At last, the most beautiful story with the X-Men in thirty years

http://ceaseill.blogspot.com/2010/12/free-of-fallen-world-pt-1.html Beginning; the following part completes the story.

You comics fans might find it helpful to think of this story as though it were published in the 1979 Annual, or summer of 1979.

Epilogue upon the mountainside, emergent:


COLOSSUS: Time ceases its conventional meaning.
NIGHTCRAWLER: What is at stake? An ultimate, long night of captivity for the human mind. Or will the means to know the hearts, minds and imaginations of one another resolve with human survival? The least powerful among us, unable to be ignored by the wealthy---the journey we seem at times to walk, alone, the need to search after similarities.

COLOSSUS: Should these things be torn from the embrace of our experience, at the spell of the wolf? Lasting liberty---or a peaceful, exotic future deferred---will a bright day of justice emerge?
How else might these false barrier fall?

WOLVERINE: You three have a full-on scent now. The Wolf Man’s scent began vanishing after his split from you.
RAY (in Old Norse):(Då vi er levande igen, för den förste gång i busund *he’s using a corruption of Swedish and Icelandic. Thanks Beachy. Then we are living again, for the first time in a thousand years.)
NICOLA: You! Gospodin, do you understand now my language?
COLOSSUS: Da, Before, I could not, but now you are speaking some early form of Russian. I am not well versed in these things.

XAVIER: Perhaps you will find English useful in the modern world. It would be a simple process to convey your understanding into translation.
MARC: Extraordinary! Yet of all strange powers, I sense no magic in you people.
RAY: It is as I said: they are like animals who derive new traits than the parents, such as I have observed.
NICOLA: Perhaps our fate remains linked to the future re-appearance of the Box. If so, what is free will?
MARC: Perhaps, my brother, that is what we must now discover. As it stands, this world has been subtly changed in our wake.
NICOLA: Abril my love, I never expected to breath the air again...nor hold you so.
RAY: Huh. I’d still prefer to know how it happened!
MARC: (Abril) For now, I’d content myself to pick up anew...in the land where Mycearyns once stood true.

CYCLOPS: You’re welcome to come as far as Muir Island with us, friends.
STORM(thoughts): Jean brings back all the “inadvertent cosmic suicides” with her powers, we see how powerful she is but also we’re left with the individuals who’ve never experienced the broader universe that way with their imaginations...how will they all react?
CYCLOPS: And what of you, Machine Man? If you’re unlike any before you, surely you are some mutation in the truest sense?

MACHINE MAN (sitting cross legged, spot-welding himself): Possibly, with the environmental damages done, all of humankind will have to mutate some way to survive. I’m model x-51, so I was a born X-Man, except mutants have parents. Let’s just say, my birth certificate would make a run for President kinda tricky!
Jean touches Ororo on the arm, and without a word they step over from the rest, overlooking the savaged, proud wilderness, and the aching of the now-stilled seas hinted on the wind.


JEAN: (pacing) When I looked into the clairvoyant future flux, I realized the days flow by so quickly in the scheme of things. Their brevity terrifies me, these days to come, so filled with unbridled passions beyond imagining. And yet---is the future ever meant only to be briefly seen, to keep us beside the unknown in the moment? (She gives a little laugh, and turns to smile.) Is that why I can hardly hope to make another to understand?
ORORO: Then, if you cannot understand the flicker of the future you saw: what did you feel?
JEAN: An expansiveness...a song, composed of inspirations beyond this mode of existence...and finally, darkness...and a feeling...just ineffable...the true unknown, I guess...for now.
Is mankind not meant to live with such perceptions, but with those set in the moment? On such a thin sliver of time and space—here, can a thing like love take place?

ORORO: I saw a vision of Cairo...Tahrir Square, a place I haven’t seen since my parents died. I see such joy, the opposite of the great sadness of those days of bombs and fear and entrapment. I see no one alone, and people in need realizing each creature here is in this together. To this, we must answer, or else.
What is a day? What are thirty years? Even should we know the future, we must understand.
And as for love...all I can think now, sister, to say to you is this.

My birthday present from Charles was the first I could remember, Jean. He suggested memorization was a useful practice, and nothing suited the soul like poetry. Within the words I read that night, I found something Maya Angelou wrote which I committed to memory:
“Yet, if we are bold love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls.
In the flush of love’s light, we dare be brave
And suddenly we see that love costs all we are
And will ever be.
Yet, it is only love, which sets us free.

(They hug.)

JEAN: Thanks for letting me unload these things, Storm. I wonder how best to perceive this transmetamorphosis.
A vision of what might become...a secret revealed:
Within the universal mind, ultimate hope to follow the purpose of all our days to the End.







Thank you. It may not be the greatest thing ever written, but it’s about the greatest things I could ever imagine. Cecil L. Disharoon, Jr.



Early X-Men - I started reading the book slightly before then, going over the last part of the fight with Moses Magnum and the first appearance with Alpha Flight. That was a great time to start reading comics! While I haven't had an opportunity to read most of them since college, I'm familiar with that era of the supergroup. Machine Man - not quite so familiar with, save for the 4 part limited series that placed him in a dystopian cyberpunk future (which is a great read). Bearing in mind my general familiarity, I can not go into specific details about where the characters were in that era. Scott loves Jean and vice-versa, Storm still hasn't gone punk, Kitty Pryde is not even a glimmer in the reader's eye...

I will start off by saying that the best characterizations you have are of Hank McCoy, the Professor and Cyclops. I never got a handle on Cyclops as a character at that time in my life, but what you present seems very consistant with who he was at the time, a veteran of X-Man wierdness, but someone who seemed to be easy enough to relate to on a human level. Hank and the Professor - both intelligent characters with brilliant minds, but I saw a distinction between the two in personality to keep them distinct. The Sub-Mariner cameo made me chuckle because his voice was spot on, which never ceases to amuse me. Nightcrawler, Wolverine and Colossus also kept the status quo for the most part, which is important in a period piece like you've written - with an epic plot that covers so much ground and introduces so many different elements, it is important for the reader to have an anchor to remind them that they're reading an X-Men comic.

The plot itself is very ambitious and fast-paced, perhaps a bit too much at times. The old addage of "less is more" comes to mind considering the sheer number of characters involved. At times, I was wondering who was going to show up next and how the current characters fit in and who was part of what scene. I think a portion of my confusion would have been dispelled if there'd been consistant formatting throughout. It sounds nitpicky and technical, but once the reader starts questioning what is going on, then the flow of a story is interrupted and the reader has to start up again.

