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Post by DocQuantum on Jul 23, 2017 6:38:48 GMT
I just can't help myself sometimes.
In writing something that updates the current whereabouts of a character we haven't seen in a long while (Queen Arrow), I somehow found myself writing the beginning of what appears to be a story introducing a new international superhero team to Earth-2.
Then I kept going and figured out a BIG THREAT that could be used to bring all the international heroes together.
I think I'm going to need some help with this, so after the initial setup, I'm opening this up as a round-robin (but only to those who attend chats on Sundays).
Cheers, Doc
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Post by DocQuantum on Jul 23, 2017 6:39:37 GMT
Part 1
The Canary Islands had been a popular resort for decades. It was a great place to get away. Each year, thousands of Europeans and some from other parts of the world would flock to these islands' beaches and experience a few weeks' worth of vacation time. Others, of course, stayed a bit longer.
One particular tourist had stayed there more or less for the past year after experiencing a major disappointment in her life. This gorgeous young woman with long, flowing blonde hair, who had been born decades earlier than anyone would suspect, had believed that it was her time to shine. She had already lived the life of the spoiled debutant; oh, how she had lived that. But ever since she'd had a taste of true adventure and danger, there was no going back to that old life, even if it were still possible to do so.
The path of her life was decidedly strange. Although she'd been a rather ordinary society girl with extraordinary athletic abilities and a talent for archery, she had begun to feel that she was destined to become just another society wife in time, perhaps the wife of a minor congressman or senator. Then she would be a mother with children who studied abroad in a private school like she had. And her little archery hobby, tolerated by her husband in their first couple years of marriage, would eventually be put aside for more ladylike pursuits, such as holding tea parties and sponsoring charitable dinners.
With the course of her life already set out before her, this remarkable young woman knew she had to do something to break free, or all that she feared would come to pass, and she would turn into just another drab old society woman like her mother's friends. She could not let that happen.
And so, one summer day in 1946, young Diana Dare of Star City had an idea, a brilliant idea that would sever her predestined life and allow her to chart her own course. She would become a mystery-woman; not only that, but she would become the partner of her idol, Green Arrow. Sure, she had known that the Green Arrow already had a partner -- Speedy -- but surely that was only because the wizard archer had not found his equal in any woman. Besides, the boy bowman was growing up. Soon he'd want to strike out on his own, or at least head off to college. Diana had just hoped to speed things along a bit.
But the realities of high society were too strong, and Diana forced herself to put the idea out of her mind. After all, what would her daddy say about all this? Everet Dare was one of Star City's wealthiest men, and he had always been tolerant of her idolization of Green Arrow and her own amateur interest in archery. He had even taken Diana's side when she wanted to dress up in a feminine version of a Robin Hood costume for a charity costume ball, when her mother objected that it made her look too masculine, and that she would send the wrong message to any potential suitors, such as that nice industrialist, Oliver Queen. But Diana had always found Oliver a bore; he was an intellectual and always seemed distracted by other things when talking with her, as if he was always on alert for some reason. That and the fact that he had that annoying teenaged ward, Roy Harper, were the main reasons she had long ago crossed him off her list of available suitors. Of course, she had crossed off all other men on the list once she'd realized the only man for her was Green Arrow. Still, the idea permeated her mind, and her subconscious made her dreams a reality, quite literally, when it manifested itself in an amazing way.
Diana had always had a problem with sleepwalking. Ever since she was a little girl, Everet Dare or one of his servants had occasionally found little Diana wandering out in the fields of their large country estate at night, still completely asleep. Eventually it seemed that she had grown out of this habit, which had scandalized her mother to no end. But again, as a young woman, Diana began to walk in her sleep for a few nights in a row, each time doing the same thing. She would slowly descend the stairway, walk through a large room full of arrows she had gathered from around the world, including several trick arrows of her own invention, then enter a special trophy room containing arrows once shot by Green Arrow and Speedy. She would then don her Lincoln-green Robin Hood costume, feathered yellow cap, and domino mask; equip herself with a bow and a quiver of arrows; and retrieve her white horse from the estate stables. She would then ride out into the night, toward Star City, and fight crime as the mystery-woman called Queen Arrow.
