campaign as an example, you can figure out if it’s just not working and you’re not locked into it for the long term if it isn’t.
I spent a big part of the pandemic collecting superhero role playing games and supplements, but I also picked up Star Trek games, Star Wars games, and a few others. I had a lot of fun with that, because I would buy them in big lots to get the unit price down on the ones I needed for my collection, and then I’d sell off the duplicates in smaller batches, getting the unit price up to a level where I was nearly breaking even. I was collecting for hardly any cost except for my time. And since I enjoyed what I was doing, that was no cost at all.
One of my favorite games to pick up was Mutants & Masterminds. I played in a short campaign back in 2009, but that was another edition of the game. I didn’t know the rules and just kind of went along with whatever the gamemaster said I could or could not do. I never got a real feel for the rules. The most recent edition, the third edition, has the advantage of having four sourcebooks featuring DC Comics characters that I am familiar with. I could kind of get a better handle on the game that way. But the best resource for learning about it was the actual play podcast, Masks and Mayhem. Listening to four people kind of struggle their way through learning the game while playing at the same time was a lot of fun. Mutants & Masterminds is more of a narrative game than Champions, and I’m not sure how that would go with the current group I play with. But that’s where the 10-game campaign would probably work best. Just the other day, I found myself pulling out game tokens for future use from an M&M supplement. If I take my time and put together a decent 10-game run at a leisurely pace, I think it would be a lot more fun for everyone.
Running games is one of my favorite things to do. It’s a lot like writing comics, except you get immediate feedback on your story, whether the intended audience enjoys it or not. The surprises that come with cooperative storytelling are an added bonus. Oftimes, a player’s speculation on what they think is happening is better than what the gamemaster had in mind in the first place, and a good GM will make a minor adjustment to make that speculation the truth. A great gamemaster can sell the players on the idea that it’s what they had in mind the whole time. Unfortunately, I’m not a great gamemaster. I am, however, a good one, and I’m not too proud to switch gears when someone has a better idea than mine, as long as it’s entertaining for everyone. After all, that’s the purpose of the game in the first place.
I think that running a 10-run campaign would be beneficial in other ways. I would have time to write out campaign summaries in some detail. It’s something I used to do back in the 90s when I ran a bi-weekly game. I lived in Michigan City, Indiana, and all my players lived in west Michigan, so I had a 65-minute commute each way to a friend’s house in Paw Paw, where we played. I didn’t mind this commute. I do some of my best thinking when I’m driving on the highway. I’d have time to visualize the game on my way there, and on the way back, I used my Sony microcassette recorder to dictate the game summary while it was still fresh in my mind. The next morning, I would transcribe the summary on my keyboard and distribute it to the players electronically, using our BBS. Yes, those were the days! Now I could just use WordPress, or Discord if I wanted immediate feedback. When I was running a weekly campaign for the long haul, I just couldn’t find the time.
Some of the campaigns I might like to run:
Wild Cards: Flashback–Set in 1986 after the Astronomer’s defeat and during the WHO tour that takes most of the well-known aces abroad, a mysterious drug called Flashback appears on the streets of Jokertown. One dose sends the user on a 12-hour hallucination of the way things used to be, allowing jokers to forget their deformities, at least temporarily. Highly addictive, each successive dose lasts roughly half the time of the previous one. Can a small group of aces and jokers uncover the truth behind the drug epidemic? Mutants & Masterminds 3rd Edition.
M&M Wild Cards
Star Trek: Chimera–While the captain of the starship Challenger (and most of the main characters) is on a landing party, the ship is taken over by once-human Augments who have melded their DNA with other humanoid races from the Alpha Quadrant. Can the landing party hope to sneak aboard and re-take Challenger? FASA’s Star Trek The Roleplaying Game 2nd Edition.
Challenger in orbit
Champions 1989: Escape from Stronghold–With the Champions gone missing, can the player characters prevent a mass escape of the “classic enemies” from the superprison, Stonghold? Champions 4th Edition.