To continue on the same vein, I had trouble figuring out what was going on during scenes because the story read mostly as straight dialogue as opposed to a comic book format. I've always had the idea that a comic book is just a movie that hasn't been filmed yet - the process of putting the scenes together visually is called "storyboarding". While the styling of the artwork is up to the artist, setting the scene and describing what is going to happen is part of a good author's duties. In television scripts, the "narrative notes" are located on the left side of the page, connected with a box to the dialogue on the right. Put together, these describe what is going on during a specific instance. Furthermore, it helps organize the elements of the story to flow correctly and smoothly while adhering to the author's ideal of what the story is supposed to be. Since you're not quite writing a TV/movie script, let me put it in a way that might be more relatable -

Imagine that you're reading a comic book to a blind kid. You'll find that reading only the contents of the word balloons doesn't quite capture the experience of a comic book. That's because comic books are much more than mere dialogue, right? But how to convey all the hard-hitting action, the subtle foreshadowing, and the heart-pounding drama of every single the artist passionately rendered? Break it down to what is happening frame by frame and describe what's happening and enjoy the process. With that, you get pacing, continuity, greater depth, and a myriad of other details that largely go unnoticed when crafted by a master.

The one thing that I thought served to undercut the plot was that everyone was explaining everything, rather than finding answers during the plot itself. "Show, don't tell" is the other axiom that I try to live by when writing and in so doing, stay true to the characters. All things mutant, Cerebro and psychic are the domain of Professor X. Literature, loqutiousness and science (genetics in particular) are the hallmark of the Beast's knowledge. Each and every character has something that they are good at, but are truely challenged when they are outside of their realms. Finding the answers or to find someone to tell them the answers, can enrichen the plot in ways that you never quite considered before.

Overall, the story was an ambitious homage to the X-Men. It had a lot of very intelligent concepts that I think could have been more effective with a bit more narration, perhaps a bit over the head of a 13-year old kid, but what kid reads comics these days ; ) I admire your ability to put your script out there and your love of superheroes.


I have to wrap it up because I have to get ready for bed and have some quality time with my wife, but if you choose to follow my advice and do another pass at it, I'll be more than happy to read and critique again. Perhaps I'll even take a stab at it and let you critique my work.


Your friend

- Joe Braband

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Complete! X-Men/TRANZ: Frightened Off the Face of the Earth!

begins: With the ongoing mental storm now relenting...the Phoenix completes the empowering “switch.”
Free by a moment of Emptiness...to know their own feelings, without thought or care an instaneous wave of meditation...peace.
Silence.
The non-existence properties of the flash of the M’Krann Crystal are translated into Bliss...a moment, free of the illusions of existence...a profound moment of potential...as the raw energy of creativity, kindness, and love, in the moment it transforms from ultimate abundance of purity into one expansive, timeless, instant light of the mind, before it is received into Beauty.









brief Epilogue follows.

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X-MEN: Frightened Off the Face of the Earth! Sanity's Last Stand

JEAN: Professor! I sense...!


XAVIER: Thank you, Jean. Alex and Lorna were here to monitor Cerebro; Lorna was using her magnetic powers to probe for structural damage when the surge of psychic backlash fed them BOTH impressions, a virtual reality of the battle: as though this crisis used my telepathy to begin flooding this environs, too!


LORNA: My powers were in use already---sorry for the room, Professor---but you kept from releasing your blast, Alex. I’m proud of you!
HANK: Jean, this molecule I’m thinking about---pick this image out, to add to your telepathic “touch”...
JEAN: An L-Theanine! Its image might stimulate the dopamine receptors in the brains of those who perceive it. Many thanks, Hank!
ALEX: Hank, I nearly totaled you---I thought -I thought I was THERE with my brother and the other X-Men, under attack! under attack!



XAVIER, thinking: Jean is using ESP to suggest the image of a natural amino molecule, L-Theanine, drawn from the mind of Hank McCoy and meant to stimulate dopamine sensors that elevate the underlying emotional level to meet the extraordinary demands of the Tranzmetamorphosis. If---when---we survive this crisis, I am so thankful she’s returned. It’s critical we understand: she lives now as though she is a totally new being.

Her plan to shut the aperture is our last hope of restoring those affected by the trauma---the sheer power and facility is a thousand times what she possessed as Marvel Girl.

For the beginning of this pastiche epic, see

http://ceaseill.blogspot.com/2010/12/frightened-off-face-of-earth.html---Cease


And there, within the mountain maelstrom...
NIGHTCRAWLER: This image of the Phoenix bird pushes the firestorm heat into the stratosphere? Unglaublich! Then I must join you, Cyclops, in the cavern...how have you not burned to a crisp?
CYCLOPS: My body utilizes ambient energies, ‘crawler! I seem to be metabolizing this for my laser beams...which I’m using to pepper the wolf sorcerer. But that Box is key! And X-Men--- Let’s wipe out the machine!


(Insinuated in the Super Computer’s mainframe, Machine Man’s trying to hijack the dimensional nexus in which the Slave Box is suspended. His telescoped eyes take in Storm’s efforts outside the cave, as cold meets billowing heat.)
Storm focuses within and reaches again to the Pacific winds leading into the fiercely fueled firestorm.


MACHINE MAN (thinks): The woman’s actually the psionic origin of a low pressure front! Its
coolness meets the billowing, radiant, all-melting heat to create sudden thunder clouds, nearly at ground level! These X-Men are amazing...but what can YOU do, Aaron Stack?

MACHINE MAN (aloud): I’ve never seen a construction of this complexity! It rivals the human brain for its sheer enigmatic schemata!

COLOSSUS: Should I try to destroy it?


MACHINE MAN: I think I can override it with my digital ‘lock picks’: render the complex safe until the thing just stops? Do i TRY to send the whole thing to the future? It would be handier if I pushed the whole thing into the past. But who knows what the consequences of that would be? forward or back? Either way, are we dumping our problems on some other generation? If I push across space, the odds...

CORPSE FLOWER (leaping): Die! Die!!!

Colossus fights the She Wolf, Corpse Flower. Suddenly Wolverine dives in, sending himself and the larger-than-human She Wolf rolling, going fang and claw against one another.
MACHINE MAN: Who am I to simply destroy the machine? I’m certain there’s a...consciousness somewhere inside there.
COLOSSUS: Then---how can we disable its effect? Such manipulation negates all choice!


