.|. COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED ---X------------------------------------------------------------------------- '|` PRESENTS DVANDOM | -. -. -. | ________| ____ \ ,___ \ ____ \ ________| | .' \ | | / ` | | | | | | | / ___| | | | | ` / | | __| | | < | __| | | | ,--- \ \ | | | \ | | \ ` | | | / | \ / | ___| _______-' ___| ____\ -______-' ____________| #56 - "Mighty Muddled Power Grangers" copyright 1995 by Dave Van Domelen ============================================================================= [cover shows the Roadkill Destructoid standing in the middle of a wide Sig.ago street looking as confused as a giant engine of destruction can look. Small speech bubble coming from one leg says, "Whut?"] ============================================================================= "SHHHHHHIIIII...!" screamed Kid Macro, not referring to that fanboy fave comic, as he tried desperately to pull out of his imminent crash. Only seconds before there had been only empty sky in front of him. Now there was a huge Robo of some unfamiliar design blocking his way. Had he the luxury of time to analyze, he might have noticed it was not Hercules, nor even vaguely similar. But given that most people don't even encounter one giant teleporting Robo in their lifetimes, it's understandable that he thought he was in DEEP linenoise. The green and gold Flashfire Robo crossed its arms over its head as a last ditch measure to reduce damage from impact...and barrelled right through the strange Robo! The Robo [which astute readers will know is the Roadkill Destructoid, fresh from the Superguy Altiverse - Ed.] broke up into several pieces just before Flashfire impacted. Most of the components proceeded to plummet to the ground (although not nearly as quickly as Plummet can), twisting and reshaping into various farm animals and implements as they did so. The wings of the giant gestalt broke off and became a vulture-shaped Robo. "Squidman to 'Sabre! We're under attack by unknown Robos, possibly of DeFacto origin!" * * * * Dimensional travel is generally less than comfortable. Even those expert in it find it, and I quote, "I little bit like aspirin stomach upset." Which is a nice way to say that most of the Grangers puked their guts out on arrival in the Looniverse, something which (accompanied by the power drain on the Roadkill Destructoid) caused the gestalt to split up rather unceremoniously. Only Mule (who didn't notice the trip) and Wayne (spliffs, like, do wonders for upset stomachs, y'know?) were unaffected. "Huhh huhh...I puked on my controls." "Heh heh...cool. So did I. Vomit's cool." "Shut UP, ya idgits," shouted Bull as he looked for a handiwipe in his cockpit. "Zwarghoff, what the HEY-ULL (Tee-Ayum) jest happened?" There was silence as Bull waited for an answer. Above, Zwarghoff was too busy turning interesting shades of green as his Vulture Robo swooped madly under his lack of control. "Whoa, so you, like, see it too?" asked Wayne. "Wow...this stuff's, like, better than I thought!" As a happy side-effect of the fall, his Robo's ventilation port had been mashed shut, and the smoke levels were starting to finally get pretty thick in Wayne's cockpit. The goat sat back on its haunches and cocked its head to one side in ready mode. "In case none a' yew idgits noticed, we got some uther mechs flyin' overhead! Accordin' t' th' mem'ry playback, one a' them tried ta RAM us a few seconds ago!" shouted Bull as he wiped at his control surfaces with a clean part of his tunic. "Heh hehh...let's kick their butts." "Yeah, huhh huhh.... Fighting's cool," said Hellhound and Reaper, although not necessarily in that order. "Ha ha! Author's forgotten which is which," taunted Wayne. [Did not! Well, okay, maybe. - Author] "Heehee..." giggled Wayne, who was starting to find this all immensely funny. "Hey," a lightbulb appeared over Wayne's head, sputtered for a moment, then fell on his head. "Like, ow. But I just figured something out, y'know? If they're all, like flying, and we're almost all stuck on the, like, street, that means they're the bad guys and we're the good guys!" "Wayne, you're either cleverer than I thought...or totally stoned," noted Dr. Zwarghoff, who had finally gained control of his Robo and his innards, and was keeping the enemy Robos at bay with his missiles. "According to sensors, we're in a much more cliche'-ridden and silly Altiverse than the one we left. If possible." "Whut are you and that Inbred idjit talkin'...why'd I jest call him Inbred?" asked Bull, bringing his Bull Robo up to full power. "Especially when you're the inbred one," muttered Zwarghoff quietly enough that (he hoped) Bull didn't hear him. "Like, because if y'called me an Invid here, Sembieda'd, like, track the Author down and sue his ass, y'know?" replied the purple-haired Inbred warrior. "Heh heh...he said 'ass.'" "Enough of the mindless exposition!" shouted