This is the story of a rag-tag superhero group rising to prominence in a rising metropolis and great American city. Our game-gang meet and play in Seattle on Friday evenings. Weekly to Bi-Weekly. I will attempt to tell our tales herein. Feel free to ask questions regarding the story or how we used/played the rules. Or info on PC-Heroes or NPC-Villains.
Our Campaign Scale is mid to high Street Level and our Narrators will be played in a "Round Robin" style - each player being able to step up in our shared setting and Narrate stories in 1-4 Issues or so for our co-created city and story arcs.
Sit back true believers and enjoy the story as...CENTROPOLIS
The shining beacon of commerce and trade in the USA. Here business thrives and with a thriving economy comes those interested in taking it. Villains worm their ways in board rooms, tech-labs, and wide open in the streets - taking form as corporate owners, mob kingpins and blatant supercriminals.
Enter heroes!
The US Government gave us Project Vigilance to thwart such upstart villains and an agency to lead it in F.I.S.H. but it's the heroes that step from the sidelines to stand openly against criminal minds that makes Centropolis proud.
This is their city. This is their story.
[Coming Soon: our wiki link for details on our co-created city of Centropolis. A city background rivaling the fun of BASH!'s own Megapolis. In fact, we consider Megapolis and Centropolis to share the same world. Our setting is also incorporating various modules from older Champions RPG and Villains & Vigilante RPG, so some NPC-Villains may be familiar.]
basic action super heroes
P R E S E N T S
Issue #1
"THE ACADEMY OF CRIME"[Story Arc: "BUILDING GODS"]
Imagine turning the first page of this issue...
A hawk screams and circles high above. The comic-panel on which you gaze looks down, bird's eye view. The day is crisp on the mid-spring morning day, nary a cloud above the sparse western Nebraska landscape as sounds of big-truck construction breaks the silence.
Sweeping down, our 'bird's eye panel' closes in and spies the Middleton Military complex in the distance. Several armored trucks and military police sweep the parameter. Big yellow construction rigs, dump-trucks, wrecking-cranes, massive drillers and their operators work within the cordoned off mines. Formerly mined for their silver - might this newfound dig and high military presence be result of a new unobtanium deposit for which the nation's jewel, Centropolis, has boomed?
Whatever the reason, the panels continue - displaying a cross-section of the plains divided into dig-construction sites behind 12' razor-wired fences.
Then suddenly!...
krrrraaaaak...krrrrrrrrraaaaak....KRA-KOOM!!
Cracks break in the ground at the center of the construction-rigs like a windshield spidering from a thrown stone!
EARTHQUAKE!!
Men and women scramble but there is no time for the construction crew at the center of the mine-shaft... Massive yellow rigs topple and roll into the splintered crevasse now opening wider and wider from the shaking ground. Two, three, four or more rigs disappear into the dark valley as if falling toward the center of the earth.
Then moments later, as quick as it began, all goes silent. And in the black hole below the surface, from 'bird's eye' we glimpse... something white as a star. Small, a pin-point in the hole. A shape. And it begins to flame in the dark...
Military men of sterner stuff make their way to the edges of the cracked hole... Men murmur wondering what they're seeing, what's happening... Minutes go by and nothing....
Until...
EXPLODING from the dark a massive iron ball and attached chain catapults from the rift, breaking ground as it spirals high in the air, sending men flying. Smashing down on the edges of the crack... it digs in, like a nail hammering ... hooking into the ground.
Then the huge chain taunts.
The sounds of diesel engines rumble as smoke wafts from below.
Something is dragging itself from the hole.
Something... LARGE!
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TURNING THE PAGE - CUT-SCENE
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Ahhhhh....
CENTROPOLIS!
The “city of the future today” and with good reason. Thanks to the generous endowments from such amazing entrepreneur as Raymond Shawe of Human Inc. and Bernadette Wellington Cross, of Cross Worlds Industries, the city of Centropolis enjoys some of world’s first, great technological innovations. To name only two of some of these amazing wonders there is the extremely affordable, hyper-fast, super-clean, and always on time C-Train Monorail, and low-cost, near-infinity, clean and abundant power for all of its citizens from the Newton Fusion Facility.