MACHINE MAN: There’s a sector about four meters by seven wide that feeds the galactic crystal power to the machine. There’s an incalculable risk to your life, but it can be rendered inert.
COLOSSUS: That is what power such as mine is made to do, comrade robota.
NIGHTCRAWLER: While it’s short circuiting, I’ll teleport the Slay Box out of its “battery” position*BAMF!* ---and perhaps help our every-less-ghostly Viking friends remove it from here!


SULINAR VIX: While you traverse the world between places in your world, wretched creature...you are most vulnerable to one who walks freely amidst the many planes of co-existence!
NIGHTCRAWLER: Vast ist? Nein!

When Kurt Wagner re-materializes in the air above the nexus processor, he falls violently, as though struck from above...


MACHINE MAN: I HAVE the electrically-generated power to affect a repelling charge around your person, using your metallic skin! Nice touch, by the way.

COLOSSUS: Shto! It feels---invigorating! (The ground itself rebels as he runs; with massive force, the mutant Russian slams into the core of the super computer’s operations. Then Machine Man imparts an anti-gravity field about himself and Colossus, and from above, he hurls the steel-skinned X-Man into the machine once more, amidst sparks and carnage of hardware.)


Wolverine’s distracted by Kurt’s fall; the she-wolf then doubles in size. He battles for leverage in her mouth.


STORM: The winds will blast you apart, sorcerer! Do not risk your life for this!
REMUS: You, the child of your own people’s future---why would YOU not understand? Tomorrow knocks restlessly at the door of your world. Heed the call; heed the salvation of all!!!
(Sharptooth grasps the air before him; a psuedo-plastic hand appears to cover Captain Ray. Captain Ray exerts all his strength:)
RAY: Live or die! I will be free!!! It was MY pride that forced me to keep the Box until we reached the volcano---to let me be corrupted by distractions that left our task incomplete, upon the breakthrough of the ice! But I will see this Box in the hands of no one, Wolf!

MARC KANE: The Wolf cannot defeat this storm mistress in time to re-unify his self and complete the spell; already, the summoned “cosmic-blink” energies destabilize.
Some hundred feet away, in the shadows, Corpse Flower swallows the feral mutant with a blazing red-eyed glaze of satisfaction.

NICOLA: of all the mysterious phantasms explored in our spiritual lives, Marc---never have enigmatic secrets been so thrust before our realization.
RAY: The Box, my prince! We’re moving it!!
Storm defends the Dragon’s Line from the four armed men. Drawing once more upon the wilderness inferno, she shapes the clouds into pyrocumulus forms---from these, she begins to stun her opponents with lightning!
STORM: You should have been forewarned.

CYCLOPS: Nightcrawler’s zapped! Wolverine’s swallowed whole! I wouldn’t count either of them out yet---but it’s down to me!

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X-MEN: tranz rupture! continues

ALL-NEW *Bite me fanboy, but this next scene w/ Logan and Kurt was cut from the next draft!*


Nightcrawler teleports Wolverine within a few feet of the gunman, while teleporting himself back in time to knock his victims out of the way; to his dismay, they, too, have been driven to fire as waves of fear meet the psychotic experience of their minds, both opened to all and flooded with random impressions of one another. The thoughts weave like a neural web, without regard for privacy nor concentration.
Without a word, the uncanny mutant launches himself towards disaster; he is all that stands between an unintentional massacre and reality. Gunfire rips and strips Wolverine, just before he unsheathes his Adamantium claws---and the hardest substance known to man brings a potential rampage to an end.
WOLVERINE: State these bo’ are in, one starts shootin’, it’s every man for his damn self.
Kurt: I am taking fighters out of the field---one Nightcrawler Express!
As the soldiers vanish, first one, then another, the surprise and distance lessens the indescribable feedback...while Colossus uses the psychic training of Professor Xavier to clear his head and demolish the stand of trees beside the all-consuming torch. Above, the gathered, strained, earnestly-summoned clouds at last yield their precious rain here in the desert wilderness...even a weakened monsoon, here, is no mean feat. As to their mistress who has called these drops:
HOLT: Look at how vulnerable she looks.
BLANCLEY: I can’t say for sure, but she resembles one of the X-Men. No one seems to know who they are or what they intend to do. Why would they risk their lives here? What are the consequences of what’s happening---and is this the world from here out?
HOLT: Can you even imagine: they’re at the center of this mind storm. No matter what things I’ve heard they can do, they can still die, right? They still have a heart that can stop beating, and lungs that can stop---
BLANCLEY: Is she choking?
STORM: Uhhh...I...feel the moisture gather on the wind...and the static of lightning building in the clouds. I am---awake! Here!
HOLT: Glad you can tell where “here” and “there” are, it’s getting hard to know!
STORM: At last the rains have come to quench the blaze---but now, have I done what most I could for you firefighters and soldiers?
BLANCLEY: What lurks within this plane of battle, I suspect has more to do with the realm we saw...
STORM: The plane we just visited, you---I see it in your eyes, you have both seen---there is some understanding passing amongst everyone.
HOLT: Are we becoming mind-readers?
BLANCLEY: It’s there the real war is fought; there’s nothing to do nor nothing, I suspect, to save us here besides one’s resolution to sheer courage, here in this wave-like schizophrenia!
STORM: My instincts ---my flesh wants to peel from the bones that choose to tread beside Cyclops and Phoenix in that cave! I feel the intense psychic pain and paranoia that has bitten like a prehistoric animal from the unreflective turmoil beneath them!
BLANCLEY: It is akin to quicksand...we resemble a mountain climbing team, jeopardized by the fall of those tied to their survival.
STORM: My thanks for your chivalry. Your courage fuels my own.
HOLT: Hope your friends can make it right.
BLANCLEY: Just don’t give up, eh? (Storm flies above.)
STORM: Wolverine---and smoky evidence of Nightcrawler. Here: my hand!
WOLVERINE to Storm: Kid’s tough! Thought that stunt ‘porting us out of the subconsciousness was pretty good---thanks for the lift, ‘Roro---but all we can do is back the play at the cave. Whatever’s out here, I can feel it--- but my senses only tell me the terrain's convulsing and it's nearly unbreathable, no other clues. It’s Jeanie's show now.