Zwarghoff. "Time to, as they say in the vernacular, kick some behind!" * * * * DeFacto shooed ATV Frank out of the control room impatiently. The small RoboMAC was needing to clean out his data files more and more frequently of late, but he would simply have to wait this time. With that distraction gone, he turned back to his sensor arrays. One channel to the Superguy Altiverse was still open, the one connected to the computers in the Granger's "base." Although the input was limited compared to the full sensor suites available through the Destructoid, it was enough to monitor what happened after his pawns were precipitously ejected from the Altiverse. Bahamode Sigma had apparently discovered a way to breach the barriers between PluRealities himself, and had vanished along with the remaining supporting cast shortly after. There was no longer any sign of Team M.E.C.H.A. in the range of his Altiversal sensors. The ineffectual Irregulars team showed up on sensors, but he didn't care about them. Unfortunately, there was also no sign that they had arrived in the Looniverse either. Had they arrived, DeFacto would have been overjoyed, since it would then have been a relatively simple matter to capture them and use Summer 's hyperspatial link to return to his proper time and reality. But they had not arrived. Which meant one of two things: they had "missed" the Looniverse and ended up elsewhere, or they had been torn apart in transit. His calculations indicated the latter was more likely. Pity. Still, the Mighty Muddy Power Grangers had gained their powers from the same hyperspatial engines that gave Miss her powers, so it was entirely possible that he could study them (by vivisection if need be) and learn what he needed. Of course, to do that, he would have to rescue them from Dvandom Force. He had every confidence that the fools would be in need of rescue, after all. Time to put Plan B into motion.... * * * * "Like, Plan B?" asked Wayne. "Stop reading the script!" chided Zwarghoff. "Oh, um, sorry. Do we get to beat up the bad guys now?" "WE'RE THE BAD GUYS, YA INBRED!" shouted Bull. "But, like, the flying thing..." protested Wayne. "Bull, just ignore him," sighed Zwarghoff, hoping there would be a scene break soon. Fortunately for him, there was. * * * * There was a hurried rush of activity as Sidewinder and Kid Macro put away their Robo-scaled playing cards and got into position for the next scene. "Hey, we hadda do something while you were busy playing with those Power Ranger ripoffs," protested Kid Macro. No backtalk, you, or I'll rewrite this fight scene to include a tragic injury or two. My RPG players tell me I like maiming characters. "Is it just me," asked Squidman, "or are we breaking the fourth wall a WHOLE lot more this issue?" "Maybe it's a sign that these extradimensional intruders are having a negative effect on the integrity of reality in the Looniverse and will end up destroying it utterly if we don't get rid of them?" proposed Sidewinder. "Hey, no reading ahead...we don't know they're extradimensional yet," warned Squidman. "Besides, it's probably the writer being in an exceptionally silly mood and/or looped out on allergy medicine [He's lying, it's only aspirin. - Author]. Whatever." A voice came up from a goat-shaped Robo down below. "Like, are you guys ready to be soundly, um, thrashed or something?" "I don't think the writer's ready, dude," shouted back Sidewinder. "He doesn't seem to be able to get into the swing of the whole fight scene thing at the moment...but he plotted out a really big one." "Ah," replied an amplified voice from the sole flying opponent. "Authors here write themselves into corners just as often as the ones back home, I see." Sidewinder turned his Crosspost Robo to face Squidman's Deepsea Robo. "Does this mean we know they're extradimensional now, or doesn't it count since it's breaking the fourth wall?" "WILL YEW ALL SHUT THE HAYELL (Tee-Ayum) UP?!?" screamed Bull as he charged up the side of a building and launched himself at Squidman, effectively starting the fight scene. "Wow, we can run up walls? Wicked. Have at you, like, foul miscreants!" shouted Wayne as he followed suit, bounding nimbly from building to building in his Goat Robo to join Bull in attacking Our Heroes. "Scatter! We have the advantage of flight!" ordered Squidman. The other two broke off in opposite directions while the Deepsea Robo pulled out a trident to block Bull's horns with. For a moment it looked like Squidman had Bull pinned like a speared boar, but then lightning crackled from the horn tips and threw the Deepsea Robo back off the edge of the building, scattering the deck of cards in the process. For his part, Wayne got distracted by how much fun it was to bound around buildings, and was slowly drifting east. Sidewinder found himself in an apparent pincer as the vulture swooped down on him from above and a