FIRST ISSUE: Rush #1

FIRST PAGE RECAP

One of the inventors of the extreme sport called Parkour, American expatriate Alan Penn had just finished college in late 1980s France when the events of Zero Hour gave him strange and uncontrollable powers over time. His unwilling jumps through time brought him to the attention of Wally West, the Flash, who helped guide him to the distant future, where the technology of the 85th century saved Alan from his new powers. Returned to 21st century Earth, Alan teaches history at Calvin City College by night and works as a messenger by day, eschewing a bicycle for the super-speed granted by his time control powers. But as one of the founders of Parkour, Alan is not content to merely run on the streets faster than the eye can see. For him getting there is ALL the fun, and when he's not carving newer and more challenging split second paths across the city, he chases an even greater thrill by fighting crime as the superhero known as Rush!

Splash Page: Alan Penn is first seen running across Calvin City, moving up walls, leaping over rooftops, his internal monologue counting down towards a desperate deadline. As the count nears zero he slows to human speed and rushes into a building, making a delivery just moments before the five o’clock workday ends. He returns to his hidden bike and peddles back to the messenger company. He then walks towards the junior college, where he has a class to teach in a couple hours. As he walks, slowed from the break-neck pace of his supernatural speed, his thoughts slow down as well, and for a moment he contemplates his goals in Calvin City.

Mostly, Alan has been fighting crime because it’s fun. For tactics, he's taken his inspiration from the first costumed defender of Calvin City, the Golden-Age Atom. Rather than use astute detection and careful observation, Rush charges into action against the “little fish”, then leverage their freedom against information on the bigger fish. In essence, he has applied to principles of parkour to crimefighting: he draws a straight line to where he wants to go, and will go over, under, around or through whatever it takes to get there.

En route, Penn is distracted from his thoughts by a dance troupe he sees on the quad, where he accepts a challenge from a young woman named Tish Montague. Using his powers of time manipulation he studies her motions in minute detail and copies her move for move. Later he meets Tish in his classroom: the woman he found so attractive is one of his students.

Meanwhile, female Boston mob boss Juliana Sazia, having expanded her operations here, is focused on seizing control of what at that point was a small, old-fashioned organized crime family in Calvin City, and unleashing the monster called Decay on the old mob bosses was only the beginning.

In need of superior muscle to build her criminal empire, Sazia tracks down a member of the defunct H.I.V.E. organization named Angela Moorhead. Due to the cell nature of H.I.V.E., Moorhead is able to contact several squads of the high-tech nihilists. They escaped the fall of the organization with much of their equipment, making them a ready-made cadre of soldiers for Sazia to unleash upon the Calvin City underworld. Some of the H.I.V.E. agents refer to Moorhead by her old codename, Cicada. She doesn't appear 100% comfortable with the moniker-- like H.I.V.E. itself, she feels she has to evolve into something else, something new, in order to survive in this new era...

Alan and Tish walk through the darkened campus after class, bantering about how inappropriate it would be to get involved. Nearby is another of Alan’s students, a young man named Greg Moore. There is a sudden explosion from one of the buildings and Alan tries to tell Tish to signal campus security while he runs to investigate. Instead, Tish runs towards the commotion as Rush moves to investigate. Her camera phone footage will be the first the public sees of this new hero.

In the science lab Rush encounters Moorhead, wearing HIVE power armor, with a squad of HIVE Drones making off with chemicals in their flyer. He tries to follow but is foiled by the villains’ immobilization chemicals. As she moves towards the flyer, Moorhead is blocked by Descent, whom she is unable to attack for some reason. Instead, she signals the flyer to take off without her, and then runs into the night to escape Descent by abandoning her power armor and blending in with the crowd of students who have assembled to watch the fight. 

Back at her base, Moorhead meets with Sazia. The lady crime boss says the chemicals will build her an army of metahumans...

(Continued in Rush #2)