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X-MEN: Frightened Off the Face of the Earth! conclusion

Chronologically, this story takes place before:
http://integr8dfix.blogspot.com/2009/09/vanishing-wave-part-one.html and is an alternative version and contemporary of http://integr8dfix.blogspot.com/2009/11/calinferno.html. See http://ceaseill.blogspot.com/2010/05/iron-man-heart-of-mountain-feat.html for the epilogue.
An alternative was begun with http://integr8dfix.blogspot.com/2009/10/basin-city-blues-noirscience-fiction.html

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X-Men: Frightened Off the Face of the Earth part five The Secret of the Wolf Sorcerer

Just joining us? See recent posts of X-Men---Supercilious Cecil

With the focused power of the mutants cleaving now, from its nimbus springs Remus Sharptooth, grappling viciously with Storm.

As though by mitosis, the other half of Sharptooth’s form, the essence of the sorcerer is revealed: her lost brother, Ray, taken by the enchantress’ spell between his vanishing at the Break through and the Unknown.

THE BEAST: Nicola Dragonvayne and the Marc Kane have breached a critical point in the make-up of this being---the very fulcrum of his pastiche existence. What lies within? Where does this occur, that Cerebro can track the psyches of the X-Men along the same mental plane?

XAVIER: i feel sure this hidden being was aiding them in finding the way inside Remus’ mind. The identities of these ancient guardian psyches are now more clear: searchers, in a dark age lost to antiquity; the present age bears museums spotted still with artifacts and treasures they assembled. Those caretakers' last mission involved the deadliest secret of their era.



The Box they had guarded together is conjured from outside time and space to reappear here and focus the energies of the Tranz-Rupture. They, its final guardians, the last defenders of humanity, have come to this place and time to prevent it once more from being misused: once, as a coveted weapon of war, and now, as an agent to shape all of human consciousness and the earth itself.
Thousands of years of greater understanding of the Box are at play---the present spell of the wolf that holds Transmetamorphosis together, that increasingly makes all in its contagious awareness to feel everywhere in presence. Many, indeed, vanish for the stars beyond---so porous is the command of intention over reality.



RAY AWEN : Abril and Prince Dragonvayne---boon companions, half of your natural born lives---

MARC KANE: We will find a way, do not quit fighting Ray!!!
RAY AWEN: Swam now I have from the brackish mind of the wolf. Emerged, I find myself, my essence, bound to a most grandiose trickster.


PRINCE NICOLA: We were sundered during our mission: break through enemy lines, dispose of Slave Box. Ray, it’s still happening; we’re needed!
RAY AWEN: Who says?


MEANWHILE, the X-Men battle: Wolverine challenges Remus, Cyclops and Nightcrawler battle the Four Armed Men; Storm and Colossus tackle the she wolf Corpse Flower; Phoenix grapples with the eighty story Fire Elemental Dragon.


MARC KANE! The slightest breach in our rapport did render us vulnerable, as the heathen hordes did challenge us before I took the Box in my charge to the volcano. RAY: the break-through...the ice must've melted, we were merely a day too late in the year, and like thunder did the land beneath our boots cave...cave into a world of smoke, fire, and darkness. Your name, my disguised sister: Abril! That was the last word from my lips as we fell...


MARC KANE: Ray, YOU caught me into the world with your bare hands, as I cried and our mother grew cold. I have ever been the student of all things you do, brother. I only wish I could’ve reached you, through whatever malevolence manipulated us apart . But here we are, now.

RAY: Agreed. We know it was about Wanda, though, and what I did perceive of that priestess of Inguz and you.

NICOLA: If we can find a way back to the Box, we may yet wrest it from the Spell of the Wolf.

RAY: Well I know those fantastic machines, from my time spent as the essence of Remus Sharptooth. Without my body, he cannot resume his place in the material present!
Marc (Abril): The Dragon’s Line is together again. Though this battle be never ending, it is given to us to set things right.

RAY: But now---to reach that other side---must I rejoin as one to the Wolf?

Nearby...
COLOSSUS: Must we leave this unreality to survive?


CYCLOPS: May be no way out. We’ll have to fight them on their turf, outgunned though we may be. Kurt! I want you to teleport each of us back behind what’s left of that barrier; we need to regroup!
NIGHTCRAWLER: ja wohl!
STORM: Jean, can we help you deal with this trans-mind phenomenon? Can we provide humanity with some kind of ---switch?


JEAN: Who can say for certain what humanity would choose? It’s the mental habits of human kind that make this nearly impossible to absorb---but the power it’s tapping...shines like the solution to everything we know. Scott, I can give humankind the opportunity to stop it---I have an idea---but should I? Why are we set up as judges of all evolution?

WOLVERINE: Tell you truth, darlin’ ---you can only force so much change on a person before it’s up to them to let it stick. I don’t care at all for forcing a body to act against their will. If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen.
JEAN: You call that an answer?

WOLVERINE: Maybe nothin’ to do about it, now. But if there’s a choice, it’s only fair.
COLOSSUS: What can we do besides fight these nightmares on this dream-like plane?

NIGHTCRAWLER: i COULD try taking us back through the chamber that held the Box.
JEAN: Give me a minute to design our “trigger” and we’ll load it with the world outside.
STORM: Quickly! This “environment” here is becoming useless to manipulate.

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Frightened Off the Face of the Earth! part 4 featuring Stern-era X-Men

Cease: Here's what I had before the eclipse had ended: btw, this would've been an alternative plotline inserted before X-Men 125 in 1979, and so features those X-Men:

: As the Storm, buoyed gently upon the weather of her own being, drifts towards the great gate of Sharptooth’s defenses, her lightning lights the presence of two time lost Vikings connected to the great change---and fly they must. Only inside the jaws of utter destruction can they find their way to the mystery of this conjurer...only so may they reach the humanity captured within!

Before the eyes of those assembled to fire fight, Cyclops and the Wolverine begin to disappear in the physical sense...yet the darkness into which they reappear is present before everyone! They watch this central event, as thought forms of all the X-men surround the Sharptooth sorcerer. Nightcrawler is teleporting the X-Men in turn through the Slave Box, where they attempt to materialize inside a further plane representing Sharptooth’s apocalyptic plan.


They reappear, locked out of reach but able to see a trifecta of beings, one of whom is the Enchantress.
=
WOLVERINE: Did I hallucinate seeing that wolf head swallow up Storm? Blasted place, it’s got no scent!

Cyclops: Over there---do you see where my beam's lightly traced some nearly transparent barrier?
Wolverine: Yeah, shine your ever lovin' light on, bub.