Centropolis truly is the greatest city in America, if not the world...
Page two opens...
A peacock shrieks, a lion roars, an elephant trumpets, and a monkey.... errr... an ape...
"MY NAME IS GORILLA X, NOT 'Ape-X' and I am no monkey!! But you, good sir, may refer to me in the casual. Welcome to my... eh... The Centropolis Zoo. I am your host... Adam Ape."
Yes... gentle reader, our page opens to the lush environment of Ape.... err... Adam's home. But his cage.... His laboratory is abuzz today. For there has been a challenge to the city's protectors! Gorilla-X dons his uniform gathers his gizmos and locks bars behind him, rushing out catching tops of Centropolis lamp-posts on his way to the Red District... There are foul thugs to be shaken down!
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The challenge did not go unheard to friend, colleague and new-found super-teammate of Adam. This panel focuses in on the mundane of environments - office cubicles buzz, not unlike the busy-sounds from the zoo before. This time humans murmur and work. Non-descript office walls, bland tope colored walls - broken only by three large bond gold letters draped on blue:
This is the working cube of one Agent Clayton Palmer, aka. BULLET - the little known hero harnessing power in his "Time Distortion Boots" and "Black Widow" pistols. But this day, Agent Palmer is not working his normal case-load. The broadcast shown last evening that broke in on the basketball playoffs is what he's tracking. Or more accurately ... hacking. Just as Gorilla-X begins his street-sweeping for info Bullet combs the databases looking to track the source, find the perpetrator.
However.... His concentration is broken when his supervisor informs that some men are requesting a meeting. Rising to spy them over the cubicles, Agent Palmer's artful skill of all things gun related sees these "black agents" blaster rifles - they are not government issue. These men are.... HUMAN INC. The very same source he had just uncovered as the route tracked from last evening's broadcast!
Bullet had slipped up. Whomever was on the otherside of that computer link he'd been following.... They had back-tracked his searching!!
But with a nod to his supervisor, he was given cover... for a moment. But that's all Bullet needs. And vvvVWAP he was gone. His time boots taking him to...
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Turning the page, the panel focuses on the last of our trio of heroes. The broadcast last evening sets the scene more clearly now. A mist whisps down the Maintown Centropolis alley..... no... a HERO whisps in!! The 'air form' was likely one of PHASE's favorites, and although he lacked control of which of the four base elemental forms he could take - air aloud him to be covert and to glide the wind. Perfect for casing one of the six Multi-National Banks noted by the broadcast last evening.
Taking a moment to connect with newfound friend and teammate - Gorilla-X, Sam Quint would learn that the strange heavy-set hunched man(?) he'd just witnessed tromping into the back of that suspicious satellite truck, fumbling a big box of donuts - was most likely the armor-Aussie crime-thug "ROO-GINATOR".
WHAT?!?!?!!
Everyone in the know regarding super-thugs knew that Rooginator was centered out of Sydney, not Centropolis. Why was he here now?? Why was this C-tier villain.... this.... "mort" here for the "challenge" that would call out to Centropolis heroes?? This was a joke... right??
aaaaaaaaaand vvvVWAP time slows as Bullet calmly walks the streets across town to arrive as if instantly to Phase's eyes!
The last of his research showing on his tablet-PC. An image of nearly a dozen similarly low-class crooks. Crooks he'd imaged from the previous five bank robberies Centropolis had seen in the last two weeks.
The duo would wait only a dozen minutes for Gorilla-X - Adam Ape, rushing from the scum-streets of the Red District to his teammate's site. Catapulting with the skill only a massive acrobatic genius gorilla could - from lamp-post, to bus-top, to C-train, and more ... cutting a half hour trip in two!
And pulling back from Gorilla-X speedy trip, our panel focuses in on Bullet's tablet as he re-runs last evening's broadcast. A broadcast quickly removed from all online sources, just as the back robbery security videos had been!
The broadcast...
"... OOOooo and that was a massive slam-dunk by Dwa.....BUURRRR-buzzzzz-SHHHH-GRK-shhhhhh...."