After a few such nights of somnambulant crime-fighting, Queen Arrow met Green Arrow and Speedy while preventing a theft at an aeronautics exhibit. After nabbing the crooks, she introduced herself and fled into the night, still sleepwalking as she returned home, put everything back in its place, and went back to bed. The next morning, she and her father were both astonished to read about the mysterious Queen Arrow in the Daily Star newspaper. Everet Dare had known of Diana's ambitions but never suspected that his own little girl was the daring Queen Arrow until the next night when he saw a sleepwalking Diana return from her trophy room and walk back upstairs to her bedroom. Green Arrow and Speedy, having retrieved one of the arrows that Queen Arrow had used, had discovered that it was one of the arrows they had fired in the past. Green Arrow, knowing that Diana Dare had one of the best collections of arrows in the world, came to visit the Dare estate at the same moment that Everet Dare witnessed his daughter sleepwalking.
Green Arrow cautioned Everet not to wake his daughter, since waking a sleepwalker could be dangerous, especially when they were on the stairway as she was, and asked to see Diana's arrow collection. Green Arrow then discovered that the most recent arrow in her collection, which had been sent to her by her uncle from South America, was painted by a strange potion that not only causes loss of willpower, but makes a victim carry out any hidden desires. Everet confessed that she had cut her finger on the arrowhead earlier that week but had thought nothing of it, and that she did have the secret desire to be like Green Arrow. Since he was an expert in many things, including this potion used by an aboriginal tribe in the Amazon rainforest, Green Arrow was able to make an antidote using chemicals he kept in a mobile lab in the Arrowcar.
Everet Dare administered the antidote to his sleeping daughter, and several minutes later she awoke and came downstairs, surprised to finally meet Green Arrow and Speedy. Now was her chance to ask them who this Queen Arrow was. But the battling bowmen and her father had already discussed the matter, and they had decided not to tell her the truth. It would be their little secret; after all, she was just a girl.
But Diana Dare discovered the truth for herself. The clues were all around her; all she needed to do was put two and two together. First, she realized that her Robin Hood costume had been worn a few times recently and that a few of her arrows were missing, and that she had no recollection of using either of them. Second, she read all the newspaper accounts of Queen Arrow's few exploits as recalled by the criminals she apprehended, and the arrows she had used matched some of hers that were missing. And third, she confronted her doting father one day and demanded that he tell her the truth. Everet Dare, a balding gentleman who would do anything for his daughter, relented and told her everything. She had never felt so humiliated in her life, knowing that Green Arrow, Speedy, and her father had all shared a private joke at her expense.
Still, once she got over the initial shock and humiliation, Diana felt rather proud of her accomplishments, even if they had been done while she was sleepwalking. This episode had only proven in her mind that she was worthy of being a mystery-woman. Sure, her father and her idol already knew her secret, but she wasn't about to let that stop her from living out her dream while wide awake this time. But she didn't want to stop there. Her mother had always been after Diana to be ladylike, to dress like a lady and do ladylike things. Well, she would show her a thing or two. If Queen Arrow's costume was too masculine, then she would take a page from such crime-busting gals as the Black Canary, Wonder Woman, and Phantom Lady, and show off a bit of skin. After all, she had always been proud of her athletic-yet-curvaceous figure.
One night, after her parents were asleep, Diana took her old Robin Hood costume out, placed it in a sewing machine, and made a few modifications. Gone were the yellow leggings, replaced by sexy silk stockings that showed off Diana's legs; she had briefly considered using fishnet stockings like Black Canary but decided it was too derivative. She cut the Lincoln-green vest down until it was a very short skirt, then got rid of the top altogether. Her name was Dare, was it not? Why not be daring? With a laugh, she donned a green swimsuit top that showed off some cleavage, yet still seemed more modest than Phantom Lady's old getup. Besides, the bikini top would give her greater freedom of movement when firing an arrow. It was only later that she realized removing her long sleeves also removed any protection her arm had from the snap of the bowstring. But Green Arrow no sleeves to speak of and was fine, so neither would she.
With a certain amount of regret, she tossed aside the red-feathered yellow cap; it would cover up her beautiful golden locks of hair too much. She also replaced the long green gloves with white riding gloves and got rid of her green pixie boots, replacing them with high-heeled shoes, a decision she would live to regret many times after. When she was done modifying her original costume, it was barely recognizable as the same conservative outfit she had worn during her first outings as Queen Arrow.