From the shadowy reaches of the violet arena of space surrounding Sharptooth, three mysterious forms of indigo observe a towering man-form, crackling with power, robed with sharp, probing angles that reach like a castle of doom from his shoulders and head.
Before him appears a blond, beautiful enchantress dressed in emerald and black, leering. “Even should these meddlesome freaks discover the double nature of your pawn---pawn, or prince of the world to come---as an immortal of Asgard, I shall live on, either way!

SULINAR VIX: Behold, the self-styled heroes advance now from the abyss. You, who bound the warrior to the wolf sorcerer--- what payment do you extract?


ENCHANTRESS: “Come what may,I will take my rewards where I find them. I cast this spell upon her, who is also two people in one; the goddess maiden, the woman beneath. Even as the valkyior come in time to become goddesses of the Norn, so shall I place within her astral aura my spell, by which, in the fortuitous hour of my plans, to call her to join, bound within the Norn stones...and when they again become mine...but hark now, ‘tis done! Amora takes her leave, Sulinar Vix of Kolpar!”


With a lift of his chin, he regards her. “May you scheme in interesting times!”
With a humorless laugh, at the nimbus of a spell, she vanishes.
Wolverine still strains to carve against the barrier; Cyclops trains his eye beam with enormous will.

The three indigo forms consult with one another telepathically, grateful to have thus escaped notice. They see Sulinar Vix cast a light over the Machine Man, probing him as the heroes advance from the nothingness. Then he turns to an approaching form, a tall, ebony young man, who seems to espy them, by his eyes; to Sulinar Vix, his face reveals nothing. “So now,” he speaks, “upon my birthday visit to this world, I await the completion of the spell of the wolf...”

“Hail to Sennil, Dark Poet,” says Sulinar Vix. “ No doubt, you await also the return of what is taken from Semeicardia.”

“Your fellow Sinister has engineered cells swiped there, to become henchmen to your pawn of pawns. His fate also belongs to Semeicardia.”

CYCLOPS: Feels like someone's stepping over my grave!


“These are the last moments of the Spell of the Wolf,” says Sulinar Vix. “I bid you observe the resolution of this gambit, Dark Poet, and we shall see if the nature of the world yet shall be formed by the Tranz-Rupture.”

The triplet forms observe the dark Poet dissolve into the indigo light as he walks on, while the wolf sorcerer conjures fierce lights, bolts of power escaping his claws.

Nightcrawler has now reappeared from the interface zone about Slay Box with Colossus.

The Wolverine leads the others in shredding the way into the force field, and seem unstoppably close.

Vix, with a mystic pass, restores his four-armed henchmen and she-wolf by his side, as the Defenders attack before the towering form of the Fire Dragon.


Now Jean appears with Machine Man and Nightcrawler, who is amazed that she has figured out how to tap Slave Box and use psionic means to do the teleporting of the trio. Machine Man asks himself:
MACHINE Man: Is this proof I am, at least, a conscious mind?

NIGHTCRAWLER: Vast ist?

MACHINE MAN: How else could my mind be transferred to this battlefield? The information I recorded seemed to give her the insight to crack the code, so to speak, on the Slave Box!

NIGHTCRAWLER: Good thing for me! Not sure how much longer I could’ve held out!

JEAN: With the souls of Prince Nicola Dragonvayne and the Marc Kane aligned within the energies of you, my best friend, Storm, we can surprise the sorcerer!” So they do: with a strike of that sword, flowing with the Flames of the Phoenix. Cleaving his form, now from it springs Remus Sharptooth, grappling viciously with Storm.

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Frightened Off the Face of the Earth! Part 3 featuring Stern-era X-Men

JEAN GREY (Continuing to sneak into the defenses of the Wolf Wizard.

I'm close enough to observe his "ritual space;" so far, so good. I notice this amazing box, but all my attention goes to...Remus Sharptooth. I feel you at the borders of my mind.
So let’s be friends, huh? I’m Jean Grey! Who is the handsome fellow under all that fuzz!

REMUS: I DO have a handsome fellow inside!! Snarl!! Don't taunt me, fetching one!

What is your purpose here?

His mixed essential nature becomes an apparent truth.
Jean: "Have I struck a nerve?"
He’s both flattered and...defensive...what is going ON here? It’s like two minds... or even make that three or four at play; we’re not alone! There’s one I see above, and some other around me---!
REMUS: A nerve, a body, a sliver, a cell!
You don’t know what it’s like : plucked out of one history, one continuity, one set of stories, and put together in some new, melded form for the sake of unseen players?
JEAN GREY: You might be surprised what i know about that! Wolfie, I have to be frank, I get no sense you as either inherently good or evil...is this thing happening with everyone’s opening inner lives permanent? What’s going on? Maybe if we could just understand what you are doing here...you can feel some people are afraid, and I picture some disappearing, stressed out---how can all those folks be spared the fright of their lives?
REMUS: You sense it, do you not? Yes, particularly with the gifts I sense within you...you are the first living human I’ve yet encountered here. I do not seek to persuade nor offend you.
JEAN GREY: Could I help you figure out why you seem so uncomfortable?
REMUS: i KNOW not your role, nor bare enough, mine. Two voices in me, divided serving my master---
Sulinar Vix! Let the crystal power flow, as now all dragons arise. Let all become so wide minded as they, Returned One! Almighty Zavox, power of the empirical world, let rupture forth your change across the hastened reality of this planet!
JEAN GREY: So bright! Vibrations...hurt! ---it’s like agony with his spell.

Sensing her ESP probe, Remus turns it around and responds with an effusive overload her perceptions with accurate interactions as they occur throughout the effected space/ time of Transmetamorphosis, including the minds of ever more humans. The natural turning of the world towards this ultimate change begins to seduce Jean, as she envisions a world of empathy.



MACHINE MAN: I think of what these explosions must sound like to regular guys like those soldiers I bumped into in the woods, before finding that weird hutch.
I wonder what their world will be like, as the colossal disturbances of these superbeings fill the air with the promise of forces beyond their control?


What clue will reflect this mission: the human adventurer Jean Grey and the cybernetic Machine Man, confronting the living conduit of enormous trigger energies: what this supercomputer identifies as Sharptooth, guarded by his partner the she wolf Corpse Flower, beside the extraordinary devices used to focus the M’Krann energies.