mechanical mule blocked his escape through the streets. Making a snap judgement, he decided that the mule was an easier target and activated his weapons system. "WEB OF DIVERSION!" he shouted, monofilaments shooting out from his Robo like energy blasts from a Zentran [ha! Let's see Palladium nail me on that one! - Ed.] fleet. They ensnared the mule and he poured his power into them. "Whut?" was the response from the pilot of the mulemech. "Tactical error, boy!" crowed Zwarghoff. "You can't divert the attention of one who is too thick to *have* attention!" he shouted as he fired a volley of missiles which rocked the Crosspost Robo violently. Meanwhile, the Flashfire Robo had gotten caught in a crossfire between Reaper and Hellhound. Hellhound's gouts of flame had herded Kid Macro close enough to the ground for Reaper's blades to become a major threat. And, worse than the searing heat or the whirring blades was...that inane chuckling! It was really starting to get on his nerves. "Will you two shut your holes?" he shouted in exasperation. "Huuh huuh...he said 'hole.'" "Hole rocks...heh heh." "Not that kinda hole...actually, I guess it is. Cool. Huuh huuh." Kid Macro snapped. It was a weapon of last resort, Kat had told him. It was as dangerous to the user as the victims. But right now he just...didn't... care. Raising his Robo's arms, he leapt into the air swinging his sword. "FLAME...WAR...NOW!!!!!" Energy screamed for release and the entire panel went white with speed lines and stuff. "*&&*% *^&%^&0 $&@&#@$ ^&$& you!" howled the gouts of flame rippling off his sword. "He said '^&$&'," chuckled Hellhound as he added his own flames to the mix. In seconds the entire area was engulfed in a fireball. * * * * Several minutes ago, before the arrival of the Roadkill Destructoid, the Little Man stood brooding in his penthouse offices in the Scenes Trade Tower. He had more power now that he had in years, physical power at least. Yet this power had done nothing for him. His enemies still lived, and now posed a greater threat since they had taken the measure of his agents. DeFacto had promised more power down the line, but first he had to destroy their mutual enemy. And that wasn't happening. While Zwarghoff's plan [the Zwarghoff of the Looniverse - Ed.] had been clever, Dvandom Force's power levels were higher than his sources had indicated. And while they could now beef up even further to counter Hercules, he could do little more to add to his muscle. And the dreams still came. The dreams that told him of another world, one where he ruled with a velvet fist...a benign businessman to the majority of the people, those who could be controlled by money and overt acts of civic goodwill...and a merciless conqueror to those who would not. This other self had manipulated events from behind the scenes for decades, eliminating all net.heroes who were competent enough to oppose him and co-opting the rest. He had thought himself well past the stage in life called Mid-Life Crisis, but he realized that was what he was now feeling. He had reached the peak of his powers and saw how low that peak was indeed. A trio of armored forms flew past in loose formation. He already knew who they were. Dvandom Forcers, with improved technology, flying past his home to mock him with their power, their mere continued existence. Suddenly yet another giant robot appeared in mid-air, then broke apart and fell to the street below. The Little Man pounded a fist on the bulletproof one-way glass of the window. This was HIS town! Sig.ago was HIS, not a playground for giant robots. He'd fought long and hard to turn back the tide of robots last time, but the cost had been worth it. But now it was happening again. His city was turning into another Tok.io, wracked with giant robot battles on an almost daily basis. And God help him, he was helping it happen again. His ears perked up at a familiar low hum. "What do you want this time, DeFacto?" he asked without turning to see the hologram he knew was standing there. "To help you, of course," oozed the time tyrant's voice. "Help like this," he waved an arm at the fitfully-starting robot battle, "I need? Will there be any city left for me to run when your pocket wars are done?" "Come now, this was inevitable. You're better off involved on my side than neutral...or opposed," the last words were spoken with an undercurrent of quiet menace. "Yeah, yeah," sighed Cornelius Van Runt. "What is it this time? Help in that fight scene out there? No go unless you can magically fix my boys' mechs. Orion and the Ursas will be out for another week for repairs." "I know you need reinforcements, Little Man," DeFacto said, making it clear he was using the mobster's title as a mocking insult, "and the new arrivals out there will fill that role. All you need do is pull their collective fat out of the fire, a task your three airborne Robos are more than