Television sets of basketball fans nationwide snow and blur out! As sets refocus we see only the silhouette of a hunched man, obviously elderly from his posture... Sitting in the distance. Atop his head, latched on ascending off screen toward his ceiling - the silhouette is broken, showing a dozen or more screens. Older boxy television sets, mingled with modern monitors, slave-rigged together - forming a strange helmet atop the old gentleman's head. Clearly this weight should crush him... One assumes the helm-device extends and more hangs from above, anchoring the intruder to his lair from above!
"Greetings Cretans of Centropolis. I take from you your daft entertainments for this evening not poorly thought. I come to you now to explain what is clear none of your law enforcement peons, nor any of your self-proclaimed... 'super' heroes have been able to discern. Oh you fools. I pity your ... pitiful minds. heheh...
Erm... where was... ahhh... Yes. I trust you may be aware that several of your institutions of commerce have been toppled over the last 13 days? Yes? Yes.... I must apologize feeble viewers. This was essential to part of the plan for which I must complete. You will forgive me for disrupting your economy I hope. hahahahah.... Yes. Well... My exercises are culminating. And for this... I need your aid. Specifically the aid of any neanderthal heroes that would like to apply to my challenge. I offer you a chance to thwart the largest of my orchestrated heists tomorrow... the 13th, a Friday. How fortuitous. heheh...
Yes... So.... I... or rather my minions will be on site at one of your six Multi-National Banks about lovely Centropolis tomorrow. We invite you to rush to stop the inevitable. Yes. Please do try. It... would me most helpful.
But should you feel this is some sort of trap or perhaps view my challenge as a 'game' that you will boldly refuse to play. I must assure you it is not. My minions WILL take the vault for millions. And if you do not rush to stop us, a hostage will be killed in broad daylight for all the news media, whom I am most sure WILL rush to our heist, to broadcast.
This becomes a simple choice ... heroes of Centropolis. Come to me. Try to stop my minions. Or you will be branded coward and innocents will die. All due to your pride... Your incompetence... Whatever it may be.
Oh... heheh... and good luck .... HEROES. hahahahhahahah...."
BUURRRR-buzzzzz-SHHHH-GRK-shhhhhh....
As Bullet and Phase compare notes Gorilla-X vaults onward only blocks away... But on the wind - his keen ape-ears hears a "WHOOSH" of winds...... Something he quickly transmits to his teammates as:
"Trouble coming, perhaps a sentry?"
And with a bounce Gorilla-X drops from the parking garage nearby the hidden alley in-which the mysterious van, now dipping and weighted down by the armored girth of Roo-ginator. Around the corner Phase shifts to water form hoping to hide from whatever Gorilla-X had heard coming. Bullet with a click of his boots winks out appearing atop the two story building above. As a soft-clang muffled by Phase's liquid form closes in on Gorilla-X, now taking cover in an overturned dumpster....
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Waiting for the perceived threat to pass... Our heroes consider their next move.
But the sentry would be more keen than one of their number. Ripping up the side of the two-story building - brick cracks from the heat of speed and stopping only inches, nose-to-nose... Bullet is found! Rather... 'greeted' by the speedster sentry!
[said with a rough English draw]
"...ohp...'ello! Right smartly dress, r-yah! An' wit such guns and keen-n-dandy clogs. Yah-lucky, ya-daft bloke. I almust ran into ya. But's good enough. I am happy to see ya here. An so will Architect."
Touching his hand to an ear-piece... (as Gorilla-X hears the crackle of microphone)
"Right. Good then. Architect. Some 'heroes' have arrived for yer amusements. Right. Okay then. I will tell the bloak. Yes, he's standing here in front of me now... Right. Return to base-camp. Right. Sprinter out.
Right! Good of ya to join us this fine American mornin'! Well. I must say. My job here is done. Good day ya-heroic-bloke. Must go now."
...and with a zip and snap of the rooftop stone the speedster wraps across and down the opposite building side... But not off completely, before quickly returning!
