"SHAMELESSLY PROMOTE" YOUR OWN STUFF!

John and I are geniuses.

That is all.

(Click on Image)

INUYASHA #1
By Aimee Ben
Cover by Aimee Ben & Jay Zirron
Edited by Jay Zirron

I am the Moon



The silver light of night filtered through the trees and highlighted my figure. I stood alone in a clearing at the forest’s edge. My long mane of pale silvery- white hair matched the moonlight. I stood alone observing that which belonged to those of my house. Everywhere I observed, that I beheld was mine somewhere in the future. My eyes landed on a lone doe nibbling on the succulent, sweet grass of a new spring. Flashes of a bloody end for the doe passed through my mind as my beast struggled against my restraints. I would not shed its blood this night I told myself firmly. I yearned for the healing waters of a nearby hot spring more. I very slowly backed away from the doe and her meal. I turned on my heel and walked toward the heat of the nearby pool. As I reached the water’s edge, I had already started to remove my kitana and obi. I only wore two layers of kimono and shed my outermost one. The second layer was one of the lightest silk and clung to my every curve. I opened it and it slid to the ground. I had found that too many layers were far too cumbersome in battle and I was a warrior. I pulled my mane from my back and slid it over my left shoulder. My hair covered my torso and I slid into the water. A soft sigh escaped my lips as the warmth spread through my sore limbs. My mouth was lax as I soaked and I knew I had a pouty look on my face. I had my great and terrible father’s coloring but my mother’s full and sensual lips. I was built tall and lithe like my father but I was fully endowed with gently curved hips. I was somewhere akin to an Elvin creature but of a much fiercer nature.
I stared at my hand and, I realized that I really needed to find a suitable rutting partner. I refused to mate at such a young age. I was only one hundred and three summers. I was the daughter of the mighty Sesshomoru, Lord of the West and his mate Augusta Orlovich. My mother was a foreign youki and had won my father’s devotion after a long and difficult period in both of their lives and nations.

Mother was as fair as Father but had midnight black tresses whereas my father had pale silver. My father’s eyes were a golden citrine, my mother’s were the color of sable. My own eyes had taken on both of their characteristics and resembled the stone; cats eye. I bore the markings of my father’s house; a crescent moon adorned my forehead and stripes upon my cheeks. Although my mother was not an inu-youki, I did inherit some of her abilities. First and foremost, I was inu. I had my true form, that of a great ethereal dog. I had inherited ALL of my father’s abilities. I was named his heir above my brother because I shared so much of my sire’s power. Someday I would be a tai-youki in my own right.

I am Asuna…and I am the moon.

This week on
The Danger Trail!

It's issue nine and the second part of "The Nation of Murder Affair", and we find...

Michael Gallant slowly tilted his head up, through the pounding headache and forced his heavy lids open. He pushed himself into consciousness, his blue eyes finally focusing on what was around him.

He was bound to a chair, that he noticed right off. Heavy ropes lashed around his muscular chest, holding him tightly to the back of the chair. His wrists were cuffed tight behind him, stretching his shoulders, and that had been the case for a while, because those broad shoulders ached and stiffened into position. He sighed as he tested the expert knots.

He noticed he was between two tables, each holding a mirror. He found it disconcerting to be staring at himself ad infinitum and turned away from the flanking glass. The dusty, musty basement was cluttered with boxes and broken furniture and tattered dress dummies and more, all coated in layers of grime and webs and the droppings of vermin, and Michael cringed slightly. Still, this situation was far from hopeless. The chair felt like it had give, and if he could reach a mirror and break it...

“You might be able to free yourself,” Rue Morgue said. At first, Michael didn’t see him. Then some of the early morning sun struck the glassy lens of his mask and then the rest of his black-clad body stepped from the muck-like shadows. “Yeah, I know the feeling well. A caged beast, belonging in the wild, ready to gnaw your own limbs off to get back out there. Makes the blood flow, don’t it? Used to make my blood flow, Gallant.”

“Well, I’ll be sure to make your blood flow right quick when I get myself out of this then,” Michael snapped back as he tested his bonds once more.