capable of." Again, the Little Man didn't need to turn to know DeFacto had vanished on that note, not waiting for an answer he knew would be yes. He walked to the intercom on his desk. "Hunter? This is the boss. Get your jet jocks downtown and rescue those farm animal mechs for me. Yeah, they're gonna work for us. I'll have the spotters fill your guys in." A fireball erupted down at street level. "I shoulda stood in bed," he muttered as he stabbed his finger down on a button to close the connection. * * * * The rubble and dust settled around Kid Macro, Hellhound and Reaper. Everyone in combat had stopped to watch the impressive fireball that bloomed around them. "Like, harsh realm," commented Wayne. Kid Macro brushed off some soot and coughed. "Ow. I don't think I wanna use that weapon system again." "Huuh huuh ow huuh huuh." "Owowowow! My hair all burned off! I hate it when that happens!" "Huuh huuh, Reaper's a hairless wuss...alla yer hair?" "Yeah. This SUCKS. Even my chest hair." "Shut up, you liar. You don't have any chest hair." "Not anymore I don't, buttknocker." Hellhound turned his Robo to face the Flashfire Robo again, and affected a really bad accent of some indeterminate type. "My name is, um, Indigo Mountain Dew. You burned off all Reaper's hair. Prepare to get yer butt kicked. Or something." The mighty dogformer leapt at Flashfire, who barely interposed his sword between the napalm-dripping fangs. Up above, the other combatants had gone back to ignoring those below. Wayne still wasn't really paying attention to the combat, but Squidman had to keep a wide berth around him just in case the Inbred was faking it to feint Squidman into a bad position. Bull's lightning bolts were starting to do more than cosmetic damage to his Deepsea Robo, and the Bull Robo was pretty much ignoring all the strikes from his trident. Time to follow Macro's lead and pull out the big guns. "WAVE...MOTION...SMASHER!" he shouted and a special effect from Space Cruiser Yamato appeared at the tip of his trident, lancing out to strike Bull between the horns. Bull flew back across the street and impacted in a taller (and thankfully emptier than a Denver office buiilding) structure and momentarily disappeared from view. Zwarghoff still had Sidewinder nicely bracketed between missile launchers, but could see that his teammates were in imminent danger of losing. Which would mean the other heroes could gang up on him. He checked the power levels, which had been rising slowly since their arrival. It was a close thing, but the Destructoid could be formed. He activated his override command and swooped to where the others were. "ROADKILL ROBOS, MERGE!" he shouted as lightning bolts lanced out in a really cool effects shot to connect all six Robos. Bull jumped out of the hole he was in and twisted into the torso module. Hellhound and Reaper found themselves leaping skyward against their wills and turning into the arms. Mule didn't really notice his Robo becoming a leg and attaching to one hip, while Wayne yelled out some choice Inbred obscenities as the tumbling motion of his Goat Robo made him drop his baggie. "AND I'LL FORM THE HEAD!" shouted Zwarghoff. "BWAHAHAHAHAHA!" "You're, like, getting into this thing WAY too much, man," commented Wayne. "Shut up, you! Activating Neutrino Sieve power-up...NOW!" In seconds, there stood (well, hovered) the menacing giant Robo which had first appeared in the skies over Sig.Ago. "Oh yeah? Two can play at that game!" shouted Squidman. "I hope.... Robo Warriors, merge to form Fire Tsar!" With that, Deepsea's legs split apart and moved up to fuse with the arms, resulting in a much larger pair of arms and an upper torso. Below, Crosspost and Flashfire stood back to back as their two Robos linked up. Their legs fused together and stiffened while knee joints formed where the hips of the individual Robos had been. The lower torsos were now thighs as the upper torsos locked togther. Then Deepsea slammed down on top of the pair and the arms of the lower Robos swung up to lock onto it, strengthening the link. A secondary and larger head swung up over Deepsea's own head and the eyes flashed. There was a flash of energy and a forcefield sword appeared in FireTsar's hand. While impressive in its own right, FireTsar stood only to the mid-chest of the Roadkill Destructoid. The Destructoid dropped down on FireTsar and slammed into it with a powerful fist, sending FireTsar tumbling into the rubble of a building collapsed earlier in the fight scene. "Damn! It's too powerful for us, especially since it's drawing in more than half of the available neutrinos in the area," shouted Sidewinder from his cockpit. "Then we just have to tip that balance too. Brace yourself, guys, I'm going to use the Big One," warned Squidman. "Oh boy," replied Kid Macro. "And here I had almost cooled back to normal body temperature...." Zwarghoff's patented