Diana Dare had finally come into her own. While her becoming Queen Arrow previously had been something of a fluke caused by exposure to a potion used by a tribal people in the Brazilian rainforest, it had nevertheless come out of a fervent desire to be like Green Arrow, a desire made possible by years of archery practice and collecting. As far as Diana was concerned, she had been born to be Queen Arrow, and she was ready to make her mark.
Queen Arrow rode upon her white horse into Star City and made her mark, all right. That night, she stopped three muggings in progress and prevented a criminal gang from robbing an art museum. Diana had hoped to meet her idol Green Arrow once more, but at the same time she hoped she wouldn't have to see him for awhile. After all, she was still mad at him for laughing at her behind his back, and while he knew her secret, she still didn't know his. She knew it would take a lot for her to earn his respect, and even more for her to forgive him for laughing at her.
But as that night ended in triumph, as Queen Arrow reveled at the close of the very first night that she remembered being a mystery-woman, it all came to an end.
Queen Arrow disappeared without a trace that early morning in 1946, and no one knew how or why she went missing. Her parents, of course, discovered that their daughter Diana had gone missing when she was not in her bed the next morning, and the reports about Queen Arrow confirmed that she had gone into the city to fight crime again, whether or not she was sleepwalking this time. Everet Dare contacted his friend, the police commissioner, who summoned Green Arrow and Speedy for help, but not even the battling bowmen could find any clues for her disappearance. All they knew was that she was last seen riding a white horse into Weisinger Park, but the trail there stopped cold. Both the horse and its rider had gone missing, apparently from the middle of the park, judging from the tracks that ended abruptly. There was no sign of any tread-marks from a vehicle that could have carried them away, and there were no footprints that could account for their disappearance. Diana Dare was simply gone.
This missing persons case was well-known to the people of Star City, since the Dares were such a prominent family, and for the next few years Green Arrow often found himself puzzling over the scant clues but never finding an explanation for Diana's disappearance. The Star City Police kept the missing persons file open for years at Everet Dare's insistence, but they were even more puzzled than Green Arrow was, and besides, new crimes kept on occurring that took their time. It eventually went into the cold case files and was forgotten for many years. Even Green Arrow and Speedy went missing for a time, until a couple of new archers took their names and continued to fight crime in Star City for several more years afterward until the original Green Arrow and Speedy came back, having never aged a day. And that was when Green Arrow realized that one possibility for Diana Dare's disappearance that he had never taken seriously might end up being the case. After all, if he could suddenly disappear through time, only to reappear after an absence of nearly a quarter of a century, then perhaps such a thing could have happened to Diana, too. The only problem with that theory, of course, was that there was no way for him to verify it until she came back.
And then, during the Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985, Green Arrow's theory was confirmed, and the great tragedy of it was that he died during that great conflict before he could learn of Diana Dare's return.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jul 23, 2017 6:40:25 GMT
Part 2: Law's Legionnaires
Diana Dare's recollection of what happened was murky, to say the least. One moment she was atop her white horse in Weisinger Park in Star City, feeling like she was on top of the world, and the next moment both she and her horse were somewhere else.
That somewhere else was some kind of flying craft piloted by a strange man wearing a gauche orange and yellow costume and yellow cape and mask. He told her his name was Heinrich Melch, but he was better known as Atoman. When she muttered something in her confused state about never having heard of the man, he cursed in German -- she recognized the language from her studies -- and turned back to piloting his ship. There was a lot that was strange about this German, but the thing she distinctly recalled was that an unearthly green light seemed to glow from his body, even through his costume. But if it was some kind of radiation, she didn't feel any ill effects from it.
As she recalled later, she felt like she was drugged at the time, but she later realized it was more than likely a reaction to the shock of being pulled out of her own time by what he called a transporter beam. She had tuned out for a few moments as she looked around the ship before she realized that the green-glowing German was still talking, though whether to himself or to her she wasn't certain. He seemed to be complaining about that transporter beam, that it had malfunctioned a couple of times and created time-duplicates rather than taken the original. Diana could only assume that he was talking about other individuals that he had abducted like her.
This suspicion was confirmed when she was brought out of the strange, flowing atmosphere the craft was in -- he called this the time stream -- back into cold, hard reality, and she saw several other figures. Diana was apparently the last one to be retrieved. The first figure she saw was a handsome man who looked like a stage magician; he appeared to be from India, wore an expensive suit and a turban, and had an old-style, pencil-thin mustache of the kind that was popular in the 1930s. The second was a young blonde mystery-woman wearing an orange minidress and green cape, with a stylized T emblem on her chest. The third was a slightly overweight mystery-man in a red costume and a purple hood and cape, with a stylized C emblem on his chest. The fourth was a scrawny-looking green-skinned man with a purple outfit and goggles, who looked like he came from Mars or something. The fifth was some kind of robot-woman. And the sixth was a red-haired mystery-woman in a red and yellow costume and dark mask. Each of them looked very docile, and some had glazed eyes, as if the German had brainwashed them.
