Aegis: Son of Olympus #2

As Alex hands-over the Atomic Skull to agents of the DMA, he notices a strange flash of light from a second-story office at the Theoretical Physics building, the dimensional travel effect the Angle Man is using to disappear from the scene of the crime... But Aegis is too fast for the villain to escape him, as the Son of Olympus follows him into the bizarre energy field.  What happens next can best be described as a psychedelic chase through the 52 variants of the strangest city in America --

--one page with the Atomic Knights and Kamandi looking-on, another page with the both of them being chased by a vampiric Ray Palmer, and so-on.  Eventually Alex catches the thief on Earth-50 (WildStorm earth) where an overly enthusiastic LadyTron tackles the guy "because he just *looks* guilty". He thanks her for the help, and she thinks that she'd love to catch-up with the "Greek Godboy" one day.

Back on New Earth, Angle Man admits to trying to steal a list of the Ivy U. grad students going to spend the summer at the Large Hadron Collider.  Before Alex can fly him back, however,  he makes the young demigod a proposal.  If he lets him go, he will give him undeniable proof that his mother (Elena Kostas) is still alive -- which really piques his curiosity since he watched his mom die of advanced breast cancer when he was 17 years old!  Stunned, he agrees, and the man also known as Angelo Bend hands him a DVD (out of nowhere apparently) and teleports away before he can do anything about it.

Epilogue 1 -- Alex at home watching surveillance video from a London street-corner camera monitoring a fistfight between The Knight and The Mad Mod.  Alex clearly recognizes a beautiful middle-aged woman in a dark overcoat in the background as his mother.  Before he can even think about it, Rebecca announces she's home, and he quickly shuts the lid on his laptop...

Epilogue 2 -- Angle Man arrives at a nondescript office "somewhere in America." There Kat Armstrong (Spy Smasher II) trains a large handgun with a laser sight on the thief.  Out of the shadows walks Col. Adam Armstrong who asks him how it went to which Bend replies, "mission accomplished, Colonel.  Your little seed of doubt worked perfectly."  He smiled, "now about my fee..."

Descent #5-6

On another plane: The two pale beings from previous issues continue to discuss Descent. The male thinks they need to tell Greg some of his background. “At least our side of the family,” he says. “He does not need to know of his father yet.” They discuss the plotting of another of their siblings, and decide that it is best that the female figure be the one to make contact. Both figures then disappear.

Calvin City College: Alan Penn, the hero known as Rush, is in his office grading some papers. His graduate student assistant, Tim, comes in and sits down, nervous about teaching Alan’s largest class—a lower level general history course—by himself. Alan responds by reassuring Tim that he knows the material better than anyone, and it a requirement that Tim teaches one session. “Look,” Alan says. “If I’m there you’ll use me as a crutch, so I won’t be there at the beginning. But you’ll be fine, and I’ll come in halfway and listen to your lecture.” Tim seems reassured and strides off confidently to the class, carrying a list of the class’s students. The name “Grigori Moore” is on the list.

Belle Reve Prison: Amanda Waller is watching some recent security footage of Digger in a prison cell after his recent transfer to Iron Heights. First, Digger is visited by Tim Drake, the Red Robin, whose father, Jack Drake, Harkness murdered. Tim tells him if he tries to escape, he'll be waiting for him. Later, after being beaten by guards, Digger is being seen to in the medical bay when he suddenly finds himself able to create boomerangs out of energy that explode on contact. While not understanding where this new power came from, Digger uses it to escape Iron Heights.

Waller decides to suppress the information of Boomerang’s escape for a while and not put an APB on Captain Boomerang yet. She's going to try to track him down with her own resources so she can get him back into her custody, and once he's there, she's going to pull every string she can to keep him property of the Suicide Squad. She calls Rick Flag into her office, and says she has a mission that requires some discretion.

Calvin City, Downtown: Descent is surprised to see his “friend” Digger Harkness, aka Captain Boomerang, in Calvin City. As a criminal serving on the Suicide Squad, Digger is kept on a very tight leash by Amanda Waller. “I’m, uh, undercover on a very special assignment,” Digger explains. “I guess on these last few missions, I’ve proven how much I can be trusted.