Flatphoot Evil Laughter (reg. US pat. off) echoed from the Roadkill Destructoid as it slowly and menacingly advanced on the FireTsar gestalt, which was struggling to its feet. The laughter stopped as lights began flashing on Zwarghoff's console and FireTsar started to shimmer visibly. "What's this?! Ambient neutrino flux dropping to one percent of normal! We can't sustain the power-up...they must be using a damper field of some variety." The Roadkill Destructoid deflated visibly, losing a head in height and looking more and more like a cheesy rubber model. By this point, the energy influx was starting to warp light around the FireTsar. "Not a damper, villain...a weapon!" shouted Squidman. "FLAME OF THE FIRETSAR!" [two-page splash page: along left hand side of left hand page are three boxes, each with the face of a FireTsar pilot in it. They're in all white with 'energy strain' lines all over. Along the top and bottom of the right hand page are three boxes each, with pilots of the Destructoid in them. The color there is red with energy strain lines, and all six have expressions of pain. FireTsar itself stands in an "iron cross" position and energy pours out of its outstretched arms to lance into the Destructoid, which is being blown backwards.] "Like, ow...I hate these splash pages," moaned Wayne as the Destructoid crashed down into yet another conveniently empty building. FireTsar staggered to one knee as the power drain shut down systems. "Did we get 'em?" asked Sidewinder, who could see nothing but spots. "I hope so, I don't think I could take another one of these," added Kid Macro. Before anyone could act, a trio of jets swooped down on the devastated area. Nets were fired from the jets to snare the Destructoid, and it was carried off before anyone in FireTsar could activate a weapon system. Squidman cursed. "Those were Hercules components...now we have two gestalts to fight." "I'm getting really tired of the bad guys escaping," observed Kid Macro. "I hope the writer starts letting us catch them soon." =============================================================================== Next Issue: The writer may or may not start letting them catch the bad guys. The writer will do whatever he can to avoid a fight scene next issue. The writer will learn to use pronouns in Next Issue boxes. =============================================================================== KOOKS OF MAGIC Part Six A Rotanna Solo Story Guest-Starring the VAXX Anna awoke underneath a twisted, gnarled old tree that stood alone on a grassy foothill of some sort. Her head pounded worse than it had back in college the morning after she'd eaten a tray of jelloshots on a dare. She pushed her wire-rimmed sunglasses up her nose to try and shut out the harsh sunlight, but they were never meant to be functional, just decorative. Once the pounding had gone down to a low throb and her eyes had adjusted enough to the light for her to make out more than indistinct blobs, she had a look around. To one side mountains rose into the noontime sky, and far off in the distance to the other side she could make out a body of water. The grass was short and green, close-cropped as if by grooming...or grazing. "This must be Harnegu," she mused as she used the skewed trunk of the tree to lever herself into a standing position. "WONderful. My father, who I thought was dead, turns up alive but insane, plotting to spam the Net to death, and he strands me here." "I thought I was the one who talked to himself out loud," came a voice from behind. Anna whirled around and started to fall into a fighting stance, but she was still woozy from the dimensional banishment and stumbled to one knee. The figure reached out a huge pawlike hand to steady her. "Oh, hi VAXX. What are you doing in Harnegu? Don't tell my Gain got you too?" No need to mention that Gain was actually her father yet, she realized. It might send VAXX into a rage. "Harnegu? What's a Harnegu? This is Net.Zealand. You're the Sheep Goddess and I'm the VAXX, your protector and King!" He stood up fully, striking as noble a pose as he could. "Ooookay...so you can travel here and back. How do we get out?" Anna asked. "Out? We *are* out!" he swept one massive arm to indicate the panoramic vista before them. "All right, already," sighed Anna, adding under her breath, "I suppose I shouldn't have expected too much from a nutcase." Crossing her arms, she nodded towards the grassy hillsides. "Do you at least know your way around this place? I might be able to figure out a way home myself." "Home? Ah, yes...I'll take you home. This way, my Goddess." The VAXX shambled off down the hill. Anna finally noticed certain changes had taken place in the VAXX. He seemed much more self-assured here, even if he didn't remember anything of his life in the real world (such as it was). The cords which connected his monitor-like helmet to his shoulders