Alarm bells suddenly rang in Queen Arrow's head, and she knew she had to escape before she became the seventh member of this merry little band of brainwashed mystery-men. Quickly pulling an arrow from her quiver, she shot it directly at Atoman. But the arrow slowed down and finally stopped in midair before falling in slow motion to the ground. The German had evidently surrounded her with some kind of force-field to keep her from fighting back. But she wasn't about to give in that easily. Still atop her white horse, she whipped its rear and rushed the German, and the force-field moved forward with them instead of stopping them. The German cursed and fumbled at the controls of the ship, but Diana wasn't about to relent yet. She drove the horse forward and leaped over the German, escaping through the open hatch.
The German screamed, "Joanie! Schnell! Schnell!"
But Queen Arrow didn't take any chances. Just as the red-haired girl in the red and yellow costume seemed to come to life, Diana ran over her with her horse, then did the same to several of the others for good measure before riding off in the night. At some point she fell unconscious before she awoke to find herself in a very strange-looking city.
Understandably, she had only felt great confusion at her circumstances. From her point of view, it was still 1946, and everything was just as she had left it. The only problem was that Star City and the world around it had changed drastically since then, a fact highlighted by the global conflict that was the Crisis all around her. Once she learned that it was 1985 and that she had been missing for nearly forty years, she found herself in a state of shock. Her parents were both long dead, and her closest living relative was a cousin born a year later than her who was now in her sixties. Moreover, Diana Dare had inherited her parents' wealth and had a new life to rebuild. The final blow was learning that her idol Green Arrow, the man she had always hoped to make her own, had died mere days after her own return, without their ever crossing paths. She also learned that Green Arrow had all along been the dry, bookish Oliver Queen, whom she had long despised. It was a shock, to say the least.
But Diana Dare had also found a freedom of sorts. True, she no longer had her dear, doting father, but she also no longer had a domineering mother. All the society women she had known as a young woman were dead or very old, and she had already flaunted the ways of high society by becoming the mystery-woman Queen Arrow, anyway. She would not live by their rules any longer. The 1980s were a very different time, and she was a liberated woman who would pursue her dreams, unfettered by the opinions of others.
Diana took the time to get her business affairs in order, even calling Oliver's business manager Maxwell Lord for advice, since he, too, once had to deal with legal issues upon Oliver Queen's strange return many years after his disappearance. After hiring a team of lawyers, she had used Oliver's time-displacement precedent to gain complete control over her inheritance. Now it was time for Queen Arrow to become Star City's new champion.
Then a little upstart calling herself Arrowette beat her to the punch. Diana Dare was furious, and she was even angrier once she learned that Arrowette was the granddaughter of a mystery-woman called Miss Arrowette, who had appeared sometime after Queen Arrow's disappearance and had apparently become Green Arrow's paramour long enough to bear his child. After Green Arrow's own disappearance in 1948, Miss Arrowette married another man, and he helped raise her daughter as his own. But what really rankled Queen Arrow was that, if not for her disappearance, it could have been she who had become Green Arrow's paramour and wife. Maybe she could even have somehow prevented Green Arrow from disappearing in 1948, too; it was obvious that this Miss Arrowette hadn't been able to do anything about it.
Diana eventually grew out of her initial anger and decided to continue her plans for Queen Arrow's debut anyway. Soon, she had decided, Queen Arrow would be Star City's hero, and Arrowette would be just as forgotten as her grandmother had been -- a mere footnote in Star City history.
And so Queen Arrow made her mark, stopping a robbery in progress at a jewelry store downtown by a black-and-white-costumed crook calling himself Magpie. The fact that Arrowette had arrived there first had not bothered Queen Arrow. Time had been stolen from her, so she would steal this upstart teenager's thunder however and whenever she could. She followed up on her debut by announcing a new line of sportswear she designed, along with challenging Arrowette to an archery match, with proceeds going to charity. She even had a print shop create posters advertising the match, which her hired men placed all over town. It was a contest to decide who was the "arrowest of them all." Her marketing people had come up with that tagline.