Descent is glad to hear that, and while they’re on the subject of  undercover work, Greg brings up a mission that a superhero who has been mentoring him (the obscure JLA member Gypsy, who is working with the slightly less obscure Vixen) has asked for help with. It involves Descent and others pretending to be fashion models during fashion week in New York City. Boomerang volunteers to go undercover with Descent as a sleazy designer, since the plan involves him drinking lots of alcohol, hanging out backstage at a fashion show where models are changing, and try to get invited to an afterparty full of models where a large quantity of illegal drugs is being kept. “Since I’m such a good friend I will help you out on this one,” Digger says. “But you are going to owe me a big favor…”

In fact, the big favor is the reason Digger has come to see Greg, but he doesn’t mention that yet. Greg asks Digger if this would interfere with his undercover work for Waller, but he says it’s a long-term assignment and he has time. Then Greg asks if Digger really thinks he has the acting chops to be able to pretend to be a terrible person like this imaginary sleazy designer. Digger replies that he should be able to make use of acting classes he took in school to pull it off. Descent says, “Thanks a lot, let me try and set it up.”

  
Days Later, Tien's Apartment, Chinatown, Calvin City: Tien Shi, the martial artist known as Red Phoenix, is getting ready for work in the morning. He is watching the morning TV news when it is interrupted by a special report. The government of Qurac is complaining of an attack on innocent civilians by the American government. There is footage of a group of 14 people dressed in all black and wearing masks entering an area with tents. Then it cuts to a scene with about a hundred corpses strewn on the ground. These people were off on a religious retreat in the desert. It was mostly women and children, and they were all stabbed or gunned down by what the Qurac government says was a special forces team gunning down innocent civilians. It goes back to the footage of the 14 people approaching the tents. Tien paying closer attention, then recognizes Descent by the way he carries himself and the combat stance he has taken. He calls Oracle and asks for her assistance in finding Descent. She replies that actually, she already knows where he is. He is on an undercover investigation with Vixen and Gypsy in New York City.

New York City: Rick Flag is near the park, looking for signs of Captain Boomerang, when he gets a message from Waller to watch the news. He looks in a nearby department store window and sees the broadcast. “We’ve been set-up,” he says.

Waller agrees. She says that he has a few more hours to look for Boomerang, and then she wants him on a plane to Qurac. Obviously, something bigger has come up.

Bryant Park, New York Fashion week: Greg is telling Gypsy that he’s glad to be here instead of in his class, as they stand backstage of the runway. History is his least favorite subject, he explains, not to mention he gets to keep all the new clothes and he’s getting better pay here than in his work for Waller. Gypsy replies that she’s anxious to get away from this modeling nonsense, saying that the former model Vixen may be used to this, but she’s definitely not. She doesn’t like this shallow world they’ve been forced to interact with, but at least it’s the last day, and this mysterious master of disguise Greg brought on-board says he has a lead on the after-party where the drugs will be. What Gypsy doesn’t realize is that the “master of disguise” is in fact Captain Boomerang in prosthetic make-up, who has convinced Greg to keep his identity secret to protect his “undercover” mission for Waller. Vixen comes backstage as well, more comfortable than the other two due to her modeling background, and asks where their “designer” is at the moment.

On the other side of the park, Boomerang is using his false identity as an Australian fashion designer to coerce two seventeen year old female models into allowing themselves to be sexually exploited by him in exchange for fictitious career assistance. Sometime later, Boomerang finds Greg and reports his progress. “I just had some rather vigorous, uh, questioning with a couple of models. They let me know where the party is. I talked with the guy throwing the party about how dumb my models are, and how they will do anything if I give them drugs, and we’ve all been invited over tonight.”

Later that night, they enter the party. Digger does a great job of carousing and keeping everybody's attention while Vixen, Gypsy, and Descent find the drugs, then call the feds in to bust the party. While glancing through some shipping receipts, Descent notices an unusually large amount of drugs are being shipped to Calvin City. But when he searches for his companions, he can’t find Captain Boomerang. Instead, he receives a message on his phone that something has gone wrong with his undercover mission, and that he had to leave in a hurry. Also, the message tells Descent to remember that he now owes Captain Boomerang a really big favor…

A secret location in Qurac: The team of fundamentalist Islamic super-terrorists known as the Onslaught (formerly the Jyhad) are discussing their recent losses to the Suicide Squad, and how they spliced together footage of their own murder of a large number of pilgrims with security camera recordings of the Squad’s attack in order to retaliate. Now many intelligence agencies are blaming the Squad for the murder of the pilgrims. In fact, agents of the Onslaught had set up the Squad’s attack on their own forces, motivating their main forces even more to do for the cause and creating a political problem for Amanda Waller. The only problem was the accidental death of their agent Asif the Mighty, who wasn’t supposed to be there. They refer to this Asif as one of their two “Chosen of Jibrail,” apparently the most powerful of their superhuman agents.

