[ASH] Shadow Girls #8 - Warden's Legacy

[Drew Nilium]

On 11/7/22 11:30 PM, Dave Van Domelen wrote:
>       [Cover shows the fight between Warden and Supernaut in Warden #12,
>        with the Morning Stars as ghostly observers.  The cover copy
>        asks, "Super...or Naut?"]

ooooooooh :o

>       "Guys, guys, I maybe kinda overheard my parents talking about work and I
> didn't really mean to but I don't really have the hang of our expanded senses
> yet and I just sort of pick things up sometimes when there's a quiet spot in
> my music or..."
>       "The point, Liv?" Julie asked.

X3;;;

> With school out for the summer, the
> Morning Stars had started meeting on weeknights as well, under the cover of
> training at a totally plausible and not fake at all martial arts dojo giving
> self defense lessons.

X3

>       Liv took a deep breath, and everyone just sort of winced in anticipation
> of the verbal barrage they knew was coming.

Me whenst infodump


> I heard
> my parents say that Doctor Jacky and Baron Saturday had been nosing around
> Cybernostra territory a little too much lately so they're worried that the
> rumors of a new zombie Supernaut might be true and that would suck SO badly
> if it happened and..."
>       "Wait, SUPERNAUT?" Maddie held up a hand.  "I haven't heard anything
> about him since he crashed Umbrae's wedding last year.  And got blown up.

Uh, yeah, whatst :o

>       "A NEW one, like I said Maddie," Liv tried to give the team's reluctant
> mentor a rather cross look, but combined with her small stature and pink hair
> it only ended up looking adorable.

^.^ <3 <3 <3

> "Not with the alien tech this time, but
> jacking Cybernostra with technoloas and then using them as parts to stitch
> together a franken-Supernaut strong enough to let Jacky and Saturday stop
> being bad jokes who can't keep any living followers anymore now that the
> Macoute has dropped them like a bad habit and the 5th Avenue Zombie
> Snakeaters are kind of falling apart, literally."

X3

> And Liv's right..."
>       "She is?" Tee asked.  "About what?"
>       "Everything," Liv tried a slightly more effective scowl, but still
> looked cute.

X3

> If the voodoo boys do too much damage to the
> Cybernostra, then Bathory's probably going to decide it's time to go loud.
> We need her to stay quiet until we're ready to put her down."

Hmmmmm, yeah

> While we may have a long term desire to push Rex Umbrae and his cybernetic
> allies out of the City, in the immediate and medium terms we are far better
> served by the stability he enforces."

Being sucked into his trap!! :o

> Right now it's second-hand
> rumors at best, no offense, Liv."

I love her. X>

> Liv, you know any usual
> Cybernostra haunts we could check, just to see if they're getting cocky and
> are easy to shadow?"
>       "Um, I know a few we shouldn't check out, because there's cocky and then
> there's justified?" Liv replied.
>       "Good enough, let's hit the roofs," Julie snapped, then headed for the
> tunnels.

X3

>       Tammy leaned back, exhaling in what Maddie thought was a rather self-
> satisfied sigh.

X3

>       "In short, I believe your former ally Warden artificially extended the
> active Paraganger period by several years past its natural end, by his
> actions."

Welp. Yeah, that makes some fuckin' sense. >:/

>       "No one has formally declared when the Paragangs of New York became a
> serious problem, but most agree that it started in earnest about ten years
> ago, as the first adult paranormals decided to come to Manhattan and play at
> being villains.  And make no mistake, for the first year or two, it was a
> matter of fashion and play.

*nodnods* With you so far.

> There were *scores* of
> powered paragangers.  How is a population less than that of Twentieth Century
> *Milwaukee* going to support that kind of predation?  Even if most of them
> were just playing at crime, they were still parasitic, a drain on the
> community, a barrier to urban renewal and recovery."

Makes sense, makes sense.

>       "Milwaukee did host the original Academy of Super-Heroes for a few
> years," Maddie noted.  "Superhuman concentrations happen."
>       Tammy shook her head.  "I chose my comparison purposefully.  By the time
> the original ASH moved its headquarters to Milwaukee, they were already
> mostly facing regional or even global threats.  There were relatively few
> local paranormal criminals prior to the explosion of such during the
> Godmarket.