It would have gone smoothly, had it not been for the timely arrival of a villainous couple called the Archer and the Dart. The Archer, Diana had learned from a recent case, was a man named Connor Hawke who had briefly claimed to be Green Arrow's son but who was, in fact, the son of the original Archer, a foe of Superman's, while the Dart was the daughter of a male Green Arrow foe by the name of the Red Dart. The Archer and the Dart had arrived to steal the box office receipts from the match, and somehow they got the drop on both Queen Arrow and Arrowette, knocking them out with narcotic-tipped darts and capturing them both.
Queen Arrow and Arrowette were forced to put aside their differences to escape from their trap and overpower the villainous couple. Diana even admitted that Arrowette was a worthy successor of her grandfather, Green Arrow, and they were able to make amends. But they would never be friends.
Still, she had been able to use her debut and unplanned team-up with Arrowette against the Arrow and the Dart to her great advantage with the press. It would become a stepping stone for even greater adventures that she had in the months to come. But it was very difficult for a bow-slinging super-heroine to get noticed in a world full of super-heroes, as mystery-men had become known in recent decades. In a world with the Justice Society of America, Infinity Inc., and even the Junior JSA, who would pay attention to an archer -- even a scantily clad one -- with no powers?
And that's when it hit her. She would need to join a team. After all, hadn't the Green Arrow been a member of the Seven Soldiers of Victory, also known as the Law's Legionnaires, as well as the All-Star Squadron? But try as she might, she was unable to attract the attention of either the JSA or Infinity Inc. They simply did not respond to any of her attempts to meet them or return any of her calls, even with the best public relations team in the business on her payroll. Sure, she was able to become a celebrity, but no one took her seriously as a hero. She had yet to gain the respect of her peers.
But as the old saying went, if the mountain won't come to Muhammad...
Queen Arrow would form her own team, and she had already decided what it would be called: the Law's Legionnaires.
Thanks to her publicity machine, Queen Arrow had become a recognizable, if not exactly a respected name in the super-hero business, and she managed to gain the ears of the press when she announced the formation of a new team and that she was holding auditions for young super-heroines at the Star City Plaza Hotel. Her reasoning for forming her own team was simple. In the months following the Crisis, there had been several new heroes and heroines who had debuted and had yet to join any of the established teams. If they, like she, were looking to make a name for themselves but weren't able to join the established teams, then why wouldn't they want to jump on board a new team at the ground floor? And she had decided that her team's gimmick, which would make it stand out among the established teams, would be making it an all-girl team.
On the day of the audition, Queen Arrow was thrilled to see not only a few new heroines arrive for auditions, but also such luminaries as Wonder Woman and Liberty Belle themselves, even if they were only attending out of respect for their fellow heroines. Unfortunately, their arrival there had been part of an elaborate plot concocted by a group of super-villainesses to get rid of several heroines at once, as Diana learned when her opening address was interrupted by a super-hero battle. Queen Arrow had held her own in the fight for awhile until she was taken out by another knockout dart fired by a villain formerly known as the Huntress, who briefly called herself Manhunter at this time.
Queen Arrow was revived after the battle was over, and although Liberty Belle and the other established super-heroines declined to join her new team, two newcomers -- Lady Tarantula and the second Black Canary -- excitedly joined up. But by this time Diana had realized that an all-girl team could be difficult to form if the only heroines she could find were inexperienced, so she decided to start recruiting some men as well.
But she had also come to realize that the glamorous image she had crafted as Queen Arrow would not also give her the respect she'd need as a leader. Although she was happy to bankroll the team, she knew that someone else would have to actually lead it, especially since she simply didn't have the temperament for leadership.
Diana next recruited a middle-aged man named Rob Harper, the chronologically younger brother of Roy Harper. While Roy, alias Speedy, had retained his youth like Green Arrow thanks to time travel, Rob had aged naturally over the decades. Rob had also taken on the role of the kid sidekick in the second Green Arrow and Speedy team, which had appeared the year after the disappearance of the originals. She had hoped that Red Arrow, the current identity of Roy Harper, would also join her team, but he had already become a member of Infinity Inc.