However, they also know that before her death, the agent known as the Desert Witch identified another “Chosen of Jibrail”: the Squad member known as Descent. They will find a way to force him to work for them, whether he wants to or not.
 Calvin City College: Alan Penn’s grad student is teaching class nervously when the demon Al-Aknor and the sorcerer Damien Moonblood appear in the classroom, looking for Descent. They magically lock the doors so no one can escape. Seeing their quarry is not present, they are enraged and begin to murder every living thing in the classroom.

Ten minutes later, Alan Penn is heading for class, feeling optimistic because one of his best TA's is giving a lecture today. When he opens the doors, he is overwhelmed by the stench. It looks like there are no survivors. Most of the bodies are not identifiable anymore. Someone has used skin and entrails to write out "You can't hide from me". There is also what appears to be the figure of a Martian spider that has been squished and is made of human remains. Alan calls his favorite student, Tish, because she was enrolled in the class and the bodies are not identifiable anymore. To his relief, she answers and says she was feeling sick. He tells her to stay home.

Later, Rush and the police are able to determine out of 143 students, only seven are absent. Two of them are Tish and Grigori Moore, but in all 136 students have been brutally murdered. Rush also uses his speed to make a copy of the security tape before the police take it. He is going to get the team together and take these guys down.

A pier just off of Christopher Street, New York: Vixen bids farewell to Descent and Gypsy after celebrating a job well done. Gypsy is extremely pleased, because not only did they get drugs off the streets, but they shut down an operation that was targeting runaways and using them as mules or forcing them into prostitution.

Greg observes that it’s nice actually feeling like one of his missions accomplished something good. This is not the case when working for the Squad. He goes on to explain the recent mission in Qurac and how they were ordered to kill the super powered terrorists. He says he didn’t want to kill people, but Waller had explained that if they did nothing, the Onslaught members could kill thousands of innocent people, so he went along with it. But except for the leader, they all looked like young teenagers, though their intelligence briefing made it seem like they were experienced terrorists. Greg says he did not do any actual killing, but he still felt dirty just for being there. He also mentions that he seemed to come close to learning something about his background, before the two terrorists who seemed to have some information were killed. But he is even more haunted by having seen a 16 year old girl die before his eyes. Gypsy responds by asking why Greg continues to work with these murderers.

Greg says, “It is the first place where I have felt like I belonged. I was an orphan and bounced around in foster-care all my life, but now I feel like I have made some good friends. There are finally some people I don’t have to watch my back around. They also protected me from all the people trying to kill me like the wizard and his demon. I would never have understood any of my powers without them. They seem to think my powers are from a magical background. Maybe my dad was a Canadian Captain Marvel. They are my only way of finding my background, understanding my powers, and staying alive.”

Gypsy says she understands, but tries to remind Greg he has other friends besides the Suicide Squad. But as she speaks, Greg's phone rings. Almost immediately, he says, “I don't know who you are lady, but whoever you are, I’m not doing what you say. I report to people far more important then you and they will see to it that you leave me alone.”

On the other end of the line, Oracle smiles, bemused. As formidable as Amanda Waller is, Oracle knows that even the former White Queen of Checkmate isn’t in her league when it comes to influence. But instead pointing that out, Oracle merely states that she knows Gypsy can vouch for her, and also knows Gypsy is standing only a few feet away from Descent.

Gypsy laughs when asked, shaking her head as she informs Greg that he’s worked for Oracle already—she is the one who put together the mission in Malta where he and Gypsy met. Greg agrees to meet Oracle’s representative that night.

Midnight, the platform surrounding the Statue of Liberty’s torch: Descent lands and, believing he is still alone, he takes in the view of the city. A voice from behind him says, “We have to talk.” He recognizes the voice as Tien Shi, who he also met on the operation in Malta. Now known as Red Phoenix, Tien explains that after the attack on the museum he had intended to ask Descent to join a team he’s putting together with Oracle’s support, but then he saw the TV footage of Descent in Qurac, followed by the video of hundreds of dead civilians.

