8FOLD: Daylighters # 4 (Annotations)

[Tom Russell]

 _____              _ _       _     _
|  __ \            | (_)     | |   | |
| |  | | __ _ _   _| |_  __ _| |__ | |_ ___ _ __ ___
| |  | |/ _` | | | | | |/ _` | '_ \| __/ _ \ '__/ __|
| |__| | (_| | |_| | | | (_| | | | | ||  __/ |  \__ \
|_____/ \__,_|\__, |_|_|\__, |_| |_|\__\___|_|  |___/
               __/ |     __/ |
              |___/     |___/  ANNOTATIONS

      # 4 -


[1] Melody spoke pretty highly of her

Julie Ann's referring to the DARKHORSE miniseries. Cal was along for
the ride on Melody's multiversal misadventure, risking her life to
rescue Melody on one earth, and sacrificing the possibility of being
restored to normal size so that Melody could save another one. Melody
came away impressed with Cal, as did more than a few readers.

But Kate's never seen that version of Cal, and only knows her as the
difficult child and teenager that she's raised, who has always seemed
to be an angry, flailing, hot mess. Kate and Simon have always been
close, and in some ways have similar personalities - Simon is much
more of a dork and a giant nerd, but the two of them have always had
their respective acts together, and have never needed to question
their identities. Fairly early on, Simon was let in on Kate's secret
identity, which they kept hidden from Cal. Cal figured it out on her
own, but it made her feel supremely isolated and pushed to the side
and angry - feelings that only deepened when she started coming to
grips with the fact that she was genderfluid.

[2] Rainshade

Kate has a long history of distrusting Rainshade that goes back
several years. At that time, there was a thing called the Fitzwalter
Rule - which required gadget-based superheroes to turn their gadgets
over to the government, so that those tools could be turned over to
government-sponsored heroes - which was active in certain areas of the
United States. Because of that rule, Kate with her Metronome Belt
spent as much time avoiding police as she did fighting the bad guys.
Meanwhile, Rainshade was using what Kate assumed was a high-tech
umbrella to fight crime, but wasn't being hassled because she claimed
to have a "psionic link with umbrellas". (That's still her official
cover story outside the superhero community.)

Kate says that she got over this - I'm not really sure if she did -
but she has another reason to be distrustful of Rainshade. In the
DARKHORSE miniseries, Kate stumbled onto the existence of The Company,
which is widely dismissed as a conspiracy theory (this widespread
dismissal is due in part because of Rainshade's machinations).
Rainshade wiped Kate's memory of the event, in her original heel turn.
(That heel turn may or may not have an asterisk, depending on your
read of MANCERS # 8.) Time-wise, this happened all of a week ago, and
even a day or two later, Kate had the lingering feeling that there was
something wrong that she was trying to remember.

[3] Jamy Lo

A "scientist second-class from the planet Lo-lox-gar", she first
crossed paths with the Earth - and "discovered" carbon-based lifeforms
- in the RED HART series, and between her and Derek, they did some
science at the bad guys. That took place in 2013. During The Last
Story (MIGHTY MEDLEY # 16) - in August of 2014 - Jamy Lo was referred
to as Derek's "space-girlfriend", though "space-ex-girlfriend" would
probably be more accurate, as he was dating Rainshade at the time.

[4] Three-Nine

Inspector Three-Nine, a police robot armed with a Martian beam pistol,
who appeared in some MIGHTY MEDLEY stories and JOLT CITY. Both he and
the Grey Gelding (a robot horse) were sent back in time by Gregory
Dingham during the events of The Last Story (MIGHTY MEDLEY # 16), but
no one in the present day is aware of this - they just know that they
disappeared.

Readers however will probably recall that the two of them showed up in
the "Seven 'Gainst Thebes" serial that ran in MIGHTY MEDLEY, with our
robot pal adopting the name Marshal Three-Nine.

[5] months-long space adventure

We saw only a small part of this, in JOURNEY INTO # 24, but Knockout
Mouse and Julie Ann Justice were off-planet from September through
December of 2014 on a diplomatic mission, trying to find allies to
help them take on the Pulse. They got one bite: the Kyklokos system, a
planets-wide empire circling a vampire sun, ruled by the despotic
Maledux. It was Kyklokos that destroyed Julie Ann Justice's home
planet of Vanirron. We'll see a little more of this in JOURNEY INTO #
25, but not, sadly, any space-sewers.

[6] a couple of you long underwear types

Pam is referring to her history as part of JOLT CITY's supporting
cast, where she was romantically involved with Martin Rock (Green
Knight) and lived with Martin and Derek Mason (Blue Boxer).

[7] Not even close

Derek is famously bad at keeping his secret identity a secret - almost
every supporting character in JOLT CITY (including tertiary characters
like Trinity Tran) figured it out on their own. When a leak of
government secrets in the summer of 2013 compromised the secret
identities of several heroes, the most surprising revelation was that
Derek's name was somehow not on the list.

And, while we're here - the "three-nine gun" that Pam's is based on is
of course the Martian beam pistol used by the above-annotated
Inspector Three-Nine. Three-Nine's pistol belonged to either Ress or
Danalee of ORPHANS OF MARS fame.

[8] Yes!

As far as I am aware, the Eightfold Universe is the only superhero
shared universe with what could be termed an in-canon explanation for
all the narrow escapes and last minute saves that are inherent to the
genre. I am inordinately proud of this.