Queen Arrow's next recruit was a major coup for her -- Captain Triumph. He was a powerful hero who had operated in the 1940s and had been a key member of the All-Star Squadron back then. In the decades since then he had grappled with mental illness, but he had recently recovered and had reappeared as Captain Triumph for the first time in many years. His recruitment was quickly followed by that of Blackout, a relative of Hourman of the JSA. Her new Law's Legionnaires team was really coming together.
And then something happened that completely knocked the wind out of her sails: someone else formed a new Law's Legionnaires team.
It happened when she was taking a well-deserved vacation in the Caribbean, following the case with Captain Triumph, Blackout, and Hourman. She had been invited to a yearly event called the Heroes Shootout, a target-practice event in its fifth year that invited the greatest marksmen of the age to compete. Diana Dare had thought about attending, since it was sponsored by Greg Sanders, who had been the hero known as the Vigilante, an original member of Law's Legionnaires. But she'd had her fill of publicity stunts lately, and she didn't think the Heroes Shootout would do her reputation much good unless she won; and with such marksmen as the Vigilante and the former Deadshot present, she was sure to be overshadowed. Besides, she really needed to work on her tan.
So when she returned to Star City a week later, she was utterly stunned to learn about the formation of a new Law's Legionnaires team whose members were composed of both the surviving members of the original team and a few younger heroes related to the originals. Knowing that the Law's Legionnaires name was now taken by its rightful owners -- who due to their size could not use the name Seven Soldiers of Victory any longer -- did not lessen the blow. But the unkindest cut of all was when she realized that Red Arrow, who knew all about her plans to form a new Law's Legionnaires team, had also been a part of it. She felt utterly betrayed, and that feeling never went away, even after she checked her answering machine and found apologies from both Roy and Rob Harper about the new Legionnaires. As far as she was concerned, her dream was over. The Harper boys had killed it.
Without informing her teammates -- who had also left several unanswered messages on her answering machine while she was gone -- Diana Dare had her servants pack up her things for a longer ocean voyage. She had to get out of America; she had to get away from all these two-faced super-heroes.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jul 23, 2017 6:41:01 GMT
Part 3: Heroes of All Nations
Diana Dare's temper, shown to all who really knew her, was legendary. But even she was able to cool off after awhile and see things clearly. Of course the original Law's Legionnaires had the right to use the name. Naturally, her own use of the name was unauthorized and known only to a few people. She also knew that, had she attended the Heroes Shootout, it was likely that she would have been part of this new Law's Legionnaires herself, even if that had meant dissolving the team she had begun to build or even keeping that team but with a different name. Certainly Roy Harper in his telephone message had suggested that Queen Arrow could join them, and he and the Patriot were themselves now members of two teams, since they both remained in Infinity Inc. The Law's Legionnaires was a team, after all, that only met on special occasions, and it would probably be a long while before they had their next case.
But by the time she had settled down on the Canary Islands, Diana had put the past behind her, and her anger had given way to disappointment. She had even called her prospective new teammates and apologized for letting them down, then swallowed her pride and cheerfully congratulated Roy Harper for helping form the new Law's Legionnaires. She wasn't about to let him know how upset she had been, or that her feeling of betrayal had culminated in her finally being able to fully mourn not only her parents and Green Arrow, but the old life that was now forever lost to her. For good or ill, she was now and forevermore known as Queen Arrow to the world.
Recently, she had begun reading a great deal. She had not had the patience before, but her forced sabbatical, as she liked to think of it, had become a time of reflection. She found that reading helped her crystallize her thoughts and opinions better. It was a form of escapism, sure, but it was also a way to satisfy her thirst for knowledge. After all, with forty years missing from her life, she still had a lot of catching up to do.
After she was done with her seventh novel of fiction, Diana had moved on to history, first concentrating on U.S. history and then moving on to world history. It was in her third history book that she found something very interesting, something she had only heard rumors of but had never looked in to before. She learned about the Green Arrows of the World and the Batmen of All Nations.
Both groups were very similar in that they had each been inspired by a famous costumed mystery-man active during World War II, and each was composed of mystery-men from several nations. The so-called Batmen of All Nations were a more famous group in the 1950s whose members included the Knight and the Squire of England, the Musketeer of France, the Legionary of Italy, the Gaucho of Argentina, the Ranger of Australia, Wingman of Sweden, and Native American heroes Man-of-Bats and Little Raven. The Batmen of All Nations were also known as the Club of Heroes after an actual club built by Metropolis millionaire John Mayhew. This multi-generational group had a long history extending into the present-day, and several of the members each had successors of their own.