Descent responds that the only people killed on his mission were seven super-powered terrorists, but he himself has not killed anyone. He then says Bronze Tiger can vouch for his innocence as well. Further, Descent offers the information he recently uncovered about increased drug traffic into Calvin City, and about a major shipment specifically intended for the Sazia crime family. Red Phoenix decides this is enough and offers Greg a place on his team. Greg remembers what he said to Gypsy, about actually getting to do some good, and readily accepts the invitation, but warns Tien that Damien and Al-Aknor will probably come looking for him again, and that Martian Manhunter has also passed on some disturbing impressions that might mean they should all keep an eye on Hezikiah Dare.

Thanking Greg for the info, Tien also offers that he considers Greg’s new outfit a vast improvement over the ski mask and black jumpsuit he was sporting before. But before Greg can reply, Tien is running down the statue of liberty and over the water into Manhatten.

The Hudson Hotel, New York: Descent just gets back to his hotel room when everything goes black around him. He pulls out his sword and adopts a combat stance. But all he hears is a voice that says, “You are one of the Chosen of Jibrail. Your comrades killed Asif the Great, a warrior of the Chosen who fought for our case, and now we require your service in recompense. You have 48 hours to set your affairs in order and board a plane or there will be consequences.”

When everything goes back to normal and there is a plane ticket lying on the ground next to Greg: a one-way ticket to Qurac.

FIRST ISSUE: DC Universe Team-Up #1

CALVIN CITY: Five men in dark coats and hats step out of the Housatonic River and onto the shore, not far from the Calvin Historical Society Museum. They and their clothes are bone dry, as if they had never been in the water at all. Seeing the museum building, they begin to walk towards it, very slowly. The men have no faces.

THE DREAMING: An otherworldly woman in a grey chiton, looking like a Greek statue, appears in the dreams of Alex Kostas, the hero known as the Olympian. Her name was once Echo, and she shows Alex her story, a story that has been woven into the tales of many others since she vanished from the world, but which belonged to her.

The truth of Echo’s story is this: She was a dryad, a spirit of the woods, who had sworn chastity and service to the goddess Athena. Her beauty drew the unwanted attention of Apollo, and in his ardor the amorous god pursued her night and day, until her life became a nightmare, an endless race to escape his power. Echo prayed so intensely to Athena for release that the goddess swore to save her, though she knew that even if Echo passed into the realm of death Apollo would pursue her. Athena was a young goddess then, still testing the boundaries of her power and her domain within the world, and she invented a means of saving Echo, but one that required the aid of Morpheus, the god of dreams and stories. Though Morpheus was highly unwilling, Athena used means as ancient as they were unnatural to compel him to do as she bid—an action that would later cost her dearly—and Morpheus gave Echo permanent release.

He destroyed the very idea of Echo. Not only did he remove her from existence, but he blotted her from the world as if she had never existed at all. But Athena and Morpheus remembered what they had done. What little of Echo existed—a few snippets of her voice in the distance, the faint impression her beauty had left upon a river she’d gazed into—they took what and placed into a statue, carved of Athena’s memory of the dryad’s final supplicating prayer. The hole in the world where there had once been Echo was sewn shut by Athena and Morpheus with immortal skill, and other than her name—which the Greeks gave to the disembodied voice that cries back from emptiness—it was as if there had never been an Echo at all.

Until now. Now, the shadow of Echo that remains in a hidden corner of the Dreaming—where the Lord of Stories hides his own unhappy memory of what was done in Athena’s service—has sensed someone tugging at Athena’s stitches upon the fabric of the world. A mortal magus, a man of great power, is investigating the fate of the woman who never was, and perhaps to drag her—kicking and screaming—back into the world. Prescient in her immortal non-existence, Echo knows that the visit of a modern Oracle to her statue is the sign that heralds the magus as he comes for her.

Painting her story across Alex’s dreams, she reveals that in the 21st century, her statue stands in the Calvin City Historical Society Museum. As a hero in the mode of the ancient world, tied to the Olympians  and Athena’s father Zeus, Alex Kostas is her only hope, and she begs him for aid. Alex swears to help her before he returns to the waking world.

As she-who-was-Echo begins to fade, she thanks Morpheus’s successor, the new Dream King, for helping her to contact Alex. But he will not accept her thanks, saying he is only compelled by the ancient knot tied by Pallas Athena. He finds the erasure of the very idea of a living being an unconscionable crime, one he is ashamed to have any connection to.

