Originally posted by Deathstroke
Could someone give me a quick summary of Number of the Beast? I kind of read some of it and from what I gatheredSpoiler:
the government used a crashed spaceship to clone the High in order to use as weapons, but it turns out that it was a Daemonite plan all along or something.Is that kind of close?
Somewhat.
For reference to others, The High is a Superman type who seems to be close to Majestic level. He comes from sort of the "Golden Age" of Wildstorm, though WS didn't exist back then (the super-teams reference him as an oldy a few times), and represents the shining ideal of humanity....more boyscout than badass. Until recently, at least.
Spoiler:
The High died crashing into the forcefield around Stormwatch's space station. They collected his goo/blood/whatever and he eventually regenerated, but yes the gov't took control of it and made an army of High clones. They were to be deployed as a failsafe against holocaust-type events, most likely including other metahumans. Presumably, all the Daemonite guy did was modify or remove the inhibitors which kept them in check, since the plan itself was of human origin. So the Daemonites were searching for a way to destroy humanity, but exploited this program to do it, but didn't create it from scratch.The spark that lit the keg was another superhuman program which had a bunch of metas (also Golden Age holdovers, lost to WS earth for decades) trapped in a virtual world, unknown to them. The High was entered into the program, became aware of the situation, broke out and started causing hell. High releasing the metas from containment is what triggered the launching of the High clones, which exploded simultaneously in low earth orbit, causing untold amounts of destruction and climate change on earth.
Fallout:
Spoiler:
Jenny had to contain a new universe, the one powering the Carrier, inside herself and travel elsewhere with it, and Doctor (if MN'ers Armageddon arc holds true) goes insane from all the destruction and death (he is linked to the earth). The Carrier has crashed and the Authority is in bad shape. Majestic has gone insane, and is trying to be a dictator who restores the glory of the planet. He is currently fighting the Wildcats for resources. No word from the other titles yet.
So were the High and the other old heroes ever featured in WS comics before NOTB?
I read the story and didn't know who anyone was
Spoiler:
until the Authority arrived on the scene ... frankly, they were the only reason I read it in the first placeAlso, I take it the High is who Jenny Sparks references in the first Authority arc when Apollo chases one of Gamorra's clone warriors around the world and almost splatters over his island's shield. She says "Stormdoor quality force field" and "I saw a superhuman of your class hit one and vaporize
Yeah, that would be him.
The High was featured in an old pre-Authority Stormwatch arc, where he came out of a self-imposed hibernation to start making noise. That's where he crashed into the station's forcefield. That, I believe, was his first appearance, but when they talked about him it was talking about someone who had been around for decades doing the hero thing. So it was WS creating a Silver Age for itself.
The others were in the virtual reality program since the 40's. They've been mentioned or alluded to a couple times that I can remember, but Number of the Beast was their first true appearance.
High doesn't have many impressive feats to speak of because of limited showings, but they talk about him like he's Majestic's equal or near-equal, so he's up there in power.
Originally posted by Scoobless
So Majestic is still kicking about? I thought he died after his last solo series.
Originally posted by Boy Blue
In the last issue, he prevented the Daemonites taking over the earth. Past-Majestros will go ahead and rescue everybody from the world-kidnapping ship, and will find everything returned to normal when the ship puts them back. There will no longer be the one year absence of Majestros that allowed the Daemonites to take over, because Future-Majestros spent his last few minutes defeating Helspont.At least, the way I figure it.
So Majestros isn't dead. Half of his series, however, is canon to everybody but him (but technically are still feats for him, since he did them... and then undid them with a time loop).
Originally posted by ScooblessFuture Majestic did, and he died, but he prevented the Daemonites taking over the world in his final act, which prevented Majestic from having to go back in time unshielded after pwning Hadrian... which prevented the illness.
But didn't he become terminally ill due to his initial dimension hopping/time traveling (or something)?
Originally posted by Deathstroke
Thanks for the summary Digi. I wanted to make sure I knew what was going on before I read Wildcats.
Not a problem. Smurph PM'd me with a WS tourney question as well. It's fun being the forum's default go-to guy for an entire universe.
...couldn't help him much, though, which was a bit disappointing.
Though I'll likely be following Wildcats, Stormwatch, and Authority now. So I'll have the big bases covered. To this point it was only the last two, not WC. And there's the lesser-known teams like Gen13 and Wetworks, which are a bit too niche even for me. I'm familiar with them, but don't regularly follow them.
Originally posted by Endrict Nuul
In the new Authority world ends arc.......if Angie can fix the carrier, would that heal Jack completely???
Probably not. His connection is to cities, so while the Carrier can act as one, it's not like 1 city would make all the difference. And "fixing" it would require a power source equivalent to a caged baby universe (essentially a Big Bang). It's not happening without a massive plot device.
Create, possibly. He once teleported a human bomb to an unborn dimension (essentially, an area of non-existence) and it created a Big Bang (I guess we're to assume that the lack of existence rearranged the rules of spatial logic, and made the guy a lot more powerful an explosion than he would have been in this universe.
But he can't just create that kind of power from nothing. He's not that good.
But controlling it is another matter entirely. I'm not sure how they'd harness it if they managed to create it. Once containment was breached, only Jenny could hold it in herself, and it's presumably really hard for her.
Also, if MN'ers Armageddon issue is correct, Doctor is missing, presumed insane from the massive loss of life on Earth (since he's connected to the Earth). He wouldn't be able to do much of anything right now.
Right, but MN'ers Armageddon issue actually happens after that. He travels to the future and they fill him in on what happened so that he can try to prevent it. He doesn't, obviously.
But like I said, if it remains canon, and we have no reason to believe it doesn't, the Doctor goes insane from all the death and disappears.
Originally posted by DigiMark007
Right, but MN'ers Armageddon issue actually happens after that. He travels to the future and they fill him in on what happened so that he can try to prevent it. He doesn't, obviously.But like I said, if it remains canon, and we have no reason to believe it doesn't, the Doctor goes insane from all the death and disappears.
Really....so I am missing parts, dammit....