Dave's ASH Archive - STRAFE

Last Updated: 1/12/13

STRAFE #18 added.

Oddly, while I often spend many lines on developing a minor character trait, I tend to leave appearances totally untouched. Until the moment when I made up the icons, I really hadn't decided on what the STRAFE characters looked like, the only real clue being a mention of their team jackets in Singer's #0. Hopefully I didn't contradict any existing colorations (Jen's established as white in #3, C.J. is later established as black). From left to right, it's Grind, Teller, Drake, Jen, C.J. (C.J. has bleached her hair to a sort of yellowy orange flame color) and Lana Smith.

STRAFE: Written by Marc Singer of Omega fame, this series follows the Academy students who didn't form ASH, in a series geared more towards the super-agents theme.

#0 - "Sophomore Slump": To pass the time waiting to meet with the non-superhuman side of the agency, "Grind" Tracey tells one of the younger Academy graduates about the first appearance of Triton, the first post-1998 supervillain, and the role Grind and the other students played in bringing him down. (Flashback sequence takes place in spring of 2020, from around March to late May or early June.)
#1 - "Test Run": While the new organization tries to get over its birth-pains, the United World gives STRAFE a mission in Singapore to determine if it should be granted UW-wide sanction.
#2 - "City of Lions": STRAFE arrives in Singapore, and discovers there's a LOT more to the mission than the United World representative told them. Like competition from the Eurasion Union's team, EUROPA.
#3 - "Grounded": One of the secrets of the official STRAFE has been sent to rescue turns into a deadly trap for the team.
#4 - "Mean Streets": STRAFE and EUROPA must work together to escape from Chinese-controlled Singapore with their lives, the official and his family, and some deadly new information about China's trading practices.
#5 - "DEEP ARMAGEDDON: Falling Stars": Jump ahead to the last day of 2023. STRAFE anbd EUROPA are now working together to try and stop the Conclave of Super-Villains from looting Haven, the sunken supervillain community from the 1990s. Follows CSV #4, happens during ASH #13.
#6 - "THE SLOW BURN I: We Care A Lot": In the wake of events in Warden, the Combine has decided to send STRAFE into Manhattan to try and do something about the problems there. Unfortunately, the solution isn't exactly what many of the STRAFE agents would like.
#7 - "THE SLOW BURN II: Spirits": Striking out on his own, Colonel Hendrick is determined to solve the recent murders of paragangers, crimes no one else seems to care about. In the process, he finds out perhaps more than he wanted to....
#8 - "THE SLOW BURN III: Femmes Fatales": Burnout is apprehended...and gets away. It's complicated. But before she leaves, Burnout vastly simplifies paragang politics in Manhattan...by wiping out many of the major players.
#9 - "THE BONFIRE I: Hot Pursuit": After the disaster last issue, STRAFE is order into Manhattan to try and salvage what's left, but they're under strict orders not to engage the Paragangs. Maybe they should have been ordered not to be mistaken for one....
#10 - "THE BONFIRE II: Tempers Flare": Mission creep sets in as STRAFE finds itself becoming the paragang everyone thinks they are. It's a race to see if STRAFE will destroy itself before anyone else can destroy them.
#11 - "THE BONFIRE III: Firestarter": It's Warden versus STRAFE versus the NYC Police, and that's not even the big battle yet!
#12 - "THE BONFIRE IV: Vanities": The conclusion of the Manhattan storyline goes out in a blaze of glory. Literally. Manhattan's paragang problem is resolved...for now.
#13 - "Carnivalesque": A stand-alone story featuring Teller and EUROPA's Arc in a South American corporate enclave, where skullduggery and espionage abound.
#14 - "Nobody's Perfect": A prologue to The Pyramid Scheme, this story follows STRAFE from spring 2024 to summer, as Grind finds out that...nobody's perfect.
#15 - "Impossible Missions": STRAFE goes to the Vatican to try and figure out what the CSV is up to...and gets a little more than they bargained for. PYRAMID SCHEME: STEP 2 (no step 1 for STRAFE).
#16 - "Black Capricorn Days": STRAFE meets semi-retired adventurer Morgan Adams and hears a tale of the man's first meeting with Pino Archangeli and his son, Lorenzo.... PYRAMID SCHEME: STEP 3.
#17 - "Burial": The tale of Morgan Adams and Pino Archangeli concludes the only way it could...in death. PYRAMID SCHEME: STEP 4.
#18 - "Necktie": Several years after the Pyramid Scheme ran its course, Grind has succumbed to the curse of administrative work, and reflects on an early training mission that might have done more to prepare him for his future than he'd thought it would. By Dave Van Domelen.

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