ALEX KOSTAS’S APARTMENT, CALVIN CITY: All at once, Alex awakens from his late afternoon nap and springs to his feet. Mere seconds later, he is in a cab.

“Calvin City Historical Society Museum, please,” he tells the driver. “And I’m in a hurry.”

THE CALVIN CITY HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM: Tien Shi, secret martial arts adventurer and newly hired head of the Museum’s Asian History wing, is told that someone is looking for him, a woman in a wheelchair. He heads out to the Greek wing where he meets Oracle, in person as Barbara Gordon, for the first time, in front an exhibit on Delphi. She explains that she has a program which tracks mentions of superhuman crime in the media, and that in just the last few weeks the number of mentions connected to Calvin City and Ivy Town has risen sharply, to be comparable with Gotham City or Metropolis. Knowing that Tien Shi has settled in the city, she is asking him to put a team together from the various superhuman heroes in the city, who are currently working separately. She says she can make some resources available to him and his teammates if things work out. Tien Shi is a little concerned that Oracle may have brought unwanted attention with her unannounced visit, but he agrees.

Suddenly, Alan Penn—the hero known as Rush—enters the room. A history teacher in his civilian identity, Alan has one of his classes here on a field trap, and as he passed by the Greek wing he recognized Tien Shi from their earlier team up, and so he has left the class under the leadership of his graduate assistant, Tim. Introducing himself to Tien Shi and Oracle, Rush reveals his own superheroic identity, becoming the first recruit for Tien Shi’s team.

IVY UNIVERSITY: Across the Housatonic River from Calvin City, the Witch-Boys Hezikiah Dare and Klarion Bleak creep across the campus with their familiars. Klarion says he has unfinished business in an alternate future that could profit them both, and so Hezikiah has agreed to use his powers to interfere with some time distortion experiments on the campus to create a portal that will send Klarion forward in time.

Also on campus are Descent and the Cybernaut. Both have heard through various covert channels that today the Killer Croc is going to be transferred into a secure holding facility on the campus. This is being kept secret to prevent a public outcry, but Killer Croc is to become a part of the experiments of the controversial research psychologist Dr. John Kingfisher, who seeks to cure the criminally insane through a new and more human form of radical therapy than has previously been tried. Descent is here on orders from Amanda Waller, who still hopes to take possession of Killer Croc for the Suicide Squad. The Cybernaut is here to prevent Amanda Waller from getting her hands on the cannibalistic, dangerous metahuman.

As the two watch, a SWAT Team van pulls up and two dozen armed police officers get out to secure the route across campus they’re using to transport Croc. But as they do so, the Cybernaut notices black clad figures crouching on the rooftops of nearby buildings, and recognizes them as ninjas working for the League of Assassins…

THE CALVIN CITY HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM: As Oracle prepares to leave, Alex Kostas arrives at the museum and sneaks into the restroom to transform into his superheroic identity as the Olympian. He encounters Rush, who recognizes him, and then tells Rush, Tien Shi, and Oracle that someone is coming to attack the statue of Echo in the Greek wing. Oracle now determines this is an even better team to leave the scene, but before she leaves, she informs the Olympian that there is already a hero with that name, a former member of the International Ultramarines who also happens to be the disgraced national hero of Greece.

The Olympian has little time to take this information in, however, as within moments of Oracle’s departure, the Greek wing is invaded by five faceless men in coats and hats.

IVY UNIVERSITY: It’s all out battle between Descent, the Cybernaut, and the ninjas, with the surprised SWAT team members scrambling to survive. The Cybernaut fins himself fighting the assassins almost single-handedly, as Descent seeks to defeat a single ninja by stealth and capture him to be interrogated by Amanda Waller.

Hezikiah sends his familiar, an unnatural looking Martian spider, to harry the ninjas as well, but he and Klarion take advantage of the confusion to sneak into the museum’s physic lab, where the time experiment is reaching a crucial point.

THE CALVIN CITY HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM: As Rush transforms into his superheroic identity (which takes about a picosecond), the faceless men are revealed to be unloving constructs made of supernatural candle-wax. As the three heroes battle the constructs, each of the Candle Men ignites in flame, revealing a candle-wick in each of their heads. But eventually, the Candle Men are defeated and extinguished, leaving five molten lumps of wax standing in a circle on the opposite side of the room from the Echo statue.