Rue Morgue ignored the testing he could see as he dragged over his own chair, and brought it so close in front of Gallant. He then fixed each mirror, allowing him to see both profiles. No matter how he turned, the mirrors provided a full view of Gallant’s face. Only then did the bizarre killer sit down in the chair.

“No. No you won’t. Can’t happen. I appreciate the offer, I do, more than you know.” He slid his coat off and put it to the side, and then pivoted to show the tear in his shirt just under his ribcage. The piece of missing flesh, ripped out of his body like the piece of missing material missing from his shirt. “But you’ll know soon. Very soon. I need to borrow your face. So I can do my job, whack Dewey.”

“Borrow my face?” Michael stared at the killer, who was peeling off the sweaty, grubby mask. Michael stared in shock, in horror, unable to believe what he saw in front of him. But he knew too much in his time helping his friend Thomas against organized crime, and before that, helping out other departments go after this breed of robber and burglar who liked shooting it out with the cops. “You’re dead!”

so come and check it out! Pulp action in the grand tradition: weird menaces, bold heroes and byzantine plots of death and destruction!

Take care
Don

PS I read your stuff.

This week, I'm throwing the DC3 Earth-Five spotlight onto Ultimate Gotham Girls, the adventures of Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Batgirl and other inhabitants of Gotham that may, from time to time, elect to show their faces! This fun little series is being written by Samantha Chapman, editor for DC2's Detective Comics, and one of the best writers in our community, I daresay. Check out the excerpt from this month's issue, "Harvey and Ivy" and then click on the link above to read the entire series from the beginning!



Poison Ivy had an adorable little cottage in the middle of the woods where she loved to go to be alone. Now that Spring was in full force, she was spending quite a bit of time to herself in her hideout-away-from-home. She walked easily through the thick forest with a little smile on her lips, feeling the breeze in her hair and enjoying the silence.

There were no visitors, out here. No pesky herbivores either. Not even the smallest and shrillest of birds. Very, very few creatures dared to come this close to Arkham Asylum.

Nearly two years before, Ivy had escaped her first and only stint in the sprawling Victorian building, and she had taken every chance to mock it ever since. Soon after she got out Ivy had discovered the vacant wood and set up shop, even if ‘shop’ was little more than four walls and a thatched roof over a single camping chair. It was quiet, it was close enough for her to stick her tongue out at Arkham, and it was all hers.

There was a bounce in Ivy’s step as she got close to her hideaway, the sunlight dappling through the trees and shining in her flaming hair. But a few yards away from the cottage, she stopped short.

“Oh no…” she muttered, ducking behind a tree and studying the situation with a deep furrow in her white brow. “No way.”

Two men were standing guard outside her door, both sweltering in heavy black uniforms, both armed with impressive guns, and both looking around nervously into the silent trees. Obviously somebody’s goons, but whose? Ivy glared as she watched them, grinding her teeth to see one casually shredding the grass by dragging his foot up and back along the ground. They’d be easy enough to deal with, Ivy knew, but someone else had to be involved in invading her sanctuary.

Then Ivy caught sight of the face in her window, and her anger doubled. “Oh no.”



Once, not very long ago, he had been handsome, respected, looked up to. An admirable public figure. A crusader for justice.

Now he sat on a canvas chair in a shack in the woods, a ruined hand over the ruined right side of his face, brooding on his ruined life.

“Hey boss, Mister, uh, Mister Two-Face.” He turned his good face toward the goon with a glare. “There’s a…well, Buzz thought he heard somethin’ outside, like a person maybe. Want us to check around?”

Two-Face flipped the coin in his fingers a few times before launching it into the air. He caught it in his bad hand and laid it on the back of his good. The face of George Washington was crossed out angrily, covered in scratches. “No,” he answered. “Just leave it. Can’t be that important.”

“If you say so, boss.” The goon stepped back out the door, leaving him alone again.

