For months I've teased, procrastinated, and tortured you with little snippets of rumor and at least a few completely frustrating comments. Now I am ready to tease you even more. I encourage you to brave the madness and read further to discover more about my thoughts behind my next project...
WARNING: The following contains a several spoilers about future plotlines and a few about my previous stories. If you have not yet read them and don't want it ruined for you, go no further. Of course, this is merely a suggestion. Enter at your own risk...
Sneak Peeks of Future Characters
One day in the summer of 1996 a little story called First Contact appeared on Hawk's Archive. Little did readers know that this one little story would result in the plot thread many have called massive, The First Contact Saga, or, as it has also been called, The Dawn Arc. This consists of seven intertwining stories about a girl named Dawn with the ability to temporarily raise the spirits of the dead. Another all-powerful fangirl character, you say? You'd think so, but Dawn breaks one of the supreme rules of fanboy/girl-ism: she dies. And not in some big, dramatic fight, either -- she dies of Legacy. Sort of, anyway.
Another thing that distinguishes Dawn from any other original characters (or at least a good deal of them) is that she doesn't go out actively looking for trouble. Trouble just seems to come to her for some reason, and she fights because she must. She's been tortured, manipulated, killed and resurrected (wow, it's starting to sound like a real Marvel book now!) -- and yet, surprisingly enough, I haven't really gotten flamed for it, which leads me to believe I'm doing something right.
May the powers that be have mercy on you all for encouraging me. ;)
All right, this is where the spoilers come in. After Ties Never Binding is concluded I will begin work on another project -- X-Strike. It will star Dawn, of course, but it will be multi-perspective when I feel it needs to be. And, since I now have access to a scanner, there will be art by yours truly that accompanies it. Be afraid. Be very afraid. ;)
Anyway, what I have in mind is this. Dawn is, literally, a nexus for trouble. She can't help it -- it's a side effect of her psionic talents. So, instead of subjecting her teammates in Generation X to even more frequent attacks to their persons she decides to leave the school. She doesn't exactly plan to form a team of her own, but when four of her "friends" from her previous adventures tag along it just kind of happens. She is, by default, made team leader (which she really doesn't feel comfortable with, being at least three years younger than every one of her teammates) and together they move to Missouri, well away from GenX and the X-Men in general. (All right, so I was looking for a state whose geography I wouldn't screw up. So sue me.;)
Well, at any rate, they move. Dawn still takes classes with the rest of GenX (via the Communications suite with the help of e-mail and FedEx) and things basically progress fairly normally for a super-group. The five are not the most well-adjusted group in the world but hey, who is? This, incidentally enough, leads us into the next section:
Okay, with one exception, the following characters are all original creations. The non-original character, Emplate, is copyrighted by Marvel Comics. Please don't sue me. It's not nice.
Wings, psionics, and a
medium power all in one package. If you haven't read The First Contact Saga
yet, here's a little background info. Basically, Dawn's a fairly normal teenager who has led a truly
crappy life. Sinister killed her family, the demon D'Spayre fried her boyfriend, and she died of
Legacy. For a while, anyway. Intelligent, impulsive, and compassionate (even if she isn't
completely certain what exactly she's doing half the time) she's been through hell so many times
she has season tickets. She'd much rather just settle down with Glenn somewhere nice and quiet,
but, as usual, life doesn't work like that. She, truly, is the team's lynchpin character. Her psionic
powers connect her to her teammates and builds a solid foundation on which X-Strike can be
formed, and her sharp mind and deep emotions make her the heart of the team as well.
You thought he was dead, but he
ain't. (And no, I'm not telling you how he came back. That's too much of a teaser, even
for me.) Glenn, Dawn's best friend and soulmate, is a rather soft-spoken External with some
self-esteem problems. Still, he's a good guy even if he is a bit of a klutz. He, like Dawn,
harbors a deep hatred of Sinister, for it was he who destroyed both their lives. Still, Glenn
retains a kind of shy good-temper that is broken only when (1) his friends are being threatened, or
(2) when everyone else is feeling agitated. And when his temper frays, take cover...