were all loose and flew free like some kind of headdress. He seemed more a wild thing here, more at home than he was on the streets of Sig.ago. Granted, she had only known him a little while before this all happened, but the differences were pretty clear once she actually looked for them. As they travelled, they came upon a small knot of little white creatures clustered around computer terminals. "VAXX, are these what Bisz look like here in Harn...er, Net.Zealand?" "Yes. Right now they are occupied with the latest thing to catch their fancy. Only when they become bored and seek out new diversions do they become dangerous. A swarm of them can crest as a wave taller than the tallest Geiselsaur." Anna leaned over to see what was fascinating the little Biszes so. Some kind of computer game..."M.E.C.H.A.warrior II" said the startup screen. She shrugged and caught up to the VAXX, who had gotten a few paces ahead of her. They walked another few minutes before Anna saw a small lean-to set up next to a pond fed by a mountain stream. A dark-haired woman brooded on a rock overlooking the pond. "Here it is, home," announced the VAXX. "Um, it looks like you're already home." Anna stalked up to the strange woman, who was dressed in a patchwork of both rags and finery that barely covered her enough to get past the Comics Code. She grabbed the woman by a shoulder and turned her to face the reader. She had Anna's face, only darker and sadder. "Who are you?" Anna demanded. When the woman spoke, it was in a low and gravely voice, haltingly at first as if she had never spoken before. "I am the parts of you which are lost to this place every time you use the magic our father taught us. Eventually there will be none of you and all of me. But the parts don't fit right, and I must fill in the gaps with sorrow and pain I find around me." A red spark flashed from a darkened eye. "I am the nightmare which will eventually wake up and walk the other world. You are not supposed to be here...when you are here, you cannot use the magic which brings you here bit by bit to replace my pain." Anna recoiled from this dark golem of herself. Yet, could it really be called a golem, a "soulless one?" It had a soul. Hers. It reached out to embrace her, and her resolve shattered like a glass knocked from a table. She ran and ran and kept on running until she was panting for breath and staggering to her knees. She felt a hand lifting her up. She started to recoil, but then saw it was the VAXX. Then she noticed something. "VAXX...your monitor's loose! Can...can you take it off?" "I dunno, never tried." He reached up with his massive hands and slowly lifted the boxy monitor from his shoulders.... =============================================================================== Author's Notes: For those who don't read Superguy, the Mighty Muddy Power Grangers are a supervillain group from that list created by Lawrence Brown. Over in Team M.E.C.H.A. they've recently been trying to win back their former leader, Pinto Sally, who has gotten involved with a member of that team, Lincoln Douglass. DeFacto offered them a way to destroy Team M.E.C.H.A. and get Sally back, with the Roadkill Destructoid. His plan was to use them to get at TM member Summer who has hyperspatial powers which might help DeFacto return to his own alternate future. It backfired, dumping the Destructoid in the Looniverse (as seen last issue and this) and sending Team M.E.C.H.A. on a joyride across the PluRealities to find the Grangers (plus Zwarghoff and Wayne). Zwarghoff is the oldest arch-enemy of Team M.E.C.H.A, both he and the Team were created by Chris Meadows, with whom I'm doing this beast of a crossover. Wayne the Inbred, er, Invid is Jesse Taylor's character over in the Marie series on Superguy. For more information on these guys and how they got here, go read the last few issues of Team M.E.C.H.A., you fud. }-> The only new obscure reference I made this issue regards Sembieda and Palladium's litigious tendencies. A few years back, they sued Wizards of the Coast over some gaming supplements the company had published. It was a real PR black eye for Palladium, especially on the net. Of course, now WotC is a corporate giant which can pick up Palladium and shake it like a rattle.... Palladium owns a number of licenses that many people wish had gone to companies with better gaming systems, including Robotech. However, the fact that Chris Meadows hasn't been sued off the face of the planet is evidence that (so far) Palladium is not hunting down net.stuff to sue over. Look for pictures of VAXX and Rotanna's new identity (which will appear around part 8 or 9) on my home page, http://pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu/~dvandom P.S. I wrote this before Tick got back and started posting Vigilante Guy, so don't even THINK of accusing me of ripping off the whole writer's block gag from him. }->