Extraordinary: the after effects of an event beyond even my ability to see, to the Milky Way’s edge!


And what of the origin of this source, tapped by Sharptooth; these machines, I’d estimate, reflect the engineering genius at least 5,000 very optimistic years of human existence. Is that where Sharptooth and company came from? Somehow, it seems the source of this machinery holds the strings back to the puppeteer of this whole she-bang!

Such a world, however, cannot be held hostage by terror. Now she sees the image of Sulinar Vix, who feeds the M’Krann powers to Remus, equipped in some alien armor...


Sulinar vix (above great dissonance and wind): The purpose of your incarnation here is at hand, Remus Sharptooth. Open this world by your imagination...use these energies to unwrap the form of the Slay Box/ Slave Box to trigger the Five Dragons to End the Earth!

JEAN GREY:
Where did that gigantic black she-wolf come from? It’s ---She’s on the scent of my metallic playpal; could being a machine camouflage him? Whoa! Congrats, you’re bait now...try not to end up wolf chow!

Another part of the revelations of the nature of this power and transformation comes from Machine Man’s digital analysis. Jean Grey senses Corpse Flower is more physically powerful, and also, that she senses her colluder’s intrusion. She breaks stasis of action to attempt to distract Corpse Flower, which helps, but imperils her life.

Hands interfaced with components inside the super machine decode the digital analysis. MACHINE MAN: I think of what these explosions must sound like to regular guys like those soldiers I bumped into in the woods, before finding that weird hutch.
I wonder what their world will be like, as the colossal disturbances of these superbeings fill the air with the promise of forces beyond their control?


What clue will reflect this mission: the human adventurer Jean Grey and the cybernetic Machine Man, confronting the living conduit of enormous trigger energies: what this supercomputer identifies as Sharptooth, guarded by his partner the she wolf Corpse Flower, beside the extraordinary devices used to focus the M’Krann energies.

Extraordinary: the after effects of an event beyond even my ability to see, to the Milky Way’s edge!

In the inner chamber...
Phoenix sees the image of sulinar vix, who feeds the M’Krann powers to Remus, equipped in alien armor...


Sulinar vix (above great dissonance and wind): The purpose of your incarnation here is at hand, Remus Sharptooth. Open this world by your imagination...use these energies to unwrap the form of the Slay Box/ Slave Box to trigger the Five Dragons to End the Earth!



MACHINE MAN (thinking) And what of the origin of this source, tapped by Sharptooth; these machines, I’d estimate, reflect the engineering genius at least 5,000 very optimistic years of human existence. Is that where Sharptooth and company came from? Somehow, it seems the source of this machinery holds the strings back to the puppeteer of this whole she-bang!

JEAN GREY:
Where did that gigantic black she-wolf come from? It’s ---She’s sensed Machine Man. But she’s not going to reach him before she reckons with the Phoenix!
Another part of the revelations of the nature of this power and transformation comes from Machine Man’s digital analysis. Jean Grey senses Corpse Flower’s manipulation of fundamental forces, her eyes aglow with malevolent inteligence, aware Machine Man’s intrusion. She breaks stasis of action to attempt to distract Corpse Flower, which helps, but imperils her life.

Now it’s Machine Man’s turn: he telescopes his arm with her sitting on his palm, setting her high atop the machines out of the way.

MACHINE MAN: I realize I can’t be the first guy to put you on a pedestal, my pretty friend!

JEAN: Still he attempts to multitask communication with the machine, which he reasons is neutral, while battling the giant she wolf. Nice work, really!

Hmm...robots can be mutated, but I don't suppose I've considered mutant robots! What type of mutant doesn't have genes? I'm sure I could find something akin but distinct in races all over the universe.
(still JEAN): I'm momentarily safe, but someone must disrupt Remus Sharptooth now! My psi-shields keep me masked for now. If I dive for him, engage him in the physical plane....time to open my psi-link with Kurt, so he can see through me where to teleport; we'll double team!

Sharptooth is alert; he breaks out the blue flash balls to play 'chase!'

KURT (NIGHTCRAWLER): What's going on behind this platform?
JEAN (activating Phoenix force): Another plane; feels almost like the subconscious, like some deprivatory tank, floating in darkness. Well, as a telekinetic, if the Phoenix is ready to stan firm, she just wills a bottom to meet her boots and allow her to walk.
This being Sulinaro Vix has erected a translucent shield. What's this glow?

KURT( NIGHTCRAWLER): That's Storm! Possessed of a transfixing light.
JEAN: Machine Man appears, and I find myself easily reading his mind. It's...different; the information's very readily offered. His...humanity catches me a bit ...off-guard!

KURT: He's pointing to the Slay Box I noticed (what is that word I obtained; was it "slay" or "slave"?)

MACHINE MAN: It's Remus again! Do you see---
Machine Man and Phoenix gaze inside the field, tight around the Box: a giant head, a cavernous maw of doom Viking ghosts who comprise the blade’s flame; the team must fly onward, nonetheless.

On a fantastic plane of the mind and soul, Sharptooth’s head devours Earth’s Children of the Atom!!!

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X-Men / Tranz Part One: Frightened Off the Face of the Earth!

"Frightened off the face of the earth!"

X-MEN/ TRANZ (featuring and dedicated to the stern-era uncanny x-men PUBLISHED BY MARVEL COMICS as written by Chris Claremont, drawn by John Byrne)

This story takes up nicely after x-men 124)

(this is my second draft, having redesigned the scenes more carefully to incorporate the individuality of the X-Men)

Written by Lue Lyron
If it weren't for X-men #188 (Dec. 1984)and Amazing Spider-Man in Marvel Tales #156 (Oct. 1983) I might not still be dreaming up stories with the X-Men and Spider-Man.

Truthfully, I've got one good story to tell with each of them this year: Spidey's came about the time of the oil spill on this very blog, http://ceaseill.blogspot.com/2010/06/spill-and-spider-one-for-all-ages.html


Prelude: “Mama I don’t Wanna Be a Soldier!”

PVT. STEVE HOLT: Any other time, I’d love to be in Southern California. Even coming to this mountain on National Guard fire-training maneuvers with the Canadian Mounties isn’t the worst day I’ve had.



But now I’m sitting in the midst of a blazing ruin, beside a tank I drove over a ...troll or something, cradling a woman who saved my life, wondering if I am in love with her and why won’t she wake up.