Hmmmmm, fair, fair.

> Still, as
> near as I can tell from the data I have been able to find, 2021 was the
> natural peak year for the paragangs.  Given a few more years, the fad would
> have ended as it became too much like work to maintain the structures needed
> to keep the gangs fed and otherwise supplied.

And then...
>       "So, between the general perversity of the paragangers and Warden
> kneecapping the two factions who actually wanted things kept calm, things got
> a lot worse for several years, to the point the United World sent in STRAFE
> in a failed attempt to fix things?" Maddie slumped.

...yeah. x-x Makes sense. It turns out that punishing and killing bad people 
doesn't resolve the conditions that created them!!!

> If Warden had been more careful
> about his targets from the start, or even never began his crusade, it is
> likely all but a handful of paragangers would have left for greener pastures
> by the end of '23.  The success of the new ASH would likely have inspired
> many to go to the Academy, in fact.  But for all his prowess, I doubt Warden
> could have known that."
>       Maddie shook her head.  "He didn't really know anything, not when he
> started.  He was acting at the direction of an angry young telepath who
> wanted everyone who hurt her and killed her family to pay, and it took him a
> while to really wake up to himself, he told me."

Yeah, legit. @@

> The United
> World's primary paranormal response organization mostly operated out of the
> nearby East Village, and while it had withdrawn superhuman tactical resources
> in the wake of the island being ceded to Rex Umbrae, they kept plenty of
> affiliated field experts in town to keep an eye on things.

I mean, I sure flipping would.

>       "If they're fighting it, we should help them, not hurt them!" Icosa-Pink
> declared, leaping into the light.
>       "SHIT!" Octa-Green hissed, and leapt after Icosa-Pink, followed quickly
> by the other three and no small amount of additional swearing.
>       "Mr. Stone, you need to fight it!" Icosa-Pink yelled, reaching out a
> hand.

I love her a lot. <3

>       The Cybernostra she had addressed reached out his own hand...and
> deployed a cannon from his forearm.  It spat cyan light that splashed over
> Icosa-Pink's chest, devoured by and destroying the shadows that sheathed her
> and normally protected her.

D: D: D:

> the two
> Cybernostra didn't stand a chance against four enraged girls who had zero
> interest in reaching out a hand of friendship when a boot of anger was
> available.

X3;;;;

>       "She powered down involuntarily, but the uniform seems to have held
> against what energy exceeded her shadows," Hexa-Blue said, feeling for a
> pulse on Icosa-Pink's hand.  "She's alive, thanks to Black Opal's tailoring
> skills and fabric supplier."

Woohoo! :D

>       "Unnnnghh," Icosa-Pink moaned, stirring to motion.  "I feel like I bit
> into a power cord again," she said shakily as her eyes fluttered open.

Again X3 <3

>       "I...I thought that I might be able to...fix them?  Like that feeling I
> had about Killgamesh?  But once I got close enough, I didn't get that feeling
> at all, and then I got the feeling of being SHOT in the CHEST and thanks for
> CARING, J...Yellow," Icosa-Pink spat.

awwwwwww. <3

>       It turned out that the Blackcels were not so much lethal as they were
> LOUD, and the two reeled from the antipersonnel sonic weapons for a moment
> before gathering their wits and fleeing the scene.
>       "Well, back to de drawing board," a voice muttered from the shadows.

X3 <3 <3 <3

>       Tammy's "sidebar" ended up kind of taking over the issue, which was
> originally intended to focus on Liv, but I think it worked well enough with
> the two sharing the spotlight.

Yeah, I think so. :>

>       Supernaut crashed Umbrae's wedding in ASH #75 and while his brain case
> did survive the immediate aftermath, it is unrevealed (and to a large extent
> undecided) what Umbrae did with the unstable brain in a box.  In fact,
> several danglers from there just never got picked up on, I'd been setting
> things up for a story idea Matt Rossi III had at the time, but it never ended
> up happening.  For now, though, even though it's pretty clear Matt won't
> return to writing Warden, I'm going to leave Mr. Malfeas off-stage so that
> the Morning Stars can hold the spotlight.  Maybe he's off in Japan, helping
> the Otakuza fight that island full of demons.

:> There ya go.

Drew "I read some of his published stuff, it was okay" Nilium