A technomorph
who had a few psychological problems in Ties Never
Binding (which, luckily,
have mostly been fixed), Karen is great at fixing/making various devices. Her brain's been screwed
with something awful, but then, so has virtually everyone else on the team. ;) She is quick to
anger and can be somewhat bossy at times, but she means well. (Of course, considering the fact
that she has what can be, at times, a very frightening mutant power which basically ripped
her personality out from under her once, she gets along quite well.;)
Karen's twin
brother,
he replaces Shrive near the end of Ties Never
Binding He's a former freelance hacker, but as I haven't {snicker} "introduced" him yet
I won't say anything else about him. Emotionally he's a very strong person, but he is the quieter of
the pair so doesn't usually display it. He also developes a sore neck when it rains... (and yes, that
could be considered a teaser to his identity in itself, if a rather oblique one.)
In
It's Always Darkest... I not only killed Glenn, I "saved" Emplate. I gave him a
name (Verney, as this was before GenX 24, when he was revealed to be named Marius) and have
been tweaking his character ever since. I have a certain fondness for him, so of course I had to
include him in the story. :) At any rate, he's here, he's not evil, and he's gotten rid of that
annoying little lawn gnome DOA. He's also on a genetic supplement so he won't go insane when
deprived of genetic marrow, but this, as you can imagine, is somewhat inconvenient to say the
least. Still, accidents do happen...
Sneak Peeks of Future Characters
Yes, the horror continues. At the moment I have two original characters slated to come into the story in the far future. They are:
This happy looking character is Ahlric, a visitor from Earth 161 who does his best to make
Glenn's life (as well as Dawn's!) a living hell. Oh yeah, and he's also cursed or something, but that
comes in later.
Stats say:
Hair: White
Eyes: Blue
Height: 6"
Age: 20
Place of birth: Earth 161
Former Occupation: Spy, fighter
...And then there's Twilight, who, despite the name, is not from 2099. I'd
say more, but there really isn't anything I could tell you that wouldn't be a spoiler, and
that, of course, would ruin all the fun.
Stats say:
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Height: 5"6
Age: ?
Place of birth: ?
Former occupation: ?
Sneak Previews of Future Plots
This isn't going to be a comprehensive list of future issues, but I will say that X-Strike's first real adventure will be a little excursion against a fairly old enemy of one of the X-groups. Something regrettable happens to Jason. {evil grin} Don't worry -- he'll be fine. Eventually.
Next on the list, of course, is an unfortunate little incident with the kids of X-Nation 2099. Oh, c'mon, I know someone's read it and liked it! It was a great comic before Raab seized control... {shudders} That man is like a virus. He's gonna kill Excalibur...{sobs} Er, well, at the very least it will be an interesting crossover, so just relax. In my own twisted little world this all makes perfect sense, of course.;)
Anyway, that's about all I can say
without killing the last remaining shred of suspense, but I will mention an earth-shattering event
that will shove one of the team completely out of the picture and have dire ramifications in Dawn
and Glenn's relationship. A word of advice -- always remember to read my stuff carefully. I drop
hints and teasers like there's no tomorrow. {grins}
What're y'all lookin' at? It's over! Now go scuttle back to the archive before I am forced to beat you severely about the head and shoulders. ;)
Disclaimer: With the exceptions of Emplate, Generation X, X-Nation 2099, Excalibur, D'Spayre and Sinister (TM Marvel Comics) all above characters are copyrighted by me. Please do not use/abuse them or the above images because I worked very hard on all of this. Anyone found mutilating my pics without permission will be sued with EXTREME prejudice. I spent a lot of time on them all, and I take all my work very seriously. (Besides, how would it look on your record to have been sued by someone who can't even drive yet? ;)You want one, call me and ask. I'd probably say yes anyway. :) I do commissions, too, and my prices are pretty reasonable, so feel free to ask...;)