"Sorry friend. Forgot muh manners. You've just been found by none other than 'The Jolly Sprinter'. Now, chap... You and your fellows are ON. Luck of the no-good Irish be with ya! hahahah"
ZIPPING away again!! Bullet finds himself alone.
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Meanwhile.........
In a dark and somewhat sticky hiding place below, our gorilla friend's ears perk up again. Hearing the zip, followed by the sharp break of the villain's van door opening nearly a block away... The crooks were on the move!! And so must the heroes be!
Bullet is the first to arrive - his Time-Distortion Boots straining to slow time ... Clayton walks around the building. Walking around a small swarm of flies rustled by Gorilla-X's hiding spot is stopped in mid-motion-flight... all is frozen in the moment to Bullet... all except the now-slow-motioned Jolly Sprinter! Passing the crook's sentry on way to the villain's van, Bullet finds it interesting that the speedster moves just a bit slower than his own walking stride - even tough the Sprinter's stance is in full stride and sweat streams from his forehead...
And in a slowed-tone as if a record playing at a slower speed... The Jolly Sprinter exclaims:
"Wwwweelllll, wwwweelllll... Gooooood, onnn yyyaaaa! Yerrrrr a dannnndy speeeeeedster assss welllllll??? Interessssss....."
But Clayton Palmer has no time for this ... arriving with a blink (to the crooks stepping from the van, which The Jolly Sprinter had just rushed to open)... Bullet sees one, two, three... FIVE villainous forms making way.
OH NO!! ....... jjjjjshhh-KR-WIRRORRRR!! a green blast of irradiated-plasm echos from the villains! The beam wide as a small keg just missing Bullet's head!! but carrying on a solid distant beam... across two streets sheering through a steel lamp-post finally sizzling a garden bush in a small office play-ground beyond! Missing several children with luck!
".... Right. Quick one you are. Thisss will not happen again. I have disintegrated more flesh than you have touched pathetic hero. Feel the burn that no one but DECREPID can muster!!
As Phase clambers in his stone/earth form, running at top speed around the block - Gorilla-X flips and swings into the adjoining parking garage. Flinging himself from the heights toward the back of the radiating form of DECREPID .....
".....OOPH!!" ... and with a blunt gorilla double paw-foot kick dropped on the heartless villain, the green-hue-glowing form bounces and skids to a stop in the street beyond. Burning a trench along the way with every hit on the street!
An intimidating growl from Gorilla-X works too well, as a mother nearby the radiation-burning bush grabs the children in fear ... freezing. And Adam considers that in the future he might be better suited NOT to roar at scared mother and children, hoping they'd run for safety!
But that's not all he witnesses.... through keen senses or a flux in the tech, Gorilla-X notices that his kick wafted THROUGH the form of Decrepid - even though the form of the villain reacted as though hit, being knocked back across the street!
Amazed at his teammate coming from nowhere to topple the green menace.... it's not his teammate or the villains that catches Bullet's attention. The same crackle of microphone hums and clicks - made known as Gorilla-X corresponds via com-link. And the Sprinter pulls a cube-device only a foot across from an energy hub in the van. Touching the top of it (as ordered) Bullet witnesses the box hum, shake ... catching gravity in a hover and disappears from view. BUT NOT from the keen ear of Gorilla-X!
"It's still there. I believe ... I believe the sound I spied earlier was emanating from this cube you saw! Take it down Bullet! --Gorilla-X declares.
and the 'Black Widow' pistols lock into the area where the cube had hovered! Tracking the area with his left pistol... finding it with his right - Bullet spins the techno-cube, ripping it's mechanical invisibility away... though it still hover some 25' above. Seemingly taking in light from the sun above, refrecting it below in some pattern....
"ILLUSIONS" --Gorilla-X thought!
"Illusions my friends! It is my belief the device Bullet has uncovered is casting false three-dimensional constructed images, capable of fooling most senses enough that we can physically interact with them! .... fascinating!"
But the crooks are not undone!
With a mechanical tail to leverage massive machine-kangaroo-shaped-muscle-gear legs Bullet finds himself smacked end-over-end just missing a lamp-post and mailbox - landing prone on the street corner across from the villain's alley!!