He was alone, he told himself. There had been doubts, these last two years since the accident. He scoffed. Some people thought that it was so much gentler, so much less distressing to call it an accident. But he preferred to face the brutal truth. It had been his death—and his birth. Duality in action.

The man’s right side was that of any other normal, relatively handsome man. Clear, lightly-weathered skin, smooth lips that used to show an easy smile, hair neat and combed, a deep, honest brown eye. The fingers on his right hand were long and nimble, looking as though he had never seen a day’s hard work in his life. But his left side was that of a monster. This hand was corded and bony, this skin the same pale, mottled, greenish color as the left side of his face. This eye was red, these lips distorted, this hair burned away.

His two selves were as unalike as his two hands.

Two-Face frowned with both sides of his mouth. He couldn’t say when he’d first noticed the Split in his mind; it had been far too long ago, and far too subtle. But he could remember very clearly the day that the Split became uncontrollable. Some nights, his head still ached with phantom pain—his skin on fire, eye burning, hand blistering where it had shot up to protect him...but worse, far worse was the feeling that his mind had been split in two, the blinding, sickening, white pain all along his skull…

He shook himself back into the present. That had been nearly two years ago now, and no amount of medicine since had been able to help him. He had been to all corners of the globe looking for a cure—for his face or for the Split—but nowhere was there anything to be done. All he could do was accept it and move on.

Now he sat in a hut, planning revenge—on Gotham, in part; on people, in general. But most importantly, on her.

Here I am again, shilling for DC3 and our tour of Earth-Five and this week, we're going to visit Ultimate Supergirl! The adventures of our Big Blue Girl Scout, and one of the pillars of the Ultimate line! Where is her cousin? Who cares for now, that's another mini-series. Instead, watch as Kara-El finds herself stranded on Earth, meeting new family and making a life for herself she never expected, along with encountering all sorts of dangers, threats and ruthless super-villains. Check this out from "First Day":




Kara soon arrived at the site of the fire, a six-story apartment building nearly engulfed in flames. The city’s fire department was already on hand, the firefighters struggling to douse the flames. As Kara around at the growing crowd of onlookers, she noticed a family trapped on their balcony on the top floor. Without further delay, Kara pushed her way through the crowd, as gently as she could, and hopped over the barriers set up by the fire department.

“You can’t come in here,” The head fire official on site called as Kara moved towards the building.

“Don’t worry,” Kara told him.

“Wait… Aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I am,” Kara replied, answering the official’s question with a small smile as she disappeared into the building.

Kara coughed as the smoke surrounded her. She could feel the heat from the nearby flames, but they did little more then make her uncomfortable. The smoke was the real problem. It blocked much of her view and it certainly had an effect on her breathing, if still less of one than a human would feel. Managing to find one of the building’s stairways, Kara started making her way up, counting off the floors as she went. She was nearing the fourth floor when the stairs gave way under her, dropping her into empty space.

Instinctively, Kara covered her face as she fell towards the ground, waiting for the impact that never came. She slowly moved her arms away to realize that she was hovering just feet off the cement floor. “I can float?” She muttered, a smile slowing spreading on her face. “I can float.” The young woman took a few seconds experimenting with her newfound ability and coming to another realization. “I can fly! Sweet!” Kara grinned as she flew around the stairwell before a piece of flaming timber crashed down, just inches in front of her face. “Oh. Right. Fire,” she said before zooming upwards.

So come on and check it out the entire run on the DC3 board. Just click the link above to go straight to Ultimate Supergirl #3, then go see the rest of the issues here!

Take care
Don

YES!

Okona lifted his face, it had been weeks before he had seen anything. Dr. Julian Bashir looked over his patient, “I cannot exactly tell what he has suffered, sir.”

Sisko paused. ”Anything?”

Bashir continued. “To be honest sir it seems, Commander Okona is awake and is coherent, but I can’t tell if he’s actually responding to outside stimulus.” Bashir tapped the PADD against his palm. “to be honest sir..it has me baffled.”

Sisko looked at Bashir. “Do what you can, Doctor, we are going have to evacuate the station if the firefight heats up with the JemHadar.” Sisko looked at his old friend. “We’ll just have to pray that Okona makes it through it.”