The Green Arrows of the World was a somewhat larger group of masked archers from several nations, which included the Ace Archer of Japan, the Bowman of Britain, the Phantom of France, the Bowman of the Bush (who operated throughout the jungles of Malaya, Africa, and India), the Emerald Bowman of India, the Troubadour of Spain, the Archer of the Alps from Switzerland, Flecha Verde of Mexico, and the Archer of Arabia from Saudi Arabia. This was a group of archer heroes individually inspired by the example of the original Green Arrow and Speedy, even though those heroes had never known of their existence. In the years when the second Green Arrow and Speedy team was active, they held a meeting of those heroes for the first time in 1958. Unlike the Batmen of All Nations, however, the Green Arrows of the World never met as a team ever again. Yet like the members of the Club of Heroes, several of these international archers had spawned successors of their own who were active today.
An old idea crossed Diana Dare as she read about these two groups, but while she kept dismissing that idea again and again, it kept on coming back to her mind. Why hadn't anyone thought of uniting the heroes of the world together as one team before? And just what if she, Queen Arrow, got the ball rolling?
Diana Dare had always been rather sheltered growing up. Sure, she had studied abroad for a time and had traveled with her parents, and she had even helped organize war bond sales to aid the war effort during World War II, but for the most part she'd had very little idea of what was happening outside of her immediate surroundings. Even after she had arrived in the 1980s she had not made much effort to learn what was happening beyond the shores of America. But now, as she began to read of the history of super-heroes around the world, she realized that they had been around the whole time. There had even been teams such as the Batmen of All Nations and the Green Arrows of the World and others who had worked together for a time. But no one had even attempted to join all the super-heroes of the world together in one team.
She could understand why, of course. Finding a way for members from distant lands to participate in regular meetings alone was a logistical nightmare. That was why most international heroes tended to remain in their own countries or restricted their team-ups with heroes of neighboring countries. The traveling distance was just too great. But surely, she thought, the technology must exist out there somewhere to make it work. The German who had abducted her had used some kind of transportation device to bring her from her time into his ship. And the Earth had been visited by extraterrestrials several times over the decades since the war, with some of that alien technology falling into human hands. There was a way to travel almost instantaneously through teleportation, she knew, but perhaps no one outside of governments or super-hero teams even knew about it. Maybe, she thought, with her connections she could tackle that problem herself.
Diana didn't give much thought to why the heroes of the world would want to join together in some kind of super-heroic League of Nations, but she didn't think that was all that important. She remembered how the All-Star Squadron had formed when she was a teenager, and she knew that if a big enough crisis threatened the whole world, then the world's heroes would surely join up to fight it, just like the various mystery-men of America had joined up to form the All-Star Squadron. When another world-shattering event like the Crisis on Infinite Earths hit, the JSA and Infinity Inc. would need all the help they could get, especially since the heroes of those other Earths such as the Justice League could not be reached as they had been in times past for yearly crises.
And that was where she got her name. No, she wouldn't call this team the All-Star Squadron, especially since she had learned her lesson with the Law's Legionnaires debacle, but she did think of a name inspired by that one. She hoped no one would find her play on words too silly.
And with a renewed sense of purpose, Diana Dare tossed her book aside, rose from her lounge chair on the beach, and called her servants to pack her bags. She was going to pay a few visits to old friends. And she would need to call in a lot of favors if she was going to be able to convince the world's superheroes to join the Global Star Squadron.
That was six months ago.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jul 23, 2017 6:41:35 GMT
Part 4: Crazy Like a Vaux
Elsewhere, a group of men and women dressed in long, midnight black hooded robes gathered in an old castle outside of Vienna, Austria. They were a long-lived group that had remained hidden away even as others had withered away in the harsh light of day like the Illuminati or had been consumed by the darkness such as the Black Shadow Society.
This secret society had no name. Indeed, they had only met on rare occasions before now. Each of the members of this unnamed group were active on their own for the most part, or active with other groups. Only rarely did they ever meet, and then it was always in smaller local groups, not the entire membership. If they were to be given a name, they might be called the Black Magicians.
They were mages and sorcerers all, witches and warlocks. And the combined power at their fingertips was staggering. The only thing that held them back from working in concert with each other had been their severe personality differences. These were men and women used to power and not used to sharing any of it with others. Some were well-known to the world as super-villains and foes of the Justice Society and associated heroes, while many more were known to none, their names merely whispered rumors on the wind. Some looked positively evil and even maintained their odd looks befitting their profession, while others looked as normal as one's next-door neighbor. But all were dedicated to the same goal -- bettering themselves through dark magic.