".... at's ROO-GINATOR mussed up yer hair mate! HAHAHAHAHA.... Good on ya!! mate nice roll!! HAHAHAHA
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Just then....
Turning the corner, seeing Bullet toppled before him, the rock form of Phase cracks footprints along the street - rushing to his teammate's aid.... seeing Gorilla-X leap two stories in the air grabbing the mechanical box, now crackling with broken energy - the anti-grav unit within slowly lowering the ape-hero to the ground. As the uplifted animal genius begins uncovering it's secrets en-route!!
".... urg.... Out, get out, let me out of small wheeled box!! as a massive 8' tall neanderthal emerges from the van balancing on his armored-Aussie tribesman.
".... stop looking at self in shiny, woman. Out of Cavelitarian way!! ERR..ARG...
"...It's 'ROCKSTARR' you carpet-boy. Stop breathing on the mirror, a girl's gotta look her best to...
Ignoring the bickering of the super-crooks. Gorilla-X breaks the code of the cube device. Learning that it is not only casting illusions but it is also tracking the actions of the crooks about him... almost as if a viewing platform. No.... a training cube! And there is another working against his intellect attempting to block his hacking-investigation. One that is attempting to set off the SELF-DESTRUCT within the cube!!
Gorilla-X vs. the Architect of the Academy of Crime in a battle of mechanical genius!!!
a small, non-descript Steve Buscemi looking man... normal from all appearances... doddles from the van.
"...We do not have time for this Britney" --he says speaking to Rockstarr as she applies her eye-shadow carefully...
"... oh. Okay then. Cavelitarian. Roo-ginator. We have a vault to obscond with. We don't have time for this." --stretching his arm wide and his other wider touching both villains, with a suck-rush of air disappearing... so do the three crooks!! Invisible? Teleporting?
and just then, Phase cracks street rushing up to thump any remaining villains... sadly... only a girl (whom his college eyes vaguely recognizes as one of those teen queen pop-star singers??) and his ape friend.
"hmmm...." ---Gorilla-X notes... Those three crooks have not disappeared, they are apparently making away with the bank's funds. The alarms are sounding now, do you not hear.... of course you don't, heh... only my keen hearing can travel the three blocks to the bank... heheh... sorry. I almost have this." --pointing at the now dormant but slightly glowing cube. "...I... believe. Yes. I have it. Oh hello." --seeing Architect and the five villains lying on training beds, imaging mental device helms attached... through the com/vid-panel in the cube...
"... Oh my... They appear to be on the 123rd floor of the Monolith Building"
and as Gorilla-X tangles words of whom is the more genius with the very unhappy Architect.... Phase and Bullet hear the bank alarm as Centropolis PD coordine off the streets several blocks away. Phase turns to Rockstarr, rearing back ready to plow her into the van...
"....my my my... ain't you a big one!" --Britney says glancing at the stone form of Phase in the mirror as her lips brighten from the application of a ruby red lipstick.
"...he he... 'ROCK'... 'ROCKSTARR'... he he... I'm Rockstarr. You've heard of me of course...." --she smiles and continues talking, almost befuddling the stone hero.
"... I once played that big president mountain thingy... Mount Rush... Rushmear?... hmph... I stood up on Ronald Reagan's head and sang my first hit. You've heard it of course. Right? Yeah... well... yer no where near as big as him. he he he he..."
"...err... uh... SIT DOWN." --Phase pointedly says.
"...'k... sure.... hey want a cig... he he... no matter what my voice coach says I just can't give up the darn things." --the young villain says, offering the stoney hero a smoke as she sits on the van bumper.
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Meanwhile!!
THE BANK!!
Bullet getting up from the spot tossed across the street... Time-walks to the bank. Inward he sees the large caveman-crook wielding a massive club in one hand and a rotund bank manager in the other. Swinging them both! Intimidating all the inner customers and clerks to rush away into the corner of the bank lobby. As the kangaroo-armored-Aussie rips metal with massive knife claws (now THAT'S a KNIFE!) cutting open cash machines dumping green-backs into the open metal storage pouch below his chest! The normal man.... (Mr. Gone) nowhere to be seen.... Until...