IVY UNIVERSITY: Descent knocks a ninja out, Hezikiah’s spider paralyzes one with poison, and the Cybernaut fights off the rest. Killer Croc’s transport has already fled the scene as the SWAT team aborted the transfer, so the ninja’s mission is already a failure, and they disappear amid smoke grenades and hurled shuriken. However, they also fail to kill their captured comrades and prevent them from being interrogated.

Descent grabs his captured ninja and quickly flies high up into the air above the city to avoid attention.

BENEATH IVY UNIVERSITY, IN A HIDDEN PHYSICS LABORATORY: As the physicists distort the time field, Hezikiah uses his vibration control to drastically alter the experiments effect. Suddenly, a portal to the future opens, and Klarion shouts “Forward! To conquest and the world’s end!” as he leaps through it. But the portal soon destabilizes, and explodes with a sudden dispersal of blue energy waves. All the power in the both Ivy Town and Calvin City goes out.

In the blacked out lab, a figure appears—Lex Luthor! He is clad in a glowing orange energy replica of his warsuit, he wears a an orange ring, and his bald head is ringed with bizarre diodes. Luthor’s voice is stangely mechanical as it speaks: “Analyzing data… atmospheric pollution levels dramatically decreased—orange light power is decreased by half, indicating another wielder of the orange light is present on the planet—primitive transmissions detected. Conclusion: I have been transported through time, back to the year 2010.” With that, Luthor blasts his way up out of the lab and back to the surface.

IVY UNIVERSITY CAMPUS: On the surface, he flies into the air and sends a loud a powerful signal that nearly deafens the super-senses of both Hezikiah and the Cybernaut.

At that instant, high above the city, Descent sees a giant spacecraft appear familiar from new coverage of the recent attack on Metropolis: the ship belonging to the extraterrestrial conqueror known as Brainiac.

THE CALVIN CITY HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM: The blue waves of energy from the disrupted time experiment in Ivy Town pass through the museum… but when they hit the statue of Echo, they bounce back the opposite direction and there is a blinding flash of flight.

Suddenly, aged, darkened versions of Green Arrow, Black Canary, Connor Hawke and (if one looks carefully) the ultra-tiny new Atom (Ryan Choi) appear. This strange Black Canary immediately points at Tien Shi and shouts “You! Lord High Assassin of the Morningstar! I’ll make you pay for your betrayal!”

IVY UNIVERSITY CAMPUS: Surveying the scene, the being that appears to be Lex Luthor sees the SWAT members as well as Cybernaut. “Hello, local law officers. I require your assistance. I will broadcast my needs electronically, so that other agencies may comply.”

At that moment, a voice transmission goes out over several different local radio and television frequencies. “This is the Brainiac-Luthor Team, a superior life-form and Primary Programming Officiant for the Tyrant Sun Hegemony. I am in your timeline seeking five wanted fugitives from the Justice League Underground. Hand them over to me at once or I will proceed at once with the removal of this urban area to my ship for further examination.”

Far above the city, Brainiac’s ship extends its tentacles…

Red Phoenix #5

After the destructive attack on the Calvin City Historical Society Museum (as portrayed in DC Universe Team-Up #1), Tien Shi elects to help guard his ruined workplace against looters. In order to protect his new “secret identity," he has donned a simple costume and resolves to continue operating under the name Red Phoenix, a nickname the O-Sensei had given him.

The museum contains relics from the city’s superheroic history including items once possessed by the Crime Champions, a group of villains fought by Al Pratt and the JSA after Al had come out of retirement to become The Atom once again. The museum has an early version of the Flying Sundial, a conveyance used by the time-traveling villain Chronos. Red Phoenix wanders through this part of the museum reading about the bizarre details of decades of superhero history.

Small time hoods under orders from the Sazias infiltrate the museum looking for valuable artifacts. After a short fight, they flee from Red Phoenix and try to make their escape aboard the Flying Sundial which is not as decommissioned as everyone thought. The hoods trigger a time-traveling escape device left behind by Chronos, that fractures surrounding spacetime.

Red Phoenix falls as he finds himself in the distant past, when the ground level was different. Something stirs in the dark woods around him.

Aegis: Son of Olympus #1

Following on the heels of his hit 6-issue mini-series, the character once known as the Olympian is back with a new ongoing series and a new identity: Aegis, Son of Olympus!