I can’t say I’m losing my mind because of all those things. The strangest part, no, no, was all that, in the midst of the sensation I’m feeling the feelings and observing the thoughts of every person I see. I was glad to be apart, as that seem to make it quiet again in my head.


Feels like that’s about to end; someone’s reading my thoughts at this very minute. I don’t think it can be helped.


I know I can’t help how I feel about this chick. Wow: she threw me to safety, right before the hideout for these creatures blew sky high and set off this mess. I feel like she’s fighting the hidden conflict underneath it all, with her spirit, and I don’t know how I know that, but I can almost see her flying into the darkness, towards this sinister plateau of red light.


I don’t even know you, lady. You’re the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. For all I know, you’re married. Maybe I feel this way because you saved my life. Maybe it’s the adrenalin. And you’re hot. Maybe I’ve never known just what I’m doing on this planet, but maybe I’ve always wanted to feel this way.


“All you know is that you want to help her...” His mountie friend Dave Blancley has walked out of the brush, into the bright afternoon sun.
“Damn! Blancley, you read---“


“---That right out of your mind, I know, ‘Sarge’, it’s happening to everyone...is that thing under your tank alive?”

“I haven’t checked...but you know that. I’m just standing guard over this warrior lady’s body.”

BLANCLEY: On that subject, you’ll have to excuse my thoughts, buddy. Maybe she’s just in a trance!

PVT. HOLT: But you know that’s what I think.

BLANCLEY: It’s bizarre: seeing other’s inner thoughts, their loved ones, their frustrations, and every feeling that comes out fighting this wildfire.

One minute, Steve, we’re laughing over the jOYOUS Show and by the end of the day it’s like...the end of the world. Not exactly, but...you can sense it...this is happening elsewhere, too. It’s rather distracting, really; I had to get my head in the game and deal with the fire.
HOLT: I don’t know how else to thank the lady, bro, I just hope there’s more help than me.
BLANCLEY: But you will stick beside her.
HOLT: Damn right.
Perhaps it’s intuition---or some side effect of the increasing ripple effect of the Transmetamorphosis changing the Earth---but the soldier’s aware of another presence suddenly arrived upon the seen.
To stand before such a door way is to immerse one’s self in facing the direction of all one’s fears, and sense, moving forward, your survival’s path, its methods.
Now both soldiers become aware of aid, not only from the strange team of beings diving with Storm into the perilous recesses of the spreading phenomenon...
...but surfing atop turbulence as extra-dimensional energy from the astral plane is the consciousness of Professor Xavier---presently, from the rugged Muir Island!
XAVIER: In the act of discerning, clarity is everything. Sometimes, an act must be made certain with only the most doubtful perceptions.
From the core of his being, Professor Xavier becomes a mental mirror to Cerebro, his mutant detecting apparatus, an eye rolling over events of no less than a reality storm.
XAVIER: This distorting vision of the interlacing consciousnesses of the soldiers and fire fighters in the distance (as well as the Wolverine and Cyclops) suggests why unprepared humanity and Earth seem destined to shatter from this process of Tranz-Rupture. The adaptation of their minds to the accelerated empathy seems achievable---yet what is this? Those who fear most seem to simply ---vanish!
BEAST: I’m incredibly grateful to be back on the scene, myself. Jean and I are “tagging in” just in time, I hope. Cerebro’s keeping up with the team, but this about the people...vanishing!
XAVIER: My scans find a little evidence of them in their passing: traces of energy that radiate outward into the corridors of the fifth dimension, hinting at some existence elsewhere in the beyond.
I think the mystery could be fathomed by someone like you, Hank, who speculates upon the course of evolution--indeed, the hidden nature of the plan’s abandoned now, as pretense is no longer necessary in the face of naked power. I discern the source of power for this change, this rupture of normal reality, even such that it is: the M’Krann Crystal Its energies created a blinking of reality: fantastically, all ceased to exist in a barely detected split second, during a battle for the crystal involving the X-Men.
BEAST: Starcore One reported to the Avengers and FF immediately! It was beyond description...
XAVIER: Each action precedes a number of consequences, and the M’Krann “blink” was no exception. The energy was born in waves which proceeded the end of the universe as we experienced it--- save for the destiny of a universal force which has come to be part of Jean Grey.
BEAST: We’ve barely had time to talk about the artifact source. In fact, you and I haven’t at all; I knew the barest bit about how she’s...changed! (thoughtful pause.)
Glad her Phoenix powers let her join the team in Southern California.

XAVIER: The M’Krann Crystal, lies within the Shi’ar Galaxy. Its existence before the Milky Way existed has been marked with a special stargate alignment occurring regularly but extremely rarely throughout its existence. The alignment was manipulated by the mad Shi’ar Emperor D’Ken, whose ties and plans to involve Earthlings remain unrevealed. How now does an object, dormant throughout most of Eternity, shed consequences all the way from the Shi’ar Galaxy now?

BEAST: Reverberations in that very blinking of existence, as recorded by Peter Corbeau via Star Core One on that occasion have been harnessed, with minimal efficiency, into the necessary transformative power to choose an acceleration of evolution in both man and Earth.


Broken bells rustle by the oak door. Moira MacTaggert has proved a commendable tolerance, even enthusiasm, for these, her two touring guests, Charles XAVIER and The Beast. Their good conversation has led to quite an eventful afternoon.
As she turns from her wood stove top with a tray of tea, she senses something ineffable at stake, yet, she recognizes benevolent, yet awe-inspiring, energy in the traveling couple---even as she suspects they journey from the very place of XAVIER’s vision, dancing within Cerebro. He looks up.
XAVIER: Thank you. I trust you to understand the strenuous nature of this emergency.
MOIRA: Trouble at home?
XAVIER: You might say that.

MOIRA: Have no fear. You came to me to speak of other places where dwells the soul, friend. Now I must share my impressions with you, as I see outside you while you concentrate so feverishly.
XAVIER: The Beast seems to be recuperating energy from contact with our friends. The tea is very thoughtful.

MOIRA: Enjoy the ease in its heat, Charley. I feel the need to tell you of the three ghosts who surround the crystal ball’s tempestuous vision. What we gaze upon in this orb seems to be the very dreams of ghosts, lucid in the light of thousand year slumber coming to the threshold of wakening.”
THE BEAST: “Charles, do you recognize?”
XAVIER: Their language is Old Norse. They are adepts of some proficiency themselves; their intentions give me some notion what occurs in the most impenetrable place wherein Storm’s astral self seems to breech. She seems to be responding to her state of being by experiencing an environment about her as she plunges into the dark.
MACTAGGERT: Two are united as one...and the third is united into another pairing, as though merged, captured, contained...by one who is not of this world.
THE BEAST: Cerebro’s actually letting me keep touch with Ororo’s mind as she dives into the inner, exposed layer...his existence is growing so complex as to begin to unfold, as though archeypally.