One of the younger members of this secret society was a young man named Friedreich Vaux. He had been brought into the society by his uncle Fredric, and thanks to his uncle's influence he had even managed to gain the tutelage of a few of the black magicians assembled here. William Asmodeus Zard had been his first tutor, and he had learned the basics from the man calling himself the Wizard, even after that super-villain had faked his death in a malicious attempt to discredit Rick Tyler, the son of Hourman. But the Wizard was not very well respected by the society, and Friedreich had sought to move on to a more worthy tutor. He found what he was looking for in Wotan, the ancient enemy of Doctor Fate, but Wotan was much less reliable than even Zard had been. Eventually, Friedreich had realized that he would have to teach himself if he was to become a first-class sorcerer befitting his chosen name of Faust.
Faust had never figured out how his uncle Fredric commanded such respect from the assembled witches and warlocks. To the world at large, Fredric Vaux was a very minor super-villain who once fought the Justice Society of America. Compared to the Wizard, Vaux was a nobody. But in the company of this international society of black magicians, their roles were reversed. No matter what he did, Zard would never be more than a third-tier member, while Vaux commanded everyone's respect. Faust just couldn't understand it. All that because his uncle killed the Batman?
Sure, a petty criminal named Bill Jensen was the man directly responsible for killing the Batman, but Jensen would never have gotten as far as he did had Vaux not empowered him. Fredric Vaux was the Batman's true murderer; Bill Jensen was merely the murder weapon.
The feat of killing not only a Justice Society of America member but the famed Batman himself had elevated Vaux to the top of the list of sorcerers, even though the JSA tracked him down shortly after. Even the Spirit King's long-planned murder of Mister Terrific by using a member of the JSA to kill him had been overshadowed by Vaux's feat. Once, William Zard had complained about Vaux getting all the attention that Zard felt was rightfully his, even mentioning how he had once brought the mighty Superman down. But when he received only scorn for his remarks, Zard kept his mouth quiet about it in the company of society members; he had always preferred the imagined adulation of his fellow Injustice Society of the World members, anyway.
For years the black magicians had wondered what Fredric Vaux would do next. How would he ever be able to top killing the Batman? And for his part, Vaux played it coy. Instead of being another villain-of-the-month type of super-villain, Fredric Vaux preferred to wait for a really big score. And now, he had come up with the biggest of big scores, one that even had the potential to top killing the Batman. That was why the black magicians had gathered this day.
Even though he had accompanied his uncle to this meeting, Faust was just as much in the dark as anyone else was. He shared none of the adulation that everyone seemed to have for his uncle. To Friedreich Vaux, Fredric was just his goofy uncle who had played tricks on him as a kid. Faust had seen too much of his uncle to think of him as the others did -- as a mysterious young wizard with great potential. Sure, he might have that potential, but so did anyone else. Faust just figured his uncle Fredric had lucked out that one time with the Batman and had been smart enough not to negate all the good will he'd received from the other black magicians by trying and failing to outdo his one great feat, like the Wizard had made a career of doing. That was why he had little confidence that Fredric's scheme would succeed.
As a teenaged warlock, Faust appreciated the grand scheme. It had its place. After all, in their initial foray into super-villainy, he and Savant had gone for the grand scheme when they tried to break the spirit of the Junior JSA instead of simply stealing a large amount of wealth in one shot as some of the Junior Injustice Society members had wanted to do. Sure, the team could have gone that route, but even had they succeeded in getting away with it, they wouldn't have made a name for themselves that way. No, it was only through a grand scheme, which ultimately backfired as it turned out, that the Junior Injustice Society had gained renown. Faust might not even have been invited to this meeting if it had not been for that.
But grand schemes had a way of backfiring almost every single time. And the grander the scheme, the bigger it backfired. That was why Faust had set his sights much lower over the last couple of years, when he had stayed away from the grand schemes and slowly made his reputation with small but meaningful jobs and only a couple of setbacks to speak of, all the while learning his craft.
He just couldn't figure out why everyone here except for him was so gung ho about his uncle's latest grand scheme. He was sure it would fail, whatever it was; but it would serve to build up the reputation of Fredric Vaux.
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