The issue opens with Aegis in his civilian identity as Alex Kostas, as he and his girlfriend Rebecca Glass move boxes into his new place.  Instead of being too close to Ivy University, or being mired in the hustle and bustle of Calvin City, he's opted for the seclusion of a private home nestled on the shore of a forested lake on the outskirts of both cities.  Of course, since this is an expansive 6 bedroom home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright-- similar to the famous house "Falling Water"-- it wasn't cheap.  But that's not a problem for one gifted with wealth by the Olympian god Pluto.

Meanwhile, a 9-1-1 call received with the Ivy University Police Department from a frantic lab assistant has the Atomic Skull charging through the administration offices.  Needless to say, the Action News helicopter is soon overhead covering the event live as breaking news.  With a text alert on his cellphone, Alex is quickly in the air to confront the metahuman menace.  The fight is relatively brief as the Skull didn't know what hit him at Mach 1.  And Aegis is left feeling that something doesn't seem quite right...

EPILOGUE: Through a second story window in the nearby Theoretical Physics offices, Angle Man is seen to be raiding a file cabinet, finding what he was looking for, and disappearing into thin air...

Rush #4

Story Title: “A Little of the Old Ultra-Violence”

A worried group of hoods meets in a warehouse to discuss their options: either band together or get taken out by the Sazia family. They reach an agreement and are ready to make their plans when one is taken out by an energy bolt; another is nearly decapitated by a speeding clothsline; still another is seized with an overwhelming desire to claw his own eyes out. The group of young superhumans known as the Brood sweep through the remaining criminals, making short work of them, with the exception of one who simply falls over dead; the young metahuman is shot in the head by an unseen sniper in a dark corner. As the Brood revels in their victory, Angela Moorhead steps out of the dark corner. “Good, much improved. Speed and savagery will make them fear you. However one of you got sloppy,” she says, pointing out their dead comrade. “Take the body. We leave no one behind, and we watch each other’s backs.”

At least until the drug finishes burning you all out, she thinks.

Meanwhile, Tish Montague goes to the office Alan works out of in his messenger job, wondering what happened to him at the museum. When she finds him, she asks to follow him on his rounds. He warns her he moves pretty fast, but she says she can keep up. Alan is torn between wanting to use his time hunting for the Brood and his growing attraction to Tish.

Using information gleaned from his forays into the dark side of the city, Alan arranges for several packages to be delivered to known criminal fronts, and uses his own super speed to ensure that he is the one making those deliveries. He gets a good look at the inside of many of the buildings, although some of the security in the building wonders about the young woman with the camera phone that seems to show up outside many of their offices. As a messenger, Alan is almost invisible in the bustle of downtown—an artist-type like Tish sticks out a great deal more. One of the security men decides to check up on the mysterious girl.

The pair takes lunch in a diner when a police officer comes in. It is Tish’s father, Sgt. Frank Montague, who she called to meet her new friend. He is suitably intimidating to the young man as the three sit down to eat. As the issue closes, the Sazia torpedo calls his boss. “Sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but we may have a problem that will require a permanent solution.”

The Cybernaut #4

Story Title: "Trail of Blood"

Days after the events in Cybernaut #1, Chet Edwards recieves a message from his new contact in the mysterious Black Box vigilante spy ring. The Cybernaut has caused quite a stir with his recent dust-up and is advised to stay low, but remain in the area. He is directed to meet a shadowy operative from the Black Box vigilante intel network who have arranged for Chet to join a special fellowship studying astronomy (and secretly UFOs) at Ivy University. This group is a clandestine Black Box "cell"-- and ostensibly, they're good-guys.

Chet goes to the meeting in disguise. They meet near the University, give code phrases to confirm IDs, and then exchange bits of information, Chet's intuition tells him that something is wrong and he notices the contact has minute traces of blood on him that only his supersenses could detect. Chet realizes that this is not the man whom he was directed to meet, but the imposter realizes just as quickly that the jig is up.

A running gun fight ensues, culminating in the imposter hitting a detonator which, he reveals, has started a countdown on a bomb somewhere on Ivy University's campus. Cybernaut is able to track the bomb's location with his machine senses and uses his bionic speed and technical savvy to disarm it. The imposter manages to escape. The police determine an Ivy University professor (the real contact) is missing. Chet is left to ponder who infiltrated his network and how/why this was done. He has reason to suspect the imposter to have been the martial arst assassin Alpha, operating for one of the League of Assassins factions. He remains in Ivy Town to investigate further.