“Of course, sir.” Bashir looked back at the BioMedical display unit.. “puzzling.” he muttered.

Reads neat, too

Check it out!

NW should be really good then...

This week, I take our spotlight and shine it on the DC3's Earth-Five for the epic, cosmic-powered Ultimate Fourth World, a series filled with grandeur, dark plots, majestic heights and a fantastic take on the classic Kirby New Gods. By our own Kevin Feeney, this is very different from the New Gods he does for DC2 and it's a testament to his ability to see him balance such a great pair of series.

But don't believe me? Check out this sample below, and the click on the link above to check out the entire run!



In the depths of the Shadow World, another god wrestled with something deep within her which was beginning to resemble a soul, as one of her “allies” demonstrated no such restraint.

*Crack*

Barda stood guard in the cell of Scott Free, blocking the doorway to ensure there was no escape. Mere hours ago, she had prevented the sadistic witch Lashina from continuing her onslaught upon the prisoner, as he lay near to death. But it seemed that dear Granny had other plans, and the respite, such as it was, was over.

*Crack*

Yet again the whip slashed down upon the bleeding body of Scott Free, and yet again he refused to give an inch, emitting only the briefest of grunts as each agonising lash added to the mass of scars and bloodied welts on what had been his back. Barda’s hand tightened on her MegaRod. If it was up to her, Lashina would not be alive, let alone here, but it was not. She had exercised her prerogative to allow the prisoner to live, but Granny had arrived soon enough- it seemed that more prisoners would soon be there, and it was imperative the boy was broken before they arrived- no matter what it took. Thus Lashina had been unleashed again.

*Crack*

“Cease.” This time though, the command did not come from Barda. She turned in surprise, for the voice was familiar to her, as it was to all on Apokolips. Lashina stopped laughing and looked up, the smile frozen on her face, to see who had disrupted her fun.

“…Godfrey…” Barda murmured. She looked down at the shorter god, dressed in a resplendent white outfit, skin nearly glowing with light, orange hair sticking out from his head like a flame. Godfrey was an anomaly- handsome where everything else was ugly, glowing where all else was in shadow, charming where charm was considered a vice. But Barda knew him well enough to know that inside, he was as black as anything else here on this world. Godfrey was a viper, and a more dangerous one for concealing it in a seemingly innocent guise.

“Barda, eternal guardian of the depths, Granny’s right hand girl,” Godfrey smiled widely, displaying his perfect teeth as he approached.

“Godfrey,” she nodded, this time to his face, her expression completely impassive. “What brings you down to the prisons?”

“Business, my dear, business,” Godfrey said melodramatically. “I go where my Lord commands, and it seems we have a potential convert down here.” Despite her misgivings, Barda stood aside to allow the head of propaganda access to the chamber. She hadn’t heard anything about this, but if it was a direct order from the Dread Lord, then there was certainly nothing she could say to dissuade him. The arrival of one of the Elite heralded many things, but none of them were good.

…Bad, none of them were bad, she corrected herself. She was the chief lieutenant of the Female Furies Battalion, trusted by Granny herself, she had personally slain rebels and dealt harshly with the foes of Apokolips, and she would not be seduced by some ragged prisoner who had a way with words. She wanted Free to be broken, she reminded herself, and it would… it must… it would have to give her pleasure when it was done. Then she would be free of whatever sorcery he had wrought, free to serve her Lord for all eternity. She turned, with Lashina, to watch as Godfrey approached the huddled barely breathing mass that had once been a god.

“Scott Free…” breathed Godfrey. “Well, well… what a mess Lashina’s made here, hmm?” He crouched down beside Free, whose face was turned away, not wanting to show his captors his pain- something Barda could empathise with. “But- and I’ll understand if this is hard to believe, Scott…. Today is the luckiest day of your life.” He leaned closer, so close Barda and Lashina both had to strain to hear what he said.

“I’m here to liberate you.”

Coming in July!!

your's truly.

Which is what, exactly... ?