XAVIER: Yet the wolf is a pawn, I think, to some greater outside presence!
THE BEAST: Nonetheless, Charles, it seems sure that this werewolf enchanter---his body, essences stolen from outside the known universe, yet bonded with something---human. Perhaps it’s a mutant?
XAVIER: If this being is composed of a dual nature, perhaps that way---holds the key to humanity grabbing some stake in the actions that cut and paste
The world we know.


He nods.
He begins to probe where the energies radiate, how they mix with the very fundamental place where human thought becomes human reality. “But should I discern the nature of this Transmetamorphosis,” he asks himself, “what then?”
Indeed---what then?

The Beast’s trance reassembles its contact with Storm, and now MACTAGGERT, XAVIER and The Beast all see the two ghosts united of which the Madame spoke.

In bolts of lightning are the two embodied: she, inside of him, and he, the very electricity commanded by the mutant X-Man.

Storm’s lips carry a song from her days as the goddess...adrift in her own
environment, Storm bears down upon the dark arena
where stands the transfixed wolf-man-god: Remus Sharptooth, drawing a techno-sorcerous circuit
triangulating the M’Krann energies and manipulation from the future itself,
as the world of our knowledge shatters.

Why Brood? or, Hulk is glad fighting is over

Now, I have a best friend, who was listening to me while I waxed tiredly about fruitless situations I want to keep my heart out of...forgive the shite grammar. Still shot out from last night's gym trip and still not yet stirring beyond a bit of drawing I sent along to cheer up an old friend, knowing I have this epic piece of writing I've been plotting and complicating---I'd rather use the term "complexifying" if you will indulge me the neo-logism---and I didn't feel I could move on to my happy music side fully until I had this prototypical little giant of drawing and writing out of the way, however much I may wish I could hang around indulging in thoughts of it, indefinitely. (Moving on: a theme, here.)

Anyway, she's my wife, though our nom-de-plume personas are pledged to wed in a big, gaudy ceremony someday should we achieve the quality of fandom which used to haunt so many dreams.
And all I wanted was for her to stop playing her game on her break and read my mind and cuddle up with me and spoil me, when, after all, I really just needed to blow off some steam primal scream style and maybe bounce around the room acting out the story I've been drawing for and plotting so much of the past two weeks.

We really, really don't like to be cross with one another, but with the shitty economy and the need for continuing development of our triple-threat long term projects, I sometimes yearn too much for a different status quo, wherein we are working in the arts making enough of a living to where we could drive each other absolutely up the wall in each others' omnipresence. That yearning, when one aches and feels somewhat dormant, can manifest in a testiness that is just plain rude. We promised to keep in touch, though, talking just moments after she departed for her job, and before the afternoon was halfway through, I'd sent a text based on a line established early on in today's writing that doubled for my true sentiments: "Hulk is glad the fighting is over."

Her answer: "So am I, Hulk. She Hulk is sorry."

Oh, never mind they're really cousins; we ALL know that! We're from Georgia; we're likely about fourth cousins, ourselves!

When she came home, I took a break as soon as possible from my eager narrating voice to make some coffee and invite her out onto the fire escape to see the blue of the skyline. We commented on its difference from the bright blue we love so well here in California: really, it was much the same, it just lacked, at that point, the suffusion of broad daylight.

I did some yoga and took copious notes, organizing story bits and polishing scenes while she played on facebook, and came back swinging before the night was through. I let her go to the gym by herself this time, where she got her best ever five minute run time, much better than I can yet do, meself!

Meanwhile, I continued doggedly in pursuit of a story that had an overwhelming unchecked zeal to be told, at the expense of all other pursuits. You know, I added two installments, about 2000 more typed words, and STILL had the climax left to finish, as it continued to suggest scenes that, were we editing for an actual comic, might have to fall to the way side.


If I was more concerned about readers' reluctance to pursue reading a lengthier short story, I might have backed away, but something said, "you've got to illustrate this in its fullness, let every bit character that wants have their say!" Best yet, before she left, she drew some runes for me, just as one character does in the story---the core original characters are intensely personal iterations of our fantasy life, many years in the making. And STILL, I couldn't close the deal on THAT scene for all the interim material, so when she came back, we discussed how each of the five characters in the spell may have drawn each particular rune and its significance. So, together, reading, sharing, discussing, we agreed to how the interpretations via Ralph Blum's excellent book on runemal fit w/ the five characters in the situation, and I wrote right UP to that scene, which waits for me still tomorrow, or whenever I'm done sleeping today.

We'd already had a lot of fun, and then we went out to Subway, where the cutie-pie favorite---oh yeah, earlier, the lady asked how we were, and I said "oh, inspired!" and she asked, "by your girlfriend?" and why correct her, that's exactly the feeling I miserably stated I want to have with my wife, where it's safe, wonderful, and sane to have it. Oh, well, Estrela gave us her big smile as she made our sandwiches, and found out how long we've been together, while wonderful bEatles blasted much too loudly over the speakers.


After I eventually called Estrela from the back to get our cup and the three customers who'd walked in (closing by yourself is TOUGH!), we settled down for her first read of the conclusion of the last Claremont Brood saga, drawn by the incomparable Marc Silvestri and Dan Green team, thrilling to every page, really, laughing and chattering and just best-friending like soul mates. I can't remember which part she pointed out was a tad weak---it was her only complaint besides how easily Psylocke was turned in an earlier chapter by the mind controlling member of the Brood (shades of H.R. Giger) via a pheromone-controlled Rogue. She loved seeing Wolvie's healin' factor take care of that brood egg while the pastor thought he was exorcising a demon, Havok's near-fatal hesitation about taking a life again, Colossus giving the Brood hell as a one man car wreck, and Maddy's dark spiritual journey---really, she loved the comic as thoroughly as I did back in '88, maybe more.

We have another wonderful thing in common that is as tempting to write about as those first 2000 words I was considering...but safe to say, that was in private, later, and I don't know what the forum rules are for such revelations and let's say it was the kind of thing that proves how united we are in our tastes, hopes and dreams.