VWARP! and a crackle of paper unfolds.... electric cables, shorn iron bands, and bits dangling from a huge mettle 'room' ... no... the VAULT!! cracking and smashing down out of thin air into the center of the bank lobby!! Mr. Gone had teleported the ENTIRE vault from his housing!! Perhaps for the other villains to carry, because Gone himself fell to the floor from the strain of the sheer size of the vault.
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But just then...
"...Goodbye now." --Gorilla-X says shutting off all functions of the training cube. And in an instant the bank manager finds himself falling.... Rockstarr, Gone, Roo-Ginator, all of the crooks vanished! The illusions turned off by the ape-hero!
But Centropolis' Finest had another worry....
"... You are surrounded, outmanned and outgunned. Lay your weapons on the ground and..." --exclaimed Centropolis' police chief from a megaphone. No one recognized the newly appeared Bullet - now aware that he'd 'appeared' with guns out instantly to the policemen about.
".... Wait! He's a HERO! Like me!!" --Phase said smashing pavement coming to his teammate's aid.
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And after a few short moments comparing notes. The police aware of the hero's help. Gorilla-X declares the next step. Uncovering the crooks at their lair. .... Monolith tower - in the HUMAN INC. suites!!
Planning carefully... the heroes determine to time-walk in with Bullet's aid, finding their way to an empty elevator shaft to...
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BUT THEN!!
A news chopper fans the heroes... coming in close, only 25' above the street. Correspondent Nancy Callahagn of WCBZ TV waving her hands desperately trying to get the hero's attention!
In short order Phase shifts and finds himself in the co-pilot seat, a whisp in his air elemental form. The chopper pilot rips back on the stick surprised, teetering the helicopter to one side... quickly shifted back as Gorilla-X's feet snag the landing struts from a street leap two stories below, sitting his teammate Bullet up into the aircraft...
"It's the Mercury Building!! (the 80 story high-rise HQ of WCBZ and the world famous 'Centralist Daily' paper).... they... they're trying to collapse the entire building!! --Ms. Callahagn unveils!
"... surely you must mean Monolith Tower, it's a common misunderstanding... the Mercury Building is just across the street from..." --Gorilla-X explains...
"NO! I mean the Mercury Building!"
Confused... the heroes request the news pilot's aid in travel and soon they find themselves witnessing the events.
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Barely anyplace to land atop the Mercury Building - due to the dozens of civilians scattering out ontop of the helipad roof of the building as it shakes!
Several large men in armor resembling bright yellow construction rigs drill and pound the base of the Mercury Building!
And across the street, some 150 stories in the sky.... atop the Monolith Tower. Others matching the giant men in yellow rig-armors drill away at the memorial statue atop the Monolith Tower.
And Gorilla-X realizes...
These armored men. This "DEMO-SQUAD" isn't trying to topple the Mercury Building as a primary objective. Their goal MUST be to steal the world famous golden statue of the golden-age hero, one of Centropolis' favored sons - the Statue of ATLAS, standing atop the Monolith Tower!!
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BUT WITHOUT WARNING...
the massive iron wrecking ball (from the opening cut-away scene!) was coming at high velocity to demolish the news chopper!!!
With animalistic danger sense Gorilla-X's mind goes to work. Three news reporters and two teammates ... no time or ability to gather them all to leap to safety!
What can be done?!?!?!?!!!
Gripping the aircraft's stick, pulling back... his effort isn't enough - they will still be smashed!! So with a menacing growl of leadership - the ape roars, snapping Phase out and into action!! Air whirls with gale force, and the helicopter whips up and out of the path!! Phase had done it!!
They were safe!!
But these new supervillains.... this "DEMO-SQUAD" weren't safe!! Justice will find them!!
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And as we turn the page. Closing out this Issue... the last SPLASH PAGE reveals....
GORILLA-X flanked by guns-a-blazing BULLET to his left and the stone form of PHASE to his right - leaping out of the chopper, leaping out of the panel at next Issue's supervillains!!
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